Bolt Action in the PNG Jungle

Jim's Australians v. Chris' Japanese
1000 pts, Ambush scenario from Empires in Flames book.
Chris' force was from the Japanese book - mostly veterans.
Jim's force was from the Australians in the pacific pdf - all veterans.  Basically standard Brits except instead of free Barrage Observer & choice of special rules in the Brit book, there is a different set of special rules to chose 1 of.   Australia is Next which made all infantry Tough Fighters was chosen.

The scenario requires a table covered in jungle with a road running roughly lengthwise.  (We don't have any junglely trees, so a bit of imagination is required). There is a roadblock n the table centreline.  The Allies come from the south (far end), they initially place half their units on the road Japs The Allies put half their force bewteen 6" from the roadblock & 12" from their table edge.  The Japs then place half their force no closer than 12" from the road in the south half, or 6" in the north half.  The Allied reserves come on from turn 1, but no more than 2 per turn. The Jap reserves come on normally but from either long table edge. The game length is 12-13 turns.  The Japs get 2VPs per enemy unit destroyed. The Allies get 1 VP per enemy unit destroyed plus 2VPs for a vehicle or 4 VPs for a inf or art unit that gets off the north edge.

Chris chose to mainly make a defensive line rather than go for a first strike ambush. He tried a strike on his right, but it was discovered that Tough Fighters trumped Fanatic in HTH.

The Ozzies advanced methodically down the centre.  The Jap tank moved up to the roadblock to dominate the road, but a flurry of sixes from the Oz mortar knocked it out. It was all downhill for Nippon after that.

The Ozzie attack in the centre swept away the Japs on the ridge with an irresistable combination of hot dice and tough fighters.  At the end of turn 7 Chris conceded.  More than half his army had been destroyed and the path north was open.

The large number of turns is clearly necessary to allow the Allies any chance of getting to the other end.  The 12-13 turns looked a bit much at first, but in practice we found the game ripped through the turns as the jungle made most combats HTH.  We did 7 turns in about 1 1/4 hours.  We made visibility in the jungle 6" as the standard woods rule is clearly nonsense in PNG.  (Trust me I've been there).