Dude! Take Your Turn!

Some games of Combat Commander are kinetic romps where both sides are attacking, taking losses, taking over territory, maybe losing territory.

And some aren’t…

Not that they aren’t fun.

Combat Commander is always fun.

But some of the games just start out slow, have a really kinetic and exciting middle, and then settle down into a “will I be able to get a cool event that will save me?” stalemate (funny, “Stalemate” was last month’s scenario!).

Wait, “stalemate” sounds like neither side is winning.

I’m actually talking about a “hold on for dear life and hope nothing bad happens” versus “hope something really good happens for me.”

Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder, administered by the magnificent Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame.

You should check that out if you want some great Civil War game videos!

Once again we are in the Pacific theater of Combat Commander instead of the European theater, meaning we have some rules to remember that haven’t been used in 10 months or so.

Yes, including the fact that fixing your weapon actually activates you so that you can’t actually use it that turn, which I’d forgotten in September!

This month’s opponent was Dwight P, another repeat opponent. This time it was in a Mediterranean scenario back in June 2023, though I haven’t written about it because it was a pickup game rather than a Ladder game, and I had decided not to write about it for some reason (some of my pickup games I do write about).

Anyway, it was nice to meet up with Dwight officially for this scenario.

Sides were chosen at random right before we started, so I had no idea how to prepare!

This month’s scenario takes place during the Japanese invasion of New Guinea, with an Australian counterattack against some Japanese forces defending their initial landing points.

(don’t forget that you can click on a picture to blow it up)

The Japanese (white – me) set up first, up to 10 hexes from the left side of the board.

The Australians (tan – Dwight) then set up 2 hexes from the right side.

The little area of huts on the bottom left where some Japanese forces are situated is worth one point, but Objective 3 (the road hex where there’s one lone Japanese team in the back) is worth 5 points.

One big special rule is that the bridge across the steam doesn’t exist, so those two hexes are stream hexes (bad cover, takes a lot of movement points to enter).

The second special rule is that Level 2 hexes don’t exist. They are considered Level 1.

So there’s basically two low hills with a lot of jungle on both sides with a gully in between with a stream.

I set up a blocking force down on Objective 1 and the majority of my force (including the bunker and 3 foxholes, which are set up after the Australians set up) in the middle, where I thought they would have decent line of sight to most of the gully.

That was wrong.

Dwight then set up a sizeable force in the middle, but an even more sizeable force at the bottom, ready to run through the jungle and sprint past all the heavy guns that wouldn’t be able to see them much.

I should mention the other special rules before we continue.

Winslow, the Australian Hero, sets up in hex O10 with the Thompson SMG. He didn’t take part in any of the actual fighting, but he was instrumental in causing a lot of havoc among the Japanese.

More on that later.

The other big one is that, since the jungle was less dense in this coastal area of New Guinea, if the line of sight just goes through one jungle hex, it has a 4 hindrance rather than being blocked.

We used that one a lot.

Which one of us was I talking about at the top of this episode?

Let’s find out.

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