Wednesday, 4 June 2025

Pacific Command - Carrier Battles


Carrier battles in the Pacific that are not boardgames? Hell yes! I should qualify that by 

As soon as I had seen this advertised I knew that I need to get a copy! A quick flick through as got me really excited at the potential of this system especially as I have a good selection of usable kit from the Fighters of the Pacific game (aside from the base game I also have the Midway and Coral Sea expansions) so would not need to invest in a ton of models. I even have the poker chips and decks of cards required for play!

I have played a lot of Pacific carrier boardgames via Flat Top, CV, Guadalcanal and Midway. These have given me some of my best ever gaming experiences over the years but I have never really considered it as being viable for the use with models. I flirted briefly with Axis and Allies: War at Sea range for the Pacific but never really made much progress with it - mainly due to the range of models being quite modest along with the scale being too large (1:1800th) for normal use. Pacific Command gets around this by the simple expedient of ignoring model scale entirely - a single ship represents a task force with all measurements being made from the conning tower. Purely representational indeed! I have no problem with this level of abstraction but some might so if you want formations of exquisitely painted models these rules, at first glance, may not be for you!

Personally, I am sold on the idea and cannot wait to try them out!

As a reminder, below are some pictures of the material that comes with the Fighters of the Pacific game along with the books I have for the period - 1942 


The plain sea side of the map board….


….and the side with some, ahem, terrain.


Aircraft counters - dive bombers, torpedo bombers and fighters - that I will be using. Pacific Command abstracts the recon floatplane types into the Recon phase so counters are not needed


Ships aka targets!


Fighters of the Pacific in action


Part of the library…


….another part….


….and the last part!


The full set of Fighters of the Pacific, about to be pressed into service for Pacific Command.

I have absolutely no excuse for not tackling this and am seriously thinking about running a game at the club once I am familiar with the rules. Who knows? I may even think about some ship models….



2 comments:

Archduke Piccolo said...

Those seascapes have caught my attention. I've been wondering how to 'do' cloud cover, storms and generally dirty weather in my own naval set-up - especially the teeny-tiny naval campaigns. I would like to see how they handle a sprawling battle like the Coral Sea or Leyte Gulf, as well.
Cheers,
Ion

David Crook said...

Hi Ion,

Pacific Command includes five scenarios - Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz and the Philippine Sea - ranging from 1942 to 1944 and the rules are designed for large actions. In many ways it feels like a boardgame without hexes or squares!

All the best,

DC