Battles of the Third Age Expansion - Tactical Gameplay Preview

Fantasy Fight games will soon release an expansion to the very successful War of the Ring "Big Box" boardgame. The original title was a game of massive scope and only resolved after hours of play. "Battles of the Third Age" expands on the strategic portion of the title by providing new units and new cards, but it also includes two new tactical-level games: The Battle for Rohan and the Battle for Gondor.

If the scope of the original War of the Ring is comparable to WWII's historic battle for Europe, then the expansion's battles for Rohan and Gondor are on the same level as the Battle of the Bulge or the Normandy campaign. These aren't short affairs that end when the victor takes a hill - but campaigns of battles for terrain, positioning, and the occupation of towns.

The 'mini games' (let's face it, they're not so mini) come with their own boards and rules but borrow the dice and pieces from the main game. New heroes and anti heros are added to the mix (including the nasty Gríma Wormtounge), and the new game boards sport two new gameplay tracks: "Fate" and "The Power of the Shadow". These guys tug at each other to trigger set events for the side of good and evil, respectively. It's a age-old Yin/Yang relationship of life and death. For those folks unfamiliar with the game, the tracks are a simple series of numbers which keep track of certain momentums. "Fate" grows over time (its accelerated by the Dark player's use of the "Power of Shadow" track) and gives the Free Peoples that needed extra oomph just when things start hitting the fan. The "Power of Shadow" track is consumed by the Dark player to exercise some extraordinary abilities which seriously weaken the Free Peoples' defense. It's all somewhat reminiscent of the War Fever and Jihad gauge from "A Line in the Sand" (1991), if you ever played that one.

From "Battles of the Third Age: Preview of the Tactical Expansion": In the Battle for Rohan the Shadow must take control of enough of Rohan’s Settlements and Strongholds before the Ents destroy Orthanc. To accomplish this Saruman has a host of Uruk-Hais, Warg Riders, Half-Orcs and Dunlendings as well as some support from Mordor Orcs. In their way stand the Lords and Captains of Rohan, their Riders, Archers and Foot soldiers as well as some of the Companions of the Fellowship of the Ring.

Will Saruman attack swiftly through the Fords of Isen to invade the Westfold, or let Gríma poison the mind of old Théoden King first? Can Éomer rally enough Riders to keep the Rohan Plains free of Orcs and will Merry and Pippin be able to rouse the Ents in time?

Read more from "Battles of the Third Age: Preview of the Tactical Expansion" on the official Fantasy Fight Games website. It's chalk-full of nuggets of tactical deliciousness, and yet not dry in the least.

Battles of the Third Age is currently slated for a May release, and is available for preorder at Funagain Games.

Change the Face of Monopoly Forever

Hasbro has scheduled a face lift to bring Monopoly into the modern era before Christmastime 2006. It seems that the young whippersnappers who hang-out at night in the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot don't know where the A-Train on Reading Railroad goes anymore, and we've heard the Political Conservatives are lobbying to rename the "Luxury Tax" to the "Beer and Pretzel Tax" in hopes the working class will move to repeal it.

The good news is that Hasbro has created a web poll where the public can vote for the new spaces of the Monopoly Here and Now edition. When you visit the official polling site, you can zoom-in on a few major American cities and vote for 1 of 3 landmarks for each location. Folks can vote once per day between April 24th and May 12th.

Some of these choices are pretty cool - Boston's Fenway Park is an obvious no-brainer, as is the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. But the idea of landing on a "Disneyworld" space and paying rent, or the thought of purchasing a hotel in the "Mall of America" makes the anti commercialism portion of our psyche cringe just a bit.

Still - it's all good fun. Vote early, vote often!

Dissension in Detail

Wizards of the Coast has no reason to keep Dissension under wraps now that the Dissension prerelease weekend is over, and thankfully they realize this, too. Not only do they have an alphabetical list of cards and their abilities on a nice clean web page, but the Dissension cards have also been incorporated into Gatherer, the online database of all things Magic: The Gathering.

We're drooling over the Simic Guild (Blue/Green) - not becuase the glowing mound Experiment Kraj is quite the Simic badass, but becuase of the cool little things like this guy: Omnibian. A cute frog with a kiss of death.

A Quick Look at the Design of Board Game Pieces

The "rant page" at Fantasy Flight Games has a quick little overview of the design processes of plastic figurines in board games. The article follows an example piece from the upcoming Warrior Knights board game remake (which should be released shortly) from art stage to finished product. We're not talking about an in-depth Frontline piece here, but it's still pretty cool.

