New English Rule Book for Star Trek: The Invasion of Klingon Empire

 Get the Rule Book on BoardGameGeek.com

Star Trek: The Invasion of Klingon Empire (Tsukuda Hobby, 1982)

Scott Muldoon and I have completed our English translation of the rules for Star Trek: The Invasion of Klingon Empire (スタートレック：クリンゴン帝国の侵略) and posted the new rule book on BoardGameGeek.com. The document also includes a translation of a later article about the game with variant rules for the Romulan Star Empire*.

Get it here (may require site registration): https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/291961/star-trek-the-invasion-of-klingon-empire-english-r

What is The Invasion of Klingon Empire?

"The Invasion of [the] Klingon Empire" appears to be taken from the Japanese title of the TOS episode "Errand of Mercy" (S1 E27). In that episode, the Enterprise defends the planet Organia from an invasion by Klingons, but the Organians don't need or want the Federation's help. By the end of the episode, the Federation and Klingon Empire are held to a peace treaty, brokered and enforced by the super-powerful Organians.

The Organian Peace Treaty is paramount to the game's backstory. The Klingon Empire breaks the treaty by invading Federation space, somehow evading the Organians' enforced peace (this is never explained in the game, but the Klingons disable the Organians by surrounding Organia with an energy shield**). The Romulan Star Empire takes the opportunity to also invade the Federation, breaking their treaty as well. The game is a galaxy-spanning war with a grand strategic scale. 

This is the first strategic-scale simulation game that incorporates production designed and published in Japan*.

Photo by Sigplayer (source)

The Federation and Klingon players strike out from their home regions, racing across the galaxy to capture and hold various star systems. Each faction constructs starbases, base stations, and factories at these systems to build and maintain its fleet of starships in an all-out war with the other faction. The Federation has lost survey data for many of the deep-space locations far from Earth and must map out known space with three explorer vessels: USS Lexington, USS Constitution, and USS Enterprise.

Additionally, Enterprise is also tasked with carrying out assorted missions throughout the game. The ship may have to pick up diplomats for a important meeting at Babel, deliver medicine to a plague-ravaged colony, or even visit Vulcan to deal with a Vulcan crew member's reproductive cycle. There are several scenarios included with the game and the Federation player must complete Enterprise missions as part of their victory conditions.

Battle board, Photo by Hayaru (source)

When friendly and enemy units move into the same hex at the same time, a battle occurs. The battling units all move to a separate battle board where they are lined up in different battle lanes, either in forward or rearward position. There is also a secondary line where defense satellites and starbases are played into battle. The battle board allows for tactical maneuvers, jockeying into a preferred weapon range, breaking through enemy defenses to attack the secondary line, or withdrawing from combat altogether.

Photo by Hayaru (source)

There are a lot of units in the game, which can become unwieldy as there is no stacking limit for a single hex (each hex is 10 parsecs, 32.6 light years, across - plenty of room!). The designers admit that this proliferation of counters actually impairs the game's playability*****. Ships in the game can move for nigh unlimited distances along green "warp routes" printed on the map, as long as the warp route has been secured by friendly forces. This keeps the vast distances in the game manageable in this war of attrition. Replacement forces can move to the front lines within one movement phase.

The game certainly has a grand strategic scale and I find the battle rules to be simple and clever. They are a far cry from the intensely detailed tactical combat of Star Fleet Battles, but they don't need to be. Calculating maintenance and production values of all the factories and space stations in your fleet can be daunting, but the game's log sheet does alleviate some of that pain. It is a typical simulation game of the era where a several-hour play time is expected. The counters are cleanly detailed, but many ship models appear to be repeated, so they are hard to differentiate at a glance. If there were any changes I'd make, it would start by simplifying the maintenance/production rules and redesign all of the counters to read better at a distance.

Who still plays this game?

I have found a few recent blog posts from gamers who played this game in recent years. I do not own an original copy of the game (this was a joint effort to translate) and have cited photos from these blogs for illustrative purposes only.

Sigplayer (a.k.a. Michael): https://slgplayer.exblog.jp/27265273/

Hayaru: https://hayaru01.hatenablog.com/entry/2021/04/03/214636

Who made this game?

Game design credit goes to Toru Nakajima (中島徹) and Tadatoshi Ishii (石井忠俊) of the Keio HQ Simulation Game Club of Keio University in Tokyo. They completed the game's design in October 1982*** and Tsukuda published it soon thereafter. The designers wanted to make sure that the game didn't look or play like a similar game in the USA***** (probably Star Fleet Battles). I don't know if these two designed any other published games.

