First forray into FOW Vietnam gaming

I've been sitting on a pile of Flames of War Vietnam miniatures for a while now but finally got around to painting enough to participate in a 1500 point battle. I've always liked the models in the Vietnam Range, the US ones anyway, and was excited to actually play with it.

A gaming friend and I picked a weekend back in January for our game to give us enough time to paint our forces. It gave me enough time to not only finish my force but also build some matching Vietnam terrain.


I took an Armored Cavalry Troop with what I thought was a good mix of troops. Tanks, helos, tracks, infantry and even Air Support.

Cliff's NVA

The mission:

Vietnam gaming includes new missions not used in WW2. We rolled randomly on the day of our game and got Search and Destroy. The goal for the Free World player is to search objectives (5 would be on the table) while the NVA are to extract the objectives before they are found.

We spread elephant grass all over the table, knee high grass was rolled, giving infantry concealment but not vehicles.


One interesting aspect of VIetnam gaming is that the Free World player can often start with the board devoid of any enemy troops. The North Vietnamese are out there but you have no idea.

The US Forces start out making it's way to the objectives.

Though it doesn't go well from the get go. I ambushing minefield paralyzes my Infantry platoon riding in their tracks. This unit is pinned and fails to unpin the entire game.

Ambushing NVA kill myACAVs. With 9 RPG stands in the unit it's just too much firepower.

Uh...found 'em!

It wasn't pretty.

While helos and napalm from the Skyraider do some damage it's not enough.

Cliff also lucks out on Reserves, getting another large infantry platoon into the fray.

With my Infantry pinned I move Sheridans and Patton tanks into Beehive range, but Cliff manages almost all of his saves for his RPG teams and my Sheridans are destroyed by RPG rocket swarms.

My infantry and Calvary platoons both fail their moral, leaving the US cup board empty. At this point I'm just desperate to get on the score board, I have both Heavy Hogs salvo all their rockets but still only manage to kill a handful of teams, not enough to force a moral test.

My Pattons + Company CO did assault an Infantry battalion, but I lose the C/O and only manage to kill a single infantry team before having to break off.

At this point, with no objectives found we call the game. The US is well and truly thrashed.


Thoughts:

Overall the game was fun, despite the horrible beating my forces took. I just couldn't generate enough dice to budge the large NVA Infantry Companies. Those RPGs are deadly as they can punch through M113s and Sheridans with ease.  I fumbled on the deployment of the Infantry and in hindsight I should have had them out from the get go and provided a buffer for my vehicles.  Air and Helicopters were not as effective as I had hoped but still it was great fun.

thanks to my opponent for a great game!