• I recently had a couple friends in town who talked me into playing Pacific 40.2 for the first time in months.  (Mostly, it had been 1914 or 1941)  We sold my wife on it, and my 5-month-old loved sitting in his high chair and watching.  It was, hands down, the most fun I have had with this game ever.  The other guys were WWII buffs, but they mostly knew about the European theater– I had the “advantage” of a decent knowledge of the Pacific War, so they asked me to play Japan, which I had never done before.  It was glorious.  The turns went quickly, and we knocked out the game in 15 rounds over the course of eight hours with a break for pizza.  We had distinct players for the US, ANZAC, UK India/China, and Japan.

    I decided to play this with the attitude that I didn’t want to just win-- I find that making the Japanese Batting Ram of Inevitable Doom is a bit gamey and heavily reliant on luck and memorized moves which would make everything a series of rote moves for the first few rounds, so I decided to weigh in what I knew about the Japanese war aims when deciding what my moves would be.  I went with a fairly historical-ish strategy, focusing on expanding quickly into the economically enticing South, and I spent J1 staging my forces for quick expansion.  The US player got cocky and moved his fleet to Hawaii, and I declared war J2, sinking his fleet, taking Wake Is, the Aleutians, and Alaska.  In the South Pacific I dropped some troops in New Guinea, Celebes, and Borneo, and I crushed the main UK India ship concentration.  I focused on fighting and hopping islands, using all my forces and operating on a shoestring budget.  I skirmished in China, and was mostly content to remain on the easily defended coast.

    After 4 or so more turns, I finally had taken the Philippines and Hawaii, but the Americans kicked me out of Alaska and the Aleutians.  I was skirmishing with the Aussies in their defensive perimeter, and they were getting the best of me.  UK India and ANZAC had combined their fleets near Java, and I crushed them, but I had lost two of my carriers through many different battles and several lighter ships.  I could barely keep up with the replacements, and even at that juncture, things were balanced on a knife’s edge.

    Another 4 or so turns after that, ANZAC had rallied and retaken the defensive perimeter, Java, and Celebes, but I had flanked them and taken New Zealand.  UK India on the mainland had pushed me up to above Hong Kong, and the US had knocked my fleet away from Hawaii, but my land forces held it, since the US player had too few transports to take it.

    After about the next three turns, the pendulum swung the other direction, and I had retaken the “money islands” down in the South and wiped out the last UK and ANZAC naval forces.  The US was matching me ship for ship, but I had more available fighters due to island airbases; we were at a stalemate.  I had a factory in Manchuria, and I succeeded in pushing the British back to Burma while taking horrific losses, but my naval superiority allowed me to convoy raid India and keep the numbers manageable.

    Another couple of turns after that, Japan was poised to take Australia, and India was in trouble.  The US had pushed me out of Hawaii and Midway, but my fleet had escaped without getting mauled too badly.  He had a slight edge in warships, but those were all minor surface combatants, so I was doing more damage in each battle.

    We called it at that point due to sheer exhaustion, and we declared a Japanese moral victory on a game that easily looked like it could go another ten rounds.

    The rolls were great the whole game-- everyone had their share of epic victories and losses, and we all agreed that the way the rolling worked out rewarded good tactics-- the only way it could have been more even was with low luck.  I haven’t raved about a game like this is a while, and it really pleases me that Pacific 1940.2 can deliver such an engaging experience.


  • Sounds like a lot of fun and played fairly quickly as you only played on one map. Congratulations on holding out against your friends and making things both hard and interesting for them.
    Is good to know your baby got to watch too!


  • @DWoodchuck:

    We sold my wife on it, and my 5-month-old loved sitting in his high chair and watching.Â

    I sense you have a potential future A&A enthusiast there.  Always good to catch 'em young!

  • Customizer

    Guys,

    @CWO:

    @DWoodchuck:

    We sold my wife on it, and my 5-month-old loved sitting in his high chair and watching.�

    I sense you have a potential future A&A enthusiast there.  Always good to catch 'em young!

    ––I love it! You gotta teach ‘em young. And the “art” of rollin’ dice isn’t necessarily a bad thing,…haha.

    “Tall Paul”

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