Attack! by Eagle Games

[ModernKiwi]

I just bought this (and it's expansion pack). There's about 70-80 1/72nd scale figures inside (six different colours for six different sides), but they're all identical. Since it's WW2 era, I think I might use some other figures to represent each side.

[ModernKiwi]

OK, so last Thursday I got to run my first game of Attack! There were four of us playing - Facist Chrisland, Democratic Davidonia, Imperialist Blairazon and Soviet Adamistan. IT was a good learning experience. I did very well initially, while the Imperialists and Communists attempted to destroy each other, but eventually overplayed my hand and was crushed, along with the Davidonians. I'm going to do a "review" of the game in the next post describing how it plays.

[ModernKiwi]

Attack! is a strategic war game set in the mid 1930's during the conflict between 4 political systems - Democracy, Facisim, Communism and Imperialism.

This first picture is of the game board. It's about 60cm x 150cm in size.



The world is split into regions which you attempt to take control of, either by military or diplomatic methods. Heres a closer view of some sections.





Each region you control gives you a (radomly drawn) resource card like the ones in the picture below. The resource points on each card give you points to buy new forces with Infantry the cheapest, then Artillery, Tanks and Aircraft.



The game uses 2 x 6 sided dice and 8 x Attack! dice. Images of these below.



As can be seen above, the Attack! dice have pictures on them of Infantry, Artillery, Tanks and Aircraft. When you attack an opponent, you roll as many dice as you have forces. If the picture on one of the dice matches a unit you have, you destroy an enemy unit. Note that there is a blank face on each dice representing a miss and that the aircraft image is on two faces unlike all other units. So what are these units you ask?

This picture is of the infantry units, and as can be seen they are in a bright plastic colour, one colour for each player (so up to six players with the basic game).



The figures are 1/72nd size, but as can be seen in the close up below are rather ugly. They are also all identical.



Needless to say, this just won't do for a figure painter. Instead I substituted a number of painted WW2 figures I had sitting around doing very little. Because the sides are generic, I didn't worry about colour accuracy, just in making each side different in appearance.

Here are some infantry for the Green side...



Here some Red infantry...



And here some Brown infantry...



Of course where would the infantry be without artillery, tanks and aircraft to support them. These have also been painted or they would be the same colours as the generic infantry above. In the same order as above we have...







There are also naval forces which I won't go into because we didn't use those rules in my first game (trying to keep things simple). But here's some pictures of them anyway...







All very well and good so far. So how does the game play? Well the rules are a bit too long for me to go into in depth, so instead I will say that you takes turns. During your turn you can attack other players (or neutral countries), build units and carry out diplomatic attempts to bring neutrals onto your side).

Here's an example of an attack and how it plays out.

The Gray forces are in Libya and want to take control of Egypt-Sudan held by the Red force. They Grays have 3 infantry, 1 tank, 1 artillery and 2 aircraft. The Red defenders have 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank and 1 aircraft.



The Reds as defender get to roll first. They roll 5 dice, 1 for each unit they have. They roll Infantry, Artillery, Tank, Plane and a blank. A good roll.



Because they have 1 of each of the units above, they destroy four Gray units. The rules of game specify that infantry are destroyed first, then artillery, then tanks, then aircraft, so the Grays loose all their infantry and their artillery piece, leaving them looking like this.



Now the Grays attack. They have four units left, so roll four dice, rolling artillery, tank, infantry and tank. This removes the two Red infantry units, leaving them like this...



With three units left, the Red defenders roll three dice, rolling...



so doing no damage.

The Grays roll...



Enough to do 3 damage, and eliminate the Red forces, with this result...



They Gray player now takes a random resource card from the Red player to add to his own stack. He'd better be on the alert for the counter-attack.

Hope you all enjoyed reading this.

[efb]

That's a lot of work Grumpy and pretty cool.

Any chance the generic figures would work as mercenaries or third world troops for your modern armies to fight...or, are they just too ugly?

[ModernKiwi]

Its not so much the uglyness as that they're all identical. I orginally bought the game because I knew they were 1/72nd and was hoping for something I could also use elsewhere. I was soon disillusioned on those grounds. However, I am happy with the excuse to paint my WW2 figures and use those as otherwise they might have sat in a box unpainted for years.

[efb]

I had a similar experience with the Eagle games Victorian figures. With a little work the cavalry figures aren't that bad, but the horses are awful. The infantry figures suck, but I guess could be used as filler.

Or, maybe if I wanted to play the game, I could do what you're doing using Esci/Waterloo/HaT figures.

[Adam]

I bought emma attack but we still haven't played it (yes she was interested- it was't a "buying you it for me" present )

I think we might have to have a go having seen this, cheers mate- painted figs look great too.

[efb]

I have some good friends (was in the army with the husband) and I swear I thought they were gonna get divorced over a game of Risk one afternoon.

[ModernKiwi]

I bough temm aattack but we still haven;t played it (yes she was interested- it was't a "buying you it for me" present )

I think we might have to have a go having seen this, cheers mate- painted figs look great too.

Yeah Adam-istan's wife looked interested in having a go too when she saw it.

The only problem the painted figures/tanks etc inflicted were that in the very poor lighting of my brother's house, they all became a dark brown-ish blur and it was difficult to see which figure belonged to who. Maybe marking them with dark blue, dark brown, dark gray and dark green wasn't such a good idea!

[ironbrigade]

I have Attack and as a faster paced luck based strategy game, I find it much more fun than RISK.

I haven't gotten ahold of the expansion yet. Is the expansion as good as the original

[ModernKiwi]

The expansion pack adds a lot of options to the basic rules. I don't really know how it affects play as we've only played it once with the basic rules. But it has rules for strategic bombing and commerce raiding, technology advances, political backstabbing and trouble stirring and so forth. Looks like it would add several more layers of complexity but it also looks like fun. And it comes with the ship "figures" as well. The basic game just has cards for the ships.

[Paul]

Has anyone seen/or got photos of the figures from the `conquest of the empire`game from Eagle? The one about Romans.

[captainzlog]

I painted my Axis & Allies pieces, but left the bases in the same color for identification. You could try sticking your pieces on a counter of the appropriate color.........

The only problem the painted figures/tanks etc inflicted were that in the very poor lighting of my brother's house, they all became a dark brown-ish blur and it was difficult to see which figure belonged to who. Maybe marking them with dark blue, dark brown, dark gray and dark green wasn't such a good idea!