Nam 68 - Battle Report Mission 1 (AAR) - History and Wargames Blog

 I have been looking at the recent NAM 68 Rule Set by Warwick Kinrade, known for being the author of the Battlegroup WW2 rule set. 

Two lovely AARs, using 15mm minis. 

AAR: Nam'68 Mission 1: Village search and Sweep August 01, 2025

and

AAR: Nam'68 mission 2. Jungle scrub security patrol

The rules play similarly to Battlefront WW2. Tweaked for the Vietnam War focusing on the small squad and platoon size games. Skirmish level as some call it. Its available as a Print on Demand copy from The Plastic Soldiers Company. 

The NAM 68 Facebook Group Can be found: Nam68 Facebook Group

Black Horse Regiment - 11th Armored Cav - Battle Report

 This is a great little video of a game and nice bit of history. 
Well worth a watch. 

Long Shot Wargaming Channel certainly did a great job on the table and game.

Little Wars TV - A great Historical Gaming Channel and Blog + Patreon

 A while back I came across Lttle Wars TV, After Action Report (AAR / Batrep) for their Vietnam Games and since I have thoroughly enjoyed watching their videos and also their Blog posts on Spotify. 
These have been been great to listen too while busy with other stuff. 

They have a Youtube channel and Spotify Blog and a Patreon. Their website has some free stuff like many of the scenarios for their games. 

Their club appears to have a very nice location and venue and one I am rather generous of. 
My club has over 150 members but mostly Sci-fi and Fantasy is played. A few Boltaction Games and the occasional Chain of Command or Black powder. So its great to see their interest in historical gaming and its benefits. 

So here are their links:
Website: https://www.littlewarstv.com/ 
Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u76MBP546mk
Spotify Blog: https://open.spotify.com/show/2IVvAM1vXeEzmgUDGxy2q2?si=7118ed3f6b2d42c5

If you like Historical Gaming.. well check their stuff out. I certainly can recommend it. 
The production level of their videos is very very good and they have obviously got some talented editors etc. 
I also love the what-if games and posing of historical questions. 

Its interesting to see how a lot of their stuff is run in smaller scales and though I do love my 28mm it is nice to see the likes of the 6mm tank battalions etc, which you can sadly never game in 28mm. 

While listening back through some of their early Blogs, one of the question posed to a couple of their interviewees, was how did they see the decline in historical gaming and this struck a cord. 
The club I help run has over 150 members. We are the largest club in Wales and probably if not, one of the largest clubs in the UK.
We run three gaming nights a week.. two mostly RPG focused evenings and one Boardgames and Wargames focused evening So on a our weekly Thursday Night Gaming for Boardgames and Wargames, we have an attendance ranging from 45 to 60 at peak times. So for a second I will exclude our lovely Boardgamers. The miniature wargamers we are left with, mojoratively play fantasy or science fiction games. Yes 40k is of course our greatest group. With the likes of Oldworld and AOS and Frostgrave and Fantasy battles etc making up the rest. 
We do have a few historical players. Mostly playing Boltaction WW2 at time of writing. Occasionally some chain of command WW2 gets played and some Black Powders or African Bush Wars but its very safe to say that historical gaming makes up a small proportion. Which is a I think a little sad. 
It would be nice to see more historical games played. 

In one of the blogs by Little Wars they discuss the use of Wargaming by a History teacher and later Dean of a private school and how well it was received by teenage students and the skills and the interests it helped develop in those youths over time. And how their historical gaming society was running schemes to encourage new players and younger players to historical gaming. 

Due to legal reasons our club has to ensure any minors (Under 18s in UK) are accompanied by a responsible adult for safeguarding reasons as the club uses multiple sperate rooms at our venue and so by law we have to ensure child safety. We do get some younger players but most are again into the Science fiction or Fantasy games usually their fathers are playing too in general. 

