An Australian militia force needs to defend one village hex against a larger Japanese force. The Australians still have militia-level morale(7/6)and a two-level initiative deficit. The basic tactics are for the Australian forces to set up a line just in front of the village with a small reserve in the village to reinforce assault hexes or act as a last ditch defense. The majority of the Japanese force comes up the trail for a frontal attack on the Australian positions, with a small flanking group of four platoons and two LT's that will attempt to go cross-country until the Japanese player gets tired of bad disorientation rolls. It takes the first six turns (of 14 total), for the Japanese player to get units into position for the initial assaults, and four Japanese infantry steps are lost to opportunity and first fire, in exchange for an awful lot of disrupted Australians. The Australians start recovers, commit their reserves, and surprisingly hold the Japanese in the four assault hexes for the next hour. By turns 12 and 13, the Japanese finally clear 3 out of four assault hexes, but it is too late to get enough troops into the village to win that assault. At the cost of 11 lost Australian steps (Japan loses 5), the village remains disputed at scenario end, giving an Australian victory.

Very close to the historical result - a very badly bent but still unbroken Australian defense just manages to dispute control of the village objective. The scenario itself is a straightforward assault bash. The Japanese player might have tried harder for a flanking movement, or tried to exit units out of the assault hexes and into the village sooner.

Across the four scenario Delusion set, both sides met their minimum objectives of reaching the Kokoda airstrip; three Japanese wins against 1 Australian win. If you assign 15 VP's to the Australian side for this scenario, the Japanese win this scenario set 69-31. I enjoyed the "story arc" of the scenarios and look forward to the next campaign.