Related to the thread "Which is better TOI or memoir 44? ", I'd like to start this one. The truth is, there are some things I like more about AAM and others I prefer about TOI. This is actually how I feel about the memoir and TOI comparison as well. Most of it depends on what it is you're looking for (at that particular moment).

I prefer AAM because:

- It has a far larger selection of units you can play with, infantrywise, vehiclewise and artillerywise.There are also plane models.

- It has a much larger choice of nations that can be played including lots of minor beligerents.

-The miniatures are prepainted.

- There are actual facing rules in AAM. I'm still surprised TOI doesn't have them, The rules regarding e.g. LOS, calling in artillery strikes etc. are complicated enough to also justify having facing rules. What I mean is, if you are supposed to understand those, you shouldn't NOT include facing rules, because you want to keep things "simple".

- You CAN play based on point costs of units (i.e. 100 points vs 100 points) ( I usually don't, but it's still nice that it's possible...)

I prefer TOI because:

- The next expansion will give us winter boards. AAM still hasn't published any winter maps in the 5 or 6 years they've been around by now.

- I don't see any scale change happening in TOI (AAM changed the scale of its units a couple of years back, because of which certain units don't match in scale when you field them. They are all still legal, that is V1 and V2 minis).

- AAM has not provided any map overlay tiles even after all these years. You have to make do with memoir 44 and/or TOI hexes (which are a smaller size) or be very creative and like doing DIY-ing.

- There aren't tons of errata and clarifications. For a new player of AAM is nearly impossible to find all the current (official) rules. They are all over the place!

- It's not a collectible game and therefore relatively cheap...

- There's a lot more support: previews (still waiting for the FoTB ones, though...), map packs, scenario books etc.

- The overall quality of the components is higher (AAM minis are quite ok, rulebooks, maps etc. have definitely been made as cheaply as possible)

Kingtiger said:

Yes true, but the reason for this is money. Why Italian models? So they can sell you more. Nope sorry I can't stand any type of game that is designed from the ground up to pick your pocket.

I don't like collectible games, you are never certain what you will be getting with a booster and I don't have people with whom I can trade.

I must admit, that the main reason I bout TOI in the first place was to use the boards of TOI in AAM. However, I soon released that TOI was far supperior.

What I misslike most about AAM is that the units is (or at least was) higly unbalanced and I never got the correct WW2 feeling. Like due that Sherman was cheaper ok stats and better anti infatneri stats it seemed like the US had far better tanks than the German. German tanks was either horrible overpriced, or had no armor. On the other hand, in the original run, the german had one rediculus powerfull elite infanteri, which was supercheap. It was just stupid.

What I did enjoy about AAM was that speed could be realy important. Facing was nice, but I never got any good Axis vehicles anyway. Like, why did they realy have to include completly stupid units. And because the rules and the miniatures followed hand in hand, it was extremly difficult to fix problems in AAM. Cuz they could not simply realse a new rulebook. In tide of iron support is far easier, because all the rules could simply be put in a pdf file. In a few years, a Tide of Iron 2.0 could be realeased without forcing the players to buy new miniatures.

Lebatron said:

While I'm sure that the main reason for WoTC is indeed to make (more) money, that doesn't mean that many players of AAM, including myself, are really glad to be able to field Polish, Canadian, Italian, French and Greek troops, to name but a few. If they can make money, while I get something I want I feel it's a win-win situation.(Of course I am more interested in certain units/nations than others, but while I may be more interested in Polish troops than in Canadians, for example, I'm sure for many it's the other way around!)

blumax1981 said:

Would I prefer AAM to be a non-collectible game? Absolutely! Are there any alternatives to buying (only) boosters? Of course there are!

