From: Doug Murphy Subject: Review: Beachead by Yaquinto Publications, Inc. c. 1980 I picked this one up recently. A charter member of the "album" gameformat pioneered by Yanquito (and no one else) in the early 80s, Beachead, subtitled: A Game of Island Invasions in the South Pacific 1942-44, incidently has the same cover art of stalwart-looking Marines as Operation Shoestring (Guadalcanal) by GMT. One opens the album to reveal a multi-color numbered hex map of an unidentified coast line with jungle, a delta and river inlet, seacoast town (w. pier ) and other scattered terrain and about 1/4 of the hexes being sea. There is also a tables chart and aprox. 200 counters. Beachead is a small unit simulation of island combat in the S. Pacific in WWII. Each hex is 25 yds with 10 ft elevation increments. Each unit is 10 men, one heavy weapon & five men, one tank, bunker, emplacement,etc. Turns are 20 min. There are about 20 turns As the American, you get several flavors of infantry, rangers and flame-thrower equipped assault teams, mgs, mortarts, flamethrowing tanks, landing craft, bombardment and airstrike markets. The Japanese gets bunkers, entrenchments, emplacements, infantry, infiltration inf, assault inf, mgs, infiltration mgs, mortars, artillery, and tanks. There are also smoke and pin markers A unit has short - medium and long range "fire factors." Tanks and improved position markers has defense values. There is a basic game and optional rules covering off-shore bombardments, airstrikes, scattered fire, close assault, Japanese reinforcements, and smolke There are two scenarios: Banzai in which Japanese attack a battalion cp on the beachead and Opposed Landing which is just that: Marines vs. a heavily defended beach. One amusing difference is the personalization of opposing fictional commanders: Col. Hiro Mosaku vs. Col. 'Pud' Langham ("the baddest Marine since the Vikings..." There is also a Sgt. Stryker counter, the Hollywood Hero and superhuman Marine: nearly indestructible and gives many drms. The sequence of play is more a basic flow chart of exactly what one must do and when. There are 5 phases and more than *30* sub-phases along the line of a. determine range to target; b. determine fire factors of firing unit, c. determine defense value... In the Opposed Landing scenario, the Japanese sets up first w/ his units upside down. Then the American places his landing craft. Each turn, one rolls for initiative for order of movement, then conducts bombardment/airstrikes/indirect fire, direct fire, then moves. Then the other player conducts indirect fire, direct fire, then moves. Victory is point-based for each Amer. unit beyond a certain terrain line. This game plays like a simplified Squad Leader. The American has more than 2-1 firepower superiority and devastating indirect fire. However prep bombardment is plotted blindly and Japanese attacks on LC can be deadly. The Japanese has to sink as many LC as possible, seed his units to slow the Amis and chew up game turns and set up mg fire lanes to pin them on the beach, w/ a Banzai charge at the very end. The American has to decide how long a prep bombardment to conduct (each occurs in real game time so you the more you conduct, the less time you have to reach the VP line), where to land (spread out or concentrated), how to pack the LCs. Then once ashore, conduct classic small unit overwatch tactics to take out or pin emplacements. There is some weirdness which is addressed in player notes: prelim bombard can't touch units north of the VP line (the "red" line), bombard and airstrikes mostly pin rather than destroy, sinking LCs don't cause many casualties for occupants, Japanese mgs and mortars are more "effective" than American ones. Units move pretty slowly for a 20 min. turn and 25 yd hex. The designer (Michael S. Matheny) claims the above abstractions all even out in the end as the game turns on the depth and strength of an established beachhead. Altogether a fun game in the Yanquito fashion: plays pretty swiftly and although some mechanics look screwy, it "feels" right. IMHO, it plays better than DG's Red Beach One for example with more chrome in the counters and options for players to exercise. A nice chess match (will he move/concentrate here or there?) until the Americans try to moveinland. Then it's a slaughterfest of who gets at whom first. Doug Murphy (dmurphy@wppost.depaul.edu)