Vietnam Solitaire 3 (and more)

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A third play.

Playing a quick game while getting the laundry done. The goal is getting past Turn 4, where I've been stymied on my two previous turns.

This game, I decided to hold back a little instead of pushing hard to the limit of the political points, capping the per turn spend at 10-11 if possible.

More strategy:

  • Get the ARVN into cities and paddies as fast as possible.
  • Ramp up US forces starting with Air Cav as it's the most expensive.
  • Add US regular forces each turn into jungle, as ARVN does better than VC in paddies and cities.
  • Use left points to handle the trail.
  • Use napalm whenever there is a leftover point or two to eliminate VC in jungle areas.
  • Get lucky with the dice.

Of all these, getting lucky with the dice has gotten the game through Turn 5 to the state in the picture below.

End of Turn 5

Pretty nice. Should be able to get a draw without even doing much. I probably could have risked putting another napalm down given how much area I'm controlling, but that's not always clear during that phase when there are more VC/NVA on the map.

The primary lucky I'm getting is good rolls for clearing Trail, and so far, neither VC nor NVA have taken more than a single ARVN off the map.

This game went on to end on Turn 13, which is a major victory, majorly spoiled by the fact I forgot to roll for political events. This is important, as political events are almost uniformly bad, and make the game a bit more difficult. (Possibly a lot more difficult.) In any case, the strategy of getting as many units on the ground as early as possible seems to be the smart way to win the game even with policital points.

Hapsburg Eclipse

Here's the card order: 50, 01, 04, 02, 09, 03, 11, 06, 16, 07, 15, 10, 25, 21, 12, 18, 34, 19, 13, 30, 17

Polish Front enters Vienna, game over. The Italians had advanced to Graz, which almost surely would have resulted in National Will defeat as well. I didn't total up points, but it's something like 5 victories, 3 defeats, 7 flags passed on the fronts tracks, and 2 in revolt with about half the deck remaining. An average defeat, I would think, not totally, annihilated, but not really that close to victory either.

Soviet Dawn

Shooting for a political win on this game.

Cards: 29, 23, 14, 7, 5, 11, 6, 3, 12, 1, 8 (Bukharin option for the political points), 25, 16, 2, 46, 35, 34 (Reorganize, acquire Comintern for +1 on political rolls), 15, 30.

Card 30, Jassy Conference, won the game with the +1 DRM on political track with the +1 DRM from Comintern I got to 8 on the political track. I spent the action to roll a 6 for political advancement and victory.

Victory level:

  • Fronts at 3, 3, 2: 8
  • Fronts removed: 6
  • Reserve and political remaining: 8
  • Only Night cards added: 5

Total: 27, Proud Soviet State.

France '40

Counters are punched, the Sickle Cut game is set up, and there is a lot to absorb in the rules. I could start that here, but I think I want to get the writeup going in it's own article.

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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.