Pacific Heat – A USMC AAR

Martin back with the latest on how the USMC are going. As the middle gamer and having least to paint I have managed to get the USMC on the tabletop for a 3 game MW 1 day event at Table Top Republic in High Wycombe. Partly out of neccessity and partly from choice my Force for this event was based almost exclusively on the US Marine Rifle Company starter army (USAB15) Battlefront kindly supplied me with for this article series. I have added an extra Stuart from my bits box and purchased a battery of Marine 105mm Artillery to get me to the neccessary 90 points.

As in my initial article I have resolved the starter set out to provide me with 1 extra platoon, Marine Scouts using extra models that I got in the rifle platoon packs to form a 5th small base leader team and reducing one Marine Rifle Platoon to the 7 team option providing me the neccessary 3 medium based M1 Garand rifle & BAR teams for the scouts.

This shuffle and my 5 extra models gives me with the following 90 point list:

• Formation
  • HQ with 2 Thompson SMG teams
  • Rifle Platoon with 10 M1 Garand rifle & BAR teams, 1x M1919 LMG teams, Bazooka team and Flame Thrower
  • Rifle Platoon with 7 M1 Garand rifle & BAR teams, 2x M1919 LMG teams, Bazooka team and 60mm Mortar team
  • Marine Scout Platoon 4 M1 Garand rifle & BAR teams
  • Marine M1917 Machine-gun Platoon, 4 teams
  • 37mm Marine Anti-tank Platoon, 4 guns
  • 75mm SPM Self-propelled Gun Platoon
• Support
  • Marine M3 Stuart platoon, 5 tanks
  • Marine 105mm Artillery platoon, 4 guns

My Marine Rifle Platoons are geared up with the smaller platoon having more firepower which will form the base of my Objective holding troops deployed along with the HMG, AT Gun and Artillery platoons to defend a position whilst the larger platoon, with more mobile weapons can be used to attack with alongside the Stuarts. I plan to Attack with this platoon most of the time to maximise the Marines Semper Fi rule which means they counterattack on a 2+ meaning with their large size they should be able to drive an assualt through to a hopefully victorious conclusion. The 75mm SPM platoon are a bit of a luxury option at 10 points and will mainly be used to provide my attacking troops with a bit more AT capability and try and keep enemy tanks at bay (in future I see these not getting used unless a future Dynamic Points amendment reduces their cost which is a bit of a pity).

My Force is limited in anti armour capability at mainly AT7 with a bit of AT9, so if I end up facing any heavy tanks or even a horde of FA5+ tanks I may struggle to knock them out effectively. One thing the marines don’t get is anything that improves their general infantry tank assault capability, meaning you are reliant on the weapons sections bazooka team or shear numbers in tank assaults. I’m hoping to play against other Pacific lists rather than Germans or Soviets.

My Reserves at 36 points if needed will comprise the Stuarts (15), Scouts (5) and the Large Rifle platoon (16). Three platoons isn’t ideal but I am a little limited in wanting to use all the starter box models I practically can and this is probably the best combination without too much extra model purchasing. At least I wont have to worry about Deep Reserves with just the 1 battle tank platoon.

So how did it go?

Game 1

First game was a blue on blue match up with Mike one of the regular TTR players, his list was fundamentally similar to mine with a near identical Formation but with two small platoons allowing him to add a mortar platoon where things differed more was in Support he had US Army Grants, US Army Universal Carriers and US Army 155mm Artillery guns (an interesting choice). We both chose to Attack and drew Head to Head as the mission. I won the roll to go be the Attacker so suffered from the Meeting Engaement penalty of no bombardment on Turn 1. My solution was to basically go to ground and see what Mike did.

The decisive factor in the game was deployment with my Stuarts and 105mm guns centrally placed I could direct them to either flank to launch/support an attack to try and to win the game or defend my Objectives. Mike had his guns and tanks on his right flank meaning his forces on his left lacked a lot of supporting elements and this enabled me to push up against his left most Marine Rifle platoon early in the game without facing too much anti tank fire this eventually told as his Marines despite their strong moral eventually gave ground in the face of my Stuarts unrelenting volume of fire – I lost 3 vehicles in the end but they did enough damage for me to get a sufficient numerical advantage for my Marine Infantry to overwealm his position and capture an objective in Turn 6 for an 8-1 victory. This was a tough game where experience told by deploying his armour on a flank Mike made it hard to redeploy across the board and he lost all of his armour in the effort to redeploy for little gain.

