Nam!!

 1st game of the year was a chance to dig out some neglected figures and venture back to Vietnam for the first time in years.  

Last year I'd picked up a copy of the 2nd edition on Peter Pig's 'Men of Company B' rules... I used to play the original rules quite a bit and really enjoyed them.  Like a lot of PP rules they contain some really interesting concepts, but sadly like a lot of PP rules the layout can make it had to make sense of the rulebook!  I've picked v2 up a few times but never got very far into the rules so, when I'd suggested a Vietnam game to my friend Andrew I thought this might be a good spur to get to grips with them

In the event I failed completely to read them and had to dig out v1 since I was reasonably familiar with these rules.  MOCB is a small scale patrol-style game with the US (or ARVN) troops on a mission to drive off NVA troops and seize supplies, both of which gain victory points.   The US player has a choice of missions from 'Hearts and Minds' which gives more points for securing supplies and penalties for civilian casualties, to 'Bodycount' which emphasises wiping out the NCA/VC and is less worried about innocent bystanders!

The US troops activate zones by contacting markers which reveals hostile troops (possibly), civilians, and supplies.  Of course the NVA/VC player has a choice about where to place the markers and how to populate them.  There are options to 'interrogate' the locals and to call in artillery or air strikes.  The NVA/VC player has a chance of redirecting these however!

The M113s trundle happily down the road...

Uh oh....

In our game the VC sprang an early ambush from a paddy field, causing an expensive US casualty and pinning down one of the 2 M113s that were advancing down the road, thanks to a well-aimed RPG.  Sadly this was the high point of the game for the plucky revolutionary heroes.  I made a mistake in my allocation of troops... in hindsight I should have concentrated the bulk of my force in one location to hit the US troops hard... they really can't afford too many casualties.  Instead I'd spread them piecemeal across the table and lacked the killer punch I needed.  This allowed Andrew to deal effectively with each VC cadre he encountered and then to hoover up supplies and Intel.

Marines take cover in the jungle

Interrogating the locals...

I really like this game although I'm not sure Andrew was as convinced.  It has inspired me to properly read the v2 rules and have a think about other Vietnam rules that are out there.

More boardgames: Undaunted Normandy and Lock'n'Load

[apologies...the photos in this post are more rubbish than usual...too much glare!]

Oops.... another couple of weeks without a blog post!  If only work wouldn't keep asking me to do stuff life would be so much easier!

I managed to get in another couple of boardgames over the last 2 week's (boardgames seem to be something I play more than ever at the moment)

First up is Undaunted Normandy from Osprey Games.  I picked up a copy of this a month or 2 ago and hadn't had a chance to give it an outing.  It's a small and quite simple card driven WW2 squad level game set, as the title suggests, in Normandy, and features US and German squads fighting it out in the bocage heavy terrain of Normandy.

Incidentally Osprey have just announce the next game in the series which is set in North Africa and features the LRDG and adds vehicles to mix.

Players hold a deck of cards representing their infantry and scouts as well as squad leaders and a platoon leader.  These don't appear on the board but allow you to reinforce or reactivate your troops .

Each turn players draw 4 cards and play these out.  As well as  allowing you to activate your squads or leaders your hand may also include Fog of War cards.  These don't do anything except take up vital space in your hand and can quickly become very annoying.  Your Scout units are also able to add FoW cards into your opponents hand to slow them down.

The catch is that infantry teams need to be able to get to objectives to take control of them (and win the game) but they can only move onto tiles which have already been scouted by Scout team, and each time you scout a tile an extra fog of ward card gets added representing increasingly difficult command and control as the battlefield expands... clever...

The leader cards let you move cards around between your hand, the discard pile and from your supply cards.  As units take casualties cards get removed from your deck although some of these can be replaced by leaders

It's a nifty little system... one of those games which is simple but makes a good job of representing squad level combat.  There are 10 scenarios in the book...later ones introduce MGs, mortars and snipers.  Scenarios take about an hour or so to play through and can be linked as a campaign.  We played #1 which is a straightforward, even match between 2 patrols.  We quickly found that getting caught in the open is painful and that Scouts are really vital to open up paths across the battlefield.

A really neat little game which I'd highly recommend.

I also played another game of Lock'n'Load which I thought I had played recently but when I looked through blog posts I discovered it was almost 2 years ago (doesn't time fly!).  My original post is here.

