Alan Snider  - Sep 5, 2005 9:59 pm (#10733 Total: 10764)  
On the Playtest Table: Khyber Pass Games' "The Battle of the 
Little Bighorn"; and announcing the "Northern Knights Wargaming 
Group" in Vancouver, Canada with a retail store of it's own at 
http://www.stalag17wargames.com/ 	 

GAMENIGHT, Sept 3 & 4th: In attendance on these gamedays were Craig
Nynych and Terence Co who played Columbia Games' EastFront; and Chris
Peterson and myself, who played S&T #230 Downfall. 

As I read a little further into the rules for Downfall, one of THE most
important elements of the game (in my opinion) emerged; that being that
one cannot both move AND attack on the same turn. This essentially
allows the opponent to simply retreat to a more favorable position or
simply out of contact with the enemy to avoid combat altogether. Once I
spotted this, my strategy focussed on giving up ground, avoiding combat
as much as possible and hoping the kamikaze missions would do enough
damage to the Americans such that their command points hampered their
invasion effort. 

The first part of the game is simply pushing the Japanese troops as far
south that one can to begin the aforementioned strategy. The Japs should
also surround the beachhead marker and landed troops at Kushikino. I had
a bit of caution play a part in not using the troops at around Kushikino
in consecutive attacks as there was a chance that this beachhead could
be eliminated early. I judged that a failure in this could be disastrous
to Japanese defence efforts and I was not willing to risk it. However,
seeing how fast the Japanese are forced to pull back from that area, it
will be something I would like to try at least once as it could result
in an easier situation for the Japanese if successful. As it played out,
I ended up stranding the 206th Coastal Guard units in the fortress just
outside the city of Kushikino. The 206th ended up being quite the story
in our game!! 

It proved basically impossible to avoid the x-2, and x-7 VP's for 2 and
4 coastal cities respectively captured by the U.S. troops by each turns
end. I pushed hard to try to foil the Americans efforts for the x-7 turn
especially, but may have hurt myself in the process. Near Kushikino, I
pushed hard to contain the units south of Kagoshima city, but they
eventually became impossible and the 206th was stranded. In the
following turns vs. the 206th, the U.S. lost a full 4 steps worth of
infantry in the process of clearing the troops in the fortress, The
rolled double 4's on one roll and a 1 and a 4 on the following defensive
rolls. The valiant 206th was heard chanting "206..206" throughout the
evening after the battle. The way the unit held together in spite of
overwhelming American forces was simply remarkable. It was with a heavy
heart that I eventually had to remove their counter from the map. 

I kept waiting for an opportunity to launch a Japanese counterattack, as
I judged from the VP notes that at least one successful elimination of a
US step must be accomplished while the eliminated unit was out of
supply. This victory point would enable the Japanese to give up all
victory conditions to the U.S. except the clearance of Japanese troops
below the linked beachhead line; and still give the Japanese the
opportunity to win the game. Other than this one successful effort, the
Japanese should pursue a maneuver to avoid battle strategy; so as to
have as many units left late in the game. 

On my perfect setup for counterattack, Chris used 3 nukes to eliminate
all 3 of my Japanese infantry units; while at the same time leaving a
huge void in my defences near Kanoya airfield. The US did destroy the
airfield and were unable to claim the VP for it. The next few turns
became critical (this was turn 9), as the fate of Japan hinged on the
successful kamikaze rolls and the redeployment of the 56th Corps (rolls
for entry begin on turn 10). I scrambled to get a barely serviceable
line of ZoCs in place to prevent the U.S, advance. 

The kamikaze rolls ended up not too bad...and the US troops slowly moved
toward the Miyakonojo airfield and Takarabe. I sweated a lot during the
following turn, I will tell you!! On turn 13, the 56th received their
marching orders and became available, and entered on turn 14. The
Kamaizaze rolls help a bit here, as I got 4 movement points on 2
consecutive turns and reinforced my line of ZoCs and moved troops into
the airfield and Takarabe. The airfield fell, but Takarabe managed to
hold through turn x-20 to deny the Americans of that VP. 

On the other front, the Japanese troops pulled back aggressively, as
they simply gave ground to avoid combat and being locked into enemy ZoCs
themselves. As a result, Mount Kurashima nd it VP were claimed by the
American side. This had the VP tally at 5 VP headed into the final 6
turns of the game. The Japanese looked to be in solid shape to have some
surviving units south of the linked beachhead line, but the game looked
to be decided by the ASCO unit. If the kamikaze rolls went just right,
it would not allow the Americans 4 command points required to bring them
into the game...But it was not to be...and while the Japs had a nice
pocket of remaining troops (now stacked) despite being targetted by the
final 2 nukes, the kamikaze roll on turn 29 decided the game, and the
ASCO unit was dropped to ensure the U.S. side could acheive a draw. 

Chris and I had quite a bit of fun with this game, although the chance
involved in the final few dierolls and their ability to alter the games'
outcome at that time was a bit gamey. One does have to admit, however,
that it was all result of both sides strategy that brought the game to
the position it was at in the first place; thereby making this roll such
a decisive one. It is just as one rolls the die, all that came before is
lost in memory... I'd sure like to try this game again, if only to
attempt the Kushikino beachhead assault gambit that I spoke of earlier.
The farther we got into the game, the more I felt that I may have missed
a good opportunity with that situation.