TMOCB USMC v NVA

Time for another solo game of TMOCB, this time Lt. Donovan and his men are tasked with sweeping the Vietnamese countryside searching for hidden caches and attempting to engage the NVA who are rumoured to be in the area.

Lt. Donovan deployed in a central village with Sgt. Elias on his left and Sgt. Rambo on the right (deployment for each group is to a random village) so he has obviously learned from his previous missions and made sure his men can support each other! Sgt. Barnes will bring his men on as reinforcements later:

For support Donovan has chosen an artillery liaison officer attached to his group, some extra grunts attached to Rambo and a new addition, Pvt. 'Buster' the K9 Dog Team! This team is attached to Elias and gives an improved chance of discovering caches: 

Sgt. Elias quickly finds and destroys a food cache:

Sgt. Rambo also discovers a food store and burns it:

Moving through the village another cache is destroyed:

Lt. Donovan is also successful finding two more caches and burning them. An excellent start for the Marines!:

The NVA platoon commander arrives and moves into a nearby village, taking up defensive positions:

Pvt. Buster sniffs out a medium value cache as Elias clears another area of the village:

Lt. Donovan calls down an artillery strike on the NVA platoon commander but it misses the target:

More NVA arrive, the squad must have been much depleted on the way to the battlefield though as it only has three bases:

In the first firefight of the encounter Lt. Donovan and his men manage to take out two bases of the recently arrived NVA squad leaving just the leader alive:

In response the NVA platoon commander calls down a mortar strike on Donovan. It is on target but Donovan and his men survive with a few cuts and bruises:

Rambo exchanges fire with the NVA platoon leader taking the first Marine casualties:

Rambo returns the fire taking out two NVA bases. The NVA are in big trouble now, the platoon commander only has two bases left and his first squad is now a single base. There are two more squads on the way though:

Pvt. Buster demonstrates his value again as he discovers a hidden communist VIP and captures him!:

The second NVA squad arrives:

Again many men have been lost in the approach march and only 5 bases make it to the battlefield. They prepare to attack Elias' men to attempt to free the VIP and recover the mid-value cache:

Another NVA mortar strike, this one hits Sgt. Rambo and his men. For a moment it appears Rambo is down but he picks himself up off the ground and carries on!:

Sgt. Elias attempts to get his men to assault the NVA but fails:

The Medevac arrives to remove some injured Marines:

Sgt. Barnes arrives with the third squad. Being in the open they are a bit vulnerable:

The NVA squad opposing Sgt. Elias is equally unenthusiastic about assaulting!:

The final NVA squad arrives. Again numbers are limited but they open fire and some of Sgt. Barnes' men go down:

Concerned about Sgt Elias' men Lt. Donovan rushes to assess the situation. Moving quickly his men fail to spot a booby trap which explodes injuring some of them:

Encouraged by Lt. Donovan Sgt. Elias and his men finally assault the NVA squad opposite them, wiping it out!:

Sgt. Elias' men mop up the survivors:

The NVA assault Sgt. Barnes' men, this is the last effective NVA squad:

Barnes' men cut the attackers down wiping out another squad. It is all over for the NVA now:

More injured Marines are evacuated:

Sgt. Barnes searches another village but is ambushed by some VC! The Marines are on top form today though and easily deal with the ambushers:

Sgt. Elias finds another medium value cache:

Almost all the American casualties have been evacuated now:

Sgt. Barnes finds the last hidden cache of food, it is a clean sweep for the Marines!:

The final count. All caches discovered and 10 NVA bases casualties (plus 4 evacuated). The NVA managed to cause only 4 Marine base casualties 3 of which were evacuated:

The final score was 111 VP for the Marines and only 23 for the NVA giving a major US victory. The Communists had no luck at all in this game. The American initial deployment was ideal, their searches were very effective (thanks Pvt. Buster!) and the NVA rolls to determine squad size were abysmal which meant their squads quickly collapsed.

After a series of initial Communist victories the Americans now seem much more successful, I think I will need to reconsider how I play the communists perhaps. I've ordered the rest of the pieces for the Firebase so when those arrive and I paint them up I'll probably do another Firebase game next. I also bought a box of the amusingly named Ruff-Puffs, local Vietnamese forces that fought for the Americans so when I paint those up they will give me another gaming option though I think it will be a while before I finish them.

This was my 8th solo game of TMOCB and I must say I've enjoyed them all, the rules work quite well solo and I've also enjoyed painting up the various figures and terrain. I'd like to try playing at the club against someone else when we can but I'm not sure how easy it would be to transport everything there.