Though I do buy cases and boosters of AAM, I usually buy singles on e-bay to get multiples of certain units or to find those one or two pieces I'm still missing even though I bought lots of boosters. BTW, I am one of those who want to have a complete collection and by complete I mean at least one of each unit of each nation and multiple pieces of the more common and useful pieces. (By common I mean,. common in WW2, not common in the game). There are also a lot of people who, e.g. only collect Americans and Germans. That also makes it less of a strain on your wallet.

Grand Stone said:

Most of the problems you're describing have been solved by now, in my opinion. I don't agree with your assessment on the German tanks. You just have to use them in a different way, I think. They tend to be better AV-wise and worse anti-infantrywise. Of course the problems you're mentioning shouldn't have existed in the first place and they definitely should release a complete and revised rulebook containing all the errata and clarifications. Now they are all over the place!, I won't argue with that! Then again, TOI isn't without its issues either (imbalanced scenarios, differently scaled vehicles, lengthy errata on AT guns, misprints on units' statcards etc.). My point is: Neither game is perfect, but I still enjou both of them tremendously, as explained in my initial post! Oh and, a new comprehensive rulebook and sheets that could be put into a binder so you actually have an overview of all units belonging to one nation wouldn't hurt for TOI either!

Collectable games die horribly. A good wargame is here to stay.

TOIs main rival is Memoir 44.

I play both, have all the ToI products and a fairly decent-sized collection of AAM and WAS. Without a doubt, Tide of Iron is the better game.

Don't get me wrong, AAM is fun and I play whenever I get a chance. Plus, it sets-up and plays faster than ToI (generally speaking) so it can serve as a quick intro for people new to WWII wargaming, and is a nice option when I don't have 2-3 hours to throw down a ToI scenario.

However, it's not nearly as satisfying, and I feel it requires more tweaking to be enjoyable for both opponents (bringing a "surprise" army list can really result in lop-sided engagements). The obviously broken unit point-costs and special abilities, favoritism show to certain nationalities, various sets of rules that have been put out but not unified into a single cohesive document, the online card revisions and the lack of necessary units for certain armies makes AAM a second-tier game for me.

Kingtiger said:

I have yet to see a collectible game that ends up being cheap...

Facing is not That critical. And the rules get quite complex once you start taking turrets into account.

Hefsgaard said:

My comment you qouted refers to TOI: since TOI is NOT a collectible game IT is relatively cheap (relatively, because especially the Base game comes with a pretty hefty price tag. The expansions aren't playable without the base game, so all in all you still need to make quite a heavy investment.

I DO think facing is quite critical. Many of the (German) tanks had a much higher frontal armor than side armor. This is NOT reflected in the game. Also, it would allow for additional tactics: How could I try and outflank my opponent to get a shot at his rear armor? As for turrets: turreted vehicles can shoot in any direction, but if this direction does not correspond with it's current facing, pay one command to be allowed to do so (or you must use a certain card or it costs two actions or ...anyway, the point is, a relatively sinmple rule could cater for this. Certainly not a rule that would be a lot more complicated than other, already existing rules in TOI (LOS, assaults...)

Hefsgaard said:

I have to agree with with the above post on facing. It gets old after a while, and slows down game play once you get into games with more than a handful of units. Don't get me wrong, it's fun every once in a while, but it's the same concept no matter what you're playing. Napoleonics, ACW, WWII, naval combat, aerial combat...it's all the same thing no matter what you're playing. So IMHO, facing doesn't really bring anything unique to a game in and of itself. Was it important? Yeah, but it plays better in games like Wings of War or General Quarters, where each player is only moving a very few units.

Speaking of facing, AAM War at Sea made a huge mistake IMO to leave out facing in that game. Even that game designer decided to emphisize other aspects of game play other than facing. WaS is still a fun game without facing.

In Conflict of Heros (which does a great job incorperating facing into the main core of its rules) it bogs down games that have anything more than just a few units. So if you want a game that can be played and fun on a small scale, say just a few squads; and is equally fun portraying larger battles with lots of units; then facing is better left as an abstract concept.

