Big, bombastic, and venerable, Axis and Allies (Larry Harris) is synonymous with dice-chucking wargaming, and you probably first encountered it at a buddy’s house, burning most of the day attempting an ill-advised amphibious landing in Europe, and finding the highest of highs when the dice fell in your favor.
Well, my friends, it’s time to get back to that giant board, the billion little units, and rediscover the joys of getting a whole bunch of pals around the table to rerun history’s greatest conflicts.
Looking for a huge, multiplayer, beer and pretzels wargame?
The sales pitch for Axis and Allies has always been a clean one: take Risk and up its detail to eleven. Rather than an abstract, identical war across the world, center the massive game on a real conflict—in A&A, that’s generally been either of the World Wars—and give each nation a distinct identity. Keep, though, the dice-chucking combat, large player count, and ability to carve new editions out of almost every theater those two conflicts have to offer.
Axis & Allies presents a swath to the new player, an appealing barrage of starting units, technologies, and possibilities. With teams set by history, players don’t need to deal with diplomacy save convincing, like Britain did in WW2, your pals to come to your defense rather than pursue their own ends. There aren’t secret victory conditions or savvy card management. A&A tells you to crush your enemies, so get to it.
Turn structure across the games is largely the same, with order playing out to match history. In the WW2 editions, Germany goes first to enact their surprise attacks. The US plays last, a slow entry that nonetheless gets to see how things are shaking up before dedicating resources here and there.
Like Risk, you’ll get those resources from controlling territory, and aside from smashing your enemies, your turn-by-turn goal ought to be expansion. Cash (IPCs, in A&A parlance) gets turned into new units and tech upgrades, crucial to keep your war machine moving. A&A uses small miniatures instead of counters, a nod to its more mass market appeal, and you’ll soon find yourself pushing hordes about the map (particularly in packed eastern front brawls). What’s tricky here is you’ll buy new units at the start of your turn, but won’t place them until the end, as you’re ordering the tanks or recruiting the soldiers, and such things take time. As a result, your purchases are a bet that the rest of your turn goes the way you hope.
Hah.
Next you’ll move all your warfighters here and there in one shot. There’s a few nods to realism, as airplanes can move far but must have enough oomph left to return to friendly territory at turn’s end. Otherwise, one or two space ranges keep things simple. After everything is shifted about, we see where the messes are about to be made.
Soon, you’ll get into a fight, and there you’ll gather up dice for every unit involved. Rolls will hit and miss depending on the unit’s attack and defense value.
If you’re attacking with a tank, you’ll roll using its attack value. Get equal or less than that number, one that can be modified by tech, and you score a hit. It’s a simple system that allows for easy variation between unit types. Infantry, for example, have an easier time getting hits when they’re holding ground rather than taking it.
After you’ve fought all the combats, you can move anyone that didn’t engage in battle and get those planes back to safe hangars. Cash from new and current territories will pour in—that you immediately reap the benefits of conquest is key—and then you place all your bought units from back at the turn’s beginning.
Everyone keeps following this round-about cycle until one side captures enough victory cities, ending the game in a celebratory dice shower.
Which Axis and Allies Version to Try
Axis and Allies straddles the line between full blown hex-and-counter, or heavier, wargames and Risk, which likely remains most players first contact with dice-driven battle. Decades ago, on its initial release, Axis and Allies offered a unique opportunity, with its big player count, massive scale, yet easier to pick up and play experience. You could bury weekends with this game and its various editions, and there’s plenty of pieces floating about out there talking about ideal openings for every country. Renegade Games continues to hold Axis and Allies championships at Gencon, the latest using the Axis and Allies 1942 2nd Edition game and a bonkers giant neoprene map.
The popularity comes from solid core mechanics, easy on-boarding, and the shiny chrome—minis, heaps of dice and mounted cardboard—often sacrificed
in wargaming for cost and ease of production. All this makes A&A, particularly the later versions, an attractive pick-up for anyone looking to ease their group into wargaming.
Which brings us to the question of which edition you might like, to which my response is: how many players do you have?
