Axis & Allies Board Game | How to Play and Win

Axis & Allies is a 2 to 5 player World War II strategy game where five powers buy and move plastic armies on a shared world map, roll dice for every battle, and the Allies win by capturing both Axis capitals.

If you have only ever seen Axis & Allies on a shelf and assumed it was Risk with better bits, the honest answer is that it is Risk with an economy, a research tree, and five genuinely different powers bolted on. It is a 1981 design by Larry Harris Jr. that became the flagship of Milton Bradley Gamemaster line, and it is still the reference point that every big tabletop wargame gets measured against.

The rules are long on paper but short on exceptions. Every power takes the same six actions in the same order every turn, combat is one die per unit against a printed number, and money is nothing more than the total income value of the land you hold. Where it gets heavy is the table, not the text: a classic game is listed at about 180 minutes, and a slow table with a lot of talking runs most of an evening. If your table is still finding its feet with modern games, our guide to the Catan rules and strategies is the gentler place to start.

One thing before the rules. The old version of this page filed Axis & Allies as a cooperative game, never told you how you win, and described the six player 1940 Global variant as if it were the base box. Everything below is checked against the classic rulebook, and where the old page was wrong it says so.

Affiliate disclosure: this page contains Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through one we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, and it never changes the verdict below.

How you win Axis & Allies, and why it is not a fight to the last man

The Allies win by capturing both Axis capitals, Berlin and Tokyo, while the Axis win by capturing two of the three Allied capitals, Washington, Moscow, and London, or by reaching a combined income of 84 IPCs at the end of a full round.

That is the whole target, and it is the rule most newcomers never learn. This is not a game about wiping a colour off the map, even though it looks like one. It is a game about breaking the enemy economy and then walking into a capital, and a smart player will often stop attacking the moment the war is decided rather than grind it out for another hour.

The two sides have different roads to victory, and that asymmetry is the heart of the design:

Side	How it wins
Allies	Capture both Axis capitals, Berlin and Tokyo
Axis military	Capture two of the three Allied capitals, Washington, Moscow, and London, while keeping your own two capitals safe
Axis economic	Reach a combined German and Japanese income of 84 IPCs at the end of a complete round, without taking another capital

The economic route is the one people forget. The Axis start with better armies but weaker economies, so if Japan and Germany can grow their combined production to 84 IPCs they win the war on paper. That is why the Axis are the side that plays on a clock: every round that passes without a breakthrough lets the Allied factories catch up jerk by jerk. If a world conquest race on a shared map is exactly your idea of a great night, our roundup of board games like Risk for world domination is the wider list to raid next.

The five powers, and how 2 to 5 players share them

Axis & Allies is a 2 to 5 player game with five powers: Germany and Japan on the Axis, and the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States on the Allies.

There are no neutral players and no hidden traitors. You are assigned one or more of the five powers, and you are on a team for the whole game. Here is how the box sets up at each player count:

Players	Who plays what
2	One player takes all three Allies, the other takes Germany and Japan
3	One player takes all three Allies, one takes Germany, the other takes Japan
4	One player takes the Soviet Union and the United States, one takes the United Kingdom, one takes Germany, one takes Japan
5	One power each, which is the way the game is meant to be played

The Soviet Union, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the United States each take their turn in that order, and a full round is over once all five powers have gone. Germany and Japan want different things from the same war, which is why a two player game where one person runs both is a very different mental exercise from a five player table where the Axis can argue with each other.

The five powers are also genuinely lopsided. Germany fights on two fronts with the best land army on the board, the Soviet Union absorbs wave after wave of German armor, the United Kingdom is spread thin across the globe, Japan is a naval monster with a fragile economy, and the United States is the richest power but has to choose between two oceans. If asymmetry done even harder is what you love, Root turns that idea into a woodland war where every faction plays by different rules.

A turn in Axis & Allies is six actions in a fixed order

Every power takes the same six actions in order on its turn: develop weapons or purchase units, combat movement, combat, noncombat movement, place new units, and collect income.

The six actions never change, and that is what makes the game teachable despite its size. You can skip almost any of them, but the only one you must do every turn is collect your income. Here is the whole turn in one table:

#	Action	What happens
1	Develop weapons and purchase units	Spend IPCs on research dice, new units, or both
2	Combat movement	Move units into enemy territories and sea zones
3	Combat	Resolve every battle you started, one at a time, on the battle board
4	Noncombat movement	Move the units that did not fight, then land all aircraft
5	Place new units	Deploy what you bought at your industrial complexes
6	Collect income	Take IPCs equal to your national production level

That order matters. You buy before you move and you collect last, so a unit you cannot legally place is simply lost, and a territory you grab this turn only pays you next turn. Learning to look one turn ahead is most of the skill in the game.

