by Mike Orwick, 18 February 2021 ~ #UnboxingDay
A few years ago, I started to gain an interest in the period from post American Civil War through World War 1. During the last Noble Knight holiday sale, I was perusing around for a naval game in this time frame. As is common with, I was looking for something different, even alt-history. What I found was Great War at Sea: Rise of the Dragon from Avalanche Press. This was an expansion to their Russo-Japanese War title, which I did not have nor was it in stock with Noble Knight. So, to get free shipping (my wife trained me well), I went ahead and purchased Rise of the Dragon in anticipation of getting Russo-Japanese War at a later date. That date came a few weeks ago.
click images to enlarge
The box cover is a painting of Japanese Admiral Heihachiro Togo on the battleship Mikasa before the battle of Tsushima in 1905.
Russo-Japanese War is a two-player game covering naval combat with Russia and Japan including hypothetical clashes as early as 1895. Solo play is possible, but Russo-Japanese War uses a blind system to prevent the opposing player for knowing what type and how many ships part of a fleet.
The Great War at Sea Series Rules book is only 20 pages long. That includes the last two pages of charts and counter key.
The game specific book for Russo-Japanese War is a total of 80 pages. The first seven are specific rules for this module
The last 10 pages are Ship Data sheets.
The balance of the book are scenarios.
There is a single counter sheet included. On the left side the 70 one-inch counters that represent capital ships. The right side is 140 half inch counters representing smaller units and various tracking markers. These are all the counters needed to play the scenarios included with Russo-Japanese War.
The operational map is actually two over lapping map with the dividing line going through the second H in Honshu on the Japanese home island.
A single tactical map is also included.
Finally, there are 2 Fleet Cards for tracking fleet compositions
And a single Fleet Log sheet. Two are needed to play through, so you will need to photocopy this one before you use it.
One thing you may have noticed that is missing are dice, though 2 six-sided dice are required to play.
Thanks for joining this month’s #UnboxingDay with the Armchair Dragoons and we hope you enjoyed our recon of our recent acquisitions.
You can always leave us your feedback in our #UnboxingDay thread, or in the comment area on this article, below.
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