Grasshoppers and Elephants
Bam 💥 nam 68 arrived
Woke up to the post man bringing me presents, to day it was the Nam 68 rules.
Luckily it was my day off so ran about doing all the boring stuff so I could delve into the book in the evening.
After a quick flick through the rules I felt the need to get some toys on the table.
For learning the rules I’m going to use my 20mm brittania miniature collection using the US army vs the VC.
I went with 20 mm as I can use my 2 foot square box frame table halfing all the measurements, as I’m a bit limited on space at home.
I was also missing an opponent/umpire.
This game uses an umpire for the enemy force. I’m rubbish at playing both sides objectively as I find it quite boring and never feel like I have won or lost.
So I decided to work out a solo mechanic that slots into these rules nicely.
In nam 68 you draw moral tokens some of which have buffs to play on the opponants turn.
I was able to bake these into the players actions.
Eg low ammo was changed to if you are firing full auto or suppressing fire and roll a 1 do an ammo check (like in old school necromunda)
To recreate the chance of a return fire token when you fire at en anemy flip a card if its a joker they get to return fire as if they used the return fire token .
Traps are another card the umpire can use against you, so I just flip a card if doing a run action or moving into a building if its a joker a trap is found.
The umpire creates a pool of VC units using a card deck that they can choose the squads they will have on the table discarding the units not needed.
I just created the unit pool then placed the cards upside down keeping them all.
In this scenario the Vc would get 2 units and I created a pool of 4 options.
To make it more interesting the vc were set up on the table using a blank marker that when seen by the us would be revealed as a random card from the unit pool that way I would never know exactly what would be around the corner.
Last but not least to activate the enemy I would shuffle a card deck and flip a card if its black the unit would fall back to closest cover and suppress fire.
If in cover it will do an aimed shot if it can failing that stay where it is.
If the card is red it will move forwards to cover if it can firing suppressive fire if they have a target.
If they have no target they will run towards enemy.
If a joker is pulled a random civilian will become an insurgent if no civilians ignore.
The markers used as possible contacts move towards enemy on a red number
Move towards objective on a black number
If its a character card of any colour they stay put.
If its a joker the counter is revealed and then act as normal.
The US player can spot a VC token causing the unit to reveal with a new basic spot action using the rules from the aimed shot for identifying target.
The main thing is these solo rules cover most basics if something comes up not covered just go with what’s coolest and will do most harm to you.
Next step was to roll up a mission.
The mission was local sweep.
The US need to in search an objective in a village containing civilians.
The rules of engagement have changed from a free fire zone to strict ROE no civilians can be targeted.
The us have a single squad split into 2 teams.
the point team lead by a corporal with 3 m16 and 1 m79.
And a support team led by a sergeant with 3 m16 and 1 m60.
The point team starts on the table with the rest of the squad arriving on turn 3
The vc created a force pool of
1 x booby trap
1 x 3 man rifle team
1 x 3 man main force vc 1 x sniper
1 x 3 man smg team.
These cards were placed face down and as one vc unit can be placed at the stary in this mission one point of contact marker was set up in the vc starting zone out of sight from the us.
The second point of contact would arrive at the beginning of a vc turn if a red face card is flipped.
Last thing before the scenario starts I had to work out each forces moral.
This is used to see if your force stays and fights or flees.
The vc had a combined moral of 26 to the US moral of 16.
I also think this will be an awesome multiplayer game with each player in charge of a squad.
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