This is good stuff. I really appreciate the color balance in your version.
-Midnight_Reaper
Guadalcanal first impressions
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i have 4 copies but haven’t played it yet.
i will in 8 days however.
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My local game shop can’t get my set in. His distributor has fouled the whole thing up. I really want to play and I really want to participate in all of these discussions but until I can get some games in I’d be talking out my woo ha. :x
And I do enough of that already. :lol:
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Okay my set came in and I didn’t get to do much more than open it and check the pieces with the inventory in the rulebook.
Box is the same as the other sets except for graphics.
NO MISSING PIECES. I had what the part inventory said I should have.
Granted I didn’t count the BOTB or D-Day sets out to see if they had all the pieces the box says they had. I never thought because there weren’t enough pieces for every spot on the reinforcement charts I was shorted pieces. That is not to say I wasn’t but the point is I didn’t check. But this set had what it said I should have. :-)
I hate the tray. It has good points like the board sort of snaps in, making the board a sort of lid. And there is one unlike in Revised and D-Day. It does not have enough spaces and it has these indentations in the spaces giving each space two levels which I think is going to prove awkward. I prefer the nine space deal in the Bulge set. :-(
Great board very shiny and lively looking. :-)
Heavy stock on the ref. charts, islands, and various tokens. Good graphics. Very good. 8-)
Battlebox/Dicebox too soon to tell. It does seem sturdy enough and like it will hold up. :|
Rulebook has lots of color this time around and seems very clear (although I haven’t finished reading it.) :-)
That’s it so far. :|
Now I got to get a game in which will be tough before the holidays. :-(
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I have played the game now and the instructions are not clear on one thing.
Do you only pay supply to move ships from the cards during deployment or do you also pay during movement as well? I only noted you pay during deployment.
Also, when fighters and bombers are attacking one another, do you add the ship anti air values or do you have a pure air combat first?
Thanks
Commander Hara
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Frimmel, I think you will enjoy the battlebox. It is won the best things about this new game. I hope you get to play soon because I think you will also like the back and forth play that Guadalcanal gives you.
Commander Hara, to move you units from the base card you can pay supplies during deployment or move them up doing the move phase. I hope this helps and you enjoy the game! That was something I did wrong the first time I played too. It is a little unclear in the rule book.
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Do you only pay supply to move ships from the cards during deployment or do you also pay during movement as well? I only noted you pay during deployment.
You only pay supplies to move ships during Deployment. During the Movement phase they move for free. Basically, paying to move them during Deployment just gets them to the front faster.
Also, when fighters and bombers are attacking one another, do you add the ship anti air values or do you have a pure air combat first?
Everything that attacks air units, including AA guns, ships and other air units, attacks them together at the same time.
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Frimmel, I think you will enjoy the battlebox. It is won the best things about this new game. I hope you get to play soon because I think you will also like the back and forth play that Guadalcanal gives you.
I’m certainly excited about the way movement works. The one player moves their units of x type and the other player counters is very attractive to me. :-)
The combat system isn’t really blowing my skirts up so to speak. :-( I haven’t played yet but it seems the random part is only that you get a chance to hit the more valuable piece instead of it having to go onto the less valuable piece.
That “no hit doesn’t hit” part feels like the traditional system pretending it is a random system. :|
2 FTRs on a FTR and BOM in this system getting two hits destoys both if I understand the system correctly. But in the BOTB system it might be just a FTR, just a BOM or both that get hit.
One hit has a chance at the BOM where in the traditional system it doesn’t but it does in the BOTB system too.
I think that “no hit doesn’t hit” takes away the part where a battle can not go as calculated even if you were really lucky and the dice did come up better than the average calculated for hits like in BOTB. I once had five hits on one unit in BOTB and two units were able to hold the ground. That is “random” to me.
But I won’t know till I get a chance to play. And it still looks like loads of fun. :-)
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I might partial agree with you. I think the combat system works great but, maybe could benefit from the lack of “no hit doesn’t hit”. Sometimes it seems like when you have an air battle all your planes die most of the time. It would cut back a little if it was a little more BOTB like. The way that" some hits don’t hit". Easily fixed with house rules.
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After playing several times I prefer to play with out the victory points. It of course takes longer to finish a game but feels more statisfying to win. I just play without getting points but to just conquer the islands until they are all captured or my opponent capitulates. Has anyone else played this way?
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I am working on a game right now just to see how long a non VP game takes.
The US won via VP’s 15-13 but I kept going. The game board looked more like a draw then a US victory. US held three islands and Japan held three islands and both navies were still able to carry on the fight, in fact the Japanese were about to land troops on New Georgia to try to retake it.Seems like the VP game is real short, I also have not been able to damage an air field yet in order to slow down the VP rush.
On the other hand I am really fond of this game, it seems evenly matched depending on your purchases and deployment. Battles go back and forth and the first airbattle we tried opened eveyone’s eyes, its dangerous to be a pilot in the south pacific!
I kind of like the battlebox and am going to try it with AAP, substituting the aa gun for armor.
