Game 3In which Bolokov develops a taste for Sushi
MY first ever game against Imperial Japan, Oh I’ve read the rules, and understand the mentality of the culture reasonably well, even speak a few words of the language, but never actually played them.
I went into this knowing they tend to be hard to stop, unable to take a hint on when its time to quit and generally need killing to make the point.
Enemy forces were small, as fearless veterans with a range of assault rules tend to be, two infantry platoons, a small field gun platoon, a small anti tank gun platoon and two small units of tanks, well I say tanks, these make my panzer II look well armoured.
The mission was Caldron, the enemy attacking at night. Of our force we had three in reserve, the mortars (since what are they going to do at night?) the flak guns (ditto) and the small regimental guns for pretty much the same reason. We deployed
all the infantry and put the 45mm guns in ambush.
The enemy rolled to put two platoons in one corner and the third as a free choice which joined them, it looked liked the whole game could well take place in a 3’x2’ area.
I had designed on reducing that even further.
Since we deployed first we put a Strelk unit facing each way, random chance faced the Japanese against the larger force, but in truth they could easily redeploy in the cover of darkness.
Turn one.
Being the defender we got first turn, and decided the best way to handle the Japanese was unsophisticated violence, delivered quickly. With no objectives to capture the march column wasn’t needed.
To a raised enemy eyebrow wondering what on earth this mad Russian was doing, we undue everyone and advanced, what you see below is the result of turn one
The idea was to envelope the Japanese, ideally before reinforcements arrived and cut the infantry down to size in assault.
A night attack made actually hitting them virtually impossible, so we decided not to bother - of course they would be very hard to hit anyway for the riflemen, so actually the darkness helped a lot more than it hindered.
The enemy started their turn
He said and played as if he thought my goal was to advance then fall back trading ground for time to slow his advance while my artillery turned up and day broke, as such he had no trouble advancing, and making it clear he was 9.5” away, within assault range, but only for a portion of the Soviet forces - but that if we did nothing they could assault next turn - incentive to fall back.
Shooting in the blind darkness did nothing, as expected.
The maelstrom below is after they finished moving and part way through my second turn.
The Japanese had advanced into the farm and courtyard, thus creating a wonderful bottleneck which would seriously limit defensive fire.
So with a very quite muttering to myself of
wwwaaarrgghhh!the main Strelk force advanced, though with a degree of caution, we threw forwards 16 teams, including a flame thrower - which succeeded in pinning the enemy and removing two teams, we then assaulted the somewhat surprised Japanese forces - trying to engage just one platoon but allowing a few of the second to draw it - but not allowing the first three tanks or the rest of his forces defensive fire.
The image shows the results after our attack.
Of course they Japanese counterattacked and as expected pushed us out of the farm, the whirlwind removed 14 Soviet teams and 12 Japanese, the difference being we could afford that, they couldn’t - nothing broke, indeed nothing was below half, but one was very close and the other weakened. The IJA now also suitably cautious of the somewhat foaming at the mouth Soviets.
They advanced with a bit of caution, aiming to get within assault range, to do to use what we had just done to them, before we did it back.
A small Japanese force of the crippled platoon heading for the building to the bottom of the picture while the rest moved against the previously unengaged elements to the top, all still in utter darkness.
He also brought up the second tank unit, which arrived like clockwork on his second turn, to have a line thus, ready to assault
What the pictures don’t show is the centre of the table, with about 2/3 of the second Strelk unit moving up, thus freeing the entire first unit for combat duties while the second took over the defence of the objectives.
My opponent also saw this and realised they
had to trigger one of the wildest assaults I;ve ever seen, four Japanese platoon, two infantry and two armoured against a single Strelk unit, that even though it had taken heavy casualties still out numbered them.
In they went, firstly his infantry to the top of the picture, which did a fair bit of damage but was wiped out in the process, yes they are veterans, and yes they kill on a 3+ (2+ some of them), but when so out numbered there are survivors who hit back, and did so, and being actually trained they held the weapons by the right end.
In went the first armoured unit, which also did some damage, but was also wiped out - IJA tanks can fight when bailed… there was only three of them, it didn’t matter, we got them.
With a manic glint in his eye and knowing he
had to win this in went the second armoured unit
And out they surely went, the commander dead the other two failed a motivation and broke off, leaderless and reduced to static fire platforms really.
The Strelk nearly crippled by now, then in went the final IJA infantry, who were also wiped out, breaking after they killed the final member of that huge blob of Russians, who fought to the last man, taking on what amounted to the whole IJA army on the table, alone, and winning.
All the IJA had left by now was four gun teams, two leaderless tanks and a single banner commander CiC in the farmyard.
As the above shows in went the second Strelk, six teams on one enemy commander could be considered overkill but we wanted to make the point, as you can see our mortars had arrived and set up ready to fire, the second Strelk unit had lost a single team but was otherwise fine, There was no way in hell the IJA would be able to take them out, indeed I was expecting to wipe them out.
The next IJA turn started, the 6th turn all told, annnnnnd they were over 16” from the objectives so Bolokov won his second game there and then.
5:2, only one unit lost in a game that was not so much one sided as a single Soviet unit v the world, and winning. As Lee says, the Orc never really leaves you, Caudron is a game I have often won as a defender by attacking first, attacking harder and making it work against a somewhat surprised defender who expected to bombard for a few turns before going in once they had regrouped...
Some people hate it, I love it.
Not sure of the final position overnight but expect to be mid table, 2:5, 4:3 & 5:2, already better results than last year going into day 2.
