Combat Commander Vietnam Session Report — Highlands Contact!
Volko gives us a quick report on a learning game. All images are playtest not production art.
For my second tour into Combat Commander: Vietnam, designer Stephen Rangazas generated us the following scenario. I would command an NLF main force detachment defending a friendly hamlet in the highlands in 1966 against his elite US detachment, part of a 1st AirCav Division sweep of VC-held Montagnard villages. I drew an objective card that would add 5VP for holding a nearby height, conveniently along my egress edge. I added just a satchel charge team, remaining the defender, and dug three trenches.
My plan was to delay the Americans with some engagements as they pressed into the hamlet. I hoped to cause some enemy losses with the satchel and with fire from the ridgetop trench work, then break contact as soon as able – having held onto my key terrain (objective hex 4).
The satchel proved a dud, as did most of the fire from my ridge. But the US maneuver gave me an opportunity to trade objectives in the center for a while and perhaps overrun a lone US squad. So my platoon down in the village went for that.
My thrust managed to cause only light wounds against the Americans – in exchange for loss of a squad of my own – but did for a time occupy the central jungle objective. It came time to bug out — but the US advance had now cut off my egress across the hamlet’s throughway path. And the US aerial rocket choppers were coming in: yikes.
Maneuver and counter-maneuver.
My men barely managed to survive all that, when a sniper killed my CO just as he was leading the maneuver platoon across the open of the hamlet trail. I thought they were done, but my signaller managed to save the day, getting to the trapped platoon and leading them to safety on the near side of the hamlet. It was white-knuckle work, helped by malfunction of both enemy M-60s shooting at me.
Take the shot – or beat the retreat?
On the ridgeline, blazes set off by some sort of ammo-handling incompetence was chasing my fire base out of its trenches. But our recoilless did manage a lucky hit on the US leader down in the huts before having to evacuate the works. Then our MMG on the height drew a promising bead on the broken enemy leader — a “12” with time trigger!
I could now EITHER order “break contact” or hang around for a good chance of eliminating the enemy officer, but not both! With my units scattered and several in the open, and the sound of another enemy helicopter run wafting in over the jungle, I decided to bug out and hope – despite an edge of just a VP or 2 – that my holding Objective 4 would be enough to counter whatever of his 2 objective cards he had fulfilled. …
In the event, he had been assigned to capture my weapons – none – and kill my units – just a squad and my CO. Result: a narrow NLF defensive win.
At my previous learning session with Stephen (left) – that time facing his co-designer Non-Breaking Space as my US opponent.
Comment: I am loving the interplay of Break Contact decisions with the new Withdraw and Creep orders and the secret Objective cards. The latter seem to offer a lot more interest and uncertainty than the old Secret Objective chits – quite appropriate to guerrilla warfare, where we should often not know precisely what the enemy is about. The recent adjustments to melee and off-map Withdrawal, moreover, offered to me a better balanced incentive to try for close engagement but not automatically commit to it. That all played out here to tell a very Vietnam War story of VC throwing some punches and then melting away for the marginal win.
Bottom line: Like the rest of Combat Commander, this one really transports me. I’ll be playing a lot more CC: Vietnam in playtest and beyond.
— Volko