Grasshoppers and Elephants

At the end of last year we started playing through a tour of duty at the local ilford wargame club.

I have been having a go at running the campaign as GM and leading the local forces against the US Army.

So far we have run three missions which equates to three months in country.

The next mission will be a night assault on the US fire base that will not move on the date tracker of the campaign but can create other effect for the players.

The first two missions In country were single squad missions patrolling the area looking for weapons caches and other signs of vc in the area.

This game is great at creating a tense atmosphere. Even though the area was a low threat level each movement by the us fire teams had to be carefully considered.

The threat of booby traps and a sniper in the trees was always around.

Do you rush forward ignoring cover or move carefully giving your teams cover but also more time for the enemy to take up defensive positions.

Both of the initial missions went well for tye US with only villagers looking on as they carried out the mission. A trip wire was triggered at an objective but luckily it was a dud.

Near the end of the second mission a loan sniper took some pot shots forcing the same US grunt that had set off the trap last game  into sone cover that had been booby trapped,  again it was a dud.

This dude is now called lucky B.

The lone sniper then evaded into the trees knowing there will always be another time.

The third mission was a little different the threat level increased and the US had two squads with support available.

The VC held off and sneaked into positions arriving from tunnels to hit the US when they were in tye open.

The VC took aim from the trees with a MMG and wounded a grunt In the open then and suppressed his team mates.

A group of rifle armed local force VC moved up behind a wall to take out the rest of the squad only to be shot at by an m79 trying to suppress them but its a lucky shot and manages to take one soldier out and wound two others.

This turned the table in the US forces favour allowing them to move the wounded into cover and move on to the final objective uncovering a local weapons store.

This mission ended up as a hollow victory due to the WIA grunt becoming KIA

A new recrute was added to the platoon but now has to show his worth under fire.

The fire base assault mission up next will show another of this games great strengths in that players can be added at any time by running one squad per player. Think its going to be interesting to see if support options will go where needed most for the mission or if it goes to help a players squad.

Been working on my 20mm us platoon, when I rolled up the platoon in the Nam 68 rules it turns out they were a mechanised platoon.

Luckily I had a few m113’s from grubby tanks that needed painting so the big brush and tye green paint came out bam.

Thought I would splash some paint on the patton tank at the same time.

Finally got around to magnetising the Vietnamise and US forces fitting them safely in a rub.

May look into a box Insert so I can have another layer hopefully big enough to store my NVA in the same box.

Woke up to the post man bringing me presents, to day it was the Nam 68 rules.

Luckily it was my day off so ran about doing all the boring stuff so I could delve into the book in the evening.

After a quick flick through the rules I felt the need to get some toys on the table.

For learning the rules I’m going to use my 20mm brittania miniature collection using the US army vs the VC.

I went with 20 mm as I can use my 2 foot square box frame table halfing all the measurements, as I’m a bit limited on space at home.

I was also missing an opponent/umpire.

This game uses an umpire for the enemy force. I’m rubbish at playing both sides objectively as I find it quite boring and never feel like I have won or lost.

So I decided to work out a solo mechanic that slots into these rules nicely.

In nam 68 you draw moral tokens some of which have buffs to play on the opponants turn.

I was able to bake these into the players actions.

Eg low ammo was changed to if you are firing full auto or suppressing fire and roll a 1 do an ammo check (like in old school necromunda)

To recreate the chance of a return fire token when you fire at en anemy flip a card if its a joker they get to return fire as if they used the return fire token .

Traps are another card the umpire can use against you, so I just flip a card if doing a run action or moving into a building if its a joker a trap is found.

The umpire creates a pool of VC units using a card deck that they can choose the squads they will have on the table discarding the units not needed.

I just created the unit pool then placed the cards upside down keeping them all.

In this scenario the Vc would get 2 units and I created a pool of 4 options.

To make it more interesting the vc were set up on the table using a blank marker that when seen by the us would be revealed as a random card from the unit pool that way I would never know exactly what would be around the corner.

Last but not least to activate the enemy I would shuffle a card deck and flip a card if its black the unit would fall back to closest cover and suppress fire.

