Pacific Typhoon – Card Game Review
The suit used for the round, determined by the round leader, can be either Air, Surface, Submarine or Combined. Each Force Card has a corresponding value for Air, Surface and Submarine; "Combined" is the sum of those three totals for the card. The battleship Iowa, for example, has values of 2, ?4, and 0. The 2 has a small sun icon next to it, which grants an additional 1 point during a day battle. Likewise, a small moon icon grants a bonus point during a night battle. The question mark in front of the 4 indicates that the player rolls a die and adds 4 to the total.
Bonus and Event cards may be played with a Force Card, provided they meet certain criteria. The Bonus/Event card must be a valid card (meets year and day/night requirements), the nationality must be the same, and the aforementioned shape (windscreen, binoculars or periscope) must match. For example, PT 109 is a nighttime bonus card that may be played in scenarios from 1942 to 1945. It has a binocular shape to the photograph and therefore can only be played with a Force Card with a similar shape. It grants a +1 bonus to the surface and submarine values. It could not be played with a Force Card that has a periscope or aircraft windscreen shape. A card with a square shape may be played with any other shape.
{default}If a player either cannot play a card or chooses not to play, that player may discard one card or his entire hand.
Once everyone has taken a turn, the points are tallied for both Japanese and Allied sides, and the winning side gets to divide the spoils; i.e., the Battle Card as well as the losing Force Cards are collected and distributed to the victors. The player who contributed the most points gets the honor of passing out the spoils to the other players. Only those players who contributed at least 1 point to the winning side are allowed to collect victory points. The winning side’s Force Cards are discarded, as well as any spoils cards with an arrow on them, which indicates they are worth no points. In the event of a tie, all the cards are placed under the Battle Card, the battle is refought, and the victors get to divide up all the current cards as well as the cards under the Battle Card.
Cards are dealt to bring the hands back to 6 cards. Any players with resource points, indicated on the Battle Card, may be dealt additional cards. The next player then becomes the round leader for the next battle.
Fate
A Force Card that has another card’s name on it is a Fate card, intended to reflect historical outcomes in which one given ship is known to have sunk another given ship. For instance, the battleship Washington sank the Kirishima in November 1942. The Force Card for Washington has Kirishima printed on the bottom left corner. If the Kirishima is played during the round and someone later plays the Washington, the Kirishima is destroyed and the owner of the Washington earns the victory points for the destroyed ship—three, in this case. The Kirishima, in turn, has 2x Guadalcanal printed on it. If the Battle Card is Guadalcanal, the Kirishima‘s combat values are doubled.
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Andy Lewis, VP of Design,Development and Events for GMT Games, sent in the following information:
As a point of clarification, if even one person played a card that had a combat value of 1 or greater that survived the round, then it’s NOT declared No Combat. You’re right that a lot of combats can end with only one side being played, but there’s still a fight because people are playing a higher value for the winning side to get the spoil, which is the Battle card.
Rarely, if ever, do we see a winning margin of 30 points; 30 points in a seven-player game is a good total score. The players need to negotiate to keep scores close. If the leading player picks the battle and plays the first card, the rest of the players need to work to make sure the leader doesn’t win the battle and get to assign the spoils.