When the simulation game boom started in Japan in the early 1980s, the most experienced wargame designers were amateur fans printing small runs of games in loose small press groups called dōjin circles. Several dōjin circles were formed in university game clubs, like Keio's HQ Club. 

Tsukuda (as Tsukuda Hobby) launched their line of bookcase style "hobby games" in 1982 and turned to these amateurs for creative work. THQ was the first group to work with Tsukuda, followed by Keio HQ in fall 1982****, mere months before this game was published. The dōjin circles acted as design studios for Tsukuda in what seems like a similar relationship between game studio and publisher in the modern video games industry.

A recent sign inviting new Keio University students to join the HQ Simulation Club (source)

The Keio HQ Simulation Game Club still exists today as the Head Quarter Simulation Club at Keio University in Tokyo. The club still designs games, often crediting the entire club rather than individual designers for the work. You can follow the club's activities on Twitter.

Yoshifumi "Lone Star" Sakatani of Star Fleet: Base Tokyo also served as advisor on the game. Instead of a game club, Base Tokyo was probably a chapter of the STARFLEET association of Star Trek fan clubs that was founded in 1974.

Tsukuda's other Star Trek Board Game

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Tsukuda Hobby, 1983)

Tsukuda Hobby developed another Star Trek simulation game at the same time: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Tsukuda Hobby, 1983) based on the 1982 movie of the same name (actually, the gameplay seems to be completely unrelated to the film). The designers of Invasion of Klingon Empire wanted to make it clear that they were not involved in the creation of the Star Trek II game***** (Star Trek II was designed by Kazutoyo Ishii (石井一豊)******, who could be a relative of Tadatoshi Ishii).

Unlike Invasion of Klingon Empire, this game simulates journeying through deep space to explore the unknown and engaging in tactical scale battles with one or a few ships on either side.

Tsukuda's Star Trek RPG: Enterprise

Enterprise (Tsukuda Hobby, 1983)

Tsukuda Hobby's main interest in the Keio HQ Simulation Club is to enlist the club's talents to create role-playing games****. Keio HQ member Yutaka Tama (多摩 豊) wrote the pioneering Enterprise: Role Play Game in Star Trek, published in a big box with a rule book, scenario book, dice, and full-color character cards. As far as I can tell, this was the first standalone role-playing game designed and published in Japan for a domestic audience*******. "Lone Star" Sakatani served as advisor on this game as well.

Fellow Japanese game translator Robert Saint John translated the Enterprise rules, available here: http://www.robertsaintjohn.com/groknard/JRPGEN_Enterprise.pdf

Enterprise did not have further material support after the first boxed set, but the core game system was re-used for Crusher Joe: Role Play Game in Crusher Joe (Tsukuda Hobby, 1984). 

Tama mentioned The Invasion of Klingon Empire as "Mr. Nakajima's Star Trek" in his "Designer's Notes" section of the Enterprise rule book. He laments that the game loses the charm of Star Trek as, being a strategy game, the focus is on the ships and the galaxy instead of the characters.You can read Robert Saint John's translation of the Tama's Designer's Notes here: https://groknard.blogspot.com/2009/02/enterprise-rpg-tama-yutakas-designers.html

Tsukuda's oversized miniatures

Star Trek Miniature Series 1: Dreadnought and Heavy Cruiser (Tsukuda Hobby, 1984)

Tsukuda was also a manufacturer of plastic model kits and they sold several sets of plastic gaming miniatures based on TOS ships, like the one seen above. Each model came with a clear plastic stand that would fit easily on a large game board. These may have been the same models that Lou Zocchi sourced and sold through GameScience, but I haven't confirmed that.

The miniatures are ostensibly made for The Invasion of Klingon Empire, but they are far too big to fit on the game's tiny hexes or to be used at a strategic scale. The miniatures wouldn't work with Star Trek II as they are from the wrong time period and Enterprise doesn't have any rules for starships. This is puzzling as Tsukuda produced smaller miniatures to work on their other board games, such as tiny plastic tank figures for use with Tiger I (Tsukuda Hobby, 1982). So, they produced these miniatures that do not work with any of Tsukuda Hobby's Star Trek games.

End notes:

* Published in Yoshifumi "Lone Star" Sakatani's article "Star Trek Designer's Comments," Tactics, No. 7, January 1983.

