Fleet Commander: Nimitz Set-Up Board

[BanzaiCat]

Hey guys...I like Fleet Commander Nimitz quite a bit, but the set-up is something that could be done a bit easier. I'm a visual person so I came up with this. It's only for the Japanese, and only for the 1942 scenario, and took a lot of time to do.

Those of you that have FC:N, let me know if you think something like this would be helpful with your game. If so I'll work on a set-up sheet for the others.



The counters should be the same size as those in the game, though I cannot print it off to test it here at home. The idea is to just drop the unit on top of its image and voila, set up should be completed much faster.

Note: this might be a bit hard to view, but I had to compress it into JPEG to upload here. I've got a PDF version, but the high-quality printable version is 89MB. I will spend some time later to reduce the file size on it so it's more manageable, and perhaps upload it to BGG.

[PanzersEast]

Nice work Banzai..... I think it would be helpful and quicker to setup.  Have the US on the reverse side so it could be printed double sided.

Also, I honestly kind of dislike the way the fleets are handled on the board... a huge stack falling over around an island is not very good. I have to unstack to look through to see the combined strength and then re-stack.  A separate mat like this would also could be beneficial in addition to the setup you have here...... but of course that idea takes up more room.


PE

[BanzaiCat]

A good idea, PE...that would require a separate sheet with 'Fleet' markers, then you could just put a Fleet marker on an island and have the ships off-map. As you said, though, that's even more space.

Some of the stacks are truly obnoxious.

[JudgeDredd]

That looks very helpful indeed. Good skillz.

I think the addition of a "fleet" layout one as mentioned would be a good idea. I'm rather surprised these weren't thought of by Dan...or perhaps the cost would've been prohibitive.

[Nefaro]

I had been debating picking up FC Nimitz but after seeing the amount of counters in it, I decided to wait. 

After punching out all the counters in Bloody April, I have little urge to Cou-Punch again soon.  Still have numerous other games yet to punch.  I didn't mind doing it when I was a kid but it's getting old in this age of high production value. 

I suppose that's part of the reason I don't buy many large hex & counter games anymore.  I actually enjoy learning new game rules but sweet Baby Raptor Jesus has the cardboard wrestling become a torture to my OCD.  Especially when I see how well some other companies' cardboard counters have been cut and come right out without a fuss.  I suppose the FC Nimitz ones "fall off the bone" by reports, so that is encouraging.  But there's still the large counter stack mess to contend with afterward.    

[BanzaiCat]

Yup. It'll take you a couple of hours to punch and sort - there's eight counter sheets, though they ARE organized by Campaign Year, so the 1942 counters are together, the 1943 counters are together...and so on. And they do come off the runners easily. I think I had one out of the whole lot that had a bit of tear on it, but it was easily enough fixed.

[JudgeDredd]

Just went to the post office this morning to pick up a package that couldn't be delivered. I thought I was going to pick up a shower curtain I had ordered...imagine my elation when I was given a rather large box!

Funny thing was, as I was walking there, with the dog, I thought "Imagine if it's my game...how surprised will I be"...then dismissing that as daft right away!

Then I had to get in the house and explain to my wife it wasn't the shower curtain. Of course...then followed the questions - so I was found out!

Anyway - this is a monster. There are a huge amount of chits in there. A good thing about some chit boards you get is they come off the sprues easily...unfortunately they can come off too easy and probably a half of the chits are sitting mixed up in the box  :'(

Looks great though.

Also - the guy at the online shop I bought it from said they held back posting because the deluxe boards hadn't come in...but my game has the mounted board in the box...so I think he might be a tad confused.

Looks great though. Very excited.

[JudgeDredd]

Ah...just re-read the email and it was the mounted Battle Map which was in the pre-order as a free upgrade - not the mounted strategic map (which is standard)

[BanzaiCat]

Right...the mounted Battle Map and the counter tray were extra items.

[GJK]

My copy is still sitting in shrink.  I'm taking in more reviews before deciding to either open it and get in to it or sell it for the much needed extra cash.  Sorry if you're reading this Dan but from what I'm sensing here and on BGG, the main map of the Pacific is a let down but the battle map looks great as well as do the counters but there's just so many of them that it's a mess to shuffle them and move them around (great idea with the set up boards B_C).

The utter and complete randominess and wonkiness of the "AI" is a turn-off for me as well.  It seems that you could literally play this game with paper and pencil and dice.

But - I'd love to love this game (wasn't there a song that went something like that?).  Is there a final consensus here....unwrap and try this one myself or sell it and invest the time in to relearning Carrier (which I absolutely loved to play when I did invest the time needed to learn the rules)?

[JudgeDredd]

This one?

[GJK]

Oh LORD no....I'm thinking of Donna Summer:

Except I'm too stoopid to figure out how to do the youtube link here....

[Staggerwing]

Gary- there are two ways to embed youtube vids. One gives you options such as linking a series of vids or starting a vid at a certain point, the other is more basic but quicker, especially if you've already closed the source page:

Method 1:

   At the youtube page-
    and then paste between the youtube tags.

Method 2:
   Remove the 's' from the 'https' portion of the url after pasting between the youtube tags.

[BanzaiCat]

Is there a final consensus here....unwrap and try this one myself or sell it and invest the time in to relearning Carrier (which I absolutely loved to play when I did invest the time needed to learn the rules)?

I don't think there's a final consensus, per se. I'm doing a review for GH but it'll probably be a bit before it gets done/published. Not too long, but not next week either.

Personally I like this game a lot. I enjoy the Pacific theme and like the counter representations, though I think the light carriers on the Japanese side should have been doubled up like the BBs and CRUs in order to not make the stacks so obnoxious. I think there's at least six CVLs and CVEs on the Japanese side alone, but I'd have to take a look at it again.

Having a huge stack and needing to roll upwards of six to eight times to determine where stuff goes is kind of a pain and exhausting, but the mechanics are simple and once you get the hang of it, it's not that big a deal. True - it IS random, but there is a system under the die rolling and the Japanese more or less advance as they historically did. Your job, as commander of Allied forces in the Pacific, is to head them off at the pass. Trouble is, with there so much randomness, you don't know where that will be, unless you use your Scouting counters (which cost 1 supply point per roll). When you use Scouting counters, you get to pre-roll one Japanese movement before the Allied forces move (normally Allied forces move first, then you roll for Japanese movement). You get one pre-roll per Scouting counter, just to be clear. So you can assign more than one Scouting counter to a large Japanese stack if you wish.

Combat is a LOT of fun, I think. It's especially harrowing when both sides have significant forces in an island area. The flip side is when one side is overwhelmingly strong and the other is very weak, it's a pain to move all of that to the Battle Map to resolve, when you know damn well what's going to happen (though you never know - combat is die-driven, so...).

I recently set the game up with the mind of doing an AAR, so I've been writing down every step and movement. I will try to flesh that out some more this weekend and get it posted.

Final consensus? It IS a hundred bucks. If you need that money, sell it. If you can hold off, keep it. It WILL require an investment of time to sort and set up, but I consider that 'therapy quiet time' for me. :)

[GJK]

I'll hold off for a bit and give it a spin.  My guess is I'm going to want to see if I can generate some house rules or otherwise wait for somebody else to do it.  I think there's a lot of great material in there to work with.