GWAS Russo Japanese War AAR - A Fortunate Catch - Battle Scenario 1

[goosebrown]

The first time I tried to play a battle using Pacific Crossroads I couldn't understand how to use the tactical map. The different colored hexes, the numbers, huh??? So I just lined up the ship counters and started rolling handfuls of dice.

Well that is not far off. The non-initiative player generally sets up in the center hexes with from 6-12 ships per hex. Then the initiative player sets up on the specified edge and play starts and you move toward each other or not and start rolling dice. It is pretty abstract. The meat of it comes in the operational game which is a lot more thinking. 

There is also an advanced combat system with more detail which I have not tried yet. That uses arcs from the counter and it allows you to be more accurate. 

Some of us were thinking of advanced air strikes that might be more fun as strike aircraft have to move to the ships and might get more AA as they do. All just ideas not in writing yet. 

I agree the counters are beautiful and I would love to get more coverage for them on a bigger board. 

The bite of reality is that naval combat is so expansive an affair that the ships this side would be what, 4? 5? feet away from each other if the scale is real. Other than the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal it was rarely ships side against side dealing damage. If you have say 24 ships in a hex being point blank that is still a lot of space in that hex.

Anyway I want to do a bigger map as an option and advanced airstrike rules to make at least the torpedo bombers avoid pickets or take damage from them. 

I won't try and convince you but once I have that programmed in, I will do a video AAR and post a link here so you can see what that looks like