Volko’s latest P500 title Coast Watchers will include an amazing 15 different scenarios to play, plus 4 ways to combine them into campaigns. Here Volko takes us on a quick tour of the South Pacific of 1942-1943, via the military situations facing the Allied and Japanese players in the game. (All images are playtest not production art.)

Coast Watchers portrays Allied field intelligence from the Japanese invasion of the South Pacific in January 1942 through the neutralization of the great Japanese and sea base at Rabaul by December 1943.

While the game is set in war, it is more directly an intelligence game than a wargame. The Allied player runs a network of coastwatching “Stations” across the Solomon Islands and Papua-New Guinea—a human intelligence gathering network, mostly behind enemy lines. The Japanese player influences military plans, buildups, and operations but mainly focuses on the Imperial Army and Navy’s security and counterintelligence efforts to root out or at least disrupt and avoid the Allied spies.

Each scenario in Coast Watchers provides a different snapshot in time of the military situation in the South Pacific, as a strategic environment for this intelligence struggle. To emphasize this aspect, I call the game’s scenarios “Situations”. One such Situation is a training game set in mid-1942, and 14 others depict key junctures set during 1-3 months each from January ’42 to December ’43.

We’ll have a look at the anatomy of sample Situation later. First, here is the full list of Situations that will come in the box:

• Lonely Vigil – In this training game set in mid-1942, coastwatchers dodge Japanese patrols and seek to report enemy troop positions up and down the Solomon Islands.
• Invasion! – A January-February 1942 “mini-game” introduces Coastwatcher rescue actions and Japanese air and sea operations.
• Retreat from Rabaul – In March-April 1942, Coastwatchers scramble to evacuate retreating Australians as the Japanese fan out from Rabaul.
• Operation MO – May 1942 sees the Coastwatchers seeking to warn of Japanese amphibious lunges at the remaining Allied bases at Port Moresby and Tulagi.
• The Airfield – June-July 1942, with Japanese garrison of the South Pacific, can the Coastwatchers find the secret airstrip project that will redirect the Allied campaign?
• WATCHTOWER – August 1942, as the US Marines land on Guadalcanal, all comes down to the Coastwatchers’ readiness to warn of the IJN riposte.
• Kawaguchi – September 1942 sees the Japanese fighting to reinforce Guadalcanal and Kokoda. Can the Coastwatchers derail the “Tokyo Express”?
• Matanikau – Even as the IJN scores wins on the sea, by October-November 1942, intelligence and air power give the Allies the edge on Guadalcanal and in Papua.
• Eichelberger – In December 1942, the Allies crack Buna and surge on Guadalcanal, but local sentiments on critical Bougainville Island harden against the Coastwatchers.
• Bismarck Sea – January-March 1943, with their convoys ever more hazardous, the Japanese launch Operation KE to Guadalcanal. But is it reinforcement or evacuation?
• VENGEANCE – April-May 1943, Yamamoto arrives to run a sweeping air offensive: Operation I. Will the Coastwatchers spoil his planned surprise for Allied airfields?
• CARTWHEEL – As June 1943 kicks off Allied island and coastal hopping, field operatives shift to offense: beach recon, guiding troops, and guerrilla war.
• Helena – July-September 1943, as survivors of a sunk US cruiser wash up on enemy shores, the Japanese finally force the ace Coastwatchers to abandon Bougainville.
• Return to Bougainville – Allied operatives return to northern Stations ahead of US Operation CHERRYBLOSSOM in October-November 1943, as Japanese bases wither.
• DEXTERITY – December 1943, with Allied landings on New Britain, the Coastwatchers position to close an intelligence ring around Rabaul.

Enhancing the variety of play in any of these Situations is that each side will be drawing initially secret cards from two of its own decks – Missions and Assets for each side – in different combinations each play. As well, initial setup will include key decisions of where Coastwatchers will hide and where Japanese forces will patrol in search of them.

Helpfully, the sequence of the Situations themselves provide gentle programmed instruction, to keep initial choices manageable until the game system and the card decks are well learning. If you progress through the Situations in chronological order (plus the mid-1942 “Training” Situation at the outset), you will face gradually increasing freedom and thereby challenge not only in where to deploy but especially in selecting which Assets to draw to help you achieve your Missions.

