A horde (well, actually three hordes) of Japanese who have been starving in the jungle finally approach the Marine lines south of Henderson field. They have taken losses from the march and are terribly disorganized on the approach. The Marines know the area and can move with some determination. The Japanese on the other hand don't really have the slightest idea where north, south or anything else is (they are subject to disorientation while the Americans are not).

The Japanese have two objectives, to exit the north end of the field and to eliminate six steps of Americans. Both sides have about a billion leaders so it will be the odd unit that doesn't have direction. The Americans just need to stand tall, delay the Japanese and try to keep from dying. Adding to the excitement is the Fog of War rule for Guadalcanal that starts rolling after each player has made two activations, fails on a roll of 15, oh and it's night so it fails on a roll of 14 for this scenario.

So, the Japanese have to attack, they don't know where they are going, they only have a 1/3 chance of going where they want to and they have too many troops to expect to actually get everything done in a turn because they are in the jungle and there is no chain activation. Given the situation we were not surprised to find that halfway through the action there was virtually no chance for the Japanese to get off the board. This was primarily due to a very strong stand by the point company of the Marines on the southern end of the ridge. Any attempts to move around this position got dislocated by the disorientation rules and those that actually got there were blocked by the reserves.

On the east edge of the field, the Japanese were able to eventually assemble sufficient force to have a three platoon group together with a leader with a combat modifier, giving them an assault on the "18" column. The Americans were able to strip away the supporting forces and in the final hour of the scenario the Japanese still needed to take out two more steps. A roll of "6" did that. At some point it probably made more sense for the Americans to try to disengage. I didn't because I thought it would be better to try to cripple the assault group by assembling enough counter force, I guessed wrong.

In the end no Japanese made it off the board, giving the Americans a win while with the 6 step losses the Japanese also won - a draw. I found the tension of each turn to be excruciating for the Japanese player. While to an extent the Japanese player is fighting the system I found it fascinating to feel how difficult it can be to organize an assault in the jungle at night. I give it a "4".