This scenario has roughly 2 understrength Japanese companies with AA and AT weapons defending 3 towns, a village and 4 caves against a battalion of Marines. I used the 10-DF Marines for this scenario. The Japanese also get 4 mines. Playing solo, I opted to put everything on the table an play it out. The Marines need to capture all 3 towns, the village and the 4 cave hexes without losing 7 steps of troops. With my success getting Marines around without too much loss, I figured this one was going to be a walk in the park, but the dice had other ideas. Setting up the Japanese, I wanted to separate the caves as far apart as possible, so placed two on the northern hill and two on the southern one. The time seems pretty good to make it from one end of the board to the other to take these widely separated places, but Japanese troops in jungle hexes as well as holding each town hex and some dug in spots in light jungle gave the Japanese the opportunity to reach out and try to take some steps at a distance, and then try to cut up the Marines in assaults before surviving Marines could take any of the objectives. The Marines come in from the north edge of the board, and since that includes some water hexes, I used that to bring in 2 of the 3 LVT-A4s to flank the northern town, and then used the water again to move those lightly armored tracks to the southern town to bombard that until Marines could manage across country to assault that town. The first town fell quickly enough to the Marines between flame throwers and the offshore DF of the LVTs, and the northern hill fell far more quickly than I thought it would, but then 2 stacks of Marines attacked from the front while another stack moved around and grabbed the unoccupied caves without contest. Feeling pretty lucky, the Satan flame tank moved down the middle of the board until it discovered the hard way that the Japanese AA guns had some bight left in them, and reduced 1 step from the flame tank with a very lucky shot considering terrain and distance. A little more cautious now, the flame tank waited for the foot troops to assault and destroy the jungle hex where the AA gun and an HMG were set up, and the troops managed to do that without loss in about 2 turns, but a Japanese force in the middle town managed to inflict a step loss on the Sherman when it got a bit too close to the 37mm AT gun in that hex. Defender after defender died, trading bodies for time, hoping that those last few defenders behind them could inflict the last step of damage and hold on to at least one objective. But as I entered turn 18, all objectives had fallen, with the LVTs rolling a 2 on the 20 column against the town, and eliminating the two single step infantry units there, and demoralizing the SGT leading them. The only place left was a dug-in force with HMG and AA gun on the hill just above the village, and combat there had become a slow slug fest, inflicting no loss but morale on either side for turn after turn. The Marines had lost a total of 6 steps now, including 2 points for each armor step loss, and the Japanese needed only to inflict one more to turn the game into a draw, but on turn 19, the Marines rolled a 12 and cleared out the nest of heavy weapons, even killing the officer, leaving only the demoralized SGT and LT to wander the fields around them. I gave this game high marks since even solo, it seemed like a possible Japanese draw, or even a win if they could eliminate enough steps and reoccupy one of the cave hexes nearby in that last few turns. Great game.

In this one the Marines must control all the cave hexes, town hexes and avoid as many mines as possible with all their AFVs including a flame-throwing tank platoon. The Japanese just have to avoid this OR eliminate seven or more American steps with tanks counting double and actually have some guns with AT factors to do it.

The Japanese stretched the playing area by setting up their caves spread-out and placing their minefields in strategic areas and filling the towns and villages with combat units as well. The Americans had a good amount engineering units to use but have to push hard to make the time line. The Japanese rolled very high with the AT Fire where the Marines lost one step of Sherman tanks, both steps of the Flame throwing Satan tanks and one of the LVT A4s as well, add to that 3 steps of infantry types for a total loss of 10 steps believe it or not! They did conquer all the cave and town hexes but at a high price, that this scenario was a Draw. This scenario is not a cake walk for either side, good stuff!