Fighters of the Pacific

Gotta love that over the top box art!

The back of the box

Rules and scenarios

Essential game cards

The map board made up of eight sections that clip together. The hexes are 40mm across the flat sides.

The other side - complete with clouds and a couple of islands - aka targets!

The ship counters and assorted other bits and pieces - flak barrages, AA guns and damage markers

The aircraft counters. The US get 18 Wildcats, 22 Dauntless and 10 Devastators whilst the Japanese have 17 Zeros, 18 Vals and 12 Kates. 

How it looks (in a small but illustrative way) in action - lovely stuff!

One of the ideas I was messing around with as part of my ‘flying based cardboard counters’ idea was to tackle aerial combat in the South Pacific during 1942 - deep in the heart of Flat Top and Dauntless territory. The game of the title does exactly that and in quite a unique way.

I had an eye on this game since 2021 but for a variety of reasons never really got around to it - until now that is. A chance acquisition on eBay and I am now the proud owner of a copy of the base game and have the two expansions - Coral Sea and Midway - on order. I also want to try and track down the kickstarter exclusives as well - mainly as they expand the order of battle somewhat.

In a nutshell the game is all about carrier air combat - not the mechanics of launching and recovering aircraft, just the combat part - on a larger scale than usual in terms of the number of aircraft on the table. The game system is simple - planes are either high or low, the white side for high the blue side for low - and combat does not use any dice. In a nutshell, if an enemy aircraft is in the attacker’s field of fire it must dodge the attack if it has not been activated so far that turn or it takes a hit. 

An aircraft that dodges an attack is then activated and so may well be in a position to attack a separate enemy that in turn may be able to dodge. Within the game this is referred to a ‘Chain Reaction’ and is a neat way to simulate a ‘furball’.

Most aircraft can take two hits  with the exception of the Zero that can only take one but it does have the ‘Agile’ trait for free turns at the end of the move along with ‘20mm’ for increased firepower at one hex.

Movement and manoeuvring is quite simple, as befits a game that features a larger than usual number of aircraft at any given time. Aircraft are able to ‘slide’, turn, climb and dive with aircraft that have the ‘Fighter’ trait also being able to Split S.

Initiative and activation are key - activation is by air group or individual aircraft and the former can be of any size.

Did I mention that the game uses hexes? Well it does and the double sided mapboard is really nice. The hexes are 40mm across the flat sides which is rather handy and yes, I am already thinking about using the ‘sea side’ of the board for naval games using 1:2400th models.

The counters are really nice, chunky and use high quality aircraft and ship images. These would be ideal for use with my ‘cardboard aircraft flying base’ idea although gluing them to an MDF base is not really necessary - I will have to think of something else instead.

The two expansions add to the aircraft pool as well as the ships, meaning more targets, I mean carriers.

There is also a solitaire mode which is handy for me and is sure to get some use.

All in all the game is certainly worth a spin in its own right, but naturally my thoughts go beyond the initial offering and so other systems will feature. Shipping later this year is Fighters over Europe which covers the Battle of Britain with two expansions available - one covering the Battle of France (handy for fleshing out the Luftwaffe OOB and of course featuring the French) and one covering daylight operations over the Reich in 1943/44. Me 262s anyone?

In Other News….

I am now roughly a quarter of the way through the Dawn Patrol counters. It is tedious work as the US idea of what a square inch looks like does not appear to be anything like the UK version - coupled with some occasionally offset printing - so some careful positioning, trimming and sanding is required - for each one. Having said all that it is definitely worth the effort!