Totsugeki!!

After spending the night in Toledo, we got up early today and headed to Cleveland. It's been a cold day, hovering in the high 50s, low 60s, with a solid overcast that makes it feel even colder. The weather seems appropriate for ASL...

After visiting with my brother and his family, and seeing my wife and daughter off on thier return to Toledo, I headed over to the venue to see what was going on. As this was my first ever ASLOK, I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

The hotel was PACKED with a large number of people in formal dress. That was one clue that they probably weren't the type of people I was looking for. I wandered around for a time, discovering that the hotel was hosting a large wedding, explaining the type of people I was hurtling into repeatdly as they sloshed drinks around. After a time, I decided that I wasn't going to find anyone today, so I headed back to the main entrance, only to spy a guy in a t-shirt with a big tank on the front. The tank was a giveaway.

It turned out to be Scott Byrne, who's name I discovered after a quick introduction. Scott is from Caberra, Australia, here for, of course, ASLOK. He introduced me to another charming 'chap' named Steven Linton, also of Canberra. It turned out that a small contingent of four or five of us were wandering the hotel looking for a game and a room, and we shortly stumbled on a few more of 'our people', two of which were European (I'm sorry to say I didn't get names). One of the organizers did manage to secure a small banquet room and we migrated there to pick up some action.

In talking to Steven and Scott, I couldn't help but be impressed with thier devotion to the game. Obviously, they had flown here from Australia, but more impressively, they were heading to Belglium after ASLOK. They are renting a car for ten days to travel through the European battlefields, ending up in Normandy before taking on a French ASL tournament, then on to England for another ASL tournament before heading back home. Six weeks on the road, all devoted to ASL and WW II. I wish I could join them!

By now it was already near six PM, and I was interested in a short game. Steven graciously volunteered to play me, and I asked him to choose anything he'd like. He settled on Totsugeki!, a small scenario of Imperial Japanese and Chinese fighting over some 75mm Artillery pieces. It's a classic scenario, but one I have never played before. I asked for the Chinese and prepared my defense.

The Chinese forces represent a fairly low quality company holding three 75MM guns, while being hit from behind by a heavy company of Japanese troops, armed with Demolition Charges and a small mortar. The Chinese have an advantage in that two squads can set up hidden (recorded on paper to be revealed suddenly on the map) and one squad of troops designated as a Dare Death squad (these guys can automatically go berserk when in line of sight of enemy troops, charging through hails of fire to engage in hand to hand combat). Other than that, all the Chinese have to do is hold on to at least one of the 75MM guns be the end of the scenario.

The Japanese have what usually works for the Japenese - the utter refusal to stop. They just keep coming when normal soldiers would break and run. They're like hardy insects that simply ignore having limbs ripped away. The jungle terrain also makes almost all encounters point blank affairs, usually ending in some sort of close combat.

The game started with a uniform Japanese advance into a few forward deployed units. My guys were ready to fire one good volley before falling back to more defensible positions, but once again, I failed to appreciate how fast the Japanese can move. After laying down some fire that proved to be ineffective, a Demolition Charge was tossed into my location. Fortunately, with a combination of good dice rolls for me and bad dice rolls for him, the explosive had little effect. I managed to fall back, even though I had no right to survive that close up brush with the Japanese.

I continued to fall back under his advance, managing to hit him and fade away into the jungle, until I found myself on top of my own guns with no more room to retreat. I had extracted a cost from him for his advance, but the Japanese were still quite healthy. Finally, around the third turn, he slipped a half squad of Japanese in past my defense while I was holding fire, waiting on a larger target to present itself. That half squad caused trouble in my rear, entering into Close Combat with one of the 75MM gun crews. I had this half squad cold with a hidden Chinese squad armed with a Medium Machine Gun, but I wanted to remain hidden for a little longer to catch a larger target in the kill zone. In retrospect, I should have taken out the half squad when I could have.

The Close Combat tied up my gun, opening the door for some more Japanese to swarm through the jungle. I had more Chinese just inside the treeline, and managed to lay down some fire that slowed him down a little, but then the surviving Japanese hit me back and my low quality Chinese began to melt away, breaking and running deeper into the jungle. The first of the three guns went down to the advancing Japanese.

I continued to play hide and seek in the jungle, trying to slow him down as much as possible while spinning the guns around to face the coming assault. Close combat started to become the normal engagement mode, as the jungle left us adjacent to each other more often than not. This is where I got a little lucky. In three seperate engagements, Steven needed a 9 of less on two dice to kill me, and three times he rolled a 10. Quickly, my Chinese demonstrated their own proficiency with the bayonet.

But there were far too many Japanese. The second gun held on until turn 5, until he swarmed the gun with too many squads for me to shoot, resulting in yet another round of Close Combat. My Dare Death squad went berserk when he spotted a large group of Japanese. Unfortunately, accurate shooting cut them down before they could close range enough to draw steel. Two guns down, one left to defend.

I pulled the last of my forces together in the final gun hex, with Japanese closing in from all directions. Some good shooting and another good round of close combat suggested I might pull it off, and for another turn it looked grim. Finally, I could not hold against the firepower of the Japanese applied to the low quality Chinese, and the last of my forces broke and ran, to be rounded up and dispatched by the remaining Japanese. The final gun fell to the enemy on the next to last turn. In the end, the Japanese company that started the battle was reduced to three and a half squads. But they got the job done.

Overall, I felt....

Steven was exceedingly gracious in his game play, offering correction to my mistakes during play, and providing a very eye-opening post-mortem, showing me several mistakes and lost opportuities that had frankly never occured to me in the scenario. Like someone said, in ASL you either win or learn. No scenario is ever wasted.

As an aside, I met Mark Pitcavage of Desperation Morale fame. Mark is practically a legend in the game, with his name attached to a great many things. He was a warm and friendly guy, who immediately invited me to the thrice yearly OfficeFest ASL gatherings in Detroit. If you have some time, check out Mark's ASL Museum, full of some great pictures.

It's now 1:30 AM and I have to get back to the hotel early to pick up some more game play. Tomorrow I'll have some pictures of the venue, and hopefully a report of at least one win. One win per day is all I really want!