Game 2

This time I was facing Graham and his Japanese. This was going to be tough as Graham is just back from playing at the ETC for Team England with them and has had plenty of games. His list was all infantry with boith an IJA and Naval Rifle Formations with a smattering of Regimental gun platoons and scouts in total 5 full sized Infantry platoons from Support he had mortars and Heavy AA guns plus a few helpful Command Cards. He not unsurpisingly chose to defend and we rolled up Killing Ground which might give me a chance for a win. To win I would have to overwealm the Japanese before their reserve platoons arrived or hope they arrived in the wrong place to prevent me winning. Graham placed his minefield to cover the right hand objective near the village.

The game started fairly well with my troops advancing toward the Japanese lines and my early fire picking off all 3 visible gun platoons, removing his ranged AT defence withouth them firing a shot. With the speed of my advance Graham sagely ambushed with his heavy AA in turn 1. With them being large his positions were limited and they were constrained to a bit of snipping initially picking off a single Stuart and 75mm SPM as I advanced. The remaining 75mm being Fearless then hung around right to the end of the game. My infantry pushed up against the first tropical shrub hedgeline and a blanket of smoke screened the two opposing forces. Graham got a reserve unit in on Turn 2 to bolster his left flank but due to the position of my HMG platoon in the village in the centre his forces on his right flank were constrained from moving across to add their strength to the underpressure left flank. My Stuarts again proved their worth in a Pacific theatre game destroying one infantry platoon for the loss of 2 more vehicles. The 6″ move to contact for the Japanese was pretty helpful here, allowing a lot more troops to get into contact on the counter attack and forcing me to pull my Stuarts back to prevent them being lost in a prolonged assault.

Graham threw everything he could at my now far too close for comfort platoons as more reserves arrived in the centre and managed to knock out the remaining 2 Stuarts with Human bullets but lost another platoon in the process thanks to the hail of defensive fire the Marines put out killing 8 teams when they charged. My 2+ Counter Attack kept me in position despite not being able to kill too many teams with their Trained Skill but numbers told in the end. I now had to seize my opportunity and pushed forward with all my infantry to try and overwealm the objective and the remaining Naval Infantry platoon and hope no more reserves arrived in on either Grahams left flank or along the base line. I sent in both platoons to assault pushing the Japanese Scout and Naval Infantry back but not completly destroying them. I now had my infantry in a strong position but still Graham had the odd teams contesting the objective and his troops moving from his right would be able to Assault if I didn’t win it on my next turn. My Marines were now down to just a few assault capable teams (I mainly had heavy weapons teams left in both platoons) and I knew I would struggle to mount a further significant assault on the objective if Grahams final reserve platoon arrived anywhere near the left objective on his turn 4.

Turn 4 didn’t quite go to plan as I failed to fully mop up the platoons and the Japanese troops were still contesting the objective. They now rallied and we got to the critical point as Graham rolled for his reserves. Being turn 4 he got them, he rolled for where, a 2 his right flank was victory heading the way of the Marines? Sadly not, as Graham still had his For the Emperor (Lucky) card and re rolled his scattered reserves location roll, this time getting the needed 3+ to allow the newly arrived platoon to come on near the objective. He assaulted my troops in the centre with the remnants of an IJA platoon and his HQ forcing my Scouts and smaller Marine platoon back and then the newly arrived platoon pushed back my battered Marine Rifles away from the objective. With my armour spent and infantry lacking any significan numbers of M1 Garand & BAR teams it was a Victory for the Japanese, 6-3. Overall I was pretty pleased with how it went for only my second game with the Marines, I had a solid plan and stuck to it and with just a bit more good fortune I felt it was a game I could have won on another day.

Game 3

My final game of the day was against Paul another of the Team England ETC players he had a British Rifle Formation with 3 platoons, Mortars, HMG’s, 2pdr troop, 6pdr troops and 2 Scout carrier patrols and a Honey Company of HQ and 2 platoons backed up by 25pdr guns and US Marine Shermans! Eek thats a lot of armour to handle. We rolled up Rear Guard with Paul defending so at least he would have to remove platoons as the game went on but I would have to face his full force for the first couple of turns. He deployed minefields to block gaps in the terrain and held the 6pdr guns in Ambush.

I massed my force on my right to attack against the more open side of the table and avoid the minefields and difficult terrain (Cross 4+ is never good). My Scouts and 75mm SPM’s covered the centre to block any advance from the Shermans and to threaten the other objective should Paul withdraw the wrong units. Paul spread his force across the table with his support units centrally placed and his armour well hidden to act as a mobile reserve. Turn 1 saw the 6pdr Ambush to stop my Stuarts overrunning the blocking infantry but in a fit of poor dice from Paul I only lost 1 destroyed with 2 bailed out.