The game is a relatively simple ASL style game but without too many confusing optional rules...at least in the starter set: I suspect as you play additional modules it could become more complex.  The starter set which can bought at a real bargain price of around £13 online, includes scenarios for WW2 and for Vietnam.  As we'd had a go at the WW2 version I was keen to try the Vietnam scenario.  The rules appear to be the same for both games: again I suspect it gets much more varied in the full game.

In the scenario a US patrol played by Andrew advanced towards a village defended by a few VC troops.  Of course the Vietnamese had a sneaky ambush ready and the first US troops that advanced into the open where quickly hit with MG and small arms fire and driven back to their entry point.

The US forces then took a much more cautious approach although they were under pressure as the scenario has a time limit.  Very unsportingly they called in a couple of artillery strikes which caused a lot of damage and the VC forces were whittled down piece by piece.  I had a pretty powerful VC sniper lurking in the jungle who proved rubbish at actually hitting anything and was eventually wiped out in a US bayonet charge.  On the last turn of the game the last US objective was stubbornly defended by a VC officer manning the remaining MG but a concerted round of fire wiped him out in a heroic last stand and the US were able to liberate the village...I'm not sure there was a lot left to liberate after the artillery fire though!

It's a really nice little system which plays out easily in an evening and I'm looking forward to trying out some more advanced scenarios with vehicles and support weapons etc.

The horror....the horror....

I think it's almost compulsory for any Vietnam game to be headed by a quote from Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket, so not wanting to buck the trend I've gone with Mr/Colonel Kurtz depending on your preference for Conrad or Coppola.

This week's game at the club was a Vietnam bash organised by Kevin and with his collection of really excellently painted figures.

We used the Too Fat Lardies rules "Charlie Don't Surf".  I'm a big fan of TFL rules as you'll gather from the posts elsewhere on the blog and CDS are no exception.  Having said that I do struggle more with these rules than some of their others.  As with a few TFL rules I find the layout a bit of a challenge...although it seems to be in a sensible order, when it comes to finding the rule I need at any given point, it disappears into the text somewhere.  Given the additional complexity of Vietnam with rules for armour, air and artillery strikes, asymmetric warfare etc there are a lot of rules to hide in!  I have a feeling that in the heart of CDS is a very good set of rules struggling to break free.

I should post some kind of inspiring Vietnam movie clip here but instead you can be inspired by this...

The scenario pitched a Free World aid station coming under attack from NVA while an under-strength company were on their way to relieve it.  The aid station had the advantage of a Platoon of special forces but were likely to face a heavy assault before the relief force could get there.  There were also some incoming civilians who we wanted to get Intel from.

The US forces to the left of the table, where they spent most of
the game under heavy MG fire from the troops hidden in the
jungle at the top edge.

Andy and I took the US troops and set off across the table.  As with most TFL games we started with our troops hidden on blinds while the NVA had their forces either on blinds or completely hidden.  We also had a PBR slowly making its way up the river which ran along the edge of the table.



The village and aid station...the relief force finally made it up
to the edge of the paddy fields after a long slog across the table

Having adopted the cunning plan of moving quickly (but not quickly enough) across the open gaps between the clumps of jungle, Andy's platoons were hit by a hidden NVA Heavy Weapon section which caused horrendous casualties and kept him pinned down for most of the game.  Luckily my troops were screened by Andy's and I was able to hide most of them in the jungle.  My Company Commander did bravely occasionally pop out of the bush he was hiding in to shout something inspiring to the pinned down troops and remove some points of shock, before taking cover again...I'm sure there was a medal in that selfless act of heroism!

The civilians were also approaching the aid station from the other side of the table and as they came within sight of medics they were revealed to be a cadre of local VC!  The aid station was now in serious trouble as the NVA troops had also closed quickly and the relief force was bogged down thanks to the draw of the cards.

I did manage to successfully call in a mortar strike on the NVA which caused some damage and suppressed the unit meaning it couldn't advance but the NVA and VC then drew the 'Human Wave' card which meant they could ignore the suppression and charge.  Luckily the defenders of the aid station were special forces and somehow managed to repel the assault.

On the next turn my helicopters arrived.  Bizarrely, just as they came on table we had a real helicopter flying over the club building...I'm still not sure if this was a special effect that Kevin had laid on specially!

The Huey flew along the line of assaulting NVA causing heavy casualties in true Hollywood style and making it very unlikely they'd be able to repeat the assault on the village.

Daan, daan da da daan daan (go on... name that tune...)

