The Slaughter at Tawan - A Russo-Japanese batrep

Eight Rejects got together on the hottest day of the year, (groaaaaaaan!!!!) we all crammed in Posties hot shed and nearly died of heat exhaustion.........

The 1st Japanese army under the command of Gen Kuroki has orders to meet up with the 2nd and 4th armies south of Liaoyang a major town in the area and defended by a large (not large enough!) Russian army. To make matters worse the 1st army has been engaged in fighting a retreating Russian army, the main part of the Russian force has reinforced Liaoyang, but a substantial part has dug in to await the arrival of the Japanese 1st army, just outside the village of Tawan,south east of Liaoyang. The Japanese commander must attack the Russian positions as soon as possible and must not waste time.
Meanwhile the Russian commander Lt-Gen Slutshevski (what a great name) of the 10th European Army Corps must hold his position at all costs, if the Japanese 1st army cannot make the rendezvous the two armies will be seriously outnumbered and defeated and the way will be open to relive Port Arthur.

The Russians in our dug in positions on the hills, I was the Russian CO, I was in charge of the European Russians, while Dave and John had the poorer quality Siberians.

The Japanese were commanded by the jeans and two T-shirted Francis, he complained about the heat all day and says he doesn't own any shorts????? Also on the Japanese side were Ian, BigLee and Surj.
I've got to admit to being worried at seeing the 12 Japanese artillery pieces limbered behind the Japanese lines, we only had 5?

The Russian 10th European Corps

Behind the trenches you'll notice the empty artillery emplacement, there were infact artillery 

in each and every one of these, but the were not placed in the table until we fired. 

A few close up's of our enemy. Most were painted by my good self and they featured Curt's painting challenge the year before last.

General Kuroki

This poor Japanese unit was the first unit to take casualties, as they were the only

 visible unit at the start of the battle.

My Ruskies, they were all ducking down so not to be seen by the Japs.

Bloody hell, there's a lot of 'em!!!!

BigLee was being very cheeky, so got the usual punishment.......Posties girlie 

long nails dug in the head....ouch!

The most excellently named General Slutshevski admires the open field in front of him.

The usual contractual Postie pic!

A quick couple of moves and the Japanese are over the hill and advancing very quickly.

Long range artillery fire knocks a few casualties of the advancing Japanese.

The Russian did have two more battalions of infantry behind each of the hills.

A Russian Machine gun, this only got two fires in the game before being annihilated by the Japanese artillery.

The Japanese  have a lot of advantages over their Russian counterparts, for one,their infantry can fire 30' while the Russians can only fire 20'. You can see the obvious advantages straight away, the Japanese could if we were standing up stay at 21' away and shoot the hell out of us and stay safe, or move into our range and have a 3-1 shooting advantage????

BigLee's troops move off the hill, leaving his 3 and Surg's 3 artillery free to fire at us.

Note the 2 empty artillery positions, the one on the right was completely destroyed, the gun and the redoubt. While the one on the left was nearly destroyed by the guns but was finished off by long range infantry fire.

An aerial view of the table.

BigLee was getting hot and bothered, so he took his t-shirt off, which left him in 

his vest, (no wonder he was bloody hot!!!) He then proceeded to wobble his fat belly for the camera!

Oh joy!! The Japanese re-enforcements arrive....The Guard Corps, no less, with more artillery????

Ian decided to move them up the road towards my already dire looking position.

A great looking pic, but doesn't it look dodgy for the Russians?

Nice and pretty blue lines?

The Japanese move into our range at last, so we stand up and give fire, knocking a few 

casualties off the Japanese, not near enough though.

My left take a massive battering from both the artillery and the infantry. Both support units have now moved up into the trenches, the remains of one of the units can be seen at the back of the hill, while the other still remains in the trenches....but for how long????

A little bit of relief for us Russians, the rest of our artillery turn up and as the Japanese reach a certain place, we unleash the mines we had set, that we didn't know we had set???

These caused more casualties than our artillery and infantry had made the whole of the game. Fran and co were not amused....ha bloody ha!

Ian caused two casualties on our newly arrived artillery from the infantry on the road. 

I don't think we hit a bloody thing with them!!!!

Fran's Japanese Cavalry

A view from the trench....gulp!

And the right hand view from the same trench, note Fran Cavalry, waiting to be unleashed.

Things can only get better....here come their Guard?

Crap, where've my troops gone??

We managed to knock a few casualties off the Japanese, but their fire power was just too good. 

So we threw in the towel and retreated before we were totally wiped out. 

Booooooo!

 This was only our second game with Posties new rules, questions were asked and bits will be changed in the rules, I think we need another few games just to completely iron out all the kinks in the rules, but they seem to work very well. It was a little bit of an unbalanced game, but as you know its hard to get the balance right sometimes.