Hi all,
I just bought the Pacific Theater expansion for M44, and I need clarification about the Yamato Damashi concept :
It says japanese infantry must ignore flags… does it mean that it loses one figure for each flag or just that it doesn’t retreat i.e. the flag has no effect ?
It is not explicit in the rules book !
Thanks 
They ignore the flag as if it were not there.
Sometimes it is advantageous to have the chance to retreat if the enemy is bearing down on you, but the japanese infantry must fight on to the bitter end.
(They do have an advantage in close assault if at full strength, though.)
Thanks, that is what I thought indeed, seems logical.
To me this is a crazy rule - the Japanese lost hundreds through refusing to retreat, yet this rule allows them to carry on as if nothing happened!
Gives them an unfair advantage when in reality they got massacred.
Well, I’ve played three scenarios with my son so far, and the Japs lost every time… so I don’t think it is that much of an advantage. We’ll see with time !
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(edited because I looked up the probabilities)
If an infantry unit is in the open, an attack by two units (total 6 dice) at close range has a 68% chance of killing them off. Unlike other units, Japanese infantry cannot retreat. Statistically there is only a small chance of a flag being rolled;i t is 42% likely to come up once with three dice, 7% to come up twice, and 0% three times. If there are two opposing units, it is likely to come up once (67%), and fairly unlikely to come up more than that. Effectively this means a second follow-up attacking unit has a fairly solid chance of finishing the job at 68%, whereas if there was a flag in the first unit’s attack, there would be one less die on the follow up, so 68% chance of a medal from the two waves of attack would be reduced to 46%. If you’re fighting the Japanese with two waves of close attack in one turn, they must ignore the flag and thus you should be getting a medal.
Also, if they survived and attempted to move away on their turn they would still be only moving one hex with a counter attack or two hexes without a counter attack, so they would still be well in range to be finished off in the subsequent round.
As for their special ability- with an extra die if they are at full strength, they are 94% likely to get one hit, 69% to get two, 31% to get three and 6% likely to get a medal against infantry with one unit at close quarters in one turn. If there are more than one unit at close quarters and at full strength, they could cause huge damage. Statistically, 8 dice is the predicted number of dice required to remove a full infantry unit.
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Thanks for the very interesting probabilities calculations ! 