Campaign Series Vietnam

Jason Petho · July 03, 2025, 10:50:34 AM

Well holy crap, talk about brutal city fighting. On the bright side we did secure a couple of objectives, leaving only one left. The fighting is bloody and the Germans are counter-attacking with vigor. Block after block is being heavily contested. I showed what to do to assault a city, and what not to do. Ha! We are winding down to the last handful of turns, but it will be brutal until the bitter end by the looks of it.

Jason Petho · July 06, 2025, 03:25:47 PM

We took some time to go over what's coming with the pending JTCS 2.03 UPDATE before we returned to the Vietnam scenarios called ERADICATION. Although I'm half thinking that it meant the eradication of my poor ARVN and US Riverine forces. The fighting is brutal with a lot of prepared Viet Cong positions, very heavily defended. I will presume that the morale of these Viet Cong units are very high, because they are taking a lot of firepower to dislodge and capture. Lots of valuable tactical lessons during this session, some for the better but some for the worse!

Jason Petho · July 10, 2025, 12:08:48 AM

We caught the tail end of my installation of the JTCS 2.03 BETA UPDATE, and then played it this session. Apart from the teething problem, we dove back into the action. And holy, what action it was. I haven't cursed this much in awhile as I am trying to grab that last point. We managed to get within striking distance of the last victory location and, of course, it's a freaking bunker. Talk about a tense ending! Only 5 turns to go and I have to take that blasted bunker out. And so it begins.

Jason Petho · July 13, 2025, 03:36:32 PM

We went over the latest news with the coming 2.03 UPDATE for the John Tiller's Campaign Series games and then we dove back into the chaos. On the bright side, we successfully completed the Eradication successfully with a major victory. It wasn't as major as I thought it was going to be, mostly due to the losses I had incurred. After we started up the Battle of U-Minh forest. I think this is one of the top five hardest scenarios in Campaign Series Vietnam. It's a brutal scenario for the ARVN. We are already 10 turns in and I feel like I've accomplished nothing but taking losses!

Jason Petho · July 17, 2025, 12:24:44 AM

I went over the notes for the JTCS 2.03 UPDATE that will be released tomorrow and then we dove back into the Aachen. We did it!! Victory is ours. We secured the last Victory Point location and destroyed a large amount of Germans in various pockets. We went over the point totals and losses after the battle. What a messy fight and I'm grateful I wasn't playing a human in this scenario. Wow, what a fun fight that I highly recommend!

Jason Petho · July 20, 2025, 06:38:22 PM

Talk about a hard scenario. Wow, we are making good progress for the most part, but we are bogged down in the fighting in the U-Minh Forest. It is nutters how we are getting bogged down in certain areas and my casualties are ramping up. It's a hell of a fight, but a fun one. Lots of lessons to be learned here although we certainly tried! For once, I haven't lost any helicopters. Yay for small miracles. Otherwise, we started off with a show and tell of all the latest and greatest news for the Campaign Series, especially a review of the latest 2.03 UPDATE for JTCS.

Jason Petho · July 24, 2025, 12:29:14 AM

Well since we finished off Aachen, we started up something different! We went into Campaign Series East Front and started up a NEW Linked Campaign game: Thunder on the Dnepr. The first mission as an advance to the Dnepr River by our core force, the 71. Infanterie Regiment of the 29. Motorized Division. It was a success, although we started suffering casualties to the blasted Russian artillery. It wasn't nearly as bad as the second scenario though, which we nearly completed.

Jason Petho · July 27, 2025, 03:22:12 PM

Before we dove into the Vietnam scenarios, we took a look at Schlonz's impressive work on the West Germans. We took a review of a lot of the new vehicles that you will see in the future Cold War game. We also used the latest map from Nick! It's coming along exceptionally well. We then returned to the last few turns of the Battle of U-Minh forest. What a disaster, but that was still full of good lessons. We started another Civil War scenario called "The Gauntlet" where we are an ARVN battalion attempting to extract itself from an ambush. Holy, it's a doozy, but hell of a lot of fun!

