Randy and I played Scenario D: Operation Cherry Blossom for the first time last night. Randy was the Japanese; I was the US Marines. The set-up saw Randy place a line of five hexes of nasty HMG-wielding troops linked by a "2" leader in the centre of the battlefield overlooking the beach.

Urgh.

The open objective made all objectives worth 3 VPs; my hidden objective meant each one was worth an additional VP. So, it was my goal to capture as many of the objectives as I could. Unfortunately, that meant I needed to actually capture the objectives.

Randy's initial attack on my poor marines saw my three leaders all die horribly. What didn't help was that my hand was a wasteland of fire actions with only one Move order. With no leaders, movement was even harder than normal. I moved one of my units up onto the beach, only to have it perish in a rain of fire. I managed to cycle through a few fire actions, only to draw only one more Movement order. The next round, no Movement orders, but plenty of Asset Requests, Reconnoiter and Command Confusion cards.



The first time trigger eventually came, and with it my much-needed reinforcements, but it was triggered in the middle of a huge attack by Randy's big firegroup after he'd only made the second (of about eight) attacks. There was no way I was placing all my troops on the board in the middle of such an attack, but I placed a couple of squads just so I'd have something on the board. This time I was able to get them a little way up the beach, although it was a very slow and painful process.

Finally, a time trigger came that allowed me to put most of my forces on the battlefield. They drowned. No, not actually - I finally began to move forces up the left-hand side of the battlefield (from my perspective), where they discovered the joy of firing at Japanese troops in bunkers. It doesn't work well, not when you don't have any cover to bring your fire-groups together.



Unfortunately, the majority of the foxholes were on the far side of the board on the right, and were being gleefully used - or successfully defended - by the Japs. The first and, as it turned out, only objective I was able to take was pretty lightly defended by Randy's forces, and I was able to take it easily - the "infiltration" squad he used to defend it caused mutual destruction in melee.

I tried getting troops close to some of the bunkers and trying to destroy them with the demolitions special rule (roll doubles on an attack to destroy the fortification) ... no luck. All it proved was that my units could die really well with Randy attacking them back.

I brought up a lone unit on the right side (his leader had died on the beach, along with most of my other leaders) and moved him into melee in a space with the second objective in it. Randy gleefully discarded three cards, then played two ambushes to my one, and that was the end of that.

My surviving 2-leader and the depleted elite team accompanying him - I'd played Light Wounds to prevent him from being on his own! - finally made their way adjacent to another bunker through the swamp, but in the few attacks they made, they had no luck in destroying the bunker.



Honestly, it was a relief when the game ended... with Randy 46 points in front! I had managed to capture one objective, but things were horrible for most of the game. Randy's initial set-up of five linked trenches and bunkers on the beach was horrific. In fact, a fox-hole from the pre-setup naval bombardment kept it from being as bad as it could have been, but the initial attack by the Japanese had killed three of my leaders, two squads and two weapons (including the flamethrower).

Is there a way for the US to win this scenario? Well, kinder objectives would be good. Then too, the US need more troops to survive the landings and Randy wasn't allowing that to happen.

Oh, and I lost 15 casualties in the battle - one away from immediate surrender!

Sounds pretty unpleasant!

I think Scenario D can be pretty hard on the US side. But they can win! For a write-up of a one-sided engagement of a different nature, see http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/382001

Great session report but painful to read. What a lopsided game! I had an equally frustrating game with the original Combat Commander and that was enough for me. And what's with the Marine surrender thing?

The activations for the Japanese and the lack of Move/Advance cards for the Americans were key for how swamped I was, I feel.

When Randy used a single Fire order, that meant attacks of...
FP 5, 8, 4, 9, 9, 8, 4, 9, 6 or thereabouts... nine attacks from the bunker complex! Some might be combined, but against the -2 defense for being in the water, it meant that my leaders didn't stand much of a chance.

Cheers!

In Combat Commander, each side (except the Japanese) can take only a certain number of casualties before surrendering. In this game, it's sixteen. I'd lost fifteen units!

Here's the final casualty track:


Cheers!

I felt sorry for Merric in this one. It did look pretty dismal. I was relentless, but apologetically so.

