Chinese: Matt Schwoebel
Japanese: Zeb Doyle

For most of this summer, I was in an ASL drought, but fortunately things picked up in August and I got in some really fun gaming. One of my more entertaining battles was against Matt Schwoebel in BFP-32 Slaughter At Nanyaun. This is a nifty 1938 Japanese-Chinese battle across the relatively open boards 43 and 17, with the Japanese trying to get 80 points of CVP and EVP.

It’s a bit of an unusual scenario, since the attacking Japanese infantry are numerically outnumbered by a 3:2 ratio, and in FP roughly 1.3:1. That’s not even counting the four heavy-hitting 150mm and 75mm ART guns that the Chinese also get. To make up for this, the Japanese do receive some 70mm OBA (made very powerful by an offboard observer at level three, which can see vast expanses of the map) and three flame-throwing engineer vehicles, which operate much like the German SPW 251/16, in that they have two side-mounted flamethrowers and can thus get two shots per turn if maneuvered correctly.

This all makes for great fun if you like brain-teasers. The Japanese need to very cautiously work their way forward, identify the Chinese positions, and then work over any exposed Chinese strong-points with the flame-throwing vehicles. They have 2 AF, enough to ward off most MG fire, but not enough to stand up to the Chinese guns. This ends up being very tense but lots of fun. Every Japanese piece is precious, so there are no throw-away moves, and deciding how bold to be with the flame-throwers and what targets are worth risking the X11 20FP shots on is especially tricky.

In my playing with Matt, I sent my first wave of Japanese all down the left flank. He’d set up his Chinese scattered about in foxholes, and completely ignored the compound of stone buildings on board 43. Initially, I thought that he’d made a mistake, but it turns out the LOS from there isn’t especially good and any Chinese units placed there are probably thrown away. Instead, by concentrating his infantry further back in the foxholes, he maintained his numerical and FP edge, and had better TEM as well when my force finally contacted him. So, nice job, Matt…this is the second time your ‘in-depth foxhole defense’ has caused me all kinds of grief!

I sent some Type 94 tankettes rushing forward as scouts, and managed to find a 75mm and a 150mm gun at the cost of a single AFV….a very acceptable loss ratio to me. I then felt bold enough to send forward a single flame-throwing tank, and it managed to burn out several pockets of Chinese, before finding the last 150mm ART piece at the cost of its own destruction. Unfortunately, that left the bulk of Matt’s force positioned on my left flank, well covered by his big guns, and with no easy way of rooting them out. Things only got tougher in that sector when the Chinese reinforcements arrived with most of them also moving under the protective cover of those nasty 150mm monsters.

With my own reinforcements arriving, I decided not to reinforce failure, and would instead send my second wave of infantry up the middle. I would also redeploy my flame-throwing tanks to that area and see if I could force my way through an area that would have, at most, a single 75mm gun covering it. The downside to this was that the tanks would have to spend two turns moving into position, and since it was already turn four of a 7.5 turn game, I didn’t have any time to waste.

The push up the middle turned out to be a good move. As Matt’s Chinese scrambled to reposition, they had to move through a large patch of woods on board 17, and my offboard observer was able to rain airburst OBA pain on a huge number of them. Several missions, shifting between harassing fire and WP did an amazing amount of damage, with almost every 4-1 attack or 1MC breaking everyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the blast. That really cleared a path for my second wave of infantry to exit, and more importantly, I think it rattled Matt’s morale some. He reacted by bringing the Chinese armor aggressively over to block me. This is one reason I enjoy scenarios that have dual VC, like EVP and CVP-it makes a lot of otherwise easy decisions into painful trade-offs. Here, Matt threatened my infantry EVP with a bunch of 6FP CMGs, but also put a bunch of his 0 AF, 5 CVP vehicles in harm’s way.

As it turned out, my 37mm crewed infantry SW had a field day with the Chinese armor, going on several big ROF tears and killing most of it. That 3 ROF and 7TK has the potential to be deadly to everything in the Chinese armored force. The PSW 222 survived, but I managed to toast that threat with one of my flame-throwing tanks. When a scouting CX’d 9-0 Japanese leader managed to find the last 75mm gun, survive a 24-2 CH and a 24+0 CH, and then advance in and kill the crew in HtH CC, the floodgates really opened up for me, and the game ended on the last turn with the Japanese scoring 100 VP. Had Matt been a bit more judicious with his armor, or had my OBA not been so smashingly effective, it would have been a very tense and close finish.

