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