From: Francois Charton <deef@pobox.oleane.com>
Subject: Re: VG Reviews

Matt Little wrote:
>
> Tokyo Express
>

A solitaire game (can be played ftf though) simulating the naval night
battles off Guadalcanal in 1942-43 on a tactical level.

Each side controls some 10 - 20 ships, DD, CL, CA and BB. The Japanese
have a mission to perform, the (US) player's goal is to force them to
abort (or sink enough enemy boats to make the mission a failure). All
Japanese movement and combat is handled through a set of rules and die
rolls, which look complex, but are actually quite simple to handle
once their principles are understood.

The rules are fairly long (over 70 pages), but not very complex or hard
to learn, apart from the solitaire system, which handles movement,
detection and combat for the japanese. Remembering the latter is greatly
facilitated by numerous playing aids and reference charts.

Three "games" of increasing levels of complexity are provided:
- the basic game, meant for learning the fundamentals. One scenario is
provided, which is a guaranteed spanking for the US Fleet. It should play
in one or two hours.
- the standard game, the real Tokyo Express. A typical scenario should
play in 3-4 hours once you have mastered the play mechanics.
- the advanced game adds some chrome to the standard game. Some of these
rules add a lot of fun (eg the one which causes land masses, Guadalcanal
and Savo, hinder radar detection), but most of them just needlessly
increase playing time a lot.

Overall, a typical game can be played in a long evening, depending on
how many boats you have, and whether you use optional/advanced rules. It
uses one standard size map, which makes it an excellent "kitchen table"
game.


The game system is very elegant, achieving a lot of realism and
flexibility through simple rules.

Each turn, you organise your ships into task groups, which will then move
and fight as a whole unit, assign speed and movement orders to each, and
check to see whether the orders for each TG are followed, or are replaced
by something else. Having more task groups give you more flexibility, but
you then run the risk of having a part of your fleet do something very
stupid in the midst of battle, due to misinterpreted orders (and if the
enemy is at hand, a silly move often means a sunk task group).

The Japanese get their orders from a random table, twice a turn, giving
them a little more reactivity than you have.

Then, orders are followed during six action segments. Depending on their
speed, all ships will move zero, one or two hexes (and turn according to
their orders) during each segment (the fastest units moving 7 hexes per
turn).

Apart from movement, each game turn will also contain two detection
phases (one japanese, one US), and one combat phase. Their position in
the turn is randomly decided: during each action segment, 3 chits are
drawn from a set of 18 (15 blanks, 1 US Det, 1 Jap Det, 1 combat).

When a detection chit is drawn, the detecting side can attempt to detect
enemy units, and may get a free shot at them. When the combat chit is
drawn, both sides may attack detected enemy units (the japanese firing
first).

This system make speed determination/choice of orders a very crucial
decision: a typical catastrophe scenario can go as follows:
1- Your main task group is speedily sailing ahead towards the (yet
undetected) enemy.
2- Your detection phase comes in early, while the enemy is out of range.
You are still undetected, but so is the enemy (and you will not get
another chance until next turn).
3- Later on, the japanese get their detection phase, when their ships are
closer to you, detect and start damaging you with some suprise torpedo
attacks. You are detected, damaged, and the enemy is still undetected...
4- Finally, as Murphy's law would predict, the combat phase happen when
enemy forces are at point blank... The japanese have a free shot before
you may respond. Actually, if they limit themselves to torpedoes, they
can even stay undetected: half of your ships are sunk but you still are
clueless on where the enemy is. How is that for a bad day?
5- Welcome to the club, you just have lost most of your fleet on game
turn 1...

In general, setting the speed of you task groups is the key decision for
the US player (more important IMO than the orders). Lower speeds make
better targets, but you have more control over where they will be when
combat takes place.

The combat system is fairly simple: undetected side fires first, if both
are detected, the japanese fire first. Torpedo attacks are resolved first
(with die rolls), then gunnery attack (with cards). In general, Japanese
strengths lie in their torpedoes (more effective, and more numerous as
their CA/CL usually carry some, while US CA have none). US strengths are
in their gunnery, which means that the US have to close in to make good
use of their firepower, but with the risk of losing several ships to
torpedoes.

Limited intelligence is handled in a very simple way, which provides for
a lot of replayability. At the beginning of the game, the japanese appear
on the map as several "hidden forces", which can be task groups, or just
dummies. When a hidden force is detected or fires, a strength chit is
pulled which reveals it as a dummy, or determines its size (a die roll
will then determine its real contents). When the sum of the strength
chits exceed some total (defined in the scenario), all remaining hidden
forces are removed from play.

This introduces a "double randomness" in the japanese setup: you do not
know where they are (which are the TF and which are the dummies), and you
don't know whether they will be scattered or grouped in one big TF.

4 historical scenarios are provided, which all have a high replay value,
thanks to the hidden for ce system. I played the first one (Cape
Esperance, a fairly small one) many times, but went through very
different battles: from a huge Japanese force (with 2 BB) sailing right
over my TF, to chasing small DD groups everywhere on the map... A
scenario generation system is provided, which allows you to design a
seemingly infinite number of situations in a few die rolls. As a result,
Tokyo Express is probably the most replayable game I have seen.

Fun, reaplayable, realistic, fast playing... I can only recommend getting
a copy of this game.

Francois