So I decided to look at the BHGS - British Historical Games Society : https://www.bhgs.org.uk/
Seeing if they were doing similar. Sadly it appears from their website, they are primarily focused on tournament events and competitive play, rather than historical and narrative play such enjoyed by the Little Wars TV members. 

This was also in line with the question in one of their blogs put to the Managing Director of Osprey books about the future of historical wargaming. And I must profess it got me thinking and initially I was quite struck by the decline and changes over the year in our club, but change of venue etc have all played a part. 

But looking at the whole of Historical Gaming Industry in the UK.. and how clubs etc are faring. I must say I feel we are seeing a decline. And may be things need to be done to tackle it. 
Not exactly sure on what and how. But certainly I think we need to do something as a hobby and industry.  Something I will be mulling over going forward. 

So if you have read this far on this post. Well done and please comment below on your thoughts. 

Vietnam Gaming Forum - Fields of Fire Reloaded

 Want to find more info and posts on Vietnam Miniature Wargaming, history and Model Ranges, Battle Reports etc, then let me recommend - Fields of Fire Reloaded Forum. 

The original forum sadly went down and this is a replacement. Not sure all previous members realised the forum was re-created. 

A good mix of folks from across the globe and some interesting games and info for all aspects of the Indo-China and Vietnam War periods in all Scales from 6mm, 15mm, 20mm and 28mm.

https://fieldsoffire.forumotion.com/

Battlefront - Name Ruleset

 Here is a great little video by Little Wars Gaming Group about the Battlefront Nam Ruleset for 15mm Vietnam. A successor for the original Tropic Lighting Rules adaption for Flames of War. 

Here is the previous to the battle report for their big game! 
A gorgeous table and great game. A standard I would love to get to one day with my Vietnam Gaming. 

And here is the actual games report in all its glory! 

If you loved that video and wondered how they made the table here is a video on the table terrain making. 

Master of Campaigns Reporting - A possible Beginning!

 And so in 1995 GW ran the Ichar IV global campaign. Tyranids, versus Space Marines, Imperial Guard and Eldar Allies. The idea was simple. Run lots of games over a single weekend at the various games stores. Each store representing a location on the world of Ichar IV and the side with the most wins would capture that location and the thus the side with the most locations would win the war! 

And so in White Dwarf Issue 78 and 79 the campaign was written up. 

A PDF of the relevant White Dwarf Articles can be found HERE! (And if you like Oldhammer, Join the FB Page.. )

Further campaigns followed and a few details can be found on the WIKI Here. 

As a youngster these campaigns were impressive and I recall my GW store running several "campaigns" in advance of the global Ichar IV campaign event. These were several years before and were a mix of Rogue Trader 40K and Spacemarine/EPIC. The games centered around a central theme and usually ran for a month or so from what I dimly remember. At the time I had a black painted Dark Angels force, a Squat force and an Imperial Guard force for 40K. Playing RT, 2nd edition, again from my slightly dodgy memory. 

The series of games would be run and we would all gather around to hear the "update" and get the briefing for the next game and eagerly discuss how and who would team up to play which games at which fiction locations and eagerly try and get more units painted up for the next weekend to be able to add to our forces (Yes even then GW were hot on the pulse of driving sales! )

I recall it all came down very close in one campaign to a battle between orks and marines and a single shokattack gun hit on the marine commander caused a cascading failure of moral and bang the orks won! And despite loosing the sorry bunch of gangly 11 to 16 year old's all cheered and recounted out battle stories as we headed for our various buses home! 

I think since then I have always loved games where they felt part of something larger or had some sort of "presence" within a narrative and I guess these store run campaigns and the battle reports in White Dwarf at the time, have given me a lasting love to narrative games and campaigns. 

AND FINALLY.... 

After that wander down memory lane.. I get to the point.. 

I fancy running another campaign in that style. Given the various Corona Virus restrictions in the world right now and the risks from face to face gaming at a store or shop etc... I cannot do what my initial interest was to do which was to book Element Games venue for a weekend and run a series of games there. 

