This past weekend was a 500 point playtest of the final draft of Battlegroup Pacific using the generic ‘High Ground’ scenario.

Was an interesting affair as we both took off board support which left us both with smaller forces than we probably should have. I kicked off the unpleasantness right away with boosting my Battle Rating and then dropping the enemy BR with ‘Cautious Enemy’ from the army list.

However first turn saw USMC naval gunfire slam into my trenches and cause mayhem, very quickly reducing my ten man Knee Mortar section to a bloody pulp… it went on from there with my Japanese trading pins for slowly dying units but holding all the objectives and forcing pins to be removed, the USMC soon built up a stack of chits.

As reinforcements arrived for the USMC, I had waited to once more spring a trap I pulled in our last game. As his USMC Fire Teams advanced, and took fire and drew more chits, I waited until the Forward HQ was alone, then promptly jumped it with my Japanese Spider Holes. In a fusilade of fire the USMC commander went down, once more having been left in the rear and unprotected… there is a reason the army list has a FHQ Bodyguard option…

Sadly this didn’t break the USMC, though they suddenly stopped removing pins… but my Japanese couldn’t capitalise on it as suddenly the order dice ran dry… despite being on the verge of breaking the USMC now hammered the Japanese lines and with no ability to bring up my reinforcements, things swung the other way.

But this forced the USMC to once.more advance, and they unfortunately parked themselves right on top of my second RTP (thanks to a freebie from the defences purchase ‘Observers on the High Ground’) and two batteries of 81mm mortars slammed into two fire teams, wiping both out and finally breaking the USMC attack who were a forced to withdraw.

Overall the US losses were far less than the defending Japsnese in terms of men, I had lost over 60% of my men and almost all my initial defenders were killed. But the chits had been kind to the Sons of the Rising Sun and I’d only just broken half of my BR when the USMC broke.

Good fast game, 500 points in two hours and nice to be back playing only infantry games with no vehicles.

Cigar Box mat, with my Japanese fighting the USMC by my playtester Vinny.