{"id":7446,"date":"2018-03-05T12:54:38","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T12:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bucksurdu.com\/blog\/?p=7446"},"modified":"2018-03-05T12:54:38","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T12:54:38","slug":"philippines-1941-with-combat-patrol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/2018\/03\/05\/philippines-1941-with-combat-patrol\/","title":{"rendered":"Philippines 1941 with Combat Patrol"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Philippines 1941<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last weekend we played a series of games at War Horse Farm, Sam Fuson’s house and gaming clubhouse. \u00a0I ran a Combat Patrol(TM): WWII<\/em> game that was a play test of some elements of the games I will run in two weeks at the Cold Wars gaming convention. \u00a0This scenario involved a Japanese attack in the Philippines in 1941. \u00a0The Japanese had four squads of infantry a machine-gun team, and two light tanks. \u00a0The Americans had three squads, two water-cooled machine guns, an antiquated anti-tank gun, and a Stuart M-3.<\/p>\n

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The handsome and charming game master (red shirt) surveying the battlefield<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In this picture you can see the battlefield. \u00a0The Japanese started at the stream, which was impassible to vehicles, but could be crossed at half speed by infantry. \u00a0The Americans were deployed in some depth along the “trail.” \u00a0In this game, perhaps counterintuitively to long-time games, the felt patches represented clearings or open ground. \u00a0The rest of the terrain was jungle with just four inches of visibility. \u00a0The Japanese objective was to get as many of their figures and vehicles as possible into the last three feet of the American side of the table. \u00a0The Americans were supposed to stop them. \u00a0The Japanese players decided that they would place their main effort on their left, because that represented the shortest distance from their starting line to the back three feet of the table.<\/p>\n

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Early in the game, a player measures the movement of the Japanese tank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Without first pushing infantry across the stream to make sure there was no Americans to stop them, the Japanese players advanced their tanks over the old stone bridge.<\/p>\n

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The view from the small anti-tank gun that air conditioned the Japanese tank coming down the trail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A hidden anti-tank gun opened fire, knocking out the Japanese tank with a single, well-placed shot. \u00a0 It is hard to find 28mm figures for early WWII. \u00a0Most of my Americans are Pulp Figures. \u00a0The gun and gun crew are old Pass of the North from my Moro collection. \u00a0That’s why the gun crew is not wearing helmets.<\/p>\n

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A slightly wider shot of the anti-tank gun, burning Japanese tank, and the second tank coming over the bridge. \u00a0From this picture you can see that the tank on the bridge could not be seen through the jungle (not felt) area.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While this was happening, the Japanese infantry splashed across the stream. \u00a0The Americans had placed a single water-cooled machine-gun on the small hill overlooking the stream. \u00a0It surprised the Japanese with a burst of fire, that killed the assistant gunner of the Japanese machine-gun team and forced the gunner to run for cover.<\/p>\n

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Japanese infantry swarm over the unsupported machine gun team.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Japanese infantry recovered quickly and swarmed over the gun team. \u00a0In this picture you can see that both the gunner and assistant gunner were stunned (black rubber bands), the machine-gun had jammed (white rubber band), and the Japanese were about ready for a bayonet charge to finish them off.<\/p>\n

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One squad tries to hold the American flank to enable the rest of the Americans to redeploy to stop the Japanese main effort<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I gave a young kid on the American left an easy-to-understand mission: \u00a0“hold until the last man.” \u00a0This was the American left flank, not facing the Japanese main effort, but we needed to hold the Japanese in this area to enable the Americans to redeploy a squad to help stop the main Japanese advance. \u00a0In true kid fashion, he interpreted “hold to the last man” as “fix bayonets and charge.” \u00a0I give the Japanese a melee number that is slightly better than that of the Americans, so typically, you wouldn’t do this. \u00a0But with significant kid luck, it worked. \u00a0By the end of the game his two teams of four men each had defeated three Japanese teams of six men each, and he still had a few figures left. \u00a0He was planning to circle in behind the advancing Japanese!<\/p>\n

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Both Japanese tanks destroyed!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The second Japanese tank decided to try his luck getting across the bridge. \u00a0The Japanese had done nothing to try to engage the anti-tank gun with fire to suppress it. \u00a0As the tank came off the bridge, it came into view of the alert gun crew. \u00a0In Combat Patrol(TM)<\/em>, there is no opportunity fore mechanic, per se<\/em>. \u00a0Instead, all figures have a Reaction attribute. \u00a0To interrupt enemy movement, the player draws a card from the Action Deck and consults the hit randomizer section of the card to see if the number on the card is less than its Reaction number. \u00a0In this case, the gun crew did<\/em> react. \u00a0Despite firing on a moving target, the gunners hit the lower hull with a penetrating hit that brewed up the last Japanese tank.<\/p>\n

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The Stuart situated astride the jungle path<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the meantime, the American Stuart never fired a shot. \u00a0It was parked to fire on anyone who might try to advance down the trail, but the Japanese avoided it.<\/p>\n

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Two teams of Americans reposition from the left to the right to help blunt the main Japanese advance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aided by Banzai yank on the left, the middle US squad repositioned.<\/p>\n

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The big fight of the game where Chris’ Japanese infantry pushed hard agains the Americans<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The climactic fight occurred on American right, where the Japanese main effort ran into four teams of Americans. \u00a0Two had been in that area since the beginning. \u00a0The other squad (two teams) had begun in the center. \u00a0So in the final couple of turns it was a big infantry fight, with lots of hand-to-hand combat, that determined the outcome of the game. \u00a0The Japanese had a slight numerical advantage, but the Americans held their ground.<\/p>\n

The vat of excellent fried chicken from a local store had arrived, so we called the game an American victory and dashed for the kitchen before the chicken was all gone.<\/p>\n

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Supporting Japanese infantry comes across the river too late to stop the Americans from blowing up the lead tank. \u00a0I didn’t have the tanks painted in time for this game, but they are painted now and ready for Cold Wars.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Other than Chris, none of the player had ever played Combat Patrol(TM) <\/em>before. \u00a0In fact, few had played a miniatures game before. \u00a0The first couple of turns were a bit slow, but after that, the game pretty well ran itself.<\/p>\n

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The Bear Yourselves Valiantly game in full swing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After lunch, Chris ran a play test of the game he will run in a few weeks for my Tabletop Wargaming class at a local community college. \u00a0This is the Battle of Barnett, during the War of the Roses. \u00a0One player had to leave early, so I jumped in and took over his command. \u00a0It was a fun game!<\/p>\n

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Is Chris explaining the rules in Esperanto?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had had three late nights in a row and was rapidly running out of steam, but as usual, a day at War Horse Farm was great fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last weekend we played a series of games at War Horse Farm, Sam Fuson’s house and gaming clubhouse. \u00a0I ran a Combat Patrol(TM): WWII game that was a play test of some elements of the games I will run in two weeks at the Cold Wars gaming convention. \u00a0This scenario involved a Japanese attack in … Continue reading Philippines 1941 with Combat Patrol<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7446"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}