Modern Wars, Vietnam, Low Level Hell, 10mm

In my last wargame of 2012 I was racing around in a helicopter, shooting up “Charlie”, in a game staged by Jack Granville. He stages this every Christmas, but for some reason I haven’t played it since December 2006. The 1/200 scale helicopters (from Skytrex) looked pretty cool, as did the villages, but the look of the game was let down slightly by the strip of white PVC which doubled as a road. looking back at the game six years ago, the same PVC served as a river! Let’s hope by 2018 Jack has replaced it with something prettier. Anyway, I digress. The game involved five players – one running the VC/NVA, and the others commanding one or more helicopters. Jack acted as the umpire.George and I had three gunships between us. Our mission was to shoot up an NVA convoy, before it reached the village of Dang Nap It. The other team had three transport Hueys and a medevac chopper. Their mission was to reach a downed CNN helicopter, and rescue its stranded passengers and crew, which included Errol Flynn’s son Sean. Things began well, as both teams cruised cross the table without anyone firing at them. Things changed rapidly when the transports began landing around the downed chopper. Hidden VC began firing at the grunts as they jumped out of the helicopters, and soon fire was coming in from all sides. Meanwhile our three gunships had swept on past, and were lining up for a shot at the convoy.George opened proceedings with a barrage of rockets, which missed their target and erupted on the far side of the PVC – sorry – road. His second run was much better, and the leading truck was soon blown apart. By that time my gunship was hovering above Dang Nap It village, which thankfully seemed clear of enemy troops. As it made its approach the pilot spotted a VC machine gun hiding in the treeline, and wiped it out with a quick burst from the minigun. The same minigun then despatched the next truck, while George wiped out truck three. The only damage we took was some automatic fire which hid George’s lead “slick”. It wasn’t enough to stop the fun, and our firepower was more than sufficient to wipe out the rest of the convoy.Somewhere behind us things weren’t going so well for the rescue team. The medevac chopper had been badly hit as the formation made its approach to the downed chopper. While one Huey circled around, firing at targets of opportunity the medevac helicopter began lumbering away to safety, and down on the ground the rescue team reached the stranded reporters, and bundled them into a waiting Huey. It took off, and was promptly hit square on by an RPG round, and a burst of machine gun fire. It promptly crashed, killing everyone on board, including Mr. Flynn and his fellow journalists. The rescue team promptly abandoned their failed mission, and flew off into the sunset, as did we, although of course our mission was a howling success. The real victory of the day was Derek Hodge, the commander of the VC/NVA, who despite taking a few casualties and losing his supply convoy had stuck one in the eye of the “Yankee running dog imperialists”. The game itself was great fun – as you’d expect when presented with a heady combination of sexy little helicopters and powerful automatic weapons! The rules were created by South London Warlords many years ago, for use in a 1/76 scale demo game they ran at Salute. They were published in Miniature Wargames , but I forget when.

Tags: Low Level Hell