So instead I think I might explore if the old hammer community and fans of some retro gaming might fancy a more simple campaign run over a few months. Do some bi-weekly updates and suggested mission types.. record the over all progress of each faction and notable heroics of particular commanders and models and try and get a community built story going for some fun. 

So.. what do folks thing? 

 

Club Gaming Weekend 14th & 15th of April 2012

Last year in addition to running Gauntlet, our clubs annual tournament and gaming show. We ran a gaming weekend in the same venue we use for Gauntlet. The Wings Social Club Dining Hall.
We hold our regular club nights down stairs in the dance room.

So this year, we chose to hold another in April. Over the 14th and 15th. I spent the friday afternoon hauling my boxes of Dwarven Forge out and then loading it into the car. In the evening a small group of us gathered at the club to lug the tables from our storage room up stairs to the hall and dig out some of our club scenery for the games.

Having got the tables setup, I carried in my dwarven forge boxes and we left after getting Security to lock up. And it was time to head home, via the super market for tea and coffee etc for the weekend and a take away for my dinner. (Tea, coffee is free over the weekend to attendees, covered by entrance fee).

So up bright and early saturday and down to the social club to open up. Setup the kettle and get that on. (One has to get their priorities right, you know).

Then it was a case of starting to setup for our game. Colin was running a game of Warrior Heroes, using my DF pieces to represent what was intended as a two level realm belonging to some dwarves that our party were trying to find. But instead it was filled or at least the first level was, with goblins, ogres and some blackmoon orcs.

So sometime around 11am we were ready to go and our group some 8 strong, all controlling their chosen hero characters from the campaign, began.

So here are a few shots from saturdays games and then some from sunday.

I will do a seperate write up of the warrior heroes game.

The initial layout for the Warrior Heroes Game.

Part of the general layout of tables.

Waiting for the rest of our players to arrive for the Warrior Heroes game.

Len and Peter, kick off their game of Dystopian Wars

The initial British deployment.

Slightly blured sorry, but Pete has done a nice paint job.

Warrior Heroes.. will do a seperate write up.

Ogres 1, Elf 0

The saturday FOW game in flow.

The game that never got played.. Will was without an opponent, so the game got postponed till sunday, and slightly reorganised.

Simon, very happy about something.

Len tries desperately to hold off the British from getting through to St Laurance bay estury.

Considering we had 8 players in our WHAA game, it went smoothly.

FOW carnage.. the germans crushing the allies.

Looks like carnage about to ensue.

Allied air power fails to win the day.

Else where, games of Flames of War, Dystopian Wars and board games were being played.
As unfortunately not everyone could make both days, Colin was tempted away to play a game on Warhammer Fantasy on the sunday, and I planned a game of Blade Storm with Jon.

So having cleared away and tied up, headed home on saturday night for another take out.

And back again sunday morning with fresh milk and supplies. Yes we have free tea and coffee at our gaming weekends. We only charge a £1 a day.. and infact, due to me getting stuck into a game, I forgot to collect the pounds on sunday, but saturday had covered our costs so that was ok.

So, sundays games.. consisted of Warhammer fantasy, more board games, more flames of war with folks from our neighbour club in chester, the RGMB, comeing over, and playing a very big game of Flames of War with severl of our guys involved too. Looked a right old carnage fest.

Will who had laid out his Black Powder games yesterday, discovered he was without an oponent on the saturday, so Jon and I decided rather than have a game of blade storm we would give Black Powder a go. 1700s or so, dainish/belgium game. I had to stop a carvan reaching a town.

Was quite good fun. Not a rule set or period I had played before, but was enjoyable and quite quick flowing once we had the basics down. So cheers Will, it was a good and interesting game.

So here are some photos from the sunday.

Daves Force on Force game, from road to Bahgdad book.

Great setup.

US Armour rolls forward.

Just before it all goes wrong..

Suicide car bombers and all sort lay in wait for the poor US troops.

