MEK OP Game Night: Guadalcanal

This week we started on the second 5-turn scenario, using the Asia/Pacific map. One of the perks of working at an engineering college is that mechanical aptitude is in no short supply, so I was only moderately surprised when a giant wood frame was deposited in the study. It's larger than any single table I own, but it should work well with a pair of small identical card tables at each end.

Back view

Front view

This amounts to a modest compromise between the vertical and the horizontal board configurations. The footprint is about 2/3rds the size of a horizontal table, and stacking is still fairly stable versus bumping and jarring. Thanks to Walley for putting this project together based on a few random comments I made a week ago.

We played the first turn of the scenario, as a demonstration of the game system. I'm hoping that after another weekend of experience, we might be able to play a full four-map campaign, and give everyone a separate country to run. For now, the teams were essentially "everyone vs. Walley", to continue his baptism by fire.

Losses were pretty even on both sides. The allies lost three cruisers and three planes, with only one pilot surviving. The Japanese lost two cruisers and a nice Zero that went down escorting a port strike against the British in India. A single American submarine group also tore apart the Japanese convoys in the South China Sea, the only actual source of victory points for the turn. (Scenario objectives focus on carriers, hex objectives, and Japanese convoys.)

The Japanese scored a single good surprise assault on the entire US carrier fleet, but only with a small detachment containing a single carrier of their own. The only Japanese plane flew in fighter mode, and applied the multiple odds shifts to destroy an American carrier plane at effective odds of +6 / -6. I think I would have been inclined to use four of the points to force a surface battle, and then the other four to force a kill result on a carrier. That would also have involved the Japanese taking far heavier losses in return, probably amounting two or three cruisers, but would have put the Americans on a disadvantaged footing in future carrier engagements.

As the Americans, I launched a successful late-turn invasion of Eniwetok using some reorganized transports and fleet carriers. Aside from threatening an immediate assault on Kwajalein, this is also a port close enough to place pressure on a number of islands adjacent to Japan itself, from Formosa up to the Kuriles.

Everyone still has a complete set of fleet carriers available, so a decisive Battle of Midway is still off somewhere in the future.