Vietnam Solitaire (8) and more
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It's Christmas Day and super chilly outside, no better time than now to fire up some games. My initial inclination was to lay out Fire in the Lake, but I wanted to play a few smaller games before locking up table space, and by the time I knocked out the following there really wasn't time enough to set up Fire in the Lake.
In any case, it was nice to play through some of my smaller, faster playing games.
Vietnam Solitaire Easter Offensive
I have 7 logged play of Vietnam Solitaire, and none of them are the new Easter Offensive sceario shipping with the Special Edition. Time to rectify that.
Having set it up, I've found an inconsistency in the set up rules, which hasn't been resolved on line yet. At issue is initial forces in Mekong, which is a region not played in this scenario. In any case, plowing ahead rather than dithering.
Turn 1
- Purchase 4 ARVN with available PP, place all 4 in Saigon as that's a victory condition region.
- Major offensive, NVA/VC operations in Hue, Highlands and Saigon:
- Hue: lose 1 NV, 1 ARVN.
- Highlands: Lose 1 ARVN.
- Saigon: Areas 3-4 iVC eliminated, and 6, ARVN making reaction move into 6 another VC eliminated.
Turn 2
- B52 strike fails, raised AC and ARVN, suffering from lack of PP.
- Minor NVA offensive in Region 2 superfluous, no US/ARVN present.
Turn 3
8 PP available, need to knock down some trail if possible.
- 3rd trail counter for Highlands, hence not placed.
- B52 on Hanoi fails due to SAM roll.
- Insurgency combat in Saigon: NVA eliminated from Area 6.
- Minor offensive in Saigon: Region 6, NVA elininated.
- NVA relocation puts 3 NVA in Area 1-2 Saigon.
Turn 4
8 PP available
- 3rd Trail counter in Haiphong, not placed.
- B52 Haiphong, evaded SAM, missed.
- Raise US/AVRN: 7th Fleet on the board, 2 more ARVN in Hue.
- ARVN attacking in Hue Region 3-4 Hue City, VC and NVA and 1 ARVN elminated on Round 1, Round 2 NVA armor and 1 ARVN eliminated.
- Insurgency in Hue: 2 ARVN 1 NVA, only 1 ARVN left, bad news. In Saigon, NVA eliminated.
- Minor offensive in Saigon, round 1 ARVN elminated, round 2 bupkis, round 3 NVA last standing.
- NVA relocation: move 1 to Saigon.
- AC redeploy to Saigon Area 1-2.
Turn 5
12 PP now, will need every one!
- Trail roll 3, no placement.
- Attack Hanoi trail: fail.
- Loads of ARVN, including Mech.
- Saigon cleared.
- NVA infiltrate Saigon Area 6.
- Minor offensive in Saigon with 5 NVA facing 5 ARVN. Round 1 3 each lost. Round 2 1 ARVN lost. Round 3, 1 ARVN 1 NVA lost, with 1 NVA left standing. NVA have been rolling really well this game.
- Insurgency succeeds in Saigon Area 6.
Turn 6
12 PP this turn.
- Trial roll 3, no effect.
- Attack trail at Saigon, roll 6 no effect. There has not been any effective trail roll this game.
- Raised all ARVN into Hue and Saigon.
- Cleared both Hue and Saigon. Now will have to depend on reaction move to try to get the odds on the major offensive coming next.
- Insurgency Saigon 3-4, totally fails, Saigon stands.
- Major offensive, only units in Hue matter. US and ARVN are positioned in Areas 3-4 and 6, with NVA in Areas 1-2 and 5. So there is a chance for the US/ARVN to pull off a minor victory. Area 3-4, round 1: NVA cleared. Area 6: 1 NVA 1 RFPF lost. Round 2: NVA rolled another 1, pretty much NVA has rolled 1 & 2 on most combats this game, along with US and ARVN rolling 5 & 6. Pretty amazing. Round 3: NVA lost, Hue is controlled. Game over for US/ARVN win.
AAR
US/ARVN marginal victory with control of Hue and Saigon.
I'm pretty sure I mucked up some of the rules, and there is the issue of all the NVA combat units in Mekong which did not participate. In the Highlands, I didn't fool with clearing it, and just let the NVA build up in there and spill over into Saigon, where I had the ARVN firepower to clean them up.
I'm definitely going to play this scenario again, hopefully after getting resolution on the Mekong situation, and figuring out whether I botched up the situation in the Highlands.
Flash Point
Quick round of the Family Game setup in Flash Point, took about 35 minutes. I probably got some of the turns out of order, but it did come down to one last roll where I would have gotten a 4th victim clear had not the building collapsed. I played with 3 firefighters.
This game saw all 33 of the fire markers on the board. I didn't know what to do, so I just added damage marker where they would otherwise go. It turns out this is in the FAQ on page 11 of the rules, so I played it correctly, rules-as-written.
It also didn't help that 3 of 6 victims "rescued" were dummy markers. Luck of the draw.
This play bumps my H-Index to 8.
Some rounds of Hive
I've been playing Hive on the Beginner setting, and can now reliably beat the AI. It's time to bump the difficulty level up a notch and beat the intermediate level. Recorded plays are plays for which I've set the pieces up on the table and worked through my moves "analog style." I use the application to play the opponent, and move those pieces manually on the table. I've got other plays which are ios only, typically played on the train, but I don't count those.
In the following, I'm playing White, and letting the AI move the Black.
- Beginner: White win.
- Easy: White win. This unlocks Medium play.
- Medium: first play, white defeat, Beetle stacking is important.
- Medium: Beetle stacking continues to be important! Also, black drew white out into a spindly mess and tied up 7 tiles with only 3 tiles of its own. This allowed Black to leisurely gobble up White's Queen.
Playing an AI on a table top is harder than it might first appear, as it's easy to get absorbed in the electronic game and forget to keep up in the analog game.