Cans of rice pudding, make great over pass buttress pieces.

Sundays large Flames of War game.

My sunday game of Black Powder.. I had to stop a caravan reaching the town.

My cavalry after their initial charge was repulsed.. but one group reached the caravan and held it in place.

On the right flank I tried to get across the river. My cavalry made it, but my infantry got bogged down and kept being dissordered.

My oponents view, down onto the caravan as my troops and cavalry just about hold on and keep it locked in place for another turn.

On the right flank, my cavalry sweep up the but his cannon take a heavy toll.

My general lends his support to the left flank to rally troops.

My cannon kept up steady fire, but did not achieve much. Long range is not good.

In the end, we agreed a partial victory. My troops were at the caravan, and delayed it. Some of my units were across the bridge and the right flank my infantry were finally across the river and progressing. It would have been fun to play on, but time was pressing.

Sorry i could not put more detail about the FOW game on sunday. If one of the guys does a write up I will link to it.

My write up of the Warrior Heroes Game will follow shortly with more pics.

So a weekend well spent and thoroughly enjoyed. Relaxed good natured gaming. You cannot beat it!

A big thanks to everyone who helped put the gear away at the end of play on sunday. It was greatly appreicated. Speical thanks to Steve White who helped me lug my DF sets back to the car. I really need a trolly!

Warrior Heroes - Second Game

With nothing planned by Colin this week and me and Dave being free again. We settled on another quick game of Warrior Heroes. This time, we had to fight our way back into the city, we had left (to destroy the screaming skull catapults) and save the Lord.. also the chap with our cash!

This time, Colin decided unliving were not as crunchy as he liked and so it was daemons.. winged flightless catapult demons (I will explain more shortly). It was interesting.

Steve turned up late but in time to get his humans into the fight..
The dwarfs and my elves, elected to climb back into the city over the walls, using the ropes we had handily left behind us, when we left to get the catapults..

The humans snuck in a small side door..

The dwarfs managed to loose one chap, who fell to his death, failing the climb roll with style.
The rest, or should I say, all bar the healer and leader, got over.

My elves got over the wall and waited for one last member.

The demons, in the city, the big bad one, decided to launch a strike against the dwarfs who it could see. This is where the winged, flightless catapult comes in.. basically the rules gave the demon some odd properties.. wings, but it couldn't fly. It was not a caster but it did have a ranged fireball type weapon so classified as a catapult for the purposes of deviation etc from what I could gather.

BAAAAM! And all but two of the 6 five dwarfs over the wall perish in blaze of evil fire! Ouch! One OOF, and two dead.. 50% casaulties and so far we have not all got over the wall.

Well the demons came on aggressively.. charge! The humans, launches some arrows at another demon big bad and got its attention. Its fire ball took down a few of them. It was not looking good.

The dwarfs (those still living) charged a band of minor demons. My band diced to open fire and dropped one demon who came into sight. The dwarfs cut down a couple but then the big winged catapult dude arrived and laid them low.. in one swing! Two dwarfs OOF and then my elves had to charge! The fight was brutal but thankfully the first round, forced two of my archers back and my hero.
The next round, when it came, the archers launched a mass of arrows (first roll ;) ) and the big bad, stuffs his roll. I get 5 successes and he gets one.. Ooof! Yay.. my elves step in and dispatch the oofed bad.
It was looking grim before that catastrophic change in luck. The humans fought some desperate fighting as the rest of the dwarfs got over the wall along with my last elf.
Thankfully the one remaining healer, (a dwarf ) then quick began to recover those laying on the floor.. those still alive.

