Never Start a Land War In Asia

I am a war game enthusiast- and I mean real games, not video games.
Board Games
What makes board games so fantastic is that the poor game designer, probably in Germany, where it seems the best games are from (if the designer has an Umlaut in his name, thats a good sign), he, or she, must rely not on flashing lights and sound effects, and lots of adrenaline driving action and shooting, but rather small colorful pieces of paper, and a large piece of cardboard. While this may sound like a downside, it isn't- it forces the designer to create a mental challenge to pit one player against another in a challenge of wits, and let the craving maw of the player's ravenous ego elevated the rather mundane action of rolling dice, or playing a card, to a level of adrenaline pumping, action packed, 360 Bose surround sound induced delusion impossible to replicate without liberal use of explosives and a leased Fokker Triplane. You may be worried that the game you buy will have failed to achieve this effect- and you are probably right. Do your research before you spend 40 bucks on a cardboard box filled with more cardboard.

This brings me to war board games- and their are many great ones. Of course there is the classic Risk- fantastic game, depending on the group of people. Its best to play with a variety of personalities, and to play multiple games over time so you can learn each person quirks and strategies- this adds a delicious three-layer humus-y flavor to the game. One person may always ally with another, or never attack until the end of the game, or act completely random. One of the most amusing games I have played was when my normal group of Risk enthusiasts played a game with a new person, who believed that if someone made an alliance with them, they were honor bound to keep it. Deception, deception- its all politics.

There are a number of other games, some which take less time than risk, such as Memoir 44, which involves a single battle, to ones that last much longer. One of these much longer games is particular notable- Axis and Allies. This is a true board game, not lacking in any complexity, in all senses a worthy mental challenge. One of the aspects that makes it hyper realistic is that it lasts so long that, as a commander, you begin to question the common sense of starting the war in the first place. Is it worth it to spend another four turns building up a fleet of aircraft carriers and planes to go make a futile landing Taiwan, when the Mongolian infantry are just going to crush you ill equipped landing party in a few more turns?
Okay, so maybe the game isn't so bad.
Well, its actauly probably my fault. The real rules require a set up time of about and hour and a half, and you don't get to choose anything at all- you just set up the board more or less like it was in the mid part of WWII and begin. I'm sure the game designers did tons of research on the battles and war fare and strategies of the actual battalions and so forth of WWII, and based on these data, decided that playing the role of the commander of a marine fleet would be quite exciting, since the risk of dying and what not was removed. They probably would have been correct. But that is not who you play. You play commander of the the entire axis or allied forces (hence the name) Do you think that was an exciting position to hold in WWII? Do you think Stalin's adrenaline was pumping as ordered the production of six million more tanks to be manufactured, only destined to crawl their way across the frozen tundra to meet their futile end in some otherwise insignificant battle? No. But he had to didn't he? He had no other choice but to send wave after wave of troops to go fight pointless battles, and Stalingrad was still destroyed.
This is exactly what happens in Axis and Allies. The goal of the game (according to my more interesting and playable rules) is to destroy everything. To destroy everything, you need tanks and infantry and so forth, which cost money. You get x amount of money each turn depending on how many countries you have taken over. So you need alot of land to make alot of money. Guess where there is alot of land?
Thats right- Russia. So nearly every game devolves into a slow, painful, expensive, boring land war in Asia. As the Sicilian in princess bride would say "Ha! You've fallen for the most classic blunder! Never start a land war in Asia"
And now I know why

(Historical facts unverified. In another note, I circumvented this whole issue by making the land in Asia worthless- not the wars are more full of interesting sea, air, land battles. There are a million other little things about the game that drive me crazy, but I won't mention them, and anyways, they are real situations that develop in real war, so cudos on the makers of Axis and Allies tricking me into thinking a 15 hour hyper-realistic war game would be any less aggravating and painstaking than a real war.)