No longer sick, and the snowstorm has made a mess of the roads, so good excuse to knock out this quick scenario. This time the Australians are trying to reach the east west trail with a small force, and the Japanese have a small force to try and prevent it. The Japanese have a flanker force on each end of the east west trail, and have a contact force far forward blocking the north south trail with another group two hexes behind as a reaction force. The Australians come in mostly at the trail entrance, but have a force flanking either side of the north trail ready to assist moving down the trail or taking an alternate route through the jungle towards the ends of the east west trail. All three HMGs are stacked together. Victory conditions are one point per enemy step inflicted, one point per undemoralized step occupying the east west trail (Australians), and one point per demoralized Australian step or any condition step not on the trail (Japanese).

The north end of the trail becomes an Australian disaster after the forces make contact and the Japanese win initiative. That stack of Australians will die in place. But the others move down the trail with the Japanese slowly falling back to try and intercept the Aussies before they make trail fall. In some places they do, others they don’t. Where the Japanese can assault they do significant damage to the Aussies, but they hesitate against smaller groups since that just ties down their forces. The stack that attempts to block the HMGs gets turned into mush, as the HMGs just rip apart six Japanese steps. The Japanese decide to stay away from this slow moving force and concentrate on chasing down the Inf units.

In the end the Japanese inflict 11 steps against the 18 Australians steps (the HMGs and one Inf step live). The Australians inflict seven steps on the Japanese (six by the HMGs), but have all surviving seven steps on the trail in good order. Final score Australians 14, Japanese 11, giving the Australians a minor victory.

I didn’t expect a lot from this scenario since the victory conditions seemed tilted towards the Australians. But the quick speed of the scenario combined with combat risk and (albeit slow) maneuver was definitely more fun than I expected. I’m giving this one a 4, but that’s a round-up as I still think the VCs favor the Aussies a little. But like scenario 18, another nice little gem.