Enjoy!

A Movie for the Weekend: Average Homeboy

Here's some humourous weekend moviage for you before the weekend - "Average Homeboy". Picture a 2 minute demo tape of Marc Singer's younger brother as he attempts to break into the early '90's Eastcoast/Westcoast rap war. The problem is: he lives in rural Ohio (probably).

We assume the record executives never called.

On some levels we feel sorry for the poor guy. He was only trying to express himself through music and rhyme, and usually there's a certain level of beauty in that. But not here. Nope, everything from his doily curtains to his butt thrusting dance shots screams plain-awful. Oh, and the lyrics are fantastic, in that age-old Spinal Tap property of Humor=1 / Quality sort of way.

It really doesn't get any better than this ladies and gentlemen. Prepare to be blazed.

Enjoy the weekend!

Hands on Havoc

We haven't played enough Havoc: The Hundred Years War to write a full-on review, but we just finished up a session and we thought that we'd share some nuggets of thoughtfully goodness with you.

Invariably a critic's first reaction to Havoc is to classify the game as a Poker variant. This generalization shouldn't scare Families away, however. Havoc includes absolutely no betting, there aren't any chips, there's no stake in losing what you've already won. Greed is not a part of the game -- Folks with morals still 'need apply'.

The game has been skinned with a fairly heavy theme of the Hundred Years War. Historically this conflict was more a series of battles than an all-out rampage, and so each round of the game focuses on a particular battle that took place during that that war. The battles are represented by cards that list a variable number of victory points for those who place first, second and third. The rest can go walk. There are 8 battles in all, and so 8 hands of Havoc make a full game.

Each player starts with a hand of cards drawn from a shuffled deck. The cards have numbers and suits like a set of Hoyle, but because the game can involve 7 players and last 8 rounds, there are more suits than a regular deck of cards. In fact, the the card numbers climb well into the upper teens. There isn't a limit to the number of cards a player can have in his or her hand.

The game begins in the deck-construction phase, where each player has an option to spend their turn drawing two cards, or - if their content on the cards they have - they can chose to "Cry Havoc!" and set the next battle into motion. The player who 'Havoced!' must select two cards from their hand and place them onto the table face-up. Then, each player in turn has a moment to judge the strength of their opponent(s) (based on the 2 face-up cards). If a player chooses to join the battle then they, too, must take 2 cards from their hand and place them face-up on the table. The battle officially beings once everyone has either decided to field a force or sit back, relax, and let the other meatheads slug it out.

Participating players then take turns placing more and more cards onto the table (face-down) to fill out their 'army'. Players may place up to, and including, 6 cards from their hand. Then everyone flips their cards in unison, and the hands are evaluated with near-poker rules (because there are more suits and more numbers, there can be some crazy unpokeresque card combinations). To the victor goes the largest number of victory points, with second and third place often (but not always) winning a consolation prize.

Here's where the game gets interesting. There are a few battles that have a boat-load of victory points, following which the "vultures" who sat-out the last battle can immediately (or soon after) "Cry Havoc!" again to swoop in and win the smaller scrappier battles. The idea is to strike while the opposition is weak.

Havoc starts to shine as a meta-game emerges above the already zany rounds of poker. Apt players must chose when to field troops, to what strength, and learn to weigh the potential spoils against the potential costs. The cost includes the potential loss of a good hand without winning the round (of course), but also the chance that they might remain weak through the next few rounds, as well.

We're definitely looking forward to more rounds of Havoc to see how new strategies emerge. Yep, it's one of those titles which evolves through group dynamics, and seriously - how can you help but love those kinds of games. Expect a full-review once we've played a few more rounds.

Havoc: The Hundred Years War is available exclusively from the FunagainGames.com online game store.

Now Shipping: Carcassonne the Tower

We love Carcassonne, and the time has come for taller, better things. Gamers rejoice. The "Carcassonne: The Tower" expansion is now shipping, and we haven't been this excited since Christmas. No, seriously.

If you haven't already picked up a standard copy of Carcassonne (our review) then you're missing-out on one of the most simple and fun games around. We haven't tested "The Tower" yet, but we've got high hopes for the title until we can get a copy in for review.

The game's new tower pieces (images found here) allow you to kidnap and ransom opposing player's farmers. The taller the tower goes the more farmers it steals. Considering how powerful farmers are in the original version of Carcassonne, these new peasant vacuums should definitely stir things up quite nicely.

