This was a very tense battle for the marines as they not only had to battle the Japanese but also the weather. The battle began with one brief thunderstorm but it ended after a half hour and really didn't affect play at all. The marines advanced towards the village while the defenders managed to get most of their units dug-in. Most of the hidden Japanese units are discovered before they pose any serious problems. Small arms fire is exchanged and both sides begin to take losses but the Japanese are mostly only losing their service personnel which were only deemed expendable speedbumps in the first place. An early American assault gains some ground but soon Japanese opportunity fire from AA guns wipes out a whole platoon of marine HMG units on the advance and are down 3 steps. A crucial decision has to be made; if the Americans continue to move to take the village then they cannot lose any more steps OR, if they conduct a fighting withdrawl and attempt to evacuate they can afford one more step loss as they have already inflicted over 7 Japanese step losses -those are the only options available to secure a victory. The marines decide they will call for the boats and slip away back into the jungle and attempt to get all their forces onto the beaches in time to move them out. Right before the boats arrive at 11:45/turn 18, another thunderstorm begins and before all the units can make it to the shore. Meanwhile, the SNLF are on the hunt and manage to spray some direct fire down on a few platoons which fail their morale checks and get stuck behind in the jungle. Next the elite SNLF units assault that hex and push American losses up too high to gain any sort of a victory. Now the marines have to cancel their withdrawl and turn back to try to take the village again in order to get a draw. Meanwhile the thunderstorm rages on and complicates things further, especially with American recovery attempts. In fact the thunderstorm ends up lasting for a total of 2 1/2 hours (10 turns!).

Once the thunderstorm ended at 14:15/turn 28, the marines desperately attempt to get in closer to take the village but they get bogged down with stubborn resistance, even with the few remaining SER units. Some units decide to brave opportunity fire to get adjacent to the village again and Japanese AA guns again manage to wipe out another whole platoon of HMGs in one hail of bullets. Time is running out and seems hopeless but the marines do make one very brave assault at the last moment and succeed in clearing another jungle hex and have the village in their sight. Other marine units moved up on the beach but the village is defended by the best SNLF units and their Naval Commander which fire away leaving the units on the beach in very poor shape and incapable of returning fire or mounting an assault. Then time is up and the SNLF still have the village in their control securing a Japanese victory. This was a very good scenario and believe it is well balanced. If the one thunderstorm hadn't occured when it did and especially of lasted as long as it did then the outcome would of likely been a draw. Once American units failed morale checks they really got stuck with the recovery modifier and there weren't enough American leaders with morale modifiers to make much of a difference by then. I would be very interested in trying this one without using the random events especially in a shared match to see if I could do better as the Americans. But I like random events for solo play and damn if the weather didn't favor the Japs! I could almost imagine Tokyo Rose taunting with her remark about "... the jungle is where we live and you die..." One mistake I made with the Americans was actually evacuating a few units once the boats arrived fully aware that I wouldn't be able to evacuate the whole American force. Those extra platoons may have helped turn the tide in the end if they were still available as things did start to look up for the marines on the last few turns but just a little too late. High marks for this one and it's replay value.