Last Battle: Ie Shima, 1945
Tags
- ie-shima
- last-battle
- rinella
- michael-rinella
- revolution-games
- area-movement
- wwii
- pto
- japan
- ernie-pyle
- okinawa
I've got Rinella's Last Battle: Ie Shima, 1945 set up and ready to play. I've read through the rules, mostly, and it doesn't look too difficult. It does look a bit odd in terms of how turns and impulses are structured, and the combat system is definitely odd. I don't mind the learning a new impulse system, but I would be surprised if the combat couldn't be as effectively modeled by a CRT or possibly the Fire & Movement combat factor difference just as well.
In any case, no big deal. I'll reserve judgement until after I've played through the game.
Let's get started.
Turn 1
Reinforcement Phase
Nothing on Turn 1.
Daylight Phase
Impulses
The Japanese player always goes first.
Impulse 1
Japanese
Nothing to do, can't bombard beach staging area, units are already set up, pass. On rereading, Japanese Special Unit box is considered an area, so these units may have been available to move, not sure.
US
Assault the beach I guess. Landing is uncontested for 1/306 and 2/306. Apparently that's it for first impulse.
Impulse 2
Japanese
Japanese pass again.
US
Land 1/305 and 3/305.
Impulse 3
Japanese
Bombard the 1/305/A in Area 1. Japanese roll 7 + 4, US rolls 5 + 1, attrition to 5. This eliminates 1/305/A for 3 Attrition Points (AP), 1 AP each for reducing 1/305/B,C. Not sure to put eliminated units.
US
US assaults with 1,2/306 into Area 4. US leads with 1/306/A, Japanese lead with Labor/A. US roll 5 + 11 (combat strength) + 2 (regimental integrity), Japanese roll 8 + 5 (combat) + 1 (TEM) for 18 to 14.
Result: Labor/A flips to reduced, need 4 points of AP. Flipping all of Labor for 4 AP. Japanese got relatively lucky here.
Sunset roll 5, still Daylight.
Impulse 4
Japanese
Labor moves to Area 6.
US
3/306 moves to Area 3.
Sunset roll 11, still Daylight.
Impulse 5
Japanese
Pass.
US
Naval on Area 6, clear out remaining Labor if possible. US roll 7 + 8, Japanese roll 7 + 2 result 6 AP from defender, take from Labor/A,B,C for 2 AP each.
Sunset roll 2, Night Phase starts.
Night Phase
Impulse 6
Japanese
Move Pillboxes to Areas 5, 14, 15, and 16.
US
3/306 moves to Area 9.
Impulse 7
Japanese
MG units to Areas 5, 14, 15, and 16.
US
1/306 assault into Area 6, roll 5 + 7 for 12, Japanese roll 11 + 4 for 15, this is a Repulse, all units in 1/306 go Reduced and retreat back to Area 4. Bummer.
Impulse 8
Japanese
IE units to Areas 6, 7, 8, and 11.
US
3/306 to Area 7, Mandatory Assault on IE unit, roll 8 + 7 US to 7 + 3 Japanese for 5 AP, defender eliminated in this case.
Impulse 9
Japanese
Pass, don't really know what else to do. Maybe I'm missing something about playing the Japanese at night?
US
1/306 and 2/306 assault into Area 6. Don't forget the regimental DRM bonus!
- US roll 9 + 11 (combat) + 1 (regimental integrity) for 21.
- Japanese roll 4 + 3 (combat) + 2 (tem) for 9.
AP difference is 11, defenders eliminated for sure.
Impulse 10
Japanese
Pass.
US
US bombard into Area 5 with Minna, roll 7 + 5, Japanese roll 2 + 9, lose 1 AP, take from MG-D.
Impulse 11
Japanese
Pass, again, let's get through the Impulses and to the Refit Phase.
US
Bombard Navy, roll 9 + 5, Japanese roll 7 + 2, lose 3 AP, lose MG-D for 2, flip Pillbox-B to make 3.
Impulse 12
Japanese
Pass.
US
1/305 and 3/305 assault Area 5.
- US roll 3 + 10 + 1 = 14
- Japanese roll 7 + 2 + 3 = 2, lose 2 AP, Pillbox-B eliminated.
And that's the end of the impulses for Turn 1.
Refit Phase
- US: 1/305, 2 companies rebuilt in Area 5.
- Japanese, Labor-A,B brought back reduced in Area 16
End Phase
Technically, it's an automatic US victory as US is holding Area 4 (airfield) at the end of the first turn. I'm going to ignore that for now and keep playing to see how it works out.
Here's the situation at the end of Turn 1:
Turn 2
I'm not going to do the blow-by-blow on Turn 2 impulses, there is no need, the game is simple enough I can follow the action well enough on the board, and crank out a set of impulses while interstitially with chores and whatnot.
Reinforcement Phase
Japanese
Roll 10 for 5 reinforcements. Dang. US eliminated 6 units first turn, now almost all of them are coming back on the board. Except 2 of the elimated units are Labor, so only 4 Specials make it into the holding box.
American
2,3/307 land on the beach.
Tighten the noose around the hill.
Turn 3
Not looking good for US, lots of not good bombardment results.
Turn 4
The US decided to go for broke and clear the map, enough reductions and eliminated units meant that it would be hard win via points. It almost worked, but they weren't able to clear the pillbox out of Area 11.
Points: Area score gets 12 points. Reduced and eliminated total is 14, which is -2 points, so that's a US win.
To be perfectly honest, US got some very lucky rolls on the final turn bombardment, which helped take Area 16.
Here's the situation at the end of the game:
Interesting little game.
AAR
Some questions:
- Taking attrition as a defender isn't clear. The lead unit flips to reduced, does that count for AP? I'm going to say it does.
- Regimental Integrity bonus, if two regiments are fighting, is that a +2, or just a +1?
CC will probably want to play this.
Tags
- ie-shima
- last-battle
- rinella
- michael-rinella
- revolution-games
- area-movement
- wwii
- pto
- japan
- ernie-pyle
- okinawa