Avalon Hill Guadalcanal Online Campaign

[Cobalt]

The Avalon Hill website has just posted request for orders for their online Guadalcanal campaign at:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/aam/ah20080805c

You can participate in this campaign on three different levels: strategic board game, War at Sea Miniatures (for the naval engagements) and Axis & Allies Miniatures (for the ground battles).

I am mostly an Axis & Allies Miniatures player and play the online version here on this forum thanks to Mot’s MapView program. I am also a graphic artist in real life and would like to put together whatever graphics are necessary to get MapView versions of the board game and the naval miniatures game.

Is there anybody else on this forum that is going to play in this campaign on any level?

[frimmel]

It has intrest to me but I will be unable to make time to participate.

Did you do the last one in any manner? Was it at all fun? I poked my head in from time to time but didn’t participate. Is it good gaming or battles that aren’t so interesting really?

[Cobalt]

I have no prior experience with this. We’ll just see what happens …

[Cobalt]

I have been enjoy the on-line Avalon Hill Guadalcanal Campaign so much that I checked a bunch of books out from the library on this fascinating campign and got the board game a few days ago. I’ve run through two games and am enjoying it very much.

Is it me, or is this game very heavy on casualties? There were a couple of huge air, sea, land battles (mostly fighting for New Georgia) and by turn three, both the Japanese and Americans were extremely depleted in assets. It seems like by Turn-3 neither side has enough assests to “island hop” any more.

[frimmel]

Yes things go back to the box a whole bunch in Guadalcanal. Particularly fighter planes. Things get pitched pretty quickly thus far in my experience.

[Guest]

@Cobalt:

I have been enjoy the on-line Avalon Hill Guadalcanal Campaign so much that I checked a bunch of books out from the library on this fascinating campign and got the board game a few days ago. I’ve run through two games and am enjoying it very much.

Is it me, or is this game very heavy on casualties? There were a couple of huge air, sea, land battles (mostly fighting for New Georgia) and by turn three, both the Japanese and Americans were extremely depleted in assests. It seems like by Turn-3 neither side has enough assests to “island hop” any more.

The campaign was a brutal battle of attrition for both sides in real life.  The waters around Guadcanal and New Georgia are probably the two greatest concentrations of sunken WW2 warships on the planet, with the only class of ship missing being the aircraft carrier.  Several of those were sunk during the campaign, but none near the islands.  I have studied the campaign for over 40 years, and have been to the Solomon Islands, and may be returning.  Three books that I would recommend to you are The Struggle for Guadalcanal bu S. E. Morrison, The Battle History of the Japanese Navy by Paul Dull, and The Campaign for Guadalcanal by Jack Coggins.  The Coggins book is extremely well illustrated, and filled with explanations on naval weapons and operations.

The idea of using the Avalon Hill War at Sea rules for the naval engagements is interesting.  I was thinking of using the SeaPower II rules by Alnavco for the naval battles, and possibly for the air actions.  I have not given any thought as yet to other possibilities for the ground battles.

[Cobalt]

Thanks for the great reference leads “timeover51”. I’m currently skimming through the old black and white WWII Ballentine Book series of the the campaign but look forward to getting into a more in-depth study.

[Cobalt]

@Cobalt:

You can participate in this campaign on three different levels: strategic board game, War at Sea Miniatures (for the naval engagements) and Axis & Allies Miniatures (for the ground battles).

Just saw the Turn- 2 Results and options for Turn-3 posted for the current Avalon Hill Guadalcanal online campaign and was disappointed that none of my AAR’s or narratives were posted. I have no idea if my efforts of playing all these games solo are making any difference in the campaign or if “High Command” is even reading them. Some sort of weekly results tabel or chart would have gone far to alleviate that.

Maybe I do need to switch to Flames of War like my brother has been bugging me to do for over a year now. At least they have a published ranking system and you know where you stand in their gaming community.