"Thoughts on Ambush Valley and FNG2" Topic

I've just blogged about my experiences with AV and also my initial impressions of FNG2 which I bought today.

link

There's also a few pictures from the AV game.

Thanks for your insights, about the games. So have you found a good Vietnam game or are you still looking?

I do still like FNG (v1), the problem is that it can be a bit lengthy working out all the interactions and chains and can break down with lots of figures.

Great looking table!

vnice table

A friend gave me Ambush Valley, but I just don't think it would work well in a multiplayer game. In Force on Force games, I think it works well for two players to maybe four, but I've seen and played in a number of multiplayer games that dragged as one player moved their troops and everyone else waited for a chance to do something.

I use a modification of "Politics by Another Means" to game Vietnam and Modern Africa/Mideast. They work well for conventions and are easy to learn and play. I did the Mayaguez Incident and one US player was very frustrated that he couldn't just shoot up a hill thru the trees and brush where he knew friendlies were fighting with his M79 when told that any 1's rolled on a d6 would land on friendlies. One friend "hates" the rules because it makes him think like a leader. The last game I ran had everyone hoopin' and hollarin'. The bad guy escaped in a fuel truck rigged to blow but, the UN Troops didn't want to blow up a "civilian".

I have to say I read your blog .
and from memory i think the problem is you have not quite gotten the hang of the rules yet. You mention the the VC not being able to determine casualties ..you may wish to re read that part as they use whats called cave man case vac and don't require you to determine which individual wounds have occurred you simply roll to see who stands back up or remove the figures.
I'm sorry to hear that you are not happy with the rules have you tried to get any questions you may have answered on the AA forums? And just so you know alot of games don't use Prof readers every effort is made to Keep rule sets affordable to the average gamer I for one will happily put up with some typos for a great affordable set of rules but that's just me …How can there be a maximum range for Ambush I just don't know…weapons can fire the entire length of a FOF game board . A Unit may trigger and ambush at twice its optimum range this reflects the very real tactic of close ambush , your VC could have triggered at 12 inches since they where D6 troops. The advantage being that they would have been able to fire first if the free world troops got the drop its because it reflects the difficulty of springing a close ambush . Your VC could fire at any range the difference being that they would have not received any bonus to their fire for with in Optimum range. try the forum there are lots of helpful folks on there to give a better grasp of the rules including the authors of the AV2 supplement and the staff of AAG …..Mikey

And there for me is the crux of the problem. People are too happy to accept a sub standard product as "great". You wouldn't buy a ferrari with only one door would you?

As for the comments, I think I grasp the rules (such as they are ignoring the contradictions etc) ok. This isn't as they say, my first rodeo. When I say determine casualties, I mean the casualty roll at the start of the turn sequence. This requires a living (ie not a casualty) figure to be there, pretty hard when the whole unit has been hit in the previous turn. The "Caveman casevac" rule would have been fine, but I could never roll that dice. If you read the blog carefully you'd see that I'm aware of the rule because I mention having to roll a bunch of sixes.

The ambush rule just doesn't make any sense to me. The further away the enemy are, the less chance IMO they have of seeing you even if you do fire on them. The counter to this is the lack of effectivity from your firing, people missing etc and the greater ability of the enemy to move out of the kill zone quickly. As it's written, the rules say that the US have a solid 25% chance of spotting and firing first on the hidden troops opening up at anything from edge of table to 12 inches. This suddenly switches to a 33% chance the VC can shoot first for 6 inches, and then we're back to the US having the upper hand?

In what world does that make sense? I think I can see what outcome you were trying to get, ie that ambushes conducted at short range are not very nice places to be, but surely that would have been better accomplished by giving the ambushers bonus dice for attacking in the 12-8 inch bracket.(Note I use 8 as that's the limit for US troops not getting the roll to spot hidden).

Have you tried ''charlie don't surf'' … highly recommended !!