Let’s have a look at what a sample Situation offers. Situation “C” is set during the Japanese operation that led to the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May 1942. In the mini-map at upper left of the sheet, you can see that the Japanese have not yet occupied as much of the Papuan coast or the length of the Solomons chain as they soon would. On the map, “Japanese Base” and “Japanese Site” markers not only show Control but also host Japanese military Buildups on their hidden sides—information that the Coastwatchers are seeking to report to HQ.

The setup map also shows Allied Bases and other Allied Control, where to put Allied “Reports” markers that will log Coastwatchers’ observations for victory points, and where Allied Coastwatchers and Japanese Patrols are to deploy.

The sheet then shows whether the Situation ends by Turn III or can go all the way to Turn V – if the Japanese player does not end it sooner. Typically, the pressure of Japanese Searches builds up against the Coastwatchers. But lucrative Japanese “Operations” Missions – those that will sortie ships or aircraft from Japanese Bases and against which the Coastwatchers will provide tactical Warning – end play and might need to or be best Launched earlier. The options to Launch Operations or just hunt the Coastwatchers, and if so which Operations when and to where, are the key decisions for the Japanese player, and something that the Allied player’s intelligence network is trying to figure out.

The Situation also assigns a victory point threshold: here, net 7VP or more for the Japanese to win.

Some Situations have one or a few unique “special rules”. Here we have just “1. CARRIERS”. The IJN is sending carrier task forces into the Coral Sea, which—in this Situation alone—enables other Japanese forces to Launch Operations via the “Coral Sea” connection (marked on the mini-map with Japanese Control). This special provision represents use of that otherwise Allied-dominated sea lane for amphibious landings that the Japanese attempted against Port Moresby and carried out against Tulagi near Guadalcanal.

One of the Japanese Mission cards for this Situation corresponds to these historical landing convoys and awards a bucket of VP to the Japanese player if they attempt this Operation. But if enough Coastwatchers survive along the ambitious Paths for this Operation, their Warning VP will nullify the Japanese gains. So the Japanese player is trying to clear out Coastwatchers from key islands and shores if possible, or at least find out where they are hiding.

Finally, the Situation sheet walks through each side’s own setup procedure, including the draw of various combinations of cards. Part of the help in learning the game is that the earlier Situations (such as this one) assign set and random cards, while the later Situations including the ability of players to select cards from the deck, since those Situations presume that players are by then familiar enough not to be daunted by so much choice at the outset of play.

Like Control on the map, Coastwatchers and Patrols available, victory threshold, and special rules, the various cards on offer each Situation help define the operational character of that moment in the South Pacific campaign of 1942-1943. As you might expect, for example, Allied Assets to support the Coastwatchers will tend to be more abundant in late 1943 than in early 1942, with the opposite true for the Japanese security forces. Likewise, key figures like the commander of the Coastwatchers, Eric Feldt, or Japanese Admirals Yamamoto or Tanaka will come and go.

As Coast Watchers is an intelligence game, both players are trying to anticipate what in all this setup detail they may have to deal with – especially so for the Allied player trying to Report on and Warn of the Japanese Missions. As a key aid to game play across all the Situations, each from “A” to “N” adds a 2-page “Intelligence Brief” layout in the Playbook that summarizes and illustrates the possibilities contained in that Situation’s card draw.

In particular, each Intelligence Brief includes its own mini-map that displays what Japanese military Buildups out there might score Japanese VP, and where any Operations from those Buildups could be going. And with the central role for Japanese strategy of the various possible combinations of Mission cards, the Intelligence Briefs reproduce in full all that Situation’s Japanese Mission cards.

All these aspects of strategy also will come into play with the game’s Solitaire system, currently in development. We are now playtesting a full solitaire system for the Allied side, which will guide all decisions for the Japanese. And we intend to provide the same for Japanese solitaire as well.

My hope is that this little tour of the historical Situations in Coast Watchers has fed your appetite for the game and its look inside World War II field intelligence in the Pacific. If so, please visit its P500 page, and then keep a lookout for progress in this project! Enjoy the games.

– Volko

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