AAR: Brush Off (AP192)

SITREP

Reports received from Solomon Islanders, including retired Sergeant Major Jacob C. Vouza who served in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate Constabulary, indicated that the Japanese soldiers were present to the east of Lunga Point. Acting upon this information, a Marine patrol consisting of 60 soldiers and four local scouts, under the command of U.S. Marine Captain Charles H. Brush, set out from the Lunga perimeter on 19 August. Their objective was to investigate the situation further, and determine the strength of Japanese forces in the area.

The Players

Japanese (Brandon, aka injurwii):
28^th Infantry Regiment

U.S. Marines (Peyton, aka Badger317):
Company A, 1^st Battalion, 1^st Marine Division and Local Partisans

After Action Report

Location:
Koli Point, Guadalcanal

Date:
19 August 1942

In this micro scenario, the Marines can set up their 6 early war low firepower 4-5-8 squads in the jungle depression along with a HIP partisan half squad (representing local partisans) or they can defer up to 3 squad equivalents to enter on the Japanese left flank on turns 2-3. Peyton in charge of the Marines opted to deploy all of her squads initially in the depression.

The Japanese must enter their meager 3 and a half elite 4-4-8’s and MMG crew with 5 leaders along the right hand(east) edge of the board and try to exit past the Marines or after turn 4 (on the second the last turn) can exit to the bottom of the board(south).

To win the Japanese must get 10VP either from exiting or CVP combined. The Japanese get double exit VP for exiting to the left side of the board (east) past the American marines. They also get one VP for each trail hex without an allied MMP in or adjacent to it, this forces the American player to keep a squad or two back on the trail.

Peyton’s strategy was focused on preventing my Japanese squads from getting double VP’s from getting past her units and staying concealed in the jungle forcing me to move.

I moved the Japanese squads up out of vision because of the depression and remained concealed, not wanting to take point blank fire and drop my concealment.

The marines acted first in this Mexican standoff by advancing into LOS of the Japanese MMG. The first squad to crest the depression was immediately casualty reduced.

The Americans advanced further taking more machine gun fire sending a marine squad to go berserk.

With the short 4.5 turn long scenario half way completed the Japanese ran to the south edge of the map to try to score enough VP by end game. A Japanese squad failed its MC and striped. Another Japanese leader was wounded, but the Americans ran out of defensive fire to stop the winning victory points from being scored. It came down to the wire with the Japanese claiming victory with 11 victory points.

This scenario is only 4.5 turns long with tiny orders of battle that took us about an hour and a half to play. It felt like a sudoku puzzle we were both playing that came down to the wire. Very fun and quick to setup and play. I like the direction of shorter more direct scenarios as it increases playability. 7/10 would recommend this one.

GET TO THE CHOPPA…!!!

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