FNG - First Thoughts

Today I had the chance to try out FNG 2nd Tour, the Vietnam era rules from Two Hour Wargames.  I have been looking forward to trying these rules for some time, as they get a lot of mention on the Field of Fire Vietnam forum, especially from Garryowen (Tom).  Tom has invited me in the past to come game with his group on several occasions, but I could not make it work out schedule-wise, until today.

I will admit that I have read through both Nuts! and the Korean War supplement (entitled Fire in Korea), and was not impressed, mostly from a layout and rules flow viewpoint.  But having had a chance to push through a game of FNG, I feel like I have a good grasp of how this system of rules is supposed to work.  Tom had a nice QRS and turn sequence he shared, and that really helped.

Tom has quite a collection of miniatures (from several historical eras) and an awesome gaming area, and he had already set out the gaming table we would use before my arrival.  He went over the basic rules mechanics, and we jumped into playing.  Each side had four figures, with the Americans having a goal of moving towards the hooch from the jungle, and the North Vietnamese trying to keep the Americans away.  On the first turn I was able to force back one of Tom's troopers, but in return I lost one of my own.  On another turn we traded kills, leaving Tom with three remaining figures, and myself with only two, and one of Tom's figures was an M-79 grenadier, so I was usually outgunned when it came to figuring out reactions.  We circled around the rice paddies, and Tom made a dash towards my two remaining figures while they were both prone, but I won the activation the next turn and killed both the grenadier and leader, but at the expense of running out of ammo for both my figures.  Tom's remaining grunt gave it a go, killing one of my two figures, but after hunkering down, reloading, I was able to have my leader figure pop up, win the in sight test, and kill his last trooper.  To be honest, I thought he had me when he came after my prone troops, but two of his figures got caught in the open and that swung the balance towards the NVA.

I have skipped over many of the things that happened along the way, because the point of getting together was for me to learn the basic game skills.  After going through the pre-game need to knows, I felt like I was able to pick up the flow of the game, when to do in sight tests, and firing and reaction fairly well.  

While this isn't really a rules review, I will share that I did enjoy learning the core of FNG, and certainly want to keep gaming these rules to see how other mechanics play.  Now if Darby would just finish the third edition....

After the game we went to a local Vietnamese restaurant, which was quite good.  Sate is a spicy mother though, but my first 33 beer helped cool my throat a bit.