Marianas 1944, scenario #9: The Final Banzai Attack?

It looks pretty simple, the Marines setup on some good defensive terrain, dug-in accept one jungle hex and circle the wagons, with the weaker 37mm and 81mm heavy weapon units in the middle and well protected. The Japanese on the other hand must only eliminate 4 or more American steps to win and could care less about their own loses. The scenario starts in the night time hours, which last about 6 turns.

The Japanese player had one plan, make stacks of three combat units whenever possible and close in and assaults the enemy. Death doesn’t matter! The first 10 turn went into a bloody struggle and the Japanese got lucky on a couple turns in a row and were able to activate first, giving them a chance to assault American units. Late in the game, the Japanese only had eliminated three Marines steps and it looked like no hope of gaining the forth accept the American decided not to risk losing the next assault combat with one of their weaker assault stacks and reinforced it and trigger assault intentionally thinking they had superior numbers but the Japanese rolled a 12 on the dice of all things with a total five DF points counting the leader plus another modifier of one for the Nationality of Japanese giving them their forth eliminated American step and a Japanese victory.

Clearly the Americans won the battle by steps loss comparison but the Japanese won the scenarios, as they don’t care about their own causalities. If the Americans would have gotten so aggressive those last couple of turns, they could have sit back and won but then again, the threat couldn’t be left there.