Unfortunately the VC had sneakily achieved one of their aims by nicking rice supplies from the village while the assault was underway...they had been tasked with obtaining supplies as a precursor to Tet.  The NVA also gained victory points from ambushing (very successfully) our squads...Andy's were pretty decimated and never managed to move after getting hit.  On a plus point we hadn't lost the aid station and had caused some heavy casualties to the NVA.  As one of the opposition said it was a typical Vietnam result...everyone lost!!

A great game with some excellent scenery and figures all kindly supplied by Kevin who did a good job of umpiring and trying to find his way through the rules. He had sensibly produced a summary of the key features for us beforehand which was really helpful.

Like I said earlier, I really do want to like CDS but the rules either need some reorganising or streamlining, or both.  For Vietnam I've also used Force on Force and the Peter Pig Men of Company B rules, both of which are also very good (especially the PP rules) but I'm sure there must be others out there.

Goood Morning...erm....Merrow!!!!

One of my purchases at Salute was the latest Force on Force book... Classified.  This one takes a bit of a departure from others in the series which tend to be focused around a particular theatre or campaign (eg. Afghanistan or Somalia etc).  This volume is based on Special Forces operations from the end of WW2 to the present.

Scenarios range from WW2 raiders in the Pacific  to present day Afghanistan.   Very appropriately for this kind of action there is also a 'Hollywood' section with scenarios based on The Guns of Navarone, Predator, Clear and Present Danger and another one I couldn't work out... sadly no sign of Ross Kemp though!!  As I already had a FoF game pre-arranged for Monday night with Andrew this seemed like an ideal chance to try out one of the scenarios.  Andrew had probably been expecting an Afghanistan based game but was confronted with a table strewn with jungle... we were going to 'Nam!

One of the scenarios depicts a 6 man Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol [LRRP] trying to make their way back through enemy lines to a safe point at the other side of the table.  Apart from the road snaking across the table the rest of the terrain was dense jungle so fast movement was going to be an issue.  Opposing the patrol were 3 PAVN squads and a MG section lead by a 2 man command section.

 

The PAVN squads were forced to deploy randomly from a number of 'hot spots' around the table, limiting their ability to concentrate on the patrol.  The LRRP began moving rapidly off down the road, hoping to gain some distance before too many enemy troops appeared.

Run!!!

An enemy squad appeared at point 1 and after an exchange of fire were forced to move their single casualty back to their tunnels for some attention.  The LRRP took advantage of this and legged it off down the road before encountering another PAVN squad.  Andrew sensibly decided to avoid engaging the higher quality US troops and reacted to the fire by retreating back into the jungle, but annoyingly keeping his squad between the LRRP and the safety of the village.

The PAVN MG section emerge from their tunnels

By this point the PAVN forces were beginning to emerge too rapidly for my liking from various tunnels and spider holes all around the table and were closing in.  My plan [...no really... I really did have one!] was to try and knock out at least one of the enemy squads and use the gap to push through to the village.  I guess there is probably an optimum distance at which the US player should run or fight and I obviously missed it!  The PAVN troops closed in, cutting off the route to safety...

I tried pushing through the main blocking squad but they continued to fall back ahead of me before finally making a stand.  The rules allow units to react to enemy activation by firing or moving so I tried taking advantage of this and using the reaction to slip around the unit but Andrew continued to tighten the noose...

Look... there's the village!

By now the lead PAVN unit was beginning to take quite a battering but their morale held up and they refused to retreat.  At this point the US troops took their first casualty.  As you can see the village was in sight and there was still a [very, very slim] chance that I might make it to safety.

Andrew then threw everyone into a last assault on the beleaguered patrol.  The Vietnamese officer went down in a hail of gunfire drawing the US squad into a firefight [surely worth a medal!] and the LRRP were wiped out in a very cinematic last stand

The last stand of the LRRP

As I said I suspect I misjudged the point at which I should have kept on running for the village but we were very, very close!  Before the game I had expected the LRRP to be significantly more highly rated  than the PAVN troops.  Force on Force uses the principle that a die roll of 4+ is a success but troops are differentiated by the type of dice you roll to achieve that.  The US troops were using a d10 and the PAVN forces a d8 which gave a slight edge to the LRRP but not a huge one.  Given how close they got to the village I guess the ratings were actually quite well balanced.

A fun game with a dramatic last stand within sight of safety... Rambo would have been proud!!