Axis & Allies: Naval Battles

Lately, over the last few gamenights we have been playing Axis & Allies Naval Miniatures.  The game was produced by Wizards of the Coast as a sister product to its Axis & Allies Miniatures game, (which we have never played).  The game has a simple (but strategic) gameplay, and a typical game can be completed in under an hour.

In the game, players can takes command of ships and squadrons of aircraft.  The ships run the range from aircraft carriers and battleships, to cruisers, to destroyers, to submarines, to auxiliary ships and even motor torpedo boats.

My main fleet is the French Navy, which works great as it can be used as either Allied (Free French) or Axis (Vichy France).  I have the complete set of official offerings:

• Algérie (Cruiser)
• Béarn (Aircraft Carrier)
• Casabianca (Submarine)
• Dewoitine D.520 (Fighter)
• Dunkerque (Battleship)
• Jean Bart (Battleship)
• Gloire (Light Cruiser)
• Lamotte-Piquet (Cruiser)
• Milan (Destroyer)
• Strasbourg (Battleship)
• Provence (Battleship)
• Richelieu (Battleship)
• Suffren (Cruiser)
• Le Terrible (Destroyer)
• V.156 Vindicator (Torpedo Plane)

I have a few other ships from various other fleets, including a German contingent that includes the Bismark and the Prinz Eugen.  I also have a small British fleet, and a contingent of smaller nations (like Poland).

The biggest issue now is that the game was released in 2007, but only lasted with official releases until 2011.  This means obtaining the models at reasonable prices can be hard.  The others in our group have bought some of the more inexpensive offerings from Ebay and other online dealers and inherited some of our more least-played fleets.

We are looking forward to more multi-player games and I'd also like to try out a Battle of the River Plate scenario, as we have the ships top recreate that fateful battle....