Round 4 - A103 Mayhem in Manila
I had the US attacking Dominic McGrath's Japanese in my first adventure in deluxe land. Executive summary - My Yanks were too wary of his HIP stuff and moved too slowly to have a decent chance at the end.
The Japs mostly set up back near the victory buildings, with one squad in a building covering the orchard road, a couple of dummy stacks sprinkled about and 2 hidden halfsquads - one right up front upstairs on my right flank and one on the same side but further back. My M7 HMC was stunned early on by the sniper, attacked by a DC carrying TH hero which bought the dust, and finally got recalled by the Jap sniper, after firing one WP round into the front victory building and shooting up one of the halfsquads when it made a run through open ground.
My fire on the buildings was largely ineffective apart from the M4 which got a CH on a mortar squad on the roof (unaffected) and followed up with multiple hits with a 3 and 2 for the effects DR! As my guys finally started arriving across the road from the first target building, Dom revealed one of his AA guns in the orchard road right at the back. Even though it wasn't emplaced I couldn't manage to shoot up the crew so advanced in for CC with a CX halfsquad. Incredibly this turned into a melee with a Jap leader joining in. As he skulked all of his other units, and figuring the CX halfsquad was doomed, I fired into the melee with 3 stacks. Would have been a good plan had it worked. In the end, I killed my halfie, killed the Jap leader and flipped the Jap crew, so it was a bad plan with the AA gun free to shoot at my final assault.
For the final turn, Dom had 2 squads, 1 crew with HMG and leader, and a concealed stack in the front building so I needed to get at least 2.5 squads into the building depending on what was hidden (possibly the 2nd gun but that was in the other building) or concealed, or any casualties I could inflict. There was still some lingering WP, the M4 got smoke with its mortar and VBM froze a Jap squad, but my infantry couldn't get any smoke grenades, or WP from the bazookas so most people who got into the road were broken, to give Dominic the win.
My personal jury's still out on DASL - takes some getting used to, for me at least. I was relieved not to see a hidden halfsquad or two on the level 2.5 roofs to drop DCs onto Yanks in the road - could be nasty. BTW that was the first secnario I've played where the Japs have actually won, not that I've played many mind you.
Round 5 - SP24 Forest Fighting In Latvia
This page last updated 4/26/00
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