Pick-up a copy of "Carcassonne: The Tower" for the cheap - here.

The Company Line:Players may capture opponents’ followers, holding them in prison. Later, the players may arrange a prisoner exchange, to the advantage of the players involved. Also, a player may arrange to pay ransom for the return of an imprisoned follower.

Fans of Carcassonne will enjoy the new tactical opportunities offered by this expansion. The expansion also includes a special tower for storing the landscape tiles, giving players a convenient way to draw tiles during the game.

Critical Gamers Staff Permalink

Battlestar Galactica CCG - New Article and Official Rules

Some great stuff coming out of the official Battlestar Galactica Collectable Card Game website.

First up is a new feature article "Challenging your Opponent in the Battlestar Galactica CCG". If you pay close attention to life then it might have hit you the blond reporter on BS:G is Xena Warrior Princess. If you're playing even closer attention then you might also realize that has absolutely nothing to do with anything. That's exactly why you've gotta keep on your toes -- Cylons are a tricky lot, and if you spend too much time sidestepping the closed fist flying at your face then you might overlook that Cylon basestar which warped in behind you. It just launched a nuke straight-up your tucus. Ouch.

Confused? Read "Challenging your Opponent in the Battlestar Galactica CCG"; it'll clear some things up for you.

We're also treated to another new BS:G CCG Oracle: Wizkids has released a digital version of Official Rules booklet (pdf) that will ship with the game. Sure it's drier than the standard feature article treatment, but hey - short of a game demo, you can't get a better grasp of how fun a game will be.

Oh baby, we're definitely getting close to launch.

Get the Latest Each Week from BlogPire Productions

We know you have a busy life and a busy schedule, and that's why everyone here at BlogPire Productions wants to make it easier for you to get the latest news from any of our sites and not just the one you visit everyday. We've provided below a list of all our sites and a short description along with a link for you to use if you'd like to receive news from any of those sites each Monday morning. It's really easy - just click the link - sign up and you'll get the list of headlines sent to you via email. Thanks again for reading us and check out some of the other great news from BlogPire Productions.

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A Storm of Swords Expansion Info

Fantasy Flight has posted more information about their Games of Thrones series, including the upcoming expansion,"A Storm of Swords". First off is an update the A Game of Thrones FAQ page (pdf), which includes some great info. But the beef of the update is this prize of a link: the complete rules for the Storm of Swords expansion (pdf).

What better way to try before you buy than to read the whole rules?

Bullet points from The Company Line:

• A new variant game with a new map, pitting Houses Stark, Lannister, Greyjoy, and Baratheon against one another for control of King's Landing and the Riverlands.
• New neutral houses to sway to your cause in the variant game, including House Arryn, House Frey, House Tyrell, and the many brigands, mercenaries, and broken men that people Westeros!
• Powerful new tactics cards for use in both the variant and classic games.
• New, alternate Westeros decks.
• Robb Stark, Jaime Lannister, and many others take the field directly with the new Leader rules, including two Leaders for every house (including Martell), for use in both the variant and classic games. Take hostages and execute prisoners for the first time!
• New House cards for every house (including Martell), for use in both the variant and classic games.
• A new deck of Wildling cards, making each Wildling assault a unique event!

A Storm of Swords is set to ship this June.

"Ticket to Ride: Märklin" Ships

Days of Wonder's latest installment to the popular Ticket To Ride series Ticket to Ride: Märklin is now available from the official online website. The website lists a price of $39.95 for their own personal stock. FunagainGames.com will ship the product soon (they're currently only in the preorder stage right now), for a considerably cheaper price of $31.95.

The titles of the Ticket to Ride series have been received incredibly well by the gaming community as a whole. Ticket to Ride is known for it's approachable and fun gameplay. If you have even a tad of rail baron blood in you then do yourself a favor and check-out this short visual overview of the game (it's one of 'dem der new fangled Moving Picture machines).

If you're afraid that a movie box might steal your soul then take a Geritol, sit back, relax, and read this peaceful analog gist instead.

