Versus Vietnamese Verewolves (A Vietnam '65 AAR) (COMPLETE)

[JasonPratt]

IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day 14 conclusion

The first thing I did was bring 3rd Company by chopper down to where they could be more easily resupplied in the next few days; but I figured I could try dropping them off next to the hex where the werewolves might have gone...




Oh hai! Did you think you could get away? We have helicopters now. Ho. Ho. Ho. (Wait my copter is flying off! Well, it badly needs to refuel...)

Note that I don't recall clearly whether the chopper saw them, but I don't think it did. The map isn't to scale; the company sends out scouts to check in a one hex radius around it. Still, copters often saw the enemy, even in the jungle (at night anyway when moving with lights which couldn't be seen horizontally), at some distance, so a rule adjustment letting air cav scout at least one hex around itself in flight, at least in clear areas, would be nice.

The... uh, 2nd Company which has been sitting in ambush along the other projected trail for a while, could use some experience; so I set the 3rd Company in ambush, too. Unless the werewolves turn around and run away completely, they'll walk into an ambush one way or another, and we'll get a major bonus to winning.

Or... OMG THEY WALKED INTO MY ARTY RANGE FINALLY! Arty gets on the board.

5th Company shoots its werewolves -- got to remember on an attack like that the unit moves into the defending hex at the end, that could be a problem later... and I bag some more score. Tomorrow I'll put them on ambush to watch for anyone exiting a portal nearby.

I could technically order a new Huey now -- I still need at least one more to service the area better, maybe two, especially if I'm going to reach up to Jomni village. But that would be 2750 out of 3915, and that enemy base is still sucking 250 political points every day, so that doesn't seem like a very good idea. Wait until I shoot a few more werewolf packs I guess.

Thus ends our second week. HM score, 52. Political points, 3915 (-250 overnight for the enemy base). Three strong packs still on the board, five weak ones. But 5 weaker packs shot with only one American injury so far.

[endfire79]

r... OMG THEY WALKED INTO MY ARTY RANGE FINALLY! Arty gets on the board.

Red Leg, Red Leg, check-your-fire!   :D

[JasonPratt]

IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day fifteen (start of week 3)

More werewolves popped out of wherever that portal is I'm sure I've found nearby; and attacked 5th Company. That didn't go so well.

FOR THEM! :D

(But it happened so fast I couldn't get a screenshot.)

I am definitely putting 5th Co on ambush today. Since I moved into a hex, and they didn't start off in my hex... not sure how that works: need to ask Johan, what happens if I'm occupying a portal hex, or is the portal at a junction between hexes and so can go in various directions?

For now I'll infer that since we weren't in the same hex during the fight, this isn't the portal hex. But it could be where the enemy appeared, or might be up and to the left a little. Not likely any further left, since the southern attack on BC's village had to have come from here.




I mean from one of those two red hexes (not any closer to my 1st Company or they would have seen them leaving -- 1st Co is moving into position and not ready to ambush last night). Maybe the orange one.

The orange circle is my attempt (flattening it a bit to match the projection distortion on the map which as you can see isn't shown from directly above but an an angle) to give an equidistant range of the portal northeast of Banzaicat. That's shown as red marker on the edge of the circle.

I also shaded in an equally equidistant portal suggestion on the lower right hand side, but on second thought that doesn't seem right: if a portal was there, it would be closer to the target of that pack I artilleried, and they would have originated from there. Yet a pack did come from that direction! But it could have come from the portal tracked up in the right hand corner.

Since the known portal area (within that little cluster) was the closest to whatever target those arty-shot werewolves were headed, though, that means wherever those VC came from that I killed a while back north of Belisarius, it couldn't be farther away than the known portal area, or they'd've popped in from there and come southeast instead of coming south-southwest!

Wait... pondering...