As for the comments, I think I grasp the rules (such as they are ignoring the contradictions etc) ok. This isn't as they say, my first rodeo. When I say determine casualties, I mean the casualty roll at the start of the turn sequence. This requires a living (ie not a casualty) figure to be there, pretty hard when the whole unit has been hit in the previous turn. The "Caveman casevac" rule would have been fine, but I could never roll that dice. If you read the blog carefully you'd see that I'm aware of the rule because I mention having to roll a bunch of sixes.

It's interesting how bent out of shape we gamers get when we lose control over our troops.

To me that is one of the most fascinating parts of FoF: having a unit "disappear" after it gets hammered by fire. In the game it's the figures going down and we can't do anything about it until another, operational, unit moves into contact and checks their status.

In the real world it's not uncommon for a unit to move out and then go silent! They don't respond to radio calls or shouts, you can't see them, they could be all dead, shot up, or just taking "5" for all we know. Happens all the time in the real world, trust me. Sometimes you get lucky and another unit finds them and they're just hugging the ground and going doggo. Other times it's sad sight… silent corpses marking where they all fell. Like this grim find during the Falkland's battle of Mount Longdon:

Lance-Corporal Vincent Bramley was patrolling the western half of Mount Longdon when he was confronted with the full horror of the night combat. The 3 PARA NCO and keen writer stumbled upon the bodies of five Paratroopers killed by the forward Argentine platoon.

'A few bullets whizzed overhead and smashed into the rocks. A corporal shouted that Tumbledown was firing at us. We ran into a tight gap in the path of all came to an abrupt halt, as it was a dead end. Four or five bodies lay sprawled there, close together. This time they were our own men: the camouflaged Para smocks hit my eyes immediately. CSM [Company-Sergeant-Major] Weekes was standing over them like a guardian, screaming at some of his men to cover the further end of the path and a small crest. The CSM and Sergeant P [Pettinger] exchanged quick words. I wasn't listening; my mind was totally occupied with looking into the crags for the enemy. I turned and looked at our own lads, dead on the ground, mowed down when they tried to rush through this gap. I felt both anger and sadness. The CSM's face showed the strain of having seen most of his company either wounded or shot dead. That night's fighting was written in every line of his face.'[21]

I'm pretty sure it's things like this that the causality rule models.

I actually rewrote this as i found your attitude distasteful.
I am not trying to say your stupid or insult you in anyway. its just clear to me (and yes I may be wrong)that your tactics or grasp of the rules could be better.
You absolutely have the right to dislike any rules you want.
And by god say so on TMP.
I don't find either FNG2 or AV2 substandard in any way . I think to call them that was hurtful and unnecessary. Darby wrote his product to honor his father who served in Nam,AAG the same for anyone who served .These folks are gamers just like you and I. They don't write professionally . They make every attempt to give us great rules at an affordable price.
I can honestly say that I will most likely use spell check to edit this post. There are typos and no they are not perfect but they are honest labors of love and really good rules set. My greatest wish is for you to like these rules and have fun ..But I'm not going to make a buck off the sale of either …but if you have beef with me that's fine but calling their work substandard was really not called for

The ambush rule just doesn't make any sense to me. The further away the enemy are, the less chance IMO they have of seeing you even if you do fire on them. The counter to this is the lack of effectivity from your firing, people missing etc and the greater ability of the enemy to move out of the kill zone quickly. As it's written, the rules say that the US have a solid 25% chance of spotting and firing first on the hidden troops opening up at anything from edge of table to 12 inches. This suddenly switches to a 33% chance the VC can shoot first for 6 inches, and then we're back to the US having the upper hand?

In my opinion, the further you are away from the force you're attacking, the less it is an ambush. In most instances, I'd say its fair to say that even in a meeting engagement you don't necessarily have an 100% idea of where your enemy is. If they start firing at you from a distance, I think this would hardly qualify as an ambush. The force may be surprised, but the ability to bring devastating firepower to bear before they have time to get themselves reoriented is very different in the 2 situations.