** As seen in the 1970 novel by James Blish, Spock Must Die!, Bantam Books.

*** As seen in the "Designers' Notes" chapter by Nakajima and Ishii in the Star Trek: The Invasion of Klingon Empire instruction manual.
**** As seen in "Interview: Tsukuda Hobby's Masaaki Suzuki," Simulator, No. 3, March 1983, 15-16.

***** As seen in "Cross Review," Simulator, No. 3, March 1983, 8.

****** I can't find designer credits in the Star Trek II game itself, but credits are in the article "Game Guide New Releases News," Tactics, No. 11, September-October 1983, 65.

******* One earlier Japanese RPG was published as a magazine article "Donkey Commando," Tactics, No. 3, May-June 1982, 28-38.

New English Scenario collection for Tsukuda Hobby's Jabro

 Get the Scenarios on BoardGameGeek.com

Shown above is Tactics magazine #1, Japanese source for the original article

I've completed my English translation of three scenarios for Tsukuda Hobby's Mobile Suit Gundam: Jabro (1981) game. These scenarios were first published in Tactics magazine, vol. 1, no. 1, Jan-Feb 1982, pg. 53.

First and foremost, here is the link to the download page hosted on BoardGameGeek.com. You need an account on the site in order to download the file, but if you are reading my blog, you probably already have one: 

TV Episode Scenarios

I originally wrote about Jabro when I translated the game's rules into English in 2022. The game is based on the original Mobile Suit Gundam TV series that premiered in 1979. The nine scenarios in the game are based on the events of specific episodes from the TV show. This small collection of three scenarios continue that tradition.

Episode 6: Garma Strikes

A two-unit (MB and MT) "Magella Attack" tank with a couple of Zaku suits

The Gundam and Guntank must face off against 3 Zaku mobile suits and 4 Magella Attack tank units. Each Magella Attack can temporarily separate into two different units: the "Magella Top" turret with its 175mm cannon may fly separately from the "Magella Base" tank hull, which is armed with a triple machine gun.

This is a tough battle for the outnumbered Federation pilots in the Gundam and Guntank (Amuro, Kai, and Ryu). Since this is only episode 6, the young pilots are still inexperienced and their piloting and combat skills in this scenario reflect this.

Episode 15: Cucuruz Doan's Island

A rare Zaku vs. Zaku battle

This scenario is an interesting one-on-one battle between two Zaku mobile suits. Cucuruz Doan is a skilled veteran pilot, but his Zaku suit is only armed with a shield. He faces off against a Zaku armed with a Zaku machine gun and an average pilot. Doan's best bet is to use the hills and trees as cover while closing in on the enemy to engage in melee combat. The inexperienced pilot must try to keep Doan's Zaku at range for as long as possible.

Cucuruz Doan's long-snouted Zaku

In one moment, Doan's Zaku (in background) has a shield on its right arm...

... then it magically moves to the left arm!

Episode 15 has been little-known in the US as the episode was not included in American MS Gundam releases. It is presumed that this is because of the quality problems with the animation in this episode. There are a number of off-model images of the mobile suits, which may have resulted from hiring Anime Friend (a Tatsunoko spin-off studio, I believe) to work on this episode. You can see some of the errors in my screen shots here.

Doan's Zaku with long, skinny legs

A Gundam face that only a mother could love

Episode 27: A Spy on Board

Federation and Zeon forces in the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland

In this scenario, powerful aquatic Z'gok and Gogg mobile suits approach White Base while it is docked in Belfast. In this battle, much of the right edge of the map is ocean (see the striped area in the inset illustration, above). The Gundam and Guncannon are the first lines of defense, with the Guntank joining them in round 4. The Federation pilots are much more experienced by this point in the story and their piloting and combat skills are much better than they were in episode 6.

New English Rule Book for Urusei Yatsura: Tomobiki-cho Kaigui Wars

Get the Rule Book on BoardGameGeek.com

The cover art has nothing to do with the game and would be better-suited as a city pop album cover

I've completed my English translation of the rules for Urusei Yatsura: Tomobiki-cho Kaigui Wars (Tsukuda Hobby, 1985) (うる星やつら 友引町買い食いウォーズ) and posted the rule book on BoardGameGeek.com.

Get it here (may require site registration): https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/265130/urusei-yatsura-tomobiki-cho-kaigui-wars-english-ru

What is Urusei Yatsura?

