Death Card: Card-Based Vietnam Wargame Rules 2025

Death Card is a set of Vietnam wargaming rules using playing cards instead of dice. These rules are multi-scale and can be used for both small-unit actions and large battles, involving both asymmetrical warfare and conventional warfare scenarios. There is no need to rebase your units, and the focus is on ease of play and fast-moving games. The rules cover use of armoured fighting vehicles, helicopters, artillery fire, air strikes, and riverines. Also included are engineers and sappers, civilians, dog teams, medics, mines and booby traps, field defences and combat engineering. Card-based play emphasises a key point other Vietnam War rules miss - resupply - which can be applied to different scenarios to reflect your units’ ammo levels. No rulers or fixed movement distances are used, and a verbal commands system makes for intuitive play when manoeuvring your units on the tabletop, with direct fire limited only by line of sight; a crucial factor in rumbles in the jungle or close-quarter urban warfare, where any misstep could be fatal for your troops. And watch out for the Ace of Spades!

—description from the publisher