Not quite models really but…
I was in the local gaming store yesterday and saw Axis and Allies has a hexagonal sheet battle skirmishes game with miniatures (armor, infantry, etc.) for the US, UK, USSR, Germany, Japan and even Italy.
I thought it was pretty nifty - the little tanks and such in a small variety of types.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/imagegallery.php3?gameid=17970
Anyone else seen these?
No, but I’d like to!!! Maybe if I pray to the Walmart god… They carry Pirates of the Spanish Main which is basically card models.
Haven’t seen 'em anywhere. How ‘mini’ are these minis?
The tanks fit in the palm of your hand. Somewhat larger than hotwheels, if that is any idea.
These should be available in game stores that feature things like roleplaying games and such - that is where I spotted these anyway. I did a search on google typing “Axis and Allies Miniatures” to come up with a bunch of links, and posted the one above because it had a fair variety of pics.
This one shows most of the pieces I think:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/93004
…and you can zoom in on each one even further!
Definitely a fair variety of armor vehicles for “toy size.” Some I’ve never seen in plastic toy form before.
ack, if you search online for Flames of War you’d get a ton of kul miniatures from different country for tabletop gaming.
yeah yeah, so make me feel stoooopid… [;)]
I’ll graduate from Monopoly and see the rest of the world yet!
hey now, waitaminute! I just dug up that Flames of War stuff … and I’m talking about chintzy plastic stuff here, not fine quality metal and resin!
Apples and oranges, folks… apples and oranges…
Gimme chintzy plastic, ohhh yeah! [:P]
Seriously though, wow those metal and resin sets sure do look nice!
They are supposedly 15mm-scale (men are 15mm tall), but the vehicles appear a bit smaller than that scale. They come prepainted, so they are a nice starter for wargaming for kids. I bought the game and the booster box for my eight-year old. So far, we have mostly been playing bang bang with the soldiers and tanks, instead of using the rules. [;)] Ah, bang bang. Where the Americans always win.
These are not model kits, though. And the quality of the prepaints is pretty bad. They are almost invariably painted in the wrong colors – the Tiger I and the Panther are both painted a kind of gull grey. American tanks are a forest green color.
The representation of the vehicles is also pretty crude. Think toy instead of model. Of course, for an eight-year-old, toy is what you want to be thinking.
good looking toys, larry!!! good looking ones!!! haha, whatever. my old highschool buddy got a set of Up Front. Man that game you play a table top based wwII game …with cards!
One major problem with this is the “collectable” nature of the game. Things are common, uncommon and rare. This is pretty much arbitrary and designed to sell the miniatures and create a “collectable” value for the items.
The problem with that? T34s and Shermans are “Rare.” What’s common, uncommon and rare has no relationship to what was actually common, uncommon and rare during the actual wars.
If you want to do 1/100 scale (which I believe what 15mm is about the size of), there’s a lot of great manufacturers that produce white metal and resin kits. Search for 15mm World War 2 miniatures and vehicles.
Havent seen them yet , sounds interesting .
CFR
Well, that may be true, but I have about four Shermans (three older ones and an Easy 8) from the booster boxed set (a bunch of booster boxes, I think around a dozen).
It is true though that there is not much Soviet stuff. It’s mostly all German, American, and UK, in that order. Then comes the Japanese, then the Russians, then the French and Italians. If you want to play the Russians right now, you are pretty much screwed. Then again, I think they are coming out with an Eastern Front expansion, and that will of course boost the Rooskies.
…and therein lies the problem. I was following the development of this quite avidly. I’ve studied the rule and it makes for a really fun game. No where near as difficult as Advanced Squad Leader, but still complex.
Then I saw the first set the local store got in. Not only is the out of box paint job a write off, but the armor is more like a charicature. Everything is disproportionate, especially the tracks which all tend to be a fraction of the width they should. There have been many reports of bent gun barrels (which require carful hot-water correction).
But the real reason I’m not going to buy even a starter set: The so called “collectable” nature of it. I’ve spoken with several people who have bought into it and realized that I would have to spend oodles of money, and still find amicable people to swap with, to get a decent 100 point set going.
Now, these Flames of War miniatures look most interesting. $10 for a decent pewter or resin Tiger I interests me. Can anyone tell me how big they are?
Actually, I find the rules to be fairly simple. The game overall is a little more complicated than Pirates of the Spanish Main (another Wizards of the Coast game I play with my son), but not hugely so.
Really? I just bent the barrels back with my fingers.
They are for use with 15mm figure miniatures, so they are 1/100th scale, roughly a third the size of a 1/35th scale model. The Battlefront models are not bad, but you have to look at each one to see if you are satisfied with it. Some are quite accurate, others like the Tiger II are very cartoony.
By the way, this is not a “new twist” on the Axis and Allies game. It bears no relation whatsoever to the old AH game also called Axis and Allies. This is a skirmish game, whereas the original game was a global war game.
I do understand the difference between a global war and a skirmish, for the record. The use of the “New twist on Axis and Allies Game?” subject name seemed a decent subject wording to get attention.
I spent two hours with the game store owner discussing Axis and Allies boardgame campaigns past (some running a over week!), as well reviewing the skirmish game development before coming on and starting this message thread.
I just thought the toy game pieces were nifty enough to talk about here, and definitely NOT in the same league as the serious white metal and resin figures of real quality.