2007 will be the debut of the all-new Axis & Allies Naval Miniatures game. With 64 authentically detailed miniatures, gamers, collectors, and history buffs will be able to assemble fleets of the finest vessels to ever do battle on, under, or above the sea in World War II. Fast-paced and action-packed, this exciting, new miniatures game will let players recreate historical battles or go head-to-head in competitive warfare that rages across massive 30”x40” battle maps.
64 authentically detailed carriers, battleships, destroyers, cruisers, submarines, aircraft and other vessels from WWII .
Unique ships—such as the BB Bismarck, IJN Yamato, and the USS Enterprise—feature their distinctive markings and camouflage.
Abilities and statistics of units are based on their historical performances in battle.
Prepainted, durable plastic—fully assembled and ready to play, right out of the box.
Larger (Rare) ships have moving parts (turrets/main guns)
Double-sided battle maps allow the creation of massive 30”x40” battlefields that can be customized with the double-sided island cards
- http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/aam/waratsea
Haven't really played Axis & Allies that much to be honest but this game seems to be a lot more fun than I first realised if there are other players out there.
My first reaction was ' this is going to be like Star Wars Starship Battles' mainly because it was set on a similar styled box using mat but was pleasantly suprised to find out that it wasn't bad, in fact it was a damn good time playing it.
The Scale
Minatures: 1/1,800 scale, or 1 inch = 150 feet. Each minature represents 1 ship or submarine
Minatures Aicraft: 1/900 scale, or 1 inch = 75 feet. Each minature represents a 3-plane element (Patrol Bombers) or a squadron of about 25 planes (all other aircraft)
Map: Each sector/square is about 5,000 yards
Turn: Each turn is about 10 minutes real-time
Ships, Aircraft, Subs & Fleets
There are no restrictions when it comes to building a fleet, for example you good have an entire fleet of Submarines or battleships etc. So theres no real restriction on what type of fleet you can make from the ships and aircraft available.
The units are, of course, split between the Axis (Germany, Japan, and Italy) and the Allies (Great Britain, America, and France)
I'v noticed that there a hell of a lot more American ships than any other faction in the game and generally you get more yanks in a booster box than the others. Starting with an all American fleet won't take you long as you get more of them but it is worth building them up so you can swap them for other faction ships.
Now on to the types of units. The Ships come in a degree of sizes from the tiny PT Boats all the way up to the colossal battleships and Carriers. The PT Boats are good at hunting down aircraft and generally being in the way of enemy subs trying to sink your battleships. The frigates and destroyers usually excel at hunting down enemy subs and providing adaquete anti-air defences.
The cruisers and heavy cruisers have a good balance of firepower of all types and a resonable point value per ship. The Battleships might as well have 'shoot me' wrote on the hull as most players gun for them first. Even with this in mind they do pack enough firepower to take out a good amount of ships, have excellent vital armour values, (I'll come to that later), and keep their defence up against air attacks but their major weakness is their point cost depending which faction you have.
The Carriers allow you to field more aircraft on the battlefield which is good news if you want to intercept enemy aircraft or attack the enemy fleet. There are no additions to the carriers, perhaps a few special rules now and then, and do exactly what they are supposed to do; carry aircraft. They can defend themselves against enemy air and subs but you don't want your carrier in the middle of a fire fight, even against a few destroyers.
The aircraft come in only at around 3 or 4 classes. The first being the big and heavy bombers. Germany makes good use of these for this game and have excellent low points cost while still causing mass amounts of damage. The second class would be the Dive bombers; some are armed with simple bombs, others with torpedos/ASW. Aircraft versus Submarines usually ends in tears for the submarine player but on occassion gets away smuggley. The third would be Fighters; these chaps are good at escorting fellow bombers and soak up the anti-air hits instead of the bombers and also are good at intercepting such attacks adding to the anti-air defences.
Submarines are sneaky buggers, both in reality and ingame as their torpedo attacks are deadly against small ships and in larger groups can cause mass devastation to an entire fleet. Their anti-air attacks aren't that good so try and keep them either protected or make sure they do their job before they get destroyed. Another downside to the subs are their piss poor armour values however only a select few classe have ASW attacks to combat them. I always have a sub or two with me in a fleet as they sometimes turn the tide of battle.
Unit Cards & Attacks
All units come with a unit card displaying their special skills, attack types, number of attack dice, speed, armour and hull points.
The attack types break down in to Main Guns, Anti-air, Bomb, Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), and Torpedo. Each of these of course can only deployed on certain types of target, e.g: Anti-Air = Aircraft, Main Guns = Ships etc
There are also a max range on all guns being a max range of 3 sectors/squares. Sometimes a ship has a special skill that allows it to fire an extra sector giving it a range of 4 but using the stats as it were shooting at 3 squares. This is usually only used on big and famous battleships such as the Yamato and Bismark.
The number below the range is the amount of attack dice you use for that attack. On a 4+ you score 1 success point, if you get a 6 that counts as 2 sucess points. This is where the armour, and vital armour values kick in. Your Armour value is the number of success points they need to score a point of damage on to your ship. For example the Enterprise above has a Armour value of 4, if I roll 5 attack dice and get three 4's and one 6 this would I get 5 success points. The 5 success points I scored is greater than the Enterprise's armour value so I score a hit! One hull point is removed leaving it with three points left. If I rolled 5 more dice and got five 6's then I would get 10 success points. Its equal to the Enterprise's vital armour and is destroyed.
Then again I could have wrote it like this:
Hull Points = The amount of hits the ship can take
Armour value = The number of success points the enemy ship needs to take a hull point from you
Vital Armour value = The number of success points to totally destroy your ship!
Bombs, ASW, and Torpedos work in the same way except torpedos deal two points of damage than the usual main gunnnery one.
Gameplay
The game itself can last from a mere 30 minutes all the way up to a full blown 3 hours and for this game thats a long time with a lot of points. Usual game points values start from 100 points to roughly 500. Larger games require a hell of a lot of ships and sector sheets to meet the higher point targets.
A normal game is a simple affair once you get the hang of it and know the strengths and weaknesses of the different ship classes and types. While its not required but having both ships, subs, and aircraft in a fleet is usually a good idea and allows many tactics to be used. I played a few smaller games in my lunch break at GW with a fellow co-worker while no one was in the other day and managed to get a good 40 minute game in with his Japanese fleet led by the Yamato and my American fleet led by the USS Iowa. Ended almost in a stale mate until I managed to score a direct hit with two of my subs on the last remaining hull points on his carrier.
Verdict
Some of the game ideas are pretty good, and there a a good clean game mechanic within it that could be expanded with the exclusion of the game board. I would almost says its as addictive as Pirates!
The Good:
- Good gameplay and game mechanics
- Quality and durable minatures that give off the impression of the various scale sizes
- Pre-painted and put-together minatures so its pick up and play
- World War II backdrop with many famous ships
- Tactics and game almost reflect tactics of WW2 naval combat
The Bad:
- Perhaps too simple to some who look for more of a challange once they get the understanding of the game
- Simplistic paint colour on ships
- Requires the Starter Pack to get everything you need to start playing
- Booster Pack usually have more American ships than other factions
- Not many places in UK that sells Axis & Allies: War at Sea other going on to Ebay or Amazon.
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