For a couple of months I've been following Posts to the Vietnam Wargaming Group on Facebook by Mike Demena from the leadlegionaries blog as he play tested and demoed his set of Solo/Co-Op play skirmish rules for Vietnam. So when they dropped a couple of weeks ago I had to pick up a digital copy to check them out.
The aim of the game is simple guide your section/team of characters through a tour of Vietnam carrying out monthly missions. The enemy VC are controlled by a stack of event cards that player must draw from when a character fails an activation. The cards range from harmless time wasters through extra VC appearing on the board to full on assaults against the players characters.What they all do is add friction and flavour to the game.
I rolled up a full squad and it's command section to represent an in country unit ending up with a even mix of Vets, Grunts and FNG's . For my first mission I chose to do the Search the hootches mission As this scenario includes Civilians whose action can affect the game play.
The US fire teams and command enter from the jungle and will need to cross the open fields to the enter the village and carry out a search of the buildings. Villagers are going about their day tending the fields and other work around the village.
The Game begins with a Close to Contact phase. During this phase no enemy forces are deployed on the table and the player characters can move freely. At the end of each turn a D6 is rolled and on a score of six Contact begins and VC forces as defined in the scenario are deployed on the table . Each turn adds a +1 modifier to the roll maxing out the number of turns before contact but this variable can greatly affect how the game progresses as I was to find out.
Using their first moves the US troops swiftly moved to cross the fields reaching the field edges on their first turn. In this scenario we roll for each civilian against a civillian actions table. doing this saw one civillian run off into the Jungle while the others drew back from the advancing US troops except for the last one who ran into the nearest hootch and opened fire on the platton Lt. while the shoots missed it did mean the Close to Contact phase ended immediatly and the US forces start to detect movement in the jungle surrounding the village as VC units moved into position.
Starting the second turn the Vet on the M60 tries to activate to return fire but fails one of his rolls, Players can choose to roll for one or two activations, Drawing the first Event card we pull the "All Hell Breaks Loose" Card and every VC unit with LOS on tjhe US unit opens fire! The US advance come to an abrupt halt as fire pours in and men go down.
By the end of the turn the US squad has numerous men down and wounded but thanks to the drawing of a "colonel on the horn" event card the unit are ordered to withdraw.
While the able members of the squad stay engaged, successfully suppressing some of the VC fire, the rest begin withdrawing to the jungle edge.
With the VC moving in to secure the Village the US troops make it back to their extraction point beaten and bruised but all present.
So an exciting , tense game that went very badly for the US Troops as a series of Bad Luck events and die rolls overwhelmed them. For this alone I've fallen in love with this game over a couple of turns i had quickly picked up the basics of the rules and was playing with just the QRS sheet.
But it's after the action that this game really shines as you campaign with your force.
After action wound checks have seen one Vet trade his light wound for a Ticket back to world , another had wounds serious enough that they are inJapan receiving treatment and will be out of action for a number of months, more are in the local medical facilities and will be unavailable for a month. This means that replacements will be required which I'll roll for before reorganising the section fire teams. It dawned on me as well that a couple of months into the campaign I'll lose my Vet commanders as they complete their tours and will have to promote others into squad leadeship roles and train up a FNG Lt.
The game comes with twelve full scenarios each representing a different part of a typical infantryman's tour but it also includes a nice amount of advice on designing your own scenarios and event cards to customise your play.
Right back to the rosters and figure out how I'm gonna disperse these replacements before the tops send us back out into the boonies
But it's after the action that this game really shines as you campaign with your force.
After action wound checks have seen one Vet trade his light wound for a Ticket back to world , another had wounds serious enough that they are inJapan receiving treatment and will be out of action for a number of months, more are in the local medical facilities and will be unavailable for a month. This means that replacements will be required which I'll roll for before reorganising the section fire teams. It dawned on me as well that a couple of months into the campaign I'll lose my Vet commanders as they complete their tours and will have to promote others into squad leadeship roles and train up a FNG Lt.
The game comes with twelve full scenarios each representing a different part of a typical infantryman's tour but it also includes a nice amount of advice on designing your own scenarios and event cards to customise your play.
Right back to the rosters and figure out how I'm gonna disperse these replacements before the tops send us back out into the boonies
