Despite some elegant design-for-effect simplifications, a game that tries to differentiate between the troops of nearly a dozen different countries (each with several levels of troop quality) and their hundreds of different armoured and unarmoured vehicles, artillery pieces, machineguns, and various pieces of equipment; that includes a wide range of environments (temperate, tropical, desert, steppe, and arctic); a huge array of military missions (paratrooping, glider landing, beach assaults, river crossings, cavalry charges, house-to-house fighting in urban areas, including rules for sewer movement, factories, rubble, and rowhouses)--a game like this is going to be so complex as to have a limited appeal for the weekend cardboard warrior.

at least, lies in the collecting aspect; I've always been a sucker for modular projects. Some of it has to do with the diversity: thought the game had its origins in portraying the Western and Eastern Front fighting of the Second World War, inventive designers and researchers have added pieces that expand to cover all the war's conflicts (from the Aleutian Islands to Madagascar, from the Philippines to Iraq, and from Norway to North Africa to Manchuria). Anything that involves maps and history will have a huge appeal for me. And, most of all, once one has invested the time in learning even the basics of the game, there's an irresistible urge to put that to use in playing the game.
I can go into detail on my theories of gameplaying--both its intrinsic value and the way I approach it and what I get from that, but at the moment I should content myself with saying that much of the pleasure I get from gaming is social--enjoying time spent and common interests shared with friends. I have a number of friends who share my love of historical gaming, but few of them have been bitten as I have by the ASL bug.
In particular, I have one friend who I think would adapt well to the mental framework of the game, who I know is interested in World War Two history, with whom I have fought over many actions using our collections of military miniatures. I'd love to get him to try out ASL. But he's got a hectic schedule, which makes it hard for us to carve out time to play, and so far he's remained untempted. So in hopes of inveigling him into trying out ASL, I'm going to walk through a scenario, one portraying a battle we've fought before, so he can see how it works out in ASL.

Specifically, Lt Col Robert Cole of the 3rd Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, led an assault on a farm on the outskirts of the two of Carentan called the Ingouff Farm. This action is portrayed in a scenario for the game Battlefront: World War Two that my buddy and I have played before--an exciting, spirited action for which Cole was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
This same action, more or less, is portrayed in ASL by the scenario "Death at Carentan". So that's the scenario I'll be replaying here. I have a couple of other ideas as well (the December 1944 battle for Parker's Crossroads is another), but that's what I'm going to start with.
Well, that's the raison d'etre. The next post will explain a bit more about how I plan on going about this and, with any luck, get us underway.
Great job Jan! Look forward to more!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Praise from Sir Hubert! :-)
ReplyDeleteNice! Looking forward to reading the AAR & good luck enticing your friend to play.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Robert! My fingers are crossed--I know he's reading, at least. :-)
DeleteI cannot understand why anyone would prefer the gameplay of ASL over the Combat Mission computer games, which started life as an official port of ASL.
ReplyDeleteHey Jan - I like this first piece already! I look forward to coming blog entries but more importantly, ENJOY THE GAME!! :D
ReplyDeleteWarm regards, Jack
Thanks so much, Jack! You and Grumble Jones are my heroes when it comes to ASL blogging. :-)
DeleteHi Jan,
DeleteI like the premise for your blog. I must admit that I was curious about the name. Good hook. Also a novel approach to attracting players to ASL.