02:23 am

just got home from working overtime. I had earmarked this time as a painting session but unfortunately am too tired to paint. But have been thinking a lot about Afriboria/Vietnam so wanted to capture my thoughts on that.
Studied in detail two of the Heligoland battle reports. Lots of things about these rules have now become clear to me:

1) The 3 grades of troops (A, B and C class) are NOT connected to the 3 colour codes (red, blue, green) as I had thought. Instead, the purpose of the colour codes are to randomize the activation of units. All good rules have some sort of randomisation mechanic so the player cannot do everything he wants.

2) Despite the grades and variety of troop types, both forces in the scenarios are BALANCED. They are exactly equivalent to each other; same number of cavalry and artillery units, same number of officers and infantry units as the opponents army.

3) the rules will handle up to 30 units per side (although might be a long game) 15 -16 units would be ideal for starting out.

Read also the terrain generation and Deployment articles:

4) There is a scouting phase before the main game play which is not mentioned in the rules. Once this is over and the main game begins it is mainly an advance to contact and battle kind of game over relatively open flat terrain.

OK Then my thoughts:
My Vietnam scenario would be somewhat modified. For one thing the terrain would be on the whole closed (jungle) punctuated by hills. I think I would have to extend the scouting/spotting throughout the game.

The US and Vietnamese forces would in no way be equivalent. I think however if I can get this right then the game would be more interesting, balanced in a quite different way.

Of course, the possibility is there that I am trying to adapt totally unsuitable rules......but what the hell?