Matt Shostak and myself played an exciting game of Totsugeki on Friday. I was the Japanese side. The game was hard-fought with the advantage shifting from one side to the other through the game.
Matt:
It was indeed. I set up the "Cariaga Defense" that he had shown me at Wild West Fest. I was more or less expecting a drive up the middle by the Japanese, as in both of my previous playings of this scenario, this is what I did. But Todd faked my jock off and came on really strong against the Chinese right, where all the kunai is. He made quick work of the two squads I had way out there, and they were eliminated for failure to rout on turn 1. I was quite worried at that point, for although the Japanese had taken some casualties, they had also taken out two of my squads. Moreover, I had figured that my right side gun would be my "last stand" location. I put two foxholes in front of it and one behind it. I put a HIP Dare Death squad in the bamboo next to it, and I planned to fall back to it. But now Todd's Japanese threatened to overrun it before my own troops could fall back to that area! My MMG malfed on turn one, but was repaired a bit later. The Japanese took a lot of casualties getting the first gun, because I was indeed able to bring a lot of my troops over to form a blocking line. Based on my previous yacking on this list, my doctrine was to encourage CC with the Japanese, but that provided some tense moments when I lost some CCs I thought I might win. One thing I did that I'll probably not do again, is advance my Dare Death guy out from the bamboo onto a stack of Japanese, hoping for a game-winning CC. It might have worked if the Japanese hadn't also been concealed. They ambushed my squad and quickly dispatched it.
Todd:
On the last turn I had 2 first line half squads, a depleted elite squad and a crew left and Matt had 2 crews plus two leaders. I had to get into position to enter cc with the two leaders/crew in the gun hex. Matt's other crew was adjacent to his gun guarding against a Jap half-squad and the depleted squad. I started moving my half-squad and was trying to get by Matt's crew. A question came up during my move. I bypassed a hex and then wanted to enter a jungle/path hex using the path movement cost. We could not find out whether it was allowed, so after asking a local player his opinion, we deceided it was not allowed. So my half squad had to take the crews first shot, and my 247 made it to the next hex. This was next to the gun, but also still next to the crew outside the gun hex. Matt managed to pin my 247.
Matt:
Another question came up earlier. In the PTO, if I advance a unit into a foxhole, in LOS of an enemy unit, is the foxhole revealed? The rules say the entrenchment is revealed if MF are spent to enter/leave in LOS. So I guess the question is, are MF spent in the advance phase? Sure, to calculate things like advance vs. difficult terrain, one takes into account the MF cost, but are MF spent in the advance phase?
I then moved my reduced squad next to the crew, Matt fired again and again pinned the Jap unit!! This result made me sweat bullets as now I still had to face the gun which had not fired yet, and I only had a crew of my own and a 247 left to move!
Matt:
But there was a half squad already adjacent, which had prep fired.
Todd:
I moved them where I had to and Matt took his shots but by a miracle the Japs made it to the hex next to the gun. My AFPh did no damage and we entered.
Matt:
As I remember, I elected to use the inherent firepower of the crew with the 9-1 rather than fire the gun with a covered arc change. It paid off when it broke a Japanese half squad and reduced the stepped squad down to a half squad.
Todd:
Melee. No ambush. The final combat of the game was between a Jap 228, 247 vs Chi 9-1, 7-0, and 227. Even odds, HtH cc. I rolled--a 5, they were all elim. He rolled--also a 5 and I was elim too!! An exciting finist to an interesting game. We counted up who was left after the game and Matt had a 227 and I had a 348 and a 247. If they could have just passed those PTC's!!!!!!!!!!! Once again proving that the worst result against Japanese may well be the failure of a PTC. It certainly was in my case.
Matt:
I had heard about games like this, but this is the first one I had played it. Practically no units left at the end.
Matt Shostak