In The Pacific War: From Pearl Harbor to the Philippines, two players face off in an epic struggle for control of the Pacific area of operations during World War II. In action from December 1941 to June 1944, the Japanese player uses his forces against the Allied forces from the United States, Great Britain, Australia and the Netherlands. Aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, and land-based aircraft are all involved. With them, each player plans and conducts strategies out of a limited hand of resource cards to gain the initiative and defeat his enemy’s forces and control crucial ports and bases across the Pacific. The Japanese are at their strongest at the beginning, and the Allies gain power and resources each turn. I can say that the counters are gorgeous and I love that they are pre-rounded and very thick. This game looks great on the table!
-Grant
The Players' Aid 
Very excited to see a review. I really didn’t know much about Lock and Load until I saw the last few posts. I love Pacific war games but have had trouble with Empire of the Sun.
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I’m intrigued by this one. In a small way it’s somewhat like a spiritual successor to Victory in the Pacific. Both games are big on control of ocean areas, both have abstracted land unit combat. Both use individual capital ships to represent fleet components (with escorts abstracted or baked into them). Both have LBA that depend on having bases and ports to deploy in the sea areas. The victory points work somewhat in similar fashion as well. And both start with the raids on Pearl Harbor and the attacks on the Philippines and Singapore while
Of course both are also quite different in terms of how movement works, and turn flow. In Victory in the Pacific the SOP is quite rigid while in this one it’s quite dynamic with its use of cards for movement and initiative. Naval and Air combat is resolved with a CRT here while Victory in the Pacific is “Buckets of Dice”. And so on. I’m tempted to put in an order for Christmas.
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That “while” ended up cut off. I must have messed up a copy/paste. I meant to finish by saying: “while they both end the game around late 1944 and the Battle of Leyte Gulf”.
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BTW, I recently purchased “The Pacific War: From Pearl Harbor to the Philippine Sea, my daughter and I will punching it tonight, thanks for the Unboxing video on that one, looking at the components definitely provided more incentive to acquire it.
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Awesome. That game is good. I will get around to playing it again soon and then put out a review.
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