Guadalcanal Diary -- AAM style

Co. B, 5th Marines, upper right, and Co. L, 5th Marines, lower left, prepare to advance 

As has been my practice, when I recently revisited the official Axis & Allies scenarios GC-1 & GC-2, which I played together as  a combined game, I revised the OB to account for units now available that were proxied in the early scenarios.

The twin scenarios are unusual, as each half of the scenario has the same OB. There was no need to adjust the Japanese OB, which is comprised on one Imperial Sergeant, four Arisaka Rifles, one Type 89 mortar and one Type 92 machine gun per group.

The American side, on the other hand, had a couple of appropriate substitutions. First I substituted Marine Riflemen for the M1 Garand, now that Marines showed up in Contested Skies, which seems appropriate as the two American forces involved are Co. B and Co. L of the 5th Marines. THe North Africa set finally gave us the M1919 MG to replace the Vickers MG that did so much duty as  a proxy for Allied machine guns in so many scenarios. Each company is comprised of six Marine Rifleman squads and one M1919 MG section. Rounding out each company is the one piece that didn't need changing from the originally published scenario -- the Mortar M2 at one per company.

As the Marine Rifleman cost the same as the M1 Garand and the M1919 MG just on emore point than the Vickers, I daw no need to adjust the Japanese OB for balance.

The maps are the basic Able-2, Baker-2, Charlie-2 and Dog-1, but heavily modified by scenario special rule to turn almost the entire map into LOS-blocking, cover roll-providing terrain. While some hills and town hexes remain unchanged, many others and all clear terrain are turned into forest hexes. As the Forest (Jungle) terrain type had not yet appeared when the scenario was published I left the terrain effects unchanged as "Forest," judging that the mobility hindrances of the later terrain type would have made the scenario unplayable.

This unusually close terrain meant that the mortars and machine guns on both sides lost most of their utility as there were few places where they could fire more than one hex away. The same factor robbed the Marine Riflemen of most of their advantage over the Arisaka Rifle units. The game was going to be a knife fight.

The SA of the Marine Riflemen -- Gung Ho -- seemed to have some promise as it might deter some Japanese attempts to close into close combat due to defensive fire.

The marines have to set up first, so I took that side. I set up the L Company on Baker-2 next to the pond, figuring it was the only place where I might get some ranged shots. B Company set up at the edge of the Hill on Charlie-2. One Japanese platoon set up in Matanikau Village on Dog-1, while most of the other platoon setup just east of the edge of Matanikau in the hexes of Charlie-2 that looked like village but were scenario defined as more woods. The only exception was one Type 89, which set up in the march next to the pond to get a first turn pop shot at the Marines across the pond.

The close terrain, limited mobility of both sides and objective-oriented victory conditions meant there wasn't a lot of fancy maneuvering. Both Marine companies advanced to contact, while the Japanese platoons avoided it until Turn 3, except for the Type 89 mortar by the pond, which was quickly eliminated. Turns 4-6 saw the Marines and Japanese in a heavy firefight along the edges of the villages and the Marines slowly attempted to surround it in order to get Enfilade Fire bonuses (We used the Expanded Rules except for the deadly defensive fire option. ). The Marine succeeded in getting the bonuses but didn't succeed in rolling well enough to take advantage of them. One particularly bad turn of fire saw the Marines fail to do any fatal damage at all and I considered this the turning point of the game, as the Japanese slowly won fire superiority.

The last couple of turns saw desperate attempts by the Marines to salvage something but they fell far shot and, as  it turned out, the final outcome as the Marines were left with a  sole surviving Marine Rifleman squad facing three Arisaka Rifle and one Imperial Sergeant at game end.

It was a good scenario and seemed very evenly matched. When I had played it out solitaire a couple of time each side one, so I it appears well balanced.

Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal -- Review with an eye to art

"Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal and the other games in the Axis & Allies series are what could be called an artistic interpretation of the historical battles they represent. I use the word artistic because I'm a designer and sincerely see games to be an art form. If these games were paintings they would have been painted with a broad brush indeed." -- Larry Harris in the Designer's Notes for A&A: Guadalcanal, 2007

Like many Boomer generation wargamers, I was primed for exposure to "real" wargames by the neat series of American Heritage games published by Milton Bradley in the 1960s that included the titles Battle-Cry, Broadside, Dogfight and Hit the Beach. None of these was anything resembling a "simulation." Only Dogfight  might be considered a very light wargame by today's standards -- the others were war-themed abstracts more than anything else.

