Wow, what a scenario! We played this critter last night, and the mutual consensus was that this is one fine scenario. Quick, tight, with tons of action, all in just four and a half turns.
It is a PTO scenario, set on boards 7 and 34, with the river hexes on board 34 considered deep ocean. The Japanese player must prevent the marines from controlling the all non-burning huts by game's end. The victory hexes are a small clump of huts at the board junction by the ocean, together with single huts on each flank, about five hexes from the central group. The Japanese player gets 10 squads, with a few MG's and MTR's. The Marines get 10 558 Raiders, a pair of MMGs, a hero, and a 9-2, 9-1 for leadership. The Japanese player sets up within two hexes of the huts, while the Marines can set up anywhere (just about) that is at least two hexes away from the huts, and they do so concealed. Thus, there is the possibility of a melee existing right from the start of the scenario. With both sides setting up practically on top of each other and the victory building, the action starts almost immediately.
In our game, the American put a platoon with the hero and 9-1 on the far right, set up a kill stack with the MMG's and 9-2 in the center, together with a maneuver platoon, and had the remaining troops split up to look for HIP Japanese units near the victory hexes. The Japanese player set up a platoon in each of the flank victory huts, with a big stack right on the water's edge back behind some jungle with an LOS to the victory hexes. In the end, splitting up the American force doomed them from the start, as a couply of good Japanese shots in the first turn saw the flak platoon collapse, and then be eliminated by a HIP Japanese HS for failure to rout. The center group did OK, as one squad was set up with a Japanese HS which propmtly died in CC. The attack on the left bogged down with a lot of effective Japanese fire, while the Americans could never seem to roll <8 on a fire attack. Fortunately, the 9-2 rallied a gaggle of broken marines, and by the end of turn 2, the center huts had fallen, and the left hut was is danger. The right was unattacked, after the untimely demise of that flank platoon. Turn three saw the left hut fall, but a Japanese counterattck recaptured some huts in the center. The Americans finally showed their mettle in turn four, as the Japanese player managed to inflict eight consecutive NMC's in DFire with 1 and 2 FP shots on the Marines redeploying from the left hut, yet these Marines passed every MC without even a pin. These bad boys then waxed the Japanese troops who had retaken the center with some CC action, but the Japanese player is able to throw enough troops in front of the American that the last victory hut can not be reached without some turn 5 Prep KIA's which are not forthcoming.
After playing this scenario, a few facts became apparent. First, with just two leaders, the American can not afford to split up his force, for if one of those leaders should happen to fall with the other too far away you are in big trouble. Secondly, despite the usual firepower advantage that comes with the Marines, they just don't have enough to do the job. If you don't believe me, here is the math. Figure that if the Japanese player has 4 MMC's at game end, they will win. Then in 4 1/2 turns, i.e. 9 fire opportunities, you need 18 break results, or about 36 MC's, translating to 4 effective fire attacks per turn, with just 10 squads. In our game, the American just did not have that kind of firepower. Oddly enough, what the American needs is some good old fashioned CC. Because the Japanese player need to set up reasonably dispersed, the American can load up on one side and get some high odds (4-1) CC attacks with -1/-2/-3 modifiers for leadership and the hero, smashing the Japanese before that nasty HtH stuff can kick in.
Mike O'Leary