I think it's better off the way it is in ToI, with the facing left out. That way, ToI is better suited to be able to have scenarios that represent extremely small unit actions, as well as being able to play out the big battles too, with lots and lots of tanks!

By the way, good thread.

As far as the question of ToI vs AAM, I have to give the nod to ToI, hands down.

My main issue with AAM was the concept someone described as complexity creep. Power creep, the concept that each suceeding set released had to trump the previous set in order to drive sales, is bad enough. But with AAM, each set brought on more and more special abilities, to the point that it became like playing chess, but everytime you played, each and every piece moved and battled differently, every single time you played. The special abilities of units in AAM were actually individual rule changes, or exceptions to the rules. The more sets they released, the more special abilities they created. There were so many special abilities after a short time, that every time I played, it was always a suprise as to how the game was going to work. There were so many special abilities that the game designers couldn't keep control of what effect they would have on the game.

I played one game where I had Japanese elite infantry (the one with the sword that looked like a light sabre, or a big banana) that were literally chasing around the game board, British Crusader tanks. The special abilities created the situation that the British Crusader tanks tanks had to roll 5 dice, and all 5 dice had to be either a 5 or 6, just to stun the Japanese Infantry. If just one dice were anything less than a 5, the tank would have no effect at all on the Japanese infantry. Of course, the Japanese infantry were quite effective against the British tanks if they were in the same hex (or even adjacent, if I remember that right).

So at the end of a typical point vs point game, the goal was to be on the objective at the end of the game. The British tanks in the game I mention, had no choice but to move in with the Japanese infantry at game end, which they had no chance to defeat; and therefore no chance to win.

So absurd situations like that would rear their ugly head in AAM; and the game designers would scramble around, trying to introduce a fix for situations like that by adding other units with even more special abilities; and the end result was that more and more absurd situations would be created. They'd scramble some more; add more special abilities; and the whole thing just spiraled out of control!

That situation was what I heard some tag as, "complexity creep", and it killed the game for me. I don't even look at AAM as a game any longer. It's a neat set of miniatures, that would go good with a set of minaiture rules...maybe like Flames of War; which is exactly why AAM changed it's scale to match, in the first place. As far as AAM as a game, the rules for that imploded a long, long time ago.

A good game should start with a good set of basic rules, and then just add on things like nationalities, map boards, troop types (which may necessitate a few new rules), vehicles, scenarios and campaigns. AAM started out that way, but went "off the tracks" around set III or IV of the V1.0 version, as far as I'm concerned.

Good games that are out there now are: M44, ToI & CoH; ones that I happen to own.

Ones that I do not own at the time, or owned in the past would be: Lock N' Load, Combat Commander, Panzer Grenadier, ASL and Flames of War.

Kingtiger said:

Ahhh - but then there would be the ASL players amongst us that would be wanting rules to reflect that the rear of turrets also were less armoured than the front. And rules governing what a vehicles facing is during movement. And the cascade of rules would proberly continue for quite a bit.

But my main argument against facing would be that ultimatly, it does not matter. Players soon learn to place tanks/squads at silly angles just to prevent that rear shot. Much simpler to just give the realy wellarmoured monsters the Thick Armor stat, and let the dice determine which side the shell hit. "Re-roll is 6, looks like you hit the front armor!" (proberly with an evil germanaccented laugh.)

Kingtiger said:

Put the plane units from AAM next to the planes from Wings of War (either the WWI or WWII sets), then go online and compare the prices (your favorite singles site for AAM, and places like CoolStuff for WoW minis).

Have a box of Kleenex handy. I guarantee you will start crying. You may even feel extremely foolish for having settled for such substandard quality with the AAM stuff, when you see the hyper-detailed, second to none quality of the WoW miniatures.

You won't see a British Supermarine Spitfire advertised and sold as an Me-109 painted in British colors either...

Hefsgaard said:

Yeah, I have to completely agree with the above statement.

