At Saturday's Austin ASL player gathering, Todd Hively and I picked this scenario out to try. It looked quite interesting, as it depicts a Chinese attempt to eliminate a Japanese bridgehead. The scenario takes place in 1938. The board layout is good. Boards 5 and 41 are separated by board 8, and a pontoon bridge runs across the river of board 8. The Japanese get 3x448, about 7x447, 4x228, HMG, MMG, 2xLMG, 2x50mtr, 10-0, 9-1, 9-0. They also get 2x70*INF guns, and two tanks as reinforcements. The Chinese start onboard with a large numerical superiority (337s), but their OB is separated: a small contingent starts on the North side of the river (board 5) while the larger part sets up on the South side (board 41). They get some quality troops as reinforcements: 4x447, 9-2, 6+1, radio, 2xMMG and a DC or two. The radio represents 81mm if I remember correctly. One of the big attractions of this scenario to us, however, was the VC. The Chinese get to pick one of 3 different VC, before all setup. One is to control a hex at each end of the bridge at the end of any turn. Another is to occupy 17 of 23 buildings in the Japanese setup area, and the third is to clear one side or the other of the river of good order Japanese. We noted a couple of errors in the setup on the scenario card. It looked to us that the Chinese and Japanese setup areas overlapped in a small area, as written. This led to a question about exactly how many buildings are actually in the Japanese setup area. Perhaps Critical Hit will produce some errata for this one.
I wanted the Japanese and Todd kindly let me have them. Not knowing what victory conditions the Chinese chose influenced my setup. I had to be prepared for everything, and it sure didn't feel that I had enough personnel to do it. I put one gun at the exit hex of the northern bridge, and the other one went in the big building on the southern side of the bridge, right next to the exit hex over there. I used foxholes adjacent to the bridge exit hexes. The northern one got a 237 and lt. mtr. while the southern one got a 448 and LMG. I used my HIP for the 9-1, HMG 228 at the second level of the big building by the northern bridge exit. The other HIP was used by my 9-0, MMG, 228 at level two in the big building by the southern bridge exit. The rest of the infantry went into supporting positions. The northern side only had a couple of extra squads, while the southern side had the rest, since that's where most of the Chinese would be. Close combat was what I feared most, because I felt that I could lose a lot of units that way, and the Chinese can easily afford to trade squads.
Todd's turn 1 prep fire didn't yield any useful results on the southern side. On the other side, he moved toward the bridge, taking care to retain his concealment. In the early stages of the game on board 41, the Japanese were winning the firefight. The dice were falling my way and several Chinese squads failed ELR. Todd still gave me high blood pressure with his long strings of ROF with his 50mtrs, but they did little actual damage. The Japanese sniper was active, wounding the previously ELR'd 7-0. So he had a wounded 6+1 trying to rally broken troops on board 41. They didn't come back very fast. To make a bad situation worse, when his remaining leader, an 8-1, moved back to rally a squad, he took a critical hit from a knee mortar in a woods hex. The result was KIA.
The middle game saw the momentum shift back to the Chinese somewhat. I was still rolling well, but Todd was passing his morale checks. And I was rolling his SAN a lot. The Chinese sniper started to really make his presence felt. Somehow Todd managed to keep his force intact on board 41 with nothing but a wounded 6+1 for leadership. His reinforcements entered on the eastern side and started threatening my strongpoint with OBA and MMGs. I thought he had made a mistake by skulking his troops on the northern end, (Todd commented that they were like a "fleet in being") but he showed me the error of my ways when they all advanced concealed to the treeline and treated my thin forces at that end of the bridge with some large firegroups.
The end game saw the dice swing very strongly back in the Japanese favor. The HIP HMG finally made an appearance to devastate the Chinese force on the north side. He never could get his OBA in, and some lucky shots broke his 9-2 and MMG squads. It was over.
In the end we both agreed that we like the look of this scenario, and we are intrigued by the fog of war resulting from the Chinese choice of victory conditions. We are a little at a loss right now, however, to see what a good strategy is for the Chinese. It is, of course, way to early to comment on the balance of this scenario. I would recommend it and I hope it gets a lot of play. I would be very interested to hear about successful Chinese attacks in this scenario. I think it would be great for a focussed scenario discussion (although I know that it has probably received very few playings so far).
Matt