"Vietnam event cards suggestions" Topic

I'm looking for some suggestions for random events in a Vietnam War game.

Like:

Coke Cola girl – kid selling cold drinks causes squad to lose a turn.

Heat casualty – Squad must evac a trooper with heat exhaustion.

Snake – Squad scattered by snake – random trooper mat be bitten.

Let's have some more.

Thanks,

vince

Racial Disharmony- squad splits into two and squats for one turn in separate locations. Applies to any US, ARVN or PAVN unit when they roll a minority into their squad such as a Khmer, Lao, Dega or any other such minority.

Bi-annual, "Hello, I am your new officer'- lowers morale by two for a week.

'Our Leader abuses a Helo ride-Unit loses one movement ability for each overpass of a COs' Huey to mimic aspects of micromanagement.

Any random, "What am I doing here?", moral droppers such as dates of lunar landings, presidential election dates, the loss of a mail truck, general news eg mini skirts no longer in fashion.

Any random moral raisers.
Any new pictures that have John Wayne, Charlton Heston or Steve McQueen in them being shown at base. Include, 'The Wild Bunch' in the listing.

The beer supply is replenished, morale up one, skills up two.

Presidential candidate says he won't think twice about using nukes- morale goes up one.

The local ARVN are demoralized and need rebuilding, since they got the kicked out of them by the gangs of ROK at the big Saigon PX.

Local bhuddist priests eaten by wildlife- VC skills drops by two due to loss of intelligence.

Engineering tasks speed up by a factor of two through hiring of local elephant teams.

* "Dear John" letter causes lowering of morale.
* Rookie lieutenant ignores advice and goes wrong way
* Spooked soldiers fire at partly-seen pigs/cattle/birds
* John Wayne drops in and <?>
* War photographer takes iconic picture (gain VPs if he gets out alive?)
* Out-of-control squad commits atrocity (lose VPs if anyone sees it and survives?)

There are actually quite a lot of random events in the Charlie Don't Surf special decks that Sapper Joe created (the two decks created for me). Even if you don't use CDS, the decks should work with any rules.

link

Particularly Special Decks 1 & 2, but the seven other regular decks will also be useful to you. Joe and I came up with as many random events as we could, then found photos to (more or less) match each event and he generated the two special decks. If you click on the deck image, it'll show you all the individual cards in each deck.

Coca-Cola girl is really working for the VC, and handing out grenades instead of soda. Reaction, and squad morale checks to deal with the situation, effectively.

"Dear John" letter from home cuts one random squad member's reaction skills, and morale by 50%.

Alien UFOs suddenly appear over the battlefield, and just hover there, or close in on your force. Gut check to not fire on them. If you do, all your projectiles fired will be "returned" to you immediately (and with hostility – roll for casualties on own troops using your firepower ratings), and the aliens will be unaffected (insprired by this weekend's UFO battle accounts in Vietnam). Apparently, they sunk a PBR, or two, and also used missiles fired from F-4 Phantoms against them earlier, to engage a NZ warship Hobart, later.

Wild boar attack on squad, or team member – high chance of wounds to lower legs. Some chance of death.

Punji Stakes! Pass a skill check to avoid/notice them. Failure results in a nasty leg, or foot wound.

Wildlife spooks and gives away your position.

Wildlife spooks and give away enemy position.

Quicksand – roll for reaction to avoid being swallowed up, and drowned.

Bouncing Betty – someone in your squad tripped one, or more of these, and you suffer a mortar/mine attack. Roll 1D6 – 1 to 3 = 1 mine set off; 4 – 5 = 2 set off; and on a 6 your squad has set off 3 of them.

*Ants attack a squad/group and delay them
*PRC25 stops working, delays/confusion
*Troop thinks he's on a pressure mine, must be defused. Delay
*Group of howler monkeys spooks troops into thinking the VC are charging
*troops fall ill from getting water form bomb craters
… there are tons of possibilities…

Ambush Valley has three sets of cards: Assets, Fog of War, and Booby Traps.

Asset cards are extras that can show up or be assigned to you in a mission. Anything from a sniper team or M60 team up through an attached FAC and gunship or fast-mover support.

Fog of War cards tend to have direct and immediate tabletop effects, things like the cover one unit is in isn't as good as it appears, radio comms issues, booby traps going off, unexpected help arrives, cover is better than it appeared, something caught on fire, loss of a favorite trooper, storm grounding all air support, intel was wrong on how good the troops are, low on ammo, unhappy snake in the position, something moving in the underbrush, Officer officially "promoted" to the "Better Off Dead" list, troops being short-timers and unwilling to take risks, that kind of thing.

Booby Trap cards are the equivalent of asset cards for the VC/NVA, and have a lot of the same items: snipers, artillery support, even some light tanks. The Booby Trap cards also have a booby trap attack if you don't have the models for the other items.

