British Bren gun team facing a Japanese banzai charge, by Peter Dennis © Osprey Publishing Ltd. Taken from Campaign 229: Kohima 1944.

This is a supplement for the Bolt Action tabletop wargame, and it deals with the Imperial Japanese Army and Special Naval Landing Forces of World War II. Within you will find background and details of Imperial Japanese Army’s organisation and equipment from the beginning of the war (the invasion of Manchuria in 1931) to the very end (the dropping of the first atomic bomb in 1945).

Central to this book is its Army List. This includes all the information you will need to play games using the Imperial Japanese Army. This large list details all the main troop types, vehicles and equipment fielded by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Alongside this central list are 12 Theatre Selectors, which give the force details for different periods and theatres of the war. Over more than 14 years of fighting the Imperial Japanese Army changed a lot, with many units and vehicles that were common in 1931 being rendered obsolete by 1945, and the Theatre Selectors allow players to select forces suitable for the theatre they are recreating. To avoid a lot of repetition, the central list includes all the options and rules information, with the Theatre Selectors narrowing this down to the most appropriate.

Even the Theatre Selectors cannot cover every exception and oddity, and are not definitive, but are designed to give a flavour and character to a force when fighting in a particular theatre. Exceptions are perfectly acceptable with agreement between players, but cannot be included in the main lists without becoming the rule.

Banzai! The Imperial Japanese army goes in with sword and bayonet