Sino-Japanese War 1938

This Thursday I went down to Colin Jack's place for a game in his wargames room with Dave O’Brien and Mr Ray Neal who was making a rare appearance from over the pond. This 28mm game was set in China in 1937. Mr Ray and I commanding a motley mixture of Chinese whilst Colin and Dave commanded the well equipped veteran Japanese.

Students hiding at the nomad yurts....

The scenario was set at the river mouth of a Chinese peninsula where a train commanded by Colin packed full of Japanese infantry were attempting to make their way down to meet up with a naval landing party commanded by Dave. Unfortunately for them our Chinese force didn't intend to let things go quite so smoothly so a mixture of regular troops and volunteer students had blocked the main line and set up a series of ambushes.

The considerable Japanese landing force at the other end of the table was a mixture of Marines and sailors backed up by a light gun, an Hmg and a tank facing a few units of poor Chinese troops supported ineffectively by an Hmg and a gun. These troops managed to delay the landing force who only had a single bridge to cross to the mainland.

The massive Japanese seaborne effort....

The key action was around the train. Under the Triumph and Tragedy rules we use the high quality Japanese troops should have had few problems facing the poor quality Chinese troops and especially the students. Luckily this had not been explained Mr Ray who launched his students in a series of charges against the halted train. I supported their attack with the fire of our only 2 trained Chinese regular units.

Students take the loco - Japanese veterans surrendered!

The students took the locomotive and then worked down the train defeating in total 3 veteran Japanese units in close combat. Defeating even one was a shock. Doing this meant that we managed to capture the whole train so winning the game.

The final highlight in the game and a rare success for the Japanese was when their plane arrived and shot down our Chinese fighter in a dog fight.  A fun game and Triumph and Tragedy worked well again. 

Japanese success in the air but to late to save the train....

You can find a report from the biased Japanese viewpoint at Daves site...
http://davestoybox.blogspot.co.uk/