Friday afternoon... AAR time!
Just finished Ramsey's Charge. Like I said earlier in the week, it's top 10 material fer sher. Possibly top 5. You want to play the AH remake (G29?); it's got a few minor improvements over the original ASLUG version which help the US; notably the IJA SAN lowers to 4, the US gets another squad, and the initial IJA force is now four HS's.
The scene: US cavalry storms onto the village overlay on bd 35, racing past the motley crew of IJA halfsquads milling about in the street (by SSR) looking to grab the VC building in the village and the VC bridge exit hex on bd 40. The initial IJA halfsquads try to inflict as much damage as possible before going down under galloping hoofs while the platoon caught _in_ the bd 40 river attempts to buy time for the reinforcing company to enter and stabilize the situation. The US also gets reinforced to company-strength after a few turns, including the 9-2 Ramsey of the scenario's title.
Attractions: This is a visually pleasing mapboard; one which makes intuitive sense (with the aid of five overlays) but more importantly, gives both sides multiple attack options. The end-game struggle for the bridge exit hex is unbelievably tense; there are no less than five approaches to the bridge and if you don't own one of the five, you can bet your opponent will take it and use it against you. Throw in mortars, smoke, Cavalry charges, Banzais, and a 9-2, and you're looking at Big Fun.
I set up a 447 in 40G3 to interdict the 40G1 corridor along the river, while the rest of the IJA's Wet Platoon went in 40M2 (I think) to hit 40i1 and move to 40N0 in the first IJA turn. I liked this setup a lot; both groups did their jobs well, putting the hurt on adventurous beachcombing US horseyboys while getting onto solid ground in relatively nice positions to threaten the US advance.
The initial US charge through the village streets went slightly worse than I had hoped, but could have been much worse. Those 237's need to lay as much resid as possible before being run down, and that's about all they did. ML7 cavalry entering a 1 RFP hex should break 40% of the time, so pull out the resid counters and kiss the Block Partying HS's goodbye. At the end of turn 1, all the IJA on bd 35 were broken, but a significant number of Cavalry had been dehorsed, which was the whole point. Gotta love that -2 modifier against cavalry.
JR continued the push in the midgame and did take the 40q1 bridge hex with a sprinting cavalry HS, but he made a fateful decision which I think hurt him later on. With the US 8-1 broken and facing imminent death around 40H1, he diverted his 9-2 and 667 horsemen away from the push to Q1 and back to H1 in an attempt to save the stricken leader. A lucky narrow-LOS shot at the 9-2's move unseated the leader and broke the squad, keeping him from reinforcing his hold on 40Q1. I think a better move would have been to occupy the 40T1 jungle with this group in order to put the big interdiction whammy on the IJA reinforcements, but JR disagreed at the time and still probably does. Shrug.
For my part, the Wet Platoon made as much of a nuisance of themselves as they could from 40N0 and 40G1, and did a pretty respectable job. 40N0 in particular is great for interdicting the US push toward Q1. The IJA reinforcements came on and the 9-1's SW detail sent the MG's and MTR's to the bd 40 hill while the 10-1's Take And Hold detail went straight for the bridge. I like the idea of interdicting the US reinforcements from the hill, but in practice it didn't work so well for the MTRs, which could have threatened the jungle tree line just as well if they'd have headed right for the bridge. The MMG and a few LMG's do work well interdicting against cavalry, though.
I guess I can see how an IJA commander might want to send the Wet Platoon up to retake the 35J8 VC building instead of doing what I did, but I think the US are going to be nontrivial to kick out of the building, and while you're doing that, he's taking 40Q1 and cementing his support positions around 40Q1 and T1. Still, a good Banzai could possibly make it to J8, and IJA are real tough to kick out of stone buildings when they don't want to leave. Throw in some SW supporting fire from the bd 40 reinforcements and you've got another nice option for the IJA.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the IJA reinforcements had swarmed over the bridge and were making it difficult for the US to approach under fire. Of the five approaches to the bridge (in the river from 40P1, along the bridge from 40Q1, along the orchard corridor around 35P9, along the orchard corridor from 35R9, and from the jungle around 40T1), the US really only had the 35P9 and R9 approaches, and it's hard to use all that nice firepower when the LOF is hindered by orchards and smoke.
Ultimately, I think the US needs to take the 40T1 jungle before the IJA reinforcements can come across the bridge. From there they can interdict the IJA reinforcements and provide the US with another approach to the VC hex; it's just too hard to kick the IJA off of 40Q1 if you have to push through IJA positions in 35P10, 35Q10, and 35R10 first. Wading through the river is an interesting way to get to the VC hex, but is probably best reserved for the IJA, who won't die if they fail a MC while in the river. Note too that the bridge itself is at level -1, which provides a nice safe haven from the gnarly US firepower should you need it.
Ramsey proved to be the least manly 9-2 I've ever seen, breaking repeatedly only to rally again; he broke in a late-game bid for 40T1 and didn't rally in time to seriously threaten again. He also did me the favor of generating a rarely-seen IJA Hero, whose star burned bright but briefly, going down to a lame wound after too short a time on this earth.
The end game was truly horrific, with drifting smoke, banzais, rules debates, cavalry charges, wounded leaders, finger pointing, encircled heroes laying MMG firelanes, people firing into Melees, marching bands, cats and dogs, you name it. Real Old Testament Stuff. In the end, one of JR's 667's shrugged off two 1MC's and a 2MC to enter into Melee in the VC hex, but was finished off in the last CCPh by a 3:1 (-1) HtH attack.
A really excellent scenario. I'd play it again in a second. Despite my earlier unseemly taunting, JR plays a very good game and graciously put up with all kinds of grief from this reporter without so much as an "ahem". Maybe a few "yomama's", but that's to be expected in the heat of battle. Great scenario, great opponent, what else can we ask for.
Tom