The Stuarts rallied and moved up supported by the Infantry and 37mm guns. My HMG platoon protected my left flank moving up through the buildings engaing the British Vickers HMG’s in a game long duel of failing to hit or kill anything. The Scouts advanced into a concealed position covered by my 75mm SPMS ready to pick off anything that came into sight (all assuming they didn’t die first). My 105mm dropped smoke on the infantry and 2 of the guns on the hill I opened fire with everything I could against the unconcealed gun teams destroying both and pinning the remaining two. I then obligaterily assaulted the 6pds managed to kill 1 Stuart but the other 3 killed them and drove the infantry off leaving me in position of the high ground overlooking the objective. So far so good. The next couple of turns were spent with Paul conducting counter battery fire and withdrawing the Carrier patrols whilst I tried to dislodge his HMG platoon covering the Objective. The 25pdrs won the artillery duel as my 105’s slowly dissolved as they concentrated on keeping the Honey Troops at bay. By Turn 5 the Honeys and Shermans had moved out to engage my AT guns, 75mm SPM’s and remaining Stuarts in a duel of mediocrity which resulted in all my platoons being reduced to 1 team but again the Fearless moral rating kept them on the table, in return I picked off a Sherman and a total of 5 Honeys forcing Paul to call off his attempot to push me back or risk loosing the entire Honey Formation. In the village the HMG units continued to fire away at each other but neith side took any casualties! That was some 48 shots per turn for 4 turns, plenty of pinning but neither of us could roll a FP success!

Paul by now had 4 platoons protecting the Objective I was trying to capture and decided to simply wait me out going to ground which was the smart option I really couldn’t launch an infantry assault against the Objective thanks to the presence of the 4 remaining Honeys so I had to switch my attention against the other Objective this was now only held by a few rifle teams and if I could pin them down then my scouts would have a chance in assault of pushing them back and creating a winning position. I moved up to assault with the Marine Scouts and redeployed a couple of HMG teams to add some extra fire supported by 0.5cal and MG fire from the remaining 75mm SPM. I needed 5’s to hit but only had 15 dice in total but an average roll would do it for me but, I only managed 3 hits though I somehow killed 2 teams, this left 5 unpinned Rifle teams I now had no option but to assault and hope Pauls rolls were as poor as mine as sitting in the open with my Scouts was no real alternative option. I moved in Paul rolled and failed to stop me but killed 2 of my 4 teams. It was now down to Assault and being Trained again tripped up the Marines as they failed to kill the engaged teams, the 5 British Rifles counter assaulted and through shear numbers killed the remaining 2 Marine Scouts. The final 2 turns saw us trade fire as Paul finally advanced his Shermans to secure the right objective taking out the final 75mm SPM and preventinjg me advancing further on the left with my HMG unit. I couldn’t shift the Honeys and whilst I sat on the Objective Paul was still there in Turn 8 securing a Victory for the British 6-3.

Again a great game where it could have gone my way on another day, I really lacked anything to deal with so much armour and by keeping it hidden Paul was able to prevent me targetting it effectively once he had neutralised my 105mm guns.

Round Up

Overall a great day out with some really fun and interesting games. I really liked the in-theatre aspect of the day coupled with some nice thematic tables to play on. A special thanks to Harry for his efforts to keep us on track and generally organising the day. I finished 3rd overall with 14 victory points thanks to my big win in game 1. I also picked up the award for Best Painted on the day which was a nice bonus. If you can I would recommend attending a FOW/TY event day at Table Top Republic if you can, there’s plenty of gaming space and reasonbly priced parking, the train station is just 200m away as well. There’s some great food stalls in the street market outside the shop!

Lessons learnt

In terms of lessons learnt in general the Marines played as expected, they struggled a bit to kill anything but were stoic and stayed in the fight. Overall I only had 1 platoon fail a moral test to remain on the table across all three games. Semper Fi is a great rule to sustain an attack but being Trained is the Marines achilies heal so in future I will make a few small changes. Firstly the 75mm SPM’s will get replaced by a pair of M1 90mm AA guns for the enhanced AT capability and a points saving, this should give me more chance against medium tanks. The points saving will be spent on boosting my second platoon up to full strength of 10 M1 Garand & BAR teams to improve to my assaulting capability – I may switch my Marine Scouts out for a Cavalry Reconnaisance platoon but this may weaken my Formation Platoon count a bit more than I am comfortable with but it is tempting as this would give me a 60mm mortar team meaning I could reconfigure my Rifles to be a bit more offensive with Flame Throwers in each. The final option I’m thinking about is to swap my Marine artillery for Army artillery and to add a unit of 81mm Mortars to provide a second smoke bombardment option. Reserves are always going to be a bit of an issue with the Marines getting it down to just 2 platoons really means you need to take a full strength Marine Sherman platoon.

Well that’s it from me, happy gaming and let us know how your Marines are doing. Martin