Nam '68 game

Will and I have been trialling Nam '68 for the last few months.  I finally managed to remember to take some photos.  The terrain is all Will's, as are the American forces, while the VC are mine.

We rolled up a hot scenario, pitting two squads of US infantry, supported by two M60 teams, against a 4 card from 8 drawn on the random VC table.  My first roll got me two booby traps and two options to draw two more cards each (2 aces).  Frustratingly, they yielded 2 tunnel entrances and three snipers with bolt action rifles.  The scenario was search and destroy and the terrain was a major river ( pale grey strip in photo above).  Lots of streams feeding into the river with marsh and a couple of fisherman's huts on stilts.

Note the star shaped search point in the picture below.

Note the round tunnel entrance in the picture below.

The point squad sprinted an M16 trooper up to the first search point, only to have a booby trap detonate with the force of an 81mm mortar shell.  Enough to blow him into the next world!  KIA!

A search by his team mates revealed nothing of significance, so attention turned to the second search point by the fisherman's hut.

A tunnel entrance on the far bank meant the US forces made a series of cautious approaches as their forces built up.

Two squads eventually move out of the dense trees.

VC snipers hope to take advantage of their lack of cover.

Sadly for the VC, the American suppressive fire prevented the snipers from doing other than retreat into denser cover, but an accurate M79 blooper round killed one of the snipers with Will playing a gory death chit.  This took my morale way above the 9 I started with so the 2 remaining snipers bugged out.  With the kill ratio equal, despite the VC breaking, the rules view this as a US defeat.  Very interesting game with less than 30 US troops and 3 VC on the table.  The Americans really did seem to feel oppressed by the unwillingness to move out of cover and once the tunnels were placed, the US player still didn't know what might appear.  We were disappointed with the layout of the rules, but the more games we play the slicker the games become.

Thanks for looking.

Late Roman vs Sassanid Persion

Thursday evening, Si and I played a game of To the Strongest, pitting my Late Romans against his Sassanid Persians.  My Late Romans have a western flavour,  so probably represent one of the western pretenders operating in the east.  Roman right flank command, nearest the camera, consisted of a unit of slingers, Hun mounted bowmen, Sarmatian cataphracts and Frankish warbands, supported by cataphracts and clibinarii under the overall commander.  The centre comprised five units of legionaries supported by two units of lanciarii and three units of bowmen.  The left flank comprised two units of light horse archers and two veteran javelin armed cavalry.  With the three camps, my troops came to 202 points.  The Sassanids had flanks dominated by heavy cavalry and cataphracts, while the centre comprised units of long bowmen and deep spear armed infantry, with an escorted elephant unit.

My Frankish warbands, Victrix early Saxons, with singers to their front.

The far right flank with Hun light horse archers and Sarmatian cataphracts, backed up with the CinC's cataphracts and clibinarii.

The left flank cavalry and light horse with the edge of the legionary units in the centre.

Sadly, the action was too intense to take more photos once we got going.  It was a tight game, but lots of fun.  On the right flank, the Sarmatians and one of the Frank warbands broke, but the bosses cataphracts and clibinarii did for all bar one unit of Sassanid cataphracts, so the Romans were able to change facing and were about to try and roll up the Sassanid centre, while the Huns were about to ransack the nearby Sassanid camp.  The surviving Frankish warband and one of the legionary units were in a tussle with the Sassanid's elephant unit.  In the centre, the Romans lost some archers and lanciarii, but had disrupted lots of the Sassanid spears.  The left flank was still up for grabs, with the Romans losing a light horse unit and the Sassanids a unit of cavalry, but we felt this flank could go either way.  The veteran Roman cavalry were batting way above their weight, thanks to the superior save factor.

Sadly, too many troops to play out on a club night, but it gave a good game and we felt the table looked really good.

So, still lots of Late Romans to work on, probably going to use them as sub-Roman Brits, plus lots of Vikings who will finish up with the early Saxons and Dark Age warriors in a generic army for the period and be pressed into service as early Saxons through to Viking or later Saxon/Anglo-Dane.  Then I'm also building up a Norman/early Crusaders force, ready to appear on the painting table later in the year.

As ever, thanks for looking.