Grasshoppers and Elephants
Bam đź’Ą 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.
The point team advance up the road through the village as they are weary of booby traps in the Bushes of the beaten track. The objective is insight but they are aware of movement to the north west could it be a farmer going about his business or are the local forces leading them into a trap?
The point team push forward, one member of the squad moves towards a villager advising him to move out of the area then takes cover against the hard walls of the building. The rest of the squad move onwards checking for movement ahead of them as they go. Before they reach the cover of some trees and bushes they start to take fire from 3 VC with rifles, a firefight ensues. The m79 fires with its signature bloop the shot falls short sending up a spray of earth and bits of tree. The m16 equipped troops manage to pin one of the vc giving them time to move up into the trees. The two unpinhed vc get moving one takes cover by a house covering the objective and keeping a civilian close by making the m79 useless the other vc advances to the side of the building hoping to outflank the US soldiers
As the fire fight carrys on the rest of the squad arrive hurrying into positions using the building as cover hoping to be in time to help the pinned down point team
The m60 gunner lays down suppressing fire pinning the enemy one lucky shot almost goes through but just causes a scratch on the lucky VC fighter.
The sergeant and a private push up around the building trying to outflank the now dug in vc, on the other side of the village the corporal and another grunt have pushed into some trees when they see movement (the second enemy contact arrived) using the trees as cover they try to see what the movement is (one of the vc force pool is flipped over its the booby trap) they see rustling in the bushes ahead it turns out to be just some wildlife scared by all the gunfire, unfortunately the corporal was paying to much attention on the movement and not his surroundings the last thing he feels is a trip wire on his leg, he takes the full force of a grenade explosion and becomes the first KIA the grunt behind him takes frag damage but luckily his flack jacket saves him. Unfortunately the shock of the death and explosion pushes the force moral almost to breaking. They have to suppress the enemy and get to the objective 
His ears still ringing from the grenade the grunt starts taking suppressing fire which gets through with a lucky shot taking him out of action with a serious wound. The sergeant knows he has to do something or risk losing the battle and the body of his dead comrad so he advances around the corner placing suppressing fire on the vc in the bushes, followed by another member of his squad tossing a frag into the bushes taking out the enemy fighter, pushing them over there moral limit the remaining vc fighter dissapears into the bushes and the village goes quiet, the US advance to the objective weary of traps and search the building finding a very well hidden weapons cache. The squad now have to secure an lz so the dead and wounded can be removed from the village and engineers can be landed too destroy the weapons cache reducing the VCs ability to fight in the local area.
Final thoughts. This is a great set of rules, I'm sure I got a lot wrong in my first playthrough but now I have a game under my belt I'm sure when I read the book now bits will make more sense. The rules can be brutal and punish you for example if you send your men in the open with no covering fire they are in trouble. The pinning mechanic works very well and combined with the moral mechanic can really put pressure on what you do as you need to be careful not to take hits but still need to push on to the objective. I was also pleased with how my solo mechanic worked, the enemy moved sensibly on the table and caused some problems for me early on almost stopping my assault before it began. The booby trap was also nasty leaving me on the brink of routing it really was on a knife edge until the last secondI also think this will be an awesome multiplayer game with each player in charge of a squad.
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