Axis & Allies Miniatures

Axis & Allies Miniatures
Rules Updates

10/01/08

The following paragraphs replace or expand on the corresponding paragraphs of the Advanced Rules.

Building an Army (pg 10)

An army can contain any number of units. No more than 10% of an army's maximum allowable cost can be spent on Obstacles.

A player’s army must be constructed within the following historical limitations:

German, Hungarian, Rumanian, Slovakian, and Italian units can be in the same army.
Soviet units can’t be in an army with any other nationality.
Japanese units can’t be in an army with any other nationality.
United States, United Kingdom, Australian, and Canadian, and South African units can be in the same army.
French, Belgium, and United Kingdom units can be in the same army.
Nationalist Chinese units can be in the same army as United States and United Kingdom units.
Polish units can’t be in an army with any other nationality.
Free Polish units (Polish units deployed after 1939) and Free French units (French units deployed after 1940) can be in the same army as United States, United Kingdom, Australian, Canadian, and South African units.
Greek and United Kingdom units can be in the same army.

Sequence of Play (pg 11)

Flight Phase: The first player places one Aircraft anywhere on the board. Then the second player places one Aircraft anywhere on the board. Continue alternating placement until all Aircraft have been placed. Only one Aircraft can occupy a hex.

Stacking (pg 13)

Stacking with Friendly Units: Three friendly units can occupy a single hex. Only one of them can be a vehicle. Aircraft don't count toward this limit, but only one Aircraft can occupy a hex.

Stacking with Enemy Units: A hex can contain up to three units of each army. Only one of them can be a vehicle.

Stacking While Moving: The stacking limit applies only at the end of each player's half of the movement and assault phase, after all movement and unit placement are finished. Moving units can temporarily exceed the stacking limit during the phase, provided each hex is within the limit at the end of the player's portion of the phase. If a hex exceeds the stacking limit at the end of a phase, units must be moved back to their previously-occupied hex until the overstack is corrected. These moves are done in reverse order -- that is, the last unit in must be the first one backed out, and so on.

Transporting Units: A unit boarded on a transport Vehicle doesn't count against the stacking limit. When 'backing out' units from an overstacked hex, if the last unit entered the hex by dismounting from transport, then it must re-board that transport if possible. Otherwise, the overstacked unit backs out along the path that the transport entered from until it reaches a hex it can legally occupy.

Attack and Defense (pg 15)

Attacking Aircraft: Artillery units without the Antiair special ability can’t attack Aircraft. The Crack Shot special ability does not give +1 to attack rolls against Aircraft.

Design notes:

It was apparent that the Axis & Allies miniature stat cards could use updating. The first suggestions came from Badger, who started the process off by providing a reworking of all the deployment dates for all of the AAM sets. He suggested and we quickly agreed that our previous deployment dates were rather arbitrary and that adopting the rule for all deployment dates to be the date the unit first saw combat would be more accurate.

Once it was agreed we should modify the stat cards, the discussion continued over what we should and should not change. We wanted to change the cards to improve game play, to enhance the historical accuracy of the stat cards, to increase the number of units that were considered “quality”, and to reduced complexity where it wasn’t needed. Some suggestions were too radical to adopt, such as giving every unit an anti-air value. Others were clearly correct to change, like improving the spotters and adding newer abilities to the appropriate older mini.

In addition to updating newer abilities to earlier miniatures, such as adding Light Artillery or Open Back to the miniatures that should have had that ability from the beginning, we did some recosting on a bunch of figures making them generally more affordable. Along with changes in the stat cards, we decided that a few minor rule changes would improve the way the game played.

This update is just for the Axis & Allies Miniatures, it isn’t for the expanded rules. The expanded rules are getting looked at, but at this time we don’t have any timetable on when and how it will get done.

We sincerely hope that you will enjoy the improvements that we’ve made to the game. You can talk about these changes or any other topic concerning Axis & Allies Miniatures on our boards.