Historicon 2019, The Road to Parit Sulong

Ratso 5 Comments

The Malaya board is done and the scenario complete but we are still catching up on posts about the process.

Ed is running the game at Historicon 2019 this weekend as “The Road to Parit Sulong”, Heritage Room Table H-16. Thursday, 7 PM (T19:517)and Friday, 9 AM (F09:518).

He’s really happy with the final balance and I’m hoping to make him write a long post about his process for settling on the combination of force composition, jump off positions and special rules. I will be writing posts about production of all the major terrain components. I hope to have at least one up this weekend. The one about the mat, which I know some of you are anxious about, will be the one after that.

Meanwhile, here’s the Scenario Pack for those who want to see how the final game came together and maybe try it for themselves.

Description:

On the morning of January 18, 1942, elements of the Japanese Imperial Guard infiltrate through the jungle and set up a roadblock between the 2/29 Australian Battalion, which was in the process of defending against a Japanese armor attack, and 2/19 Australian Battalion, which was defending the Bakri crossroad roughly a mile to their rear. An initial attack to clear the roadblock at 1430 failed, but at 1510, the attack was renewed by two platoons of C Company, 2/19 Australian Battalion supported by Mortars, a Universal Carrier and two Armored Cars from the 2nd Loyal Battalion. This scenario simulates that successful attack.

My take:

This scenario is intermediate to experienced level. New players might be a little overwhelmed if playing the Australians because they tend to set the action in motion, and the Japanese require what we call “tactical patience.” But I think players of all levels can enjoy this scenario. Ed will of course have his opinion but I’m more an observer of players as people than a player myself and this is what I see.

For those trying to recreate the board I added some topographic lines to the map. On our board, on the road, the Japanese have to come to about the corner of the fence next to the swamp to be able to see well down the road. And the Aussies have to get to their corner of the fence to see the roadblock. In the rubber tree grove the crest is about mid-board but it doesn’t plateau as much so line of sight is more variable.

Give the Scenario Pack a look and maybe try it out: 2019_07_12_historicon_scenario_pack_v1

5 Comments

  1. Nice work Ed , been following your progress, nice terrain as well , hope the game goes well.
    Could I ask you want did you use for the trees?
    Just one point 2″mortar is still classed as Blocking smoke by Richard ,C not sure if you are aware of that.
    The Japanese light mortars normally have 1 round of blocking smoke.
    Anyway looking forward seeing AAR.
    cheers John

    • I can tell you about the trees, Ed will need to answer the rest. I started with the larger Woodland Scenics Deciduous armatures. The canopies are made from JTT foliage-fiber clusters (dark green) with JTT Martian Green fine turf and Woodland Scenics Green Grass fine turf. I’ll be doing a post about the trees.

  2. Nice work Mrs Ed. I have no idea why I hadn’t found your blog before. Now I have the treat of reading through the whole process in one big blog binge!

    • Hey Richard! Thanks, but…well, it hasn’t been much of a blog up to now. We’ll try to be better. LOL

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