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…

It is a bitter cold New Year’s Eve. The people of France, having suffered two years under Nazi control, still have reason for hope.

In safe houses across the country, members of the French Resistance raise a glass and share meager rations. The Allies have liberated Algiers, the Soviets are fighting back at Stalingrad, and brave men and women join their ranks every day. The struggle is far from over, but every act of resistance brings them one step closer to their own liberation.

(from In the Shadows: Resistance in France 1943 – 1944 rulebook)

In the Shadows: Resistance in France 1943 – 1944 is a small footprint, lightweight, card driven game from designers Dan Bullock (1978: Revolution in Iran) and Joe Schmidt (The Landing: Gallipoli 1915).

The game is marketed as both solitaire and two-player. The versions share mechanics but are, rather uniquely, two distinct flavours. I like this approach. This is a true solitaire game. Yes, there’s a bot but you don’t have to spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out what the bot says. Instead, you can concentrate on your strategy and tactics.

I’ve only played the solitaire version which I found a challenge and enjoyable. I’m equally looking forward to playing the two-player version.

As the French Resistance in 1943-44, your role is to disrupt the occupying Nazis and their heinous collaborators through sabotage and ambush. You need to recruit to replace captured comrades but, beware, there may be informants in your midst.

Play is fairly straightforward. In setup you draw two cards, select one, carry out the event then use the action points shown on the card to take a number of actions. The German bot is pretty simple: it seeks to find, uncover and arrest resistance cells or Maquis. The Germans draw one card per turn.

Each card is marked with a suit that corresponds to one of three zones on the map. Most actions cost one action point if the suits match with a penalty for unmatched suits. Events have either a red (Resistance benefit) or grey (occupation benefit) but you must play the event. This does mean that it sometimes benefits you to go second in the round.

No dice! Draw from a resolution deck to resolve each action.

The solitaire version adds four persona cards that you can choose yourself or randomly. These grant extra benefits but impose additional winning conditions. The primary winning condition is to have more units on the board at the end of turn nine than the number indicated on the Authority track. You reduce the Authority track through your operations – once around the operations roundel reduces the marker on the Authority track.

As you’d expect from GMT, it’s a well presented package with a mounted board, rounded counters, and wooden cubes and discs. The rulebook is more narrative than the usual case system text but it’s a fairly light rules overhead so no problems there.

The box, however, is a bit over the top for the component count. For comparison, look at the box size for Endurance. Maybe it’s not a heinous as Twilight Struggle Horn of Africa but I can’t help think you could shave 10 to 15% off costs (and environmental impact) with a smaller box.

Despite what the game blurb says, I didn’t get much of a narrative arc from the solitaire game. I usually look for some narrative or persona immersion in a solo game. The persona card – more or less just an abstract secondary winning condition – didn’t provide it. I’ll return to In the Shadows but it’s probably not going to be a go-to solitaire fix. For that, I’ll stick to games like The Hunters or Cruel Necessity.

That said, it’s a nice solitaire option.