When I first looked at this one, I almost picked another scenario. The Americans have to fight their way through heavy jungle and then accomplish victory conditions that seem nearly impossible. But, it fit the time and space I had and I decided to give it a try.

It took some time to get the Americans through the jungle. They have a large force and with the jungle rules they could often activate only one stack at a time. Several times Fog-of-War rolls stopped them from activating a good portion of the force.

Once they got through the jungle to the Japanese, they had to make it past Japanese Opportunity Fire to assault them. The Japanese set up in the jungle with clear hexes in front of them for maximum protection and fields of fire.

At the half-way point in the scenario, the Americans had lost three steps of infantry in the approach. When the 8-0-1 Marine Captain rolled 12 on a recovery roll and deserted, I figured one more turn and I'd be writing up an AAR for an unbalanced scenario rated '2.'

By then, though, the Americans were adjacent to the Japanese all along the line. They assaulted and American firepower quickly evened things up. They quickly reduced and then eliminated platoon after platoon of Japanese defenders. In the end, the Americans did not lose another step (although it was pretty close at times), and the game came down almost to the final turn.

One and one-half Japanese platoons held on in a single assault hex for a surprisingly close win.

This one is probably best played solo, since there is not much for the Japanese to do once they set up. It's still pretty tough for the Americans, but with patience and good planning they should be able to make it close, and can certainly win with just a little luck.