Dave Bennett from the Lone Star Historical Miniatures (LSHM) club of Texas has been trying out Bolt Action Viet Nam – here is his game / battle report:
I played out the Vietnam ambush scenario. It was fast and very, very deadly. The US column is creeping slowly down the road when suddenly, SCHPWANG!! a recoilless rifle rocket bounces off the glacis of the Sheridan. Before the crew can fully assess what's happening, an RPG fired from a squad hiding in the woods destroys the vehicle. The lead ACAV reacts quickly and its squad dismounts. They wipe out the NVA squad that killed the Sheridan.
The M-42 Duster turns and dashes over a ridgeline in hopes of getting out of the kill box. They run smack into a squad of VC militia preparing to pop up and fire on the column. The Duster opens up and kills two of the squad.
The trailing M-113 that is carrying a number of small teams gets destroyed by an RPG and the survivors pour out of the burning vehicle pinned and suffering heavy casualties.
The militia squad passes its discipline test, and its RPG gunner takes out the M-42.
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Heavy fire pours into and out of the column but the Americans are definitely taking it in the shorts in the exchange.
The column calls in a broken arrow, then pops smoke on itself and beats a hasty retreat. This was fun to play as a solo game, but it will definitely need some play balancing to give the Americans a better chance if I decide to try this again.
Well, the NVA force I bought on Ebay arrived so I thought I would set up a solo game to break them (and a lot of my newly painted US) in. This is going to be an ambush scenario. A reinforced armored cavalry platoon has been ordered to relieve another platoon stationed at Firebase Fortitude. The lieutenant leading the platoon is complicating things for the old vets still in the unit because he insists on taking his jeep (he doesn't want another officer stealing it while he is deployed to the firebase).
This ties the column down to the supply road leading to the base. The road cuts directly through the jungle in many places and the column does not maintain proper intervals as they don't want to lose sight of each other.
Little do they suspect that their departure was reported by a spy in their base camp and the enemy has sent a reinforced NVA platoon augmented by a couple of squads of local VC militia to ambush and destroy them. The NVA/VC start the game hidden. Looking forward to giving this a go. I'll try to do a full battle report once the game is complete.
explains a simple, quick, and effective way to base troops for Flames of War.
