RULES ERRATA

Harsh rules does a great job of explaining the rules in detail I watched them yesterday

It would be easy to mark them, you could simply tip them on their sides like in revised / classic 2 hit battleships.

I think I’ll try this, but I will still require that payment be made to repair them.

LT

Yes, they can.

@Krieghund:

No, it’s not specifically in the rules.  It’s just implied by the fact that the damaged area is on the back side of the card, away from the main sea zone area.  This is more pronounced on the Japanese card than on the American one.  Do you think this needs to be added to the FAQ?  This is the first time it’s ever come up.

A specific update for this is probably not necessary but as part of a bigger FAQ update it probably wouldn’t hurt.

The two of you are getting pretty close to a tactical miniatures campaign game than a strategic game, with simplified combat.  You might want to take a look at some books on naval wargaming that cover running a campaign game.  I keep thinking of taking the Guadalcanal game resources and writing my own set of rules for the game, along with adding a PT Boat miniature and US APD fast transports.  I would not likely use the battle box, although it is a very interesting idea.

Actually, the base that JFK operated out of was located on Rendova, south of the island of New Georgia.  I have just gotten the game, and need to look at the rules a bit more covering PT boats.  I probably will be modifying it a bit, having been in the Solomons, and flown over most of the islands.  I did not make it to Rendova, but was on Kolumbangara, Gizo, and New Georgia, when landing at the Munda air strip on the way back to Henderson Field.  I have attached three pictures that I scanned in from the trip.  The first is of the Grayscout, the ship we used in searching for PT-109, under charter to National Geographic.  The second is of the Munda air strip, which is pretty much the way it was in WW2, except that the jungle has grown back around it.  The third is of me watching sonar screens, sorting out the targets on the bottom to determine which one might be the PT-109.  Note, we did find it.

Graysct1.jpg
Munda Airstrip-2002.jpg
Sonar Stare 72 Crop.jpg

@frimmel:

I’m not much for House Rules. If I had wanted to make my own game I would not have bought one.  :-)

House rules aren’t for everybody.  Nothing wrong with playing the game as written.  I just can’t resist meddling.

@frimmel:

Also your fourth version point on VPs seems sort of silly. Why add a complex rule when you could just increase the points required for Victory or add a Win by X rule? This and your first point of not scoring the airfields on round 1 are essentially the same thing. Again add points required for victory or must win by X rule (to simulate your dominance of the air)

Simply increasing the points would only serve to extend the length of the game, while this proposed rule ensures that one side must clearly dominate for a period of time in order to win.  Consider this example:  The two teams score the same number of points for ten rounds, and then one team manages to score one more point than the other.  That team has then won under the original rules.  Under this proposed rule, that team would still have to score five more victory points (or whatever number you use) in order to win.  This rule would produce a clearer winner, in my opinion.  I suppose a “win by X” rule would produce the same effect, but it would be hard to keep track of it using the point markers on the board.

@Imperious:

OMFG. This is bogus. Cruisers were the most potent Anti-Aircraft platforms of the war. As a protector of escorted ships from aerial attack they were the best defenders on average. The destroyer concentrated its defense on ASW because it was faster, while the cruisers could bulk up on lots of smaller guns because they had the deck space.

It’s not completely bogus if you consider that many U.S. cruisers had no AA capabilities except for some .50 machine guns when they were constructed.  Not a perfect rule to be sure, especially on the Japanese side, but I just threw it out there for consideration.

@legion3:

The CAP in this game is really to powerful, CAP at this point in the war, did not stop any determined air attack before they reached the ships, heck even at the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” a few Japanese planes got through and attacked the ships, causing no damage. This game has airbattles where all the planes are shot down on both sides in the air phase. WOW!

Having played some more games, I heartily agree.  I’m not sure the best way to fix it though.  I’ve thought about reducing the air attack of planes by 1, but if you do, it seems like you could produce a huge fighter swarm with nothing that could destroy it fast enough to protect your fleets.  Since fighters are so cheap, you can build a lot of them easily.  I guess I’ll just have to experiment and find out.