"Scratch One Flattop!": a Look at "Carrier" by Victory Games

Nice box.

Carrier is a Victory Games production designed by Jon Southard. It's a solitaire game covering real and hypothetical aircraft carrier battles in the South Pacific in 1942-43. In more recent years it's spawned a semi-sequel, Carrier Battle: Philippine Sea from Compass Games and also designed by Southard.

There are rumblings that a new version of the original Carrier is in the works, but I am not in the loop about that. Also I am too impatient to wait for it when it's possible to track down reasonably priced copies of Carrier on the used market.

As of this writing, I've only played the first three of the six learning scenarios, so this will not be an in depth review. Don't worry, though, that's coming later in the month. For now we'll just be focusing on initial impressions.

Finding a Copy

I'm not really sure how such things are possible, but I was able to find an unpunched copy of Carrier from Noble Knight Games. Seems like there's always one or two copies out there on the used market, so if you really want a copy you should have no trouble finding one.

It's kind of a mystery to me how somebody could own a copy of this game since 1990 without so much as punching a few of the counters. But it happened, and the copy I got was in nearly mint condition when it showed up at my door. If the shrink wrap would have been on it, it really would have been mint condition.

Components

The South Pacific, c. 1942. You can tell because there's less pollution and more systematic application of force.

The components are about what you'd expect from a Victory Games production from the early nineties. Functional, serviceable, but not exactly eye popping. The paper map covers the area around the Solomon Islands, from Port Moresby and Rabaul in the West to Espiritu Santo in the East.

The counters are a little thin and don't punch out entirely cleanly. Whether that's just the way the game is or an artifact of the fact that these countersheets are 35 years old is anybody's guess. If you're a counter-clipping type, you'll definitely want to clip these ones.

Like any solitaire game, this one comes with a stack of play aids and charts that seem pretty impenetrable until you learn how they work.

The Rulebook

The rulebook for Carrier is a bit of a monster. Tiny print, 68 pages, all sorts of gameplay mechanics that will be new to you even if you're an experienced wargamer. If you try reading the full thing and diving straight into the full game, you're gonna have a bad time, it's as simple as that.

But one of the game’s great strengths is in the design of the rulebook and the learning scenarios. There are six learning scenarios designed to help you ease your way into the game, and it's a good idea to follow them. Granted, there will be moments where you're like, “Why am I playing this scenario where all I'm doing is launching search planes and conducting searches? I want to fight the Battle of the Coral Sea already!”

Don't worry about that. Lady Lex will get her licks in eventually. Jon Southard put a lot of thought into the structure of the rulebook, and you will have a better experience if you take it slow.

General Impressions

As of this writing, I've played the first three learning scenarios, I have the fourth set up on the board, and I'm starting to develop a feel for what playing the full game will be like. I'm excited for it. The solo systems allow for false contacts, bad intelligence, and other confusions that are hard to simulate in a two-player game.

(There's a wargamer’s statement: I love the way this game has new and exciting ways to foil my plans and frustrate my efforts!)

Will have more thoughts about the actual gameplay and solitaire systems later on. But as a carrier battle junkie I had to try this one out eventually–nobody's gaming group is going to want to play Flat Top every single session. Ah, the beauty of a solo game...