Jon Gautier - Jul 5, 2004 7:25 pm (#6812 Total: 6814)   
PoG; FtP; A'44; ASLSK    
 
Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit

Advanced Squad Leader for babies on the table at Metrowargamers in
Brooklyn yesterday with the classic July 4th match up of generic Germans
and generic Russians at generic "Stalingrad." Alan Campbell took the
Russians, making the snarky observation that you know a scenario OOB is
just plain BS when it starts with the words "Elements of the . . ." 

So I played the hell out of Squad Leader over twenty years ago and
wanted to see what the "advanced" stuff was all about. Also, I’m kind of
interested in trying out the various tactical systems, and have acquired
Screaming Eagles from the Gamers Tactical Combat Series, Critical Hit’s
Advanced Tactical System Scottish Corridor, and Avalanche’s Bulge
Panzergrenadier. So ASL was first. 

I was pretty put off this past week as I read the Starter Kit rules
which, although fairly complete--i.e., it's all in there, somewhere--are
organized something terrible, and are such an alphabet soup of
abbreviations that I damn near wore my thumb down flipping back to the
(frustratingly, and seemingly randomly, incomplete) glossary (why isn't
"CX" defined for God's sake?). “An MMC can make an FPF with an SW using
the DRM from an SMC even if it used FF during the MPh and even if it is
CX or about to enter CC.” [Not a direct quote.] All I can say is that
reading that crap put me in DM. (ASL joke there, folks.) 

But I rallied. 

Bottom line here: it was damn fun. Even though we played somewhat wrong
(we totally spaced the residual fire rule, for example) the game was
interesting and tight. 

As the Germans I had to take a few buildings, and started out by putting
a couple of heavily armed platoons across the street from the main
target, which was heavily defended. My idea was to shoot the shit out of
the Reds holed up there and then storm the joint from the side. Well,
the Reds held tough and I started running out of turns (there were only
6—what is that, 30 minutes? Kind of arbitrary and, well, generic, but
that’s my sour grapes). 

Anyway, at the very end, almost all the Russians were broken so I
stormed them with everybody. But all the Reds miraculously rallied and
cut my guys down and that was it. But I think it gave Alan a bit of a
scare at the end. 

My favorite part came in mid game. Alan had reinforced a melee with his
best squad and leader, giving him a half squad, and an elite squad and
leader against my elite squad. Instead of throwing in more squads
myself, I threw in a demolition charge, figuring it was worth
sacrificing my guy to take out his best. Alan looked at me as if I were
a disturbed child and remarked that not even the Waffen SS would have
done that to their own. As it turned out, he had nothing to complain
about since his elite squad and leader survived, while my elite squad
and only his crappy half squad of conscripts bought it. 

Overall I think the Starter Kit thing works, although it is a bit of a
misnomer, since there is still some barrier to entry with all the
abbreviations and the poorly organized rules. When I say poorly
organized, I mean that you just don’t know where to look for something,
as it could be anywhere. One example: rate of fire for support weapons
is mentioned in a number of places, but it is nether explained in the
support weapons section nor in the numerous sections on firing. Instead,
the only explanation comes in the 1.0 section, which is called “Game
Components.” I didn’t see it in the play examples, either. In all, it
took three complete rules readings and four hours of playing (with
frequent and long pauses to check the rules) to feel like I “got it.”
Not terrible, maybe, but not a piece of cake, either. More to the point,
I think the rules could be way better. (How about an index in addition
to that sorry-ass table of contents?) I suspect that all the folks
involved with the Starter Kit knew ASL so well that they just couldn’t
see how hard the rules could be for a newbie (and yes this means you
Lou). 

But I want to play again, and that’s what counts. I can definitely see
why this is all some people play. It is exciting; the variation seems
infinite—you could probably play one scenario many times trying
different things; it “feels” right; there some is nice chrome, even at
this level; and the mechanics are pretty intuitive once you get them
down. Something else that is cool is that all this fun comes in a teeny,
weeny package. I mean, we played for hours on half of an already small
map with maybe 50 counters total. Looking at the thing set up at first
(and after two marathon days of A'44), I almost laughed at the thought
that we were going to have serious fun on something smaller than a place
setting. I don’t know if I’m ready to drop thousands on all the modules
and one of those weird stacking drawer things, but I will buy ASLSK
number 2 when Brian gets around to releasing it.