Back to Vietnam with White Dog's solitaire game
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(Note: I made a major blunder in setting up this game, as in, I didn't set it up. There are supposed to be VC and NVA already on the map, and Trail counters in Hanoi and Haiphong at the start. I'm sure this made it much easier to win! Although to be fair, the set up requires ARVN on the board which is something I had to pay Political Points to establish, so perhaps it evened out after all. I did have fun with it in any case.)
This will be game 4 using original rules.
The strategy is to ramp up early with ARVN and Air Cav, then get the US forces on the map as soon as possible after that.
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Turn 1: Trail marker left in Laos 4.
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Turn 2: Trail marker in Laos 4 and Mekong 5.
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Turn 3: All ARVN on the board, two lost. Trail left in Laos 4 and Mekong 5. Air Cav keeps getting hammered, which makes it difficult to get any of the other US units dow.
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Turn 4: Trail marker in Laos 4, tough to get rid of this one. Most of the ARVN down (8), the VC are getting lucky with a lot of 1s.
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Turn 5: Trail markers in Hanoi 2, Laos 4 and Cambodia 5, with no B52 this turn. Still not bad, only one NVA left on the board.
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Turn 6: No B52 this turn either. Air Cav goes down again, three times this game. That's unlucky. Rolled a 6 for offensives, so had to fight in 3 regions.
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Turn 7: No GB this turn. Five trail markers down, not good! But the B52s delivered, Trail is shut down in Haiphong and Hanoi.
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Turn 8: No GB or B52, big bummer. Hopefully I'll roll high on the trail roll… 3 & 4, so add Laos 3, and a good thing I deployed Air Cav to Highlands 2 last turn. Very lucky rolls this turn on Insurgency, all NVA cleared, no US/ARVN lost. I think I forgot to bring in NVA from Haiphong though. However, there is almost no chance given the results from the others that this would have lost the game even on the worst rolls.
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Turn 9: Political roll, cannot emplace Allied ground units, no big deal as they are almost all on the map anyway. Now have 5 trail markers down, that's tough. But since there is no ground emplacement, can use the points for B52 with little risk, and Laos 3 & 4 are removed. This is going to be a tough turn. If I lose half the Insurgency rolls, it's game over with a Draw.
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Turn 10: No B52 attacks this turn. Trail roll 5 & 6, which already have Trail markers, very lucky! Good rolls, only lost 1 ARVN.
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Turn 11: No B52s, I've been getting a lot that this game, hasn't seemed to matter too much. GB removed Trail from Haiphong. Things are starting to get tough, four ARVN off the board, difficult to keep regions clear.
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Turn 12: Political roll, no GB attacks, I can live with that. Trail markers back in Haiphong 1 and Hanoi 2, there are 4 on the board, don't think I'm going to make it through this turn. Spend 1 point for napalm on VC in Mekong, too much risk for anything else. I'll take my chances on the fighting. As it turns out, most of the combat was a draw, so I retreated units, which will be bad next turn, except this is a major win as-is.
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Turn 13: This is major victory even if I don't do anything at all. In the future, a little more risk might get me into Turn 14. And I did, got into Turn 14.
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Turn 14: No real place to go from here a there are no more political points available, so it's a matter of seeing how fast the NVA/VC can eliminate all the US/ARVN units. But I've had enough I think…but let's see what happens… VC emplaced, no CI… all NVA coming in from Trail, no CI… offensive in Highlands 2, this is a VC going up against Air Cav, let's see what happens… VC roll 2, Air Cav roll 3, both eliminated with 2 PP advance to 16. This leaves only Cu Chi area free of NVA/VC for a gain of 1 point to 15 which is Game over.
Not bad. Went longer than I thought it would, was pretty sure I'd get no further than Turn 6 or 7. I had some very lucky rolls to be sure.
This was a basic, original game. In the future I'm going to work on the Advanced game to see if I can crack that one.