Hi everyone (James here):
A year ago, Ben and I started 1250 point Vietnam army projects and recently we both completed them. If you like ‘Nam then you've probably seen Ben’s Americans and a post I put up at the start of the project as both appeared on the Battlefront website too and can be found here searching under Vietnam tags but I've been lax on doing posts as I've painted so here… is the finished force!
(check out the end of the article for a proposition if you're interested in getting into games of Flames of War Vietnam! I’ll also put up on the Battlefront Forums for Vietnam!)
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| Snapped at our local store before a game! |
If you’re interested in getting in the Vietnam theater and or play already here are some links that might be useful as Jeff at WWPD has reviewed a lot of the products I used and Phil Yates at Battlefront has written some good articles about getting started:
So what have I done?
The force consists of a Local Forces HQ which combat attaches out weapons and forms a mortar platoon led by the 2iC and two big platoons of rifle and RPG wielding infantry. A small special tasks platoon for flames, recon, pioneers and veteran troops, resistance teams and front jet artillery are rounded out by some booby traps meaning these confident trained troops can deal with most things.
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| HQ and the mortars! |
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| Big AK47 armed platoon! |
What they’re lacking is heavy anti-tank guns and AA as I found out to my cost in a practice game when the one AA gun I can get was picked off letting Ben’s Pink team fly around with near impunity!
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| Smaller platoon with AA gun and recoilless gun |
The infantry and mortars are a solid core to the force and stick around a lot longer in a fight than I expected and then the core platoons come back again to haunt your opponent! Quality of quantity infantry arriving from reserve all over the field are lots of fun to use!
The resistance teams add an interesting dynamic to games and double up as recon and observers if needed. When we played I didn’t need to sneakily use them for moving objectives or guiding reserves but good placement of them at the start will make your opponent think.
Almost everyone I’ve spoken to or everything I read tells me that Special Tasks companies are expensive… so I took a small one… They do everything! Fearless Veterans with recon, pioneer rules and flames as well as a raft of special rules means these boys and girls are the versatile, aggressive unit that might take a risk!
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| Dak Cong with green uniforms and a sculpted flame thrower! |
Traps and machine gun nests that can ambush anywhere also give your opponent pause for thought. I’d love to win a game by moving an objective away from free world infantry, and as they got up to move, placing traps and machine gun pits to cut them down as they left cover and their fox holes!
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| Machine gun nests! |
There are also three big guns in Laos over the border meaning there are no guns on the table for defensive fire. The observer is the one team from the platoon that joins the battle. This got me thinking with all the discussions on off table artillery… what do you miss if you don’t have the guns, I like the defensive fire and could really use it here for Pattons and Centurions! I’m not sure id ever build a force around NGFS for that very reasons however overpowered people claim it is!
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| The observer for the big guns... following a poor round of skill tests this poor guy found himself the target of a lot of shooting as he counts as regular PAVN forces and not Local Forces... |
We played one game so far that was cut off due to disasters with broken cookers at home and children's parties it had to be called off after a few turns! More games soon I hope!
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| Ben's Capitalist Pigs approach the village! They didn't cross the river! |
With that in mind and my new year's resolutions and a lack of Vietnam events in the UK planned so far this year... would anyone be interested in a one or two day event on the south coast of the UK hosted by Jersey James?
As i said before i'll be asking on the Battlefront forums too to find out opinions but games of about this size, maybe a little smaller in or around the Bournemouth / Southampton area as that's where we are based later in 2015 so new Vietnam players have a chance to paint an army?
The more interest there is the more likely we'll be able to do something good. Themed games of red on blue with a best Free World and PAVN player, Best Painted and Best Table (as we can do at least two 'Nam boards but would need a little help for a full event!)
Anyway I shall leave that there for thought and hopefully some sparks of interest will be created!
Happy hobby everyone!
Jersey
Great Stuff and welcome to the Dark Side!
ReplyDeleteWWPD SonBae
Great idea Jersey, I have a few bits painted and would love to play at an event for Nam.
ReplyDeleteAny chance of fixing all the pic links? I cannot view the LF goodness!
ReplyDelete