Keeping in mind, I don't know where that pack was traveling from in any kind of vector, or what its target really was. There might be a portal somewhere in that red circle, closer or nor more than equidistant from the contact than the known portal location, and definitely closer to the Belisarius village area (it has the little US flag in the middle of the second orange circle) than the far northeast portal, but not so far north or west that it would be closer to Banzaicat Village (the center of the first orange circle). At most it could only be equidistantly close to Banzaicat village as the other two portals, and that seems unlikely.

Or, there are only two portals, northeast and southwest of Banzaicat; that would explain everything, too, since the contact I shot north of Belisarius might still have been going somewhere closer to the UGeek portal than to the far northeast portal (though the mission area couldn't have been too much farther east I suppose).

Well, I'm not moving 2nd company out of its long-running ambush spot there. It's demonstrably on at least one, maybe two portal tracks into the local area.

Meanwhile, guess what we learned from intel after the fight; and who just walked into range of the Green Berets in Ubercat village!




Some werewolves on a terror mission, and some NVA ROCKETWOLVES!

I'm pretty sure this means there aren't any portals in the two yellow areas; or if there are they're somehow too far away from much of anything to worry about the enemy sending troops through it. Much more likely the portal is somewhere west -- but not much northwest.

In fact, not any northwest! The NVA didn't come from a portal, they came from the border, no doubt in a straight line to wherever they're going. (Well, I don't know for sure the code doesn't spawn them randomly on the border, but it doesn't spawn VC from portals randomly, it spawns them closest to the target, or randomly from two equally distant portals perhaps. It would make no sense for Johan to write the game so that the NVA spawned randomly on the west border with specific mission areas to reach -- but he might have done that to simulate something else or for balancing purposes.)

And the VC couldn't have come from anywhere northwest unless that's where they're trying to reach for a mining mission, which would be weird. I can't rule that out, admittedly, but more likely they're headed for Ubercat village or for somewhere nearby.

Assuming that, means they're either already traveling on the east/west line they intend to stay on -- in which case the portal could be quite a bit farther west -- or they're planning to move north to get where they're going but haven't moved any farther north yet! That would be significant because they're at the map edge; you can't go or start farther south than that. On this hypothesis, the portal can't be much farther west than where they started -- maybe not even more than one or two hexes west -- or they'd already be moving north. Maybe. Maybe not, if the portal is on the bottom map edge but way west.

At any rate, I might as well do a bit of scouting to the west with my GBs, making room for my ARVN to go into the village tomorrow for intel. I can't stop weaker werewolves from getting into the village anyway except by putting my GBs in the way and that would be stupid: they can't fight worth a hoot, and so long as the enemy doesn't stumble on them by accident they'll be invisible. And my ARVN can't even get to the village before tomorrow.

So either my arty shoots them or they get into the village.

My arty shoots them. :)

I just realized the Rocketwolves might have come in the 3 hex detection radius of my GBs guarding Forbase-1. I really don't know what those rockets are after. Are they planning to shoot the base? Or setting up to shoot copters on a resupply run? (My Ubercat GBs do need resupply tomorrow at the latest; but this way if something weird happens maybe they can get into the Forbase.)

No... if they were after the Forbase, they wouldn't be coming up along the river or through the jungle from the western edge in ANY case. That wouldn't be effective travel from the north, or even really from the west. They're more likely looking to set up an ambush near the base. Fine, I can shoot them tomorrow then (instead of sending ARVN out now, who aren't good except against maybe VC).

I could buy some more things now, but I think I'll save up to send defenses for a central firebase soon.

[JasonPratt]

Note to self -- if I ever manage to get farther west, Endfire is the next name on the village list.

[JasonPratt]

IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day sixteen

Whoops, I guess I was wrong. The rocketwolves walked up to Forbase-1 and attacked it!

That's... odd. I know they can shoot air units at least two hexes out. Can they not shoot ground targets two hexes out? And if that was their target, why didn't they go straight for it from the western map edge?  Maybe they hid in the jungle south of the river to avoid detection as long as possible?

