Back to the Gaming Table, Part 2. (Or, Charlie Owns the Night!)

In my previous Post, I mentioned that we played a big game of Force on Force Vietnam this past Sunday.

Compared to our humble Frostgrave game, this was a proper gaming extravaganza, recycling the jungle terrain from our WWII game of a few weeks ago but adding a separate section of tunnels for the Americans to fight through (if they found the entrance).
The Scenario was cooked up by Andy, Tony and Tom, and featured those three plus John as the Americans versus my endless hordes of Viet-Cong and a small detachment of NVA.
The twist was that the US players had a pool of cards detailing various missions that they had to complete. These were drawn randomly by each player, and upon completing a mission they immediately drew another- thus taking their beleaguered forces from one hot-spot to another, often with no time to resupply or draw on fresh recruits! Force on Force (by Ambush Alley Games) is a neat system that focuses on many of the grim realities of warfare, such as how to deal with the wounded, civillians, or enemy prisoners. Usually, this kind of nitty-gritty would put me off a game, but it is handled in a simple way that kept the pace of the game flowing and indeed kept it firmly in the realm of 'Game' rather than 'Simulation'.

*Looking up the table from the Southern Village, just before we got started.

My own mission was simply to cause trouble for the other players- if my VC 'got perished', I could simply 'recycle' them back on wherever I wished- this also allowed me to stage ambushes, feint attacks and all kinds of havoc! Assisting me in this was a deck of Booby-Trap cards photocopied from the Vietnam sourcebook- letting me throw anything from punji-pits to concealed MG bunkers at the other players.

*Detail of the Shrine, with a possible tunnel entrance in the rocks next-door and a village nestling in the clearing beyond...

As I've stated before, this kind of thing is out of my usual gaming comfort-zone- but nonetheless I had tremendous fun! This was no simple 'achieve the objectives to win' game- this was every Hollywood cliché rolled into one, and I soon realised that I could use my forces to be the 'Director' of a tabletop movie of which Arnie would be proud (though they stopped short of letting me introduce a Predator to the proceedings, the Philistines)!

*The Action kicks off with John's armoured column making it's way down-river in their amphibious vehicles- straight into a VC ambush! From the cliffs, RPG fire erupts and takes out several machines. The survivors pile out of the burning wrecks, and the ensuing firefight would last pretty much all game...

*...Meanwhile, the Northern village burns as the Americans perform a sweep of the area- capturing one of the VC sympathisers trying to escape, they interrogate him for the whereabouts of the tunnel entrance!

Villages were searched for weapon caches and promptly burned, and small teams of Rangers made desperate last stands at the LZ against hordes of VC charging from the surrounding jungle while flights of Hueys swooped in to save the day amongst incoming RPG fire (you could almost hear the strains of The Doors and Creedence blaring from their speakers!). Downed helicopter crew dragged their wounded along perilous jungle trails, fending off wave after wave of attackers and a relentless procession of booby-traps, while grizzled veterans took the fight into the cramped network of tunnels...

*With the tunnels discovered, the Americans begin clearing them of the enemy- this is actually one of a series of WWII trench-systems we used to represent the fighting taking place beneath the table. Eventually, I would play a card that saw a raging fire break out as stray rounds set off an ammo cache- the fight would soon become a running battle back through the corridors in an attempt to escape!

*Back on the surface, the battered but unbowed elite US forces finally clear the Southern Village after some brutal fighting- only to discover a column of NVA are now only minutes away! Linking up with the crew of a crashed helicopter who slogged their way through the jungle to be there, they call in the Hueys to extract them- braving anti-air fire from the forward NVA elements, the survivors finally make it off-table.

Who won? You know, I don't think anybody really knew by the end- and I don't think anybody really cared all that much!

*A concealed VC Machine Gun Bunker appears as if by magic, and opens up on the hapless American patrol!

All I know is- that this is why I play tabletop games...