This game is based on the Japanese Urusei Yatsura (often translated as "Those Obnoxious Aliens") sci-fi high school slapstick romantic comedy manga series created by Rumiko Takahashi in 1978. It was also made into a successful anime TV series in 1981, with motion pictures, OVAs, and video games that followed. The TV series was recently rebooted in 2022.

Urusei Yatsura anime character line-up

The protagonist of the story (he's no "hero") is Ataru Moroboshi, a lazy, lecherous, unlucky teenage boy who finds himself at the center of many unusual events that happen in his hometown of Tomobiki (mythical creatures, evil spirits, a terrifying potato curse, etc.).

At the start of the series, Oni aliens threaten to invade the planet unless their champion, the beautiful superpowered alien Lum Invader, is defeated in a game of tag by one randomly-chosen Earth champion: Ataru. Ataru wins (by cheating), Earth is saved (for now), and Lum ends up falling in love with Ataru and enrolling in his same high school. Ataru and his friends, family, and teachers make up the main cast of characters.

What are the Kaigui Wars?

Kaigui Wars translated as "The Great Off-Campus Snack Battle" by Viz Comics

The Kaigui Wars refers to a week in which the Tomibiki High School faculty and staff work to "crack down" on the school rule that states students are not allowed to eat lunch off-campus. "Kaigui" translates to "buying and eating" and usually refers to when small children are allowed to buy snacks or treats with their own money. The students refuse to eat their packed lunches and revolt by sneaking through town to eat at various restaurants and food stalls. The school staff are in hiding throughout the town, waiting to catch a student in the act of eating forbidden food while in school uniform.

The school principal directs his units in the field by radio, tracking student and faculty movement in the town on a strategic map that looks a lot like this game's map board

The cat-and-mouse spy game of sneaking past disguised teachers eventually devolves into an all-out war as the lunch break come to an end. The students unite and strike back against their oppressors. The school staff mobilize by car and motorcycle to pursue delinquents. Fighting breaks out in the streets and everyone misses their afternoon classes.

This story happens to be one of my favorite UY stories. It is told in manga form in 買い食い大戦争 ("The Great Kaigui War" or "The Great Off-Campus Snack Battle," Viz Comics, vol. 6, ch. 4) and TV anime form in 買い食いするものよっといで！ ("Let's Go Buy and Eat!" or "Lunch is a Battlefield!," 1982, season 1, ep. 46). It was brought back again in the new TV series as 買い食い大戦争 ("The Great Kaigui War," 2022, ep. 13).

What is this game?

The game is a detailed "simulation game" (like a hex-and-counter wargame) that reproduces the chaotic, ridiculous events of the first afternoon of the Kaigui Wars. Players break up into a Student team and a Teacher team (including school faculty, staff, and the students in the "Student Behavior Task Force" who are helping to enforce the rules). Each Student team player controls 3 characters and each Teacher team character controls 4 characters. The game is ideally played by 4 players, 2 on each team.

Game board map of the town of Tomobiki. The large orange square is the school grounds of Tomobiki High School.

The Student team earns victory points by buying and eating food from food vendor spaces (red squares). The Teacher team pursues and captures students (by intimidating them into compliance or by force), escorting them back to school grounds. The students can't buy food in the presence of a teacher and teachers may start the game disguised, hiding at food vendors anywhere on the map.

Sample character card A: Ataru Moroboshi

Each character has detailed characteristics of Stamina (ST), Reflexes (REF), Fighting Strength, Money, and Friendship Levels. This information is tracked on a detailed log sheets that must be used for each character in the game.

Stamina (ST) is vital to this game and characters must spend Stamina to walk, run, drive, ride a bicycle or motorcycle, fight, capture, or escape. Stamina can also be lost in a fight, due to random events, or if one's alien girlfriend jealously zaps one with electricity after being caught ogling another girl. The Student team replenishes their Stamina by eating. The Teacher team automatically recovers Stamina each round. At zero Stamina, a character faints and can do nothing until they recover after spending three rounds unconscious. A fainted student can automatically be captured.

Reflexes (REF) is used when dodging out of the way of hazards, capturing or avoiding being captured, or when trying to escape after having been captured. The acting character subtracts the REF value of the challenge (hazard, other character, school walls they are climbing over) from their own REF, then rolls one die on a chart and cross-references their die roll with the REF difference to determine success.

A fight may break out while a teacher is trying to capture a student or if a student decides to pick a fight with a teacher. The two characters compare their Fighting Strength values and roll one die on the Fighting Table to determine the outcome. Either the Attacker or Defender may lose Stamina points or the Defender may faint outright. Each character in a fight has the option to draw a random Fighting Card for a chance at a ±1-3 bonus or penalty to their Fighting Strength by focusing their willpower or grabbing a nearby hammer or frying pan.

