GMT’s Pacific War Training Materials

Pacific War is a Strategic wargame that takes you from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the climatic summer of 1945… from Australia to China… from Burma to Hawaii… from the defense of Wake Island through the invasion of Guadalcanal culminating in the desperate battles to defend the Japanese Home Islands.

You can gradually become familiar with the Pacific War systems first in the solitaire Engagement scenarios, then fight your way through increasingly panoramic Battles, Campaign, and up to truly epic Strategic Scenarios. As you learn the game’s basic maneuver and combat systems, you will then layer on more advanced systems for Strategic bombing, submarine attacks on merchant shipping, search and detection, amphibious assaults, etc. The depth of the game is enormous, while basic rules and principles easy to grasp.

The game in essence is a 2-player title but it is very much suitable for the solitaire plays. On top of this, the new edition is astonishingly beautiful, with two large mounted maps, tons of counters, three rulebooks – so you use only that part of system which is required for particular scenario. 

Still, some perceive that title as one of the “monster games”, hard to learn and master. Nothing could be more wrong! The author leads you through all aspects of the game via very well designed and planned teaching material, namely Engagement and Battle scenarios. Today, I will try to present them to Dear Readers – and maybe convince you to take the risk of familiarizing yourself with this game! (The only thing you are risking is not being able to stop playing it!)

Training Materials – Engagement Scenarios

First things first. What are the Pacific War Engagement Scenarios? According to the author, these are essentially solitaire puzzles of a very brief duration, usually taking no more than 15 minutes or so to play to a conclusion once the essential rules of the game have been grasped. This second part of the sentence is important, as initially, you will be checking the rulebook quite often. So, in essence, Engagement Scenarios are intended primarily as introductions to the game system.

Below my take on each of those “lessons” as well as link to material showing the actual play.

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
ES01 Pearl Harbor		– Air Strikes – Flak procedure – CAP procedure	★★✩

Comment on #1 Pearl Harbor: As you may have expected, it is like shooting at a sitting duck. You mainly learn how to perform air strikes. In the second battle cycle, you may add flak and CAP procedures. The victory conditions are tough and not easy to achieve. I suggest returning to that scenario once you have played them all – with a good grasp of the rules, it is much easier to achieve a decent result.

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
ES02 Savo Island		– Naval Combat	★★✩

Comment on #2 Savo Island: our first contact with Naval Battles! You do not really need the map here, only the Naval display. The game can be pretty tense and good outcome is always possible. Solid learning exercise before larger battles.

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
ES03 First Invasion of Wake Island		– Amphibious Assault – Ground Combat – Air Strikes – Flak procedure – CAP procedure	★★✩

Comment on #3 First Invasion of Wake Island: This scenario is incredibly versatile as it involves both fortifications and an amphibious attack. The initial Japanese assault on the island was unsuccessful, making it necessary for you to be extremely lucky in order to successfully take down the fortifications. If you fail in this task, it’s game over. For learning purposes, I suggest playing through the scenario at least once without the fortifications.

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
ES04 Invasion of Burma		– Ground Combat – Combined arms attacks	★★★

Comment on #4 Invasion of Burma: I really like that pure land-invasion set-up. You need to properly coordinate your Air Strikes and Ground Units, learning a lot about combined arms attack. It is winnable, needs some combination from you but gives great satisfaction. Also, check errata for small corrections.

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
ES05 Battle for Imphal and Kohima		– Ground Combat – Terrain importance & restrictions	★✩✩

Comment on #5 Battle for Imphal and Kohima: Okay, my least favorite engagement scenario. It’s a pure slaughter of Japanese forces, unwinnable at all if you do not use errata (which says you can enter a mountain hex not only via a transport route but from an adjacent hex with any transport route). A small novelty is the usage of Armor Advantage on the British side. Still, it plays very fast!

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
ES06 Force Z from Singapore		– Air Strikes – Naval Combat	★★✩

Comment on #6 Force Z from Singapore: Very interesting historically battle, but do not count on your Air Strikes to repeat the great Japanese success. Be prepared for a Naval Battle – again, some imagination is needed to bring all the forces to the fight from their initial starting positions!

