Vietnam once again

Mark and I had another great game of FOW Vietnam last night. We did 8 turns and my NVA broke just due to a huge amount of Chopper firepower. 

Start as the American armour moves towards the LZ. My infantry ambush slows them down.

Nice M48s with resin sandbags.

Armour on the way to to the LZ.

Ambush is sprung. RPGs on the way.

Lots of RPGs down range and only one burning APC.

Another platoon carries out another ambush and destroy two APCs. One M48 bails out and the platoon fails their morale check. The sole remaining M48 withdraws.

Communist high tide before too many helicopters fly onto the table and hammer my poor peasant soldiers.

The choppers arrive.

I try and seize the LZ but the helicopter firepower is too much.

My platoon before rockets and mini guns stop their advance and break their will to carry on. There was only the platoon commander left at the end. Cracking game and I do like playing the NVA as you can never be sure where they will come onto the board.

Regimental Fire and Fury

Cameron Farrow and I played the battle of Iuka 1862 from the RFF scenario book pg. 54 today and had a fantastic game. I manage to achieve a hard fought victory predominately due to the amount of 10s I could roll on a D10. I had only two Confederate units on the table who were not low on ammo due to 10s being rolled when firing. I tried to do some close ups but the light is a bit too much in some photos. Enjoy

Napoleonic Regimental Fire and Fury

Mark Piper and I have been getting into ACW Regimental Fire and Fury and love it. Both of us have asked the question 'would it work for Napoleonics?' Mark has done the hard yards and come up with some ideas and we are ready to test it out when we have time over the school holidays (we are both teachers). The scale he has used is one base equals 80 men which is the same that Rich uses for his Sikh Wars and Indian Mutiny variant. Mark has set up this nice table ready for our first game.

Mark's Britannia 20mm Vietnam collection

Here are some photos of Mark Piper's extensive 20mm Vietnam collection.

Choppers line up for the assault. Mark is using an off board location to display his artillery support.

Some of my NVA and VC, such a lot of them. These are all great 20mm Britannia miniatures.

FOW Vietnam

I know many people don't like FOW but I have never had a bad game. Like all gaming it depends upon your gaming buddy and I am lucky in having Mark Piper as one of my regular combatants. Mark likes to research his scenarios and does so in detail and applies this research to whatever we are playing. Mark is also a very keen Rapid Fire gamer and has a fantastic site dedicated to that venerable game ( though I don't play it). Thursday night Mark put on a fantastic 20mm FOW game. We both play 20mm as we are old and that is what we started with and it looks so much better.

Table setup.

My NVA and VC force had to delay a US cavalry drive to secure an LZ. It started badly for me when my ambush failed to damage any AFVs and then they proceeded to die in droves.

NVA platoon launch their ambush and suffer the consequences.

Some success when my bobby traps and mines slows down the advance and allows my mortars to brew up a 113.

Mortar platoon:Three mile snipers.

VC platoon deploys near the US landing zone (lucky roll).

Burning 113.

US LZ. The choppers landed but were hit hard by the well deployed VC platoon. 3 choppers down and the US decided that discretion was the better part of valour. 

Great game overall. I know many hate how the lists have such a Tank heavy emphasis but get over this and organise your games with research. The Two Fat Lardy's book on Vietnam (Charlie don't Surf) is a fantastic scenario source.

I love Command Decision for my WWII and Modern gaming but nearly everyone local plays FOW so I got with the program and played the rule system in a way that doesn't make me cringe, no wheel to hub tanks on my table.

Italian Wars

We have finally started our Italian Wars campaign again this year after a couple of years break. I love this period but was never game enough to try and paint the colourful soldiers. Here are some photos of a small sample of what I have done in the last few years. The beautiful Foundry Gendarmes are from the brushwork of Andrew Parr, who does some really nice stuff ( and then sells it, luckily a lot of it to me).