Let's start by saying that, if played conservatively by both sides this scenario will come out a draw. The Japanese will be deployed in one or two carefully established bases which will be designed to provide plenty of sightlines and ample fire possibilities to increase the likelihood of exacting casualties from the Americans. The Americans will advance cautiously, keeping their flamethroweres away from Direct Fire until the last moment and then assault into the entrenchments using the flamethrowers to eliminate the first fire and the firepower of the general Marine units to clean up the rest. If anything the scenario leans slightly to the American side.

Unless, of course, the American player decides that once the losses are too high that you might as well engage with your armor. Then you end up losing so many LVT4s that you don't have 20 steps within the bounded area, like me...

Daniel placed his Japanese in one large entrenched camp on the hill in the southeastern corner of the objective area. It was well sited to provide for good fire lanes into the fields, making a direct approach, across the objective area a poor choice. I landed in three spots, one well north of the Japanese camp, one directly to the west and one to the south. The group in the south moved to get onto the less defended are of the hill with the idea that they would be the force to engage the Japanese guns. Once the guns were involved in assaults the armor could move up.

The force in the center was to take the village at the base of the hill and use that as a covered marshalling area for the assault on the entrenchments. The flamethrower hid nearby, mounted in an LVT4 out of sight of any Japanese waiting for the chance to advance and dismount to facilitate the assault on the entrenchments.

The third force was to demonstrate in front of the Japanese base to draw fire.

For the first several turns the plan was working quite well, although annoyingly my Marines in the demonstration force had feet of clay and failed several morale checks from artillery fire. I then made the error that precipitated the fall. I left some of my LVT A4s in range of the AT guns and watched as they turned into a flaming pyre. Having drawn the fire of the AT guns (the SNLF ones) I decided that my losses were too high and to get the show on the road. This was a rash decision as I had already been able to climb the mountain, take the peak and was developing the artillery position (my naval air assets were virtually worthless in the jungle, unfortunately), the flamethrower aided assault was prepared to move forward and would take the entrenchments and the demonstration force had drawn sufficient attention to enable the other two forces to get into position.

To cut to the chase I decided to use the LVT4s for additional firepower. This led to a semicircle of flaming wrecks surrounding the Japanese base. In the end I had 19 undemoralized steps in the objective area and one disrupted reduced Marine step one hex away on the final turn. I had easily taken the two entrenchments and could possibly have taken out the entire Japanese position had I the desire but the late game revolved around recovery and maneuver to acheive the victory condition. Unfortunately for the Americans, but fortunately for the scenario balance statistics, that disrupted, reduced Marine (accompanied by the Colonel, no less) failed a morale check and became demoralized on the last turn, prior to activation, only one hex out of the objective zone.

I moved from cautious to rash to cautious during the play and had I remained cautious and not let those tanks come in range I might even have won the scenario, but I didn't. The one significant oversight I made was in assaulting the SNLF guns I neglected to note the very high DF factor which permitted them to withstand the assault somewhat.

Both Daniel and I felt that our play was such that we will be trying out some different things in solo play. The scenario is more a puzzle, though. As a ftf, shared play scenario I feel it lacks an opportunity for the Japanese player to be active. Mostly they will remain in base and fire along prepared fields of fire. The American has to put together a plan upon a quick perusal of the Japanese position. This is definitely a situation where the hidden unit option should be considered. As I mentioned previously, only my rash decisions and an inability to count to 20 led to the American defeat in this one. With some hidden units I believe the Japanese will have a real opportunity to win the game, or at least cause some fun surprises for the American.

I rated it a "3" due to the high likelihood of a draw, however use of the hidden units may open that up substantially making it difficult or impossible for the American to acheive their victory conditions at all. I will try that out and see if a subsequent play increases the rating.