Battle Turn Question

Rarely do I play Guadalcanal but I am going to use that system…I have the colored dice already

The supplies must be on the island on which you’re building the airfield.

You played it correctly.

One more thing …

The opening turn would be a single round attack by the Japanese with a 5 damaging ships and a 4 or less killing a ship; and air and ground units are killed on a four or less.  The Allies damage a ship on a 2 and kill a ship on a 1.  Air and ground units are killed on a 1.

This is my starting thought on a first turn Japanese advantage.

Lets see if that can survive some play testing.

A good rule of thumb to keep in mind is that if someone comes up with a successful “extreme” strategy, there’s usually an extreme counter-strategy for it.

I copy that.
And believe me, I felt quite uncomfortable to write one of my first posts at this group with some sort of “unbeatable strategy”. I’ve seen so many group newbies here doing that, and routinely got their posts pick to pieces … ;)

Of these, bombing an airfield on Choiseul or New Georgia sounds pretty attractive.  It seems the Japanese will be hard pressed to defend both.  Have all these strategies survived your playtesting?

Yes and no. Japan new units and repairing supply tokens are store temporarily at Choiseul. Japan can have one ore two aa gun at Choiseul and always can move fighters after the bombers, so that any bombing raids are hard, because with the ootb rules any hits from air combat are removed before naval/ground combat (the new rule variant with the airplane only air combat I haven’t try so far, maybe it helps).

If the Japanese are buying this many supply tokens, the US should have some benefit elsewhere.

Challenging, as the US player has to run with the Japanese airfield builds to hold step with victory points. Later the Japanese have many units at New Georgia which means the US pays a high price before amphibic assault while the artilley are firing at incoming ships.
Maybe the US can build only two airfields at Guadalcanal and bring more ground units. Maybe not. Maybe it will rain … :)

Understand me right: I’m not want to say that the US player has no chance. I’m not want to say that I have seen all possible moves and counters in the game. I’m not want to say that I have found an “unbeatable strategy”. But at my games it was a very, very difficult task to counter that japanese tactic.

I like the fact that both units can be on an island and not have to keep battling until someone owns it.

It tooks days to take Iwo Jima.

I like Guadalcanal too. I like BOTB better but this one is pretty tasty too.

@Shr3dZ:

Ok, one more question:

At the beginning of the game, Japan has at least 1 unit on each island. In the case of Choiseul or Santa Isabel, if you remove that single infantry, do you lose control? Do the reinforcement points suddenly go to the natives? Or is it still yours until someone else lands a unit on it, hence the Japanese flag icon indicating you have control in the box with the single unit?

If the US player has no ground units on that islands, than you keep control.

Second part:
If you have 1 AAA on and island, since it has no land attack value, can it keep control of an island for you?

If the other player has no units on that island: Yes.
If the other player has land units on that island, but your navy near that island has in summary more supporting points than your enemy with ground units and navy: Yes.

In short: You only lose control of an island if the enemy has ground units on it and the dice value of enemy force is bigger than yours. Naval units only count if there is at least one ground unit (can be an AA gun) on island. Air units not count in.