Saipan 1944

[JayTownsend]

One thing I found difficult was the actual strength of the units involved, as the battle progressed, battalions were not really battalions in size, companies were not company size, platoons were no longer platoon size and that was just the Americans. The Japanese were even harder, as units were really mixed in the end, it was difficult to determine which units were really engaged in some of the scenarios.

[JayTownsend]

Down to 35 early order Saipan copies left!

[JayTownsend]

One thing I am longing to see, is the new art-work on a few counters, the new counter types and the new maps & terrain.

There should be at least 21 new counter types, if not more.

[Shad]

Seriously, where are those maps?

[JayTownsend]

No doubt but I guess they take time!

[Shad]

Here's a question for you, Jay. I know Dave Murray basically did his own maps for Cassino. How did you do the maps for Saipan? Did you have rough sketches to go with your scenarios? Did you just write very basic requirements like "Map XX needs a river down the middle and 2 small towns" ? Tell us a little about that!

[JayTownsend]

Keep in mind I wanted historical maps but AP needed Generic Maps, so I did like you mentioned, only with maps A-D. Example: A needs to be like this and have this terrain and that terrain and arranged scenarios to fit what I had in mind for generic maps with a good dose of Saipan flavor. Guy will make the actual maps. If AP follows the 4 basic maps I picked for them with generic for future use but Saipan flavored, it should work out prefect. Hopefully not too much will get kickout of what I charted but they might be missing the Rail-roads, as they don't come into very many other pacific battles if any, thus keeping them generic. Btw I haven't seen them with any type of art-work yet, so that is all I can answer about that.

Also, hopefully the cave counters, to be placed or arrange differently for the scenario requiring caves, will help keep the maps generic but also allow different setups. Better than having them fixed on the map. Allowing caves to be placed as the gamer wants, as there were so many in the mountain areas of Saipan.

[JayTownsend]

Having all those downloads and homemade Japanese counters came in handy while messing around with all these scenarios. Having the actual maps would have made it a lot easier. When I did the Nihon Silk design it was easier to know the real maps and again that one was only 10 scenarios, compared to Saipan with 40 scenarios. May original Saipan had about 50 scenarios but I cut 10 out, as they repeated the same battle areas too much and some were too small and some I just didn't like, so I got it down to 40 of what i thought were the the best of the best and were interesting but cover all the major actions on the Island and some little known actions as well.

[JayTownsend]

Holy smokes are the maps nice looking!

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/14468...aipan-1944

Just fantastic!

[J6A]

Not enough waves at sea, IMO.

Just kidding..very nice, and very Guy. I guess AP is paying him.

BTW, AP has been very good about paying its VPG bills for printing, which to me is a good sign.