Money is spent to buy food or pay to ride a bus. Ataru starts with 60 money, just enough for a tempura donburi.

Friendship Levels are rated from 1 to 10 and show a character's feelings toward other characters. Friendship Levels are used when students ask favors of each other to borrow money or food or convince members of the Student Behavior Task Force to release captured students. Friendship Level is also used when a teacher is trying to coerce/intimidate a student into complying and returning to school. Ataru's Friendship Level with D: Lum is 10, he is devoted to her (though he would never admit it). His Friendship Level with his homeroom teacher H: Onsen-Mark and rival B: Mendō is 1, he thoroughly dislikes them. Note that he would also do anything for a pretty girl, as shown by an inflated Friendship Level of 9 with C: Sakura (the school nurse), E: Ran (Lum's childhood friend), F: Shinobu (ex-girlfriend), and N: Ryūnosuke (schoolgirl fighting to express her feminine identity after she was raised as a boy by her father). Those characters do not feel the same way about Ataru.

Sample event card Umeboshi (Dried Plum) IM

Event cards really bring the sense of chaos and random, unpredictable events from UY into the game. Each round, players secretly draw one event card for each character. Normal event cards may be equipment teachers can use when capturing (like a net or a lasso), a large temple bell that may fall on Mendō and incapacitate him, a pretty girl who passes by and distracts any male students, or may do nothing at all. These cards may be held by the character and used later as needed. When an Immediate Effect (IM) card is drawn, it is shown to all players and takes effect immediately. The above example is Umeboshi (Dried Plum), which affects Lum's alien physiology by making her drunk when she eats them. She is incapacitated for 2 rounds and any other character who happens to be in the same area as her during that time runs the risk of being zapped with her electric shock power and losing a devastating 8 points of Stamina.

Order of Operations

Each of the game's 30 game rounds is divided into a daunting and complex 14 different phases:

①  Stamina Recovery Phase

②  Bus Movement Phase

③  Teacher Movement Phase

④  Teacher Event Phase

⑤  Spotting Phase

⑥  Intimidation Phase

⑦  Capture Phase

⑧  Teacher Fighting Phase

⑨  Student Movement Phase

⑩  Student Event Phase

⑪  Escape Phase

⑫  Friendship Phase

⑬  Student Fighting Phase

⑭  Buying and Eating Phase

Note that this is supposed to be a fun and silly game about teachers chasing students around town as they try to eat snacks. This is far more detailed than other simulation games by Tsukuda Hobby that I've translated, including their Star Wars: Death Star, Hoth, and Endor games (6-8 phases each), Mobile Suit Gundam: Jabro (5 phases and based heavily on Squad Leader), and the Macross games City Fight (3 phases) and Dogfight (6 phases).

The game starts to bog down in the tedium of details. First, every Teacher team character must roll to determine how many Stamina points they recover. Then, each  bus vehicle must move along on of three different bus routes. The Teacher team moves their units and draws one event card for each character. Then, teachers must spot students in the same area before they can attempt to intimidate them into following the rules. If that doesn't work, they can physically try to capture the students, which may cause a fight to break out. Then, the Student team moves, draws event cards, tries to escape, asks favors from friends, and may opt to attack any Teacher team characters. Finally, the Student team may go shopping at food vendors, choosing options from a detailed menu for each different food vendor.

Results

The game does a very good job of simulating the Kaigui Wars events, as seen in both the manga and TV series. Unfortunately, the game drags on with bookkeeping, card drawing, vehicles, capturing and escaping, and stacking game effects. The randomness and overabundance of options make it difficult to determine a winning strategy. The map board is large and most characters typically move 2 areas per round, so it takes multiple rounds to move from one important location to another.

I like the events in general but many of the effects are too limited. For example, when the deranged monk Cherry shows up (a fairly important character in the TV series), everyone in the same area loses 8 points of Stamina. That's it. However, in the TV anime, Ataru was able to bribe him with food and he helped the kids escape from Sakura (the school nurse and Cherry's niece). That interaction is much more interesting than, "everybody in the same area gets hosed."

There are too many dull events that simply cause damage, incapacitate characters, or can only be used to counter other event cards. There are no events that cause a character to increase character movement, affect Friendship Levels directly, gain money, or as a bonus/penalty to Fighting Strength. This part of the game is ripe for expansion without adding further complexity.

