1942 USS Yorktown Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
  • Japanese Deck
• Setting Up the Game
  • Games with Less Than Four Players
• The Stopwatch
• The Dice
• Main Icons
• Turn Structure
  • 1. Japanese Action
    • Direct Hit!
  • 2. Player Actions
  • 3. End of Turn
• The Actions
  • Search
  • Take-Off/Landing
    • Take-Off
      • Bomb
    • Landing
      • Crashed Plane!
  • Attack
    • A) Attacking the Japanese Planes
    • B) Attacking the CAP
    • C) Attacking the Shōhō
  • Move
• Skill Points
• End of the Game
• Expansions
  • Expert Manoeuvres
  • Weather Events
  • Drop Tank
• Credits

Components

• 1 board
• 4 wooden plane tokens
• 4 wooden action discs
• 4 cardboard tokens (fuel)
• 4 cardboard tokens (medals)
• 2 cardboard tokens (impacts)
• 1 cardboard token (search)
• 4 cardboard tokens (bomb/drop tank, drop tank is an expansion piece)
• 6 cardboard tokens (weather events, an expansion piece)
• 6 cardboard tokens (expert manoeuvres, an expansion piece)
• 20 cardboard Japanese plane tokens: 8 "Jake" and 12 "Kate" ("Zeke" on the opposite side)
• 7 dice
• 54 cards: 38 (Japanese deck), 12 (to assemble the 4 Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers) and 4 (actions)

See page 8 for the expansions.

Japanese Deck

Each Japanese deck card shows:

• The island or islands where Japanese planes are placed.
• The type of Japanese plane to be placed:
  • Torpedo bomber Nakajima B5N, "Kate"
  • Seaplane 1B-Aichi E13A, "Jake"
  • Fighter 1C-Mitshubishi A6M, "Zeke"
• The dice that are rolled if there is an attack on the Yorktown.
• A reminder (also included on the board) of the result necessary to destroy the Japanese plane and the skill points received.
• A special event.

The card back shows the Direct Hit Card.

Setting Up the Game

1. Place the board on the table.
2. Place the search token on "0" on the search track.
3. Put the impact token on the "0" space on the damage track.
4. Place the four action cards: Move, Attack, Search and Land/Take off, near the board.
5. Next to each player, assemble the four planes placing the three different cards together (fuel, cockpit and skill):
   • 5a: Put the fuel token on "14" space of the fuel card.
   • 5b: The cockpit card must have the side A face up.
   • 5c: Put the medal token on "0" on the skill card.
   • 5d: Place the action disc next to each plane.
   • 5e: Place two player's wooden plane in the approach area next to the USS Yorktown and the rest on two red islands of your choice. Reduce the fuel of the planes on red islands to "13".
6. Place the Japanese plane tokens close to the board along with the dice and four bomb tokens.
7. Shuffle the Japanese deck and draw the top card. If the card has two islands, place two planes and do not draw more cards. If the card has one island place a Japanese plane on the island and then, draw a second card and place the plane or planes on the island or islands shown. This way every game begins with two or three Japanese planes on the board. Ignore any events on the cards at this stage of the game.

The game is set up the same way for all player counts.

Games with Less Than Four Players

• 1 Player: Player uses four planes.
• 2 Players: Each player uses two planes.
• 3 Players: The player with the most experience uses two planes and the rest of the players use one plane each.

Note: Each plane must complete its actions completely and independently before the next plane starts its action.

The Stopwatch

1942 USS Yorktown is played in turns in real time. At the beginning of the game a stopwatch must be set (or calculate an exact time to end the game) using the following information:

• 30 minutes. The difficulty of the game can be increased or decreased by making the game 25 or 35 minutes.
• +1 minute for each player below four players.
• +2 minutes for each inexperienced player.

In this game the stopwatch is never stopped, therefore the players must coordinate themselves well, and bear in mind that conversation and re-rolling dice uses up valuable time.

The Dice

Actions are taken by rolling dice. The number of dice depends on the skill level on the skill card (start with 3 dice). Throughout the game there will be modifiers that will add or remove dice for the actions. The aim of rolling the dice is to get as many same number dice faces as the action requires (a matching set).

The dice rolls are continuous rolls. YOU CAN RE-ROLL THE DICE AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT. You can keep as many dice as you wish and re-roll the rest, you can also re-roll dice you previously kept. Your only limit is the stopwatch and how many "1"s you roll.

