D-Day Dice: Pacific Kickstarter Review from Bogue

D-Day Dice: Pacific is the newest entry into the D-Day Dice franchise. Following on from D-Day Dice – 2nd Edition, which featured the Normandy Landings, this stand-alone expansion centers on the Pacific/South Asian Theater, with new maps, new card types, and a new roster of Specialists, Items, Awards and Vehicles.

In D-Day Dice: Pacific, players not only fight against the enemy, they are also at war with the environment. The game reflects the realities of tropical warfare by offering battlefields that are both dangerous and unpredictable. Its Battle Maps include new features like rivers to cross, cave maps to explore, and infested sectors that can make your specialists sick. The game also includes “Strike” cards, a deck that simulates naval and aerial bombardments from both the Allies and the Axis, with all the dangers associated with friendly fire and collateral damage.

As with all other editions of D-Day Dice, all content here is backwards and forward compatible with all previous and upcoming D-Day Dice games. You do not need any previous DDD products to enjoy this game. The box contains everything you need to play.

Review:

It is a double edge sword (or bayonet) when I play numerous war games and games in this historical genre.  One side is to say, what happened was no game with millions suffering or dying.  Sorry for the heavy start BUT… I was reminded by a much wiser man than I that we must never forget and through this hobby and these pieces of honorable art, we never will. The attention to detail and the systems and/or mechanics created to enrich the experience through dice rolling (luck of the moments), card playing (timed strategy), and area control (troop movement) all come together in the latest game at this reviewers table: D-Day Dice : PACIFIC.

It is the latest iteration in the series which launched a base game just a couple years ago via Kickstarter as well as a couple of expansions that delivered even more content to this unique combat system. 

The demo game sent to me for review was the first of its kind to don my mailbox as Word Forge Games set out to create a unique limited run play experience, with all the elements to experience the play, without the heavy production costs of the main game to come. It is a nice touch and if preparation and value to the end user is anything close to the time Publisher and designer took to ensure a solid review, then you are certain to get your money’s worth. Nice Touch.

D-Day Dice: Pacific continues with the SIX D6 sided dice rolling experience with the familiar three-times-the-charm rolling sequence to accumulate the currencies and supplies needed to execute actions from the start.

If you have not played the original or would like a how-to-play video on the basic mechanics, please click HERE. This review is for those wishing to know if the added content and changes and additions are worth the purchase and the shelf space.

Link provided is an independent creator not associated with EBG or Meepology in any way. (He gives a nice meat and potatoes of how-to-play in under 10 minutes! )

In Pacific, you continue to take the six (6) phases of the game that include: roll the dice,  upkeep, adjust unit marker, rally specialists and/or find items and draw awards, move, and finally combat. The majority of play remains the same within the newly skinned and themed play set in the grueling theater of the war to the west.

This Western Front theme is the biggest change with a continuation of a wonderfully illustrated design on the maps and new cards available for each player to earn. If you are a fan of the art of board games as much as the play itself, you won’t be disappointed. I was a bit surprised by how thematic this game feels over its original base game. The designers utilized the historical relevance of the axis battle styles with the miles of caves dug into the mountainsides of many of the island invasions the allies attempted. You will get the sense of the struggle of movement that the original offered but with a lesser effect as you played. In Pacific, your movement gives a deeper level of strategic timing and planning that you will find to be both challenging and entertaining. 

Unit markers remain a main stay of the game’s timing with each location on the map limited to a set of turns that is depicted by the chevron number on the die face. You adjust up each time it begins a new round with the max being 3. Some cards and abilities change this as in the base game and now with even more unique variables to add some well implicated tension to your decision to stay or press forward.

 There are new regular item cards, enhanced new specialist cards and legacy specialist cards that give a “Rambo” like flare to the adventure. Vehicles continue to be hard to get and very expensive in relation to the time and cost of acquisition for what they deliver during a round of play. However, if you listen close you will hear me eating my words as in one game, it was the amphibious jeep that helped us greatly advance and win the session. Love that.

The advancement came in the form of launching a new element called a STRIKE CARD. These cards of chaos give an even stronger sense of suspense as you flip it over when given the icon directive to do so on both the new maps and in the prior mentioned vehicle attributes. The card is divided into Allied actions taken on their turn or Axis actions taken to often cripple your plans of conquest. These cards are also used for a special BANZAI Charging that is apart of play and an advance rule that knocks the difficulty level off the charts.

Another fun little addition is the jungle tokens that play a little Hide and Seek or 3-card monty with you searching for the ball of baddies that is the revealed bunker.  2 tokens are blank and the third is the location your unit is after.  

Finally, the one added icon and rule that drives this well developed game’s newest theme of the War in the Pacific is the Nighttime Conditions.  I often have thought that the bravest of men during this time must have gone through hell at every turn of dusk that they endured while on those insect infested, waterlogged islands of horror.  The darkest of nights find soldiers harder to see, rally, and communicate with in both silence and the screams of war.  This rule limits your ability to reinforce your unit with enough soldiers to even attempt to advance towards your victory conditions.  Make sure to always carry a flare, lamp, or some form of light while traversing this games objectives.

Overall, I enjoyed the many sudden twists in power or reduction in my units numbers.  It forces you to rethink every turn of the game. The one area that remains from the base experience that I feel is needed to deliver this ruleset over the top and put it among the leading play systems is the ability to manipulate the dice just a bit more than the few cards that are offered randomly (sometimes not even in the game if you don’t draw them). The luck of the roll often weighs in more than strategy given the enormity of soldiers needed to achieve victory. Again, with the many dice rolling games in existence (and I have played a ton) maybe my desire for this added element would nerf the overall stress level this game brings me when I can’t buy the thing I need or advance to the next sector given the few soldiers I was able to conscript at that moment. The symbols I needed on the dice alas eluded me after each attempt. 

That one frustration aside, and again it may be a part of the experience intended (for that then I say congrats), D-Day Dice: Pacific delivers the thematic brilliance of the era utilizing some of the best artwork I have seen in this space over the past couple of years. If you want to grind a path through the cardboard jungles of the Pacific theater of World War II inch by inch knowing your next ROLL could be your last, this game deserves a spot in your arsenal of games on your shelf. Either solo or with a battle mate, I know you will forge a bond with that other player that will be unbreakable, especially if you come out victorious! 

After reading Bogue’s review, if this sounds like a game for you at the time of this posting D-Day Dice: Pacific will launching on KICKSTARTER on Dec. 10! Follow HERE.

Check out D-Day Dice: Pacific and Word Forge Games on:

        

 

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Shane “Bogue” Bogardus- Reviewer

Born and discarded to the wolves of the great Northern Planes, Bogue grew up a nomad. His recluse behavior landed him in the penitentiary of the Witchic County Municipality with a population 2 -A man and his dog. Life was always a game set on hardcore until he met a mild mannered digital publisher who took him under his wing and showed him the miracles of game design and play testing.  Now he is a thriving member of the Everything Board Games review team and lives with his long lost mother and his pet ferret named Meeple in Austin, TX. (Translation: A retired broadcast television and radio broadcaster turned financial planner.  Bogue is an entrepreneur at heart owning multiple businesses including the latest www.Meepology.comdedicated to growing and maximizing the gaming experience 

for current and new gamers to the hobby. He and his son hosts the monthly joystickshow.compodcast on video game reviews heard anywhere you get your downloads. Bogue lives with his wife, two teenage boys and his dog “Pepper Potts” in Austin, TX.)

SeeShane “Bogue” Bogardus reviews HERE.

 

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