Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => The Conflicts that came in from the Cold => Topic started by: SJWi on September 21, 2020, 11:28:07 AM
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Good morning. Many years ago I bought a mass of Skytrex “Action 200” 1/200 Vietnam vehicles, helos and riverine assets.Thirty years later I have still not found a decent set of rules that caters for “big battles” at say battalion level. Most Vietnam era rules seem to be “large skirmish to company level”.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
Thanks
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There’s always the old Command Decision. In it’s final iteration, Test of Battle it was a fairly elegant game that could handle multi battalion/ brigade level ops. The ToB forum seems to be still active and a number of folk there had made modern variants. Anything by Frank Chadwick/ Greg Novak is always worth a try. We used Comand Decision back in the late ‘80s early ‘90s to do The Falklands War.
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Cold War Commander may work. I have them but have never played them but they have a huge following which suggests something. ;)
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Chaps,
Thanks for the suggestions so far. I’m not familiar with Command Decision and rather put off by the £40 price tag. I have the WW2 version of the “Commander” rules but am no great fan.
My problem with Vietnam is that I guess it isn’t just WW2 or Cold War set in SE Asia. I have lots of old “Vietnam skirmish” rules ( eg Bodycount) which tried to emphasise “hidden movement” and “ambushes”.
I was interested to see if life had moved on since the ‘80s as regards Vietnam specific rules.
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Hello,
I would be interested to know this too because I am looking for rules allowing to replay a three companies battle like Dak To.
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Battlegroup WW2 Rules are working on a Vietnam Supplement.
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Thanks. Yes I have seen a few posts with pictures of test games. They look more platoon level to me but as with the WW2 Battlegroup set maybe they will be able to cater for big games. I will be interested to see how they cope with “hidden” units as the current rules don’t cater for this.
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Vietnam simultaneously is and isn’t like any other post war conflict. On the one hand if you are modelling the counter insurgency aspect, the sweep and clear style ops, then there’s a reasonable prospect that a number of your games would end with little found and minor casualties, often mine related. In that sense, it’s better gamed at a smaller scale. True of most modern insurgencies
That said by the US spent much of its time, particularly between 1966 and 1969 engaged in large scale, aggressive, operations. The North Vietnamese also spent a lot of its human and materiel capital in large scale ops, think Tet, Mini Tet and later the 1972 Spring Offensive. These were large scale, essentially conventional operations, which terrain and restrictions on interdiction aside could have been fought anywhere.
Your principle issue is coming up with victory conditions that reflect the real metrics of the war. In multi unit games, even if it’s just a battalion, the US and its allies will invariably have access to massive supporting fire. If you are using body count as your metric, as the US did for most of its time, then it needs to be weighted so that the loss of US and allied stands is worth far more than NVA/VC stands. Other games, particularly the 1972 can have the holding of physical objectives as the primary benchmark of victory.
One of the reasons, I suggested Command Decision, apart from them being a good set of rules, is that Command Post Quarterly, the associated series of supplements, had a vey good and detailed scenario for the multi-battalion USMC Operation Starlite. That was an early operation against the entire 1st VC Regiment. Tanks, choppers, amphibious landings, terrain difficulties, massive fire support it has the lot.
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"From the Delta to the DMZ"
https://gomidesigns.co.uk/Vietnam?product_id=60 (https://gomidesigns.co.uk/Vietnam?product_id=60) or available as a printed copy if desired.
There is a review of sorts here:
http://www.deepfriedhappymice.com/html/rd_from_delta_to_dmz.html
They are designed specifically to play higher level games and give a very different type of game than the more common bottom up, personal experience type of rules.
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As I'm the author of From the Delta to the DMZ I can tell you they will work perfectly for battalion level games, with plenty of period feel and cliffhangers.
"From the Delta to the DMZ"
https://gomidesigns.co.uk/Vietnam?product_id=60 (https://gomidesigns.co.uk/Vietnam?product_id=60) or available as a printed copy if desired.
There is a review of sorts here:
http://www.deepfriedhappymice.com/html/rd_from_delta_to_dmz.html
They are designed specifically to play higher level games and give a very different type of game than the more common bottom up, personal experience type of rules.
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Thanks. I dropped Gomi a question this morning asking if the PDF comes complete with the cards, chits and QRF as the hard copy seems no longer available.
I also recall hearing rumours of a version 2 which would cover riverine actions. This was one reason I held off buying this edition when I found them a year ago....and then forgot about them!
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Peter Pig has a set for search and sweep missions aimed at about 50 figures per side.
Also has an option for NVA/VC attacking a firebase
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You might want to have a look at Fistful of Tows (FFT3). Handles battalion-sized actions well, including combined arms, helicopters, etc. Worth looking into if you want to anything from WWII through WWIII. :)
Came across this Vietnam FFT3 battle report recently: http://soundofficerscall.blogspot.com/2013/12/lz-mike-vietnam-fft3-battle-report.html
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Thanks. I have the Peter Pig rules but they seem to be more platoon or two level to me. I have tried FFoTs for 1980s Cold War and I didn't particularly like them. Some interesting mechanisms but not terribly readable.
I'm hoping Gomi reply to me as they seem by best option at the moment!
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Some interesting mechanisms but not terribly readable.
No argument there: they really could use an editor to rephrase and rewrite.
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I actually tried to do a re-drafting for my personal use only . Gaming mainly Cold War Europe I rather tongue-in-cheek nick-named them "A Handful of HOTs" after the Franco-German equivalent of TOW. A "Shedful of Swingfires" didn't sound quite as good.
Our little gaming group then opted for the "unofficial" Cold War Battlegroup which we found worked fine in 1/300. We use cm for movement and inches for gunnery ranges. Although overtaken by NORTHAG the benefit of "unofficial" is that it has far more ORBATs and vehicle data. So far NORTHAG is only BAOR and Soviet.
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Wot? You didn’t go with a mitt full of Milans?
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Cut out card files and backs should be included with the original pdf version.
I sold the rights to gomi about 10 years ago, and I believe the game he sells is the original draft and rules still.
Thanks. I dropped Gomi a question this morning asking if the PDF comes complete with the cards, chits and QRF as the hard copy seems no longer available.
I also recall hearing rumours of a version 2 which would cover riverine actions. This was one reason I held off buying this edition when I found them a year ago....and then forgot about them!
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OK thanks. He hasn’t answered my question posed via the website. I’ll decide if I risk my £8 or will it disappear into the ether!
Any chance of a V2?