Fortunate Sons
Today was a pretty late start because I had to show the apartment to a prospective buyer. Our usual start at 10:30am got pushed out to 1:00pm. This made for a bit shorter day than our usual day.
Given the late start, and the selection of games we have in the bullpen for 2026 (CNA, Pacific War, etc.) we chose to start the year with some lighter fare from High Flying Dice Games. HFD Games has a series of Vietnam era games simulating battles involving fire support bases. In this series Fortunate Sons is another of the High Flying Dice Games card-draw series.
Several issues we had with it:
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The rules are not clear about the difference between the Battle Scenario, the Ambush scenario, and the Campaign scenario. There is an addendum which provides some detail, but it requires inferring from the text.
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Ties on the first draw of the turn are not resolved in the rules. We chose to use the actual card value as a tie breaker, with the alternative to make a second draw.
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Artillery and Air Support seem pointless with entrenched defenders concealed in forest terrain (cumulative -3 DRM). This is probably fairly realistic for this situation.
Here’s the setup. The area labels are the same color green as the NVA units. This is historically accurate as the NVA were dug in and concealed. Since Charlie Company couldn’t see them, you can’t either.
Here’s the situation at the end of Turn 2 when we called the game due to decreasing daylight, increasing traffic, and spousal obligations. As can be seen, the Sheridans have advanced, busting trail to allow the M113 to follow behind without wrecking themselves on the jungle.
This game was a bit frustrating with respect to the rules, which is not a surprise. All the games I’ve played so far with this system suffer from ambiguously written rules. The frustrating thing is the game play is actually pretty good, the simulation value is also pretty good, and the historical situations are important. A battle this fierce should be commemorated in a simulation, an honor to combatants on all sides. If the game was terrible and the situation irrelevant, there would be no frustration.