This was a 5-session play-through in face-to-face mode with the fierce & warlike, Tambu, Commanding the invading US Marines. I played the doomed-but-dogged, counter-attacking Japanese. We avoided the fog of war rule, but used the smoke and excess initiative rules.

Sessions 1-5 were all about the Japanese SNLF Task Force attacking the powerful, dug-in Marine positions in the dark. After some fumbling about in the movement-to-contact, I made the mistake of stacking the Japanese attackers with both INF and HMG units. Unfortunately, if one does this, the +1 column shift for AN ALL INFANTRY assault force is lost. Visibility was very poor, so I sent in the supporting HMG with the INF instead of moving them adjacent to the target under attack to create adjacent-hex bases of fire. Sometimes this combination worked if the dice cooperated. Most times, no. Oops!

Throughout this play-through, the high-powered, Marines were in a defensive line to block infiltrating Japanese units. With star shells and in heavy jungle, the Marines benefited from great opportunity fires. This made all the difference to the hard-pressed Marines and ultimately won the game for the American side, as the Japanese assault stacks were methodically collapsed whenever they moved adjacent to the dug-in Marine platoons. Japanese approach marches were no better as the overwhelming US OBA was very stout and accurate. By the end of turn 14, nearly all the Japanese leaders had been eliminated, or were demoralized.

At the end of turn 16, the Japanese had lost 27 steps in their brazenly reckless close assaults, compared to a mere 4 steps of Marines. This was a major US victory as the Japanese failed to penetrate to within 5 hexes of any beach hex, or eliminate the required 8 steps of Marines. I give this historically accurate, but significantly unbalanced scenario a 3, mostly on the strength of how much bloody fun it was to play with a fellow rookie PG player.