Yes indeed, my question stemmed from 'A Tough Nut to Crack.' I played it yesterday, as the Japanese. I enjoyed it very much, though two good friends (and good ASL players) tried to warn me off, saying it was unwinnable for the Japanese. I was skeptical, but reading Guy Chaney's article in the General convinced me it was worth trying. I set up all my pillboxes and most of my trenches around the building area, using my foxholes and the balance of the trenches for forward positions. I had four squads and some dummies screening the jungle board, and four squads plus a crew at or forward of the midpoint of the building board. The second group included a mortar, an MMG, the 10-1 and one of the 9-1s, with the MMG and the mortar directed by the 10-1 sighting down the road through the kunai almost to the Aussie start line. Look at the board and you'll see what I mean. For HIPsters, I used four crews as the two squad equivalents, two w/20L ATR and two w/DCs, plus an 8-0 with a DC. I put the 8-0 and one 20L in I10, a 20L adjacent to the road on row K or so, a crew w/DC in L1, and another in the bamboo in V4.
My opponent, Mike Puccio (Pooch), set up to drive down the building board, with a small force going down the center and nothing on his right, my left, flank. Pooch opened with a 50mm smoke round on top of my mini-kill stack; he was to get smoke all day, while I (whine) got none. My 20L beside the road missed a point blank butt shot and proceeded to be overrun and overwhelmed by Stuarts and infantry; meanwhile his light force in the center stumbled upon and squished my 'surprise' in I10. On the good side, my sniper recalled one Stuart carelessly left CE. The turn ended with the clanging shut of five other hatches; I was down a DC, two crews, a leader, and my best direct fire AT weapons...yikes.
On my half I bugged out of my forward positions, helped by hindrances and lousy shooting by Pooch, leaving behind a squad to slow things up. I set up another line just my side of mid-board, in kunai/trenches, with clear hexes just in front. At this point Pooch brought the hammer of OBA down, landing an accurate SR right on top of me. As he lined up to take this mini-line, I launched the HIP crew/DC in L1 at a Stuart, surviving several shots before succumbing to a 24 -2 shot while placing the DC...damn! In my half, the OBA came down on my safely entrenched boys, but a CH waxed one hex and the other slowy 'broke' to death. Now it was Turn 3 and he was approaching my fortified positions. Here my luck began to turn...
My HIP crew/DC in V4 bagged a Stuart quite handily, and dusted a HS in AFPh to boot; meanwhile firelanes chewed up his approach. Still, he pressed on, driving Stuarts into my pillbox hexes to suppress my MG fire and jumping on me with infantry. Fortunately for me, he did not win any of the CCs in his player turn, and as the Attacker in ASLRB terms, I was able to declare HtH in my own CC phase to take advantage of the sequential nature of CC and go after his infantry. This paid off, allowing me to win two 1-4 attacks, losing one, and bagging two more Stuarts. The game was pretty even, but I had one PB still HIP. Pooch either forgot, or figured it was someplace else, but he Armored Assaulted through the palm trees attempting to turn my flank where the boards meet, with two 458s, a 9-1 and some SWs...needless to say, he found my other PB the hard way (rat-a-tat-tat) and converted a winning flank for him into a winning flank for me. After another turn, it was clear the Aussies would neither exit sufficient troops nor capture enough PBs/buildings, so Pooch conceded.
The keys to my win were:
Things to keep in mind:
Take it easy, JR
PS. As for balance, I'd call it 55/45 Aussies, just because the Japanese can lose it on the setup alone; after that, it's pretty even