The appeal of classic beer and pretzels wargames like Axis & Allies (and the recent Axis & Allies: Europe) has always been all the cool stuff that comes in the box. Ever since Milton Bradley started making these games in the 80s, their ability to mass-produce jillions of cool plastic toy soldiers, fighter planes, samurai and roman legionaries, all packaged in giant colorful boxes has made these games bestselling classics. Let's face it: the tactile experience of playing with detailed plastic miniatures on a fully painted, mounted gameboard sure beats the heck out of pushing cardboard chits on a sheet of folded hex paper.
Milton Bradley (now a division of that great game company in the sky, Hasbro, Inc.) might have made wargames with great production values, but these have come with a price. None of these games, except for maybe Shogun, are very balanced or have much replay value. In Axis & Allies, unless the Axis players follow the same pattern of risky moves every game, they have little chance of winning. Conquest of the Empire's map was too small, and some players only started with a few spaces, making the loss of a single territory enough to knock them out of the game. Even the recent Axis & Allies: Europe suffers from serious design problems. Unless the Germans throw everything at Russia, they'll inevitably lose. Unlike most WWII games that just require the poor German player to survive until 1945, A&A:E forces them to take a capital. If they win, the game ends quickly. If they fail, then everyone knows they'll eventually lose, and you end up not bothering with D-Day. All those cool game pieces just get packed away, unused because of lousy rules and what must have been a serious lack of playtesting.
So how does Axis & Allies: Pacific (A&A:P) compare to it's predecessors? Frankly, it rules! This game has all the cool game components you'd expect from Hasbro, plus it has well thought out rules that really simulate the strategic problems of the Pacific War. Best of all, they fixed the victory conditions so that the game ends up being a nailbiter all the way down to the very last turn. The game works well with two or three players (USA, UK Commonwealth, Japan). In a pinch, you could add a fourth player, but run the risk of two Commonwealth players (Australia & India) having too little to do.
The map is a full color painting of the Pacific from India to the US West Coast. From North to South the map runs from the neutral Russian border to encompass all of Australia. The spaces are larger to accomodate more game pieces, though there are no holding boxes around the sides for some of the smaller islands. Some of the allied map colors are a little too similar, since players have to keep Chinese, Indian, US and Australian money separate. The colors don't always match the color of the plastic pieces, making it hard to keep track of which ally owns what as they gradually liberate each others' territory from Japan. The map is beautiful, but could be slightly more functional.
I've no complaints about the 345 game pieces. Unlike the generic-looking Axis & Allies pieces, these are just fantastic. All of them are sturdier and larger, and are modelled after real world models unique to the side that used them. The allied tanks are all Shermans, while the Japanese are clunky Type-95s. British battleships are 1920s Royal Oak class ships, while the Japanese get Yamato class battlewagons with their distinctive pagoda-like superstructures. The US player even gets a mix of Army P-38s to put on the islands and Navy Hellcat fighers to use with his carriers (a nice touch). Another nice touch are a set of plastic "task force" pieces. Instead of crowding the board with lots of ships, you just set down a task force marker and put your ships on a matching card to the side of the board. My only quibble are that some US and Japanese fighters have U-shaped swept wings that make them wobble a bit (especially if you like plopping them onto the decks of the cool carrier pieces). You get all this, plus twelve dice, play money (IPCs), tons of grey and red poker chips, and control markers (though not enough for Australia). This is annoying because you have to distinguish between Aussie and Indian conquests. I just ended up using pennies instead.
Better than A&A:P's pieces are the skillfully modified rules. There's a 30-page book of easy rules, full of examples and illustrations. The game is basically the same as traditional A&A, but with special rules that adapt the system to refighting the Pacific War.
First of all, the map has a lot of spaces. Most of these are well connected, letting players sweep their navies across the board in unpredictable ways. Historically important islands have special airbase and naval bases printed on them. These allow players to move their planes and ships farther, and are important to take and hold. Plus, there are lots of targets, so you have lots of options while island hopping. Fighters can now perform Combat Air Patrol from islands too, blocking movement and forcing invading fleets to stop and fight their way across the ocean. The allies need to capture these islands for the same reason they did in the real war: to use airpower to control the sea lanes.
Even better are new rules for placing units. No one but the US can build new factories, and nobody can build new ships except in their capital space. This prevents the US from building a factory in the Phillippines and churning out carriers and battleships in the heart of Pacific. This could've never happened historically. Japan has to ship troops to China in order to fuel their offensive, while simultaneously maintaining their "perimeter island defense". As in real life, they never have enough ships to do both. The Commonwealth forces (who keep separate money for capitals in India and Australia) can fight in Southeast Asia, China or by sea in Indonesia. China (controlled by the US) gets to survive in this game. They get 3 infantry a turn unless the Japanese can capture a "Burma Road" space by mounting a land campaign towards India. Finally the USA is an economic powerhouse (they get 75 IPCs a turn), but have a long way to go across the Pacific after Japan's first turn of crippling raids (the allied units only defend on a 1 during the first turn).
Another refreshing change is a rule for "sea convoy" spaces. In the war, certain sea spaces were critical convoy routes. Japan's economy was crippled because US subs raided these routes, sinking the Japanese merchant marine. In the game, any warship that passes through specially marked sea spaces "takes over" that space. It doesn't affect movement, but prevents an enemy from collecting IPCs from certain territories listed on the space. So if a US submarine moves through the South China Sea, Japan can't collect IPCs for French Indo China until one of their warships "reclaims" the space. There are also special allied sea spaces that produce IPCs. If Japan can control these spaces, they cut off this special "convoy" income. This makes patrolling the sea lines of communication important to victory, especially since it's easy for enemy subs sneak into your home waters. This also means that Japan can take over all of Pacific islands, but if allied ships control the sea around those islands, Japan can't collect any IPCs from them (which, incidentally is what happened in the real war).
There are new units too, like destroyers that cancel out sub sneak attacks, 2-hit battleships, artillery that boosts infantry attacks, and rules for fighters escorting and shooting down bombing raids. Japanese destroyers can be used as transports in a pinch to shuttle 1 infantry. These all make the game play more like world war 2, and give the players more choices regarding how to use their units (always a good thing).
The thing that makes A&A:P a real winner are the victory conditions. Japan can win a sudden death victory by taking and holding one of the three Allied Capitals for a full turn. Admittedly this is a risky venture, since Japan at full size still has only 1/3 the economic might of the allies. They also score victory points every turn, one per 10 IPCs collected. Typically Japan gets 2-4 Victory Points a turn. If they survive long enough to accumulate 22, they win the game. The Allies win if they conquer Japan, or prevent them from scoring a minimum of 1 victory point at the end of a turn. In a nice touch, the allies can subtract 1 Japanese VP per 10 IPCs of strategic bombing they inflict on Japan. Suddenly there's a reason to capture islands within bombing range of Tokyo. Island hopping makes a lot of sense in this game!
Typically Japan has a lot of options it can take to secure a victory. The allies have just as many in response to how Japan chooses to fight the war. The new rules allow the players more choices without too much extra complexity. The game has a definite time limit, stays unpredictable and usually plays out to the bitter end. Though the game is a bit pricey at sixty bucks, it's fun and very replayable. If you're a fan of Axis & Allies, or you like beer & pretzels games in general, you shouldn't pass up getting a copy of Axis & Allies: Pacific. It's the best game in the series.
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