Big, bold and beautiful - Flat Top does Midway, S Craig Taylor style!
The game uses the Flat Top system but with, according to the designer, “reflects two more years of research, playtesting and just plain thinking and arguing about the topic of WW2 carrier operations.” It will be interesting to ‘ring the changes’ between this and the earlier Flat Top system
As a result of this acquisition I now own all of S Craig Taylors carrier games - Flat Top (both the Battleline and Avalon Hill versions), Guadalcanal and Midway (the Avalon Hill Smithsonian games) and now CV. This means that I can now cover carrier battles in the Pacific up to the end of 1942 at two levels of complexity - overkill perhaps but having the choice is important because it will mean that I can ease newcomers into the subject. As much as I like the Flat Top system it is a lot to digest for the inexperienced gamer so an easier introduction via the Smithsonian games would make sense.
Carrier battles work best with multiple players and work better still if there is an umpire to control the chaos. That is my ultimate goal.
8 comments:
Congratulations!
You’ve made me go dig out my copy of Midway. I bought it as a teenager, so it’s…old.
I was curious to see if I remembered correctly, and yes I have “The Wargamer’s Guide to Midway” in there, along with the Coral Sea expansion maps and counters. The rules for Coral Sea aren’t in there, so I guess young Ed was content to leave that issue of “The General” intact. I’m pretty sure it’s around here. Somewhere.
I did not know that “Guadalcanal” was a variant of “Midway.” I was very busy doing real-world military stuff about the time it came out and wasn’t really paying that much attention to Avalon Hill anymore other than SL/ASL.
Glad to see you've been able to complete the collection David:). Many moons ago when my brother and I were teenagers, we decided to buy a board game based upon U boats attacking convoys in the Atlantic. We'd never played anything like this before and in short it was a disaster! The map took up a lot of the bed (the only space we had to set it up), it was too detailed so we couldn't understand it and it needed to be ran as a campaign, which we niehter had the time nor the space to leave it set up. Lesson learnt!
Hi Ed,
I am really pleased for sure! I have seen but not played the Avalon Hill Midway and I know that there is much in the way of add ons. As I recall there was also a Leyte Gulf expansion as well.
I took a quick look on BGG at CV and there is a lot of fan based stuff in the files section - including some CV/Flat Top crossover material which is really useful for me.
It looks like my impending forced retirement will have plenty to occupy me with - fun stuff for a change!
All the best,
DC
Hi Steve J,
I am really pleased to have this in the collection and note that BGG has a lot of useful crossover material tying the game in with Flat Top. It is a relatively straightforward system covering a complex subject which tends to skew peoples perception of Flat Top and by extension CV. Certainly looking at the rule book after some thirty odd years did not reduce me to a gibbering wreck!
Games with submarines are again a complex subject to dive into (no pun intended - oh alright then, maybe it was…) so if you revisited it now you might be pleasantly surprised at how much has stuck!
I am curious as to what game it was you were experimenting with!
All the best,
DC
I think it was called 'Wolfpack', but frankly that's a bit of a guess as it was in the late 1970's.
DC,
Leyte Gulf is in the Guide. We played it once but with hindsight and massive US superiority it wasn’t much of a contest. Then again, we were teenagers…
I too did a browse of BGG and the rules and other add-ons available there. I would have killed for a resource like that when I was a teen! But too many games and not enough time.
I hope you can take advantage of your situation and enjoy your games.
Ed
Hi Steve J,
I wondered if was the SPI game Up Scope! That was a game and a half for sure.
All the best,
DC
Hi Ed,
BGG is really handy - especially for older games - and having access to such a resource is a godsend for sure!
I am looking forward to seeing how the combined version works out and so I expect my printer will be getting a bashing over the holiday weekend!
All the best,
DC
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