Players: 2-6 (or 2-10 with more pieces)
Playing Time: 3-6 hours
Difficulty: 6 (of 10)

To fully understand this review, you should read my review of Attack! (or already be familiar with that game).

The Components

The Attack! Expansion adds the following components to the game:

• 1 map
• 1 game manual
• plastic ships for 6 players
• government counters
• 1 deck of economics cards
• 1 deck of technology cards
• 1 deck of political action cards
• 1 stack of production point certificates
• 1 stack of oil reserve certificates

The map is six panels in full color. It depicts Asia, Australia, and the Pacific, and is a perfect match for the Europe/Americas board in the original game. Production quality is identical, which is to say high.

The rulebook is 16 pages in glossy full color. It explains the "advanced" game rules. Like the original it's easy to follow and filled with helpful charts. It also clearly notes "CHANGE"s from the basic game in simple, red boxes, to make it easy to switch from one game to another, which is excellent rulebook design.

The advanced rules are slightly more complex than the basic game, with more actions possible and each unit having more specialized powers. Fortunately, most of these expansions are summarized on pages 18-19, which can easily be xeroxed for all the players.

The ships are molded in the same basic colors as the troops from Attack! (gray, tan, beige, dark green, dark blue, and red), and form the rest of each player's core forces. Unlike the troops in the base game, the ships all come off their runners very easily. It takes about 5 minutes to clear off each colored runner, or about 30 minutes total.

Unfortunately in using plastic ships rather than cards (as was the case in the original game), naval battles end up losing some of their intuitiveness; it's no longer easy to see which ships have bonuses against which other ships. This knowledge will become self-evident through additional play, but is a slight loss for usability.

The rulebooks note that if you want to play with more than 6 players, you can get some additional colors of pieces at the web site. The new colors are purple, yellow, black, and white, allowing for up to 10 players. They're also reasonably priced at $3 for a new set. The land units (which came in the basic game) are available here. The new sea pieces are apparently not done yet in the new colors, but should be available here when they are. Being able to add additional players like this is a very nice feature, and I wish more games would support it.

The government counters are circular cardboard counters in one of four flavors: communist, democratic, monarch, or fascist. They're solid cardboard, though you'll end up with some frayed edges when you punch them out of their sheet. The iconography for the four government types is intuitive & easy to differentiate between from across the board.

The many decks of cards are all made of similar materials to those in the original game.

The economics cards mainly expand the original deck because there are more countries. However, it also adds a new suit of Economics: "Trade Routes". Trade Routes generally are indendent from the other Economics cards in how they're acquired or lost, just not how they're used. Thus it's somewhat unfortunate that they use the same backing as the rest of the Economics cards, because you can accidently get them mixed up.

The technology & political action cards are various new cards that can be acquired by players. They have attractive period graphics and are easy to use and understand.

The two types of certificates are basically money, one for buying troops (production points) and one for buying turns (oil). They're printed on very flimsy paper, which is unfortunate because it means they can't be rubber-banded without ripping the paper. (I put mine in a ziplock bag instead.)

The design of the oil certificates is also slightly flawed: first, the three different denominations are all the same color, which makes it possible to mix up 1s, 5s, and 10s. Second, there are only enough oil certificates to get 6 players started, exactly. If more players are desired you'll need to buy some more oil certificates (not currently available from Eagle), or else use something else for substitutes.

Like the original Attack! game, I felt some desire for markers to help denote various things. Most importantly, it would have been nice to have a marker to denote which action a player was on (I suggest leaving oil certificates paid out as a mnemonic).

There are so many pieces with Attack! and its Expansion combined that I no longer see a great need for those decks of cards to have places on the board, obviating one of my earlier issues. We just set up a bank on a side table.

Overall, it's important to mention that you're going to need a lot of room to play Attack! with its expansion. My 5 and 1/4 foot table just barely fit the combined 12-panel map, and I still had to pull in a bunch of extra flat surfaces to hold the bank and each player's individual pieces and cards. Nonetheless it was possible, even in my dining room which is somewhat tight.

