Attacking Unshakeable Troops

[Ben2013]

I have been trying out several scenarios of HOTP and the Japanese have always come out on top whenever the Americans need to attack to gain victory and the Japanese can just sit back and defend. The problem is that not all the American units can self rally and there are limited leaders among them to rally the shaken ones. As they need to attack to secure victory, once they are shot at and are shaken, the Japanese units that have not activated that turn (even if they have been shot at and reduced, but can never be shaken) just simply enter the hex to conduct melee, automatically eliminating the American units. Any suggestions on the best strategy to deal with defending units that are just unshakeable?

 

[Stéphane Tanguay]

Kill them all!



Seriously, defending Japanese forces are a tough nut to crack but the real problem I'm detecting from your post is that you are ending with a lot of shaken American units in range of unactivated Japanese units, without covering fire to prevent these to get at your shaken units and without rallying assets with them. You might be attacking with too many units; some of them should be kept in reserve to give covering fire.

If you want, we could play a game using VASSAL and I'll try to show you some strategy (even though I'm not expert)

 

[Ben2013]

Thanks Stephane. I spread defending Japanese units out in a line across the board to cover every possible line of approach by the Americans and they are also all within range of their neighboring units. The Americans have to attack and advance to achieve their victory conditions within the limited game turns, leaving them exposed to Op Fire followed by melee from neighboring units if they are shaken by the Op fire. Applying covering fire first might reduce Jap units but they can still attack if unactivated as they remain unshaken after being fired at (short of eliminating them altogether).

I tried stacking up the American units hoping some remain unshaken from Op Fire to avoid auto elimination from melee and also where possible include a leader. However, I found that if some of the units shaken from Op Fire (or Diect Fire) fail to rally the next turn, in order to achieve victory objectives within the limited number of turns, the unshaken ones still need to press ahead and leave the shaken units behind to find their own rallying point. The risk of these advancing units being shaken by Op Fire and then eliminated by melee rises as more and more shaken units are left behind from the stack.

I am flattered by and appreciate your offer to play over vassal with me to help me out with this but I am afraid I am not familiar with vassal at all and being new to LNLT as well, I fear frustrating you to no end! I will certainly take you up on your offer once I gain a higher level of familiarity and confidence with the rules of LNLT.

 

[Stéphane Tanguay]

The covering fire was not to reduce the Japanese in their positions but more to prevent them to run towards your shaken units. If I'm not mistaken, Japanese units reduced by fire while moving must stop their movement right?

Anyway, without seeing teh setup, it's hard to tell. I don't mind teaching the game although, for the moetn, I only ahve time for PBEM game, which are not the good for teaching. I should have more tiem strating on the third weekend of April

 

[Ben2013]

I checked the rules and you are right. Japanese units that suffer casualties, even though they are not shaken, have to stop movement unless they are conducting a Banzai attack. I will try the covering fire strategy and see if the US troops fare any better. Thanks.