Ralph Boerke's Tribute to Axis & Allies
Disclaimer: Axis & Allies is a registered trademark of Milton Bradley. The use of their trademark 'Axis & Allies' by Tacit Memnos Infinitum is not approved by Milton Bradley.
Origins - From the Mind of Lawrence Harris
Lee Enderlin - Marketing Director of Nova Games (c.1980) - Where A&A was born.
Origins: [Top]
I have gathered this information from a few sources, the FAQ, newsgroups and email with some of the principles - namely Lee Enderlin. If some information is wrong or I have dates and/or names mixed up please accept my apologies and I will make changes when they are shown to me.
Lawrence Harris designed a game called Axis & Allies, it had lots of plastic tanks and battleships and emulated World War II in a pseudo strategic way. Lawrence Harris designed the original Axis & Allies for NOVA games, and the developer was Joseph Angiolillo. In the mid 1980's Milton Bradley bought the rights to Axis & Allies from Nova. It made up a portion of Milton Bradley's GameMaster Series, the other games being 'Fortress America', 'Conquest of the Empire', 'Broadsides and Boarding Parties' and 'Shogun' (renamed 'Samurai Swords' and rereleased in 96/97).
Alfred Leonardi of Nova Games was instrumental in the dice combat mechanism of the game - The Maverick, May 98
I am not sure how many copies of each of these games is out there. I believe that Milton Bradley issues them in lots of 200,000 and that A&A has been re-issued a number of times. I have also heard that A&A sells more than Monopoly (but that might be in specific stores/retailers). I know of at least three different issues of A&A (from people on the net and friends with different advertisements on the side of the box: My box has Fortress and Shogun advertised). And I suspect that there have been more. My guess is that there are at least 4,000,000 games out there and probably closer to 5,000,000.
"In a recent discussion with Alfred Leonardi of Nova Games (designer of Axis and Allies), he shared that he had come up with the dice rolling mechanism used in A&A." and "A&A was bought "lock stock and barrel" but Leonardi indicated that he still had a piece of the action on A&A sales" - The Maverick, May 98
Nova Games: [Top]
I was recently (Spring 97) sent some information from Lee Enderlin who was the marketing director for Nova Game Designs while they made Axis&Allies. He did some play testing of A&A for them too. What follows is paraphrased from what he sent me (2 emails, 3 documents) :
Nova was headquartered in Manchester, Conn.. They produced a number of games, the most successful of which was the "Ace of Aces" series. Sadly, the company no longer exists. Nova was set up as a kind of self-publishing house. Larry Harris approached Joe Angiolillo with the A&A design and they decided to ahead with the game. Joe acted as game developer. He has also designed a number of more traditional style wargames for Avalon Hill. Larry designed two other games at the same time: "Conquest of the Empire," is a game about Roman times and "Broadsides and Boarding Parties," a ship-to-ship game of pirate days. "Conquest" and "Broadsides" were published by a company (whose name escapes me at the moment) owned by Pat Flory (or Flore) of Connecticut. They were not published by Nova. Larry eventually sold the rights to "Empire" and "Broadsides" to Milton Bradley. MB would only go along with the deal if A&A was included.
Therefore, the original three games of the Master Strategy Series were A&A, "Conquest of the Empire" [COTE], and "Broadsides and Boarding Parties" [BABP*]. At the time, Larry was hired to oversee the Master Strategy Series as MB had great hopes for it. "Broadsides" died very quickly despite MB's redesign because its deficiencies were never addressed. "Empire" did not do well, either.
*note: was affectionately known as 'Broads, Suds, and Boring Parties' as there were some faults with the game.
When the Series proved bust, except for A&A, Larry was fired. However, MB already had a great deal of investment in "Fortress America" and "Shogun," so "Conquest" and "Broadsides" were dropped and "Fortress" and "Shogun" were eventually added. "Fortress" first, then "Shogun" about a year later. These two games were designed by an in-house MB designer named Mike Gray. Mike informed me that there was another game in the works for the Series, but it wasn't very far along, so it was dropped.
There were a lot of changes from the original Nova game and the MB version of A&A. I wrote an article about it for a gaming magazine at the time MB published their version.
Thank you very much Lee and I hope I didn't alter anything important from your emails.
Original Version: [Top]
What follows next is a very short summary of the article mentioned above. Lee sent me a copy from the magazine, a copy of one page from the original rule book and a photocopy of the part of the map that had the 'technology' legend.
First the Map and the Technology. Originally the map is a bit more strategic than the 2nd edition MB version. I only see a part of the Indian Ocean but there are at least five differences here. The Red Sea and Arabian seas are distinct. The French Indochina-Burma territory is split with Siam worth 100 (= 1 IPC). The Sea Zone beside Siam does not touch Burma and India has its own Sea Zone too. Madagascar has no worth. One big Sea Zone in the middle of the Indian Ocean instead of the two surrounding the compass (MB version). Also Italian East Africa (1 IPC) was separate from British East Africa (separate from yet another new province -Tanzania maybe).
The Technology:
1 Jet Power - Ftrs defend 1 thru 5.
2 Rockets - One free Strategic Bombing attack per turn on one enemy Ind.Complex
up to 2 provinces away from friendly AA.