When I reviewed Attack! I said that I thought that it was graphically beautiful with some absences and minor flaws in the components. I think that the new components added in this Attack! Expansion are generally of the highest quality without problems, and so I give the Expansion a full "5" out of "5" for Style.

And as a final note: you'll be able to fit all the components from Attack! and the Attack! Expansion into a single one of those boxes, which is very nice from a storage perspective.

The Game Play

The most obvious gameplay expansion is that the Attack! Expansion adds a new map to the game which allows you to play in Asia and the Pacific and to circumnavigate the globe. You may play the basic game with this complete 12-panel combined map if you wish, though you'll probably want to play with at least 5 or 6 players, so that everyone isn't separated on the huge map.

Besides the new map, the Attack! Expansion also offers an "advanced" game which expands up, modifies, and changes the rules for the basic game.

Setup: Setup is fairly similar to the original game. Each player gets 12 infantry, 6 tanks, 4 artillery, and 2 planes which are setup in 4 regions. He gets 4 Economics cards for those 4 regions and also 4 Political Action cards for those 4 regions. Rather than ship cards he gets plastic ship pieces: 1 battleship, 2 destroyers, and 2 submaries, which must be put in one sea region. He also starts off with 30 Production Points and 30 Oil Certificates. Finally, he randomly draws a government type (and every neutral piece on the board gets a government type chit, as mentioned in "Government Counters").

Turn & Action Changes. In the advanced game there are some changes to the basic infrastructure of the game: player turn order and actions.

Round: A new concept of a round has been introduced. Each player goes in order during the round, and gets to take a set of actions. At the end of each round, each player gets "Production", then each player gets a "Political Card", then the new first player is the player to the immediate left of the player who started the round (e.g., the first player gets skipped).

Actions: As with the basic game, the Attack! Expansion centers around actions. During his turn a player may take a number of actions. However, this time you must pay for actions with oil certificates. You pay 1 oil certificate for your first action in a turn, 2 for your second, 3 for your third, etc. You go until you decide you've spent enough certificates, and then play passes to the next player. You'll begin the game with 30 certificates, and may get more during "Production".

Here's the various actions that you can take. Unlike in the basic game, many actions are possible more than once a turn.

• Move: Identical to the basic game move, except you now may move ships as well (see "Naval Forces"). The "Battles" have some slightly advanced rules, as described below. Limit: 1/turn.
• Build New Units: Spend Production Points to build units. Now, Production Points are represented by currency, and so may be saved from turn to turn. You also automatically get Production Points in the "Production" phase at the end of each round. All unit costs are the same.
• Diplomatic Blitz: A totally rewritten system for taking over neutral countries is described below. Limit: 1/turn.
• Play Political Action Cards - You may take this action to play as many of your "Political Action Cards" as you like.
• Begin Auction for a Trade Route Card - You may offer 20 PPs as the start of an auction for a "Trade Route Card".
• Research New Technology: You may invest 0 or more PPs to try and gain a new "Technology Card".
• Trade with Other Players: You may now trade more things (PPs, Economic Cards, Oil, Political Action Cards), but must trace a route from your capitol to your opponent's through your territories or neutral territories. (Personally I found the latter rule nonintuitive, and it was forgotten by all three of us who had read the rules until late in the game; from a game design point of view, free trade helps to keep a game more interesting and interactive for all players, in my opinion).
• Strategic Bombing: A new system for using air craft to reduce economies is described in "Strategic Bombing". Limit: 1/turn.
• Commerce Raiding: A new system for using subs to to damage or destroy the new Trade Routes is described in "Naval Forces". Limit: 1/turn.

Production: Production works much the same as the collection of PPs in the building-new-units phase of the basic game. You get 10 PPs for your capitol and the displayed number for each Economics card, double if they are in sets. However, there are three notable differences for Production in the advanced game.

First, it happens automatically at the end of each round, meaning a player never has to spend an action to get his PPs.

Second, players may choose to separate out some or all of their oil to get oil certificates (for buying turns) rather than production points (for buying troops). If you use oil for oil certificates, you can't use that same oil to get PPs, nor can you use it to complete a set.

