Coast Watchers: Allied Field Intelligence in the South Pacific, 1942-1943 is published by GMT Games and designed by Volko Ruhnke. It takes us into one of the most quietly decisive stories of the Pacific war: the network of Allied observers scattered across the Solomons and Papua New Guinea, sitting behind enemy lines with a radio and reporting Japanese air and naval movements. Serving in effect as human over-the-horizon radar, those transmissions gave Guadalcanal the early warning it needed to meet incoming raids, and they also provided convenient cover for Allied codebreaking. The coastwatchers have appeared in our hobby before, but usually as a single event card. Here they finally get a whole game of their own.
This is an intelligence game more than a wargame, and the whole design is built around hidden information. Standup blocks conceal the coastwatching stations, guerrillas, refugees, and stranded Allied crew, while facedown counters conceal the Japanese buildup that the Allied player is trying to observe and report. Other counters mark where Japanese patrols are searching, and counters drawn from cups drive Japanese searches and Allied delivery missions. Both sides play Mission cards – side tasks for the Allies, secret military objectives for the Japanese – plus Asset cards granting special abilities. The box offers 15 standalone Situations spanning the early 1942 Japanese incursion through the neutralization of Rabaul at the end of 1943, four campaigns tying them together, and a solitaire system. It plays in 60 to 120 minutes, which for this much tension is a remarkable achievement.
Regular readers will know I follow Volko Ruhnke’s work very closely. He created the COIN series, and his own entries in it have been a constant presence on my table for years – Fire in the Lake, co-designed with Mark Herman, and Falling Sky, which is one of the titles I keep coming back to most often. He is also the author of the Levy & Campaign series, where Inferno and Plantagenet have given me some of my best medieval gaming. What always impresses me is that Volko never repeats himself, and Coast Watchers is another step into completely new territory.
Below I am presenting the game components, giving also a quick overview of the rules and key design features:
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Excellent overview! This is a fun new game with an interesting topic and some cool mechanics. You can see similar mechanics in Volko’s game Hunt for Blackbeard. I know there more games on the way in the Recon series.
This one looked so cool that I almost backed it. Until I realized it wouldn’t get played. 🙁
Still, looks like the typical great design!