NT - Guadalcanal Campaign - The Brief

Guadalcanal: Grand Campaign

In February 2014, a “grand” plan for put into works for a World War 2 Guadalcanal Campaign game using Naval Thunder system incorporated along with various tested house rules which had been played out over last 2 years.

Why Guadalcanal was chosen compared to other possibly more notorious or famous fleet actions during the World War 2 period? What made it quite significant was that, it was the first major offensive campaign that the Allies took against the Empire of Japan.

Torpedo actions - Part of Cactus Air Force Mission

With that in mind, this campaign will attempt to recreate some of those intense moments of action and provide the players with the platform to make key decisions. Instead of making this into a series of pre-defined re-enacted battles, this campaign works on the mode of a “grand strategy” whereby players and their fellow compatriots will assess, deploy, battle, adapt and accept the decisions made by themselves with hopes of reliving the victory for the Allied or alter the historical outcome for the Imperial Japanese.

The Campaign will last for 12 turns with each turn representing roughly 2 weeks, 2 weeks of tactical and strategically actions. Both sides were given a list of warships available at or saw service in the Campaign, either available at the start or coming into a various time zones; with each ship going through a draft system among the players involved in each faction.

Sentai C convoy with CL Tenryu as escort - Part of Tokyo Express Mission

Players will have direct influence of the warships drafted in their fleet and actions to be taken by the players during each turn of the campaign period. There will not be an overall commander of the fleet among the players, as the overall command or high command comes from the Game Administrator (in this case was YS Oon).

Each player will do their utmost best to gain “Influence Point” from randomized mission given prior to the commencement of each turn (Missions are optional objectives with correlation of risk & rewards in mind). Influence point will be used for taking up these missions and also for drafting warships into a player’s fleet. Alas, influence points are also calculated for the end game to determine the ultimate winning player in the winning faction.

Besides warships, each faction was given a list of air and submarine assets. This land based air craft do not require draft but it requires a collective consensus between the players in order for it to participate in the campaign. On the other hand, submarines do not require any player actions and will not be influence by any player decision, unless otherwise stated in a mission, will move at randomized locations. If the submarines do involve in any engagement, a designated player for that faction will do the dice rolling and decision as in which warship were targeted.

A hex grid map of Guadalcanal will be use (more precisely, majority of Carol Sea were taken) with each faction occupying their respective naval and air bases.

As a representation of materials and supplies requirement of this campaign, each faction were given “Material Supply Level” to be spent on each action undertaken for both warships, aircrafts, repairs and etc.

With each naval engagement, it will determine the outcome of land battle in the Guadalcanal Island (based on VP earned and lost) and thus the outcome of this Campaign. Only the IJN faction have a sudden victory condition – the sinking of a total of 10 USN capital ships span over a position period of 12 turns required.

In conclusion, this Campaign is not an historical refight but a historical campaign where battles are resolved on the players’ decision from each faction. Only the optional missions were based on historical operations documented and undertaken by the factions involved – yet again, the players can opt not to participate.   

By April 2014, the 1^st draft of the campaign booklet (1 MB worth in PDF) was written and distributed to the players – special thanks to YS Oon to kick start the game!!

Turn 3 - L to R - Ian, Damon, Anthony, Kirk, YS Oon and Hyiktsay

Players involved:

USN – Damon, Kirk, Ian (subsequently joined by Anthony)

IJN – Eric Lew, Chor Ghee and Hyiktsay