Third, the "Trade Route" cards discussed below can be used as wild cards. You can use them for oil or as any Economics card to complete to gain PPs and possibly complete sets.

Basic System Changes. As mentioned in the list of actions above, two basic systems are changed: diplomatic blitzes and battles.

Diplomatic Blitzes: You can now only do one diplomatic blitz action a turn, but each action can result in a number of different diplomatic blitz rolls in a "domino" effect. You must roll a 6+ on your first blitz, +2 to the target if you're not adjacent. If you succeed, you then get to try to influence another country, but you're at +1 to the target for each additional roll.

Neutral countries now also have a governmental type, as described in "Government Counters". You have a government type too. Whenever you try and influence a neutral country, you must look at the political spectrum chart. You get an additional +1 to the target for each rank you and the neutral country are separated on the spectrum (e.g., +0 if you are both the same government type, +3 if you are the two government types furthest apart: communism and facism).

When you take over a neutral country you get a free infantry and a Economics card, just as in the basic game. You also get a free Political Action card.

Battles: Land battles are fought just the same as in the basic game with one exception: troops now have special rules for what order they eliminate opposing troops in:

• Infantry: Eliminate in order: infantry, tank, artillery, and plane.
• Tank: May skip infantry; otherwise eliminate in order.
• Artillery: May eliminate 2 infantry; go in order.
• Plane: may choose to eliminate any individual front-line troop irrspective of normal order.

New Pieces. Most of the rest of the new rules have to do with the new componetns introduced in this expansion.

Naval Forces: Naval forces are now represented by pieces instead of cards and are placed in specific sea regions on the board. These regions can be small zones (the Carribean Sea Zone, the Coral Sea Zones), or large oceanic regions which cover a third, a half, or all of an ocean. Now, rather than controlling the abstract sea, naval forces control individual regions, blocking passage through those regions only. Submarines are now a special ship type which can cohabitate with enemy ships if they so desire.

Naval battles are fought largely the same. You just line up the pieces instead of cards. As I noted earlier, I found it a bit hard to keep track of the individual plusses for Destroyers, Submarines, and Battleships, though you can use the older cards for reference if you so desire.

Submarines, besides being able to cohabitate, can also entirely avoid naval battles if they wish. They can also be used for a new system: Commerce Raiding.

Each "Trade Route" has a sea region listed on it. If you have subs in a sea area that correlates to someone else's "Trade Route" you may declare a Commerce Raid. Roll a regular die for each sub. On a "6" you damage the trade route, which means it may not be used in this round's production. On a second "6" you destroy it.

Government Counters: The little circular cardboard governmental counters serve two purposes: first, they mark the governmental affiliation of players; and second they mark the governmental affiliation of neutrals. All of these affiliations are determined randomly at the start of the game. There are four types of government, arranged on a spectrum like this:

The biggest effect of the counters is to make it harder to diplomatically take over countries with different governments, as noted in "Diplomatic Blitzes", above. You accrue a +1 penalty to your target for each level of difference.

Your government type--as well as certain counters on the board--also affect victory conditions, as described in "Winning the Game", below.

Trade Route Card: This new type of Economics card acts as a wild card, as discussed above in "Production". Players gain them by initiating a Begin Auction for Trade Route action, initially offering at least 20 PPs. The auction continues until only one player is left. Trade Routes are also vulnerable to Commerce Raiding, as described in "Naval Pieces", if submarines attack in the sea region corresponding to the Trade Route card.

Technology Cards: If you take a Research New Technology action, you get a technology card if you roll 10+ on the two normal dice. You can reduce this target by 1 for every 5 PPs you spend, prior to the roll. Technology cards can give your forces huge advantages. A few random examples of cards:

Science and Research Complex: +1 on all Research Technology rolls.
Radio/Command Control: Roll 1 extra die each round in ALL land battles.
Advanced Mass Production: All units cost 1 less Production Point.

(An unanswered question from the rules: do you have to display technology cards right away, or only when you use them?)