While not being simulations they did, however, provoke an emerging interest, sparked not only by the theme and play of the game -- but by the nice little booklet enclosed in each game that discussed the historical events that inspired the game in the first place.  Broadside and Dogfight led to Midway and Afrika Korps, which in turn led to Strategy & Tactics magazine games and Persian Incursion.

For later generations of wargamers I think the various Axis & Allies series games have played  a similar role. While hardly simulations, they still exhibit a respect and even love of history that shines through despite their highly abstract nature.

A&A: Guadalcanal is not the place to go for a detailed study of the order of battle, tactics or chronology of the Solomons Campaign. Indeed, the name of the game is somewhat of  a misnomer, because it doesn't concern itself with just the fighting on Guadalcanal, unlike the earlier Avalon Hill Game. A&A:G is about the entire campaign for the Solomon Islands -- or at least that's the area depicted on the map board.

This is unsurprising, as the fighting on the island alone is hard to design a good wargame for. The Japanese were essentially campaigning on a mistaken premise -- that the Marine garrison was small enough for the Japanese to defeat. In fact the Allied land force was several times larger than the Japanese thought and the Japanese land forces were never really very close to winning. The contests was much closer at sea and in the air and, really, that's where the campaign would be won or lost. Had the Japanese won  air and sea superiority the the size of the Allied garrison would not have mattered.

Like all Axis & Allies series games, the presentation of A&A:G is very high quality. The distinctive trait of an A&A game is the little plastic toy soldiers and weapons used for playing pieces. Each of the sides has models representing infantry, artillery, AA guns, transports, submarines, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, aircraft carrriers, fighters and bombers. While the AA guns are generic sculpts, the others are distinct by nation and based on historical examples, with the Americans in green and the Japanese in orange. There was a production error that switched the cruiser models, so the Japanese sculpt is in American green and the American cruiser in Japanese orange. This has no effect on play, but free replacements were (and maybe still are) available from Hasbro's customer service upon request.

Even the "correct" models aren't historically precise. The American battleship is depicted by an Iowa class , for example, which did not fight in the Solomons -- nor did the Shinano, which is used to represent the Japanese carrier.

Other key elements of the campaign are depicted by die-cut cardboard pieces -- supplies and airfields.

There are also cardboard control makers, a token to show the first player and "advantage tokens" used as an optional rule. Red and grey plastic chips are used to represent additional units of the same type when stacked beneath them, with far more than will be needed in play provided.

There's a very nicely mounted full-color mapboard showing the Solomon Islands chain from Bouganville to Guadalcanal with two small supplementary base cards for the main bases at Rabbaul and New Caledonia which abut the main map. The map is divided into land areas and sea zones. There are six land ares representing islands or groups of islands and 11 sea zones. The two adjoining base cards each add a land area and sea zone as well for a total of 21 possible locations in the game, which is not a large number by wargame standards.

There are two cardboard player aid sheets and a 28-page lavishly illustrated rule book.

There are a dozen black dice and a unique "Battle Box" which is used to hold them. This is probably the most controversial aspect of the game, with players either loving it or hating it. The basic function of the box is to randomize the dice and then assign their outcomes to specific unit types. This is a departure from the usual procedure in Axis & Allies games which allows the unit's owner to assign hits as desired, which protects the more valuable pieces. In A&A:G a single hit might go straight to that carrier or vital transport you were escorting.

Critics question the randomization provided by the box, because it appears too narrow to really allow a good spin and the general awkwardness of manipulating it. Some players have come up with an alternative system that uses 12 differently hued dice instead.

Overall the game is very attractively presented.

Aiding setup, all the starting locations are printed directly on the map, so setting up should be completed within a few minutes.

Each turn is divided into three phases, with each player taking alternating actions throughout, so there is little of the bane of wargames -- downtime. Both players are fully engaged all the time.

The first phases in MOVEMENT, with the First Player and then the Second Player moving in turn, in sequence: Transports, battleship,s, carriers, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, bombers and finally fighters. Players alternate within each sequence, so, for example, the First Player moves his transports, then the Second player moves transports, then First Player moves battleships, and so on. This creates a lot of scope for strategic play.