On the other hand while “no hit doesn’t hit” might work well, often in combat your weapons are aimed at something and often hit something else. In the pacific spreds of torpedoes were fired at ship A only to miss and hit ship B and sometimes even ship C. When I was a USMC tanker most of the time I hit (or missed cleanly) what I aimed at but sometimes I hit other things and many times I had to “spray and prey” as they call it. I could see how you could fire at an enemy tank but instead kill the enemy troops nearby…enough of my early 90’s “war” stories.
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My son and I are just playing our second game today. Yesterday’s game was called on account of cluelessness. We played several things the wrong way. Unfortunately, I blame this on the rulebook not being fully developed with playing examples and situations that will certainly occur not even being mentioned in the rules.
I think this is a quality game. The appearance that a game will proceed quickly once we understand the rules is a plus because I couldn’t get him to stick with a full game of AAR. I received only one red chip, not the ten indicated in the rulebook inventory. I think the cruisers are too close to the size of a battleship, but that is because the destroyers are much too big to begin with. Downsizing cruisers and destroyers would improve the game for me. I also think more fighter aircraft need to be included because when you deploy a carrier, you want to place two aircraft pieces on the carrier, not an airplane and a chip. Then you need at least six additional fighters, one for each airfield you are likely to use (I think realistically controlling five might be the max that ever happens in a VP game). I really love the battlebox. I hated the situation where an opponent selected his infantry and empty transports. This system is a nice balance between randomness and focus. I always thought, especially in sea battles, that a player should have a chance to focus on particular ships. It also creates the right feeling of making escort ships relevent. There is good reason to have plenty of destroyers to pick up the random hit nto assigned to a missing battleship, or transport. It also gives a player a chance to hit the loaded transports which I find more satisfying from a realism perspective.
My son is rather timid and as the Americans has not made much of a fight. Unfortunately, my forces will build up (4 islands to 2 islands) and he will see they need to act with more purpose early. Studying the game, though, I see that it will be difficult for the Japanese to hold four islands through two turns. It appears to me the US will easily capture all of Guadalcanal and Melita on turn 1 and could build an airfield on Melita on turn 1 if they dare. Turn 2 will often see Santa Isabel fall to the Americans, unless the Japanese protect her too much, when New Gerogia will fall to the Americans instead.
The arrangement of the sea zones presents problems for the defender. There are just too many ways for an agressor to make progress and little opportunity for the defender to block him. This then appears to lead to a massive naval battle when niether side wants to make such a gamble. This really captures the feeling of tension and importance Guadalcanal represented to the Pacific war. Many folks heard about the Battle of Midway and know it was a turning point in the war. But few understand the significance of Guadalcanal as the Marine Corps victory that accomplished the same thing in the island campaigns.
I’d have liked some changes to the ships, and a few more fighters, but I give this game two big thumbs up!
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You could always contact AH Customer Service to get your missing red chips. Alternatively, you could buy a copy of Battle of the Bulge (which I’m sure you’d enjoy), and use the red chips from it, since they don’t get used anyway.
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or raid a Yahtzee game :lol:
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Early Impression after my first two games.
The battlebox is loud and the twelfth die doesn’t always settle into the neck.
Air units don’t live long.
Subs are cool if they sink things otherwise you are better off with a destroyer for 1 more IMO. Although if your opponent is still in Revised thinking they might send aircraft after them when the planes would be better off somewhere else. :-)
The game shouldn’t be long enough to worry about getting some sort of shuck-shuck going from your base card to the front. It is two turns from the slot (szH) or (SZI) back to base and 2 points for a supply to deploy to board or three turns back to board without the supply and unless the fight is at Guadalcanal or Malaita that is too slow. It is 2 points for a new TRN. If you want to get land units from the base to the front you will need more TRNs or DST along with the additional land units.
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The battlebox is loud and the twelfth die doesn’t always settle into the neck.
You could always try my battle strip.
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The battlebox is loud and the twelfth die doesn’t always settle into the neck.
You could always try my battle strip.
I caught that the other day. It is pretty slick. Did you make up the dice order from Chessex special or was it a standard thing they do?
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It was a custom order. I don’t remember the exact cost, since I ordered some other stuff with them, but I think it was around $3 per set of twelve plus shipping.
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Could you post the file you used to print the strip? :-)
The forum allows several file types to be attached to a post. Size limit is 256 KB.
Pretty Please. :-)
I’m not quite ready to punt on the battlebox but I did miss handling dice and I didn’t get to use my cool- Yoper Special Dice Tower.
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I too have had problems with the battlebox. I find frequently the 11th-12th dice don’t always settle properly. Also on a couple of occassions when shaking the box the sleeve has opened and a few of the dice flew out knocking units around the board.
I like the “battle strip” idea…I may give that or something similar a try. Can the same results (probability) be achieved with fewer dice (i.e six)?
Great info being shared in these forums; Thanks.
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Could you post the file you used to print the strip? :-)
I’ll probably post it on BGG this weekend, along with instructions.
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