The Japanese blog Their Finest Hour has a good review of the game that I agree with. One big problem is if there are too few characters in the game, then characters rarely interact with one another. If there are too many characters in the game, the game bogs down in detail and takes too long to play.

Final Thoughts

This is a game I've wanted to translate for a while and I'm glad I've had the opportunity to do so. Unfortunately, it is every bit as overdesigned as I hoped it wouldn't be. Tsukuda Hobby's own system ranks it complexity level III (3) on Tsukuda's 1-6 scale, comparable to some of their simulation games based on military anime. This game would've played a lot better with a lower complexity level (and I'd argue that it is closer to games with complexity level IV (4)).

The game rules include a "beginner" scenario designed to be played by 2 players. This removes many extraneous details (including the bus movement, spotting, intimidation, friendship, and student fighting phases). Instead of choosing food items from an extensive menu, Student team characters automatically restore all Stamina points and earn 3 VP for visiting a food vendor. This is a good step toward making this a playable game without losing too much of the game's flavor.

Ideally, I'd like to see this game redesigned from a modern point of view. Characters should move more than 2 spaces at a time. A fight should involve both players rolling lots of dice against each other, not looking up the outcome on a bland CRT. The nameless teachers should be replaced with recognizable characters. Vehicles should not be required to follow detailed traffic rules (that section of the rule book is like reading a DMV handbook). The game should play like a frantic and humorous episode of UY, not a detailed war simulation.

New English Rule Book for Tsukuda Hobby's Mobile Suit Gundam: Jabro Simulation Game

Get the Rule Book on BoardGameGeek.com

My translated Jabro rule book, reference sheets, and custom game counters.

I've completed my English translation of the rules for Tsukuda Hobby's Mobile Suit Gundam: Jabro (1981) game, covering both the 1st and 2nd editions of the rule book.

First and foremost, here is the link to the download page hosted on BoardGameGeek.com. You need an account on the site in order to download the file, but if you are reading my blog, you probably already have one: 

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/246707/tsukuda-jabro-1st2nd-edition-english-rule-book

Gundam Squad Leader?

Can you tell which game is which?

Hobby Japan started importing American hex-and-counter wargames for the American market back in the mid-1970s (source). These "simulation games" proved to be popular, but the strengthening value of the American dollar vs. the Japanese yen at the time made imports expensive. By 1981, three Japanese companies started making their own lines of domestic simulation board games: Bandai, Epoch Co., and Tsukuda Hobby (source).

Both Bandai and Tsukuda started developing games based on the hit TV anime, Mobile Suit Gundam (1979). While Bandai's own Mobile Suit Gundam (1982) game would feature scale plastic models like an "actual" game (Japanese term for a scale miniatures wargame), Tsukuda Hobby wanted to create "Squad Leader (Avalon Hill, 1977) for Gundam." They began work with one designer, but instead decided to contact Atsutoshi Okada for the job. At the time, Okada was hobby "actual" game designer (again, miniature wargamer) whose convention games had been featured in Popeye and Hobby Japan magazines (source). He and his doujin circle, THQ, set to work to create what would be Tsukuda's flagship release in their new series of hobby games.

I'd often heard that Jabro was based on Squad Leader, but how close are the two games? I analyzed Jabro and found the following similarities:

Player Turn Sequence – This is nearly identical between the two games. The only differences being that Jabro collapses the Close Combat Phase into the Advancing Fire Phase and that Jabro does not feature the Rout and Advance Phases.

Movement Costs – Jabro’s movement costs are essentially double what Squad Leader’s infantry movement costs are.

Support Weapons – The concept of carried equipment as “support weapons” is nearly identical to Squad Leader, but with set weapon loadouts rather than the concept of portage costs.

Line of Sight – Rules for elevation levels of terrain, height levels of obstacles, and blocking line of sight follow very similar rules in both games.

Morale – Morale in Jabro represents a pilot’s ability to remain conscious. Contrast this to Squad Leader’s typical morale rules for keeping troops in good fighting order. However, the mechanical results are similar. Units often make morale checks to avoid damage (which gives the unusual situation where a pilot must check morale to avoid getting their mobile suit’s legs blasted off with a beam rifle). Jabro does not have the concept of routing.

Defensive Fire During Movement- This is nearly identical in both games.

