I was watching Martin's game against Tuomo and I did think Martin's US had it in the bag after their turn 1 because the Japanese defense let the US come onboard without much first fire. Then of course the poop hit the fan.
Oh, and Martin's big stack on the US left wasn't hurt by the Panjis - they advanced into them, which doesn't cause a MC. Rather, Tuomo un-HIP'd a 447 right next to them at the end of US turn 1 so as to deny them concealment, then Prep Fired in IJA turn 1 at 8+1:
With the dice doing this:
Which had this effect:
And suddenly the game changed. I sure wouldn't have taken that Prep Fire shot, but it sure worked out for my Finnish Brother.
I really thought the IJA needed to capitalize on their chance to hurt the US right from the get-go, so my defense was farther up-front. The whole idea was to take out as many US tanks as possible using the Japanese infantry, keeping the Japanese tanks HIP in the rear as long as possible so as to force the US tanks to keep moving forward on the road (as per SSR). Heck, if the IJA infantry have already killed two Shermans, let that third one get off the board on turn 4, leaving the three Chi-Has to fend off the US infantry.
That meant putting TH Heroes on the road so the US tanks would be forced to run into them; the THHs are great in this situation. But to protect them from being discovered by anything prior to the US tanks rolling over them, you need to use the Panjis along the road (as well as the IJA infantry lining the road, and an initial MMG firelane down the road) to strip the US infantry away from the tanks. And to keep the US from Reconning By Fire and discovering the THHs (which is damnably easy to do), you need all three mortars to fire smoke just ahead of the US tanks. That guy in Y8 at the top of the picture is holding two MTRs because if you have two, surely one would have Smoke, and that's indeed how it came about.
It certainly was fun planning all that deviousness, as the scenario is tailor-made to reward it. I don't imagine it was nearly as fun playing the US in this one as it was being the Japanese.