If in cover it will do an aimed shot if it can failing that stay where it is.

If the card is red it will move forwards to cover if it can firing suppressive fire if they have a target.

If they have no target they will run towards enemy.

If a joker is pulled a random civilian will become an insurgent if no civilians ignore.

The  markers used as possible contacts move towards enemy on a red number

Move towards objective on a black number

If its a character card of any colour they stay put.

If its a joker the counter is revealed and then act as normal.

The US player can spot a VC token causing the unit to reveal with a new basic spot action using the rules from the aimed shot for identifying target.

The main thing is these solo rules cover most basics if something comes up not covered just go with what’s coolest and will do most harm to you.

Next step was to roll up a mission.

The mission was local sweep.

The US need to in search an objective in a village containing civilians.

The rules of engagement have changed from a free fire zone to strict ROE no civilians can be targeted.

The us have a single squad split into 2 teams.

the point team lead by a corporal with 3 m16 and 1 m79.

And a support team led by a sergeant with 3 m16 and 1 m60.

The point team starts on the table with the rest of the squad arriving on turn 3

The vc created a force pool of

1 x booby trap

1 x 3 man rifle team

1 x 3 man main force vc 1 x sniper

1 x 3 man smg team.

These cards were placed face down and as one vc unit can be placed at the stary in this mission one point of contact marker was set up in the vc starting zone out of sight from the us.

The second point of contact would arrive at the beginning of a vc turn if a red face card is flipped.

Last thing before the scenario starts I had to work out each forces moral.

This is used to see if your force stays and fights or flees.

The vc had a combined moral of 26 to the US moral of 16.

I also think this will be an awesome multiplayer game with each player in charge of a squad.

Got hold of a couple of rubicon m113 kits, these are crazy detailed with crew and full interior included. The kit comes with options to make us or anzac vehicles.

I kind of wanted to use them as support for my Arvn platoon.

from what I can work out from osprey books and the internet the South Vietnamese had a slightly different load out on their vehicles, they still used the 50cal on the turret with a front sheild which eventually became the m113acav with turret surrounds, rather than having m60s covering each side they would have 30cal with or without gunsheilds. I had to scavenge the 30cals from my bolt action bitz box of doom.

The Arvn used the m113 slightly differently than other forces, rather than using them as transports they preferred to use them in a light tank role with a larger crew to man all the weapons, as they found earlier in the conflict that the vehicles could advance quickly putting the enemy on the back foot only for the assault to slow down when the infantry disembarked getting bogged down and loosing momentum. Saying that there are plenty of pictures online of infantry sitting on top having lifts so I am more than happy to use them as infantry support and transports in games.

I also will have to change the heads of the crew using some gringo40s arvn heads I have left over from a previous conversion.

These are some reference images I found on line showing some different load outs on the vehicles.

These models are from East front miniatures and are great quality and full of detail for the size and needed very little if any clean up.

I decided on multibasing as ot makes it quicker to move on the tabletop and can look quite imposing in game.

I have found with smaller miniatures that going for brighter colours than I would use for larger equivalent models makes them show up much better on the table top.

I have been working on and off with an idea fir a solo miniatures/bord game set in vietnam focusing on the indigenous troops with Us special forces advisors.

the game will put you in the position of controlling your unit with a limited amount of orders to complete a primary and secondary objective in the time allocated.

The game needs a marker to show where the player deploys from and recieves reserves from so i thought it would be cool to create a diorama based on the hq unit which is technically who the player of the game would be.

these models are a mix of brittania miniatures special forces and platoon miniatures arvn.

the tree was made out if a broken resin tree and some bits of twig glued and green stuffed on to make twisty roots

Picked up the rubicon Pavn set at salute.

kind of wanted to check out the models for a while.

the plastic kit is great and full of options but the models are quite a bit smaller than some if my other models so do not mix well.you get 30 models in the set with options for heads and rigles as well as support weapons command and radio operator.

Managed to build and paint them in a day and a bit, painted them up fast and sloppy with base colours followed by army painter strong tone then a bit of a high light.

pretty pleased with the results and should look swish on the tabletop.