J12 – JUNGLE FIGHTERS
JP defending as the Japanese
Legion attacking as the Commonwealth
ROAR (C:J – 38:41) – 11th August, 2007
INITIAL THOUGHTS
Our final game from the Malayan campaign is J12 – Jungle Fighters, the Brits have been pushed back to Jahore Bahru and are fighting a rear guard action trying to get to the causeway and on to Singapore and eventual capitulation and imprisonment.
Well, this is an interesting one, he enters first from the left edge of the board (10 hexes top to bottom) on turn 1 and in my turn so do I. The VC are that I need to get 11CVP’s worth of troops more than him off the right edge of the board (21 hexes away) – he doesn’t have to take any of his troops off and can stand and fight if he prefers. It is all city terrain so it will be interesting to see how the Japanese manage in a city environment (especially with ‘3’ firepower troops).
THE PLAN
The board has 4 roads running diagonally from the left edge down to (or near) the bottom edge of the board which I hope to use. Although my plan will obviously change depending on where he enters and ends his turn my thoughts go something like this: I want to get my four Mortars into positions where they can shoot down the roads to stop him re-enforcing his troops as well as lay SMOKE on open terrain to negate incoming fire. Likewise once my MMG’s are re-mantled they will also cover the roads, probably roads M4-Y10 and P2-Y7, I will initially cover these roads with my LMG’s until the MTR’s and MMG’s have been re-assembled.
I want to attack at the top of the board as attacking at the bottom will mean crossing all those roads as they exit the board so obviously the top of the board gives me less exposure to open terrain. He has 13 squads which is enough to put a squad in every hex top to bottom so it will be a bun fight. Working to my advantage has been the fact the Legion has not been as meticulous with his games lately as life has left him short of set up time. (In J10 he did not research the “Huts” rule enough and was swamped in turn 1 and in J11 his Human Wave came on in a straight line even charging down the face of a fire lane, he did not use the “range” rule to move laterally out of the fire nor did he think to have his HW 2 deep instead of spread out across six hexes) – not that it would have made a difference as both scenarios are dogs and guaranteed wins for the IJA.
So I am hoping he does not realise the significance of the top edge of the board and the way the diagonal roads will affect his ability to re-enforce thereby giving me some kind of opening through which I can attack, if the majority of his forces are at the top then I will be forced to attack at the bottom through terrain that I feel is unfavourable to me.
I am fully aware that he has 30 CVP of troops as compared to my 48CVP which means if I lose 8 or more CVP’s worth he can literally run everybody straight off the edge and take the win so I need to get close and be brutal and most importantly of all, get past him so I can put fire on his troops as they attempt to leave as well as cutting rout paths. After setting up my Mortars and MMG I will keep my 2 lesser leaders (9-0 and an 8+1) with 2 squads at all times to possibly do a banzai charge to soak up some fire and then hopefully I can CX my 9-1, 2 squads and 2 LMG’s around him to put some fire on his line of retreat. The more of his troops I stop from being able to easily run off the board the better my chances of winning.
The SSR says nothing about prisoner CVP not being applied and, as it is only in January of ’42 the G1.621 No Quarter rule is not yet in effect so I will also keep an eye out for any prisoner taking opportunities and will try to get them off board for the extra CVP they will give me without having to exit units.
TURN 1
He entered the board and placed the majority of his troops at the top which has meant I will have to alter my plans a little. At the bottom of the board he only has a single unit in Q9 and multi unit stacks in R5 and U9. I rolled a snake eyes on the weather roll and the wind changed to Heavy Wind but it was not until the end of turn 4 that we realised the heavy winds meant the Japanese could not fire SMOKE!! (In which case we would have been slaughtered, yet again another scenario that can become wildly unbalanced by a weather roll…). I entered with only 3-4 squads at the top of the board just to put some pressure on him and the rest charged in with a view to swamping the Q9 unit. A couple of my MTR’s did not move onto the board until advance phase where they went to M5 and M6 for SMOKE opportunities against the U9 firegroup. I also sent a 9-1 leader 2 squads and a pair of LMG’s into the level 2 hex at O8 to try and get some decent LOS shots without the palm tree hindrance.
TURN 2
He pulled the Q9 unit out of the building but got pinned in the open at T9 and he sent troops from the top of the board to the V6 and V7 area to provide cover fire for the U9 building. In R5 he also pulled a squad and a leader out to join the V6/7 squads leaving a single squad in R5. I re-mantled all my MTR’s and MMG’s in defensive fire as well as scoring a MC on his squad carrying an ATR which rolled boxcars for an ELR and CR result. In my turn I fired SMOKE at the U9 buildings and surrounds to cover the open area and sent about half my force towards the U9 building using the smoke as cover. The other half altered their axis of attack and charged across the 3 hexes of open ground to put themselves into the O4-T6 buildings and adjacent the R5 squad which fired for little effect. He voluntarily broke the R5 squad and routed away.
