Coral Sea: Playbook Edition
Publisher’s Preview
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
January 2025

Second World War at Sea: Coral Sea remains one of our best-selling games (second only to Jutland). It went through a boxed edition, a Playbook edition using the massive stockpile of pieces from the boxed edition (accumulated back when we were importing game parts by the container load), and finally a reprint of the Playbook with a new set of die-cut, silky-smooth pieces.

Both versions of the Playbook have the same rules and scenarios, which are are very good and I saw no reason to revise them (this is unusual for me). The map is outstanding, and the game has very nice color play-aids. Coral Sea’s Playbook Edition is a perfect introduction to the Second World War at Sea series, and as both designer and publisher I found it a very satisfying project. The game said exactly what I wished it to say, exactly the way I hoped it would come out. That doesn’t happen very often, in this or any other business.

The playing pieces finally match the quality of the rest of the game. The printing process we use now is much, much sharper; the pieces have that fine silky-smooth finish and are die-cut with blades so incredibly sharp that they only need a gentle push to sink through the core - there’s no more elephant-footprint mangling on the back where they were hit with the force of 10,000 hammers.

So what’s made Coral Sea such a popular game, as wargames go?

First off, it’s the gateway to the Second World War at Sea series. That opens a whole world of game fun, from the carrier battle of Midway to the surface slugfests of the South Pacific. The cruise of the battleship Bismarck, the Mediterranean naval war, the Japanese “Strike South” and even the Red Sea naval campaign (this is a thing that really happened!).

Once you’ve mastered Coral Sea, the fun available to you is nearly endless. You can even play these games online, through WAS Fleet Command, with friends you haven’t even met yet.

And third, Second World War at Sea is not a difficult game to learn, as wargames go. It exists on two levels: an operational game, where task forces seek one another (with the help of airplanes and submarines), and the tactical game, where those ships fight it out with guns and torpedoes (this is also where aircraft can attack them).

Coral Sea is a small game, with just 146 pieces (54 of them double-sized “long” ship pieces and the rest standard-sized ones for airplanes (mostly) plus minor ships and markers). There’s one operational map, showing the Coral Sea north-east of Australia along with the nearby waters around New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and the standard Second World War at Sea tactical map.

Coral Sea has fifteen scenarios: seven operational and eight battle scenarios. The action begins in February 1942 with the Japanese invasion of Gasmata on New Britain and the American-Australian response (which was called off and never contacted the Japanese). It concludes with the Battle of the Coral Sea scenarios: three operational ones (letting you start at different moments) and five battle scenarios (including air strike scenarios).

While a large part of the operational map for Coral Sea overlaps that of South Pacific, Coral Sea is a stand-alone game and not a subset of the larger game. None of its scenarios also appear in South Pacific (which has more than enough of its own) – Coral Sea is a unique product.

The Battle of the Coral Sea was the first naval battle in which the opposing fleets never actually sighted one another. All of the damage – and there was a lot of it – was dealt by aircraft from the three Japanese and two American aircraft carriers (the American carriers had more planes, giving the U.S. Navy the edge in combat power). The Japanese and Americans each lost one carrier; the remaining American carrier and one of the surviving Japanese flattops suffered major damage, while the last Japanese ship had its air group devastated, also rendering it incapable of further operations.

The battle took place off the northeast coast of Australia, in the Coral Sea between Australia, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. And that’s the area covered by the game map, which stretches from Kavieng in the north to the northern tip of New Caledonia in the south, and from Cairns and Townsville in Australia on the western edge to Espiritu Santo and the New Hebrides Islands in the east. The map’s playing area is 22x17 inches, appearing on a one-piece 22x28-inch paper map, with some of the most useful game charts along its edges to make play flow even easier.

The Playbook is a little thicker than our usual book, to accommodate the rules and all of those scenarios. We also broke down a couple of sample scenarios, describing what everything means in terms of playing the game.

We also have a brief primer on how to play Second World War at Sea. It’s not a difficult game to learn and play (as long as you know how to roll a 6, you’re already pretty far along on the how-to part), but we explain it step by step. No individual part of Second World War at Sea is difficult to understand or play, but there are at least three distinct elements all coming together and interacting: the operational game where you find the enemy’s task forces on the Operational Map and move your own to whatever their objective might be; the surface battle game, where ships fight on the Tactical Map with guns and torpedoes; and the air game, where airplanes seek out the enemy and then attack (this involves both the operational and tactical maps), fighting their way through defending fighters to drop their bombs and torpedoes on ships and shore facilities.

Like any Avalanche Press game, the scenario set is the heart of Coral Sea. These serve well to introduce new players to the system, but also to tell the story of carrier operations in the early days of the Pacific War. That was important – I wanted the game to be fun (and a must-have) for long-time players of the system as well as those new to it.

And while a wargame isn’t a true work of history, it can be used as a story-telling device and show, rather than tell, some key concepts. The Battle of the Coral Sea scenarios reveal the insanity of the Japanese attempt to fight the Western Allies at sea, something we see in Eastern Fleet as well. The Japanese bring three carriers to the Coral Sea, two large ones and one small one. And they can’t provide full air groups for them: even at this early stage of the war, they’re hurting for planes and pilots.

So while Coral Sea is a small game, and an introductory game, it’s also a complete game that tells a complete story. That’s why it’s seen so much commercial success, and it should prove a very fine starting place for your naval gaming adventures.

You can order Coral Sea right here.
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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife and three children. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

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