Phase Two is COMBAT, which is likewise done in an interactive sequence, although this time divided by target: Attack air units, Attack sea units, unload transports and destroyers and finally Attack land units/airfields. Again, a simple system that creates some interesting tactical decisions.

The Third phase is REGROUP, which like the other phases is conducted through a sequence where each player alternates doing the steps: Determine island control, land air units, build airfields, repair/reinforce/deploy, score victory points and finally, pass the First Player marker -- so players alternate being First Player each turn.

Each unit type has unique characteristics. Infantry, for example, costs 1 reinforcement point to build, has no ability to attack air or sea units and has  a "Land Attack" value of "1," which means it adds one die to number of dice rolled when attacking land units.  In comparison, a battleship costs 12 to build, but adds 1 die when attacking air units, three dice against sea units and 2 dice against land units.

Some units, battleships cruisers and artillery, have a range which allows them to fire into an adjacent zone as well.

Units also differ widely in their movement. All sea units can move one sea zone, while land units can't move on their own at all, but have to be transported. Air units have a range (2 for fighters, 3 for bombers) which they get to use twice per turn, once in the movement phase and then again in the Regroup Phase.

Reinforcement points are earned by controlling islands, starting from a base level of 10, with four per controlled island. Here there was another critical error in the published game, which lists the values as 5 and 2, respectively. Errata with the correct value was published online immediately, although the game is playable with the lower values. Presumably both sides would find themselves starved of resources with the lower figures. Besides getting new units, players can spend reinforcement points to buy supply tokens. Supply tokens, which cost 2 reinforcement points each, are the game's real 'currency' and can be spent to build new airfields, repair ships and airfields and deploy sea units closer to the front. Like any good resource management game, A&A:G will never give you enough supply to do everything, and proper attention to logistics is just as critical as battle management for victory.

Victory is achieved by being the first player to score 15 victory points. The most common way to earn VPs is by controlling an undamaged airfield -- one per airfield per turn. Players can also earn VP by sinking enemy capital ships (battleships and carriers - one each). This builds in a de facto time limit of  four, or maybe five, game turns. Each player starts with one airfield and can easily build 2-3 more shortly, so 15 will likely be reached by one or both players by turn 4 or 5. IF players are tied, they play another turn until the tie is broken.

So that's the basics: A very abstract, military themed game -- or is it a wargame?

It's clearly not a "simulation." No time scale is specified or implied. There's no direct correlation between the game pieces and the historical order of battle. The game''s geography is accurate, but highly simplified.

But there's some fidelity to history, nonetheless. There's interplay between services and scope for combined arms tactics. The essence of the land-sea-air campaign and its components are present and interact with each other. A battleship isn't just differently named than a destroyer but is functionally distinct as well -- something many "real" wargames of the SPI era didn't do.

And there's definitely some game, there. Players have real choices to make and strategies to try.

Five years on, the consumer verdict on Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal is in. It wasn't a breakout hit, but clearly it's not a flop. It appears to be out of print -- the few copies on Amazon are listed for more than $100 and it's not seeing a lot of play on eBay, so getting a copy now may be more trouble than it's worth -- but if you already have a copy I think it would be worth pulling it out again, as it appears to be somewhat underrated. It may not have been enough of  a "simulation" to please many wargamers and yet there's far too much wargame there for most non-wargamer tastes, but there is an interesting game there and a good impressionistic take on the Solomons Campaign. I think Harris' characterization of a game as a form of art is a useful context to use.  Just as a photograph and a painting of the same topic can each provide different insights into a subject, so can different styles of wargames.

Part 2 of the Cape Esperance games

The Kirishima goes down from a  vital hit at close range by the USS West Virginia

Here's the second part of the Cape Esperance commemorative games I recently played.

As always, Andy did an excellent job of writing up the session.

A little commemoration of the Battle of Cape Esperance -- War at Sea style

The USS West Virginia advances under the steady hand of Admiral Owen in War at Sea

Andy R. and I played a doubleheader of War at Sea Thursday in commemoration of the Battle of Cape Esperance from the naval campaign around Guadalcanal. He reports on the event with one of his fantastic write ups as always.

Axis & Allies Game Day and Meetup

We will be having an Axis & Allies game day and Meetup at the Arkham Asylum's new store location here in Norwich at 276 West Main St. on Dec. 12 starting at noon.

