Just finished playing Jungle Rats with Kevin Killeen. For those looking at playing time, of course the defense was set up previously, this took a scant 3 hours.
I had the Japs on defense with Kev attacking with the Brits. With the errata set up and entry, (i.e. the Brits entry all/some turn 1 or later from north edge, and Jap reinforcements entering turn 3 on west edge A5 and south), I felt it was necessary to heavily defend the two northern most VC buildings with the mmgs hip in the center building and 2- squads with lmg concealed in the other. This gave me bore sighted, adjacent hexes, and a bore sighted mtr on most of the northeast entry hexes. The balance of the squads were spread out to cover the open ground entry hexes on the northeast entry area. The pre turn OBA managed to KIA on of these squads, but did little other damage. Kevin did not hold back and entered his entire force in these open ground hexes, but with infantry smoke and armored assault. A lone firelane with one hard hinderance and a mortar behind a roadblock plus one squad in the woods had little effect. The squad was KIA'd on his advance fire. Having to pull back from the forward two buildings, Kev laid a lot of smoke to cross over to the northeast side while assaulting right down the center. I lost another squad and now down to four with the two crews, needed the reinforcements badly. I had no quick entry as his 9-2 with lmgs looked down the road i would have to cross. I used the tank platoon to give me some cover and three acquires on the 9-2 stack. Tight quarter fighting and a couple of beneficial CCs by the defenders, allowed a slow pull back to the J6 (must take) building. At the Brit turn 7, there were Jap squads in the three forward hexes with a concealed wounded leader in the fourth (out of LOS) hex and two of the tanks on either side of the building making the only way to get in the last hex through enemy unit. Kevins adjacent tanks blasted away even getting a critical hit to eventually KIA one squad leaving a path open with at least five squads and 9-2 and 9-1 leaders to CC the remaining two squads. He got a 7-0 with squad into the building adjacent to the concealed wounded leader, so it looked bad but my final fires pinned four of his squads and broke the 9-2 and one other. So Kev was unable to enter CC in the other two hexes. Japanese barely win. Kevin felt he might have done better with the two FTs as opposed to the 9-2. I might have rather taken the three squads and hero option. (more feet on the ground). Kev also regretted not holding back some infantry for turn two entry to take the area I was leaving. The dice rolls were fairly even, although Kevin rolled 4 or 5 snake eyes and I had at least 8 or 9 sniper checks, while I rolled a few more twelves one breaking a mmg and another the INF gun. Kev's twelves came on MC checks. Initially, Kevin felt this scenario was a little unbalanced, but I reminded him that when it comes down to that last turns die rolls, it must be fairly balanced. This is quite scary for the defender and in tourney I would probably rather play Brit. The first turn presumed slaughter, as the Jap can set up right up to the board entry edge, can easily be avoided by only running in 1/2 squads on turn 1 to find the HIPs or any surprises and then capitalize on turn 2 entry. All in all, this should be a must play. We played the first two and enjoyed both. Note to Fort: I still don't understand the Japanese initial set up being east of row D. Maybe you could tell us why A, B, and C are restricted.