If you roll a 1, that die becomes blocked and you will not be able to re-roll that die. You must also spend one fuel from the fuel track. Obviously, rolling two 1s does not count as a matching pair to resolve an action.

Example: To defeat a seaplane "Jake" you need four dice showing the same number, and you can roll 5 dice. Your first roll gives you a mix of values, so you decide to take the useful dice and roll the rest various times hoping to complete the set, but bad luck strikes and you roll a 1, so now you must separate this die and it cannot be re-rolled. Without wasting time you take the remaining dice and re-roll them until you get four matching dice. With that result you defeat the seaplane but you did lose 1 fuel.

Main Icons

• Number of dice that can be rolled.
• Roll an additional die.
• Roll one die less.
• Amount of same numbers you need (a matching set).
• Fuel points.
• Skill points.

Note: There is no limit to the number of dice that can be used. If you need to roll more than seven dice, do so.

Turn Structure

Each turn is divided into three phases that must be played in order:

1. Japanese Action

Turn over the top card of the Japanese deck, check if the USS Yorktown has been spotted and then, resolve the card.

The USS Yorktown has been spotted if you can trace, following the white lines on the board, a line of Japanese planes from one orange island to one red island. If this happens, the Yorktown is attacked by the plane shown on the card and this attack is realized by a single roll of the dice.

The number of dice will depend on the type of plane:

• The seaplane "Jake" rolls 2 dice.
• The fighter "Zeke" rolls 3 dice.
• The torpedo bomber "Kate" rolls 4 dice.

Example: Before resolving the drawn card, we see that the Yorktown has been spotted by the fighter "Zeke" and it attacks by rolling 3 dice.

• With a result of two dice the same, the USS Yorktown is hit.
• If the result is two 1s, the USS Yorktown destroys the Japanese plane with its anti-aircraft guns. In this case, the plane is destroyed and not placed on the board when the card is resolved (see below).

It is possible that when four dice are rolled, a torpedo bomber manages to roll two pairs meaning two hits on the USS Yorktown. It is also possible that there is a hit and the plane itself is destroyed if one of these pairs is a pair of 1s.

Direct Hit!

If this special card is drawn and the USS Yorktown has been spotted, it is attacked and received a direct hit, so no dice are rolled and no planes are placed on the board this turn.

If there has or hasn't been an attack on the USS Yorktown, now the event on the card is resolved.

First, place the type of plane on the card on the island indicated on the top part of the card.

Important! In the unlikely case that you have to place a plane and there are no planes available, place another type by following this chart.

Each island can have a maximum of two Japanese planes. If you have to place a plane and the island space is full, place the plane on the next numbered space. The next placement for island number 10 is island number 1.

Example: You have to place a seaplane on island 9 (Guadalcanal), but since it is occupied by two planes, the next placement is island 10 (Rendova), but that island space is also full, so finally the seaplane is placed on island 1 (Admiralty).

Next, read the bottom part of the card to check if an event happens:

• Combat Air Patrol (CAP). Place a fighter "Zeke" in one of the two Japanese aircraft carrier CAP spaces. For every fighter in the spaces, one die less is rolled when the Shōhō is attacked. If both spaces are full, ignore this event.
• The Shōhō changes position. Lower the search token one level on the search track. If the search token is at "0", ignore this event.

2. Player Actions

Now the players choose which actions they are going to perform. The players can discuss and plan their actions, but always keep in mind that the clock is ticking.

Available actions are:

• Search
• Take-Off/Landing
• Attack
• Move

Each player places their action disc in the spaces on the four actions cards, and then, when all the players have chosen their actions, one at a time, the players perform their actions in the order they want.

3. End of Turn

When all the players have performed their actions, the players collect their action discs and begin the next turn.

The Actions

Search

If your plane is on an orange island, with or without Japanese planes, you can perform a search action. If successful, you can raise the token on the search track to locate the Shōhō.

• Take as many dice as your skill card indicates.
• You must spend 1 fuel point and receive one additional die.
• Receive one extra die for each allied plane in a different orange island space to yours, who has chosen the search action. This represents the effectiveness of searching by covering a lot of ground at the same time.

