Diversion I, scenario #20, Guadalcanal was an interesting play as my first scenario in the Pacific Theater! When you first look at it, you think the Americans will wipe the Japanese out, with all the artillery and air support but the Japanese do have about twice the forces. The air cover only last the first three turns as darkness starts to set. In fact if you are the Japanese, it is better to mass your force in two of three locations, hidden in the jungle and wait it out until turn 6 when visibility is down to one hex. I couldn't control myself and started attacking or positioning for attack by turn three, which exposed my Japanese forces to attack but at the same time, allowed my lone Japanese artillery battery to get in some shots as well. In fact, I was surprised at the dice rolls. I did paste the Japanese a couple of times with a good combined Marine artillery dose. After that, my rolls were poor, 6,7,8 and so on, while the Japanese with their smaller artillery allotment, managed to roll some 2's & 12's against my Marines in the coconut grove, figure that one out? By turns four and on the assaults combat started. The fire first jungle feature was a nice rule and helped my Marines at first but with the smaller forces, they started to wear down. This scenario actually included some vehicles and there were five units that had AT fire capabilities, which added a little twist of fun in how to move around and position the little bit of armor and AT guns that were there. By turn 8 I had quite a few assaults going on and it was clear to me that my Marine forces were not strong enough to push all the Japanese back across the river, to get my victory conditions met. I could still get a victory by eliminating 10 steps of Japanese or more. This lead to me to be more aggressive with my Marine forces and many left their dug outs to reinforce assaults or start their own. In turn, this caused more casualties among the Marine, helping the Japanese get their victory conditions of 7 or more Marine step losses! Some where between turns 15-18 I stopped play, as the victory conditions were clearly met by both sides and could not be changed. This means it was a draw. By this time, the battle field was scattered, even within the 15xx boundaries. Disrupted, Demoralized units were abound. It was a fun play over all, touching in a lot of different areas. I lost a leader to the event chart, from sniper fire, resulting from a tied activation dice roll. A few of those random events are a nice twist. I almost had a wreck in the only town hex but the tank managed to survive the die roll until latter down the road. This is a scenario I will rank high as a replay for me down the road. Just thought I would share!