Political Action Cards: You get 4 of these cards to start, 1 at the end of each round, and 1 each time you take over a neutral country (though not a country from another player). They have a variety of medium-power effects. You can use an action to play as many PACs as you wish. A few random examples of cards:

Production Drive: Gain one free air unit and place it in any region that you own.
War Bonds: Gain 10 PP.
Master Spy: Steal two political action cards from any one player.
Propoganda: Shift one minor neutral government type by 1 level.

Besides offensive cards, such as those mentioned above, there are also "Block" cards, which prevent the use of other PACs.

14 of the PACs are also labeled with an "eagle". These are used to determine end game, as discussed in "Winning the Game", below.

Other Systems. The expansion also offers one other new system: strategic bombing.

Strategic Bombing: This is a somewhat abstract system where you array all of your airplanes versus all of the airplanes of an opponent. The attacker divides his planes into fighters and bombers. The defender then rolls a die for each defender plane, with a "6" marking a hit which he uses to destroy a bomber or fighter. The attacker then rolls a die for each attacker plane. A "6" for a fighter destroys a defender plane. A "6" for a bomber hits a selected Economics card, which means it isn't available for the next Production.

Winning the Game: The game now ends when one of two conditions are met: when one player is eliminated or when 13 Eagle Political Action Cards have been played (the latter probably not occurring until after the deck has been shuffled at least once.) At the end of the game, victory points are calculated, but each government type has a slightly different forumula:

Communist: +2 VP / owned region ; +1 VP / communist neutral
Democracy: +2 VP / owned region ; +1 VP / democratic neutral; -1 VP / neutral invaded
Monarchy: +2 VP / owned region ; +1 VP / region owned on a separate continent from capitol
Fascist: +2 VP / owned region ; +1 VP / region won in a battle which cost opponent 3+ troops

The Game Design

The pages of explanation above probably make it clear that the Attack! Expansion offers considerable complexity to the basic game. How well does that succeed? Here's some of the game design I liked best:

Nice Additional Complexity: The original Attack! game offered sufficient complexity to be a good introductory to mid-level war game with lots of opportunity for different strategies. This game increases the strategic potential even more. You can do things like: concentrate on technological gains; or concentrate on air power; or maintain sea power over different regions; or fight a straight land battle. These additional levels of strategy also dramatically increase the replayability of the overall game.

Nice Victory Variability: Another way to increase replayability is to vary victory conditions. The expansion does a good job of this through the 4 different victory conditions. As a fascist in my playtest, I attacked another player hard, something I would not have done in regular play of this game. A monarch worked hard for wide expansion, etc. I've heard some complaints that some of the victory conditions aren't balanced, especially the democracy which is the only government type with the potential for negative VPs. I don't agree, and instead believe that these 4 possibilities have been well-balanced, with easier victory conditions for Communists and Fascists offset by the fact that they're further out on the political spectrum, and thus less able to overthrow neutrals through diplomacy.

Early Game Sped Up: The basic Attack! game has a somewhat slow start game, wherein players can spend many turns blitzing neutrals. The domino effect introduced in the advanced game dramatically speeds up the early game, getting you to the juicy conflicts with other players much sooner.

Less Abstraction: When I reviewed the original game I commented that it felt somewhat abstract, not really like WWII. This is still somewhat the case in this supplement, because the designer has chosen not to precisely model the war, but a lot more veneer has been added, with the technology and political action cards and the government types all adding much more to the feeling of the second World War.

We had a lot of fun playtesting the game, which stayed interesting even through other players' turns. However, there were still some flaws, many related to time issues, which I felt did drag the game down. These included:

Long Turns: With each player taking a number of different actions, it can take a long time for a full round of turns to complete. Our full playtest game took about 5 hours and lasted 3 rounds. This means that on average it took an hour and two-thirds to go all the way around the table. We did play with 6 players, and the average round time would have gone down for less players, but it still would have been long. I felt that these long turns were a particularly bad contrast to the fairly short game (as war games go). As a side comment: the game does speed up toward the end of the game as oil becomes more scarce.