Then, begin the continuous rolls of the dice:

• If you roll three dice the same, raise the search token one position.
• If you roll four dice the same, raise the search token two positions.

When a search action is successful, raise the skill level of the pilot by one space (see the Skill Points section).

When the search token reaches level 3 or more, the Shōhō and the fighters in either of the CAP spaces have been located and can now be attacked (see the Attack section).

When the search token reaches the higher levels, the aircraft carrier and their CAP will be more exposed to attack:

• If you reach level "5" or "6", there will be one extra die available to attack with.
• If you reach level "7", two extra dice will be available to attack with.

Take-Off/Landing

The flight deck on the USS Yorktown is limited. For that reason only two planes can use this action on the same turn.

• If a player needs to take off and can't, he/she will lose their turn.
• If a player needs to land but can't, he/she loses their turn and 1 fuel point to stay in the air.

Take-Off

Before take-off you can decide to load a bomb or not. If you decide to load a bomb, take one of the bomb tokens from the table and place it on the space on the cockpit card of your plane.

To take off, choose either to spend 1 fuel point to place the plane to the approach area next to the USS Yorktown or spend 3 fuel points to fly to one of the red islands.

Take-off is also a movement action so if you move to an island occupied by a Japanese plane, you can make a Lightning attack (see the Attack section).

Bomb

The only way to attack the IJN Shōhō (see the Attack section) is with a bomb. But flying with a bomb loaded makes the plane more difficult to manoeuvre, so for any action that the plane needs to take, the player will roll one die less.

If the player needs to get rid of this penalty, he/she can drop the bomb into the sea at any time during their turn, except during their dice rolls. The bomb is then returned to the table.

Landing

Landing is done from the approach area. The landing is automatically successful if the plane has 5 or more fuel points. If the plane has 4 fuel points or less, you must roll dice:

• Take as many dice as indicated on the skill track.
• Add one additional die for each fuel point that you have left.

Begin rolling the dice as a continuous roll except that when a 1 is rolled, the die cannot be re-rolled but no fuel points are lost.

• With a result of three dice the same, you land safely.
• With a result of two dice the same, your plane has crashed, but your pilot is unharmed. You don't lose any skill points.
• If you don't have any matching dice, your plane has crashed and the pilot has been injured and loses 3 skill points.

If the landing has been a success or your plane hasn't been destroyed (see below), place the plane on the flight deck with the fuel token at maximum.

Crashed Plane!

A plane crashes when it fails to land and also when the player needs to spend more fuel than there is on the plane. In this case the pilot gets injured (loses 3 skill points).

When a plane crashes, turn over the cockpit card to the "B" side and place the plane token on the flight deck with the fuel token at maximum. If the cockpit card is already on the "B" side, the plane is destroyed and eliminated from the game. The plane's cards and tokens are returned to the box.

With fewer than four planes, it is difficult to achieve victory so you have to coordinate and help each other.

Attack

With this action you can attack the Japanese planes that you find on the same island space as you, attack the fighters that are in the CAP positions adjacent to the Shōhō or attack the aircraft carrier Shōhō.

• Take as many dice as your skill level indicates.
• You must spend 1 fuel point and receive one additional die.
• You receive one extra die for every other plane in the same space as yours that has also chosen the attack action.
• Receive one or two additional dice if the search track has reached level 5, 6 or 7 and you are attacking the CAP or the Shōhō.

Begin the continuous rolls of the dice.

A) Attacking the Japanese Planes

Each type of Japanese plane has different requirements to be defeated and gives different amounts of skill points when defeated (see the Skill Points section).

• Torpedo bomber Nakajima B5N (Nickname: "Kate"). It is a dangerous plane when it attacks the USS Yorktown, but is easy to defeat in the air. Destroyed with three dice the same and gives you 1 skill point.
• Seaplane 1B-Aichi E13A (Nickname: "Jake"). It is not very effective when it attacks the USS Yorktown, but will prove to be a challenge for your planes. Destroyed with four dice the same and gives you 2 skill points.
• Fighter 1C-Mitshubishi A6M (Nickname: "Zeke"). It is a difficult plane to fight in the air and is a threat when it attacks the USS Yorktown. Destroyed with five dice the same and gives you 3 skill points.

B) Attacking the CAP

If the search token is on level three or higher and your plane is on any orange island space, you can attack the "Zeke" fighters that protect the Shōhō.