So, BFP-32 Slaughter At Nanyaun is highly recommended. Since every move feels so vital, we both felt extra-drained and tired at the end, so be ready for that. The balance felt even to me, although I’d say the Japanese might be slightly more fragile. If they lose the OBA and several of the flame-throwers on fluke events, they aren’t going to win this. If the Chinese boxcar out those 150mm guns right off the bat, they are in trouble, but it’s not an auto-loss. I’d still take either side though for some fun Asian early-war action.

Thanks for reading,

Zeb

HG2 update! Scenarios are all final, just need to edit and tweak them for a couple of days, then it’s off to the printers.

Sarge and I playtesting a Japanese vs. Dutch Scenario. 7  Turns, Dutch are defending and the Japanes have to cross a river and take 15 buildings..They have  single bridge to use…Dutch win in 7..Some photos for you to review…

I’ve been a part of BFP for more than a year now and it’s high time I started to add my thoughts and experiences as a member of the team to our blog. 

I’ll be posting information on playtests, my thoughts and ideas, and will be glad to answer any questions you might have.

My current duties with BFP are: Author, Designer(6 scenarios in the workflow with Chas and the crew), Playtester, Editor, Proof Reader.  Folks wonder why we do it? It’s not for the money, am never going to get rich doing this, it’s the personal satisfaction of knowing that I’ve contributed to a fantastic team effort that I hope brings you a ton of ASL enjoyment as you play through the products we publish.

I’m also in the role of NON ASL game submission guy, we’re primarily ASL and ASL will always be first, but if you’ve got a game you believe is outstanding and you’re looking for a publisher, give me a note.

Brian

Ahead the small beach glinted in the sunlight, as the LVT clumsily forced its way through the waves. D*mn things felt like they were capsizing with every swell. Sergeant Drummond looked round at the mix of white faced recruits fresh from Paris island and the tanned veterans of Bougainville and felt a surge of pride. What men! Best fighters in the world, bar none. 7-6-8’s with everything underlined and freely deployable. Not like those limey 4-5-7’s with their bolt action rifles and bad teeth…

Pfc Harrison was throwing up into his helmet. Drummond adopted a fatherly air.

“What’s up son. You ready to give them Japanese hell?”

“ I’ve ehrr never been on a beach landing before sarge…I’m too young to die…and the rules are too complicated….I can’t take it…”

Drummond adopted the Patton solution and gave him a slap.

“We’re fine, hear that, that’s only a couple of itty bitty 50* mortars and an ATR. No proper guns – we’ll be fine – why you just take a look at the BRT gamers guide if you think we have it tough.”

“But no PRC survival rolls sarge, none.”

“ We’ll be in shallow ocean hexes in a turn or two mac and they ain’t hit anything yet. We’re motion and very small targets and hull down to direct fire. Even if the mortars hit they need a five on the IFT for a shock. Relax, when we get on the beach it’ll be a walk in the sun. We got a 9-2, flamethrower, two DC’s and two armoured LVT’s with 75* guns.”

Ahead the destroyer that was giving covering fire switched from HE to WP, while the jungle covered hill was burning fiercely. Drummond felt a surge of satisfaction.

Then…the captains LVT to their left burst into a million pieces…gone just like that.

Harrison looked horrified “Snakeyes followed by snakeyes for effect! But that means it’s a rate shot…”

A slim japanese projectile arced down while they watched horrified. Another critical hit! Fear stricken they waited for the IFT roll – a Four! As Drummond was blasted into oblivion, his last thought was – the chances of that happening are 279,936 to one…

…In another reality Paul Jones smiled “Never tell me the odds.”

Finally broke my beach landing cherry with Paul Jones the other day. Paul has the gravitas of a fancy city lawyer that a light dusting of grey and impeccable suits accentuate. It’s usually not long before this serious façade is broken by a deep belly chuckle. A relative newcomer to the ASL world, his rules knowledge is spot on, and like me he gets a kick out of the more complex. Despite all these good points, he is a ManU fan and therefore damned before all that is holy.

I’ve liked the look of White Beach 1 for a while now, but it took a while to find an opponent man enough to try it. The OB’s are small – fifteen marine squads vs eight Japanese with no landing craft, and no obscure stuff like heavy surf or reefs. It seems a perfect introductory beach landing scenario – although some wusses might be put off by the caves, panji’s and NOBA!

The marines have to exit two squads from a narrow 3 hex board edge, and control two of four caves. By SSR there are no cave complexes. Once you set up the overlays, the playing area is very small – about a quarter of board 40 with only four beach hexes, one of which has a 6AP minefield. In front of the exit area is a jungle covered hill whose forward slopes are the only practical place for the caves (have to set up with LOS to the ocean). On the right is a dry stream that meanders to a pond on board edge and some palm trees. On the left is a field of kunai which leads to a stone building and has some panjis on the extreme left (doubt they would ever come into play).

