Axis & Allies vs. Memoir 44: How do they stack up?

Original box of the original MB Axis and Allies. Of course they
have come out with many versions of this great game since then.


by Mike Montesa

Well, in terms of scale, the vanilla A&A game is a strategic game, the
theater focused A&A games are operational, and M44 is tactical (all in
a "kinda-sorta" way) So it really depends on what you want. If you
always wanted to play out the assault on Pegasus Bridge on D-Day at
the platoon/squad level but didn't want to play Advanced Squad Leader,
M44 is your game. if you've always wanted to game the Battle for
Guadalcanal in its entirety, but didn't want to play SPI's old Pacific
War, A&A:Guadalcanal is your game. If you've always wanted to play out
the whole war, but couldn't get in to Third Reich, A&A is your game.

Personally, I enjoy them all but I really like the simplicity and
modularity of M44. With the terrain and expansion sets, you can make
scenarios for any theater (and there are many. many fan-made scenarios
online). I don't have the aircraft expansion yet but it looks really
cool. And the ability to put the boards together and play a super
large battle with multiple players is really fun! I played a big
3-board D-Day game at Gen Con SoCal a couple years back and had a
blast!

M44 plays fast too, and you can finish even big scenarios in an hour
or less. Some people despise the random aspect of the card but I like
it. I wouldn't call it the most accurate depiction of WW2 combat (it
necessarily abstracts a lot of things, but that's all right) but it
sure is fun, and has plenty of color.