We will have at least the following Axis & Allies series games available for play: Anniversary. 1942, Europe, Battle of the Bulge, D-Day and Guadalcanal. We will also have Axis & Allies miniatures and War at Sea naval miniatures.

TCS: Matanikau comprehensive review

Matanikau comprehensive review

Tactical Combat Series No. 4
Published: 1991
Designer: Sam Simons


TCS Overview
Repeated from earlier reviews. If already familiar with TCS skip this part.
Now published by Multi-Man Publishing, the TCS is one of The Gamers founding lines of series wargames that use a common set of standard rules to allow players to explore many different battles without having to learn a new set of rules every time.

In TCS the ground scale is 125 meters per hex, time is 20 minutes per daylight turn and units are platoons of troops, weapons sections and individual vehicles, so it’s about halfway between the ASL/Squad Leader squad-based systems and the traditional PanzerBlitz/First Battle platoon-oriented systems typically seen in tactical 20th Century wargames. Unlike most of its peers, TCS games always depict specific historical incidents on the actual terrain. There are no “geomorphic” representative maps or generic counters.

Distinctively, the TCS system is much less concerned with the characteristics of the hardware used than the typical tactical wargame. Offensively, units either fire area-effect weapons such as small arms and high explosives or with weapons with a point effect such as anti-tank guns. Similarly, they are either area targets such as soldiers or point targets such as a vehicle, or occasionally both. If armed, the unit has a range and if made up of troops a morale rating. If it’s a vehicle or gun it has a defense rating based on its armor.

Platoons have five “steps” while weapons units have one or two. Vehicles represent individual machines and are either hit (mission kill) or not.

As one would expect there are rules covering special conditions, tactics and needs such as smoke, fortifications and various terrain effects, but the basic structure is very straightforward and, compared to other tactical wargames, uncomplicated. This aspect of the game is deliberately kept simple.

The real heart of the game system is the command control rules, which mimics the kind of staff planning that goes into conducting actual military operations at this scale. Players actually draw up their battle plans in schematic form on “op sheets” specifying exactly how they plan to conduct their attack or defense using specific units in specific ways. Once the plan is drawn up it waits while sufficient “weighted turns” accumulate in order to put it into effect. How much time passes will depend on factors such the complexity of the plan, how many different units are involved, the nature of the mission and the overall quality of the unit’s staff work and a die roll. A simple movement plan involving no contact with the enemy by a single company under a highly trained staff might take just a turn or two before coming into effect. On the other hand, a complex, multi-battalion deliberate assault by a poorly-staffed army like the Soviets may never actually happen.

This is a fascinating and unique system that creates a very different pacing from what’s usually seen. Long stretches of time tend to pass with relatively little going on interspersed with periods of intense action. It much more closely resembles the pacing of actual military operations than most tactical wargames.

On the other hand, this is also the system’s biggest weakness. It is wholly unsuited for competitive playing styles. It relies absolutely on the players making good faith effort to act within the spirit of the rules. It relies on them faithfully executing plans that no longer make tactical sense because ground facts have changed since the plan was drawn up. It requires players who will not attempt to wring every possible “legal” advantage the rules might allow but instead try act as the real-life commanders would have. It’s pointless for players whose first consideration is winning to play this. This is a game system for people interested in the journey, NOT the destination.

It can be played solitaire fairly easily by drawing up alternative plans for both sides and then dicing among those for the actual plans being used.

Series designer Dean Essig firmly insisted that no game in the series would be made obsolete by any rules changes. All updates to the system are required to be backwards compatible and therefore every game (Except the modern Force Eagle's war) can (and should) be played with the latest edition of the rules.


Matanikau specifics:
Rules: Tactical Combat Series Rules version 3.0

Sept. 26th-27th, Oct. 7th, Oct. 9th, Oct. 23rd-26th, 1942. Guadacanal, South Pacific
One full-sized map
Unit symbols: AFV are full color icons, Weapons and troops are map graphic symbols

Opposing Sides: Japanese: 2nd Infantry Division
U.S.: First Marine Division

Total number of battalion equivalents (the usual op sheet size) in play: Up to about 8 or so.

