The Aussie strategy for the 2/16 was to hold the village while they waited for the reserves to come up the trail from the south, if they could stop or slow down the Japanese advance, the village seemed the logical choice for the first line of defense.

For the Japanese there was little finesse, they had to come down the trail (heck that is one of the objectives) and when they ran into the enemy blocking force they could try to overpower or tempt fate by moving into the jungle to outflank the forces in front of them. So the Japanese took the third option, both. Just before reaching the Aussie defense line they sent two stacks into the jungle on a flanking maneuver and luck was on their side as the first 5 out of 6 rolls for disorientation were successful!

All the flanking units survived the op fire from the Aussies without a scratch, disruption or demoralization, next came the engineers (recon) down the trail and made contact with the enemy forces in the village, unfortunately they did not fare as well as their comrades while taking a couple of step losses (that is why they were in the vanguard).

The fighting was intense in and around the village, the Aussies were holding their own with 8 turns left to go in the game, then their defense started to unravel. The Japanese player launched 3 Assaults, their units survived first fire and then the Japanese player rolled snake eyes on the first assault, box cars on the second and box cars again on the third.

What was left of the Aussie forces delayed the Japanese as best they could as they retreated back down the trail. The scenario ended with a Japanese Major Victory.

This was the first scenario where a number of Japanese units seemed to be immune to jungle disorientation, this definitely had a hand in their victory, that and rolling Snake Eyes & 2 Box Cars in the same turn did not hurt either.