Just finished a ten turn game of White tigers, ASL Scenario A47. I wont go into the Details of the forces on each side, because you can just look them up. But a summary of the Terrain is a combination of Boards 22 and 37 with a patty field, orchards and river overlays. Oh yeah and the temple.
Basically, the japanese have a 2:1 squad advantage over the Gurkhas and 5 tanks facing two 40L ATG. the object is to take 10 multi hex buildings by the end of the game. However, there are two problems for the Japanese. One, the British have heavy reinforcements entering on turn 5, and the japanese have to cross a river. Now, there are three crossing points, and only one of which is a bridge. The road leading down this bridge is immune to the bog effects of the Mud that is in effect.
The japanese have good cover to advance with LV rain which can increase to heavy rain which ours did. ALso, numerous buildings, Rubble and Jungle allow a safe advance to the Three river crossing sections.
Three questions did come up in our game and I will tell you how we resolved them. First, a SSR states all Single story houses are rubble. We took this to not include Huts, as they dont produce rubble.
Second, Does the Mist LV generated by rain affect units in buildings, and based on the reading of the rules and no errata to the contrary that I could find, we said it did, although I think it is very strange.
Lastly, the effects of fords are not restricted to entry of a single exit like bridges, as the ford counter dipiction looks like there is only one hex to enter and exit from. However, the rule seems clear that it does not matter which hex you enter it from or exit.
My opponent attacked with three columns , two moved on board 22 while a third attacked board 37. What I did not know is the board 37 forces contained a single squad and 8 dummies. This was just a feint. He did use one tank to move through board 37 and 2 more were used to help the assault across the bridge. Additionally, two tanks and three squads and a leader were kept off board until turn 4. My opponent made good progress and I withdrew my screening force consisting of 12 dummies mixed with 2.5 squads and a 8-0 leader. I lost all the squads but the leader made it back. I did however, slow him down and kill a 447 and 10-1.
At this point, he was poised at each of the fords, and bridge, and my first shot with the 40L near the bridge was a 12. He then parked his tanks nearby advancing infantry to deal with my HMG/9-2 units in the buildings near the bridge. I subsequently rolled a 6 for the repair and retreated my crew out. What he did not know is I had a second ATG right behind it in some orchards behind a wall, with lOS to both of his tanks which subsequently were destroyed.
His attack down the bridge stalled when my 9-2 HMG went on a ROF spree, taking his three high stacks down. The attack on board 37 only managed to move the tank through and near the patties to interdict my reinforcements. However, by the time he got his tank into position my reinforcements were entering and he had a long range shot with lots of LV hinderances. He rolled a 12. So, my reinforcements were only slightly delayed when he pinned one squad with the bow MG and then disabled his MA causing Recall.
Meanwhile, his other force were held up not by fire, but by my squad sitting in the ford. They moved to the edge of the ford and my 458 was unaffected prompting him to go into close combat. He failed to kill my with his HS and I rolled a 12, allowing him to withdraw to the other side. I was able to break and elimate this HS while he eventually advanced 1.5 sqauds into close combat with my 458 in the ford again, this time we simultaneosly killed each other, but I delay him greatly, as now I had a HMG hammering his bunched up forces on the other side of the bridge stacked three high in two hexes. leader and squads were missing morale checks, with ROF from my heavy.
The game came down to the fact that by the time he crossed the ford on board 22, he only had four squads left, one of which found a boresighted hex and paid the ultimate price. these managed to get into the first of the buildings with the help of a battle hardening berserker, but were subsequently surrounded, and shot up. What remained was eliminated in CC.
The bridge assault was well across and into the first buildings trying to get into board 22's center. however, by this time, I had eliminated the squad attacking on board 37, and figured out he had all dummies. Plus his tank had recalled. Also my reinforcements were in the center board. One problem did exist, and that was two tanks with LOS to my units were pounding me with HE 6 charts. I lost two 648 to KIA and double breaks. however, my 9-2 retreated and lived to come back. I also lost a gun crew to a 12 MC, but still had a spare from the previous lost gun and managed to reman both my HMG and 40L to hold him off for yet another turn.
By this time, I actually had a squad superiority and ungodly leadership consisting of 10-2, 9-2, 9-1, 8-1, 2X8-0 and a hero. Most of my sqauds were intact. His banzai charges were bloodily repulsed, and my 10-2 leader directed piat and CH his 8-1 leaders tank, and blew it to oblivian. Things ended around the bottom of turn 9. The japanese had taken some severe losses, primarily to stacking. My oppoenent felt that the low FP of the japanese required the stacking to affect my morale 8 units in buildings with rain LV. Three tanks were destroyed, one recalled, and one still left. None bogged to the mud, which was not much of a hinderance to him.