Three dwarfs in total survived the demon barrage and the minor demon fight, and then the big bad..
I lucky only to have one elf oofed and thus recovered.
Over on the human side, the casualties were mounting, but a failed charge by an enemy caster type thingy, saw it run like a big girly off the table.. thank the gods,, err which ever ones the humans follow..
It was looking bad, if the demon hadn't.. then we searched all the houses.. and there were a lot of houses.. and then at last we found the lord.. and the Big Big Bad.. who bravely, launched magics at the crazy sole surviving bwarf bezerker who was charging toward him.. but the human leader step up and tickled him unde the chin, as he muttered the major words of power. and the Big Big Bad, was Oofed by his own backlash of magic!
And promptly had his head caved in by the humans.. Huarryy! We won..
With the city ablaze, the key to getting paid, sorr the lord in our grasps, we did what all good heroes do when winning!.. RUN!

So over the walls we went leaving the dying city to its fate.. some how I didn't manage to loose a signle elf this time. My war band did quite well. Archery is lethal, as we found out if your lucky.
It was a fun and furious and chaotic game with much debate about the bad guy strengths.. the demons are tough and without some completely opposite success and failure rolls, I think it would have been  demons 11, parties 0..

Its not a bad rule set. It is certainly different. I am happy to play it, as it gives mad fights with odd consequences etc. And it plays quickly. So for club nights its good.

I think our brave heroes, survivors etc are now heading for a village in desperate hope of finding some more people to hire. Our rolls for experience etc at the end, went arry and the dwarf leaders rep went down.. my elv leader went up, but failed my hardiness.

So.. shields and heavy armour! Its what every WHAA hero needs..

So, next instalment shall come to pass at some point in the future I suspect..

Starship Troopers Battle Report AAR - Game 3

This was the third game of Starship Troopers the Miniatures Game we have played.
Again my opponent was my friend Steve. As we are still learning the rules and getting to grips with the game. I came up with a very simple scenario.

The MI had to reach and retrieve a data core from a defunked CHAS unit that had been scouting the area.

The MI force consisted of an LT, three squads and two NCOs. One mounted in an M8 Ape Marauder. (We proxied these with AT-43 UNA figures and a fire toad).

The CHAS is from the SST range and so are all the warrior bugs.
I began with two units of 10 warrior below ground. Three obvious tunnel entrances. Two units of 7 and one of 6 warriors above ground.

The MI deployed from one narrow edge. With a tight deployment zone. They LT was in the centre with one NCO. A squad to his right and two to his left. The M8 was to his right and backed up the first squad. 

The CHAS stranded awaits rescue, well recovery of the data core and then detonation. 

The chas

The swarms begin to move. The MI did not fire in their first turn.  But by turn two they were blazing away. The withering morita fire slices up warriors the first two swarms. 

The MI by turn three had thinned the bugs numbers. But one or two had god close and with reaction kicking in it got brutal. Unfortunately for me, the MI weight of fire did decimate the leading swarms before they could do much more than kill a single trooper. 

Turn four saw the wipe out of my two lead swarms and the third one having emerged from the forrest. The M8's fire power, proved potent, though it took two hits before taking down the last of the third initial swarms. I moved one of my reserve swarms out. And my two burrowing swarms continued their advance. 

The first squad on the right, got too close to a bug hole and my cave-in i had bought cause two casualties.. more than my warriors had achieved so far. The burrowing warriors emerged behind the M8 in an ambush and took the M8 down. Unfortunately I was not quite close enough to get the LT and the NCO, but only just. The LT and NCO readied. The third and second squads were in reaction range and my emerging swarm was slashed with morita and flamer fire and wiped out. But not before i had managed to take down another trooper. The last ten strong warrior unit, having emerged and been spotted was lashed with fire and two rockets in artillery mode the following turn and it was basically all over for me.


I conceded a good victory. The MI had more points worth than me. And I should have been more aggressive with my bigger ten strong units or at least some of them starting out early. The MIs fire power potential is high and the flamers are potent things being squad weapons and thus getting reactions unlike the missile launchers.

It was fun and enlightening. Will be nice once I get my MI build and painted. I need to get more bugs made up so can start to vary the units in the games a little, but whilst we are still getting to grips its not too bad.


Looking forward to the next game.