Turn 1

Turn 2

Turn 3

Turn 4

Turn 5

Turn 6

Turn 7

Turn 1

IJN Report: Not the best opening turn for my IJN. 2 BBs (1 crippled) and both CAs make it out of Pearl. Both PoW and Repulse survived unscathed in Indo. The I-boat hits Hermes, but only for 1 damage. And 4 US CVs base at Australia.

Turn 2

IJN Report: I make a traditional one-area attack on Pearl, defending my perimeter strongly but otherwise only backing up my patrols with Hiryu in CS. Charlie sends the British CVs into Indo against my 4 LBA + Zuiho, but his main move is to try and implement the Marshalls block, with 4 CVs to the Marshalls and a suicide CV to HI. Amazingly, the block works; Hornet is sunk and Saratoga crippled (should have been Enterprise if I’d not have taken a gamble on getting exactly 2d or 3d) in the Marshalls, and Yorktown impales itself on First Air Fleet in HI, but my SNLF is sunk in HI and my fleet in the Marshalls is devastated before I can remove the three patrollers. That kinda snuck up on me, to be honest; now I have only three ships that can potentially patrol HI on T3. POC goes to +15 before the bid.

Turn 3

IJN Report: I patrol HI with all three ships at Midway – Junyo, Shoho and Chokai – and my speed rolls are all successful. Charlie overreacts (IMHO) with 5 LBA in HI, taking no chances, so I concentrate in the USM and defend my perimeter. (He said at the time he’d been in a similar position on T3 with 3 patrolling LBA and lost HI, which obviously colored his thinking) Been a long time since I battled the block! The USN’s main raid is into the CPO, opening up my rear; my shooting there is atrocious, and Lexington and Enterprise shoot down my LBA unit before skedaddling, thereby saving Ryujo. In the NPO, I get my desired Night action and sneak an SNLF past the US LBA to capture Dutch Harbor. Elsewhere, my perimeter holds, although surface attrition isn’t great for me – I’ve lost 4 BBs already! POC to +23 before the bid.

Turn 4

IJN Report: Now it gets interesting. Do I push to capture Samoa, look to control HI as a way of protecting my northeast perimeter, or do I look to control CPO as a way of defending Indo on T5? I draw up plans for all three options, knowing that against 8 USN LBA my only hope is to keep Charlie in the dark about my ultimate intentions, and patrol heavily in each area to keep my options open: 5 x 118 in USM, and 3 x 127 in each of HI and CS. That draws a response of 4 LBA in USM, and 2 LBA in each of HI and CS. After much pondering, I send all of my raiders to HI except Shokaku and Zuikaku, which go to NPO to try and knock out the two US Marines – the overall goal being to lock up the CPO on T5 without a shot being fired and thereby hamper the T6 US CV reinforcements. The surface odds available to Charlie would have been exactly even (6 BB and 9 CA on each side), and he only would have needed to knock out my 3 patrollers to foil my plan, but instead of offering battle he pushed into AI, NPO and SPO and ran after getting Night in HI. My plan worked, though, insofar as I at least got Day/Night in the NPO and disabled both Marines to lock up the northeast. Shokaku even survived the Night combat, crippled but disabled back to YNY. Meanwhile, I sank Enterprise but lost my patrolling LBA in the SPO, as well as two of my 118s in USM. Still, mission accomplished, and I’m back in the game – POC now maxed at +29 – but the USN controls Guadalcanal and has a route through SPO and 3 CVs available on T5.

Turn 5

IJN Report: Though tempted to feint at controlling HI, I’m too weak to do so – and actually, I’m probably better off with Charlie’s T6 reinforcements entering the game in a cul-de-sac anyway. So I play it straight: defend the Marshalls with 2 LBA + Hosho to keep the T6 USN CVs out of the Marianas as well as JI; defend Indo with 2 LBA, Junyo and the I-boat to kill Charlie’s 2 Marines; and send everyone else to SPO and try to take out Guadalcanal with 3 SNLF. Charlie responds in force in SPO, where I’m lapped by 2 BB, and very likely to lose any air battle (my 15 CV airstrike factors against Charlie’s 3 CVs + 6 LBA). Disaster, though: Charlie gets Night against the flag in Indo and Day in SPO. Although one SNLF survives Charlie’s first wave of dice, the I-boat whiffs in Indo as well, so we effectively swap SNLF at Lae and Charlie captures that base, giving him an unassailable toehold in Indo for T6 (as I have no SNLF to threaten Lae). I stay around for two further Day actions, sinking several surface ships but losing Shoho and Ryujo in response, and then retreat. POC stays at +29.