Too much? Here's our short short-version: Players of Ticket to Ride construct a personal rail network with a secret agenda during the age of steam. The goal is to earn victory points by successfully routing trains to various cities on the board. Ticket to Ride is played on maps of well-known geographical regions, specifically the battlegrounds of the the great rail wars that took place in the 19th century United States and Europe. Ticket to Ride: Märklin ships with a new board of Germany, and adds two new freight types: passengers and merchandise. Here's the official skinny:

The Company Line: Ticket to Ride - Märklin Edition is the third installment in Days of Wonder's best-selling boardgame series that has won 14 international game awards, including the prestigious Spiel des Jahres. The boardmap for the Märklin Edition is based on a map of Germany and introduces Passengers and Merchandise to the Ticket to Ride gameplay.
Passengers are used to pick up merchandise worth different numbers of points along the routes that they claim. Varying stacks of merchandise tokens with different point values are placed next to the different cities on the map. Players can place one of their 3 Passenger tokens on any city along a route that they claim. On his game turn, the player can choose to then move one of his passengers from the city it currently occupies along any or all of his continuous routes, picking up Merchandise Tokens from each city he moves through. Of course he'll always take the highest remaining tokens. The point total of the tokens is then added to his score.

Sounds fun.. just watch out for German Hobos. No matter what they say, their "Hobo code" does NOT apply to outsiders, and they'll certainly cut you faster than you can say "Landstreicher!".

Learn more about Ticket to Ride on the game's official website.

Ravnica: Dissension Revealed

Magic The Gathering's preeminent themed block "Ravnica: Ciity of Guilds" hit store shelves last October. It included four Guilds - each a themed set of cards representing a color pair from Magic's 5 element colorspace : red, white, blue, black, and green. The initial installment focused on the parings of the Red/White Boros guild (power through order), the Green/Black Golgari (growth through death), the Blue/Black Dimir (focused on deck trickery), and finally the Green/White Selesnya (growth and order).

Then Guildpact was released. Expanding on Ravnica's base collection of cards, Guildpact adds three more guilds to the mix that serve to create a far more aggressive form of Magic gameplay. The White/Black Orzhov gain both power and life through their own death, the Red/Green Gruul combine quick attacks with sudden giant growth, and the Blue/Red Izzet rain-down direct pain through the manipulation of non combative game mechanics.

Guildpact is still in full swing, but so is Wizard of the Coast's design team; the first news of the final Ravnica expansion "Dissension" is reaching the official Magic the Gathering website this week.

Lead Magic Designer Mark Rosewater's feature article "Seeds of Destruction" introduces the design team working on Dissension and summarizes the various philosophies of the three new guilds. The demonic Black/Red 'Rakdos' gain physical power to damage their opponent through death and sacrifice. The White/Blue 'Azorius' guild created the laws of the fictional Ravnica world, and so their goal is to win through the manipulation of game rules. And the Green/Blue 'Simic' are backyard chemists who evolve and augment living organic substances, to create powerful creatures which grow powerful over time. The new game rules Hellbent (Rakdos), Forecast (Azorius), and Graft (Simic) have only been announced in name thus far, but it doesn't take much imagination to guess how they might play-out given the three guild's philosophies. Finally, the article unveils one of Dissension's new rare cards, the Experiment Kraj which has gotta leaves quite the stank in Simic's cafeteria.

The other article of interest is Rei Nakazawa's "Dissension in the Ranks". This article treats us with descriptions of the guilds' various mindsets, and also introduces the Rakdos the Defiler. Granted, the Rakdos art is a bit of a Peter Jacksion Balrog ripoff, but damn he's sexy in that 7/6 flying trample "I'll swallow your children and crap-out round torment pies" sort of way.

Wizards of the Coast will host a Dissension Worldwide Prerelease event on April 22nd and 23rd. Dissension officially launches this May. Will keep you apprised of more interesting news as it's published over the next month.

Games Magazine Contest - Win a Year's Subscription

The Games Magazine website currently hosts a quiz to test your knowledge of board game history. The prize: a year's subscription of Games Magazine shipped straight to your door, for free.

Life ain't that easy, though. Unlike the normal Game Magazine brain teasers , this quiz sports 12 snapshots of classic board game hardware that must be identified by name. Some of the boards are very familiar, some.. not so much, and unfortunately it's not in your best interest to wildly guess -- incorrect answers 'award' you negative points.

The contest lasts until June, when Game's Magazine will award the top 5 entries with free 1-year subscriptions.

Pencils... down!

BS:G CCG - Two New Official Feature Articles

Wow, they really keep cranking out the feature stories at official Battlestar Galactica card game website. We have two new preview articles, including some pretty darn nice card previews.

