Thursday 28 March 2019

Recon Modern Skirmish Rules (Vietnam)

Courtesy of eBay (while buying something else for another member of the family) I spotted a little known rule-set (Recon) that would pair with a speculative buy (Advanced Recon) I had bought ages ago - once upon a time in the late part of the twentieth century [aka certainly pre-2000] - from a game shop that has long since closed (see below):


Thus the wargaming circle is complete - aka  "I knew I had a reason to buy it". The US printed 'Advanced Recon' meets up with a copy of a UK licensed print copy of 'Recon' by the now defunct Platoon 20 figure manufacturers [once based in Northern Ireland]. Th extra bonus is that I have a collection of Platoon 20 Vietnam figures seeking a game (and I am pretty sure that the "Platoon 20 moulds" live on under the wing of another manufacturer). Again game-wise methinks this could be a 2020 affair but watch this space.

3 comments:

Scott Crane said...

Keep in mind that the P20 booklet is a printing of the original Recon game by Joe Martin from about 1983, and that the Advanced Recon booklet is part of Palladium's re-release of about 1987 (the core book is called "The Revised Recon", and was also re-released with the material from Advanced Recon a few years later as "Deluxe Revised Recon"). I bring this up only because "the Revised Recon" introduced some changes to the way combat was handled, moving away from a more detailed skirmish miniatures approach and using a more "theater of the mind" role-playing approach. It also included a summary of the earlier skirmish combat rules as an appendix. You may find that some of the assumptions on how combat is handled in Advanced Recon may not completely match up with the Recon rules you have. Its mostly campaign background information so I don't think it will be a big issue, but just be aware.

I suggest you pick up a copy of "The Revised Recon" since it does a great job of fleshing out a lot of details in the basic Recon rules.

tim said...

I had the Revised Recon and Advanced Recon books and played a LOT of it back in high school (late 80s). It was a lot of fun. As Scott has pointed out Revised/Advanced Recon was more of a role-playing game - despite me having Esci 1/72 Vietnam American and Vietnamese figures, we never ended up using them.

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

Scott/Tim,

I really appreciate the 'heads-up' on this
Another item for the "wish list"

Thanks
All to do now is paint up my Platoon 20 figures ;)

Watch this space
Mark