Welcome to the Jungle: Purple Haze - Vietnam Tactical RPG

I was closely watching this game (Purple Haze) , having spotted it a long. long time back and although I did not step in at the Kick Starter phase I joined the fan-base when I pre-ordered it through Zatu Games (after too much sitting on the fence). It is Vietnam, it is very atmospheric, the playing material of of great quality, the mechanisms look very intriguing and apart from the game itself (that looks so good) it meshes with my existing 20mm kit and in the end it was just too good not to get (see below, can you hear the Hendrix guitar rifts and "All along teh Watchtower" kicking off in the background? I can"): 

The unboxing took quite a lot of time, this was a very heavy box! Elements of it will also graduate to teh tabletop.

Platoon 20 - NVA Figures

Inspired by the recent series of "Ghosts of the Jungle" games I visited my silver pile of shame in the loft for Vietnam figures and found pretty much a whole platoon of NVA Regulars to paint up. They had been based and primed so it was just a matter of gritting your teeth and letting go with the Vallejo paints (see below, the finished product or rather formation):  

A labour of love that has took twenty years to finish. Given the old casting quality (as in poor) - I best not drop them too hard!

Apologies for no close ups!

Vietnam Air Combat: Intense Missile & Gun Combat

Flying straight level and fast, I hear over the radio we are in combat with something I cannot see yet. I can see a friendly fighter pair so a vector in on them (see below). I also make my first mistake in the game, "Do you know what it is yet?" No peeking ahead. 

Next turn I am still flying straight and lever but faster, still trying to see the enemy. My thumb is twitching over the after burner button. I cannot resist, I press it and decide to add to the atmosphere with a home made sound effect of an afterburner (or rather a man with a runny nose and cold pretending to be a jet plane at an air show, dignity none, stares quite a few). Meanwhile the first pair of Mig 17's are tangling with the Phantom's. Pity the Phantom's only arm after three hexes and yes no close in guns for the Americans but plenty of cannon fire for the NVAF! (see below): 

A 'lucky hit' and a Phantom starts to burn (see below). I suddenly realise my first mistake, I should have started warming up my missile release battery (it takes two turns) as soon as I knew we were in combat. I will be in combat but my missiles won't be able to fire! You have to be careful as the battery life is only twelve combat turns.

I see the enemy. I am flying straight and very, very fast. I have also climbed a level to be at the American's height. I am not looking forward to the next move as I will have to figure out how to turn and work out what legal move I have made (remember the charts?). My wing man Russian fires at a Phantom and misses and a Phantom returns fire at me. One Phantom is so close I can read his tactical markings. If he survives Vietnam he'll probably make senator one day (see below):     

A USAF Phantom pilot ejects initiating an infamous Search And Rescue (SAR) mission behind enemy lines. Meanwhile I successfully work out how to do a legal turn, even turning on the after burners (with the obligatory sound effect). This lines me up nicely for a missile strike from the future senator (see below). Luckily he's pulled too many G's this go so cannot release his Sparrowhawk this turn . Next turn I am probably dead meat. However 'three' Mig 17's are lined up on his tail (count them, see below): 

The Phantom is mortally wounded. The pilot ejects, initiating a second US SAR mission. With two Phantoms down  and out numbered 3:1 the USAF jets decide to bug-out and live to fight another day (see below).  

Intense, but extremely good fun, though it took three hours to play a short game of five combat turns, but we were all new to the game. This scenario seems weighed heavily against the Americans, but historically they found themselves missile heavy with no short range armament. Worse still, because there were so many friendly US jets in the skies above Vietnam to avoid "blue-on-blue" incidents visual confirmation was required before missiles could be fired. To get a good visual you find yourself within 'gun range' and the NVAF know they have the advantage if they can stay close. A cruel vicious circle which partly explained why the US kill ratio dropped from a massive 16:1 in the Korean War to an almost evens 2:1 in the Vietnam War. Worse still the US investment in each plane and air crew required to fly it was much heavier.
  

Check Your Six - Jet Age (Vietnam)

I turned up at the Hartlepool club mulling over ancient Greek and Persian army lists, only to find myself flung into the cockpit of a North Vietnamese fighter plane. Looked right and found a pair of friendly camo 1/600 Mig-17's (see below):

I was flying a pair of Mig-21's (gasp of air in sudden appreciation of the state of the art Soviet aeroplane design) armed with the "people's air-to-air" missiles and a large cannon. Psst, don't tell anybody but one on the left with the blue nose cone is really a Russian, wink (see below):

Oh, the Imperialist 'Hunting Dogs" flying something that looks like the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek, the F4 Phantom with lots of missiles, but no short range guns (see below):

Looking down at my cockpit control panel, I had a sickly sort of sinking feeling, as it looked slightly more complicated than the WWI Canvas Eagles the rule system I was told "Check Your Six " was related to (see below):   

Oh look, there's also another side with pretty diagrams on it (see below). Most of them seem to go sort of straight and very fast, that's my plan :)

Meanwhile on another table a general dressed in blue with a nicely based horse army of late Sassanid Persians was facing a "horse heavy" opponent whose army was in the process of re-basing "sabot" fashion (as in terrain base with a slot for a DBx army element to drop into) for Impetus (see below):   

The roar of the jets brought me forward two thousand plus years.

Next: Combat