All,
It's 29 Sept 1968, four days after the squad got its butt whooped IVO Ap Bac 14. This morning the squad (minus) is on patrol to the northeast of Ap Bac; two days ago battalion sent a company-strength patrol into Ap Bac and found no trace of the enemy. Today the squad is out looking to see where they may have gone...
All of 1st Fireteam is still out, except Pvt Greenwood, who is humping the M-60. All of 2nd Fireteam is present. The squad is following a trail southwest, when the point man signals 'freeze.'
Overview, north is up. US squad is at top left on either side of the trail, VC are at bottom right, diddy-bopping down the trail like it's cool.
The squad, consisting of seven men.
The VC, with two two-man porter teams, an LMG, and a rifleman (just visible under the tree at top right).
Picking up when the US pointman (left)sees the VC pointman (right), who's smoking and joking with the guy behind him.
Pvt Holmes is on point (center, just right of the trail). He sees movement, signals freeze, spots the VC point man (bottom right), signals contact-hasty ambush front, then dives behind the bushes to his left. Sgt Russell moves over next to him, spotting the rest of the VC on the trail. Pvt Greenwood, humping the Pig, moves to his right (behind the palm trees just right of the trail at center left), getting the M-60 into position to fire straight down the trail. The VC pointman doesn't spot anyone and keeps diddy-bopping up the trail. SSgt Bleier calmly and quietly circles around to the left flank (top right), while the VC LMG gunner fails to spot and moves up the trail. Stallworth moves right and goes prone atop the knoll at center left, while the first Porter team can't spot and moves up, followed by the second Porter team. Ham moves left next to SSgt Bleier while Doc White sprints right, behind the Stallworth (far left).
And then the squad unleashes hell on the hapless Viet Cong. Sgt Russell (bottom left) signals Greenwood (bottom right), who cuts loose with a fresh belt straight down the trail into the VC (I switched up the 'hit all' rule just bit due to the uniqueness of firing straight down the enemy's file). Needless to say, the VC pointman was received a light wound, the LMG some stress, the 1st Porter some stress, and the 2nd Porter was seriously wounded. The 2nd Porter team received some stress.
Then the pointman, Holmes (far left), opened up and put the VC pointman down (center right). The VC machine gunner tests morale and... bolts for the hills!
Stallworth (on knoll, bottom center) opens up, puts a serious wound on the 1st Porter (both porters of the 1st Porter team are now seriously wounded).
Sgt Russell (far left) crawls forward to get a better view, pops 1st porter in 2nd Porter team. The only VC left standing (2nd porter from 2nd Porter team) fails his morale test and drops prone.
Doc White (left center) sprints right while SSgt Bleier and Spec4 Ham (right) sprint up the left side, capturing the stunned VC porter (bottom center). Chieu Hoi, Chieu Hoi!!!
Bleier couldn't be more proud of his squad. Holmes did a fantastic job as pointman, noting the contact, passing it on, and recommending the hasty ambush. The rest of the fellas executed the ambush flawlessly on the fly, with Greenwood's use of the Pig really making the action a foregone conclusion. The VC suffered a KIA and three captured, two of which were WIA. The squad suffered Z-E-R-O casualties!
I suppose I cheated just a little bit, but I really wanted retribution ;) Don't worry, I didn't cheat that much, though. I rolled straight up (VC dice vs US dice) to see who would act first, then rolled to spot as normal. US went first and Holmes spotted the VC pointman, got into cover, and went prone. The US kept winning the activation war, so to speak, and getting guys off the trail and into cover. Now, if I was playing straight up, I should have let the VC test to see the US guys at the end of the column still on the trail, but instead I made the VC take a moderately difficult test to spot based on the fact that once Holmes spotted the bad guys and signaled 'hasty ambush front' everyone would have immediately gotten off the trail, as opposed to waiting around to get spotted by VC that rounded the bend. Don't worry, I don't foresee too many more of these types of one-sided fights.
V/R,
Jack
Not normally a scale or period I play but interesting from the solo point of view.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean by 'cheating' - so tempting to give in when fighting solo but the dice can be fickle some days :-)
To tell you the truth, Vietnam hasn't really been my thing either, I'm just a megalomaniac that picks up figures for every conceivable era ;) Those guys have been sitting there for over a year, and if this rule set hadn't have come along, they's still be sitting there.
ReplyDeleteIt's really funny to me how a certain set of rules can be perfect (for me) for a certain period, but not other, similar periods. These rules were 'okay' for my modern Special Operations game, were 'pretty good' for a couple WWII games, and they're awesome for my Vietnam games.
Regarding cheating, I'm not proud, but we did what we had to do to win ;) I played another game later and it came up again; I can proudly say that, through four games, the only cheating I've done is twice I've let 'retiring' US troops grab a wounded guy on their way for the door, and one time I let a US guy spot an enemy troop, even though I used all three activations, needing a 9 but getting a 3, a 3, and an 8... I hope Matt doesn't read this ;)
V/R,
Jack
Enjoying this series of games! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks Barks, glad to hear it.
ReplyDeleteV/R,
Jack