Guadalcanal to the death!

I haven’t tried this but the biggest difference would be you can risk your capital ships a bit more. As their loss does not give the bad guys (your opponent) points. I might be less inclined to speedy deploy of ships to the board.

Otherwise you still need airfields unless you don’t want to base bombers on the board and are content to leave them on your base card or not use them. Probably after you get two airfields (depending on your number of bombers and fighters) you are likely better off spending the supplies on repair of ships and keeping a few at your airfields to keep them in repair.

You can get a few more units for your isle hopping. But I don’t see the game changing overly much ‘to the death’ except for removing the urgency.

It seems to me that playing until one side controls five islands at the end of a turn would be sufficient.  At that point, victory is pretty much assured, and it would probably shorten the game considerably.

I would reduce it to something even simpler.  Have the Allies in control of both airfields on Guadalcanal, both on New Georgia, and one of Bougainville by the end of turn 12 or the Japanese do better than history and win.

I have not read the “to the death” variant, however, my pals and I have long since stopped playing with VP’s and have played with the base requirement that you must control ALL islands on the game board, unless defeat comes in another form or if it takes to long.

Krieghund is correct, we have found that like many other A&A games this one has a clear tipping point and usually he who controls 5 wins. Often the loser will end the onesided affair.

The game does not change much except as frimmel stated it does remove the urgency and the fear of losing capital ship units. Airfields still are usually built but at a more lesiurely pace. It also can stalemate into bitter sea and air battles and it really is up to your purchases and deployment which make the difference.

But the sea battles rock! A&A’s greatest sea fights ensue. Anchors away!!!

I’m going to have to try it.

By the way,I’m a bit confused on the supply things,I know,you need them to build airfields,repair them,and repair ships,but,how do you get them,do you start out with them all or what?

You purchase additional supplies with your reinforcement points.

Also you can capture those of the other side.

To fully capture the opposing players supply tokens you have to completely wipe them out on the island where tokens are located or do you just have to have control of the island?

You have to destroy all of the enemy units on the island to get his supplies.

After my first game, I’d say that I prefer VP’s, but of course, first game, neither myself nor my dad had any set strategies or plans yet, as opposed to winging it. But the way it played out for us pretty much ended up in me using my bombers to harass his transports from guadalcanal as he tried bringing supplies up while i ferried mine up and built airfields, and we pretty much sat in the slot building up navies until I won.

I think me and my friend technically played ‘to the death’.

I just bought Guadalcanal about a week ago (and bought AAP40 yesterday :-D), and played my first full game with my friend on Friday night. We played from about 7.30-2.00, it was pretty awesome.

Anyway, I played Japan and he the US, and from the first turn he took Guadalcanal, and from there proceeded to mass a sizable navy which gave me a lot of trouble, as well as a decent air force. It was hard going for me, though I had a strong presence on Bougainville and Choiseul. Most of my efforts went into maintaining my navy (which was massed in zones B and F), and AA guns (which I sent to Bougainville and Choiseul), to combat his navy and planes.

Towards the end there was a decisive battle, in which I almost overpowered his navy (this, I think, would have almost led me to victory then and there - he had almost no units behind about zone G), but alas, he rebounded and from there I was a goner.

In a fit of desperation I started making rules such as ‘last stand’ (where Japanese transports get 10 attack each - it was late at night), but he still defeated me with something like 3 battleships and a menagerie of other ships.

I made him attack my base directly, and he simply blew my 15 or so infantry units right out of there with his battleships, and that was that.

It was a lot of fun though, and my friend (who usually plays Xbox 360 all day) seemed to enjoy himself, and is keen to play AAP40.