Lead Legionaries: Vietnam War

Showing posts with label Vietnam War. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Vietnam Battle Using Xenos Rampant!

Joel's and my VC troops flee from superior U.S. firepower after we spring our ambush on them

Our friend Keith got the itch to try Xenos Rampant! for a Vietnam battle. I think he was inspired by two things. One, hearing that our mutual friend Jim W up in Michigan was using XR! for World War II. Another was someone on the Facebook XR! group asked for sample force lists for the Vietnam conflict. Keith created some. After going through that trouble, why of course he's going to want to play a game using them...right??

Keith, in back holding rules, explains to the players how to do Vietnam with space rules

The scenario was during the Battle of Hue, with an American force moving along a road trying to get to Hue to help the Marines there. A North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong force was blocking their way on the road and had set up an ambush to stop them from getting there. Keith had the Americans deploy on one of the short edges of an 8'x4' table, within 6" of the road intersecting that table edge. We deployed mostly on the far side of the table, but with the ability to bring our VC in with the Xenos rule, "Special Insertion." Yes, yes, there were chuckles on Sunday night, too. And even more laughter when I failed three straight "special insertion" rolls -- needing only a 5+ on 2d6! The only limiting factor was we couldn't deploy within 6" of an enemy unit.

Two of my NVA squads line the trees, waiting patiently - or not so patiently - for the Americans

My fellow Vietnamese officer, Joel, got the game started with a bang when he inserted in the American rear...okay, I know that doesn't sound right! However, when he used his next move to charge his brother Allen's command squad in melee. He knocked them down below half strength, but did not destroy the overall commander in chief, which would have been a heavy blow (maybe -- if I remember the rules correctly, it would merely require all the units in his force to take a Courage test).

One of my NVA squads (or platoons? Not sure of Keith's scale) guards the crossroads

Little did we know, the Americans had their own special insertions to do! No, not helicopters, but Special Forces led squads of tribal Montagnard fighters. Two of them showed up near our forces, and we proceeded to shoot at them, since the main U.S. forces were so far away. Our commander, Tom, who was playing his first-ever Vietnam game, had deployed in some elephant grass on a hill. He called in mortar attacks on Mike S's squads that were moving up to assault his hill. They eventually did chase him down off of the hill, which unfortunately for us, meant it took out our mortar support as Tom's survivors couldn't see any targets.

Tom, in an appropriately Vietnamese colored shirt keeps an eye on the three U.S. players

Once my special insertion was finally successful (Aaah...), I brought in my VC heavy weapons squad to attempt to take out Allen's mortars. Of course, once I moved into visibility of them, they blasted the snot out of my guys. That is one thing about XR! rules. Since you either Move or Shoot, you are at the mercy of the dynamic that the person who moves into range or sight surrenders first shot to the enemy. Knowing that, I think scenarios and objectives become all the more important in a rule set that uses this mechanic (and LOTS of them out there do...).

My NVA squad lurks beyond the treeline so as not to be spotted by the Americans in the distance

My only other real success was when one of my NVA squads successfully activate to do defensive fire with their Firefight ability (yes, I know that is a counter to my above problem). I hit Mike W's U.S. squad so hard that he not only failed his Courage check, he rolled below "0" with modifiers, sending that unit routing off the table! By this time, though, all three U.S. commanders had figured out how to use their Fire Support ability and call in the heavy artillery on our units. As historically, we were getting plastered by their big guns.

The U.S. troops, on their beer coaster "sabot bases" (Booo!) advancing up the roadway in mass

Still, we had inflicted enough casualties on them that when 9pm rolled around, the U.S. players admitted it was very unlikely they'd succeed in their objective in getting off-table on our board edge. Personally, I think the table was too big for a "march all the way across" victory condition, but hey! I will take the victory...ha, ha! My troops contributed a little to our success, taking two U.S. units down below half strength and routing another. My command was below half strength, though, and would begin receiving an addition -1 to our Courage tests from that.

It took Mike S two squads and more than one barrage to chase Tom's NVA off the hill

All in all, we felt the rules worked fine for 20th century warfare. Our biggest issue to work out is probably more accurate lines of sight for the terrain of Vietnam. We simply used what the rules said, but I think it was too generous. Keith's Cigar Box mats looked great, and his decades-old 1/72 scale plastic figures were put to good use. We gave him a thumbs up to run Vietnam again.

