Fanatical Nations

[Green]

In the User Manual it mentions that;

"In certain games, one or more nations may be specified as being Fanatical. Units of Fanatical nations have two exceptions to the Assault rules. First, Fanatical units do not surrender when assaulted and thus do not suffer the additional losses units that could not retreat normally suffer. Second, Fanatical units do not retreat from Bunker and Pillbox hexes and when they lose as a result of being assaulted, remain in the hex with no additional losses"

Does anyone know where it is "specified" that a nation is Fanatical? The text is accompanied by a picture of a Japanese unit so I assume the Japanese in Japan '45 are Fanatical but I am not sure where to look to verify this. Are there any other games where a Nation has been specified as Fanatical?

Also I see in Japan '45 that the Optional Surrender rule is a default optional rule. As I understand it, this means that Broken Japanese that are successfully assaulted will surrender en masse if they cannot retreat. This does not seem very Fanatical. Am I missing something here?

I do not have the experience with this game to know the impact of this or how fanatical the Japanese feel in an overall sense but I am curious as to how others have found this.

[Ricky B]

I believe the game engine hard codes fanatic status, and that Japan is fanatic. The surrender rule is superseded by the fanatic rule and so the Japanese won't surrender.

Rick

[Green]

I believe the game engine hard codes fanatic status, and that Japan is fanatic. The surrender rule is superseded by the fanatic rule and so the Japanese won't surrender.

Rick

Thanks Rick. But does this apply even if they are not in a Pillbox or Bunker? Sorry, I should have made it clear that this is the situation I had in mind. In a game I am playing a Broken Japanese unit was assaulted and either surrendered or somehow suffered over 90 casualties and was eliminated while inflicting a loss of 6 men on the attackers. This seems odd to me.

Actually, having given this some more thought, it is not that odd. Not having played the game before I just was not expecting to see the Japanese melt away like this. I guess I had expectations that even Broken units would put up more resistance.   

Thanks for the clarification.

[Sgt_Rock]

"Also I see in Japan '45 that the Optional Surrender rule is a default optional rule. As I understand it, this means that Broken Japanese that are successfully assaulted will surrender en masse if they cannot retreat. This does not seem very Fanatical. Am I missing something here?"

No, this does NOT happen. As a matter of fact the Japanese die right down to the last man normally. VERY VERY hard to dig out of bunkers too. Its their "ace in the hole" as otherwise the Allies would roll right over them for the most part. Sometimes it seems unrealistic in that if 40 routed Japanese are in the open and are surrounded by six hexes of units each at 500 men well 3000 men should be able to eliminate them in a set of several assaults .... and as you know routed units are hard to kill with fire too.

[Green]

No, this does NOT happen. As a matter of fact the Japanese die right down to the last man normally. VERY VERY hard to dig out of bunkers too. Its their "ace in the hole" as otherwise the Allies would roll right over them for the most part. Sometimes it seems unrealistic in that if 40 routed Japanese are in the open and are surrounded by six hexes of units each at 500 men well 3000 men should be able to eliminate them in a set of several assaults .... and as you know routed units are hard to kill with fire too.

Thanks for that. I can well imagine that the Japanese are very hard to dislodge from Pillboxes/Bunkers due to the Fanatical rules but have not played a scenario yet that has these (strange but true!). My original concern arose when I saw a Broken and Isolated Japanese unit of around 95 men eliminated by a single assault. I incorrectly assumed this meant it had surrendered as a consequence of using the Optional Surrender rule. I understand now that being Fanatical overrides the Optional Surrender rule.

But I am still not sure why the Optional Surrender rule is used as a default. This is rare for PzC titles and since in this case it only applies to the Allies I am not sure what it is meant to represent. I would have expected that the Allied troops would have actually been very reluctant to surrender to the Japanese. Is there a particular reason behind its use here?