Axis and Allies 1942 or the 1940 European and Pacific theater editions are the classic versions, with the former playing up to five in a traditional global WW2 mix. The Anniversary edition lets you throw in Italy as a sixth player to make it a more even conflict, but I’d advise that only for folks with extraordinary patience and a willingness to endure getting beat down, as Italy simply doesn’t scale with the other major powers. 1942 or 1940 will give you what you’re looking for, particularly the 2nd edition of 1942, which updates some rules and adds a few new toys. Both will take a full cast of players—and you’ll want a full cast for these—and a long afternoon or more to play the sweeping conflict and create plenty of stories.
If five is a hard number to hit, I’d lean towards Axis and Allies: 1913, the World War One edition that plays great at four, though can also scale up to the ludicrous count of 8, should you have people who don’t mind playing smaller roles. The WW1 setting changes the traditional A&A gameplay, putting heavy emphasis on infantry rather than tank and aerial assaults. It’s a different flavor, and one of very few titles giving big player counts a crack at The Great War.
Beyond that, there are a number of smaller settings, including A&A North Africa, releasing later this year. Reducing scope, though, brings A&A into a competitive range with other games at similar weight that are friendlier for two and three players. Games like Memoir ‘44 or Undaunted play faster and with more dynamism in a duel. A&A belongs as the set piece in your gaming weekend. With or without zombies.
After Axis and Allies
If Axis and Allies refined the grand, high player count wargame and made it accessible for the masses, what follows in its footsteps?
First and foremost is War Room, by A&A creator Larry Harris himself. War Room, with simultaneous, blind order writing and a heavier emphasis on resources, cooperation, and chrome, is a perfect place for A&A veterans to continue their World War 2 journeys. It’s going to eat up your day, but War Room’s design reduces downtime while keeping the action compelling. And if you’re enthused about the design but are tired of the World War 2 setting, keep an eye on Harris’s follow-up, Imperial Borders, which takes the global grandeur to Napoleon’s Europe.
Keeping Napoleon’s time period and adding diplomatic options is Struggle of Empires (Martin Wallace), a classic 2004 design that puts you and up to six other
friends into a global series of conflicts where alliances fluctuate, expansion is essential, and revolution is often ruinous. A lighter game than it appears, the depth with Struggle of Empires comes from player-driven decisions, leading to gripping stories every time the game hits the table. Despite the long playtime—and let’s be real, every game in this piece is going to knock out most of your gaming day in a single shot—Struggle of Empires excels at destroying downtime with high interaction along every turn, from negotiating alliances to adjusting plans as territory swings unexpectedly.
As an aside, Struggle of Empires marks another solid way to bring non-wargamers into wargaming territory, with its many euro and negotiation elements. Also, Martin Wallace designed Brass, so simply mentioning his name ought to get curious players in the door. The recent Deluxe Edition, too, adds excellent components and some rules tweaks to make a great game even better.
But what if you want something big, approachable, and wildly different?
Try Kemet (Jacques Bariot, Guillaume Montiage). This area control masterpiece takes you and four other friends—you can play it with fewer, but why?—to Egypt, where warring gods vie for domination of the sands, rivers, and oases. Like A&A, Kemet puts its focus on territory and armies. Unlike A&A, Kemet leaves the dice behind, embracing higher tactical value through combat cards, which you’ll play from a diminishing hand as rounds go on, making every fight a tense blend of past consequences and future concerns. Plus, there’s giant scorpions.
Check out the Blood and Sands edition for updated goodies and a great, rules-friendly game.
A Grand Wargaming Bridge
A classic game does more than stand time’s tests, it serves as a springboard to a thousand other iterations. While Axis and Allies was far from the first wargame, its place as a bridge between Risk and World in Flames remains as intact as ever. It’s a sprawling monster filled with dice, minis, and decisions that’ll be deliberated after every game. Axis and Allies also has community, a chance to engage with tournaments and banter over opening moves, counter strategies, and whether playing Italy is a suitable punishment for various misdeeds.
The answer, of course, is yes.
So if you’re wargame-curious or want a way to get family and friends around the table for a long Saturday tossing dice without an hours-long rules explanation, then Axis and Allies is a great spot to start. Pick your global conflict, your best board gaming pals, and get to having fun.
