Fire In The Lake another outing

Another run out of this most excellent game with my Dad.

What a superb system COIN is have not been as enthused with a board game since discovering Combat Commander series.

Just so many choices and decisions in this game that change with every opportunity to act.

So many options to help your faction, or thwart the enemy, but do I use an favourable event thereby however granting the enemy a potentially potent combo of a Operations plus a Special Activity ??

So do I limit myself in order to stop him using event, but wait I then make myself ineligible for next event which I really want !?

All this plus the vagaries of differing factions and their Operations/Special Activities, which cards are in the deck, which faction gets to use/deny card or Ops and when are Coup cards appearing makes for a heady mix and exciting and extremely fun gaming experience.

We played the short 1965-67 scenario again and this time my Yanks ran out winners by achieving a -1  Victory Level (ie closet to their Auto win level) on last Coup card.
++Edit++ aha re-reading rules in a 2 player game Victory Conditions are slightly different as both US and ARVN would need to be in 'winning' positions, so it seems either VC or NVA would have won as ARVN were way off the mark (-18 IIRC)
This time round we discovered the use of the highways and rivers (LOCs not present in Colonial Twilight) and need to block/contest them. 

Great game, system and subject matter.

Just a pity these games are so expensive here in UK.

Fire In The Lake first play

First try with my first COIN system game ‘Fire In The Lake’ covering the Vietnam War with my Dad.

We tried the short scenario 1965-1967 using historical card deck with a Dad as NVA/VC and I as US/ARVN.

Very interesting system with plenty of decisions to make and varying options for each ‘faction’.

The make up of the card deck is very interesting with great replay value as one only uses half the available scenario cards plus 3 Coup (End Phase) cards, so great replay value and no two games will be the same.

COIN system is intriguing to say the least. K

Military action is abstract but essential as is winning ‘Hearts and Minds’ of the population.

Rules not that complex (but the options/decisions are were complexity as such abides) only real issue we had was recording of Victory Points for each side finding hard to track during turns (just easier to total on each Coup card)

Game was ‘won’ by NVA on 3rd Coup card by having least negative score !

This one should see more play time.