"They Look and Feel Human" focuses on the Cylons and how they can be used to effect your opponent, how you can use them to boost your own influence, shoot at toasters, sleep with deck chiefs, pilots, etc.

From "They Look and Feel Human": The risk-reward ratio for including Cylon cards in your deck is dramatic. Most players will include a few Cylon cards, but some will build a deck around the Cylon base star and fill their decks with nonhuman cards. The Cylons keep things interesting. You’re never quite sure what effect they’re going to have on the game.

The latest article "Home Is Where You Park Your Vipers" runs-over the game's Starbase mechanics. The starbase anchors your deck, incorporating your starting influence, maximum hand size, and your resiliency to Cylon attack. Influence, as you recall, is similar to a health mechanic; when it hits twenty you've become the next FDR and win, but if it reaches zero you'll yourself at washout bar, pulling back drinks with Michael "Brownie" Brown.

From "Home Is Where You Park Your Vipers": Whether you’re a Cylon infiltrator, a politician making a grab for power, or a member of the military just out to protect the fleet, your base will undoubtedly be the first thing you choose when building a deck, because without putting careful thought into which base you use, you’re going to be at a significant disadvantage. Besides, it would be mighty embarrassing if you didn’t have somewhere to park your viper after a grueling day flying CAP.

We're surprised at the variety of base cards that will be available at launch. We got a vibe from the previous feature articles that the Cyclons were going to be released a future expansion. We were also half-expecting a single base-card for each of the Adama and President Roslyn starter decks. But now we know that the first release will have at least 7 base cards, including 2 different Battlestars and a Cyclon Basestar. Variety is the spice of life, and looks like a pure Cylon deck is a completely viable option.

Sweet.

All your Basestar are belong to us.

The Best of the Blogpire

April is going to be a great month but we musn't forget how amazing March 2006 was as well. Check out the monthly round ups from the following Blogpire blogs: Liquor Snob Monthly Roundup: March 2006, Critical Gamers March '06 Roundup, GPS Lodge: Monthly Round Up for March 2006, Shirt Snob Monthly Round Up-March, March 2006 Monthly Roundup for TVSnob, March Monthly Roundup for Shaving Stuff, Monthly Roundup for Kitchen Contraptions, and March 2006 Monthly Roundup for Single Serve Coffee.

Critical Gamers
Magic TG: Guildpact Draft Strategies Part Two

"Carcasonne: The Tower" Ships April 12th

Really Natural
Beet Borscht and Oatmeal Bread Recipe/Review
My favorite low-fat mid-morning snack: Yogurt, granola and raisins

Liquor Snob
It's All About The Heinekens, Baby
Will Generate Page Views For Beer

The Cooking News
Recipe News: Recipe ideas for Easter dinner
Food News: Doggie Dining

GPS Lodge
Wayfinder GPS for the Mobile Phone
NOVOGO Launches First Voice-Command GPS Navigators - NOVOGO V

Shirt Snob
Design for the American Red Cross, and New Threadless Tees!
Extra 20% off at Bluefly

TV Snob
How to Buy a Plasma TV
DirecTV Announces 750GB HD DVR - Yowza!

Shaving Stuff
Electric Razor Deals at Amazon
Free Brut Aftershave

Kitchen Contraptions
Intelliscanner Kitchen Companion
Peppermill with Light

Single Serve Coffee
Review: Senseo Cappuccino Coffee Pods from Single Serve Coffee
Limited Edition Bourbon Amarelo Espresso Capsules from Nespresso

Magic TG: Guildpact Draft Strategies Part Two

Wizards of the Coast (WoC) posted a great article a few weeks ago about eight player draft strategies for certain Guildpact Guilds and cards. Actually, it's more of a take-home exercise than a strategy guide, custom tailored for folks like us who are constantly in search of more Guildpact know-how.

Why should you care? Well the original questions remained mere questions, until now. The polls are in, and WoC Magic expert Noah Weil wrote up a great article of reactions and analysis. He seems like such a friendly guy - he didn't freak-out over his disagreements with public opinion.

Speaking of nice guys, we'd just like to say that if you never bothered to take the original survey but decided to skip straight-to the answers anyway, then we 're going to go ahead and call you "a lazy bum". Sure, it lacks tact, but we are critical. Don't come crying to momma when you decide to draft a "Pillory of the Sleepless" to deal with large creatures instead of a "Douse in Gloom", and a common "Absolver Thrull" bites you in the tucus. Yikes, did that just come out of our mouths?

