Sunday 11 May 2008

Nam

At work tonight and on autopilot so nothing much to do mentally except think more about Afriboria/Vietnam.

Another scenario that appeals to me is the Americans picking a location on the board as an area where the NVA forces MIGHT be. They establish a hilltop firebase or two and fortify the area with troops, hoping to tempt the NVA into a big battle.

This, and the "search and destroy" mission previously mentioned, are examples of the tactics that the Americans did actually use.

Other scenarios: Rescuing a downed Air Force or chopper pilot in enemy territory;

"a walk in the park"- a large American force (at least 2 companies plus tanks and ACAVs) tries to traverse on foot through the jungle from one side of the board to the other-sort of like in the HYW England would send over a sort of medieval BEF to have an amble through France until eventually the French would assemble an army and intercept them somewhere and a battle would ensue (we usually won!) Think that might be interesting to do.

Any comments ideas welcome

4 comments:

Rock Chef said...

These all sound very feasible scenarios. I think the difficulty is thatthe US never seemed to know what they were up against until it was too late - sometimes they just hit air, sometimes a whole bunch of stuff like at Ia Drang or Hamburger Hill. Therefore I think it would be best if things were either controlled by a referee or if the rules generated random opposition for the yanks. If random, I guess it should be possible to play a game without killing anything except a few buffalo or to create enough paranoia that they will napalm a friendly village.

Good luck!

James said...

I think the Afriboria rules ARE usually refereed, I am going to have to find some way to play them solo or just me and the kids.
How are you getting on with the "we were soldiers" book? Got to the second battle yet? If not I won't give anything away.

Rock Chef said...

The first battle is just about over, the Lost Platoon has just been rescued...

A while ago I did an Aliens game where the Aliens were controlled by dice. Worked like this:

A series of markers are scattered around the table. Each turn roll a die for each marker. They move either directly towards the nearest humans, directly away or to left or right relative to the nearest humans. If markers meet up they join and are moved together. Once a marker is spotted dice for what it represents - possibly nothing. This sort of thing could work well for a simple 'Nam game where you never know what you are going to bump in to.

James said...

Thanks John I like that mechanism.

Putting that into the Afriboria rules would not be difficult I think...Definitely a good one for "wierd Vietnam" using Predator aliens hunting both sides...what a good idea!!

Ali must have had the baby by now.