I am surprised that the japanese player never used riders!!!! The japanese can be in an akward situation if the British reinforcements are not slowed down. Mine were only slightly slowed, and by getting into the center board of 22, I was able to stop him cold.
Another interesting defense was the placement of a squad in the board 22 ford. It turned out to be very useful. It would not work on the bridge or the board 37 ford because they would be suceptible to overrun by tanks, but the board 22 ford is difficult to get to with tanks.
Based on the end game, where I had so much leadership, I was actually counter attacking, my opponent felt this scenario to be pro British. I find it difficult to say, except that it is realtively easy to bottle the japanese attack up. however, I do have to say that I did not lose a single squad to failure to route, mostly CC. I did roll extremely well for my Morale checks and rather good for my Attacks.
I would like to know how others who have played this feel about the balance of this scenario, and any interesting events. I would reccomend this scenario to those experienced in PTO. It was a lot of fun, with some replay value as my oppoent wants a rematch with the me as the japanese.
Brian Abela
My bud Tom Mueller and I did this one over IRC. I had the Japanese; Tom won. Here's some of my thoughts:
This was my first time attacking with the IJA. I had used them as scenario defenders several times, but attacking with them was completely new. I thus made some errors (but mainly one big one early in the match cost me dearly...)
The scenario EC are gusty, overcast, mud, and raining. Slosh, slosh! We of course rolled for heavy rain early in the game (Tom and I seem to be good at gettin' the weather to change drastically). This really slows the IJA down: tanks not on the road running up the "gut" of the map are slow and risk bog; infantry spends 1.5 MF per open ground hex. To win, the japanese need to have 12 multihex bldgs at the end of any Game Turn, or 10 at game end.
Tom set up most of his good infantry and sw on the east side of the map south of the river, where there is a clump of multi-hex bldgs (i.e. Jap VC bldgs). On ATG went over there too, and the other went in 22O4 to cover the only bridge over the (flooded) river.
I came on with all my infantry on the first turn, on board 22. I was going to put the main effort on the east side of 22 (and thus right into Tom's setup) because there are more VC bldgs on that side. My tanks would come on later, after I had made sure that no ATG's were covering the board edge. A small infantry force would cross the bridge on the west side of 22 to caputure the 2 VC bldgs just north of the river. I wanted those 2, the bldgs on the south of the river on 22 and bldg T6/U6 just over the ford in the middle of 22. That would give me 10. It almost worked, but Tom's reinforcements got to T6/U6 at the same time I did, and by that time, he had a lot more infantry than I did...
My main mistakes came on my player turn 2. First, I forgot to bring the tanks on. This wasn't that big of a deal, since they didn't play much of a role (exc: the tank with the AL had a good prep fire on turn 5). But then again, maybe they didn't play much of a role because they didn't get into the battle on time...ugh. Second, I was lured into prep fire attacks rather than moving on Turn 2 and on Turn 3. With a 10-1, mmg, and two lmg/448s, that's quite a bit of FP. But it also isn't the proper way to use a stack like that. The only thing keeping me in the game at this point (i.e. actually *moving*) was my sniper. That guy really hurt Tom in the first half of the game, but dropped in relevence later.
BANZAI!
Once I figured this out, I got moving. I was helped, though, by my tank with the 8-1 AL. On Turn 5 he scored a CH on Tom's HMG/458 to break him, then with ROF scored a hit on a MMG/458 Banzais really got me going. A couple of times I was able to get into a hex defended my either MG's or good leaders with no damage. An elite stack doing a banzai with a 10-1 leader is *TOUGH* to stop (the leader has 11 morale, and so do the 448's under him). On the west side of 22, two tanks (after the third had bogged) crossed the bridge in the face of ineffective ATG gun fire, and a squad and a half of Brits defending the bldg there were taken care of by a DC hero (now those guys are fun!).
In the end, though, it was Tom's reinforcements that got me. I had my entire force (what was left of it) across the river and was trying to get into the T6/U6 bldg, but he had a 10-2, hero, and 3 648's in there, with a 9-2 and two 458's in the bldg next door. I just didn't have enough infantry to attack that, banzai or not (the only leader I had left was a wounded 10-1). Had I used the banzai earlier, I may have gotten there first.
Thoughts:
Michael J. Licari