Pacific Island Battles
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
March 2026
 Panzer Grenadier, our series of World War II tactical combat games, is mostly set in the European theater. Saipan 1944 takes us to the Pacific, and it’s also the centerpiece for four more expansions, to make sure that this game will spend its time on your tables, not your shelf.
We publish Panzer Grenadier games on what we call the core-expansion model. There’s a core game, like Saipan 1944, that you can play by itself. And then there are expansions, that use the maps and pieces from the core game, and sometimes add more maps and pieces. Each expansion turns the core game into something new for you to play and explore.
As in all Panzer Grenadier games, the maps, made of heavy cardstock, are what we call “geomorphic” – you place them together to form the battlefield for the scenario you’re about to play. Many times you’ll use just one, so you don’t have to fit them together, or you may be called to use other combinations up to all four. The maps are marked off in hexagons, each hexagon representing a piece of ground 200 meters across.
The pieces represent platoons of infantry and tanks, and batteries of artillery. Individual leaders help rally your troops and move them toward the enemy. The game system is interactive (both players get to do things at the same time), but it’s pretty easy to learn and play.
Each game and expansion includes scenarios, so you can play out the battles that took place during the campaign. They’re grouped into chapters, each of those covering one segment of the campaign, with a “battle game” that ties the scenarios together.
So let’s have a look at the games and books that make up Pacific Island Battles:
Saipan 1944
 The core of our Pacific Island Battles, Saipan 1944 comes with four maps and 495 playing pieces, and has forty scenarios. While Saipan isn’t a very large island, it’s bigger than the coral atolls that usually come to mind when one thinks of the island battles of the Pacific War. So the four maps don’t nearly cover the entire island, but instead show representative terrain. There are beaches, cane fields (a lot of cane fields), jungles, hills, and jungle-covered hills.
The Americans invaded with three divisions: two Marine and one U.S. Army. The Japanese defended with a mixed force of Imperial Army and Navy troops. The Americans invaded months earlier than expected, and the Japanese defenses had not been fully prepared; plus, many troops and weapons intended for the defense had been lost of transports torpedoed by American submarines. Still, the Japanese resisted stoutly, even after command and control had broken down, and culminated with a mass bayonet charge by most of the surviving defenders plus Japanese civilians.
 Many of the scenarios use just one map, which is in keeping with the action on Saipan. The rugged terrain meant that the battle turned on many smaller, fiercely-contested actions. It’s a game of intense infantry actions with both sides possessing tank support. The Japanese have the advantage of terrain, while the Americans have artillery and air support.
Saipan 1944’s first edition was a popular game; the Playbook edition upgrades all of the scenarios to match Panzer Grenadier’s Fourth Edition series rules.
Order Saipan 1944 Here.
Order Saipan 1944 (Anarchy) Here.
No rules! You’ll need the Fourth Edition rules from another Panzer Grenadier game. Earlier edition rules will not work with this game.
Marianas 1944
 After capturing Saipan, the Americans moved on to invade the other major islands of the Marianas chain, Guam and Tinian.Marianas 1944 adds two more maps and 24 new pieces to those from Saipan 1944, and you’ll use all of that to play the thirty scenarios. You also get to play out the 1941 Japanese invasion of Guam, resisted by the Guam Insular Guard. Marianas 1944 includes the entire order of battle for Guam’s tiny army!
 Even though any hope of relief ended with the fall of Saipan, the Japanese fought fiercely to hold on as long as possible on the other islands. Well before the invasion, the Japanese high command had known that American heavy bombers could reach the Japanese Home Islands from bases in the Marianas. And so the Japanese troops on the ground had a major incentive to keep the Americans from securing the islands for as long as possible.
Order Marianas 1944 Here.
Leyte 1944
 The Americans fulfilled their promise to return to the Philippines in October 1944, with the invasion of Leyte in the central part of the archipelago. This time it would be a U.S. Army show, with Marine participation on the ground limited to two heavy artillery battalions (which show up as off-board artillery in Panzer Grenadier games). U.S. Army units in Panzer Grenadier games (at least by 1944) generally don’t have the same firepower and leadership as Marine units, balanced somewhat by heavier artillery support and sometimes more armor.