Staggered Turns Very Disadvantageous: As noted in the explanation of rounds, above, at the end of each round the turn order skips a player. This means that effectively you lose a turn after you go first in a round. This was clearly intended for balance, but ain't the best idea. First, this can be quite disadvantageous because you can really get ripped apart when everyone else gets 2 turns. Second, it can be a real long time chronologically before you get to go again; if you look at the above numbers, it might be 3 hours between your turns. Third, this disadvantage is unequal. Our game lasted 3 rounds, and so only half of the players faced this problem (though, admittedly, one of them was the winner).

Game Length Can Decrease Probability of Cool Stuff: The eagle-count ensures that most games last about the same length: 6 players will play 13 eagles about as fast as 3 players do. However, this also means that in a game with more players you are less likely to get to some of the more advanced systems in the game, such as trade routes, strategic bombing, and commerce raiding. Admittedly, there is a tradeoff that a game designer has to make between limiting game length by total time and limiting game length by advancement within the game, and Glenn Drover has choosen the former. For these first three timing complaints, I have some ideas for alternative rules that would overcome them, which I've outlined below.

Bad Players Can Mess Up Game: There are two places within Attack! where an inexperienced gamer can get into trouble. First, he can severely harm himself if he plays his oil too quickly and runs out without sufficient opportunity to refuel. Second, new players can harm the whole game if they play eagles too fast, and thus bring the game to a premature end. Clearly, neither of these problems will be real issues when a majority of your gaming group becomes experienced with this game. But, having these landmines laying out for new players isn't the best design.

Looking at the Attack! Expansion as a whole, I like it better than playing the basic game on its own. The additional strategic complexity appeals to me as a gamer. However, I also feel like it costs the game some of the simplicity which really makes the basic game stand out. I had no problem at all saying that the basic game was vastly superior to Risk, because I felt like it was a much better design with much more replayability possible. However, in trying to ascend to the level of Axis & Allies, the Attack! Expansion is no longer as standout as its predecessor. It's a fair alternative, but not a vastly superior one.

I also felt like the Attack! Expansion was more flawed than its predecessor. They're not huge flaws--as I said we had a lot of fun--and they're also flaws that I think are imminently correctable. However, in rating the Substance of a game, I think it's only fair to rate the game as presented, not how I re-envision it personally. Taking that all into account, I think that the Attack! Expansion is fairly average for the industry, and thus it earns a Substance rating of "3" out of "5".

Design Alternatives

I think the following alternative designs would correct the issues in the expansion that I found the most flawed:

Threaded Turns: Rather than players taking a full turn of actions, instead each player takes actions one at a time, rotating around the table. The first action-round, every player who wants to take an action pays 1 oil, the second action/round two, etc. Players can take an action even if they've skipped previous action-rounds, but must play the current amount. A full Round continues until an action-round occurs where no one goes. I believe this will dramatically reduce the problem of long turns. It might also create some interesting new interactions, with players being more reactive to opponent moves. Finally, this also notably reduces any disadvantage from staggered turns; those can still be kept, if it's felt there's a real advantage for going first in a full Round, but now a player only has his first action notably delayed.

Variable Endgame: Endgame is calculated variably, with number of eagles required dependent upon number of players in the game. I'm not sure what the math should be, but it might be something like: 5 eagles + 2/player. This would mean 11 eagles for a 3-player game and 17 for a 6-player game. This offers the opportunity for all games to reach comparable levels of advancement, and thus access to all the interesting systems.

Conclusion

The Attack! Expansion offers considerable complexity and strategic possibility to Attack! If you liked the original game and are ready to take the next step, you should pick this up. I have a harder time recommending this over Axis & Allies, because this game seems less mature than the old favorite. Instead I'll fall back to my statement in the previous review, which is that you should decide whether you want strict simulation or freeform replayability: A&A offers the first, Attack! the second. In any case, if you're considering Attack! as an alternative to A&A, you definitely want this supplement.

In 2 reviews, average style rating is 5.00 and average substance rating is 3.50.