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Malaya
Day was my first gaming experience with or against Japanese and it
produced, for me, the closest and most tense open day game of all I’ve
had the pleasure of participating in. Being the one that made the
decisions for more than just my own troops and table brought a stress
that was much different from previous events. I had no bad die-rolling
to blame this time.
I
was pretty comfortable with the British set-up as agreed with the table
commanders, Baz / Andy (Table 1) and Gerard (Table 2), with El Jel and
Neil lined up for a virtual table 3 and primed for a reserve role. Both
Tables 1 and 2 had their weak spots but with the prospect of
“fire-brigading” the Table 3 guys I was not unduly concerned with a
two-table attack.
Of
course, life is rarely that simple and the problems started from the
moment that the virtual Table 3 turned into real one, full of
outflanking Japs: and Richard has threatened to do a whole article on
the expression on my face when, even after a double recount, I could
still see three tables in front of me rather than the expected two when
I walked into the room. The effect of this extra real estate was to
stretch the British resources so that troops originally tasked with just
delaying the Japs now had the revised job of actually stopping them. Oh
joy.
The
first problem was the Table 2 eastern flank when the Japs infiltrated
quickly and started to roll up the Gurkhas' lines. Given that this was
the table that both housed the least number of troops and was earmarked
for the first reinforcements, I took the decision to strip table 3 of
some of its force in order to avert a disaster. In the event, this
proved to not be the wisest decision as attacks developed elsewhere that
would ultimately cause more concern.
I
won’t go into the “local” details as others will cover this with
more accuracy. We lost but though no fault of the five table commanders
who fought valiantly in the face of seemingly endless Japanese assaults:
at one point I thought Kelvin on Table 3 was printing
their bloody blinds off. I certainly did not help by putting the
anti-tank mines on a table where no tanks appeared: I came second in
that particular game of I know that he knows that I know…
I
suppose the most telling error was reacting to the potential disaster on
Table 2 immediately rather than waiting to see how it developed. Perhaps
the extra platoon would have stemmed the yellow tide washing over the
Brits left on Table 3, but it might have been more properly deployed on
Table 1, and for that I have no one else to blame. Oh, and Leeds lost
3-0 to
Watford
which really made my day. They played in yellow as well.
Must
say thanks to Nick, Rich and Nod for running each table in an exemplary
fashion and to Rob for putting together what turned out to be a close
run affair. Special mention must go to the guys that cobbled together
the terrain – it looked spiffing – even if there was more of the
stuff than the British had planned for!
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