3 Super Sub - Defends 1-3
4 Long Range - Add 2 to all aircraft range
5 Fifth Column - Many enter any one neutral per turn at no cost
6 Atomic Bomb - One Strategic Bombing attack per turn destroys everything
in enemy province.
(A bit different there ! 5th Column does little for me personally but the ABomb - ouch)
From the rule book.
14.1.3 Jets are not effected by enemy AAguns!
This is from the rule book and deals with Special Forces something left out of the game when moved to MB. (I will omit extra characters and summarize to save space :)
14.2 Special Forces - Each player is given one type of special forces to simulate his branch of the military that was most highly developed, or exhibited unusual characteristics.
14.2.1 Movement of Industry - Soviet player may move one of his Ind.Complex units each turn at a rate of 1 movement point. (nothing on moving and production simultaneously)
14.2.2 The Panzerkorps - German player may designate one of his armour as SS Panzerkorps during each of his player-turns. May designate any Armour as SS at beginning of the turn. Attacks at 1-4 and defends at 1-5.
14.2.3 Home Guard - UK player Infantry on the United Kingdom territory defend at 1-3.
14.2.4 Kamikaze - Japan player may move one Ftr per turn its full movement allowance and attacks at 1-4. Whether it survived the attack or not it is eliminated.
14.2.5 Marines - US player can designate all Infantry units (beginning of the turn) in one amphibious assault as Marines. Attack at 1-2.
Lee asked me to post this if I posted the above rules.
Rules by Larry Harris and Joe Angiolillo. Provided by Lee Enderlin and the Wednesday Night Fights Wargame Club of Connecticut.
Games Magazine: [Top]
The article by Lee Enderlin published in GAMES MAGAZINE in March 1985 in the Game News section follows. Condensed and summarized by Ralph Boerke (me) - paragraph by paragraph.
Nova established popularity of A&A in the adventure gaming hobby market. In the fall of 1983 Nova sold A&A to MB. MB could better sell to the mass market.
System remained the same but graphics and components were completely reworked. All changes were overseen by Larry Harris (became MB employee). MB to produce A&A, BABP and COTE (originally 'Six Ceasars') as part of the 'Gamemasters Series'.
Cosmetic Changes - Nova's cardboard pieces replaced by MB's molded styrene miniatures of tanks, infantry, battleships,... Nova had followed gaming convention with printed combat values. MB provides a 'Battle Board' - convenient platform to resolve conflict.
<More on the pieces.> To appease mass market sensibilities the Nazi swastika was replaced with the German national cross symbol.
Production Chart included for quick reference for current income and special weapons. Cardboard charts instead of paper. Money redesigned and downgraded from denominations of 100,500,1000 to 1,5,10.
Map is slightly smaller than the original and mounted. Nova's garishly coloured and featureless provinces replaced by MB's subdued colours and features such as lakes, rivers, mountains,...
All comes in a beautifully rendered, very large box, 5x larger than original.
Game System Changes. Most for simplicity - appeal to nonwargamers. Some significant to affect strategy. Number of provinces reduced by 30%. Fewer units start on the board and higher incomes. Axis have more units and an edge - must strike before Allies bring wealth into play. With fewer provinces Axis can conquer more quickly making Allies task more difficult.
Less drastic changes - Sub first attack capabilty; ACC, Sub, AAgun have different combat values; sequence of play; victory conditions. No allied Economic Victory. Axis EconomicVictory is at higher level.
Shore Bombardment rules added. Individual winner chart, although a game of cooperation. Obviously a concession to the 'But someone has to win' concept.
Special Weapons have been altered with Heavy Bombers and Industrial Technology replacing Abombs and Fifth Columnists.
Unfortunately one of the finer points of the original, unique national characteristic, has been deleted. I recommend you use these original rules with the MB version.
MB's rulebook is well thought out,...larger, more examples; good idea for non-wargamers. And that may be the real value of the game in the long run. For years only comparable games were PB's RISK (highly abstracted but simple) and AH's Diplomacy (too complicated for most people). A&A closes this gap somewhat and hopefully will entice new players into more complicated adventure games.
Lee sent me another email discussing sales and other things A&A, MB related.
I believe that over three years (1981-1984), NOVA sold somewhere in the range of 15,000 to 20,000 copies. The only stats I have on MB sales come from the royalty sheets we received from them between 1984 and 1986 (when I left NOVA). MB sold generally between 75,000 to 100,000 copies per quarter, roughly 300,000 to 350,000 copies a year. Whether those numbers have changed dramatically in the years since, I do not know.
<paraphrased> The last 5000 games Nova had could not be sold in N.America or Europe so they sold them to Australia (MB wasn't selling there till 1989). MB bought A&A lock stock and barrel and mention Nova Games absolutley nowhere.
Closing Note: [Top]
So my (Ralph here) estimate of 4 or 5 million is based on 300000 per year for 13 years (1984 to 1997) is about 4 million. Assuming sales have been steady and that's not including post 1989 Australia :)
(MB doesn't mention Larry Harris anywhere in their documents either.)
Thank you again Lee for all of the information, and your signing off motto (maybe I'll use it :)
"May all your dice rolls be 1's unless you're playing me."
But I generally will keep my own:
"Good Gaming"
Spring '98: I have a copy of the original A&A from Nova in my collection now.
To the Next Chapter: The GamesMaster Series
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