THE LAST HUNDRED YARDS VOLUME 3
The tactical, squad-level category is an increasingly crowded one. We have the venerable “grandfather” of tactical games in Advanced Squad Leader, which was an evolution of the much simpler Squad Leader. ASL has a massive following and its DNA is all over many of the tactical games that followed it. But none have really unseated it as the king of the hill for its rabid following (who are vocal and always ready to defend it against the challengers who have cropped up over the years).
But ASL is an older system and as time goes on, innovation emerges that push the envelope and deliver fresh mechanics that push the tactical genre forward. Games like Conflict of Heroes, Lock N Load Tactical, Combat Commander, Combat Infantry, Old School Tactical (yes, the list is getting long and I’m not including nearly everything) have all earned devoted followings of their own.
Into this crowded field a relatively new contender has emerged: The Last Hundred Yards. Designed by Mike Denson and published by GMT Games, LHY (as it will hereafter be called) debuted in 2019. The base game (or volume 1 as some – including me – now call it) featured the U.S. Army and German Wehrmacht in France, following the Normandy landings.
The base game proved successful and garnered some 2019 Charles S. Roberts Award nominations (though it did not win) and currently boasts an 8.1 score on BoardGameGeek. Fittingly, a follow-up was released in 2020, The Last Hundred Yards Volume 2: Airborne Over Europe. And yes, you guessed it, it featured paratroopers – lots of them, including the two famed U.S. Airborne Divisions: the 101st Screaming Eagles and the 82nd All-American. Volume 2 boasts a slightly better 8.2 rating than its parent game on BGG.
2021 saw the release of LHY Volume 3: The Solomon Islands, bringing the system to the Pacific Theatre of Operations. It is this third volume that is the subject of this review.
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
The move to the PTO means the debut of both the U.S. Marine Corps and the Imperial Japanese Army in the LHY series as well as a whole new set of terrain – with jungle being the most frequent (and most obvious). The player in LHY assumes the role, essentially, of a Company commander. Depending on the mission the player will have at their disposal one or more platoons of infantry, various support weapons such as machine guns, mortars and anti-tank weapons (and also possibly some flamethrowers too), and armor as well. Yes, there were tanks in the PTO, including the M4 Sherman, although the Japanese had nothing like what the Germans fielded in the ETO.
If you’re wondering what’s in the box, I just happen to have done an unboxing article and video here. I talk about the fabulous components there as well – everything in the box is top-notch and the maps (there are eight of them) are fantastic.
The addition of the Japanese forces to the system brings some new rules. The Japanese were known as fanatical fighters and as designer Mike Denson notes in his design notes, were probably the best light infantry force in the world. They were expert at the type of fighting that would take place on the islands and atolls of the Pacific and gave the Marine Corps and U.S. Army units they faced a brutal and difficult fight, often fighting to the last man.