Breakdown – In Squad Leader, a support weapon breaks if its attack roll equals or exceeds its Breakdown number and broken weapons can later be repaired. In Jabro, a separate breakdown dice roll is needed in addition to the attack roll and once broken, a weapon is destroyed and lost.

Armor Modifiers – Squad Leader’s AFV Armor Modifier to resist damage is very similar to Jabro’s Armor Thickness.

Overall, Jabro is like a somewhat simplified version of Squad Leader with 30-foot tall robots instead of WWII infantry squads.

Upgrading the Game Components

My custom-made counters and carrier

I was fortunate enough to get an unpunched, mint condition copy of this 41-year-old game and decided not to punch out the counters for a number of reasons. For one, I can keep the game in pristine condition. For another, the pilot counters all have the Japanese names of the characters and it would be easier for me if I printed them in English. For another, the original counters are somewhat plain (mostly black-and-white) and I wanted to add some color.

Three different Zakus, weapons, and pilots

I scanned in all the counter art and added some color to the main units (mobile suits, vehicles, and artillery guns) in Photoshop. I also added the English translations of all the pilot names. I then printed everything out on cardstock and mounted the units to thick pressboard.

Edition Wars

Tsukuda originally released a 1st edition rule book (printed in green ink) for the game, but later upgraded the rule book to 2nd edition (printed in blue ink). In my translation, I analyzed both editions and all text that is only found in the 2nd edition is in blue type.

The biggest difference is that 2nd edition has many, many more examples and illustrations of the rules (especially movement and line of sight). The game is very complex, especially for a target audience that may not be accustomed to playing complex board games (like Squad Leader). I imagine that they received a lot of questions and complaints and felt they needed to amend the rule book.

Getting into the game

Denim's Zaku, with shield and heat hawk axe, gets its arms blasted off with a missile.

Almost every mobile suit can be customized by equipping them with different "support weapons" (ranged weapons, like Beam Rifle or Hyper Bazooka) or "melee weapons" (such as the Beam Saber or Gundam Shield). Unfortunately, this means that each unit is represented by a teetering stack of 1/2" counters - you can imagine the leading tower of cardboard that is created if 3 Earth Federation mobile suits (each with two weapon counters and one pilot counter) stack in the same hex as 3 Zaku mobile suits!

The game comes with three reversible, fold-out, two-panel map boards. All three map boards can be put together to create the map for the underground Jabro base hidden in the jungle (see top image). The back sides of the map boards can be put together to create woodland, desert, and urban environments.

The game includes nine different scenarios that closely follow some of the battles seen in the TV series. Some of the main Earth Federation pilots (especially Amuro) grow and develop their abilities in combat as the scenarios progress, and this is reflected in different pilot unit counters for different scenarios.

Results

Much like the Armored Trooper Votoms game I translated before, shooting a target and determining a hit can take a while and have room for error.

First, the shooting player looks up their chance to hit based on range and terrain the target is in (for example at range of 5 hexes, the chance to hit a target in the woods is 9).

Then, there are so many possible combat modifiers affecting your chance to hit:

• The shooting pilot's shooting skill
• The weapon's hit adjustment
• If the shooting unit is moving
• If the shooting unit is jumping
• If the shooting unit is taking a defensive action
• If shooting at the previous target from last turn
• The target pilot's evasion skill
• The target unit's evasion value
• If the target unit is moving
• If the target unit is jumping

After accounting for all modifiers, the shooting player rolls two dice and, if less than or equal to the hit chance, a hit is scored.

But, even if the weapon misses (unless it is a beam weapon), it can still affect the target at 1/2 firepower (a "grazing hit")!

Once a hit is scored (or not, in the case of a grazing hit), the damage outcome must be calculated. The shooting player looks up the weapon's firepower at range (for example, a Beam Rifle at 5 hex range has a firepower of 13).

The shooting player cross-references their firepower and rolls two dice on the Damage Resolution Chart, modifying the dice roll by the following:

• Target with shield gets to attempt a shield block to add to their unit's armor
• Target in forest modifier
• Target in partial cover modifier
• Target unit's armor thickness
• Target pilot's piloting ability

The result may have no effect, destroy a target's weapon, stun the pilot, immobilize the target, make the target unable to fight, or destroy the target.

Also, for every attack, the attacking player must make a breakdown roll to see if their weapon suddenly jams, runs out of ammo, or otherwise becomes unusuable. If the total on two dice is greater than or equal to the weapon's Breakdown number (usually 10, 11, or 12), the current attack is unaffected but the weapon becomes unusable in future rounds (this is almost exactly like the rules in Squad Leader).