How combat works: one die per unit, and the defender picks the dead

In combat you roll one die for each unit and score a hit when the roll is equal to or lower than the number printed for that unit, and whoever is taking the hits chooses which of their own units are removed.

Battles are fought on a separate battle board with columns printed from one to four. Each unit has an attack number and a defense number, and a roll that lands on or under the right number is a hit. Two details catch out new players. First, the person taking the hits decides which of their own units dies, so you choose your casualties to protect what matters. Second, casualties go behind a casualty line and still get to fire back in that same round, so combat is not attacker first and defender dead. A round of battle is simultaneous, and then you do it again until one side is wiped out or the attacker retreats.

A few special cases sit on top of that. Submarines get a first strike that hits before normal ships fire. Antiaircraft guns shoot at bombers and fighters as they fly in. Bombers can skip the battlefield entirely and run a strategic bombing raid on an enemy factory to drain that power IPCs. And tanks can blitz: if a tank rolls into an enemy controlled but empty territory on the first step of its move, it captures the land for free and keeps going. If you love the swing of dice in a battle rather than a whole war to manage, our Warhammer 40,000 board game guide is the hobby at the other end of the scale.

Here are the classic unit stats, which are the numbers you roll against all game:

Unit	Cost in IPCs	Attack	Defense	Move
Infantry	3	1	2	1
Armor	5	3	2	2
Fighter	12	3	4	4
Bomber	15	4	1	6
Battleship	24	4	4	2
Aircraft carrier	18	1	3	2
Submarine	8	2	2	2
Transport	8	0	1	2
Antiaircraft gun	5	0	0	1
Industrial complex	15	none	none	none

Income and production: IPCs are the entire economy

Income in Axis & Allies is measured in Industrial Production Certificates, or IPCs, and you collect one for every point of value in the territories you control.

If you understand IPCs, you understand Axis & Allies. Every land territory on the map is worth a number of IPCs, and your income is simply the total value of everything you hold. When you take a territory from an enemy, your production goes up by the same amount that theirs goes down, which is why the map is a zero sum tug of war rather than a race.

A few production rules decide more games than any dice roll. You collect your income at the end of your turn, and you can only collect it if you still control your own capital. If an enemy takes your capital, they also seize your entire saved treasury and you cannot buy anything until you take it back. New industrial complexes that you build or capture are limited to producing as many units as the territory printed value, while your original home complexes can build without limit. Each nation starts with a set treasury, from 24 IPCs for the Soviet Union up to 36 for the United States, and Germany starts on 32 while the Axis as a pair start on 57.

The board: territories, sea zones, and two canals

The classic board is a map of the whole world divided into land territories, each worth a number of IPCs, with sea zones between the continents and two canals at Panama and Suez.

Every territory is in one of three states. Friendly means you or an ally controls it. Hostile means an enemy does. Neutral means nobody does, and neutral spaces are impassable until someone violates them, which costs a three IPC fine to the bank. That is why Turkey, Spain, and Sweden sit quietly frozen for most games and only open when a player is desperate.

Sea zones work the same way, except a sea zone is only hostile if an enemy surface warship is in it, so an enemy submarine or transport does not block you. Islands sit inside a single sea zone and are the stepping stones across the Pacific. The Panama and Suez canals connect two oceans, but only for a side that controls them at the start of the turn. Aircraft are the wildcard on top of all this, because a fighter with a range of four can cross several territories in one hop and then has to find somewhere friendly to land.

Which edition are these rules for?

These are the rules for the classic five power Axis & Allies, the 1981 Larry Harris design that Milton Bradley published as a Second Edition in 1984.

That distinction matters, because the game you find in a shop today may be a very different animal. The original Axis & Allies was designed by Larry Harris Jr. and published by Nova Games in 1981. Milton Bradley picked it up and released its Second Edition in 1984 as a flagship of the Gamemaster series, the version most people mean when they say classic Axis & Allies, and the one this page describes. Avalon Hill and then Hasbro took the line over and refreshed it, including a 2004 Avalon Hill edition with new sculpts and new unit types.

Then there is the modern family of games. Europe 1940, Pacific 1940, and the combined Global 1940 add Italy and China as powers and swap the capital based victory for a victory city count, which is why you see box numbers like two to six players and much longer play times. Those are excellent games, but they are not the classic five power game, and the two get mixed up constantly.

House strategy: how we play it, and none of this is official rules

None of this is in the rulebook. These are the habits that turn a first game of Axis & Allies from a slow loss into a real campaign.

