Axis & Allies: The Greatest Generation in Plastic

This is the tale of a War that was not, yet might have been. It is the tale of six men: Marc, Scott, Gary, Bob, Pete, and I your humble scribe, who dared play Marc’s homebrewed all-variant version of Axis & Allies, who sat in a game shop from 8PM to 6AM, and dared shape the fate of six nations and a world. 

1939: Germany unleashes a devastating surprise attack on France, completely overrunning her. Most of North Africa declares for the Free French, but Indochina goes Vichy. The French Mediterranean and North Sea fleets both turn their ships over to the Germans, suddenly making Germany the largest naval power in the world. The German blitz continues over the channel into England, but is stopped on the beaches by the RAF. Poland attacks into Romania, but is quickly absorbed by the USSR. Japan drives into northern China. Angry phone calls from ambassadors and cartographers begin to arrive in the Oval Office of the American White House.

1940: Germany destroys most of the remaining elements of the British North Seas Fleet and attempts a second invasion, which fails. Britain and the Free French attempt to rally their forces, attacking Axis territories in Africa and completely stripping the Far East of garrisons and shipping them west for this purpose. The USSR takes Norway, Romania, and Iran, and their scientists discover how to make their cheap infantry even cheaper. Not even a Soviet naval expedition to Venezuela can rouse the sleeping American giant.

1941: Germany desperately tries to fortify its already precarious situation in Europe while watching the Russians pump out tiny commies at the rate of one IPC/infantry unit. The UK/Free French continue to make gains in Africa and successfully defend the Suez Canal, denying the Germans access to the Red Sea. Japan continues to whittle away at China’s manpower reserves and “restores order” in Indochina. The President begins routing the increasing number of irate phone calls to Senator Taft and other prominent Isolationists (”I don’t understand a word this man is saying, but he’s clearly VERY angry!”), but to no effect. The US remains at peace.

1942: British and Free French forces completely control Africa and Soviet troops enter Sweden and Finland. A British strike on the German Atlantic Fleet completely eliminates it, though the British attackers are virtually destroyed as well. Germany is boxed in. Peking falls to the Japanese advance and China joins the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Peking dumpling shortages cause riots in the US, but Congress is determined to give sanctions more time.

1943: Germany withdraws most of its occupying forces from France to defend Germany against the USSR. British airstrikes destroy the remainder but the UK lacks enough transports to mount a full invasion. Japan spends the year digesting China’s economy and building up its land and naval forces. The USSR also builds up for new offensives. The President is reduced to threatening to beat American isolationists with bundles of sticks, but they are still unmoved and the US remains at peace.

1944: The Wehrmacht finally boards the Clue Train and assassinates Hitler, giving them a few extra much-needed IPCs. Britain invades across the Channel and liberates France, while the USSR sends its giant pile of mass-produced infantry into Germany and swamps it with human wave attacks. A terrified Benito Mussolini is now head of the Axis in Europe, said Axis consisting of Italy and anyone from Germany who could make it across the Alps there. Japan unleashes the lightning and grabs every British possession in the East including Australia and India. Land forces attack from China into the Soviet Far East while the IJN concentrates around the home islands. The Japanese conquest of the Philippines finally brings the US into the war.

1945: The world waits and watches as the US and Japanese fleets battle it out around the Home Islands for control of the Pacific. American ship production has been hampered by five years of friggin’ peacetime economy, and after a hard battle the American fleet is destroyed. While Japan’s hegemony in the Far East is tacitly agreed to, she cannot match the combined economic might of the Allied powers without Germany, and the game ends in a technical Allied victory.

2008: Harry Turtledove finishes a six volume alternate history of the Second World War featuring a hypothetical German invasion of Russia called “Operation Barbarossa” and a Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The series ends with a total Allied victory and the possibility of a sequel series about a “Cold War” between the USSR and a fictional superpower version of the United States.  

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