Given the different force mix, Leyte 1944 comes with 88 more pieces, but no new maps. You’ll need maps from both Saipan 1944 and Marianas 1944 to play the 46 (forty-six!) scenarios from Leyte 1944, plus Elsenborn Ridge (for some more American tanks). With Leyte 1944 you also get paratroopers: Americans from the 11th Airborne Division (with their “Angels” badge on their pieces) and Japanese from the 3rd and 4th Raiding Brigades. Yes, you get to play with Japanese paratroopers!
 Leyte is a bigger island than any of the Marianas (actually, it’s bigger than all of them put together). That means bigger scenarios, in terms of ground covered (more maps in play), forces involved and game length. The Japanese are better-prepared this time, with an intact infantry division plus supporting units rather than the grab-bag that defended the Marianas.
Order Leyte 1944 Here.
Pacific Armor
 So far, we’ve talked about 116 scenarios, almost all of them infantry fights (sometimes with paratroopers instead, or opposed beach landings, so it’s not all the same). When the Americans invaded Luzon in the first days of 1945, the Japanese had a complete armored division in place to oppose them. And we have that story, in Pacific Armor. We tell it in 24 new scenarios, and you get 64 new pieces – almost all of them Japanese tank units.
 Japan’s tank crews showed extreme bravery, good marksmanship, and technical competence. And then they met American Sherman tanks. Pacific Armor has 18 scenarios drawn from the campaign on Luzon, in which the Japanese armor was split into small detachments to bolster the defense line – the Japanese command felt that American airpower would find and destroy any concentrations of tanks before they could even reach the enemy.
 Japan did have much better tanks, either held back for the defense of the home islands or not produced as industrial priorities shifted to ships and aircraft. In the final chapter, you get to play with these and see if you can stop the Americans with Japan’s best armor.
You’ll need Saipan 1944, Marianas 1944, Leyte 1944, and Elsenborn Ridge to play the scenarios. You’ll also need one unit (a 40mm anti-aircraft battery – a very important unit!) from Dragon’s Teeth.
Order Pacific Armor Here.
Mindanao 1945
 When the Americans invaded Luzon, the main island of the Philippines, they isolated the Japanese garrisons in the central and southern islands. They could have left them there and awaited the war’s end, but the United States had made a promise: they would liberate the Philippines, a former American colony. And that meant freeing the Filipino population from Japanese rule, not just waiting for Japan to collapse.
The campaign had three distinct parts, as the Americans secured first the Visayas (the large islands between Luzon and Mindanao), then the Zamboanga Peninsula in far western Mindanao, and finally the capital of Davao and the rest of eastern Mindanao. It’s a campaign little mentioned in popular histories of World War II, but that didn’t make it any less bitterly fought. The fearsome terrain here, where abaca plantations (a relative of the banana, grown for its tough fibers) provided nearly-impenetrable barriers around which the Japanese could build their defenses.
Mindanao 1945 tells that story in eleven scenarios; you’ll need Saipan 1944, Marianas 1944, and Leyte 1944 to play them – and you get to use those paratroopers from Leyte 1944 again.
Order Mindanao 1945 Here.
Pacific Island Battles
Fight for Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Leyte, Luzon, and Mindanao: six maps, 671 pieces, 151 scenarios. One hundred and fifty-one scenarios.
• Saipan 1944
• Pacific Armor
• Mindanao 1945
• Leyte 1944
• Marianas 1944
Retail Price: $211.95
Package Price: $180
Gold Price: $144
Storm the Beaches.
Order Saipan 1944 Here.
Order Saipan 1944 (Anarchy) Here.
No rules! You’ll need the Fourth Edition rules from another Panzer Grenadier game. Earlier edition rules will not work with this game.
Order Marianas 1944 Here.
Order Leyte 1944 Here.
Order Mindanao 1945 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.
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