dont buy ASUS motherboard for this topology - many of their motherboard do not implement full SW Connection Manager required for full spec USB4 / TB4 required for this topology and they are unable to articulate which motherboard do and do not have the required features and keep saying 20Gbp/s is the max speed of connection on intel NUCS - this is wrong. 13th and 14th Gen NUCs that implement a SW connection manager for USB4 / TB4 will work fine..
aka what i did to get from nothing to done.
note: these are designed to be primarily a re-install guide for myself (writing things down helps me memorize the knowledge), as such don't take any of this on blind faith - some areas are well tested and the docs are very robust, some items, less so). YMMV