Turn 6

IJN Report: I see two potential strategies here. The obvious one is to play safe and guarantee control of JI (1 CA) + Marianas (1 LBA) + Indo (5 LBA + strong fleet) and raid against Charlie’s patrols elsewhere, probably only losing a few POC for the turn but leaving me without any safe havens on T7. The other is to take a risk in Indo (5 LBA + maybe 1-2 CVLs) and fight hard to control CPO, thereby preserving JI for T7. After much pondering, I choose the latter course. Charlie sends out minimal patrols, so I take a few punts with lone raiders into NPO, the Marshalls and HI (Kaga vs. 1 LBA for 3 POC = good “pot odds”), back up my LBA in Indo with Junyo, and otherwise go “all in” to the CPO. Charlie decides to fight for the CPO: risky, insofar as the odds are pretty even (I have a one-ship surface overlap, he has 12 CV factors to my 8 + the I-boat) and he doesn’t have a Marine in the CPO, so if I control Indo, he’ll have definite basing problems at the end of the turn regardless.

In the minor battles, I disable the patrolling CA in the Marshalls, and Shokaku sinks the Marine in the NPO (and is disabled with 2d to Truk), but Kaga is sunk in HI without stealing the 3 POC on offer. In Indo, R1 is pure Night against the flag again (!) – Junyo is sunk in surface combat. Then the LBA battle continues evenly, with poor shooting, until R5 when I shoot down 2 LBA without reply and am left with a 4 v 2 advantage, at which point Charlie withdraws. That makes the CPO battle vital, and it is a titanic encounter; it takes the USN eight rounds to sink the final IJN patroller and decontrol the area, but the victory (abetted by Hosho’s inability to hit or disable anything in five attempts) is a pyrrhic one, as surface losses for the USN are massive (9 CA and 3 BB sunk, against IJN losses of 5 CA and 1 BB sunk) and Charlie’s basing issues are formidable. POC is only down to +27 before the bid as well.

Turn 7

IJN Report: A lot of advance planning is required for this move as well! My initial thought is to put my LBA in Indo and my surface fleet in JI, knowing that if I control both areas and do nothing else, Charlie will need to control the whole board on T8 to win by 0.5 POC. But then my thinking changes: Charlie can’t patrol JI, so that’s 3 POC saved, and he’s not going be able to send out a huge patrolling force, so I’ll have some targets to raid. Plus, I don’t need to win the game on this turn. So, I instead go heavily into Indo with LBA + the fleet (looking to secure those 3 POC), patrol into BoB and IO to threaten them and draw ships or LBA away from Indo, put my max-damaged LBA in Marianas as an extra distraction, and leave a decent raiding force as well (9 bonus CV and 6 non-bonus CV factors, plus 3 BB and a CA capable of raiding into CS through IO). Charlie only patrols HI with 2 BB – he can’t do much else – so I pounce, sending all of my bonus CVs there and 2 BBs as well and also sending single raiders against the lone CAs in the Marianas and Marshalls. (I have a roughly 60-65% chance of decontrolling HI in R1 regardless of Day vs. Night.)

My raids in the Marianas and Marshalls do the trick straightaway – now, if I can decontrol HI and control Indo, I can lock up the game. I get my slightly preferred Night Action in HI, but I only get 5d on Washington without disabling it, so it looks like I’ve failed…that is, until New Jersey and the F-boat both whiff on Musashi (already with 7d), leaving me with Hosho and Musashi still alive, and I then get Night against the flag in R2, allowing Musashi to remove the final patroller. That leaves only Indo; I failed to get the Night action in R1 that would have virtually sealed the game, but my 15 non-bonus airstrikes disable 2 CV + 2 CVL, so I still have the advantage even after the US response removes all three SNLF before I can invade Lae. Night in R2 delays the inevitable, and then my shooting is hot in R3, removing all but one damaged LBA, and then I finish the job in R4 to lock up Indo and the game.

Final score at the end of T7 = +22 POC before the bid, or +17.5 POC after it.

USN Endgame Report: Darren has defeated me in our Top 10 game.

Darren's IJN forces mauled me on Turn 6, and forced me into several low odds battles to have a chance to keep the game going until turn 8. I didn't win a single battle on Turn 7, and he locked the game up.

PoC after Turn 7 would have been +23 for the IJN, after the bid +18.5.