Japan entered the modern age in 1868, with a new young emperor determined to make his island nation a world power. After decades of steady progress, Japan began its own practice of colonialism, defeating China in 1894. As the Japanese began to infiltrate the semi-independent Kingdom of Korea, they ran into Russian agents doing the same. Despite Japanese offers to negotiate, the Russian Tsar Nicholas II was set on war.

Nicholas hated the Japanese; as a young man, he had visited Japan. Drunk one night, he urinated in a Shinto temple. The Japanese policeman who found him watering the ancestors beat the prince savagely. Nicholas escaped with his life, but with his dignity sorely affronted. Now was his chance for vengeance. It would be, his Finance Minister Sergei Witte assured him, “a short, victorious war.”

Russo-Japanese War covers the naval side of the Russo-Japanese War, which opened with a Japanese surprise attack on the Russian Pacific Fleet’s base at Port Arthur in northern China. There are 45 scenarios, including the climactic Battle of Tsushima.

Russo-Japanese War includes:
• One 33x17-inch operational map
• 210 playing pieces
• 45 scenarios