Bob Lyman and I had a few hours on Saturday for ASL, but not too many, so I suggested we take a crack at some of the Schwerpunkt scenarios as many are on the smallish side. Bob was looking for revenge for the mild mauling I had given him last week in "The Ring" (AP#1), and I had been taunting him over the cubicle walls. (We sit about 12 feet apart.) We picked out "Raiders at Regi" as it is small (4.5 squads for the Jarheads, 3.5 for the IJA) and only 5.5 turns long. We both needed to brush up on our PTO a bit with Winter Offensive coming up (January 17th to 19th, Comfort Inn, Bowie, MD - BE THERE!) so this looked good.
Diced for sides and I got the Marines. This was a bad sign, and I should have taken it as a warning! (I'm an ex-paratrooper.) But I've been defender in my last 5-6 games counting playtests, and was ready to go on the attack. What the hell, I thought, these guys are Raiders! (5-5-8s with assualt fire and Stealthy.) They're almost as good as Paramarines, which are almost as good as Paratroopers. Yeesh, what a mistaken assumption that turned out to be.
Bob's whole force got to set up HIP, a key advantage for the Japanese in this scenario. At game end, he had to have an unbroken MMC on hill 604 on board 36, on or adjacent to the trail. A few minutes brushing up on the Japanese rules, a few minutes setting up, and he's ready.
Marine Mistake #1: don't enter on a broad front in this one. I tried that, and it didn't work. Bob knows me pretty well and may have deployed with this in mind, but in any case the first morale check my guys made (a 1MC) broke the 8-1 and MMG-totin' 5-5-8. Not an auspicious beginning, and it got worse.
Bob pulled the same kind "shoot and fade" defense I had against him last week, pulling back to regain concealment and forcing me to double time or advance vs. difficult on the left in order to close up. He broke the 8-1 and company a second time, and then the 7-0, 5-5-8 and 2-3-8 which had moved next to a 4-4-7. A close combat or two, a failure to rout on the 8-1 stack, and a 1MC which obliterated the 7-0's stack left me on turn 5 with 1 stinkin' HS w/ MMG. Broken HS, at that.
While I've gotten my butt kicked in both Scwherpunkt scenarios I've played (The Hornet of Cloville being the other), both have been fun games. The rest of the pack looks interesting, and most are fairly small. I expect to see and play a few at Winter Offensive.
The Scwherpunkt package includes scenario notes, so I'll just note that I read these AFTER playing. In retrospect - and happily, I figured this out before reading the notes - the strategy for the Marines should be to come straight down the trail, kicking butt and taking names just like Paras would. 8) Keep a HS out on each side as flankers, I think. Clear out the bad guys, and don't be afraid to go for CC - the stealth benefit helps out here a lot.
John Appel