NVA Base

Hi,

So as part of gearing up for the Vietnam game my friend Mark and I are running at HAVOC, we need more NVA troops...a lot more. Mark picked up a couple of packs of Revell plastic NVA and it's my job to put together a company (40 figures) worth.

Mark warned me that painting the soft plastic Revell figures would be difficult. So far, I've just cleaned them off and put on a base coat of white gesso and it all seems to be going pretty well. Took me about an hour and a half or so to clean, trim and base coat all the figures. We'll see if I'm just getting lucky when I start in on color tomorrow.

Luckily, because all the players are on the U.S. side in the game, the enemy figures don't have to be painted to museum quality standards. In fact, a group of NVA might spend several rounds in combat unseen by the U.S. squads so some of them might not even appear on the board.

So my basic painting plan is:

1. Flesh
2. Olive drab...just about everything really
3. Kahki backpacks
4. Black belts, boots weapons.

Then I'll clip them from their sprues and mount them on to bases. I've got a plan for that too -- each 10 man platoon is based as follows:

1. A single leader
2. A single "grunt" figure
3. The LPD and RPG heavy weapons together on 1 base
4. 3 stands of 2 "grunt" figures each.

The way that casualties work in Charlie Company, this is a pretty optimal set up. It also means less overall figure handling when I move groups around.

I'm hoping to take care of painting steps 1 and 2 tomorrow. Updates as they happen.

later
Tom

Vietnam in HAVOC

Hey,

So one of the big historical miniature conventions here in Massachusetts is HAVOC. I went last year and had a good time. This year, I've decided to bid a game.

A friend of mine has been running Charlie Company, a nice set of Vietnam wargame rules from RAFM. This is the game that really kindled my interest in historical wargamming. Playing the game inspired me to do a fair amount of research on the period and I feel like I really learned a lot from it. I really appreciate the way the game puts you 'in the shoes" of an NCO or CO. The rules are pretty basic, but that frees you up to consider the tactical problems and work out solutions for them.

At any rate, it's been a lot of fun, but I always wanted to do a "big game" of Charlie Company where you had enough players on the American side to run more than a single platoon (so 6-10 people). The rules certainly make that manageable but finding enough people was always a challenge.

Enter HAVOC. I've taken the lead and bid a game of Charlie Company which will mostly make use of my friend Mark's terrain, figures, markers, etc. But he was game and I've got some work to do beyond managing the paperwork with the convention. We don't have nearly enough VC forces for the game we want to play so Mark picked up two packs of Revell plastic soldiers and I'll be painting them up. I've never done soft plastics before and I'm told they're a bit of a pain. Luckily, as the VC forces are all NPCs, their paint jobs don't have to be spectacular (indeed, the figures don't even appear until they're spotted, which can be a tricky proposition if your leaders are all inexperienced).

So over the next month or so, I've got to paint and base 40 VC figures. Actually, for this scenario, they'll be the tougher NVA troopers. I figure I'll do most of the work painting them on the sprues, then clip them off, touch them up and mount them on bases. I'll be mounting them in pairs to help reduce handling time and to make it easier to move the troops around. Hopefully there will be some pictures soon.

later
Tom