The single biggest beginner mistake is playing the Axis like a slow builder. Germany and Japan have to spend their early money on units and pressure, not on factories and research, because the longer the war runs the better the Allied economy gets.

The Axis are on a clock. Germany should be buying armor and infantry, not saving, and Japan should be grabbing the rich Pacific islands early to fund its navy. Every turn the Axis spend building an economy they will never win with is a turn the Allies spend building one they will.

The Allies trade space for time. The Soviet Union does not need to hold every territory. Falling back toward Moscow while the German army outruns its supply is a real strategy, not a retreat, and the Soviet player should save IPCs to drop a wall of infantry in front of the German tanks.

Never skip the money. It is tempting to spend every IPC on units, but a factory or a well placed industrial complex pays for itself over a long game. The player who thinks two turns ahead about production usually beats the player who only counts tanks.

Talk to your team out loud. In a five player game the allies can coordinate, and the Axis can too. A lone German attack that nobody supports is how the Axis lose a war they were winning.

Is Axis & Allies good for families? Our honest take

No, not for young kids. Axis & Allies is a long, heavy wargame for teens and adults, and it belongs on the shelf next to your other big strategy games rather than next to a Friday night family filler. The theme is real World War II combat, the box is rated 12 and up, and a single game can eat an entire afternoon, so this is not a game you hand to a seven year old and walk away.

The honest picture is a little more forgiving than the reputation. There is nothing graphic in the box, the dice add drama rather than gore, and a patient teenager can genuinely learn the whole six action turn in one sitting. What stops younger players is stamina and bookkeeping, not content. If your table already loves a heavy, sprawling strategy game, our Gaia Project guide is a similarly long, brain burning evening with no war theme at all.

• Similarities: Both are long, heavy strategy games where you build an economy and then convert it into control of a shared map, and both reward planning several turns ahead.
• Differences: Axis & Allies is a two team wargame with dice driven combat, no hidden information, and capitals you capture, while Gaia Project is a peaceful no luck euro about terraforming planets.
• Why this game fans will enjoy it: If your group loves the scale and planning of a heavy game but not the war theme, Gaia Project is the same weight of decision with a completely different mood.

Which Axis & Allies to buy

Version	What it is	Best for
Axis & Allies 1942 Second Edition	The current five power game, closest to the classic experience with modern components	Most buyers who want the game as it is played today
Axis & Allies 1941	A shorter, cheaper, stripped back version made as a first step into the series	Families and newcomers testing the water before a full game
Axis & Allies Europe 1940	The detailed European theater game with Italy as a third Axis power	Veterans who want a deeper, longer campaign

If you are buying your first copy, the 1942 Second Edition is the safe pick, because it keeps the classic five power structure while giving you clean modern parts. The 1941 edition is the gentle on ramp, a smaller game you can finish in one evening, and it is the one I would hand a family that is not sure it has the appetite for a full war. Only reach for the 1940 games once you already love the system, because they add powers, time, and rules that will bury a first timer. If you want a heavy strategy game in the same weight class with no war on the table at all, Great Western Trail is the calm alternative.

Frequently asked questions

How many players does Axis & Allies support?

Axis & Allies is a 2 to 5 player game, with Germany and Japan on the Axis and the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States on the Allies. Two players split the two alliances, and five players each take one power.

How do you win Axis & Allies?

The Allies win by capturing both Axis capitals, Berlin and Tokyo, while the Axis win by capturing two of the three Allied capitals, Washington, Moscow, and London, or by reaching a combined income of 84 IPCs. Taking a capital also seizes the IPCs that power has saved, so a fast strike can pay for itself.

How long does a game of Axis & Allies take?

A classic game of Axis & Allies is listed at about 180 minutes, though a full game with an experienced table often runs four to six hours. The 1940 Europe, Pacific, and Global editions run longer still.

What are the phases of a turn in Axis & Allies?

Every turn has six actions in order: develop weapons or purchase units, combat movement, combat, noncombat movement, place new units, and collect income. Collecting income is the only action a player must take every turn.

How does combat work in Axis & Allies?

In combat each unit rolls one die and scores a hit on a result equal to or lower than its attack value when attacking or its defense value when defending. The player taking the hits chooses which units are removed, and casualties still get to fire back in the same round.

What is an IPC in Axis & Allies?

An IPC is an Industrial Production Certificate, the money in Axis & Allies, and you collect one for each point of income in the territories you control. Taking enemy territory raises your production and lowers that of your opponent.

Is Axis & Allies good for kids and families?

No, Axis & Allies is a long, heavy wargame for teens and adults rather than young children. Emma at 10 can follow the map with an adult and Alex at 7 cannot, so we keep it for older players.