G.I. JOE: Battle for the Arctic Circle Review

As a child of the 80s, GI Joe was right up there to dominate my Saturday morning cartoons along with the likes of He-Man and Transformers. While I leaned more into He-Man, GI Joe was easily a close second. I had tons of the action figures, vehicles, and playsets (except the Space Shuttle Command Center—my sadness over this will never end). Fast forward to my college years and I was introduced to Axis and Allies. This war game hoovered up my free time as I spent countless hours pouring over the WW2 map moving around little plastic miniatures.

So where is all this going? Today, we are going to look at the newest game from publisher Renegade Games: G.I. JOE: Battle for the Arctic Circle. It’s “powered by Axis and Allies” and seeks to take that familiar gameplay where knowing is half the battle.

Gameplay Overview:

If you’ve played Axis and Allies before, then a lot will be familiar to you. In fact, the rulebook even starts off with what’s changed for players who are familiar with the system. For the rest of you, here is the general overview of how the game is played.

G.I. JOE: Battle for the Arctic Circle comes with three different scenarios that will task you with either getting the most VPs before round seven, or capturing your opponent’s base. There are four factions in the game, split into two teams of allies: Admiral Keel-Haul and Snow Job take the lead for the Joes, while Cobra Commander and Destro are in charge of the forces of Cobra. While the two leaders are allied, they very much play as separate players, and can’t share units or resources.

On a player’s turn, they first purchase reinforcements using their earned points. Points are earned from their starting bases, as well as captured VP hexes they control. Up to 4 points may also be banked for a future turn. These points are used to purchase troops, vehicles, ships, and planes.

After purchasing, then the active player can make any combat moves. This allows the player to move any units up to their move value and, once done, start battles in each hex they ended. Battles are handled via dice rolls where a unit has to roll equal to or under their attack/defense value. Units hit are destroyed.

After combat, any units that haven’t moved yet can make a non-combat move. Finally, the turn ends with your reinforcements arriving on the board at one of your two bases.

The game ends either once a scenario objective has been accomplished, or after 7 rounds, in which case the player with the most VPs wins.

Game Experience:

So far, Renegade Games GI Joe-themed board games have been spot on. The GI Joe Deck Building game was one of my favorite games from 2021, and GI Joe Mission Critical is a favorite of fellow BGQ reviewer Marcus. So where does that leave G.I. JOE: Battle for the Arctic Circle? That’s a tough question. At its core, it’s an Axis and Allies game, yet despite the rules being developed in 1981, the system is still pretty solid today.

In fact, I was a fan of a lot of the streamlining designer Matt Hyra did. Switching to hex based movement vs. a lot of randomly sized areas makes things much cleaner. Dumping the paper money for reinforcement points is also a welcome change because pretty much every use of paper money in a board game sucks (except for Millennium Blades). The added stacking limits help combats from not getting too unwieldy. Overall the streamlined battle system works well, keeps the Axis and Allies core in place, but makes things smoother.

Where I found myself wishing for more though was with the theming. It’s an Axis and Allies game, but the GI Joe portion doesn’t go far enough to immerse you. Sure the leaders have powers tied to the character like Snow Job giving his arctic troops extra movement or Cobra Commander sacrificing his own units to take out a Joe. And I was informed by someone more knowledgeable than me that Rattlers are VTOLs, so they can take off and land anywhere, which they can do in the game. So that’s all nice.

But outside of these fine details, I feel like I could be playing any generic Axis and Allies game. I really don’t feel like I’m leading a team of Joes (or Cobra into battle). I would have loved to see leader units on the board (even if they were just standees like in Horus Heresy). But something to feel like I’m taking a few troops into battle being led by Roadblock and Scarlet. The ships are just generic Airfact Carriers and Cruisers, the Arctic Troopers and Snow Serpents have nothing special about them, so the only thing on theme are the names of the planes and ground vehicles.

I will give the designer props for coming up with The Weather Dominator, it allows the Cobra player to freeze over a hex into solid ice. Now the hex has to be empty, so no blasting the Joes from orbit. But this kind of wacky invention feels on point for a Cobra machination.

My only other gripe is that the production values feel a tad subpar. The punchboard is only 1mm thick (as opposed to the usual 2mm), and the miniatures feel kind of low quality and blobby compared to the renders posted online. And I wasn’t a huge fan of sticking with the old Axis and Allies generic poker chips for unit stacking. Feels cheap by today’s standards. And I understand Renegade Games wanting to keep costs down, I was just hoping for a bit more.

Final Thoughts:

Despite my grouching, I think G.I. JOE: Battle for the Arctic Circle is still a good game. It’s Axis and Allies at its core with some nice streamlining, so it was always set up for success on that front. Where it falters for me is with its thematic integration. The GI Joe element is there, but it really doesn’t go deep enough. After a few rounds in the game, you almost forget you are playing a GI Joe game and more so feel like you are just playing Axis and Allies Arctic Circle. If you are an Axis and Allies fan and want a quicker playing experience, this one is worth checking out. If you are looking for a thematic GI Joe game, this one will probably leave you wanting a little more.

Final Score: 3 Stars – A solid Axis and Allies game, but those looking for a thematic Joe vs.Cobra battle will be left wanting more.

Hits:
• The Axis and Allies system still works well
• Streamlined rules make for a quicker game
• Weather Dominator was fun to play

Misses:
• Thematic ties don’t go far enough
• Production values could use a boost