We joke because we love... but seriously, you're a lazy bum. Hey, are those beers?

"Carcasonne: The Tower" Ships April 12th

We love Carcassonne. The game is just absolutely fantastic, crazy amazing. We could break this thing out anywhere and still have fun with it; at the dentists', during an IRS audit, on-stage at a Gwar concert - anywhere. So we're drooling in anticipation over anything that might expand upon this trophy of golden gameplay goodness.

The release date for "The Tower" has shifted twice now, and we weren't sure if the latest prediction of "April" would hold water. But FunagainGames.com posts a true date: April 12th. Sweet crap, that's like next week.

The Company Line: In this Carcassonne expansion, players erect towers, employ followers to stand guard on the towers, and capture opponents’ followers, holding them in prison. Later, the players may arrange a prisoner exchange, to the advantage of the players involved. Also, a player may arrange to pay ransom for the return of an imprisoned follower. Fans of Carcassonne will enjoy the new tactical opportunities offered by this expansion.The expansion also includes a special tower for storing the landscape tiles, giving players a convenient way to draw tiles during the game.

We'll definitely get this one in for review.

You also might want to check out these related stories:

• Our Carcassonne Review
  
• Carcassonne The Tower - Images

March '06 Roundup

March was quite the busy month at Critical Gamers. We received the first good details of the upcoming World of Warcraft CCG. Battlestar Galactica also became credible when their website launched and their feature articles started pouring out, and Fantasy Flight Games revealed a monster lineup of boardgames scheduled for a 2006 release. We're pumped.

But most important of all -- Critical Gamers (that's uh, this site) officially launched mid March. It's been a long time coming and we're damn glad to be here. *sniff*

Ok, hug-time is over. Let's get down and boogie:

Collectible Card Games

• Guildpact Hits Magic Online
• World Of Warcraft CCG Survey
• MT:G Guidpact Draft Strategies
• World of Warcraft TCG Interview
• Battlestar Galactica CCG: "Welcome to the Combat Information Center"
• "Axis & Allies Miniatures Contested Skies" Released
• Battlestar Galactica CCG: "Focus on Resources"

Board Games

• War of the Ring Expansion News
• Apples to Apples Online Demonstration
• War of the Ring Expansion Preview
• Rocketville Released
• Spotlight Fantasy Flight Games' 2006, Part 1: Big Box Games
• Spotlight Fantasy Flight Games' 2006, Part 2: Board Games
• Refurbished Games from JRC Collectibles
• Caylus is Back in Stock
• Forbes Lists Top 10 Business Games
• Ventures of Argent - Open Beta
• Spice up your Scrabble with Wildwords
• Warhammer Marches on PCs this Fall

Gaming Culture

• Night of Fire! (Yah!)
• 3D Settlers of Catan Giveaway
• 1UP.com Catalogs 100 Free Games on the Web
• Rubik's Cube Coffee Tables
• Chose Your Own Adventure Books - Welcome Back!
• "How The Lord of the Rings Should Have Ended"

Memoir '44 - Pacific Theater Announced

"The gaming company Days of Wonder have posted to their website the first information reagarding the fourth expansion to the Memoir '44 series of games, Memoir '44: The Pacific Theater.

The Company Line: From the jungles of Japanese-occupied Burma to the desolate slopes of long-forgotten atolls, discover this latest exciting expansion for Memoir '44! The Pacific Theatre expansion introduces new units (Chindits, Japanese Giretsu Special Forces, US Marines), new weapons (Mobile Artillery, Flame throwing Tanks), new terrains and features (rope bridges, aircraft carriers, warships, caves...) and new figures (Japanese Infantry, Ha-Go Light Tanks and 75mm AA Guns), and more...

Revive some of the most ferocious battles of WWII like Iwo Jima or Okinawa! Use new rules, like the Japanese "Banzai!" war cry or the Marines' "Gung Ho" rally cry to win the battle!

The Pacific Theater will include 8 historic scenarios out of the box, including the battles of: Wake Island, Guadalcanal, Guam, and Iwo Jima. The game will ship with new destroyers and aircraft carriers (please, how could you have a war in the Pacific without them?) And for you land lubbers- the new map tiles will add jungles, rice paddies, cave networks, field hospitals and HQ supply tents.

You can read more about The Pacific Theater at the official Memoir '44 website. If you're new to the whole Memoir '44 wargamming thang, then you might want to also check out the series of Gameplay Overview webpages. They're not as boring as they sound. =')