Subject: Tarawa: Bloody Betio Review
From: "Phelps, Peter" <peter_phelps@yahoo.com>

Tarawa: the Battle of Bloody Betio by 3W is a great concept but an
appalling product, as shipped. 

It is no wonder that the game got a mention in Berg's 'Little Mac'
Awards, and not just for its graphic depictions of 'over water
privvies'. 

The game is based on the assualt of Betio (Tarawa) by the 2nd Marine
Division in November 1943. It is strictly a solitaire game, and has a
medium level of complexity. 

I tried to play the game once, but the holes in the rulebook are so
large that you could drive a Sherman tank through them. It has not been
out of the box a second time. 

I suppose it serves me right for buying a 3W game. 

How bad is this? They FORGOT to include a terrain effects/movement chart
in the game. Pretty fundamental to gameplay, you'd think, wouldn't you?
Instead, you have to get it off Grognards. 

The counters are black writing on dark green, ie. impossible to read. 

Can anybody make sense out of the rules for this game? I tried to get a
response from a playtester (who said he would ask the Game Designer)
more than six months ago, but no result. So perhaps somebody has
unofficial rule fixes - I've never seen any, which would tend to
indicate that everyone else who bought this lemon also gave up on trying
to make it work. 

The rules booklet said it was playtested - did 3W actually take into
account the playtesters' comments? You wouldn't think so given the state
of the rules booklet. I had more than 20 basic, but unanswered,
questions on gameplay which required answer before I could make sense of
this game. There are serious contradictions and serious ommissions in
the rules. 

There are TWO different charts, both of them marked "Marine Fire Table",
printed on the Map! The one on the right is actually the Marine Assault
Table. 

IMHO, my vacuum cleaner sucks less than this game in its shipped format.

My gripe stems alot from my disappointment, because the CONCEPT is just
brilliant. There are no Japanese force counters - they are embedded in
the strength of each hex. 

It is a great concept (based on the actual historical circumstances on
Betio) and one which I have not come across in any other solitaire
wargame. The closest that I have seen to this was a published variant of
VG's 'Vietnam' which posited a different US tactical doctrine in
Vietnam, ie. embedded small units with local forces, not large 'search
and destroy' operations. 

So I had pretty high expectations on first looking at the rules, but
that just made the fall back to the reality of crappy wargame production
all the steeper. 

Heaven help our pastime if a person bought this as their first wargame! 

Nevertheless, I am going to work on trying to fix the rules myself and
post them on Grognards when (if?) I can get them to work. 

Peter Phelps (peter_phelps@yahoo.com)