Golden Journal No. 36 Atlantic Marines

Note: Gold Club members can use their max discount.

Our 36th issue features the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, an outfit formed in 1940 from assets of the 2nd Marine Division for possible deployment in an invasion of the Vichy French colony of Martinique in the Caribbean, and then diverted to Iceland instead to help repel a feared German invasion.

Most issues of the Golden Journal come with 24 pieces or their equivalent; No. 36 Atlantic Marines has a whopping 165 die-cut and mounted pieces. It’s sheet number one from our old Panzer Grenadier: Guadalcanal game, with early-war-era Marine rifle platoons armed with the Springfield bolt-action rifle (the Army had first call on the semi-automatic M1 Garand).

There are two chapters, two very different chapters. The first looks at President Franklin Roosevelt’s order that the Marines prepare for a possible invasion of Martinique to overthrow the Vichy governor there so that the island colony would not become a base for German submarines when the United States finally entered the war. The French had only a small garrison, but the Americans were not sure of this and were ready for a real fight. There are seven scenarios, plus two battle games to tie them together.

The second chapter is set on Iceland, where the Marines face German paratroopers and mountain troops. The ground is rough and rocky, and the troops are elite. The Marines actually deployed to Iceland, and the Germans had well-developed plans to invade in what was known as Operation Ikarus. This time there are four scenarios, plus a battle game to tie them together.

You’ll need a few Panzer Grenadier games to play all of those scenarios: An Army at Dawn, 1940: The Fall of France, Saipan 1944 and Parachutes Over Crete.