The square terrain printed on the Cigar Box mat were rice paddies in this game

MINIATURES Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

Miniatures acquired in 2025: 100
Miniatures painted in 2025: 31

TERRAIN Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

Terrain acquired in 2025: 10
Terrain painted in 2025: 14

SCATTER Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

Scatter acquired in 2025: 51
Scatter painted in 2025: 26

Saturday, February 22, 2025

A New Project and Some Other Unpainted Lead I Picked Up

Pics from the company website (Crucible Crush) -- I will not begin painting my figs till March

Say goodbye to the positive Acquired vs. Painted ratio till, say, summer? One period that I've been thinking about doing for years, but never got around to pulling the trigger on, has been the Vietnam War. I finally decided that I'd take the plunge. The games that I want to do will be small scale, though, with each of my players controlling a squad or fire team. So, 28mm is the obvious choice here. My hope is to do it as a cooperative game, with all of my players controlling the U.S. side and the game mechanics dictating the actions of the Vietnamese.

I looked at a number of manufacturers and narrowed it down to several. One was Gringo 40s (but in 28mm, despite the name). They have lots of cool figures, but all are Marines, not Army. Not that the difference is a non-starter at that scale, but it is a consideration if I go ahead with my plan to do U.S. Army platoon in Vietnam. Gringo40s are also located in Britain, which likely meant a considerable shipping charge. Another possibility was Empress Miniatures. Once again, all Marines, but with a U.S. distributor, Age of Glory. My third choice, and the one I eventually went with, was the Black Sun range from Crucible Crush -- an arm of Bob Murch's Pulp Figures. Technically, these are for their "Weird War" Vietnam, with all kinds of inter-dimensional Cthulu-like horrors. However, their standard rank and file figures are solidly historical, and they included U.S. Army troops.

Picture from Crucible Crush website of their 28mm Vietcong figures

Crucible Crush is located in Canada, so I reached out to them prior to the Trump tariffs and asked if they'd raise their price if those were put into place. The gist of the answer was it would be very likely. My friend Jim W in Michigan owns figs from the Black Sun range and liked them, so that tipped the scale. What's more, with the tariffs only weeks away at that time (enacted now), I quickly reached out and ordered what I wanted. I picked up seven packs of five American GIs each and five packs of VC. They kindly gave me a bonus pack, and I chose one of their "Children of Hastur" -- hippies with guns -- which I could use for my post-apocalyptic games. I looked through the miniatures when I unpacked them, and they seem very nice -- as one would expect from the Pulp Figures line. I am using pictures from their website with this blog post, rather than taking my own poorer quality ones!

What rules will I use? Wellll, I am actually going to write my own! Sort of. My plan is to playtest and adapt the Ganesha Games "Sellswords & Spellslingers" system to the Vietnam War. The gist of SS&SS is that a player rolls between one and three d20s to activate each figure. Any failures result in the draw of a card from a deck. These cards cause new enemies to appear on the table, or those already on board to act. The cards can also spring traps or cause other events. My job as "GM" will simply be to adjudicate these events while the players or game's "AI" make all the decisions. I also plan on tracking the platoon's progress through their year-long tour in Vietnam. Figures will likely get wounded or killed, necessitating brand new replacements, who will likely be less skilled. The survivors will progress in skill. The players, as sergeants, will be trying to shepherd as many of their men safely through their yearlong tour in Vietnam.

Of course, I ordered the Hollywood personalities pack from Crucible Crush's 28mm Vietnam range!

The package from Canada arrived the day before I left for my vacation in Ecuador ("Whew!"). I will likely begin painting the figures in March. There are a few things I want to finish up before I undertake this new project, painting-wise. I've already begun my research -- reading highly regarded memoirs and other non-fiction on Vietnam. So, look for lots of Vietnam figures being painted this year!

What else did I buy to totally screw up that Painted vs. Acquired total? This purchase is also for SS&SS, but for the Dark Age Britain semi-historical games I plan to run. These will be the "semi" part, actually! After fighting Vikings for awhile, I plan on having my players encounter mythical elements from Scottish or northern British myths. These little guys will be the "Redcaps." These goblin-like creatures are the evil equivalent of the household "brownies" -- benevolent little sprites that help families keep their homes nice and tidy. Well, in my world, they are one in the same creatures. Something will happen to turn them into enemies (Redcaps), and the players will encounter them and try to solve the mystery of why a previously friendly race is all of a sudden hellbent on human blood. That's down the road in the story arc, though. So, these will likely not get painted soon. The figures are from Conquest Games and are in their "Myths of Albion" range and are called, Svartalfar. I picked up 23 of them -- more than enough. Or more accurately, my friend Will G picked them up for me when he was visiting England a couple weeks ago!

Once again, pics from Conquest Games website of their "Svartalfar" (which will be my Redcaps)

Unfortunately, the ratio is likely only to get worse after my visit next weekend to Cincycon. I will likely pick up some figures there, but will do a report on my purchases after the show. In the meantime, I am just about done with the two Bad Goblin Games trailers, so look for pictures of those soon. What's more, I will likely follow them up with a couple of my own takes on a shipping container building. As for miniatures, I am going to mix in a batch of Dark Age cavalry for our Lion Rampant games on Sunday nights. So, stay tuned for more coming soon!