J166 Maximum Aggression

 

As part of the CyberVASL tournament, I was matched up with none other than the TD himself, Sergio Puente.  I chose J166 Maximum Aggression as one of my scenarios to pick from and Sergio liked the looks of it, so I got the Japanese and away we went.

Set in Malaya in 1941, this scenario is played on half boards 67 and 62.  The British start with 2.5 squads in buildings on board 67, surrounded by Japanese.  They must control four or more non-hut buildings on board 67 by the end of the game.  On turn 1, nine more squads and an armored car enter from the southern board edge to come to the relief of the surrounded Malayans.  He’s got 5 short turns to meet his objectives.

I set up to try, if nothing else, to push the on board British out of the buildings, but better yet, eliminate them.  I would have to act quickly though as my small screening force was ill equipped to slow down the British reinforcments.

 

 

I put a half squad with a mortar on the right side to at least try to make Sergio fight for the freebie building over there.  My guys got a couple of shots in, but failed to keep the building for even a short period of time.

Sergio made quick progress up the middle and sent flankers to the left and right.  My mortar bunch broke and never recovered.  I sent a leader and crew with the mmg to the building on the left and proceeded to begin evicting the Malayan force from the victory buildings.

 

 

By the end of turn two, I had taken the village, winning two close combats without suffering any losses.  Sergio’s troops were just at that point getting ready to assault the town.  I prepared my guys to fend off the attack.

Sergio tried to lead with the armored car escorted by his infantry.  He was taking no chances on getting it whacked by a tank hunter hero.  Fortunately for me, one of my machine gunners was more than capable of dealing with it.  Knocking it out on the first shot.

Allied turn 4 was go-time for Sergio.  He made an end-around move on the right to claim the buildings in my backfield.  My MMG crew on the left started heating up, knocking down an attempt at their building earlier, the British rallied quickly and were going to make another attempt at it.  This scenario was looking more and more like it was going to come down to close combat.

 

 

The MMG crew and leader on the left remained hot, cleaning out the left side of the map with help from a squad and LMG a couple of hexes away.  I got an important break of two squads adjacent to one of the middle buildings… super important because a berserk Brit had tied up the squad there, leaving a way in for his friends if they had not broken.  A pin up north also helped the cause.

 

 

At this point, Sergio had two buildings outright, and was in close combat in another two at the close of allied turn 5.  These two CC’s would determine the victor.  After reinforcing the northernmost hand to hand melee, he managed to only casualty reduce that Japanese squad, and the berserk close combat was mutual annihilation, leaving me as the building owner, and without another movement phase for Sergio, giving me the victory.

 

 

Sergio was outstanding to play, a great test for my progress as a player and I was very fortunate to come out on top.  My dice heated up nicely at the end of the game with the MMG crew dominating one side of the board.  Sergio put himself in position to get the win, but the dice weren’t kind.

This is a tight little scenario, two close combats at the end for the victory and you can’t ask for much better than that.  Recommended.

Thanks for reading.