(10-20-2012, 01:36 PM)Shad Wrote: I'm very curious to see how variable your scenarios are, Jay.
Guadalcanal has a LOT of interchangeable scenarios, as does Jungle Fighting...
That is the best part about the Battle of Saipan Andrew, there is a nice variety of battle types and situations. You have three American divisions; 2 Marine and 1 Army all fighting in different locations on the same island at the same time. I never concentrated on the same location day after day. For example, Hell’s Pocket, Purple Heart Ridge or Death Valley, I touched on all of them, just the highlights not the same battle played out day after day but the high points. To keep the scenarios interesting and fluid in a historical order but in different areas as no one wants to try and take the same hill in 10 scenarios, one or two will work. Otherwise this game could have been 100 scenarios but with 40 I hit all the major actions and some smaller ones as well.
There are 29 scenarios with Americans attacking but 9 with the Japanese attacking and 3 engagements type battles and pretty much mixed from the begin to the end. I would only classify 4 scenarios as large, being over 100 counters, with the largest 158, but 36 scenarios are small or medium in size. I believe there are only 2 or 3 scenarios that have 4 maps all the rest fall into the 1-2 maps. Very playable, as I know these type of scenarios get played more. The actions vary from: Amphibious Landings, a Counter Landing, Tanks battles, Infantry battles, Cave & entrenchment clearing, urban fighting, hill control, jungle fighting, cane-field fighting, mountain fighting, banzai charges, night & day actions, some odd situations and more! But after reading about Saipan from so many different sources, I really believe Saipan is the prefect battle for PG and I hope it will be a real gem of a game.
Limited to 330 combat counters, not counting the markers, there was no way to include every type of unit types that participated in Saipan but the most important ones are all there. I had to limit the types of landing-crafts and ships to the one that were most important, so I cut out the ones that didn’t play large parts in the scenarios so DUKWs were cut but at least 4-5 new types of Amphibious units were added to PG with Saipan. Some sources called for Japanese SNLF Paratroopers but my research into this, proved they hadn’t functioned like this in almost 2 years and were basically SNLF troops. The Japanese had so many gun types that I couldn’t add them all so again I included the ones I could actually find played a bigger part in combat but still this will add about 6 new types of Japanese ART/Guns to the PG series and some big Naval guns as well. In all, there must be about 20 or more new types of units/counters to PG and it will be a lot easier to add future PG supplements with these new counters. It should open the door to a lot of new scenarios.
Another thing, as the battle progresses, it really became difficult to determine the actual strength of an American Battalions, Companies or Platoons as they were fighting very under strength with the high causalities rates, let alone the Japanese, as were very mixed as their losses mounted.
But I know what I like in scenarios, after playing so many and if the victory conditions are fun and attainable by both sides, that usually is a hit. I just hope I hit that mark and only time will tell? I think this should be a game that will hit that mark, not just for Pacific fans but also for Eastern, Western & Desert Front fans as well. Really I hope this is a cross over game for the guys who are not interested in the Pacific Theater, as it’s not just Pacific slugfest and I think that is what will make Saipan more interesting to non-pacific gamers.
I hope that answered your question Andrew?
