Snoopy's Nose: a tainted win?
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Played the 13 turn Snoopy's Nose scenario with AS today. Was a very fun game, and came down to the last turn, superior firepower carried the day.
The premise of the game is for US and ARVN forces to conduct what would be an Assault Operation in Fire in the Lake. With respect to that game, a Sweep Operation has located VC within a small part of the Mekong Delta, and forces are transported in by boats (Tangos) and helicopters (Slicks).
The exact position of VC forces is not known, however, which is modeled in the game by secret deployment. The VC player writes out the location of all the forces and VC bases, showing just a handful on the map.
The US/ARVN player then needs to locate these forces by moving through the Area of Operation, where moving through hexes adjacent to VC exposes the VC position.
Turn 1
Turn 2
Turn 3
Turn 4
Turns 5-13
At this point, we got very involved in the game and didn't feel like taking the time to record the play turn by turn.
After Action Report
This game felt like a VC win until about Turn 10, then the tide turned.
The key to the game is exposing the VC fast, by Turn 8 or 9, all the bases need to be exposed or the US is going to have a really hard time of it.
Overall, there is not a lot of replay in the game straight of the "box," The main stumbling block is that there aren't that many places to hide VC base camps which can't be exposed via road or river, and those few places can be exposed via helicoptered troops pretty fast.
But there seems like potential for plays with the map, system and counters. There just has to be more which can be done with this.
This would be a fantastic game to loan to - and referee for - two players who haven't ever played it before.
Blunders
I'm pretty sure I moved the mech units too fast across rivers on the last two turns. I think it costs them all MP to get across without having engineer close by for building bridge. I was charging an extra MP similar to the leg units.
If this is the case, our game was very, very close. Restricting mech movement more would have made the final two turns way closer on the rolls. Pretty sure I played the mech more or less correctly up until then though, as the mech stayed mainly on roads and in clear.
On the other hand, we forgot about the fire support penalty against VC losing bases: each base costs an extra fire support marker.
Here's a convenient list:
- Mobile units cost all MP crossing river without bridge.
- VC fire support is reduced as each base is taken by US.
- Tangos, the riverine transports, do not expose VC (but monitors do).
- River landing on a concealed VC-occupied hex induces an ambush.
- Fire supporting a riverine landing is limited to one marker the turn of the landing.
In the game we played, it felt the like the last couple of turns were almost a walk-over, despite the last two die rolls which could have lost it for the US had the combat differential been lower by a single point. Eliminating the blunders listed above would go a long way to tilting the game back in the VC's favor.
Development opportunity
The game is pretty good as-is, although as usual for magazine games, there are no player aids. A couple could be helpful:
- Letter-sized full color laminated map for both players. The VC can mark their units, the US can mark the areas which have been swept. This would be so phenomenally useful for the US player that it might unbalance the game with respect to 13 turns.
- CRT as its own sheet, mitigates passing the rules back and forth. Of course the rules can be copied allowing each player their own set, definitely not a problem with 16 page rule book.
Increasingly replayability:
- Allow for mixed results or a draw. For example, if the US eliminates all bases and all units by Turn 12, decisive victory. All bases or all units by Turn 12, tactical victory, All bases or all units by Turn 13, marginal victory. For the VC, losing all bases should be a loss, but not losing all units should allow for a draw in some condition.