Grasshoppers and Elephants

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.

After reading a few books about the mike force platoons and the covert blackjack missions during the war i had the idea of converting a mike force platoon made up of indigenous troops with us special forces advisors.

the platoon will be made using gringo40s arvn with some head swaps and removal of the unit badges.

the us special forces advisors will be from the gringo40s sog range.

the first model i have been working on is a point man for a reconnaissance team made up of a point man two us advisors and three riflemen.

This model is a gringo40s arvn model with a head swap, the head is from warlord games and is german head with the cap filed down to form a baseball cap

5 soldiers armed with m16s they have a mixture of packs and equipment including one dude carrying a law strapped to his pack.

I’m still deciding what to do with the basing for this squad

Just finished painting some of the superb gringo40s US army sculpts.

The models a full of character as always with nice crisp defined details.

This unit is the first part of a rifle squad.

These men will form the point team which will be supported by 6 other dudes one carrying an m60 split off from the weapons platoon and another as his loader the rest will be rifle men.

I’m still trying to decide what to do with the bases I kind of want a red/brown  finish with some foliage, I have read about people using coffee grinds and tea leaves or mixed herbs but think i need to so some experiments.

Ooops got side tracked by my allegiance to the war master and shiny new heresy shenanigans.

Thought I would try out the new vietnam us paint set from AK in the 3g acrylic range.

Generally I use vallejo paints but wanted a different look to my  us army rifle  platoon from the us marines.

Plus the ak paints I have used in the past have been great.

To paint the fire base I used a cheap burnt umber acrylic over everything.

The next step was to mix red into the base colour to make a clay like colour then splashed that everywhere.

Once that was fully dry I gave the whole model a Drybrush of zandri dust.

Then using Martian iron earth I painted blobs around the bases and to create paths down the hill connecting the bunkers.

Finally I gave everything a second Drybrush of zandri dust really focusing on the sand bags followed by a light brush of wraith bone.

The wood areas were then dabbed in with brown speed paint and the barrels were painted with vallejo russian uniform.

Once all that was dry I mixed contrast medium with a terracotta earth weathering powder and I worked that into the bunkers and around the sandbags removing any excess with a damp cotton bud.

Last but not least I drilled some little holes to poke the barbed wire into.

I thought it was about time that I started working on some more scenery.

Thought it would be cool to build the corner of a fire base for my 20mm US infantry platoon to defend.

Using up  some resin bunkers and dug outs I already had from Brittania miniatures, I started working out how I was going to place the separate areas.

The bunkers will hopefully look like they have been dug into a hill side with a protective burm with sandbags on top protecting the fire base.

The hilly part is built onto an 8″ by 8″ Cork mat with two 8″ by 4″ defensive berm sections and one corner section on a 4″ by 4″ tile.

My plan is to use up bits and bobs I have laying around, the hillside is airdry clay covered in kitchen towel and pva glue sprinkled with sand.

The sandbags are milliput and greenstuff and the defensive berms are the tops of some vacume moulded trench lines I had laying about.

To get the levels of the bunkers I balanced them on odds and ends that were the height I wanted then back filled with clay.