Great review gents. I share the guilt for forgetting about the log file,... totally slipped my mind.
First off,... Martin is very, very kind in his comments but truth be told he had me very worried in the first three turns as he went through my centre with little effort and it did not appear anything could stop him.
My left flank was well defended with the right a mix of real and dummies. The intent was to contract 'inwards' towards the guns and I just made it in time. The only bright spot in the early game was the trap in Z3 (HIP FH, 337 DD squad and 9-1). Even here Martin almost sprung the trap with his advance fire when he had a 4 +1 against a squad, 2+1 against a ? squad and and 2+2 against the Hipsters. His DR missed the HIP units but broke or pinned everyone else (the Chinese had issues with MCs and Rally attempts early as well). I voluntarily broke the pinned unit and routed away leaving the hex empty so Martin would feel better about the advance into the trap. The Chinese win the ambush and the 1:2 -3 DRM CC (followed by a withdrawal). It cost Martin an SMC and two squads (one of which was already reduced). Even so, it still looked grim for the Chinese.
After that, the game turned slowly in the Chinese favour as the flanking infantry got into position by the guns and remnants of the centre force made it back to the middle gun. I did take the chance of having all the guns gain acquisitions to add risk to the Japanese advance as they arrived adjacent to the guns. This gained me two or three HE CH (w/ ROF on two occasions), helping to balance the scales. The Japanese and Chinese slowly melted away under fire attacks and CC with luck running roughly equal but the guns HE attacks and ROF of 2 probably won the day.
It was not an easy win and Martin pressed on until it became clear the Japanese win was no longer possible at the end of Japanese Turn 5. As always the game could have shifted again had one or two DR went the other way.
A very enjoyable game and Martin was a pleasure to play against.
Cheers.
Or is VFTT not an online resource and you are going to give him a shout out in another episode?