Most of the available documentation on ambushes against "Free World" and South Vietnamese force in Vietnam show the prevalence of a very close in ambush for a variety of reasons, mostly in an attempt to negate the effectiveness of the massive amounts of artillery that could be brought to bear. Knowing their enemy's tendency to "pile on" with men, artillery, and air strikes, many of the engagements were intended to do as much damage as quickly as possible and then disperse. Standing and fighting was not in the game plan. If you look at the estimates of casualties inflicted on the PLAF/PAVN, its easily 2-1 or 3-1 KIA (the ability to access to advanced medical care turns the ratio for WIAs on its head).

Sorry, I seem to have got your pants in a twist Mikey. I don't mean any disrespect to Darby in any way. He has been extremely helpful in the apst with FNG and other 'Nam related stuff and I don't blame him directly as I know just how many revisions his work has undergone over the past 2 years he's been working on FNG2.

I get it, you think these rules are great, and it doesn't matter if they don't say what they should, because you *know* what they're meant to and what the intent is. I on the other hand paid good money for something which could be accused of not being fit for purpose in an extreme case.

I don't have a "beef" with anyone, I just call it as I see it. As do you and that's fine. We can agree to disagree perfectly amicably.

@thatguy96

I understand that. The word "ambush" is the rules word, not mine if you see what I mean. I agree, that a perfectly valid tactic of the VC or anyone fighting a superior in artillery & air force is to "hug the enemy". Terrain also factors in on the engagement distance.

But, my point is this. At 300m in RL, a soldier patrolling across open ground has little chance of seeing a camouflaged enemy in a treeline who is stationary. 300m is certainly not an "ambush", but I'd expect the enemy to be able to fire first before the soldier reacted. Whether the fire hits is another matter.

Now move them 250m closer. This is more "ambush" territory in my view although closer still is probably better for the ambushers. Now, the patrolling soldier may have more chance of spotting those lying in wait.

However, the rules don't work this way. If I fire at 300m, we have a dice off, he rolls a D8 and I roll a D6, giving him a 25% advantage straight off of firing first. If I fire at 50m I get a "free" go at rolling 4+ on a D6 to "ambush" him. If I make it, i fire first, if I don't we still roll off.

To me, this is backwards. I don't know, I clearly just don't get the rule concepts.

Hey Gav, if you could please make me a list of the inconsistencies you've run across, I'd really appreciate it and do my best to hammer them out. I was sure we had vetted it all, but I must have missed something. Drop me a line!

Darby, did you get my message on FoF? I've had some problems over there recently. I'm compiling a list of stuff for you so that you can edit them out.

just saw it, hadn't been on it in a few days. My bad!

Ok, actually, there was no PM there, just the post of AV.

Just to clarify:

A unit must be hidden to perform an Ambush. Hidden units cannot be spotted until they are within the spotter's unmodified Optimum Range. Hidden units cannot be fired on until they are spotted. Ambushers can spring their ambush when the unit they are laying up for comes within twice their unmodified optimum range. The ambushers make a TQ check. If they pass it, they catch the opponent flat-footed and fire first. If they fail it, they did something that might have given their ambush away and there's a normal Reaction Test to see who fires first.

This rule is intended for use on tables (and therefore battleground) the game is designed to accomodate – up close and personal tables that are normally on the 2'x2' to 4'x6' size range. Even so, it's unlikely that an ambushee will spot an ambusher from the table edge – the ambushee can't even make a spotting attempt until they approach within unmodified Optimum Range of the hidden unit (8" for most Free World units).

Ambushers have a great chance of being successful at firing first – they only have to roll a 4+. Even for a D6 unit, that gives them a 50% chance of pulling the ambush off without a slip. If they DO have a slip, the ambushee doesn't automatically get the drop on the ambusher, either. There's still a Reaction Test roll-off which the ambusher may well win. The higher TQ unit has an adantage at this point, but that seemed reasonable to us when we wrote the rule.