Jason Petho · July 31, 2025, 01:34:35 AM

After a recap of the events of the week relating to the John Tiller's Campaign Series pending UPDATE, we dove back into the Thunder on the Dnepr Linked Campaign Game. Well, that's messy. Beyond messy even. The 71. Infanterie Regiment of the 29. Motorized Division has been suffering some serious casualties. In some cases entire platoons have been wiped out. We did complete the second scenario and have found ourselves buried deep into the third. It's a heck of a go and our forces are slowly being whittled down. I'm still waiting for some replacements, but it appears they are still in Germany. Our attached StuG-III's ran into a nasty surprise and paid the price. We are making progress, but holy - it's hard!

Jason Petho · August 03, 2025, 05:06:02 PM

The old adage of "A plan does not survive first contact with the enemy" is a good way to describe this session. We finished off the Gauntlet scenario and while I thought I did well, it turned out otherwise. I just couldn't seem to dig myself out of the ambush. Those Viet Cong were pretty determined indeed. After that we did a play through of the infamous PK 15 battle where the French are also trying to break themselves out of an ambush. We suffered some pretty severe losses and had a lot of valuable lessons. This scenario is always interesting as one never knows how the situation will unfold.

Jason Petho · August 06, 2025, 11:55:07 PM

After a recap of the events of the week relating to the John Tiller's Campaign Series pending UPDATE, we dove back into the Thunder on the Dnepr Linked Campaign Game. My poor 71. Infanterie Regiment is getting butchered. We managed to finish the third scenario but then ran into some troubles starting the fourth. We did some live bug fixing and managed to get it working without further issues. That's a good lesson to see what I do when I'm doing some bug hunting. The fourth scenario will be an interesting one as we are chasing down Russians on our way to Smolensk with the very few remnants of our own regiment. Hopefully we have something to fight with when we get to Smolensk!

Jason Petho · August 10, 2025, 05:01:42 PM

After we went over the latest and greatest news about the Campaign Series, we decided to start up playing the Dien Bien Phu scenarios in order that were created by David Galster. This should be fun as I haven't played most of them yet. More importantly, many of the scenarios are designed to be played from the Viet Minh perspective. Hopefully I will be able to provide some intel on how to play the Viet Minh and later Viet Cong more effectively. It should be a challenge indeed, but a fun one! We finish off the first landing scenario and then start up scenario number two as the Viet Minh where we are preparing for a frontal assault against the well defended French position - Beatrice.

Jason Petho · August 13, 2025, 11:47:22 PM

A quick review of the latest Campaign Series News and then some babbles about Cold War and it's progress with ideas for the 1960's, some feedback would be appreciated! After that we dove back into the Linked Campaign and spent the session chasing down Russians as we are both working our way to the same area with exit objectives. The Russians have beat me there and have left some ambushes along the way. It's been a blast, nearly literally, so far this session. I'm playing very aggressively, trying to advance in bounds to chase them all down as we get closer to the end of scenario 4.

Jason Petho · August 17, 2025, 03:14:27 PM

There was lots of awesome discussion today during the feed, thank you for those that participate in that! We went over the latest news about the Cold War game and the pending JTCS BETA UPDATE. Then we dove back into the second scenario in the Dien Bien Phu series of scenarios. We spent the first part preparing for the assault, and suffering casualties in the meantime, but now that darkness has arrived, we're in the thick of the action. The major challenge here, even though the French are isolated, they still pack a punch and we're suffering for it. The artillery wasn't nearly as effective as I had hoped for the previous turns, and we are starting the up close and personal assault phase. For better or worse.

Jason Petho · August 20, 2025, 11:24:08 PM

We started off with details about the JTCS pending 2.04 UPDATE and news about Cold War. I went over some initial Wish List thoughts on Cold War for additions/improvements. Now is a good time to add some feedback and or thoughts if you're so inclined! After that we dove back into the new Linked Campaign in East Front where we continued the advance with our poor motorized Infantry Regiment. We finished the 4th scenario in the campaign by the skin of our teeth and are already getting brewed up in the fifth scenario. Talk about pushing the boundaries of madness!