Oh well. Fortunately my resupplying ARVN were in the base on ambush duty -- YES I CAN SET AMBUSHES INSIDE MY OWN BASES THANK GOD!! The ARVN kicked ass, and helped our score; giving my artillery a rest.

3rd Company, having been resupplied, visited UGeek village today and got a tip from the locals (who now love the US) that another NVA rocket team has set up an ambush, or is on the way, just outside Jomni village. We'll see about that later.

For all the time that the VC and the NVA have had on the board, largely unmolested until recently, no village flag is flying VC colors yet, so their loyalty couldn't be under 50 yet. That's... odd. I should check the loyalty level flag switches.

Day 16 ends with only 2 VC but still 3 NVA on the map, plus the base. And I know where one of the NVA already is.

[JasonPratt]

IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day seventeen

No new trouble during the night, although the augurs say a strong pack came into the region somewhere. The BetterRocketwolves outside Jomni village either stayed there on ambush duty, or else I'm looking at an old contact. Hard to tell yet, I don't know quite how the engine works when dealing with distant intel like this.

Wait, wait. Huh. They're shown on the map, but not in the game. And now they're not shown on the map either, except as a previous contact.

Anyway. 3rd Company heads off west of UGeek village as security for the engineers following behind; by tomorrow we should be setting up our first and only Firebase (trademark) (registered). Not to be confused with Forward bases, which can also hold artillery.

I did send 6th Company out yesterday from HQ to park a while in ambush (starting today) in case there's a portal nearby. Can't hurt.

Some ARVN from Forbase-1 talked to people in UCat village, but we didn't learn anything. They left to march back to Forbase for the week, and the GBs took up station in UCat to watch for incoming trouble.

Apparently forward bases, though they resupply infantry one tick a day, do not resupply artillery ammo. That's... understandable I guess. At least the arty isn't running out. I'll have to assign a copter to them when I get a chance.

[JasonPratt]

IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day eighteen

All quiet last night, but the augurs say a new VC showed up somewhere. We now have 8 packs of some kind total on the map, plus a base.

I did learn that my 1st Company, helping stand watch on the suspected portal location north of UGeek village, was one tick too far away to get resupplied; that was almost a big problem, and they had to leave their position, breaking that side of the ambush trap. Oy. They won't be able to be back in ambush until the day after tomorrow. I'll have to make sure they get assigned a resupply two days out instead of one from now on.

Since 3rd Company as well as several others are already at the three day mark on being out of supply, and since they're so far out and getting farther... I don't know. I guess it'll be okay, the Firebase will supply them instantly once I build it. Kind of pushing that, though.

[JasonPratt]

IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day nineteen

Still quiet in werewolf country, despite the augurs going goofy with two NVA bases (-500 political points a day!) and seven werewolves somewhere on the map.

I wasn't quite able to build my Firebase where I wanted, due to somewhat obscure placement rules (my guess is something to do with the position I wanted being still three hexes out between two villages -- well, no the manual says two hexes, and I'm sure the spot I wanted was at least 3... weird...) but I having to make a choice between where future artillery would be able to shoot, I chose a bit south instead of a bit north.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to launch resupply missions with helicopters from here, so that's a real problem. Arty apparently won't resupply automatically here either, so copters will have to bring it!



Again, the AI would be well advised to just build bases on the western half of the map and bleed me dry, terrorizing the villages there until I run out of psup.

Oh, and I didn't realize when I was plotting for 3rd Company to go to the base tomorrow, that would take them out of ambush and not be able to put them back. So if they get attacked, they'll be more vulnerable. :P

Things don't exactly suck yet, but the suck appears to be coming. I'd need 4000 just to get another arty out there, and very possibly another copter. Without the arty and maybe another GB for spotting (now 4500 for a total of 8500 points not counting a copter to get them there while my others are resupplying people), how useful will this be?

[JasonPratt]

IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty...

That's... somewhat helpful maybe. My APC got refueled in the Firebase. (Nothing new on the map, augurs say 10 werewolves out there now plus the two wolf-bases.)

