I got my copy of the Pacific Threater expansion at the beginning of December but hadn't played until today (27th). I had been planning on working my way through all of the scenarios in the basic game first, but I finally broke down and picked a scenario that appealed, "52 - GUAM Landings Jult 21 1944".
This map is very busy and I was suprised how long it took me to lay out the map. It wasn't a problem but it was longer than most of the other scenarios I've layed out.
Looking at the forces on the board it looks like the Allies are going to steam roll over the thinly spread out Japanese forces. It didn't turn out that way.
On the allied right the tanks start out on the beach, so I shot these forward up onto the hills, planning to shoot long range against the troops in the sandbags.
On the allied left, I again moved the tanks forwards.
My opponent immediately nudged his troops forwards but not into contact.
In the center I moved forwards, just trying to get out of the water.
Then the Japanese player attacked. His troops that had moved out of sandbagged positions previously were able to move up into contact this turn across the front and using the special Pacific Thearter rules they gain a bonus combat die when at full strength. This really tore a hole in my troops, the tanks were decimated and the supporting infantry took damage along with them.
My come back was quite muted by comparison. I did wittle down a couple of units but nothing like the same scale.
On the left I managed to surround the enemy in Asan by running the remaining tanks behind the village and then assaulted from the front with infantry. This proved successful and I managed to eliminate the unit that had been hanging in there.
The counter to this eliminated all but 1 single tank on the left flank.
In the center I was able push back the infantry and claim the high ground but had no valid targets, Around here the ground was very bad for tanks.
A long range shot from the forward sand bagged Japanese infantry eliminated a tank unit, and a similar shot against infantry on the left won the game for my opponent.
Final score 4-6 to the Japanese player.
Lessons learned : The Japanese ability to leap forward and make attacks with bonus dice, is very powerful and can devastate even a strong position. The Gung-Ho rule is fun but didn't seem as powerful as I was expecting.
No comments:
Post a Comment