Between December 1941 to August 1945, a sea war was fought in the Pacific unlike any before, as the long-range striking power of aircraft carriers ended the 250-year reign of the battleship.
Pacific Command is a tabletop wargame of WWII naval combat in the Pacific which puts you in control of dozens of warships and hundreds of aircraft; fighting battles as much about bluffing and surprise as strength of arms. The game has a particular focus on fog of war and aircraft carrier logistics, and zooms out to a grand scale to let players tell stories as full of dilemmas, uncertainties and double-blind gambits as the battles of Coral Sea, Midway and Leyte Gulf.
Pacific Command will be published as part of the Osprey Wargames ‘Blue Book’ series in Spring 2025.
Open Beta!
Pacific Command is currently in Open Beta! You can download the work-in-progress rulebook, and help playtest it!
Click the link above to download the Beta Rulebook, which I offer to you for free in exchange for reading and playtesting the game, and providing me with feedback. Please provide feedback by emailing me using the email address “mike” @ “this website’s address”.
Thank you for helping me make this game as good as I can!
What’s Unique About Pacific Command?
Pacific Command is my first historical-based tabletop wargame. I am fascinated by the stories that we tell about the naval war in the Pacific in WWII. and I want to design a game that provide players with the ability to tell stories at the table as full of dilemmas, uncertainties and double-blind gambits as the battles of the Coral Sea, Midway and Leyte Gulf.
Exciting things about Pacific Command:
- Task Forces. Units in Pacific Command represent a group of potentially dozens of ships, often centred around a small number of aircraft carriers. Task Forces behave as individual war machines on the table, with the various capabilities and weaponry of each ship contributing to the overall fighting strength of the Task Force. The game is zoomed out, with a normal table representing an area hundreds of miles across, an area big enough to hide multiple carrier groups in.
- Fog of War. At the start of the game, each player controls a small number of stacks of poker chips, containing a mix of chips that represent Task Forces, and chips that are blank. Some stacks will contain only blank chips, and act as bluffs. These chips move around the play-area ‘face-down’, with all information hidden, until an enemy aircraft flys over and is lucky enough to spot it.
- Aircraft Carrier Logistics. The player’s skill and luck in managing their carriers’ aircraft will play a large part in their victory. As in the Pacific sea war, the decision of which aircraft squadrons to stage for launch is not one that can be immediately overturned. Each player use a pack of standard playing cards. which represent squadrons of aircraft, with each suit representing a different class of aircraft.
Downloads
- Beta Rulebook (PDF)
- Print and Play Pacific Islands Terrain (PDF)
- Task Force Record Sheets (two-to-a-page, PDF)