Welcome to our first Flames of War Friday of 2016! I'd been on a bit of a break from Flames of War for a few months while working on other projects but with the upcoming release of new books for the Pacific theatre my 15mm mojo is back.

So let's take a look at what the sunny & sandy Pacific has in store for us…

Introducing the Pacific Theatre

The Pacific Theatre of Operations (PTO) has been on the wishlist for Flames of War players for many years, featuring some of the most iconic & nation defining moments and battles of World War Two. However due to the huge historical differences in equipment, tactics and terrain between it and the European Theatre of Operations (ETO) integrating it into Flames of War presented a challenge.

For instance while Sherman tanks were extremely prevalent and somewhat under-powered and out gunned in Europe they were used in lower numbers in the Pacific but completely outclassed anything fielded by the Japanese forces.

Battlefront's so­lution to this conundrum has been to include 2 sets of points values for the units in the two upcoming PTO books, Gung-Ho for the US Marines and Banzai for the Japanese respectively. For representing the battles in the Pacific you build your army using the Pacific points values and for playing in events or tournaments you can simply use the Late-War points values instead.

Our friends over at the Behind Enemy Lines Podcast have produced two great reviews for the upcoming books, which you can see here:

• Gung-Ho Review
• Banzai review

Preparing my Forces

Since I already have a Japanese infantry army for early war I pretty much have everything I need to make a list from the Banzai book, since Japanese equipment & tanks didn;t change too much over the course of the war.

While I could simply use the Hohei Chutai list I still want to take advantage of some of the awesome modelling opportunities that the Pacific offers, so I'll be working on making it a Yosai Hohei Chutai (Fortified Infantry Company).

Word on the street is that the infantry platoons in such a list come with an HMG nest, barbed wire and trench lines to deploy with and can also upgrade to pillboxes and heavier weapons. So my first projects will be constructing a range of bunkers and fortifications to shelter my infantry.

Then I'll also be taking a look at some of the new options for divisional support, which can include naval bombardments, and have an inclining to build a 1:700 scale model of a Japanese heavy cruiser to display with my troops.

Next time I'll be outlining the construction of my defenses.