Project V: The First Game

May 25, 2012 10:13

Yours truly faking painting. 

Note the beverage of the gods.

Vietnam: Contact! Contact! Last night we finally had the first game using the new Flames of War 3rd edition rules. This was the first outing for the rules as well, and I'm not a FoW veteran by any sense of the word.

There was some furious referencing from the rulebook but we did manage to complete the game in a couple of hours, which was nice. I'm not a huge fan of monster games that go on forever.

We played the Contact! Contact! scenario from the Tropic Lightning rules booklet. Since the booklet was written for the previous edition of the rules, I actually had the refer to the old rules as well (e.g. apparently there's no ambuscade in the rules anymore). I had a Vietnamese Infantry Battalion with two infantry companies and some support elements, Mr. A brought his Armored Cavalry Troop with gunship support.

Vietnam: Contact! Contact! We set up the game and I launched my initial assault -- but I only managed to kill three infantry teams and bail out a couple of ACAVs, which promptly remounted and blew my entire company to high heaven. I was almost ready to retire the shattered company when I managed to lure the foreign devils into assaulting me! Even though the defensive fire was ineffective, the heroic company commander managed to kill another American and actually win the combat (we may have missed a rule there).

I continued by bringing a mortar company on the table, which turned out to be out of range and immediately attracted unwanted attention from one of the American gunships. The crewmen spent most of the rest of the game furiously trying to dig in while being blasted to bits by the gunship. Meanwhile the Americans managed to advance almost unscathed (more on that a bit later).

Vietnam: Contact! Contact! On turn three I brought in my other infantry company and set up behind a patch of jungle behind the Americans. It's actually relatively hard to set up in the same table quarter as the enemy due to the minimum deployment distance.

My heroes crept through the jungle to shoot at the blasted Americans, but something must have been wrong with the RPG's because I only managed to bail them out despite getting clean penetrating hits. RPG AT value is good but the firepower sucks... I only managed to kill one APC in the entire game despite getting maybe ten hits.

The Americans brought in reinforcements but I finally remembered I had actually bought some booby traps! (These boobies are not good for you yankee!) I deployed some cunningly and pretty much halted the progress of the two mechanised infantry platoons. That didn't stop them from shooting up my Valiant Heroes of Communism, though... I retreated the remaining men into the jungle and brought up some recoilless rifles, which attracted the attention of the other American gunship.

Vietnam: Contact! Contact! Unfortunately for the pilot, having an entire infantry company shooting at you is not good for your health. Hah! Finally some success in this game. I also managed to recycle another infantry company into the field and set them up guarding the objective (from slightly too far away, as I learned a little later). After this I basically failed all my reserve rolls and never got to bring my AA platoon to the field.

The American advance was unstoppable, though. They managed to secure the objective and engaged my dug in infantry in a relatively futile firefight. My battalion HQ finally got to the table and fired off a few desperate shots to no effect. The Americans had won this round, but the brave heroes would be back.

Final score: American losses 1 gunship, 1 ACAV, maybe 5 infantry stands. PAVN losses 1 infantry company total wipeout, 1 mortar company, two further infantry companies maybe 30% casualties.

The game was fun and went reasonably smoothly. I need to refresh some sections of the rules, but I think on the whole it worked out fine.

Vietnam: Contact! Contact! I should have been more aggressive with the booby traps and the minefield I never even used. I'll also need to check the attachment rules, because on their own the small mortar and recoilless rifle companies are very very fragile.

I need to get some elephant grass for the terrain, and some buildings and rice paddies would be nice too.

maxxon


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