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Memoir '44: Pacific Theater is the fourth expansion for Richard Borg's casual wargame, Memoir '44. It requires the original game to play, but none of the other expansions are needed.
The Components
Pacific Theater comes in a small box with:
- 44 terrain tiles
- 10 round badges
- 4 rectangular chits
- 14 special forces badges
- 66 army units
- 1 nightime data sheet
- 1 rulebook
Terrain Tiles: These are new terrains for use in the Pacific. They include lots of jungles and rice paddies, actual beach tiles, mountain caves, Pacific villages and labor camps, river mouths and branches, trenches, and a few special locations: hospitals, supply tents, and piers.
As with previous expansions I missed having cards explaining what the terrains did. Scenario #52, which used three of the new terrains, was particularly trying in this regard, but I'm generally less concerned about it now that I know that DoW is planning to put out a deck of terrain cards sometime in the near future.
These and all of the other cardboard pieces are the same heavy, textured cardboard that we've seen in other M44 expansions.
Round Badges: There's new medals for the Japanese plus some of the special round tokens we've seen in other sets, like battle stars, minefields, and big gun targets.
Special Forces Badges: New badges for Japanese troops, Chinditts, and US Marines, plus special markers for mobile artillery, flame thrower tanks, and big guns.
Army Units: A whole new set of plastic army units for the Japanese, including infantry, tanks, and artillery. These are new molds, fully appropriate for (and evocative of) the Japanese units.
Nighttime Data Sheet: A full-color cardstock sheet that's attractively depicts six ranges of increasing visibility as night turns into day. It's double-sided, with English on one side and French on the other.
Rulebook: As usual there are two rulebooks, one in English, one in French.Each is full color and 28 pages long. Each includes new rules for all the new terrains, troops, medals, tokens, obstacles, badges, and units, plus 8 new scenarios (#49 through #56 using the M44 numbering), one of which is an Overlord scenario, and the other seven of which will be usable by all players.
Box & Trays: As with the other M44 expansions, the packaging for this is a little flimsy: plastic trays in a cardstock box. However this is another issue that I'm no longer concerned with because of the word that there will be a big mega-box to put all your M44 components in, available later this year.
Pacific Theater is almost an exact match, in type and count of components, to the Eastern Front expansion for Memoir '44. Like Eastern Front, Pacific Theater isn't quite as good of a deal pricewise as the original game, but is nonetheless a great set of cool stuff that is attractively produced with quality components and which will add a lot to your M44 game. My previous complaints about cards and packaging have been largely offset by promised future releases, and thus I have no qualms in giving this expansion a full "5" out of "5" for Style: it's the high quality you'd expect from Days of Wonder.
The Game Play
Pacific Theater again expands the core Memoir '44 game to a new front, here the jungle island battles with the Japanese. The new components and rules all move toward that goal.
New Terrain: As usual, we have some repeat terrain, including hills, beaches (now on tiles), labor camps and Pacific villages (which are towns & villages), and river mouths and river branches (which are just river variants). New terrain (though some of it appeared in other expansions) includes:
- Caves: Defensive for the Japanese infantry at -2, impassable to armor and artillery, and Japanese can move freely among caves.
- Jungles: Defensive at -1/-2, stops movements, can only battle if moved into from an adjacent hex.
- Mountains: Defensive at -2 from below, only accessible from hills, increases artillery range.
- Piers: Accessible from land but not water.
- Rice Paddies: Stops movement, and prevents armor from battling the turn they enter or leave.
- Trenches: Defensive at -1, stops movement. Stops artillery and prevents armor from battling.
There are also a few terrains that have no effect other than special powers:
- Airfield: Relate to upcoming Air Pack rules.
- Hospital: Allow unit to recover figures.
- HQ & Supply: If captured, you lose a command card.
New Obstacles: Obstacles are the general M44 name for rectangular pieces which go on the board. This set includes Field Bunkers and Rope Bridges which work largely like their unadjectivized matches in the original set. However there's also a special "War Ship" piece. This is a unique unit that can fire onto troops from offshore.
