The whole scenario seemed kind of interesting but I feel the Japanese have the advantage with two extra leaders, one extra Infantry and a tank unit and a killer 9/8 morale. The turning point happened early in the game for me, as I had a stack of two Japanese INF, one Reduced Type 95 Tank and two leaders, one with a combat modifier of one, for a total of 12 Direct Fire point, adjacent to, two Australian INF with one leader. The Japanese activated first and rolled snake eyes, a (2) and even with the Jungle modifier, it was a 2X applying a 2 step loss to the Australians right off the bat. The Australian just didn't have enough left to control enough trails and village hexes and played to aggressive after this, trying to play catch up which cost them more steps in assault combats.

In the end, the Australians lost 6 steps of INF and one Leader to the Japanese one step of INF. The Japanese controlled 14 hexes of trail and village to the Australians 5 hexes and one other village hex still contested in assault combat.

A Major Japanese victory!

I still enjoyed playing this one, it was fun to dive back into the jungle!