Played a fast game from Guadalcanal last night, pitting 2 companies of Marines against weak mix of SNLF (a little more than a company), service troops (a bit less than a company) and a few guns. The Japanese were tasked with defending Matanikau village from the marines advancing from the east. They could win by retaining control of the village and by inflicting more than 2 step losses.

I set up the SNLF on some hills just south of the village, with the service troops arrayed around the village. The marines set up in two forces of a company each, one on the coast and one about 1 km inland.

The inland force kicked off first, advancing on the SNLF-held hills. One leader got into an observation post and began calling down artillery on a Japanese gun. The Japanese, hoping to draw the marines into bloody close combat in the jungle, moved to meet their advance. The two forces tentatively met in the dense jungle and exchanged fire, resulting in some Japanese disruptions.

The coastal marine force, seeing an opportunity to occupy the hills and isolate the SNLF from the town, hoofed it across the elephant grass plain with a platoon of HMGs and a platoon of infantry, positioning themselves on the flank of the SNLF. They left behind two platoons to cover the service troops in the village.

The situation on the southern hills developed rapidly, with the Japanese taking heavy fire and OBA and falling back into the jungle. Part of the marine force circled to the south while a platoon pushed west to try to bottle up the Japanese in the valley. Taking heavy losses, the Japanese gradually fell back to the southwest, effectively cut off from the village and in big trouble. One marine step had been lost for about 10 Japanese steps.

At this point the service troops in the village decided to move to a position where they could fire on the marine platoons in their sector. The marines spoiled their attack by moving into a palm grove to their front and engaging the service troops, who quickly fell into disarray.

The marines rapidly took advantage of the situation. Leaving their HMGs and a platoon of marines to block the remnants of the SNLF, the remainder of the marines in the south hiked to the approaches to the village. Joining the two platoons already engaged their, they prepared for an assault on the village to finish the game. My reasoning was that the remnants of the SNLF would regroup and filter back toward the village, so the defenses there would only get stronger with time. The marines had already taken 1 step loss, and could only afford 1 more. The OBA was gone, so they were on their own. With the village held by a battery of AA and a service platoon, the time was right to strike. Unfortunately, the marine's approach would be through a field of elephant grass, offering no protection from close range fire from the village. The four platoons braved the fire, moving up in two stacks, taking 1 step loss but their morale holding.

A half hour firefight ensued, the marines keeping their heads down but keeping up a steady fire. The fire reached a crescendo, wiping out the village defenders. Within minutes, the marines occupied the village and set up a perimeter a few hundred meters out. At this point the marines had met the victory conditions with 5 hours of game time remaining. I played out a few more turns to see if the Japanese might be able to pick up 1 more step loss to claim a draw, but they failed to do so in the face of withering marine fire. US victory.

I enjoyed this game quite a bit. The increased Fog of War special rule kept the turns short and put a premium on planning. The mixed jungle, hills and elephant grass terrain was a fun playground to pick through. I think a Japanese strategy of concentrating their force in and around the village is an almost certain game-winner, with the time-limited marine OBA and the strict step loss limit making a successful assault of such a defense nearly impossible. Instead I chose to use a more aggressive Japanese defense that ran afoul of the marines using the limited open terrain to advance rapidly on Japanese flanks. There was a surprising amount of maneuver in this game, considering the fairly dense terrain.