Posts made by Pacific War

I spent hours on this this morning Coach.  I found lots of names of French cargo/merchant ships from WWI but no good pictures.  Here’s a good start for you:

http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/french.shtml

http://www.teesbuiltships.co.uk/rayltondixon/aalist.htm

You are probably going to end up having to use a representative example of a WWI cargo ship instead of a named sculpt.

For example:

http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mma/wrecks/wrecks/shipwrecks.asp?ID=3416

Type “typical cargo vessel ww1”  under google images and be prepared to spend hours and hours.

Just stamp an “H” on one of the 500 (slight exaggeration) Shinano that you already have and call it a day.  I’m not trying to be flippant.  It’s just that there are only going to be so few precious sculpts when it’s all said and done.  They should be considered carefully and used on relevant, salient subjects; not wasted on units that had absolutely zero impact on history.  From almost every possible point of view, a Shokaku sculpt is the way to go.  Almost any possible Pacific carrier action scenario would include either or both the Zuikaku and Shokaku.  No carrier action would include the Shinano.  If you absolutely must have a Shinano for some purpose, the sculpt already exists in multitudes.  And, as I believe was already pointed out, even if it had reached true operational status, it’s useful aircraft complement was actually LESS than many of the other Japanese carriers.  It was big and ugly but that hardly qualifies it as a “heavy” carrier in a combat sense.

You have to remember that these pieces are not just designed for A&A.  To quote HBG’s own description:

“HBG is producing its seventh series of plastic gaming pieces that may be used in miniature games such as Axis & Allies, Memoir44, and many other miniature war games.”

As with anything good in life, options, options, options.  Now, if HBG were to do a set of strictly “heavy carriers” (the term makes me grimace) for the various nations, then fine, include the strange dinosaur.  But the Shinano as part of a Japanese set deserves to be where the real one is……sunk.

But you already have a Shinano in the various A&A incarnations.  IMO the primary idea should be getting as many options as possible to choose from, not redo what has already been done.  Personally, I would love to see a better Akagi sculpt because that is my favorite carrier.  But the fact is that an Akagi has already been done so I wholeheartedly support a new sculpt.  The more the merrier if you ask me.

A thought on the carrier sculpt for the final (basic) Japanese set.  I agree with Variable that it should be Shokaku.  This  would be an excellent choice because you are actually knocking out two carriers (Shokaku and Zuikaku) with one sculpt.  Add to this that both carriers saw extensive service spanning from Pearl Harbor up through mid-late 1944 and you have a winner.

You are right, it is.  OOPS!

The Ryuho is already in production.  It’s part of the set on preorder now and to be released in August.

I saw the updates to the second Japanese set and everything looks very nice!  You guys did a wonderful job on the Unryu!

Excellent sculpt choices all the way through.

Michael Wittmann did……and I’m sure that you do too!  :-D

I should have mentioned that his games have zero luck after setup.  They are entirely based on skill.  There are no dice  and there are no cards.  Everything depends upon skill.

Count me in for at least one copy.  Small game publishers should always be supported.

Okiedokie.

HBG already makes them:

http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/Facilities-Acrylic_c_184.html

Bowen Simmons design.  A have a couple of his games and he does excellent work.

I figured that you just did a mistype……happens to me all the time.  :-D

1815

I noticed that today.  Another round of excellent choices!

A lot of the early AH games aren’t very good from a Historical standpoint but I’ve always overlooked that and just had fun with them.  I’m a little biased though because I discovered these as a kid and have many fond summer day memories of them.  They are like time capsules to me.

I don’t know what triple a is??  I bought the original A&A back in the 80’s.  I also bought other A&A games as they were published including:

Europe

Pacific

Battle of the Bulge

D Day

Guadalcanal

Anniversary

Revised

Europe 40

Pacific 40

A&A 41

I think that’s it.  I’ll be buying 1914 before the summer is out.  I also play a bunch of other wargames but some of my favorites are the Columbia block games, especially Victory.  Old Avalon Hill games have always been near and dear to me too and I have many titles going back as far as the first version of Gettysburg which was in the original lineup back in the 50’s.  But, of course, my absolute favorite boardgame of all is Pacific War which is my own design.  It has the coolest “box” (more of a roll actually) of any game I own too: