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RE: FEB: Brazilian Expeditionary Force
Look like 2022 Smoking Cobras!
New for 2022
Panzer Grenadier: The Solomons
Panzer Grenadier: Smoking Cobras
After a slow start, sales of Saipan 1944 caught up with the rest of the series thanks to steady support with expansions - Marianas 1944 and Leyte 1944. So we’re returning to the Pacific with a Mike Perryman design, with the working title of The Solomons (it’ll hopefully get a better one before launch).
The Solomons covers Guadalcanal, Tulagi and fighting on the other islands, too, with both U.S. Marines and U.S. Army troops taking on the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Navy ground troops.
We’ve been to the Solomons before, with Guadalcanal - eighteen (18!) years ago. That’s a long time. Guadalcanal had “historical” maps of the “actual terrain” and that hampered its sales; while there’s a small and loud cadre who call out for this approach, that’s not what most players want. So we won’t be repeating that mistake.
The Solomons has four (or maybe five) geomorphic maps with jungles and jungle-covered hills and jungle-covered beaches and jungle-covered ocean. And of course two brand-new sheets’ worth of Japanese and American units and leaders to brawl all across them. The usual fat set of scenarios with battle games linking them together.
Brazil declared war on the Axis powers in August 1942 and began to form an expeditionary force, but the common public held that it would go to the front “when snakes smoke pipes.” The Brazilian Expeditionary Force arrived in Italy in July 1944, and its soldiers named themselves cobras fumantes, or Smoking Cobras (literally “smoking snakes,” but Smoking Cobras is a better game title).
Smoking Cobras is a Jay Townsend design, a complete game in Playbook format: 20 scenarios, two maps, 176 pieces (including markers). Everything you need to smoke the Axis - including die-hard fascist Italians - is in there except dice. Jay has a personal stake in the subject and has lavished attention on it; this is going to be a really fine game.
This is a cool little game and, best of all, it’s in Playbook format. That’s going to make it much easier for us to bring it to your game table. When we do finally add new games to the schedule, Smoking Cobras should be one of the first choices.
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