I have a copter nearby that just dropped off some supplies; it still has three days of fuel. I'll send it over to the Firebase to test out whether it can at least refuel. Worst that can happen is that it can't and I'll spend two days getting back to HQ. Well, worst that can happen is that by losing more "hexes" of time-travel I won't be able to resupply someone and they'll die, but...

...what's this?

I CAN LAUNCH SUPPLY MISSIONS FROM THE FIREBASE!!?

Exxxcellent... {insert Mr. Burns jpg here}

Also, my engineers finished a road linking the firebase to the main leg of the road network. Probably the next thing will be for them to road up the area from the HQ to Belisarius and Forbase-1.

Also, I moved fourth company out of its ambush position to go check on village intel, but only found the same rocket crew waiting in ambush near Jomni. At least that means they'll be there when I'm ready to go get them. Or when I copter the artillery out to Firebase. Though I'll still have to 'spot' them again... somehow....

[JasonPratt]

IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-one

If I lose, it may be because of a choice I made at the end of yesterday.

I can't safely afford artillery.

But I could safely afford one of three other things.

More infantry at 1750?

A real APC platoon at 1000? Cheaper and stronger and faster than infantry, and survives slightly longer out in the field. But needs spotting to attack without running into the enemy.

How about a tank? At only 1500? Cheaper than infantry now (for my first tank anyway; second will be 2000), and faster, and survives slightly longer out in the field, and the strongest unit in the game -- and able to attack at some distance! Still really needs a spotter to work well, but I might be able to send one of my GBs and still park the other nearby between Forbase-1 and Ubercat to watch for trouble.

I bought a tank.

Fear me, werewolves. I have a tank now. Tanks are cool.

That night, the Firebase was attacked.

The game called it an "ambush" but technically I don't think that can be true, can it? They came up and attacked my base.

Fortunately from the intel (3rd Company won again, and will damn sure be putting itself on ambush for tonight), we spotted the NVA rocketeers again. I think I see a flaw in my tank plan -- I may have to get in their range to attack them, triggering their ambush. Oh well, maybe I'll park it in the Firebase and let sad things try to kill it while I send out 3rd Company to deal with the problem. That's for later this week.




Not shown: the Ubercat area across the river to the south; one dead pack of werewolves. Except with an X to mark their spot.  >:D

It occurs to me that I really need to bring 6th Company forward -- I doubt they're really able to watch for the portal that may or may not be just a little farther off beyond their area {eyeroll}, and I can use them to at least help guard Forbase-1. One ARVN there can go back and forth to Ubercat village to get intel and resupply at Forbase (if necessary); the other can work the road for information up to Jomni and back. I make arrangements to put that plan into action. To help facilitate this, I also make arrangements for the engineers to do the southern leg of the new roadwork first, including anything to help the UCat ARVN get to that village and back. (Sadly, no bridges possible in this game, which is silly.)

It also occurs to me that with the central Firebase able to lend copter supply and refueling support, I could assign one copter to take the arty from Forbase-1 to the Firebase and then sit there (unless it's an emergency) ready to ferry it to Forbase-1 in case of necessary defense. The other copters might be able to keep supply up for everyone by themselves now. It's worth an experiment anyway. I won't be able to work on that until tomorrow.

11 werewolf packs out in the field and still those two bases; but one of them is almost certainly going to get shot by 3rd Company tonight, and I'm making arrangements to work on that Rocketwolf pack soon.

[JasonPratt]

IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-two (start of fourth week)

It occurs to me that one day when I get back to the States, I could make a game about slow heavily armored and armed soldiers tactically maneuvering against many kinds of more numerous enemies. Only, it wouldn't be about werewolves. It would be about, oh, Tolkien's creatures, orcs and elves and maybe something like that Alien from "X THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE".

That would make all the money. :)

(Matrix/Slitherine. I know you have some of the Warhammer40K license. You converted Panzer General Corps to that milieu pretty successfully. Consider. Consider the moneys. That is all. I know you will do the right thing.)