So, in a nutshell: An ambushing unit can't be spotted or fired on at all until the ambushee approaches within 8" or so. It can be sprung at 12" by even the lowest rated troops. This gives ambushers an advantage in being able to spring an ambush before the unit they're ambushing can even make a spotting check. There is a chance that the ambush will fail, but the ambushing unit gets two tries to roll high enough to pull it off, one of which is completely uncontested. This seems pretty logical to us. YMMV, of course!

I'm happy to discuss the ambush rule (and any other rule) in full detail over on our forum, btw! We're always happy to help players get the most out of our rules!

Best wishes,

Shawn.

I really really must be thick. Its truly the only explanation why I don't get this or can't make my point understood. I comprehend all of that Shawn, the issue is that if a unit which is hidden chooses to fire at a unit the other side of the 2 ft, 4ft, 8ft, 21mile or whatever wide table, there's a dice off, yet if the opposition is close where they have much more liklihood of spotting the hidden units in reality, they actually have a worse time of it.

@Peterborough: The difference is that in your first instance of firing at a distance, you are not ambushing, you are giving away your position with fire. Someone shoots a rifle, then a few more, but now the target is alerted and there is a dice off to see who brings disciplined fire to bear first.

In the second instance, the ambushing unit remains in cover up until the last possible moment with the express intent of springing a trap. Hence why the opposition has a worse time of it.

As Shawn has said, your view may vary.

I don't think you're being thick at all, I think this is all just part of the fun of:

a) Internet communication

and

b) The Joys of Rule Writing

;)

If we were sitting across the game table from one another, we'd understand each other perfectly (and we'd either agree or not).

Let me try to explain our logic:

Our Ambush rule is meant to represent a specific situation: Unit A is laying up in ambush for Unit B. Unit A is going to wait until Unit B is as close as they dare let them get before springing the ambush. Everything in the Ambush rule is meant to represent the extra effort the the ambushing unit put into concealing itself and the violence of surprise when the ambush is sprung. All the ranges are restricted to reflect this sort of action and to limit the "kill zone" of the ambush to something reasonable.

A Hidden unit that decides to fire at an enemy unit several feet across the table isn't the same thing (in our mind, at least) and is handled differently. It gives its position away (unless it's stealthy and has suppressed weapons) voluntarily and basically enters into the arena of the standard shoot-out between units.

So, the reason the two things work differently is that we believe that springing and ambush and simply firing from a hidden position are two different things, so they work a little differently. This is definitely one of those YMMV issues.

I would like to point out that the size of the table is an important consideration. It does matter whether it's 2' or 21 miles. Our game wasn't designed to represent sweeping meeting engagements between units approaching each other at thousands of meters – it's designed to represent point of contact engagements in fairly close quarters. The rules are influenced by the size of the arena they were designed to fit. If we'd designed the rules for a large battlefield, we certainly would have included things like spotting distance modifiers, weapon range modifiers, etc.

All that said, though, if you wanted to apply spotting distance modifiers in your own games, there's certainly nothing to stop you from doing it. We even do it ourselves in some scenarios to represent poor visibility due to burning buildings or what have you.

BTW, sorry for the royal sounding "we" throughout these answers – It's just that there were several folks involved in writing these rules and saying "when I designed this" feels a bit presumptuous of me. Plus at least one of my co-writers lives close enough to TP my house if he thinks I'm getting too big for my britches. ;)

Best wishes as always,

Shawn.

Dang ol' Jim said the same thing in less words. ;)

Well I understand the rationale now so thanks. Not sure I agree but there you go. I appreciate the time it's taken to reply to me.

No problem, sir! Happy to help and no hard feelings if you don't agree with our rationale. If there's one thing game designing has taught me, it's that opinions vary! ;)

Shawn.