Leyte 1944, scenario Thirty: Night Assault

For once the roles are reversed and the Japanese have the much better artillery support and man power and at night, to better favor their assault combat strengths. Still I looked at the three levels of victory conditions and thought maybe they could achieve one or two levels but to my surprise they achieved a Major Victory!

The Americans started with their artillery units well to the south out of harm’s way on map 83 and they setup defensive positions on the hills on map 100 in anticipation of the Japanese offensive with blocking units also along the north-south road on all three maps. The Japanese enter in mass under the cover of night and approach the first major American blocking forces on the hills on map 100 but are able to blast a hole through the American lines especially with the off-board artillery values of 5 x 16. They also don’t lose focus of the main victory objectives, the north-south road and the artillery park in the south, as eliminated steps will come in time.

The Japanese flank the American blocking forces with Recon Infantry unit and a strong Lieutenant to be able to put off-board artillery fire on the Americans on map Artillery Park, which work very well and is the first time in PG that I got to use a Japanese Recon unit/counter. The Japanese were punching through the American lines and continued to clear obstacles along the main road and flank American units, then blasting them with artillery, direct adjacent fire and assaults as they went, forcing the Americans out of their dug-in positions to readjust their lines.

By turn 19 the Japanese had eliminated more American steps then the Japanese lost and eliminated the American Artillery units/park for two of their three victory objectives. On the last three turns they were able to clear the north-south road of two stubborn assault hexes, with one I had to clear out of it and hit it with artillery and adjacent direct fire to finally finish it off. It took all 22 turns but the Japanese achieved all three of the objectives for a Major Victory! Only with the massive off-board artillery was this possible, blasting their way through American positions.

In this scenario I lost more American steps than ever before accept maybe a scenario against German units. The American lost 31 steps, 6 leaders and the Japanese lost 16 steps and 2 leaders. As I mentioned before, the roles are reversed for a change and there are many variables to make the outcome of this scenario different each gameplay. This scenario also has a few of the only Marine units on Leyte. I can highly recommend this scenario!