The I-Boat Raid and CPO Withdrawal adjustments are in play.
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IJN Report: A slightly sub-par round as only 5xBB are sunk at Pearl. Two of those were the big BB's, WV and MD. The 3 surviving BB's all have 3 damage. Darren's Group X is the only one that shows up in HI, so Lexington will be the only USN CV parked in Australia. POC at normal 7.
USN Comments: 3 BBs (all with 3d) and 2 CAs escaped from Pearl, which was nice; POW (also with 3d) limped out of Indo. Only Lexington arrived in Australia for T2, though. All in all, probably a push on T1.
USN Comments: Andy ultimately opted for what struck me as a somewhat unorthodox one-area attack on HI: only 2 CVs and Hosho, supported by 10 CAs and 7 BBs (12 of those ships being patrollers). He ignored his 118s in USM and CS, instead using the rest of his CVs aggressively with his flags in the Marianas (Ryujo *and* an LBA to try and shoot down my LBA there, as Kure SNLF had gone to AI), Marshalls, SPO, CPO and AI. I’d patrolled CS with 2 CAs and the Marshalls with the 3 green CAs, with 2 LBA holding USM; as I saw it I had two options, neither of which was particularly orthodox for me, and both of which completely conceded the Northeast of the board:
1) Send Lexington and the Brit CVs to Indo against his 3 bare LBA, and then try for the Marshalls block (suicide CV to Pearl, 3 CVs and big surface force to the Marshalls to oppose Hiryu, one LBA, Mutsu, Nagato and Fuso); or
2) Send everyone to HI, where Andy would have a 1-ship surface wrap but I’d be favored if I could bring my CV firepower fully to bear.
The latter was too much of a crapshoot, plus I’m a big believer in rolling the dice in Indo on T2 as the US if there’s nothing much better to do (there wasn’t), so I chose the first option. Alas, straightaway Andy got his Night option in HI and pummelled Hornet, plus I whiffed in Indo after Lex had been disabled and the two Brit 027s dinged for 1d apiece. Still, I got Day in the Marshalls and Andy completely whiffed there, so I spared a CV on Mutsu (disabled + 1d) while sinking Hiryu. The I-boat crippled Enterprise to keep it interesting, and latterly his LBA sank Saratoga after disabling, but ultimately Sara just came through to shoot down the LBA, and I managed to sink Fuso and heavily damage Nagato in a Night round in which he whiffed completely. Andy also got Day in the Marianas but whiffed on five shots against 7th AF; I whiffed in return, but at least I’d have all 6 LBA intact for T3, plus Chicago just managed to hold on to control NPO (Furutaka being sunk by four CA shots), so POC was only +13 before the bid. With a bid of 5, a POC conservation strategy looked inviting…
USN Comments: Andy again heavily patrolled HI, leaving only 11 surface ships to raid – 4 x 436 and 7 CAs. I knew I could cover them with my surface fleet, so I patrolled heavily myself: 2 CAs in each of CS and USM, 3 green CAs in SPO, 4 CAs in the Marshalls to threaten conversion of the bases there. Andy’s LBA placement was what I thought it would be: 2 in the Marshalls and 3 in HI, conceding Indo; of course all of mine went to HI, along with 1 Mar and 2 Mar. I didn’t anticipate Andy’s raids at all: he defended Marianas and the SPO single CVLs, and with most of my Brits (somewhat foolishly) in Indo, he went heavily into IO, hoping to raid the repairing Enterprise in Australia with Soryu, and sent a 436 to BoB to try and take down my lone 443, leaving me the chance of a 2-ship surface wrap in HI. Unfortunately for him, the 436 to BoB botched its speed roll – as did Kaga, on its way to HI. This time, I was pretty confident in my response: one CV to SPO to more or less guarantee control (and secure CS on T4), my other CV and a lone CA to CPO (likely to pick up a POC against a lone 118 patrol), and everyone else to HI. Andy pointed out before combat that I could have sent both CVs to HI and given myself a very good chance at saving Pearl, but that seemed to me like an all-or-nothing bet and not one worth taking.
