We finally were able to play South Pacific: Breaking the Bismarck Barrier 1942-1943 last week, which is a stand alone game contained in C3i Magazine Nr. 30 from RBM Studio that uses the Empire of the Sun game system designed by Mark Herman and published by GMT Games. South Pacific is a great introduction to the grander and larger Empire of the Sun system and is definitely a scenario that you can cut your teeth on before taking the plunge into the whole of the Pacific Ocean. Here is a video sharing our first reactions and thoughts after our initial play.
If you are interested, you can also check out our unboxing video of C3i Magazine Nr 30 as well as check out our Action Points from our first play which is where we create fake headlines from our battles and share various game elements through them. Action Point 1 & Action Point 2.
-Grant
The Players' Aid 
Excellent review. This really is a great introduction to the game for those who may have found the full game a bit intimidating.
It would have been interesting to see your full game, as the Japanese won’t normally be able to accomplish what they did here. As I recall, they can prevent the Guadalcanal invasion only on a critical hit (9) coupled with an Allied .25 result (0-2), so that’s 3%. And an immediate overland attack by the SS Brigade against PM only succeeds 12% of the time. (So both these events CAN happen, but only about 1 game in 300.) Even then, there is not really any way the JP should be able to take Gili Gili, let alone put an Army in Australia.
Don’t take this as criticism; crazy things can happen if you make a mistake with rules or tactics, and the point is you had a good time and gave us a great review. I’m just offering an observation that the Allies truly are on the offensive in this scenario, and that doesn’t change even if the Japanese get some good die rolling or a little luck with War in Europe. In the 10 games or so I’ve played, the Allies routinely ended up with 11-13 ports. My suggestion for competitive fun is to play the game twice, switching sides, and go with a net score.
Thanks again for a fun review!
Cheers
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I will say that I played the Japanese and I am truly aggressive and I got good rolls while my opponent didn’t. I believe your stats as we have played Empire of the Sun several times with the Allies winning each time.
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