Most days on summer break during my middle school years you wouldn't find me at home playing video games.

Instead I'd be at Travis and Tyler's house where at the top of a step ladder, leading to a wobbly card table,

in a plywood floored room they'd constructed above their garage,

was the perfect place to play role-playing games and board games.

One of the favorites among my group of friends at the time was called Axis and Allies,

five players on two teams, the Axis countries of Germany and Japan

against the allies of the United States, United Kingdom, and USSR. The game is still around a day and from what I understand it's changed a bit but back when I first started playing it well before that settlers of

Kitan bumper sticker was just a glimmer in your car's eye. The idea of shelling out for a board

game that unfolded to the size of a small coffee table and came with 300 plastic game pieces that took an entire day to punch out of their plastic trees,

along with a 32-page instruction book, was fairly novel.

The board took an hour for us to set up and the game sometimes took days to play.

We loved it.

Playing as the United States felt patriotic and easier given their remove from the Hornet's nest of the European theatre.

Playing as an Axis power country felt like a personal heel turn and we delighted in our fleet deployments,

bombing raids and Blitzcreeks.

We played Axis and allies over and over again for years, and it felt whoever played as Germany

won every time.

They had every advantage in the game. They started with the most

weapons, gobbled up territory early in the game, and just made a mess at the map that took effortful

voice-cracking coordination by the other country's leaders to contain.

By playing the game over and over again, I think we grasped the big picture and the main players

of World War II, but we didn't have the details. For instance,

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