In deep ocean, the LVT’s motor forward 3 hexes during the Mph, then drift one hex with the current in the Aph (off at right angles). They are v.small, and always in motion as well as hull down to direct fire and may possibly qualify for +1 Deir TEM. When they get within two hexes of the beach, they are in shallow ocean, expend land MP (three for shallow ocean, two for the beach) get a protective +2 to hit, but their own large size mods start counting. They do get survival rolls now though. Infantry can unload into shallow ocean and wade at 3MF, area fire, no firegroups, are fanatic but casualty reduce rather than break. The beach is pretty much the same but a bog check (the troop carriers can’t bog) and 1mf/2mp for hard sand. It’s a little more complicated than that but not much.

Coming in, everything went brilliant for a couple of turns with no losses, and the NOBA starting to stripe away the defenders. In one fire phase though a single 50* mtr killed a third of my infantry and my 9-2 and 8-1, leaving me with one leader for ten squads. Ouch. (Incidentally I provided the dice and dice tower). I switched the NOBA from WP back to HE and melted the offending squad, but they went to the Yasukuni shrine with dirty great big smiles on their faces. The other 50* broke, and the crew with the ATR, (which was in a foxhole on the edge of the beach) casualty reduced two squads before being jumped on in close combat.

The NOBA had forced all the Japanese not in caves back to the reverse slopes of the hill, but we had a rules spasm. Not having the PTO terrain chart, we improvised and assumed spreading/ kindling numbers equal to European woods and grain. With a mild breeze the map went pyro-tastic, and seriously hampered my attacks on the caves. With +4 Cave TEM, and +1 Kunai, and +2 blaze hindrance I was really missing my -2 leader. It also threatened to blaze two cave entrance hexes, trapping the defenders but meaning I couldn’t capture them. It was only after we stopped and restarted we found out light jungle has kindling/spreading numbers of 12 and is virtually fire proof.

I split my guys into an exit force and a cave mopping up force. One of the 75* amtracs malfed its MA, so I used it overrun a crew with a MMG in a jungle-roads hex on the exit zone. Defensive TPBF stunned the amtrac crew, but I pinned the Japanese crew, and I ran a half squad with a DC adjacent to kill them. Paul kept concealment rather than firing and I managed to get a bunch of guys to the exit area, so he had to attack me with the few bits and pieces he had left. Although a 7-6-8 died in close combat to a half squad and MC generated hero, they also died, and my fire left only a few scraps of the defenders left, and I managed to exit the two squads.

So down to the caves. I’ve never attacked caves before, I’ve always defended and nothing seemed to work. Without the -2 and huge firepower I was chipping away far too slowly. A half squad put a DC on a cave from a climb counter above but fluffed the roll, and no WP grenades appeared at the crucial times. With the clock running down I put the other 75* amtrac adjacent to two caves, and also a half squad with a flamethrower. There was one crucial prep phase where the Japanese had a 8+0/8+2 and a 12+0/12+2 from the cave defenders which could have been very nasty. Luckily the dice gods felt I needed appeasing and I got away with the flame thrower HS going fanatic and the amtrac crew pinning (Open topped). That gave me a beautiful final fire and prep phase to make merry and I fired WP from the 75* into one cave (auto 4MC) and chopped the other to bits with HE from the 75*, a sniper and the flamethrower. The Japanese did their usual melting away under fire trick and suddenly Paul had no men left, and threw in the towel.

We decided we liked beach landings. Paul showed a bit of inexperience, as he didn’t use tank hunter heroes and maybe kept HIP/concealment rather than firing a few times. (I recommend keeping a couple of HIP tank hunter heroes right by the exit zone) However the dice certainly turned after the fantastic mortar shooting and I was a bit lucky myself.

As we were putting away the counters I said to Paul…

“So you like beach landings- maybe we should play another?”

Paul looked at me strangely and said –

“I’ve heard of a scenario from Gung Ho that cannot be named aloud for fear of giving it power over your immortal soul.”

I looked shifty “Yes but we don’t like to talk about it. Just looking at the scenario sheet gives a 2d6 permanent sanity loss. There’s no scenario author attributed, but the well informed claim it was Abdul Alhazred himself…”

Paul: “I must see it – it has landing craft, and a submerged reef and a seawall, and fighter bombers with napalm and NOBA and cave complexes and pillboxes…”

“Shhhhh…we don’t speak openly about Bloody Red Beach”

But it was too late, the scenario folder had sung its siren song and we were doomed…

Craig