On the Table is an irregular series of articles about games I’m playing at home, or elsewhere. These are not strictly speaking reviews, more a taster, and some thoughts and impressions.
Scene setting
In case you missed it, this past April was the fiftieth anniversary of the end of what we usually call the Vietnam War, less commonly known as the Second Indo-China War.
Images that spring of people desperately clinging to US Navy helicopters hovering over the US Embassy in Saigon, are symbolic of the rapid collapse of the South Vietnamese government, overrun by the final North Vietnamese Army (NVA) offensive. They also symbolise the defeat of the US effort to stem the spread of Communism across south-east Asia.
The Vietnam debacle seared itself into US politics and culture, which I lived through growing up in suburban Long Island, NY. You could argue that some/much of what we see today in US politics has roots in that decade and a half of political and military failure. Vietnam remains an open sore, and it is – in the eyes of some – a time to redress those years through a re-energised, exceptionalist, inward-looking America dominating the world.
I had this half in mind when I played a couple of Vietnam games over the turn of the year. Fire in the Lake (FITL) probably needs no introduction. I’m a great fan of the COIN series, and, for me, FITL does a great job capturing the conflicts key political and military threads while creating a tense and dense, asymmetric game in which is there really a winner? I’m eager to play the pre and post expansions – Sovereign of Discord (on my shelf of opportunity) and Fall of Saigon.
Meanwhile, I picked up a solitaire game that seeks to cover much of the same ground of FITL.
Premise: you must save South Vietnam
Save South Vietnam (SSV) is from a small publisher, Fortress Games. There’s not much to their catalogue but, given the subject, I decided to give SSV a try. It helped that, unlike what’s probably the grand daddy of Vietnam games, SSV fits on my table, it’s solo designed and relatively easy to grok. However, I didn’t appreciate beforehand that SSV is not a short game.
I’m not sure from the title whether SSV is taking a political view but the very short design notes certainly take a view that the US military involvement was generally successful. I’d rather not get into that debate here though I have been doing some reading that errs in a different direction, especially from a strategic view.
Scenario: is Saigon gone?
SSV is a variation on the States of Siege model where you – the player – are defending against attacks on a number of different tracks: read, provinces of South Vietnam. In SSV, you win if you, as US and the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) hold on to Saigon by the end of the game in mid-1976. Hence, you’ve “saved” South Vietnam.
Like FITL, SSV does bring in a political element. As well as battling the NVA, you have to contend with Viet Cong (VC) political cadres. As hard as you try, those cadres keep popping up and, if you’re not careful, multiplying. Reducing the cadres gives you political support in a province, allowing you to recruit police and, ultimately ARVN units. You need ARVN units as the game replicates the build up of US forces then their withdrawal under Vietnamisation.
Gameplay: boots on the ground
Each turn represents a season and you have to deploy your infantry, airborne and helicopters to wipe out NVA. In the best traditions of solitaire games, it’s damn hard to achieve. There’s a fairly simple bot using tables and die rolls to add more NVA and cadres each year just where you don’t want them.
Combat is, similarly, fairly basic. Total your unit strength, do the same with the NVA, add any helos and roll a 1d6. But, be careful, the presence of US troops in a province alienates the population and bumps up VC cadre strength.
There’s a couple of key military events – the TET offensive and the bombing of Cambodia – that are abstracted through minor tweaks to the main game mechanics. Effectively, during the TET offensive, you get to wipe VC off the board. The Cambodia bombings do similar things to the NVA. The Ho Chi Minh Trail is absent from the game though you can feel that it’s abstracted through the bot deployment of NVA and VC.
It’s a pretty brutal game. Both your units and NVA will be wiped off the board many times. Of course, there’s plenty more to throw into the meat grinder so: rinse, repeat.
As I mentioned above, each turn is a season so the game can last up to 42 turns. That’s quite a slog for what’s a relatively basic game. There’s shorter scenarios but I don’t think they will give you the same historic arc of the full game. Though why end the campaign in mid-1976?
What you get in the box: bits and pieces
Gameplay aside, the game has a mounted map board of standard size and nicely rounded counters. The components had a nasty, synthetic whiff fresh out of the box but that seemed to wear off over the week it sat on my table. The artwork is a bit garish but functional. The only negative is that I could have done with the VC cadres being a different colour to the NVA.
How does it play: can you smell the cordite?
A common criticism of solitaire games is that they are basically dice chuckers with little player agency. SSV does require plenty of bone-rolling but there are a lot of tactical decisions that you need to make. For me, that provides sufficient player agency to make it both interesting and replayable.
There is an element of historical arc in that the US forces are built up then drawn down. Aside from that, it’s fairly vanilla. I’m okay with that. But if I wanted additional chrome, I’d look elsewhere.
Conclusion: this is the end…
Anyway, it’s a game that I will pull out from time-to-time though whether I’d manage to finish it every time is another question. Meanwhile, I’ve got a game of FITL planned for a few weeks time…