Playing time: Up to 40 hours, according to the box

Matanikau was the first game under the 3.0 version of the TCS series rules, which greatly streamline play from earlier. Instead of the rigid sequence of play used earlier most of the action took place now during "action phases" in which units moved, fired and close assaulted/overrun as desired by the phasing player in any order desired.

The major exception to this full integration of activity was the artillery system, which still operated in its own artillery and call for fire phases before the action phases, although this artillery subsystem as much quicker and easier than what had gon beforethe system as well. Gon was the shell-by-shell resolution of all or part of an indirect fire mission. Now the mission's target was selected, the amount of fire in EFSs (effective sheafs) was announced, the player adjusted the target location using a die roll and then placed the EFS as indicated. The fire was then resolved. Considering the sizes of the forces involved there's actually quite a bit of artillery available and this simpler system was a welcome advance over earlier attempts.

The game doesn't have too many special rules, mostly dealing with things such as Higgins boats, naval gunfire and the effects of night combat.

There are special morale rules for both sides (These a re Marines and Japanese infantry, after all!) Marines don't do "Save Yourself Retreats, being merely suppressed instead. Meanwhile, Japanese units do not surrender, but will perform Banzai attacks, with the expected morale effects of being more willing to close into close combat.

The Marines have a small unit called the Whaling Scouts which move faster through the jungle hexes and they also have legendary Marine commander "Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, quite possibly the most famous Marine ever. Indeed, he's quite possibly the "Marineist" marine ever. His battalion, the 1st of the 7th Marines, never needs to be on op sheets (the system's way of depicting the most elite units possible) and recovers morale three times faster than regular units.

As one might expect, Matanikau is another infantry battle. The Japanese commit a company of tanks in one battle, as do the Marines in a different battle. The only vehicle-on-vehicle action possible involves the Japanese tanks against a couple of Marine half-track tank destroyers.

Matanikau's scenarios represent a return to the battalion and regimental-sized fighting seen in Bloody 110 and Objective Schmidt instead of the monster Omaha and as such fit eh scope of the system better. All seven scenarios in Matanikau is easily playable by two players, although the larger ones can also handle multiple commanders on each side as well.

The designers abandoned trying to rate the scenarios for balance as earlier games in the system had, which is probably just as well because the game is best not approached with "winning" in mind. Players, like the historical commanders, are simply given missions to accomplish and the resources available and have to make do. Life isn't fair, and neither are battles. That said, I think that the Japanese are somewhat more challenging to play. Compared to the Marines (and other armies seen elsewhere in the various TCS games) the Japanese are not very well-equipped. For example, while Japanese battalions are actually larger than Marine battalions, with 12 platoons of infantry compared to nine in the Marine units, the Japanese only have one mortar unit. The Marines have five. Japanese battalions have four machine gun units, Marine battalions have seven. While the Japanese never have more than three batteries of artillery support in any scenario, it's not uncommon to see the Marines with three battalions. The Marines also have naval gunfire and aircraft on occasion. The U.S. have a better command prep rating (4 to a 6) which translates into a noticeable advantage in reaction times. The only break the Japanese get is that the Marine artillery units are operating at extreme range and large parts of the map are safe from some guns and a small part is safe from all.

Making life difficult for both sides is the terrain. In a reversal of the usual European pattern, the high ground id open while the valleys are filled with vegetation. That vegetation is think jungle, too, which is impassible to vehicles and slow going for everyone else. A lot of the fighting will be at very short range and there are many more close assaults than seen in typical TCS games, where it can be hard to get close without being shot up. In Matanikau no position is very far from a potential jungle approach and there are few chances for long-range shots.

For some reason Matanikau never seemed as popular as other games in the series. I believe The Gamers ended up destroying some inventory to get the tax write-off. It uses the exact same version of the rules as GD'40 (No. 5) in the series, which was popular, so I attribute it to the relative lack of interest in Pacific ground fighting compared to Europe. TCS would eventually return to Guadalcanal with Bloody Ridge, but otherwise its World War II sites have stayed firmly fixed on European theater fighting.

Despite that, I think it's one of the better games in the whole series. Both sides are well-matched and the scenarios and terrain keep the fight very focused on the infantry battle. The system's armor rules, while passable, have never been its strongest point and the games that avoid having a lot of tanks on the field seem to work best. The new 4th edition rules may change that, but under the current 3rd edition standards TCS is first and foremost about infantry combat.