Replace or revise the Banzai?

[B. Andersson, Game Master]

1. Forced Labor Camps
POWs and citizens from Japanese captured territories were forced to perform as slave labor under brutal conditions, in order to support its industrial war effort.
If you win a battle against any allied player and at least one allied infantry is destroyed, you may collect 2 IPC’s from the bank.

2. Banzai Attacks
A fearsome rallying cry of the Imperial Japanese Army, “Banzai!” meant, “May you live ten thousand years.”
When you begin an attack with only infantry, all those infantry attack on a 2. This also applies to any amphibious assault in which all your attacking units in the land combat (other than those conducting shore bombardment) consist of only infantry."

3.  Banzai Attacks (revised)
A fearsome rallying cry of the Imperial Japanese Army, “Banzai!” meant, “May you live ten thousand years.”
You may conduct one Banzai “attack” per turn whereby all infantry attacking in a territory attack on a 2 for the duration of combat. You cannot retreat once a Banzai attack has been launched.

[marine36]

forced labor tips it in japans favor too much. the revised banzai is good.

[B. Andersson, Game Master]

I would say that any kind of Banzai charge would be historical incorrect, but Slave Labor would be historical correct. From a military standpoint, a mass suicide or banzai charge is about the most certain form of failure on the post-rifle battlefield. Banzai charges were actually something the Japanese launched as a last resort, something of "all in"! I would say it is a defensive NA and thats why I rolls the banzai and dug-in defenders into one concept of a defensive NA, Fanatic Resistance.

Obviously, the Japanese were not going to win in the Allied manner of outproducing the enemy, so they were going to have to win against the odds. Japanese religion guaranteed that the Japanese were going to win, if they persisted, so the Japanese looked at ways of using willpower against the decadent Westerners. The most obviously futile method was the banzai charge, in which a Japanese unit would charge en masse, yelling fierce battle cries, against the Americans. The usual American response was to shoot at the Japanese with everything they had, and the usual result was that the Americans were frightened for an hour or so and the Japanese were dead!

Most Japanese soldiers were willing to do their utmost and achieve their objective or die trying. Most officers were unable to distinguish between attainable and unattainable objectives, and sentenced their men to die trying the banzai. This kind of banzai charge did mostly end tragic and unsuccessful! Granted, the outcome was really never in question, with the benefit of hindsight.

[PGMatt]

Personally I find Banzai to be one of Japan's best advantages as it is.  It allows them to forgo expensive art and tank buys and just use Inf for ground wars.

My group uses full NAs too BAGM; for Japan we did the following based on LHTR:

Combined the Suicide NAs into one,
Altered the Fanatical Defenders to "Japanese Inf defend on a 3 in the first cycle of combat when defending a yellow territory.  Japanese Inf on islands are not subject to Battleship bombardment.

and are still playing out various "new" NAs.  Our current option up for testing is "Total war!", allowing Japan to build an unlimited number of units on its home territory.

[The Hydra]

Dude...Quit tweaking the rules!! How many damned variations can you come up with? Do you drink a lot of coffee or what? sheesh..

[B. Andersson, Game Master]

Personally I find Banzai to be one of Japan's best advantages as it is.  It allows them to forgo expensive art and tank buys and just use Inf for ground wars.

My group uses full NAs too BAGM; for Japan we did the following based on LHTR:

Combined the Suicide NAs into one,
Altered the Fanatical Defenders to "Japanese Inf defend on a 3 in the first cycle of combat when defending a yellow territory.  Japanese Inf on islands are not subject to Battleship bombardment.

and are still playing out various "new" NAs.  Our current option up for testing is "Total war!", allowing Japan to build an unlimited number of units on its home territory.

I also come up with something of a new Fanatical Resistance (Dug-In Defenders):

Fukkaku Defenses
The Japanese introduced the tactic of endurance engagements intended to inflict maximum casualties. This tacic called Fukkaku included bunkers and pillboxes connected by tunnels.
All your infantry on islands and Japan are immune to shore bombardment and defend during the opening fire of combat.