Central America Scenario 1 - Bloody March

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This afternoon's intent is to walk through the first turn of the first scenario "Bloody March" of Victory Game's Central America (CA).

Getting through Turn 1 will be enough achievement for a late afternoon: Central America is - by far - the most complex game I've started working on. VG's Viet Nam may be even more complex, but I haven't punched it out and started reading the rules yet. However, since CA allows simulating a full-on WWIII situation, CA may indeed go beyond Vietnam in complexity.

Bloody March scenario details

"Bloody March" is a simple scenario, with 15 total counter on the map, 2 of which are entrenchments and one of which is a CIA helicopter, leaving 12 ground units.

Resources

Each faction in this scenario gets the following resources:

  • FDN:
    • 4 Insurgency command points
    • 0 Reorganization points
    • 0 Supply depots
  • FSLN:
    • 2 Insurgency command points
    • 0 Reorganization points
    • 0 Supply depots

Zero reorganization and supply depots simplifies the scenario, allowing the focus to be on the insurgency operations.

Victory conditions

Eliminate as many units as possible and occupy the village of Las Vegas. The point breakdown:

  • 4 points for occupying the village of Las Vegas
  • 1 point for each enemy ground unit eliminated

Let's play…

Abort! Abort! Abort!

My original intention was to play out just one turn using all the rules in every phase for the turn. After some detailed perusal of the rules for each phase, this proved a bigger task than warranted. It's not helping that it's Saturday afternoon, and I'm coming down from my weekly caffiene binge. Body feels achy and dull, mind full of cotton.

Instead, let's skip all the rules except "move," and "shoot," and play through all five turns.

First question: who has the first move? Inferring from the Phases explanation, the Communist player always moves first.

…

Ok, that went pretty fast, there are only 15 counters on the board after all, and two of those are entrenchments. Upshot: FDN crushed FSLN by remaining in control of the Las Vegas village, and destroying some of the FSLN ground units. It felt unbalanced, and I'm not sure exactly why.

This is going to require another play, using the full phase. Here's another attempt at Bloody March, Turn 1.

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What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.