Kantai Kessen feedback

Joachim · Kantai Kessen feedback

Heh Forumites, and Ericjohn.

We played the scenario twicew on Friday night - swapping sides as you do. I had intended to write up the battles, and even took photos. However, the games were such blow-outs that it was not worth writing up.

The side that declares war as a massive advantage, and in our two games the US and Japanese won, decisively when, they declared war. The 50 point 'cost' is not enough dis-incentive. In our usual after game chats we came to the conclusion that on turn one you must declare war, irrespective of the side you are on if you win initiative.

The war mechanic needs changing to a more random, unkown effect. It should aslo be limited to a single sector starts firing, then all hell breaks out. We were thinking of a random die roll to see if the ships/planes in a sector start shooting.

Thanks for writing up the scenariio - interested to hear if you have any fixes for the declaration advantege.

J.

ericjohn

Thanks for the feedback, sorry it ended up so one-sided

I will admit the two times I played it (solo), the side declaring war did get more VPs, but it was pretty close (one minor victory, one draw) so it appeared to me like it was competitive either way

Certainly if both fleets are heavily intermixed then the person declaring war will win. I anticipated there would be some jockying for position, but that neither side would allow the main fleets to get too close without declaring war (since no one wants the outcome to be determined by the roll of the dice)

My hope in designing it was that if either side declares war on turn 1, it will not be decisive - did you find that to be mistaken?

Barring that, I expected the Japanese to advance a couple of units to either provoke US to attack (without losing too much materiel), or else declare war themselves and get in a couple of extra torpedo strikes -- but that one way or the other war would be declared before the main fleets engage...

Can you provide any more details about how it played out? That would really help improve it.

ericjohn

Before posting the scenario, I had contemplated that the Japanese player might choose to declare war immediately and launch an airstrike on turn 1, but never actually played it that way. So I decided to try that out tonight...

One thing I did notice right off is that the Japanese can get in a free ER-4 attack with Yamato and Kongo as well as the airstrike. I played it out with the scenario as-is, but I think I should change the deployment area to force IJN Battleships back a column or 2

Anyway, Japanese got 8 aerial torpedo attacks on Enterprise and landed one hit. Kongo hit her as well, so she was critical on first turn. Also Yamato got one hit on a Tennessee. All in all probably worth the 50 victory points, but not devastating, and if I fix the battleship deployment less of an issue.

The next turn the US won initiative. The U.S. battleships managed to polish off Kongo and Tone at ER-4. Jintsu and Yukikazes landed a couple of Long Lances on Washington and crippled her (early enough that she was a write-off since she couldn't escape), but they were in turn blown away.

During the rest of the game IJN air attrition was significant. Enterprise lasted for 3-4 turns before sinking. Yamato held back and blazed away at the advancing Tennessees at range 3-4, and did manage to sink one and hit the other 2, but eventually Yamato ran out of space and Tennessees got in some return shots, hitting Yamato a couple of times. A couple of U.S. cruisers charged the Japanese carriers and managed a hit on Shokaku before they were sunk.

In the end 2 damaged Tennesses, 1 Fletcher and 1 SLC managed to escape. Japanese had Akagi, damaged Shokaku and damaged Yamato, plus Zero, Val and Betty.

FWIW, the final result was a U.S. minor victory... but maybe it was good US luck, or maybe I'm missing something fundamental in my playtesting. Looking forward to getting more info Smile