Khe Sanh '68 (1)

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This game is a number of firsts for me. It's the first play in 2019. It's the first Khe Sanh game I've played. It's the first Decision Games mini-game I've played; and the first "Cold War Blitz" game system I've played. All that said, given the difficulty I've had this year getting anything at all finished, much less started, this is not going to be all that well-documented. I do plan on taking a few notes, but turn-wise play logging isn't going to happen with this game.

As usual, when I first laid the game out, I immediately had to do a lot of other things, so the game stayed set up for several weeks. This morning I just did what I should have done weeks ago, which is just start at the beginng of the turn sequence and just go through the motions. Make all the mistakes. Don't even worry about getting all the rules right, figure it out as I go.

One thing I've borked up is removing entire allied units on elimination, when it should be step reduction. The PAVN units are all single step.

On what's going to be the last turn, Tet kicks off, and there is going to be a lot of fighting. It will be quite ugly in fact.

  • Khe Sanh hung by a thread!
  • E-689, US retreats.
  • Hill-861, US prevails.
  • Lang Vei, US prevails.

Would have been nice to have had the AC-47 here.

Score:

  • 10 Kha Sanh Fire Base
  • 3 Rock Quarry
  • 3 Lang Vei
  • 1 Hill 861
  • 1 Hill 558
  • 7 Eliminated PAVN units
  • -6 Eliminated US ground units
  • -2 Eliminated air units

Total: 17 points for Tactical Victory.

AAR

Not a bad little game. As usual for Decision Games, the rules could use some improvement. For example, one of the cards states "North Vietnam" which is not marked on the map as Laos is marked. This may be DMZ West and DMZ Central, but these are not denoted so either. I'll definitely play it again, but not sure it's going to go into rotation.

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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.