Meanwhile... wait, my crew was on ambush, my highly experienced crew, versus VC, and we fought them on ambush as they walked by the Firebase, AND WE STILL LOST?? That... that seems unprobable.

Oh well. Not dead yet. Will have to evac them though and get some replacements there asap.

Oh and there are three bases on the board now somewhere. Drinking 750 political points a day. Blankety blank blanking... GIVE ME SOMETHING TO AIRSTRIKE Y'ALL!!

[JasonPratt]

IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-three

Fortunately I was able to drop off 6th Company and let them get on ambush duty at the Firebase; and then even resupply 5th Company nearby. (Thank the Lord I had enough sense to resupply some of my other troops at 3 units the past couple of days when I had the wherewithal to do so.)

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get 3rd Company all the way back to HQ today. But I choppered them most of the way, and they won't die from wounds, that's not how this game works.

Fortunately, I was able to airlift my artillery company to the Firebase from Forbase-1.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to do this after my ARVN visited Ubercat village; and as it happens we got some intel of an incoming VC pack (along that previous route to Ubercat village I mean). So I couldn't arty shoot them.

Fortunately, my tank can shoot out three hexes, and was able to run back to within three hexes to whomp them. Level up little tanky!

Unfortunately, that'll delay me getting to the RPGs, so the points I earned won't count much, even though on the balance it should be 250 ahead of where I would have otherwise been (minus various operational costs meanwhile.)

Fortunately, this (probably?) confirms that as long as I have a forward spotter I can hit the RPG squad with the tank outside their ambush radius.

Unfortunately, as Johan confirmed, moving my GB up the road without my tank still doesn't mean I can question people in UGeek village.

Fortunately, I didn't want to question anyone else today anyway (I'd rather keep that a running once-per-day thing so that the villages will trigger somewhere once a day).

Unfortunately, the frogurt delivered to HQ today from California was cursed.

Fortunately, my arty will be in place to shoot those dang RPGs and whoever else my GB spots in the next few days. I won't even need the tank! Though I'll bring it along to catch up eventually anyway, just in case.

Unfortunately, three NVA bases eating away 750 points a day will be hard to overcome until I can find and whomp them.

[JasonPratt]

IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-four

Weirdly, my contact map for NVA track history shows there was some kind of contact two hexes west of the Firebase at some time in the past. And that wasn't the VC 3rd Company killed one hex west of it either. I don't recall ever seeing it. I wonder if it's still there, and what it is. Hm. It's between me and Johan village, if so. And not an RPG ambusher apparently. Or maybe. How long has it been there? Why didn't I see it before?





I don't want to waste time sending the GB over to check it if it's nothing; but I'm not real happy about the idea of sending my rookie 6th company out to look for it either instead of keeping them on a comfortable ambush. But I'm also not happy about the idea of risking my copters. Argh.

Well, war is risk. I send 6 Co out, one hex, to see whassup.

Apparently it's nothing; or they find nothing anyway. Just to be safe, and to guard the approach to the firebase that I know at least two VC have tried (and maybe whatever that NVA dot is/was), I put them on Ambush. They can go back tomorrow on ambush again inside the base.

We didn't get any actionable intel from the locals today, but the 1st GBs moved up the road toward Jomni and spotted the RPG squad for our arty, who turned them into a black smoky hole. Everyone got basically resupplied who needed it, and we'll only be a little behind by tomorrow (with 3rd costing us p-sup to heal and the usual 750 deficit from NVA bases.) Maybe we'll be lucky and the werewolves will send someone into a successful ambush or two tonight!

[JasonPratt]

IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-five

Oh, hey! Last night I realized my GBs hadn't finished moving -- much like Panzer general, if you have segmented movement (and everyone does in this game, but even in FantasyWars/ElvenLegacy you should always move one hex at a time to be safe and then undo and move farther along your chosen path, just to be safe) you should go one hex at a time and see what pops up.

As it happened, I hadn't arty'd the RPG squad yesterday, or there were two squads. The GBs picked up another one!