You should also check out Palladium Book's Deluxe Revised RECON game, it has huge numbers of random event tables for your amusement: link

Try a couple of these out. They were written for Men of Company B
link

Hanoi Jane inspires the North Vietnamese to fight on, with renewed vigor, against the "Imperialist Aggressors".

US airstrike against communist troop concentrations.

FAC aircraft on station, with CAS aircraft waiting in the wings. Just need to mark the target for them.

Your patrol runs into the "kingdom" of colonel Kurtz.

"Are you an assassin?"

No one in the platoon has dry cigarettes, apply the berserker rule from Squad Leader and automatically assault the closest enemy unit.

"Alien UFOs suddenly appear over the battlefield".

Please tell me more.

Apparently, a couple of Bubble-Type Saucers appeared (typical, oval-shaped ones when viewed from the side [probably circular from above], with a clear bubble top in the center, so you can see the aliens inside [a pair of them seen in each, in the show's re-reenactment], kind of like the Mars Attacks ones), while a number of PBRs were cruising up one of the rivers.

The lead boat goes to investigate, and finally fires on the UFOs, as they get closer, and they are struck by return fire from the UFOs. The lead boat was destroyed, and I think they mentioned another one too.

Then, IIRC, the UFOs disappear.

Two men from one of the boats survive.

The last boat radios back to HQ, and is told to continue to proceed up river, to investigate further. They too, again spot two UFOs, and fire on them, and are struck by rounds later determined to be like their own, after battle damage assessment. Conjecture is the aliens have some sort of forcefield, like in District 9, that can launch an attacker's own projectiles back against them.

Can't recall the exact name of the show, but something like Alien Files, and the episode is one about wartime encounters of UFOs. I think it was on one of the channels, like the History Channel, or Discovery, or Nat. Geo., etc.

Later, they mention the F-4 Phantom incident, and the attack on the Hobart, from out of the blue (no enemy detected on radar, but just hit by the F-4's missiles).

Apparently, during the Vietnam War, they referred to the craft as "enemy helos".

They also discussed sightings and attacks in the Korean War, where US troops were shelling a village, and one bright light, later determined to be a UFO appeared, between the attackers and the village.

It bathed the Americans in a bright light, causing them to become ill, for days. They couldn't even get down off the location they were at, and were rescued several days later.

All the men were ill, and disabled from the attack.

The mentioned one guy still suffers from the affects to this day.

Supposedly, after some of the events/encounters in Korea and Vietnam, they finally instituted a policy not to shoot at the UFOs, and in many cases GCI would vector our aircraft away from them, for safety.

Some of the UFOs were said to be as large as 700 feet across.

A number of the military men have gone on the record about their experiences, and apparently there are official reports of the incidents, like the one in Korea.

From the most famous Vietnam Vet's encounter:

"Mike Dodge: [To reporter, about Russell] When they took him up in the spaceship, the aliens abused him…sexually."

'Broken arrow-all air support leaves/won't arrive as scheduled'

Rain! Heavy rain reduces visibility to nighttime levels,movement on foot reduced,vehicles immobile due to mud and poor visibility.Foxholes/trenches fill with water etc

Wrong ammo! Replen with wrong ammo, support weapons have d6 rounds/turns left before empty………….'click'.

Yes, back to event cards.

I'm looking for mundane things that will add to the tension

Kids throwing stones.

ARVN national police demand help.

Village elder angry over killed Water Buffalo.

FNG steps on a dry twig, while on patrol, with VC/NVA nearby.

FNG sprains ankle badly, and can't walk on his own, so two other guys need to assist him. Rate of advance is slowed by 50%.

Barking dog gives away your unit's presence to the enemy.

As above for rain, AND can't hear/detect the approach of a major enemy force until they're within 25 yds. of your own position.

Napalm strike.

I was wondering what all the references to UFO's were about here …first one I thought I had stumbled onto a sci/fi thread by accident. :)

Very interesting stuff though

Oh, absolutely no UFOs in Vietnam.

Those are officially "enemy helos".

Aggressive fowl (duck, goose, chicken) in village, attacks and pesters nearest soldier

Enormous snake crossing jungle trail, you can't see its head or tail. Squad slows down/stops as they all slowly step over the log sized critter.

For use at an outpost or base: Rock apes attack! Roll to see how many apes appear and how many soldier must suffer at least one round of melee

If you don't believe it happened, look at this picture with caption. I served with a fellow who was there and got admitted he got the snot beat out of him.

link

Oh yeah, forgot this one for around a rice paddy,

Soldier slips and falls on slippery dike and breaks leg, randomly select soldier and call for Medevac. Increase chance of enemy ambush.

CIDGs kill LLDB staff.
Roll for ARVN attack against base.