Fire in the Lake

Review: Fire in the Lake

Thrower: Vietnam. Sex, drugs and terror lurking in the tropical night. If even half of what you read about it is true, then this was the war to end all wars: the war of America against itself. The Viet Cong were just along for the ride.

This was my generation’s World War 2, the conflict from which 80’s society forged martial myths of heroism. Yet, hard as it tried, pop culture couldn’t quite scrub the filth away. Always there were undertones of dirty warfare, of eventual failure. It wasn’t ideal hero material, but it was all we had. For me, that complexity made it all the more compelling.

Then I read Dispatches. This account of a journalist’s experience in the conflict is the finest book on war I have ever read. As well as the history, there is an important lesson. Dispatches taught me that war can be both beautiful and terrible at the same time. That it was okay to hate war and love militaria. To be a pacifist and to play wargames. Reading it made a piece of distant history into a personal thing, a hot piece of literary shrapnel lodged close to my heart.

Vietnam, 1964. The most wrenching US engagement of the Cold War would be far more than GI versus Charlie. The conflict had set tribesman against nationalist, Buddhist against Catholic, mandarin against villager, and of course Northerner against Southerner—even among the communists. As revolutionary change burned through that ancient civilization, Washington would apply its armament and its operations research. To get out, the US counterinsurgency would have to motor deeper and deeper in. In the end, culture and will would overcome technology and math and signal the end of the primacy of industrial might in modern warfare.

Volume IV in GMT’s COIN Series dives headlong into the momentous and complex battle for South Vietnam. A unique multi-faction treatment of the Vietnam War, Fire in the Lake will take 1 to 4 players on US heliborne sweeps of the jungle and Communist infiltration of the South, and into inter-allied conferences, Saigon politics, interdiction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, air defense of Northern infrastructure, graduated escalation, and media war.

Quinns: Morning, everyone! How was your weekend? I woke up today with my friend Olly sprawled across my sofa after some hot, late-nite Pictomania. Such a tragedy that that game didn’t sell! It’s Vlaada Chvátil’s secret best work. If you ever see a copy in the wild, pounce on it instantly and without doubt, like a tiger upon a juicy gazelle.

Oh man, I’m going to get some juice. Be right back.

Our first story is that well-respected 2009 release Hansa Teutonica (seen above) is receiving a reprint this year as well as an expansion, Hansa Teutonica: Britannia, adding an optional new board to play on and revised 2 player rules.

I’ve never played it, but I can tell you that the fancy Latin name isn’t hiding much in the way of theme. Hansa Teutonica is a game about building offices and trading routes in the middle ages, immediately putting me in mind of the comedic-sounding yet actually pretty great Thurn & Taxis. A game where players run a 17th century German postal service. I know! Just like you always dreamed.

Quinns: Happy Monday, everybody! Are we well? What games are we playing? Hopefully the lovely ones made from cardstock, and not the troubling mind games that emerge from failing relationships. That would be awful.

The big news this week is that comedy board gaming series Board With Life released their first episode! We feel a profound kinship with these guys. Like us, they’re working with no money, an awful lot of heart and they’re all startlingly handsome. In fact, I like it so much I’ve embedded it after the jump.

Review: Fire in the Lake

Games News! 28/07/14

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