Back in Black - Men of Company B AAR

My wife and I were visiting family this past weekend up in New Jersey, which gave me the chance to swing by the SJGA meeting at their new location.

The club was running two games; Konflikt 47 and Men of Company B. Ted and Chip were running the Vietnam game, so I joined that one. 

I have played Men of Company B only once in the far distant past, which I recall enjoying. 

The scenario was a standard search-and-destroy mission by an American platoon, with a number of Viet Cong squads hoping to thwart the American's goals. The American platoon was accompanied by a pair of M48 Patton tanks. 

The Americans came on group together on one side of the table, searching through the villages.

As the VC squads only start with two teams and need to recruit from the local villages, they came on the opposite side of the table from the Americans and began bolstering their strength.

The American players quickly discovered several important supply caches. The VC players (including myself) were worried that the game would be over rather quickly if the Americans kept up their success!

With enough recruited villages, the VC began a tentative advance on one of the outlying American squads. 

They would have to deal with the reinforcing M48s, however, who could easily outrange the VC's close-range anti-tank weapons. 

The M48s advanced, supported by a squad of American infantry. 

The third American platoon also deployed, pinning down one of the VC sqauds. With half of the village squares on the table explored and looted, the VC players needed to keep the Americans out of these squares to have any hope of winning.

Credit goes to Sam for keeping this village out of American hands for the entirety of the game! 

That hope was reduced further when a combination of tank and infantry fire from the Americans ripped into the advancing VC squad. As only the squad leader was left, he quickly disappeared into the terrain to try his luck elsewhere. 

That luck would come in the next turn. Another VC squad that had disappeared early in the game was able to redeploy behind the Americans as the tanks and infantry advanced out of the searched villages. This allowed the VC squad to ambush the American platoon command team, wiping them out and recapturing the highest priority cache in the process. 

Suddenly the American platoon found itself out of command and trapped between two VC squads. 

Realizing that their captured caches were in danger, the advancing Americans were forced to turn around and recapture the villages they had left. 

Deadly American firepower ripped into a number of VC squads that had suddenly appeared in the absence of the American infantry squads. 

The game ended with a decisive assault by Ryan with an American infantry platoon, forcing the VC squad with the high priority cache to abandon it and retreat.

At the end of the game, it turned out that the Americans had won by 17 points, and the high priority cache had scored them 18! Had the VC (i.e., me) not been blinded by the chance to take out another American squad and instead retreated, that may have changed the end result. Instead, it was a Proper Victory for the Americans, with the Viet Cong forced to retreat having lost several squads. 

While the Second World War is generally as far as I'm comfortable playing wargames with, I do enjoy the asymmetrical gameplay of the Men of Company B rules. It's an interesting conundrum for both sides; the Americans need to get in and out quickly, and also try to destroy any VC squads entirely before they can disappear and pop up elsewhere on the table. For the Viet Cong, they have to take the time to recruit and gather their strength, and they're always going to be fighting uphill with raw recruits and less firepower. It's a balancing act between knowing when to risk an opportunity and when to run away and conserve your strength.

As always with Ted and Chip, a great game. And it was nice to see the SJGA thriving in their new location!