Got home from work tonight and there it was, sitting in a box by the back door. It is up to the same high production standards as the first two games of the series. Four large maps (Port Darwin, Kokoda Track, Timor Leste and Solomon Islands), and it seems to have a swag of scenarios.
Well done to Sebastian Bae and the Dietz Foundation.
It's the Labour Day long weekend in New Zealand and I've just got back from a two-day trip to Picton to take part in Navcon, a new naval wargaming convention organised by Picton local Paul Dalley. Paul is a naval wargaming enthusiast of the highest order, often posting in wargamery spots on the interweb, running wargame teaching sessions in person and over VASSAL, and generally doing his best to promote the hobby.
I first met Paul earlier this year after he had imported a shipment of Littoral Commander Indo-Pacific and Baltic games to be distributed to buyers in New Zealand. He dropped my copies of the games off in person and stayed for a day of gaming. We've since kept in contact and when Paul invited a number of naval wargamers to attend Navcon he kindly extended the invitation to me as well.
Saturday was arrival and set-up day. I got to Picton around lunchtime. Some were already there; others were arriving by plane or ferry. It was immediately clear that Paul does not do things by halves: he had commandeered the workshop and smoko room of a well-known Picton nautical museum as the venue! It made for an impressive setting.
Saturday afternoon two of us played games of Attack Sub, and three others played Flashpoint South China Sea. I was one of those three and liked the game. It is another in that expanding list of nouveau card-driven games using cubes for markers and cleverly calibrated to produce tense, closely fought, fast play games that are easy to learn and hard to master. Curiously, it is an economic and political game. There is no fighting at all.
Over three turns of six card plays per side players jostle for influence across five countries and three disputed areas. Cards are used to place influence cubes, play events, or score. Interestingly, cards are all either/or decisions. There are no combination actions.
It's a game that I will keep an eye out for.
Saturday evening Paul took us to a secret location (which shall remain secret as it is not generally accessible to the public!) to brief us on the following day's play, a three-threatre, three-round tournament for six players and umpire using the Littoral Commander Indo-Pacific game.
I was assigned to team USA, fighting for a foothold on the Island chain north of Luzon. It's a map I know well!
Game 1.
With two taskforces under my command, one made up of a guided missile destroyer and the other of an advance infantry force - HIMARS section, MRIC section, Infantry Platoon, FARP platoon - on an LHD landing ship, were to get to and hold a particular position on Calayan Island. With the weather poor airpower could not be used, sea movement was slower than usual, and cyber networks were struggling to cope with the ramping up of hostilities.
Commanders were given briefings papers showing situation, forces at their disposal, objectives, special rules, and the points available to buy Joint Capability Cards.
We had the evening to consider options.
Fortunately, as I was staying at an old friend's place nearby, the evening was occupied catching up with him and his family, drinking beer and messing around with guitar equipment, so I had no time to overthink things.
Slightly fragile the next morning I selected my cards and we were into it just after 9am.
As usual with Littoral Commander, the encounter was absolutely brutal. I knew my best bet was to get to the objective as directly as possible and to use deception JCCs to soak up initial enemy attacks. I focused solely on the objectives. These being: primary: to get a FARP unit established on Calayan Island; secondary: to inflict disproportionate losses on opposing forces; tertiary: to use territory gained as a staging ground for future operations, so try and keep your guys alive.
The first three of five turns were spent getting to the objective. Both sides were using command points to remove disruptions to the cyber network. My plan was to get there, hit the enemy any way I could while aiming for logistics units and sea assets primarily.
By the end of turn five I had secured the objective, sunk a destroyer and frigate and killed the logistics unit at the cost of my own destroyer sunk. Unfortunately, the opposition (the canny Darryl) had also landed on the island. Not where they wanted to be, but pretty close. Could I have done more to prevent this from happening? Yes, I could have, and I was later to rue not having done so!
After game 1 then we had a US victory in the Luzon sector. In the two other sectors, Ryukyu Islands and the Taiwan Strait, things were in stalemate, if I recall correctly.
Sadly, I did not get good photos because a) I had left my digital camera battery charging at home in Nelson, now some 150 kms distant from the camera itself, and b) I had inadvertently left my mobile phone torch on overnight, and only had 3% battery left!
The only photo of my game, at end:
Game 2.
For game two (a couple of weeks after the initial battle) both sides had received reinforcements. The US had to maintain its hold on the islands and keep alive at least one HIMARS section to prevent PLAN shipping from being able to get through. I had my original force plus another two island defence taskforces. One landed with the original, one on a nearby island.
The PLAN had original forces plus two naval taskforces to pound us into oblivion. The fight was on right from the beginning. The land forces engaged, killing two Chinese platoons immediately, but at the cost of some of my own. Ammunition on Calayan was quickly used up. Darryl had targeted my logistics units, so there could be no ammunition replenishment. Darryl's naval assets pounded my infantry from distance, and then when offensive missiles ran out, by coming in to use his guns. In a moment of outrageous audacity, PLAN seaplanes brought in missile resupplies for Darryl's forces on Calayan, and succeeded.
By the end of turn six I had lost half of my forces killed. I had sunk a frigate and damaged a destroyer, as well as getting some of the infantry, but the butcher's bill was horrific. By virtue of one of my three HIMARs sections surviving this was also a victory for my US forces, but it did not much feel like it!
