We got some more of this game coming in a few weeks too
In “Ponderings of a Metropolitan Elite Wargamer…” published right here on The Armchair Dragoons, I responded to the article “Wargames: simulation or stimulation” by James Buckley and found in C3i Magazine Nr. 36. James took up the issue of how we (hobby wargamers) express ourselves and how we need to drop our pretentious attitude that wargames simulate history.As James writes, “The games don’t need to change. Just how we express them…I’m not saying the single acts of toning down the scientification [sic] of our hobby will massively reduce the barriers to entry into wargaming…But…it might help a bit.” With that thought in mind, I’m going to look at a new wargame historical conflict game that entered my collection, Task Force: Carrier Battles in the Pacific designed by Genichiro Suzuki from Japan and published by European publisher VUCA Simulations (“Engineered in Germany”) in 2023. Task Force is a highly thematic fighting competition game that is well positioned to be the modern successor to that grognard-legend Ameritrash title, Flat Top (Battleline, 1976) from more than two decades before Eurogames graced the shores of the wayward colonies. Task Force is played on a Hexagon Grid and uses Hidden Movement, Die-Rolling on Combat Results Tables, and Worker Placement to create a playable narrative of nautical fighting competition between two imperialistic powers in the dark days of the mid-20th Century.
Ouch!