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Red wine seemed appropriate for our game of Tulagi: The First Day.

A closeup of the landing beaches (one of the three is actually a jungle hex) in the Tulagi: Day One scenario. The Japanese can setup right under the U.S. raiders' noses.

More U.S. raiders await in their landing craft to come ashore in the Tulagi scenario.

Guadalcanal: Semper Fi Series (2003)

Players

Best: 2

Playing time

360–360 min

Age

12+

6.66

Average rating

122

Ratings

2.52/5

Weight

#12656

BGG rank

Outside top 5,000

Designer:Michael Bennighof, Brian L. Knipple

Publisher:Avalanche Press Ltd.

Average rating, ratings count, weight and rank are sourced from BoardGameGeek (BGG).

Game DNA

Strategy7.0

Luck7.0

Interaction5.0

Complexity5.0

Theme5.0

This game's strategy, luck, interaction, complexity and theme.

WargameWorld War IISecret Unit DeploymentHexagon GridSimulationDice Rolling

Overview

(from AP website:)

Panzer Grenadier finally moves to the Pacific with this game of the intense fighting between U.S. Marines and Japanese soldiers and marines in the tense weeks of 1942. Twenty-four scenarios are included. Guadalcanal is a stand-alone game; no other game from the series is required to play any of the 24 scenarios.

Guadalcanal introduces several types of Marine units: Marine rifle, parachute and Raider units plus scouts. The Marines usually have very good morale, and have excellent leadership and strong firepower. Where they’re at time lacking is in support weapons: The Army gets first call on tanks and artillery, and the Marine versions on Guadalcanal are not up to the high quality of the riflemen.

Japan counters with Army and navy units of low firepower but fanatically high morale. Japanese artillery isn’t very good, their handful of tanks will barely keep out rifle bullets, and there are few direct support weapons. The key to Japanese success will be to enter close combat with the Marines, where the Japanese warrior spirit can be used to full advantage.

Scenarios cover a wide variety of actions. The maps, thought by many to be the most beautiful in the Panzer Grenadier series, cover “historical” terrain rather than the generic coverage of most other games in the series.