In itself, none of these rules are that complex, but it would be quite a lot to learn in aggregate for a player that is new to simulation games.

I think that Tsukuda Hobby realized they needed a more intuitive game, first with the printing of the 2nd edition rule books and then what is essentially a 3rd edition rule book later. In Tsukuda's game magazine Operation (issue 1, 20 June 1983) featured yet another version of the rules for Jabro. This one had few rule changes, but instead the rules were broken up into basic, medium, and expert level rules. A beginner could play the early scenarios with only the basic rules until they had enough experience for a greater challenge.

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of that magazine and wasn't able to add the changes to my translation. Something to do in the future!

Three New English Rule Translations for Tsukuda Hobby's Star Wars Simulation Games

History

The history of official Star Wars strategy games typically begins with works by West End Games, starting with Star Warriors in 1987. This starfighter combat game features a hex grid poster map of outer space, a familiar piece of game equipment to science fiction board wargamer fans of Star Fleet Battles and Starfire. West End Games followed Star Warriors with two more "hex-and-counter" Star Wars games: Assault on Hoth (1988) and Battle for Endor (1989).

Tsukuda Hobby's Original Trilogy in hex-and-counter format
Photo by the author

It turns out that board wargame ("simulation game" in Japan) fans in Japan played their first official Star Wars game in 1982 with the release of Death Star (a.k.a. "The Game of Death Star Combat in Star Wars"). As you can surmise, this starfighter combat game recreates the Battle of Yavin as a ragtag bunch of Rebel Alliance snubfighters dared to strike against the Galactic Empire's dreaded battlestation, the Death Star. The somewhat complex rules rival Star Warriors in complexity, though the two games are quite different.

In 1983, Tsukuda released Hoth (a.k.a. "The Game of Battle on Hoth"), my personal favorite of the three. The Imperial walkers are huge in this game, each one has six different counters for the locations of the torso, head, and feet. The walker feet smash any other units they step on. A Snowspeeders may fire its harpoon at a walker's foot, circling its cable ("wire" in the original Japanese) around the vehicle and trip it up. If Luke Skywalker's speeder is shot down, he can become a terror on the battlefield, attacking Imperial units with his lightsaber.

Tsukuda also released Endor (a.k.a. "The Game of the Combat on Moon Endor") in 1983. The game starts with the players constructing a new game board by using terrain tiles of bushes and forest surrounding the underground bunker entrance that leads to the Empire's shield generator. The Rebel units are all hidden on the map with decoy counters and traps to spring on the Imperial forces. The Empire units are powerful, but must hunt down and find the Rebels and ewoks camouflaged in the surrounding forests. Speeder bikes have a 1-in-6 chance of smashing into a tree for every forest hex they travel through.

Who Made These Games?

Tsukuda's games were designed by the prolific game designer Atsutoshi Okada. He was a fan of Avalon Hill wargames (published by Hobby Japan) and anime (he refers to himself as an otaku) so he designed a Mobile Suit Gundam miniatures game for play at conventions. This led to getting hired by Tsukuda Hobby and designing "Squad Leader for Gundam," which became Jabro. This first game led to a wave of science fiction and anime "simulation games" in Japan from Tsukuda and others, popular enough to have their own television commercials. Okada had a six year career with Tsukuda, designing countless games for them. He also created  inspired the creation of [edit 5 Oct 2022] new Dougram and Votoms games for Takara's terrific Dual Magazine. By my count, Okada-san designed and published more than 40 games in the 1980s. He took a break from game design during the 1990s, then created Panzertales: World Tank Division in 2003.

Translated Rule Book Downloads

Okada-san's Star Wars games have never been translated into English, until now! You can download my new translations of the Tsukuda Hobby trilogy at these links (Note, a Board Game Geek account is required for downloading as that site is hosting the files. If you cannot sign onto BGG, send me a message):

Death Star: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/207946/tsukuda-star-wars-death-star-english-rule-book

Hoth: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/175579/tsukuda-star-wars-hoth-english-rule-book

Endor: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/207945/tsukuda-star-wars-endor-english-rule-book

And More in Print!

Also, I recently wrote "Destroy the Death Star," an article for Star Wars Insider magazine #195. This piece is a historical record of all the different ways players have been able to blow up the Death Star (and Death Star II) in electronic games, board games, card games, and video games over the years, including Okada-san's Death Star game. You can order a copy here: https://titan-comics.com/m/33-star-wars-insider-195/