FoW: “Tropic Lightning” Review
Tropic Lightning is Battlefront’s Vietnam expansion for their Flames of War rule set. Lets take a look.
Battlefront may be best known for their World War II combat system, but the Flames of War rules system is flexible enough to handle other wars. Tropic Lightning is their first non-World War II expansion, and allows you to re-create battles from the Vietnam War. The book itself is pretty small. This isn’t your normal 200+ page expansion book. Tropic Lightning is a mere 41 pages long, and covers U.S. and North Vietnamese forces from 1965-1971. On the American side, players are given the rules to field tank companies, mechanized rifle companies, armored cavalry, mechanized cavalry, and airmobile (helicopter) infantry companies. Yes, I said airmobile infantry. And Battlefront has already released fully plastic/resin helicopter models. Nice. North Vietnamese players only have infantry companies as an option, but they have special deployment rules and neat options like booby traps. The book has four scenarios, and descriptions of the sorts of terrain you might see in Vietnam.
The single nicest thing about the Tropic Lightning expansion is that it runs entirely off of the basic Flames of War rules set. That means you’ll need to own the rulebook, but also means current players of the WWII game won’t have to learn a new system. Theoretically, you could even run a Tropic Lightning force against a WWII army, but that’s not to say the game would be balanced. The forces in this expansion don’t have the same variety of support options available to World War II armies. Did I mention you can field helicopters?
There are a number of special rules to cover the changes in tactics, technology, and organization. There are 6 pages for U.S. forces with rules for medics, helicopters, and new weapons. North Vietnamese forces have 3 pages of rules, mostly covering special deployment options.