I'll have to read the other reports for Scenario D. Because, in our post-game analysis, nothing glaringly wrong nor obvious was uncovered.

Often, when I win as one side, I'm eager to play the other side. With Scenario D, I'm just scared.

Merric, better luck next time!

Combat Commander certainly involves some luck or chaos. I love that the cards can generate a narrative. A lot of the fun of the game is being able to adapt to surprising developments. That said, every blue moon there is a no-win situation.

I haven't played this scenario, but it looks like its a tough one to start with. That just makes me want to play it more.

We have played this one twice and the Marines didn't get off of the beach either time.....

Thanks for the report......I love em with pictures.

My current theory about the US side in this scenario is that the player needs to plan on losing every leader in wave 1 pretty much immediately. For me this means two things:

a. only commit as many leaders to the first wave as you want to lose;
b. set them up alone (not stacked with a squad). They are doomed anyhow, no reason to give the Japanese free shots at squads too.

I agree with Drake, you should put no leaders on the board at all in the first wave. You're just going to lose them before they can act, what's the point?

Even so, I personally think this scenario is too biased against the US to be fun. You have to get very lucky to have any chance. I tried it again recently, just to see if it would seem more playable with some experience, but I think it's really quite hopeless.

One thing that occurs to me about Scenario D is that the favored Japanese setup (everything in a bunker complex in the middle near the beach) is pretty ahistorical. A real commander in charge of a beach defense would not usually place all of his assets together in such an exposed position to the ministrations of the US naval guns.

Perhaps a house rule to alter the Japanese setup a little might make the scenario a bit more fun for both sides while giving a more historical feel.

One idea (completely untested!)...

a. The Japanese must setup at least half of his on-map units within 4 hexes of his friendly edge; and
b. The Japanese may place no more than two weapons in the same hex during setup.

Thoughts?

Just curious... with so many cards, can't the US player get smoke screens and asset denied cards to thwart the Japanese weapons fire?

Also, landing your troops right in front of the central bunkers and weapons seems kinda odd... wouldn't it be better to go in entirely from the left and right flanks, as far away as possible?

I haven't played this one yet, but based on the defensive setup, might these be palatable US tactics... ?

Your questions are all valid but they are easily answered after you actually play the scenario. The scenario special rules make smoke ineffective. Asset Denied definitely helps, but the Japanese have lots of heavy weapons and even their ordinary squads are quite effective against US units in the water. There are too many US units to put them all in the corners, and the right-hand corner is also restricted in that you have to go through an extra water movement to get out of the water and this offsets most of the advantages of setting up there.

"One thing that occurs to me about Scenario D is that the favored Japanese setup (everything in a bunker complex in the middle near the beach) is pretty ahistorical."

I wonder if this isn't caused by the ability of the Japanese to set up in shell craters after a beach bombardment? That seems very strange to me.

1. There can't have been much delay between the end of the bombardment and the landing itself, so why would anyone feel confident about moving into an area that had shells falling on it a few minutes before?

2. I'd assume that someone who's been shelled in the last 10 minutes probably has found shelter by that time and that shelter is likely to a lot better than cavity in the open sand. Therefore wouldn't they stay exactly where they are?

(By the same logic, but inverted, the Marines would be grateful for what they could get; so a few craters ready for conversion to fox holes would be welcome)

Does anyone have any historical reference that gives backing to the idea of defenders-rush-out-and-occupy-the-shellholes?

Maybe it could be fixed by changing the scenario rule from "before setup [place craters] .... to

"Japanese setup first. After Japanese setup [place craters] ...."

Why in the world would this matter? The Japanese player has 13 beneficial fortifications for their 10 squads/teams. These fortifications have 4, 5 and 6 cover -- all better than the 3 cover of a foxhole.


Exactly: you're better off setting up your Japanese inside their allotted trenches, pillboxes and bunkers.

Yeah. In fact, it's sometimes very annoying that a foxhole lands where you wanted to put one of your fortifications, so you can't.

Ah! But that was your 14th fortification with the Type 96 25mm Triple Mount High Angle Machine Cannon ... squashed by a cruiser shell.

It's just a little shell, it's still good! It's still good!

Dad, it's gone.

I know.



Cheers!