Minefields: These two sided tokens start out the game hidden. They can show a "0", "1", "2", or "4" on the flip side and do that many dice of damage to any enemy unit entering a hex. Friendly & enemy units alike must stop when entering a mined hex. (Each expansion has included minefields.)
New Badges: There's a couple of badges for special force units among the Japanese and Marines. However there are also some badges for totally new types of units:
- Combat Engineers: Ignore protective terrain used by enemies, remove wire faster, and may remove mines.
- Mobile Artillery: Moves 1 space and still attacks.
- Fame Throw Tanks: Reduce terrain penalties to just -1.
- Big Guns: Shoot further and may lock on to targets.
Nationality Rules: Each of the Japanese and U.S. Marine forces also have new special rules that apply to those sides during games.
- Japanese: Several special rules for Infantry. They ignore one extra flag and may move 2 hexes and still close assault. They close assault at +1 die if at full strength.
- US Marines: The player always moves one extra unit than what the card played shows.
Night Rules: New night rules limit visibility and thus range, but daylight slowly increases as a battle goes on.
New Scenarios: The new scenarios cover the Pacific from Wake Island in 1941 Okinawa in 1945.
As with the other expansions, new rules are slowly introduced. The first scenario (#49) just introduces the new nationality rules, then jungles show up in #50, engineers in #51, rice fields in #52, etc. Some of the later scenarios have a somewhat intimidating set of special rules, but players should be familiar with them by then if they play through.
As with the Eastern Front, the scenarios in Pacific Theater feel like "Advanced Memoir '44". They all require 5-7 medals, use lots of troops, and sometimes lots of terrain too. Pacific Theater feels like it might be even a slight bit more complex than Eastern Front, because there are more special unit rules.
Relationships to Other Games
Pacific Theater is of course based on the original Memoir '44. It is the fourth expansion to date, following Terrain Pack, Eastern Front, and the minor arctic-desert map expansion.
As already noted, Pacific Theater is very similar in character to Eastern Front expansion. They each expand the game to a new front with new troops, new terrains, and new scenarios.
The Game Design
Thus far I've gotten the impressions that Richard Borg has a very good handle on how to expand Memoir '44, and Pacific Theater in no way disabuses me of that notion. The expansions to the game are simple, yet meaningful, and generally match the feel of the original game.
The new Japanese troops result in the biggest changes in Pacific Theater. They really encourage a sort of kamikaze tactic for the Japanese player that wouldn't work in the original game, because of the ways in which they can move faster and do more damage if they hit their opponents quickly. Likewise, new tactics are required against the Japanese, because wounding a full unit is actually meaningful (which isn't true for any other M44 unit). These changes overall result in different ways to think about and play M44.
The new US Marine rules, contrariwise, don't really change the way you play the game. It feels good having more competent, better controlled troops, but I suspect the inclusion of these particular new rules were mainly to balance the Japanese advantages.
Everything else is mainly nice color. A few of the new cardboard bits (such as the jungles and especially the ship) do offer some truly new rules to consider, but they'll have a much smaller effect on the game. Nonetheless, I like the color.
Finally, he scenarios are generally fun. I've played three of them thus far, #49, #50, and #52 and they were all good to great. #52 was my favorite because it offers a complex combination of lots of terrain, U.S. troops landing on the beach, and Japanese troops that really need to leave their dug-in position to take advantage of the situation. It looks like some of the later scenarios might also offer some interesting complexity through combination of many of the new rules.
I'm not quite as astounded by Pacific Theater as I was by its older cousin, Eastern Front, but I suspect that's because I'm more jaded now, having seen this same sort of supplement in the past. Nonetheless, I've still let Pacific Theater eke in a "5" out of "5". Memoir '44 is an amazing game that I've now played 45 games of to date, and Pacific Theater continues to expand it in the best way possible.
Conclusion
Pacific Theater is another fine expansion to Memoir '44, in the same style as Eastern Front. If you're looking for new opportunities for Memoir '44 play, including new troops, new terrains, and new scenarios, this is a must buy.
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