This little gem has the Marines coming from the south end of board 81, in pretty good strength and accompanied by a Sherman platoon. The Japanese are in pretty low strength and are split to hold the two hills on the board. The big problem facing the Marine Shermans is the weather, with the Mire rule firmly in place. Since there is only a brief trail leading onto the board, the Sherman has to start rolling for Mire pretty early in his treck, and I made it in about 6 hexes before it struck. Inside that, one hex was mined but turned out to be a dummy and didn't stop them (when playing solo, I don't look at the values, setting them in face down so they are a surprise to both sides of me as I play). Marines succeeded in taking the large 2-level hill by turn 9 with half of the troops led by the Captain while the Major lead the rest on towards the smaller but more distant hill further north. The entire Japanese force was killed with good die rolls for the Marines while the Japanese just managed a few disruptions during the process, slowing but not stopping the Marines. Even the Japanese leaders died in place. I forgot to use the decapitation rule, as the Japanese Captain was holding the 2nd level hill with an Infantry and Mortar and died valiantly with them. In the end, the Marines swarmed the second hill, trading ineffective DF shots but doing very well in assaults. On the very last of the 16 turns, the last stack with an LT, an Infantry and an HMG was destroyed, leaving a single step demoralized HMG, even having eliminated the LT. 2 hills captured, 3 steps lost (the Sherman stopped risking mires and possible loss to AT fire at a distance where he was able to put a few long range and ineffective shots on target. This was a 'down to the wire' sort of game, as that last Japanese stack might have won that exchange and prevented the capture of the second hill, and might have turned things around with a little bit of luck in the last few turns. Great game.

Marianas 1944, scenario #16: Those Small But Deadly Hills

These were deadly Hills and the terrain, soggy ground and minefields were all a major headache for the advancing Marines, that plus no artillery support cause the Americans to take chances as they only had 16 turns to do a lot with only a little. The Japanese covered the main southern hill very well including three minefields. They cover the northern hill with a smaller force but the Marines never had time to make it there. The first major blow happen when the Americans hit a three point minefield adjacent to a stack of enemy units and between the two they destroyed two Marine Infantry steps and one Leader.

In this scenario, I actually had more Marine step loses than Japanese, 5 to 6, which I believe is a first for me but included a tank/M4 step which counted double, lost to a Japanese 47mm AT Gun. Needless to say, the American completed zero victory objectives while the Japanese did most of their for 20 to 5 Japanese victory. This is actually a difficult scenario for the Americans.