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
ES07 Raid on Darwin		– Air Strikes – Flak procedure – CAP procedure	★✩✩

Comment on #7 Raid on Darwin: Definitely not my favorite scenario – not only that I made some mistakes in the video (making the game much harder for me) but also because it is just pure Air Strike battle. And while reenacting the epic raid on Pearl Harbor is really interesting, that one definitely has much lower fun factor. Also, check errata or you will be scraping your head how that tactical bomber can reach Darwin 🙂

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
ES08 Battle of Java Sea		– Naval Combat	★★★

Comment on #8 Battle of Java Sea: Probably my favorite scenario – a colorful, multi-nation battle, which you can play in couple of set-ups as you have 2 Task Forces on each side which might take part in the battle (I suggest definitely testing when they all are involved).

Training Materials – Battle Scenarios

After presenting to the Dear Readers detailed analysis of the Pacific War Engagement Scenarios, time has come for another steps in the fascinating journey with that game. To set things in context, the Engagement Scenarios are intended to teach the game and are the simplest and quickest to play whereas the Strategic Scenarios are the most complex and time-consuming; the Battle and Campaign Scenarios fall between these extremes. Let us see what we can get from those!

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
BS01 – Relief of Wake Island		– Amphibious Landings	★★✩

Comment on #1 Relief of Wake Island: Just like engagement version of this scenario, this set-up is incredibly versatile as it involves both fortifications and an amphibious attack. Also, it does not include Contact Phase so we immediately go to Battle Cycles. Of course, this is again very tough nut to crack for Japanese side.

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
BS02 – Battle of the Coral Sea		– Contact Phase – Intercept Intelligence Condition	★★★

Comment on #2 Battle of the Coral Sea: Pretty complex engagement, requiring both Naval Battles as well as Amphibious landings. A lot of firepower on both sides making this pretty bloody engagement. Definitely leave this battle once you got enough experience with Battle Scenarios.

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
BS04 – Battle of the Eastern Solomons		– Contact Phase – Amphibious Landings	★✩✩

Comment on #4 Battle of the Eastern Solomons: Pure Naval/Air engagement with most of Japanese Kido Butai taking part! Some slightly artificial rules about on move of some of the US forces make it a little bit tricky / gamey. Still, some decent fight possible.

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
BS05 – Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands		– Naval Combat	★★★

Comment on #5 Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands: One of the biggest and deadliest Battle Scenarios we have; full Kido Butai, Yamato and scores of other battleships on Japanese side. Pretty decent force on US side, with two carriers involved. I had a lot of fun with that!

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
BS06 – Naval battle of Guadalcanal		– Amphibious Landings – Naval Combat	★★✩

Comment on #6 Naval battle of Guadalcanal: Another story about one of the most famous engagements of Pacific War – this time Naval part of Guadalcanal battle. We have a landing and interdiction of land base here as conditions (which spices up the game) but all in all this is Air Strike / Naval clash type of scenario. Definitely fun although good to play couple of time to get most of it.

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Fun factor
BS9 – Indian Ocean Adventure		– Air Strikes	★★✩

Comment on #9 Indian Ocean Adventure: Another “turkey shoot” type of play, where mostly immobile Allied forces are being slaughtered by superior Japanese forces. A lot of great airplanes (Level 2) still in Kido Butai. A good lesson how to plan the attack properly – i.e. that your ships will have time to come back. One of the best places to start with Battle Scenarios.

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Subjective fun factor
BS10 – Aleutians		– Ambush Intelligence Condition	★★✩

Comment on #10 – Aleutians: How did it go in my playthrough? First of all, that was big fun – a true race with time. Americans were of course first to both Attu and Kiska, but Japanese had a chance to break and push the US Army out. Still, the dice was not with them and as there were no Japanese ground forces on Attu and Kiska, the game finished in decisive US victory.

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Subjective fun factor
BS11 – The Kiska Convoy		– Amphibious Landings – Naval Combat	★★✩

Comment on #11 – The Kiska Convoy: How did it go in my playthrough? First and foremost, the Japanese have won decisive victory. Not only they managed to land the Engineers, but also scored more naval hits. It was evident, that this time the luck was with Imperial Army!

Name	Playthrough link	What you learn	Subjective fun factor
BS12 – Operation Landcrab		– Amphibious Landings – Naval Combat	★★★

Comment on #12 – Operation Landcrab: What a great play-through it was! Probably my favorite scenario out of the three on Aleutians. I got huge naval battle, fierce land engagement and completely unexpected result with Japanese tactical victory – would probably not be able to hold up much longer but for scenario purposes that was fine.

Summary

The three largest Battle Scenarios of Pacific War game are still waiting for me to have more time to play and shoot them. What that would be? Of course Midway, Battle of the Philippine Sea & Battle of Leyte Gulf. Due to space limitations I might need to do them on Vassal!

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Have fun learning the Pacific War!