TURN 3
His squad that had been left behind at T9 was pinned again by a sniper in Prep fire and was now in serious trouble. He sent units to the vital Z7 building (his MMG) as well as the AA6 building to put fire lanes down their respective roads and also extricated the remainder of his units in U9 which took up flanking positions around X8. I managed to get a few squads across the Z7-Q3 road to put pressure on his sole remaining Good order squad up there (he now had the broken R5 squad and the ATR HS up there with no leaders and I was able to continuously get a unit alongside them to keep them DM). My troops in the R5 buildings went to T5 and T6 with a view to putting V6 and V7 under pressure while the units at the bottom of the board took the U9 building and due to the smoke a concealed leader and squad was able to move adjacent to his T9 pinned guy. I also sent a MTR to P2 with a view to smoking his MMG firelane (although firelanes are not affected by SMOKE I reasoned that 2 smoke in a row would stop him from getting LOS in the first place thus stopping him from placing a firelane. Advancing fire produced a Hero and Battle Hardened the T9 guy and in advance I jumped into the combat, I failed the ambush roll as did he and we both ended up in Melee.
TURN 4
He pulled his V6/7 troops back and has 8 squads in an almost hedgehog within the AA6-Z8-X7 triangle, he also has a squad in X3 guarding the 2.5 broken squads in and around W2 while his last squad is still in melee in T9 where he died in CC taking one of my squads with him. I fired SMOKE at the Z7 firelane and more SMOKE further down the road to effectively stop that from firing. A squad went to attack his X3 unit and was striped but fire had been laid down so I then Banzai charged a leader and 2 squads from T5 and T6 at the X3 guy, they took a little bit of damage but successfully entered his hex, this now cleared the way for 2.5 squads of mine that had been at the top of the board to scoot around to W2 and take all his men prisoners. I have also got squads in Y6 and X5 thus stopping him from moving troops to the top of the board, I am pretty sure I will be able to get all 2.5 squads and their prisoners (2.5 squads worth) off the board and thus gain 15CVP’s at games end. In CC I killed his X3 unit but he killed a HS, a striped squad and the 9-1 leader; a costly price for the Banzai charge but I think the way is now open at the top of the board.
We saved the game there (was Vasl live) and in the post-match discussion Legion realised that the SMOKE should not have been on the board and he removed the counters. This game would have been a British whitewash if the Japanese could not have SMOKE to attack behind. As it is I feel it is currently in the balance. He has lost 5 squads (2.5 dead, 2.5 prisoner) while I have lost 1 leader, 1 leader wounded, 6.5 squads and a MMG crew, and 2 of those squads are striped as well as my last MMG crew. If I had not had SMOKE it would have been a slaughter I feel.
TURN 5
He pulled back leaving a pair of units in level 1 of X7 and Z7 to slow me down, in his advancing fire he broke one of my HS’s so I now only have 13 squads and a crew able to reach the boards edge. I moved everyone up to row ‘Z’ with a view to advancing into row ‘AA’ where they would all be 6 hexes from the end of the board, a few things went amiss, one of my MTR units could not reach a position where it would be able to exit so I am now down to 12 squads and a crew that can score the required VP, another was in X6 but I advanced my 9-0 leader into it and with leader bonus,CX and road bonus it would be able to make it off board. A striped squad got pinned in Z8 by Z7 thus making it unable to exit – I now only have 11 squads and a crew within range.
TURN 6
His squad in X7 wounded my 9-0 leader in X6 and so I lost another squad capable of exiting – 10 squads and a crew left that are within reach. He quite smartly moved a squad and LMG out of DD9 and into EE9 so I could not do a Banzai charge in my turn. He also sent all his leaders off board thus making me have to get an extra 4 CVP off. I started my turn by Banzai charging the X7 and Z7 units with those squads of mine that could not reach the boards edge, just to stop them from shooting my troops in the back. I rarely complain about the dice but I will quite happily say that I now got diced!! I lost about 3 squads trying to get past one of his units that was FPF’ing like a mad thing. I kept my crew and the squads guarding prisoners to the last as they were worth the most VP’s but my troops were getting slaughtered as they tried to draw fire and create a hole in his defence. My first squad to reach the edge of the board got broken by a MMG fire lane. His unit in EE9 broke doing a FPF and I was able to get a unit into GG9 where the EE9 unit would be taken prisoner and then advanced off the board for double points, it looked like I might get the win, but once again the MMG fire lane scored a MC result and the squad rolled snake eyes and went Berserk in the following HOB roll. It now ran away from the board edge and entered EE9 where the broken squad was – things just aren’t going my way. I finally sent my crew across but it got broken and I then tried to get the 3 squads guarding prisoners off the board, I lost a squad and a half of prisoners trying to reach the board edge but by now I had surrounded a squad on the board edge and I was hoping for an encircle fire breaking his squad so I could take it prisoner and score the extra points but it was not to be and the game ended with a win for him. Of the 10 squads and 1 crew able to reach the board edge at the start of the turn I ended up with 2.5 squads on the edge (one with a prisoner squad) and 2.5 squads and a crew pinned, berserk or broken so I had lost KIA a total of 5 squads and 1.5 squads of prisoners.
BRITISH VICTORY
FINAL THOUGHTS
If we had remembered the wind rules this would have been a British victory a few turns ago, I think however that the Brits are just a tad too strong for the Japanese and the balance should be used or, ideally, the Brits must exit a certain number of troops as they could quite literally put a squad in every hex across the board thus making it impossible for the IJA to exit.
Overall it was a good game and certainly not as bad as the previous 2 games. I was pleased with the way I switched the direction of my attacks thus making him re-locate and allowing me to find a gap and I really cant fault my game other than the fact that my MTR units ended up being out of the game (I should have considered their position at the start of turn 4 and dropped the MTR’s then.)