Before getting to the task at hand -- Mike Smith’s game on the land and sea battles for Guadalcanal -- you’ll note the address I’ve listed for 3W. Nothing that 3W’s head gorgon does ever amazes me, but he always seems to find a new way to stretch the envelope of Sleaze. Nowhere inside, or outside, of Campaign for Guadalcanal is there an address, phone number, or any means of contacting the publisher if you happen to have any questions. That raises to possibilities: one, the game is so errata free that no one would ever think of questioning any aspect of play; or, on the other hand, if he did list such identification, he would be so swamped by irate consumers that the scene would start to resemble one of those torchlight villager parades in a Frankenstein movie. Actually, Frankenstein is an apt metaphor for most of 3W operations: haphazard, ill-advised, and so horrible as to be dangerous to small children. And like Victor Frankenstein, Keith often feels he is above the laws of nature and man. Even more, he constantly seeks ways and means to exhibit that contempt. Two of his more recent forays into the LaBrea Tarpits of Morality include his pre-sale of Barbarians and his latest product flyer. The Barbarians epic, based on conversations I had with several purchasers who had talked to Keith, as well as with some people involved in its production, seem to indicate that, whereas this game had been for sale for over a year, Keith only slapped together a first rules draft right before shipping it out. This was not an uneasy thing to do, as he essentially copied the rules verbatim from the old GDW/AH potboiler, Caesar’s Legions, which KP freely admits (so he can, à la Lady MacBeth, try to wash the stain of possible plagiarism from his hands). So, for their $40, what did the pre-pub buyers get? A Photostatted copy of the first rules draft, wherein they were invited to provide comments and suggestion … from which Keith would then “finish” off the game. Stealing a page from Chester Hendrix’s book, Keith is now charging people to playtest his games. Good work, if you can get it, as they say. The Flyer Fiasco is more personal. For those of you who haven’t heard by now, the latest 3W catalogue of present and upcoming releases includes a large number of “blurbs”, statements from people as to how wonderful various 3W products are. This is common practice, and virtually all the blurbs are properly -- and legally -- identified by noting either the literary source of the blurb-quote, or the city/state location of the blurber. There is only one exception to that, a quote by one “R.Berg”, extolling the joys of 3W-dom. Such a position will no doubt come as a surprise -- and disappointment -- to many of BROG’s readers, who would be hard put to find something good I have said recently about 3W games. No little wonder, as the “R. Berg” of Blurb Fame was NOT this R. Berg, but rather a Robert Berg of Texas. Does this effect many - or any - of you? Probably not, unless you have some feeling for the privacy of name, misappropriation of reputation, and misuse of both. It is far less harmless than Keith’s recent Max Bialystok-like stock shenanigans, but it reaches into the heart of creativity, for it steals what creative people prize the most: their reputation. Keith may be taking steps to raise the level of production at 3W (see “Opportunity Fire”, and, perhaps too late); he ought to spend similar time and energy looking within … and maybe purchasing a metaphysical pool skimmer to get rid of the scum floating atop his soul. Having said that, let it be known that Mike Smith’s Guadalcanal is not a bad game. We actually had some fun playing it, although we did feel that it was trying a bit too hard to be something that it wasn’t. The boxcover is a bit of a shock: a rather lurid, but effective, period painting of a marine who looks like a cross between Victor Mature and Vince Edwards (remember him?). The game components are solid and fairly colorful. Beth Queman’s counters are blah, but clear, and JoYo’s land map is effective and nice-looking. Its Turn Track does have a series of parenthesized numbers whose use we have yet to find; perhaps we didn’t look hard enough. The naval map is, of course, just a slathering of blue hexes. The rules are well-presented, and we didn’t have any problem discerning how to play the game right out of the box. We can say that with a clear heart and conscience, as we played the game without reading the rules … one of the BROG Crack Playtester Staff’s quirky methods of seeing how “easy” a game is. It says much that we only guessed wrong in one area, and that didn’t weigh at all in our evaluation as to whether or not we had fun. Guadalcanal is really two games in one: “Henderson Field”, covering the land battle, and “Long Lance”, the naval battle. Both games are separate … and combinable. As “Long Lance” uses a system we’ve seen before in other Smith designs, we felt more comfortable with a bash at the land game. The basic system is Move-Fight-Rally, with an mutual attrition phase for both at the end of each turn. One of the misgivings we had at the start was that there seemed to be far too much mobility, even in the jungle. Units were constantly moving around flanks, and making mad dashes at enemy positions. Then we noticed that there was a Fatigue rule, which could penalize units, depending on their Morale ratings, for using more than one-half their Movement Allowance. The resultant halving of strength hurts the unit in the two ensuing combat phases. Morale - proficiency rating - also plays an important part in the usual odds-ratio combat, with the player with the higher morale units getting an often considerable DRM. Even more important is the high-powered US artillery which, at times, is the only thing that prevents the Japanese from overrunning American positions. What helps the Japanese player is his use of Dummy counters; in the hands of a smart, aggressive Japanese player, these can make his opponent look far dumber than he was historically. Even though it becomes fairly easy to spot dummies after a while, their sheer presence forces US units to stop: YOU may know they’re there, but your marines do not. The game is rather fast-moving, with a wide flow back-and-forth between who has the upper hand and who is in dire straits, a situation which the game portrays nicely. There are some nice peripheral rules, such as attrition, tank usage, engineers, etc., to add flavor, but the general feel is still one of a good SPI game from the later 70’s, or one of the better magazine games you get in a year. To that end, if this is an area that interests you -- and there is not much out there on land warfare in the Pacific, WWII -- Guadalcanal is worth looking into. CAPSULE COMMENTS Graphical presentation: Nice, but nothing exceptional. Playability: Good, easy to play, few problems. Solitaire fair, as it helps the US. Replayability: As course of battle is tightly linked to reinforcement schedule, it could rapidly become more of the same thing. Creativity: Nothing unusual, more a matter of staying out of trouble. Historicity: OK. Wristage: Not bad. Comparisons: Far better than AH’s old clinker, Guadalcanal. I haven’t played any other games on the subject. Overall: Yeomanlike job; solid, if uninspiring fun. from 3W 2 22”x33” maps; 500 counters; 2 Rules Books; 2 Combat Charts. Boxed. 3W, Try and Find Us in California. $35? Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 16 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by Richard Berg This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com