Important: If you are in a space where there is more than one target, after the dice rolling action, you can use the results as you wish, to destroy multiple targets. If for example you are in a space with two "Kate" and you roll two pairs, you can use this result as two pairs to destroy both targets.

C) Attacking the Shōhō

If the search token is on level three or higher, your plane is on an orange island space and you are carrying a bomb, you can attack the Shōhō.

Important! Remember you must roll one die less for each fighter that is in the CAP defending the Shōhō.

Return the Bomb token to the table, which means that you are not penalized and can roll all your allowed dice in a continuous roll:

• With four dice the same, the Shōhō takes 1 hit and the player earns 1 skill point.
• With five dice the same, the Shōhō takes 2 hits and the player earns 2 skill points.
• With six dice the same, the strike is perfect and the Shōhō is sunk.

Move

There are three options:

• Spend 1 fuel point and then, move your plane one island following the white lines.
• Spend 3 fuel points and then, move your plane two islands as long as the first island of them is not occupied by a Japanese plane.
• Spend 1 fuel point to return your plane from any space to the approach space adjacent to the USS Yorktown, as long as you don't pass through islands containing Japanese planes.

At the end of any movement, you can take one of these two special actions:

• Lightning attack. If you move into a space with Japanese planes, you can attack them using only the dice allowed on your skill track, without any bonus from the attack action. It is not possible to make a Lightning attack against the Shōhō or the CAP after moving on to an orange island space.
• Emergency landing. If you are in the approach zone and with "0" fuel points, you can attempt an emergency landing, by only rolling the dice allowed on your skill track.

Important! A plane that is in the air and cannot take its chosen action always loses 1 point of fuel.

Skill Points

Your pilot's skill will improve by destroying planes, doing searches and performing successful attacks on the Shōhō. Move the skill token along the skill track on your plane to unlock more dice.

When you pass 8 skill points, turn over the card to keep counting your skill points.

End of the Game

The game ends in victory immediately when the Shōhō takes its third hit and the game is lost when one of these conditions are met:

• The time has run out.
• The USS Yorktown takes its third hit.
• All the allied planes are destroyed.

Expansions

If you want to make the game easier, you can try one or more of these expansions.

Expert Manoeuvres

Shuffle and deal one tile face down to each plane. Each player looks at his tile secretly and, on their turn, may choose to discard it in order to use the manoeuvre.

• Landing Ace. Land without throwing dice.
• Efficient. Don't lose fuel points by all of a die roll of 1s.
• Decisive. When attacking, re-roll the first 1 that is rolled.
• Hawk Eye. When taking the search action, increase the search token one position extra. If you fail, increase the search token 1 position and you earn 1 skill point.
• Aggressive. Make a Lightning attack as if it were a normal attack.
• Invisible. When making a double movement or returning to the aircraft carrier, you can pass through occupied spaces.

Weather Events

During set up, shuffle the six weather event tokens, place four of them on the green islands and then, return the other two to the box without looking at them.

If your plane is on a space with one of these tokens, you can take one search action to reveal the token. Roll only the dice allowed on your skill card and the extra dice for 1 fuel point.

If you get three dice the same, turn over the token.

• Good visibility (x2). Discard the token and then, raise the search token one level and receive 1 skill point.
• Favourable wind currents (x2). This token remains on this island for the rest of the game. When a movement finishes on this space, add 1 fuel point to the plane.
• Storm (x1). This token remains on this island for the rest of the game. The dice rolls on this island are with one die less.
• Nothing (x1). Discard this token. This search has been a serious waste of time.

Drop Tank

These tanks contain fuel to re-fill during flight. Before take off, you can load a drop tank instead of a bomb, but as with a bomb, you will throw a one die less penalty until you use the drop tank or remove it into the sea.

To use the drop tank, at the beginning of your turn you must have 7 fuel points or fewer. Then, return the fuel tank to the table and receive 4 fuel points.

Credits

1942 USS Yorktown

• Game Design: Esteban Fernández
• Illustration & Design: Pedro Soto
• Rules: Pedro Soto
• Translation: Noel Keegan

Designer's special thanks: To everybody who encouraged me to find a Publisher for this game, to those who made it possible for me to get it published and to my family.

Published by Looping Games S.L. (www.loopinggames.com)