Marianas 44

[JayTownsend]

AAR


Marianas 1944: scenario one: White Beach 1 & 2

Being Memorial Day weekend I had to get a PG scenario on the table and one from Marianas 1944 at that. Tinian 1944 was the battlefield of today.

As it was historically the two beaches of the initial landings bottlenecked with narrow beach enter points surrounded by small cliffs and narrow ocean approach paths with coral obstacles to get around. Organizing landings and pulling out LVTs is a skillful challenge under enemy fire but with help of naval fire, artillery fire from Saipan and naval air-support, the landing were flowing. The US aircraft took out the Japanese 75/88 right away with a lucky 12 dice roll of a Corsair strike, which was the biggest thread to naval units and landing-craft.

At first I thought it might be too easy for the American forces but the landing beachhead bottlenecks and the 15 turn limit started to take a toll on the Marines. The Japanese eliminated two adjacent US Marines steps with a 2 dice roll to add to the one loaded LVT lost to the Japanese 75mm gun including a Major leader counter and two Marine steps. Then I start to worry if the Americans could achieve the victory condition at all?

The small embankments historically prevented the LVTs from moving inland from the first beach hexes in this scenario so management of them is critical. But once I broke out of the beachheads, time was growing short! The Americans finally cleared the airfield hex and all but one Japanese Casemate from the beach hexes and 5 hexes in. It all boiled down to the last turn assault on that Japanese casemate and the Marines successfully assault it with 3 Marine Infantry units just to make sure, giving them a very close victory but not really, as in their rush to achieve these objectives, they lost 7 steps: 5 INF, 1 ENG and 1 LVT and two leaders. This gave the Japanese a victory as well, causing this scenario to be a Draw!

I believe it was a pretty good scenario, as I wasn’t sure who would win it throughout the whole thing, my thought process went back and forth. Plugging minefield counters in that beachhead bottleneck really slowed the Marines progress down. Japanese setup and Marine entry could vary a bit giving it a nice replay value and this is one of the smaller amphibious landing scenarios making it a faster playing scenario.

In real life the Marines lost 15 killed and 225 wounded plus three LVTs lost so I guess I might have done a little worst but close.

[thomaso827]

Marianas delivered today and I went to Board Game Geek to add it to my list, and found it wasn't listed. I wonder who it is that usually adds games to the BGG database there. I added Marianas and Kokoda trail to my Guadalcanal and Jungle Warfare collection and Saipan pre-order to try to wrap up my Pacific collection. Guess I need to find Alaska's War to wrap that up so far.

Tom Oxley

[JayTownsend]

They are listed on BGG. So I am not sure why you can't find them?

[thomaso827]

Now it shows up. No idea why it didn't yesterday. And it must have earlier because I had already checked a "want to have" for it. Sorry about that.

Tom Oxley

[JayTownsend]

AAR: Marianas 1944, scenario eleven: Out of No Where, Guam 1941

Who doesn’t want to play a Japanese amphibious scenario! Ok it’s an uneven matchup but the victory conditions off sets this, a nice bit. The Japanese also get some land reinforcements that have landed on other parts of the island and a huge naval artillery support along with the rare air-support for the Japanese in PG scenarios. The Americans have the U.S. Marines but equipped with 1941 weapons and the whole Guam Insular Force Guard equipped with even worst but are a needed man-power. Both sides have an on board Gun-Boat.

The first turn started off poorly for the U.S. Gun-Boat which was first struck by a Japanese Betty (G4M) rolling a snake eyes or 2 on the dice and now sits at the bottom of the ocean. The Japanese landed the Daihatsu landing-craft mostly out of direct conflict with American units and move down the coast taking town hexes until it meet the main American resistance in the larger city hexes. At first it look like a cake walk with that large off-board naval artillery support until the Japanese started losing some steps in those city assault combats. Fortunately for the SNLF their Army counter parts started to arrive in force and swung things back their directions.

The American/GIFG forces had lost 14 steps not counting leaders but managed to keep one Japanese overlooked village, while the Japanese lost three steps but controlled all the rest of the city/village hexes for a 26 point to a 20 point Minor Victory. Really if the Japanese hadn’t overlooked a faraway village hex they should have had a major victory. A fun scenario to play, difficult for the American forces but not impossible to win! Another step or two, and it goes the other way.

[larry marak]

We need a scenario for the first Wake Island assault. Then reset ala Edge of Tomorrow till the SNLF gets it right.

[thomaso827]

Looking forward to getting the Saipan reprint so I can play these. (Counted on my list as owned, since I already paid for it, just cant enjoy it yet. One of those boxes in the AP building has my name on it somewhere.)

[Hugmenot]

Jay, two questions if you don't mind?

Was Marianas developed under the 4th edition rules?
What is the movement cost for foot unit moving into fields in 4th edition?

Thanks!

[JayTownsend]

I don't see any changed on the 4th edition rules that will effect either Saipan or Marianas and they used my cave rules from those games and put them into the 4th edition rules as well.

Field movement should be the same as other types of fields and I don't see any changes but I haven't seen the new charts.

[Hugmenot]

Fields are still limiting terrain but they no longer block LoS in 4th edition. It's a major change in my opinion. It will certainly have an impact on scenarios played on board 100 (or maybe 101, the one with fields everywhere).

I suspect moving into a field hex will only cost 1.5 for foot unit in 4th edition but that's just a suspicion, not a fact.