Rather than get one hex closer and risk problems, I decided to camp them for the night; which since they can't go into ambush mode means clearing mines: and I blew a set in front of Jomni!

Odd... I thought mines were supposed to score me some kind of points, but they don't seem to have done so... Oh, it's an HM score uptick for the nearest village; right now that might not count much. Got it.

And then, during the night, another NVA troop runs right up to the GBs from the west!

Now, I got two different impressions from the rules, and I don't know which is true. One is that the GBs can never be attacked, because they're always invisible to the enemy, which would make them able to block movement. (They can attack but not be attacked. And should only attack really weak things if any such things exist, not even VC infantry.) The other is that the enemy could run into them by accident triggering a fight. I don't know which impression is right. But the NVA certainly didn't hit them last night, just stopped next door.

I also clarified by the way that I must have seen an optical illusion much earlier when my engineers were up in the jungle around Banzaicat: I can't use them to clear villages or even rice. So, uh, yeah just ignore that question, Johan, nevermind. :)

Engineers also can't clear rocks, which makes me have to go around them for a road, but that's okay. Would have been shorter but whatever.

My tank ran up and shot the incoming NVA; and the arty got the next the GBs had spotted near Jomni! Amazingly, the GBs as they advanced found yet another but it might be outside arty range (and it can only shoot one a day anyway.)

Also, my tank is about out of gas, and I can't think of any way to supply it today. I hope it doesn't disappear tomorrow (but I saved the game before the move, just in case I didn't understand the rules right. The engineer APC can carry gas to it, so I told it to forget the road now and be ready to help it tomorrow if it survives.

I've decided to risk Forbase-1 being hit by incoming problems from that portal to the north (wherever it is), in order to move my 2nd GBs westward three hexes up from the southern border. I'd like to know where the portal is down there, if I can find it.

All things considered, it was a pretty good day today, although the augurs say 11 packs are still in the area (after I wiped out two of them!) I know where one is, though; we'll see if he's still there tomorrow.

[JasonPratt]

IN WEREWOLF COUNTRY -- Day twenty-six

Oh, good, my tank didn't disappear! The engineers refueled it; and are slated to go back in the Firebase tomorrow; so it's all good.

I kind of forgot the point to the 2nd squad of ARVN was to patrol the villages on the road for information, now that the Firebase is nearby enough to easily keep them supplied. This has now been rectified. (I'll show the setup on that soon.)

The next NVAs, who are definitely set to shoot tanks at a 3 hex range by the way (I checked with some save scumming because I don't know the rules and wanted to make sure ;) ), are also outside the range of my arty. This could be a problem; but I have my 3rd Asskickers on the way back from HQ and they'll be of some help I think. I'm also running an ammo supply mission for the cannons, though in the nature of things that takes pretty much four days at least (maybe more for the chopper to refuel). In effect I'm tying up two copters to keep it running ideally, in case I need to fly it back to Forbase for protecting that area there. Not great. But still doable, I think. Neither GB squad found anything else today, but I have hope this strategy will be good.

The most interesting thing happened last night, however. (Oh, and I discovered villagers will tell me about werewolves I already know the location of myself, which is annoying.)





4th Company was attacked by VC while waiting in ambush northeast of Banzaicat. JUST LIKE I HOPED THEY WOULD EVENTUALLY!

And the attack came from directly east. This, combined with the equidistant range to the village from the other portal (haven't seen any activity there since setting up shop by the way), tells me there's an extremely good chance the portal in the NE corner of the map is somewhere at or just beyond that red line/circle interception -- otherwise the two contacts up there wouldn't have had the approaches they did! Worth noting: that's almost a direct diagonal line to the Belisarius village fight long ago!

We'll be moving off that direction for ambushing if we can, soon.

Not a bad day at all: no one got hurt (once I figured out the RPG team and I have equal ranges after they set up ambush anyway), and we shaved a few more werewolves. If I could just find and whack those bases, we'd really be making hay!