It is fun sometimes to play a game where facing is important, but in the long run, I prefer facing to be incorperated into the rules as an abstract feature.

Facing, IMO, is strictly for small unit, tactical level only wargames.

Tide of Iron is so much more than that.

I started with Axis and Allies, the strategic board game, which got me interested in minatures, which led to AA minatures. But I must have spent about $150 and still kept getting the same models. Then there were not real scenarios to give an historical feel, so that is when I got Memoir 44, and still play it, as it is simple and complete. The only problem is, that Memoir was not quite detailed enough, and did not have the variety of figures and tanks that I wanted, and then, HEY HEY, I see Tide of Iron for the first time in my game store, and I bought it immediately!

Now, I have gotten both Days of the Fox , and Normandy Expansions, and just recently got my new expansion boards set that matches Normandy color and detail, and since painting some of my models, it is a NEAR PERFECT WW2 simulation board game.. I also just ordered an additional TOI base game, and told the game store to order me the FOTB.

For me the big turning-point of AAM was when they decided to upgrade the rules, rebalance the units. When I relized I had to buy the new figures to get the new stats , then I got a bit mad. Yes, I could find the new rules and new stats online, but i was suppose to buy new rules, one by one. Then I simply said, no. And by then I had found TOI

And if for example TOI wants to fix a few scenarios, they can simply release a book, without forcing us to buy a new version of the base game.

The AAM navy version was even worse. There they have made a lot of effort to balance each nations units and compared them to the default class of destroyers, battleships etc. However what they forgot to check was the balance of 'carrieers' versus 'battleships'. It turns out that the battleship is in general so strong that it is stupidity to use anything else...

Grand Stone said:

... you do know that all the new cards are available as a free pdf-download?

Anyway, the thing that makes (IMHO) A&A Miniatures far superior to Tide of Iron is that A&A Miniatures offers unequaled freedom to create your own historical scenario's. To me it is a great "open" game-system, easy to adapt and incorporate other materials into, to recreate basicly anything you can think of!

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy playing Tide of Iron because of the very elegant streamlined rulessystem (a few expections already mentioned), but it can never offer me what A&A Miniatures can. That said, they don't really compete with eachother anyway. Why should I stop playing one game if I like another as well? Around here we have our A&A Miniatures "season", followed by a period of Tide of Iron, throw in some Conflict of Heroes, several A&A Boardgames for the fun of it ... heck, I'd even play Memoir '44 if the others really want to!

Latro said:

With the exception of AAM, that's basically how things go around here too. A little of this, then a little of that. Funny you mentioning CoH, it has gotten its share of table time lately too. After being ticked at the AtB counters being marketed and offered for sale as replacements for the original counters, I broke down and picked up PoH. SoS is on the radar as the next game aquisition after FotB.

M44 has been making some moves to add new elements that are kinda evolving a portion of that game into something a bit closer to ToI with the Breakthrough map boards and card deck, and special tactics card decks that they have been adding.

I haven't tried it yet, but M44 has a nifty scenario editor, and with the tactical elements that that game has been adding, I'd venture to say that M44 Breakthrough, Overlord and the regualr board set ups offer a player the most versatility to create just about any encounter a player may wish. At the same time, M44 has a super hard mounted map system with modularized terrain tiles. M44 can be made to represent units from tactical level on up to operational level. AAM is locked in at tactical level.

Don't get me wrong, AAM (if you like the game system, which is to say, if you can keep up with the special abilities) has a lot to offer in terms of miniature piece variety, but M44 is the one WWII game system right now to offer the widest variety of gaming in terms of scope of battles it can represent. Not to mention the campaign systen M44 has.

I think I'd use the AAM pieces with the Flames of War game rules myself had I stayed with AAM. That way it would allow players to concentrate on the various game scenarios one might wish to explore and in actually playing the game, as opposed to trying to figure out what special abilities all the units had and what different impact they would have on each and every game played.

Just my .02 cents