In this scenario the Marines are trying to clean up and secure Tulagi, and must eliminate all but two steps of Japanese. The Japanese must eliminate five Marine steps to win.

The Marines set up well led double stacks across the line established over night, and anchor it with a secondary line backing them up as much as possible. There is one platoon of raiders on the far eastern end of the island. The Japanese set up most of their SNLF troops in the caves adjacent to the Marine line, with the HMGs in the middle and a pair of infantry to the north. The remaining two and a half platoons are hidden and positioned to attack the raiders at the eastern end. The service troops are in the caves on the southern end of the line.

This time I play more conservatively with the Japanese, figuring the Marines have to dig them out. The Marines start by trying to end run the north-east tip to get back to their lines, and the Japanese successfully pursue them while remaining hidden. They cut them off, and the raiders have no idea they have ended adjacent to two platoons of SNLF. The following assault wipes the raiders out, one turn from rejoining their lines to the west.

And so starts another scenario based on who rolls lucky. The answer: the Japanese have far greater luck, and are able to roll snake eyes twice to take out two more Marine steps by turn six. One more step and this is over. The Japanese have only lost one step so far, and even the service troops are holding strong. The Marines maneuver around the Japanese flank to set up heavy firepower by combining direct fire against the caves. A strange twist of fate, however, and the eastern SNLF troops rush the new positions. There are two triple stacks against the northern most cave to its east ready to combine fire. The cave contains a full platoon in good order and a disrupted half platoon. To the east of the adjacent in the open Marine stacks is two good order platoons. But a mortar barrage disrupts the Lt Cmdr leading the two platoons, so he can’t bring his combat modifier into an assault.

The platoon in the caves runs into the assault. It goes nowhere, but the Marines are pinned. The other stack unloads against the two platoons, and that fire fails to achieve effect (as normal for the Marines today). In a twist of fate, the Japanese win initiative on turn seven, the two other platoons enter the assault, and the Japanese score step five against the Marines. Game over.

Showing more moxie than judgement, I choose to play out the scenario to see if the Marines can take out the Japanese and pull the draw. We go into the long game of massive Marine firepower barely scraping at the Japanese, while the Japanese seem to be more effective with less firepower. In a seemingly never ending die roll fest with little strategy, the Marines slowly take down the service troops and SNLF infantry, and eventually one HMG platoon. The Japanese inflict two more steps to the Marines in the process. The Marines get snake eyes once the entire scenario, despite at least four shots per turn, while the Japanese manage three with so much less opportunity.

Finally, the Japanese are down to an unled HMG platoon in the caves, and a one step infantry with an ensign on the height of the eastern hill. The HMG survives all efforts against it. The single step platoon hold on until turn 32, the last turn of the game. The Marine assault does not kill it, but does cause the step to demoralize. The resulting recovery attempt causes it to flee, and the Marines gun it down, capturing the ensign. The Marines just barely manage to achieve their victory condition at the last second.

Once again, a game mostly of who rolls lucky in a fairly static situation versus maneuver strategy. Another Tulagi scenario earning a 2. This one actually was pretty reasonably balanced, but it would have been rough to play two player. It was a slug match with the die controlling the event. If you like that kind of scenario, this would be a very decent one to play, but it just isn’t quite my preference. You could call this a strong two, but just didn’t tilt to a three.