Yesterday was our monthly meet at
Millennium, and our 8th anniversary of the club's founding -- something I started when I moved back to Rochester from the DC area. Bill Peeck and Steve Cuyler mostly run things now, and they got sub platters, pop (soda for the rest of y'all!), and a cake (believe Jack Morrell did this) to celebrate. Most people gave Bill 5-10 dollars for his efforts (and he paid Steve and Jack), though some slackers didn't contribute. Bill was too nice to demand payment for food, but I was ready to call several folks out who wolfed down "free" food (one woman had 2 sub sections, 2 pieces of cake, and a plateful of chips, yet didn't pay...), but Bill told me not to. Oh well, just geeks being losers...
Anyway, I played 2 games of
Traders of Carthage, and 1 each of
Alhambra,
Pacific Typhoon, and
Iwo Jima. We had intended to play
Kutuzov, but only Jeff Burdett knew the rules, so we decided to push this back until we all knew.
I had fun, and I especially like
Iwo Jima's mechanics, though I'm thinking the Japanese almost can't win. I posted the following on
CSW, and will be interested to see what the answers are:
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Come on, this is a fun little game, and with all the clamor and whining about the handling of the Operations issue it was in, I'd suspect 100s of folks, at least, would have been playing by now. Well, you should be!
Anyway, played again yesterday. My Japanese held on well, and jumped off to a big lead (23-2 at one point), but then the inevitable "wearing down" began, and the final score after Turn 8 was Marines 46, Japanese 25.
I'm still trying to figure out how to get the Japanese to win...
Some observations on why it's so hard for them:
1. The cave/safe to land/beachhead reduction. While Adam's clarification that 1 hit (not 1 damage number) makes it easier for the Japanese to get rid of "safe to land" markers (for a couple turns, anyway), it also makes it easier for the U.S. player to go "cave hunting." Send a plane (or target an artillery) to each area you want to expose/destroy a cave, and odds say you'll get at least 1 hit on 4 dice, destroying a cave. In two turns, all caves in the area are collapsed -- bad news for the Japanese!
***My opponent and I discussed how a nice balancing factor (especially given the confusion I had with this in the initial rules) might be to let the Japanese remove beachheads/safe to lands with just 1 HIT will the U.S. would need to inflict 1 DAMAGE FACTOR to remove a cave***
Thoughts?
2. U.S. Tanks are almost impossible to stop. The only way is to get them with anti-tank defensive fire -- after that, they're pretty much invulnerable. The tanks really only need be concerned with the 4 airfield areas, so infantry can go in first and find out where the anti-tank units are. Once these are no longer a worry, the tanks can pretty much act without regard to their safety, as it takes a Herculean effort for the Japanese to inflict even one hit on 2 or 3 tanks stacked together.
3. U.S. bombardment is the game winner -- the infantry can take 30-35 step losses, if need be, in order to expose the areas the U.S. needs to bombard. Find an area with juicy targets, roll 20+ dice, and the Japanese no longer have a "happy area!" When artillery exposes itself to fire (as it needs to do vs. airfields/beachheads), boom, instant target!
4. The game is a grind, and there just don't seem to be enough Japanese steps to hang on for 9 turns, especially with the "easy" cave reduction. By turn 6 or 7, things get critical for the Japanese, and this gives the U.S.3 turns (at least) of 10 VPs for all 4 airfields.
I imagine the Japanese could win early, by rolling really well and crushing the initial invasion, but once things get going, I'll be damned if I know how to stop them. I think the rue change we talked about above might help, and I'll try it the next time I get to play. This is a real "neat" little game, and I just want to see folks playing and enjoying it, as well as seeing the Japanese winning.
Thoughts?
Right now, I'd bid 10-15 VPs for the Marines -- way too much for balance in a game where 40 VPs wins. Hope to get some "official" help...
Wish me luck getting my vehicle tomorrow (Monday). If I can't, it'll be there all week, as Deanna has school training Tuesday-Thursday, so she can't take me. Any of you want to drive me down? ;-)