Preference rolls in R1 were screwy across the board. Andy got Night against the flag in IO, which allowed him to sink my British CV + CA at no cost and air raid Enterprise to oblivion as well. On the flip side, I got Night against the flag in SPO and disabled Shoho at no cost to control the area (and secure CS behind a cordon of US flags on T4), and I got Day in the CPO (in which Yorktown put a cool 15 damage on Kumano!).
Most critically, I got Day/Night against the flag in HI. During the Day, Andy sank both Marines and 1 LBA; I went for his CAs to increase my surface overlap but could only sink one and disable one in addition to damaging two others. At Night, Andy chose to fire Shokaku, Zuikaku and Junyo – a situation and decision that inspired an interesting debate on Consimworld – but on 29 dice he got exactly one hit for 1d, although he did disable 6 ships. For my part, I only sank a 436 and a 127, disabling 2 other surface ships (and keeping a 3-ship wrap); of the CVs I targeted I got a disable, a 2d (Zuikaku still lived), and a disable + 2d.
Round 2 in HI was Day: Andy shot down 2 LBA and hit a third for 2d, which looked to have wrapped up the area until my LBA sank Zuikaku, Zuiho and Ryujo and hit Akagi for 2d. Game on!
Round 3 was another Day/Night! Andy shot well in the daytime – Hosho sank Pennsylvania (!), disabled 2 more BBs and shot down my damaged LBA to boot – but I removed two CAs in turn to keep myself an overlap, and at Night I sank Akagi and disabled Hosho while trading a CA for Hyuga.
Round 4 was pure Night! Alas, that didn’t much matter – and now that I had a pure surface advantage of 3 BBs to 2 BBs, Andy went and sank both BBs he targeted while I could only disable my targets, damaging one of them.At this point, apart from an inconsequential US BB, all that remained were LBA: 3 Japanese and 2 US.
Round 5: Andy whiffs on 9 dice; on 4 dice I shoot down one LBA and hit another for 3d. Hmmm…
Round 6: Andy whiffs on 6 dice; on 4 dice I shoot down the damaged LBA. Now it’s 2 v 1 in my favor!
Round 7: Andy gets a hit but only for 1d; I whiff.
Round 8: Whiffs all round.
Round 9: Andy whiffs, and I shoot down his last LBA.
And there it is – the IJN nightmare. Even had Andy won the LBA duel, he still would have been up only 15 POC; instead, he actually lost 3 POC for the turn to be up only 10 POC for the game (5 after the bid!). I half-expected Andy to resign right there, but he decided to hang in there for a bit, and it turned out there was still quite a bit of fight in him…
USN Comments: With 3 CVs and raiding lanes across the entire board, you would have thought the rest of the game would be easy – not entirely. The challenge of not messing up a near-certain win is in many ways more difficult for me than trying to make good moves in an even game, and Andy’s defense was clever. I put my four remaining LBA in HI and patrolled twin CAs in each of CS (to guarantee the area), SPO and the Marshalls, with 2 BBs on patrol in USM. To counter this, Andy dared me to take on:
--5 CVs, an LBA and 8 surface ships in HI
--5 surface ships in JI
--2 LBA in Indo
--Yamato and Shoho in Marianas
--Hosho, 2 x 436 and a 117 in SPO
--3 surface ships in USM
I couldn’t be everywhere, and the real risk was that by spreading myself a bit too thin I could leave myself a number of 60-40 or 70-30 bets – all likely wins, but all possible losses in terms of what I was after (POC, mostly). Indeed, the toughest decision I had to make in HI: I nearly sent Wasp and enough surface ships to make a 5-ship wrap, and on a Night or Day/Night result that probably would have been game over, but if Andy got a few Day actions and my LBA dice went cold, that had the *potential* to be a disaster, especially as I’d be sacrificing a probable 4-5 POC I could have had in other areas: this was a case where an 80-20 or even a 90-10 bet didn’t feel sensible in the context of the game.
