Author	treadasaurusrex (Australia)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	Australia
Participants	Reconquista
Play Date	2024-10-27
Language	English
Scenario	KoCa021

This 7-session play-through was focused on the 3 villages along the Northern Trail Track. I led the attacking Australians against Reconquista leading the Japanese defenders. This was another tedious slog without armor of any kind on either side, It was probably not playtested. We used the FOW, consolidation and excess initiative optional rules.

As others have done, the Australian force came on in two separate columns on other flank of the Emperor's garrisons. Luckily, this one had creek movement, which means that there was much less chance for the usual problem with movement disorientation. The Aussie infantry closed with the Japanese and then fought out multiple adjacent-hex firefights that seemed to go on forever, before the several garrisons were exhausted and damaged enough for successful close assaults to begin.

Luckily for the Australians, the senior Japanese commander was eliminated during the 11th game turn, which made things proceed much easier and faster for my side. Still, there were many casualties to both sides, and not enough reserves for the Japanese to be able to replace steps lost in close assaults and adjacent-hex firefights. By the end of game turn 24, the Aussies had managed to liberate all three vilages, and the Emperor had darn few troops remaining. Surprisingly, there were only 8 FOW-shortened game turns, and the Japanese threw many more combat 7-die rolls that the Australians. They also had the initiative for only 7 of the 24 game turns played.

This one was more drudgery than fun, as with most of the scenarios in the Kokoda Campaign. I give this one a 3, in testament to my opponent's fierce & wily defense. Probably this tedious one is better in SOLO mode, than in SHARED play. Not sure that the Japanese can win this rather one-sided fight without a tremendous amount of lucky initiative and combat die rolling.