Seven out of my fourteen units were destroyed. Daryl proved again to be a formidible player and it was a pleasure to be able to watch him in action from close quarters. Thankfully, someone had an iphone charger so I was back in the game for photos.
 |
| A savage battle. US secure in one location, and still holding on in Calayan, but with PLAN destroyers pounding us at will and PLAN infantry in place on the island. |
In other theatres the Taiwanese Strait was still contested, but the PLAN had opened up a sea lane through the Ryukyus.
Game 3.
The final battle, this would be for mainland Taiwan.
This game I sat out because I had to return to Nelson, so Paul relinquished his umpire duties to take command of my taskforce.
The objective was simple: control Kaohsiung.
Both sides has three taskforces to put towards this objective, one naval, two land. The US had the advantage of occupying Kaohsiung at game start, but reinforcements were some distance away, and with PLAN forces in between.
Again, the fight was brutal. Missiles, ground combat, Joint Capability Card interventions saw both sides heavily reduced. Reinforcements were airlifted in for the US, and were destroyed as soon as they landed. At game end Kaohsiung was a wasteland. The US troops had been killed or moved out; the PLAN had not managed to step in yet.
It seems that the final battle was an apocalyptic draw.
 |
| Game start |
 |
| The situation develops |
 |
| Massively destructive land battles occur. Can the cards help? (Note the photos are much clearer after I wiped the dust off my phone camera lens!) |
 |
| The bloodbath continues. Remind me not to join the Marine Corps! |
I set up scenario two of LC-IP last night to try a solo game. In this situation war has broken out between the US and the PRC. The PRC is trying to force access beyond the First Island Chain; the US is trying to deny that access.
US marines have landed at Luzon and the islands to the north to defend against a PRC ground force aided by a naval flotilla.
The marines have four platoons of combat infantry, six sections of long range missiles, six missile defence sections, and a logistics company.
 |
| American deployment looking west |
The PRC force has four infantry platoons, a light armoured platoon, a heavy weapons platoon, two multiple rocket launch sections and two logistics platoons alongside three destroyers, a frigate and an amphibious assault vessel.
The US has to defend the line between Luzon and Taiwan; the PRC has to breach it. There are seven turns.
***
It is hard to do justice to how interesting this game is to play. On top of the units on table, there are also attached force packages, represented by off-table Joint Capability Cards (JCCs). These can represent anything at all, from surveillance drones to special forces troops to submarine attacks to CAP fighters to ballistic missile strikes and just about anything else you can think of. They all have a points cost, and you get to choose which JCCs you will purchase before the game starts. This means that you have a vast range of options for your game strategy.
The game pieces themselves all have a roster card as well, showing hit points, assault ammunition, long range fire ammunition, defensive missile ammunition, logistics replenishment points and so on.
Card rosters for the PLAN ground task-force, with attached JCCs, and various ratings for hits and different types of ammunition, which will be tracked in-game by coloured cubes:
Probably the best way to give a feel for the game is to go through a few turns.
Turn 1: Initiative is with PRC. They elect to begin by activating Task Force Shanghai, their land-based force. They have three action points to use. One is used to play a JCC (AI-enabled targeting) which will be reusable each turn; and two points to activate both stacks of land units to move one hex each.
The US then activates Task Force New York. With no enemy yet revealed to fire at, they play JCCs only, to get Combat Air Patrol and their own version of AI-enabled targeting onto the table for future use.
The PRC then activates their flotilla, Task Force Beijing, to move. They move wider to try and avoid the US missile umbrella and sneak around to the west and north to exit the First Island Chain.
The US then activates their second task force, Chicago, which is deployed in the island chain offshore. They do nothing, having no revealed enemy to shoot at and no JCCs to play at present.
Turn 2:
Task Force Shanghai plays a Social Media JCC, revealing the whereabouts of the US logistics company and a HIMARS section. A second JCC is played, AI targeting, which is successful, meaning that the effects of decoys can be disregarded. The two MRL systems open fire using their full capacity, for five salvos against the logistics company and one against the HIMARS section. Missile defence is engaged by the US, with four defensive fires for the logistics company and one for the HIMARS section. One of the PLAN missiles gets through, resulting in a hit on the logistics company. It has two hits remaining.
Task Force Chicago activates. It attempts a fighter attack on two of the PLAN ships, but is nullified by PRC Combat Air Patrol (in the form of a Joint Capability Card). An attack is launched against the missile unit. Of the six attacks initiated, one is successful. There are corresponding reductions in munitions for both sides. The logistics company is concealed so that it cannot be attacked.
Task Force Beijing moves the flotilla; Task Force New York elects to do nothing as all enemy units are either out of range or, if in range, unrevealed.
 |
| Flotilla navigates towards the gap while keeping out of range |
As you can hopefully see from the samples related above, the turns are interactive. There are moments to lead, moments to wait, moments to intervene, risk-reward calculations to make.
The pre-planning (in the form of Joint Capability Cards and positioning of on-table forces) means that there are radically different strategies to employ.
We ended up here with the US being outgunned and out-manouevered. The PRC achieved their objective of getting through the First Island Chain with turns to spare. My assumptions about US ability proved to be overly optimistic, and the pre-battle positioning was accordingly flawed.
 |
| US strength |
 |
| Strength decimated, enemy passes by |
 |
| US casualties |