So instead, I left my LBA to their fate (I hoped for Night so as to keep them all around for T5, where I sensed another battle for HI would loom), did the same for Hermes and the Brits in Indo, and went strong into the Marianas and SPO, kept Wasp on duty in the USM and sent lone BBs to NPO and CPO to deal with the lone IJN CAs. Andy sent the I-boat to USM when I thought it would likely go to SPO – he needed to knock out my patrols to let his SNLF take and hold Guadalcanal, and to do that he probably needed to remove Lexington straightaway – but after I agreed upon a Day action Hosho sank Lexington, and his surface ships ultimately gave better than they got as he did indeed break control and take Guadalcanal. I sank Shoho in the Marianas (Yorktown taking 1d in return), while I hung on to control the USM after the I-boat missed Wasp, but surface attrition was pretty poor both there and in NPO/CPO (where the CAs fled unmolested during the Day). And in HI, I sank the already-damaged Shokaku, but at the cost of 2 LBA and a third damaged. So Andy gained 2 POC for the turn and felt like he’d done enough to play at least one more turn.
USN Comments: Andy’s tactics on T5 were similar: try to force me into lots of 70-30 bets and then win all of them. This time I patrolled each of the Marshalls, USM and CS in triplicate, hoping to convert bases in the former and pick up POC for the latter two. As expected, Andy went LBA-crazy in HI (5 of them + Soryu) and dared me to take on his sole LBA in Indo. He then raided strongly into my other home areas and put Kaga + 3 BBs in total in the Marshalls; with only 2 CVs I knew I would have to leave something (ultimately Marshalls, USM or CS) uncovered by air or risk lowering my odds in HI by removing at least one LBA from the equation. In the end I went with all 8 LBA in HI, but sent only one Marine when two there would have measurably increased my chances of saving Pearl – this time, my thought process was that the 70-30 bet probably worked in my favor, because losing Pearl wasn’t the end of the world if I took down most of Andy’s LBA in the process, thereby virtually guaranteeing me wins across the board on T6.
In the end, we never finished T5, because the dice were going well enough for me to cause Andy to resign. I’d nearly ended things really quickly when Hermes hit the LBA in Indo for 3d while it was missing my Marine on its way to the Philippines, but Hermes was then crippled in R2. Elsewhere, I managed to remove both of Andy’s patrols in CS (albeit at a sharp cost), was likely on my way to holding USM after Andy failed to remove one of my patrolling BBs in an opening Night action, and had things going my way in HI – his LBA were dropping slowly in an extended battle that I looked likely to win anyway. But the killer blow was in the Marshalls, where after a Day/Night battle reduced us to Nagato vs. 2 CAs, the 2 CAs sank Nagato (2 hits for 10d!) to control the area and convert both bases without the use of the Marine. POC probably would have gone up to only +14 before the bid, with a big Allied swing likely on T6 – game over.
USN Summary: I liked Andy’s T2 move a lot – the one-area attack with heavy CV support around the rest of the perimeter gives the US a chance to play a POC game, but positionally it’s quite daunting, and it set up a game that likely would have been quite close had I not eked out my win against the odds in HI on T3. The only thing I found really odd about Andy’s play was his heavy raid into IO on T3 when those surface ships (to say nothing of Soryu) could have closed the door on me in HI. On the other hand, his T4 and T5 play in what looked to be a hopeless position was quite exemplary – no wonder he had come into our match on a 16-game winning streak in the Top 10 tournament! I feel very fortunate to have won, and wish him all the best for the rest of the event.
IJN Report: I tried one last grand stand on T5 but it fell well short of expectations! After Darren's heroic LBA stand in Pearl on T3, the comeback was not meant to be. My string of 16 straight T10 wins comes to an end...but what a great ride! So, Darren has defeated my IJN as I resign during combat on T5. Darren made all the right moves once he got the edge and never looked back. Very well played on his part and I wish him the best of luck in his future matches! Congratulations Darren!
Darren-Well done, sir! I tip my hat to you. Very well played, indeed!
USN Report: Thanks, Andy – I’m a bit surprised you chose now to resign, but indeed the writing has been on the wall for a while. I can’t claim skill was the big decider this game, of course – my luck on T3 set up the game for me – but I appreciate your sportsmanship and enjoyed facing off against you. Maybe I’ve at least upped my AREA rating a few notches… :)