Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) Start Kit #2 has arrived!

Even though I am only seven pages through the twelve pages of ASL SK#1 rules, I decided that I really needed the indirect and artillery rules from the second starter kit too to do "infantry attacks" properly, so I was lucky enough to find it through Board Game Geek (see below, the prized parcel has arrived): 

The simplified ASL rules have now grown to twenty pages (and some interesting new nationalities in the mix), admittedly a lot of repeats from the first set, so not at all bad from teh learning perspective!

Not sure I will rush forwards for the ASL Starter Kit #3 as it seems a very expensive and "hard find for what it is! The alternative rout is the "Full ASL manual" (about the same price), but without counters. That would mean joining the ASL Modules hunt on eBay and the likes, something I don't think my wallet could afford! 

Note to Self: ASL Resource Link(s) and Third Time Lucky [Updated]?

Superb ASL Resource Link:

https://www.desperationmorale.com/

I know, it is like Groundhog Day, or a scratched record (again and again). Yes, I am going in again. Wish me luck or pass me the bottle of Jack Daniels, and yes I mix it with coke and ice. The ASL Starter Kit #1 is my way in (again). I have also ordered ASL Starter Kit #2 as well, because "you do need indirect fire" in WWII infantry combat. I was also looking (too much looking) at ASL Starter Kit #3, which brings in tanks, but the prices were/are just too crazy. ASL, sigh, like an attractive mysterious woman, perplexing. It seems so right until you start dating! It is not that the "sound of" the rules doesn't feel right - even "good" (when [or rather if] you managed to cram them all into your head), but it is that there seems so much to learn and options (edge cases) to remember, so you are left with the feeling of "have I missed something"! Which - is frustrating, but in the end for ASL - is that a bad thing, if it gets you there? 

Footnote: I have a theory. A lot of the ASL rules seem to stem from misuse of Squad Leader rules or dissatisfaction with unintended game effects. In the same way that the follow on versions of DBA (or its more complex cousins DBM, DBMM etc) were aimed at stopping "competition gamers" distorting the historical principle of the game, winning in "unhistorical" ways. Trying to maintain the historical realism and avoiding clever mathematical twists that inevitably snag rules.

Please see Bob Corderey's Blog Home Page (Wargaming Miscellany) - The First Rule and The Spirit of the Game on https://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.com/ - top right hand side! I also want to run ASL with miniatures, 1:1 (they are company sized battles). Does that make me "mad and bad"? Because otherwise you forget what you are trying to model in the real world. I have a friend who invested heavily in 2mm blocks of troops and literally said it makes you stop trying to "wibble" when you realise the number of men you are trying to control!

Update I: Found this interesting blog/website as it describes ASL SK#1 - Simple Equation Scenario 3 was thinking of transferring to the tabletop (spoiler alert the attack was bounced and ran out of turns):

https://www.stallardhonour.com/a-journey-into-advanced-squad-leader/

Update II: Board Game Geek tutorial support (thanks to "John Y", see comments):

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/157922/an-aslsk-tutorial-part-1

The Internet is a rabbit hole of ASL resources!

Waterloo done the Airfix Way with Phil Sabin

Following on from Bob Cordery's example (in his Wargaming Miscellany blog) post, I too have to pay tribute to Phil Sabin's latest completed project (and anybody painting 450 Airfix 20mm [1/72 in old money] old school wargaming figures gets my respect). Waterloo - The Dunnigan way (which to teh man's credit, originally created as a free wargame) with a few new Sabin tweaks added: 

In Phil's own words: 

Coinciding neatly with the release of Ridley Scott’s new blockbuster movie on Napoleon, I have just posted the 450 significantly improved 2^nd edition of my own much-downloaded tweaks for Napoleon at Waterloo, together with a video illustrating and explaining my changes and showing a complete game using my new bespoke 3D playset with 450 painted Airfix figures, each representing around 400 real troops or 50 cannon.  

You may find the tweaks and video at https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/199517/simple-rules-tweaks-greater-realism and https://www.youtube.com/@philipsabin1653 respectively.  

Please share both links as widely as possible on other relevant board and miniatures gaming for a (together with the link to Charles’s book at  https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press/Books-by-topic/MCUP-Titles-A-Z/Wargaming-Waterloo/), so that other enthusiasts are made aware.

Our discussions of Charles’s ideas in his article and book provided the main impetus for me to create the 3D playset (using figures I first painted decades ago) and to revisit my original 2020 tweaks.  Although the amendments proposed by Charles and myself coincide in several areas, our approaches are rather different, as is discussed in the thread below on ‘Tweaking Published Games’.  Charles mostly takes the existing game system as read and focuses on more literal modelling of aspects such as the size of the farm garrisons, the tractability of woods and the times at which various contingents became available.  I have used much more of a ‘design for effect’ approach, by playing the game repeatedly and introducing successive tweaks and constraints so that it comes closer to the historical course of events as regards aspects such as the differences among the three combat arms, Wellington’s reliance on  defensive terrain,  the fatal impetuosity of British horse, the long resistance of the farmhouses, the French cavalry charges, the progress of the Prussian advance and the time represented by each turn.  Charles rather surprisingly leaves the original Anglo-Allied forces mostly unchanged, whereas I have shifted and combined a number of Wellington’s units to yield a far better model of his forces.

It is interesting to compare my own tweaks and illustrative refight with those provided by Charles on pp.137-48, 157-58 and 299-300 of his book.  Both offer better simulations than does the original game, but their significant differences show the highly personal and individualistic nature of wargame modelling, which Peter Perla rightly compared to creating a painting of the real phenomenon.  Our respective contributions give us plenty to discuss in this forum if desired.  Besides the thread I mentioned above, newcomers may like to browse the other threads below on ‘Simulation vs. “Glorified Chess”’ and on ‘Esdaile’s Analysis of Waterloo Sims’ to see the extensive discussions we have had already.  I hope that our contributions (including the inspirational sight of my figure version of the game) will encourage some of you to revisit this classic design and to tweak it in your own preferred style.  After waiting patiently in their box files for decades, my bespoke miniatures have already seen extensive action during my many playtests, and I look forward to using them in plenty of future refights, perhaps with Bondarchuk’s 1970 movie playing in the background for added atmosphere!

The final word from this Blog: 

Just those two screenshots make it mouth watering for me, what Phil has done in the rules, explained in the video makes it cool! Respect for completing a nice little project!

Interesting Wargaming Rules Web Site - Lou Coatney

Lou Coatney's Military and Naval Historical Chess Games/Brettspiller, Writings, and Models

https://www.coatneyhistory.com/

Can Interactive-Dynamic Influence Diagrams (I-DID) be helpful for Clarifying Rules?

I came across this interesting concept and thought it should be applied to manual wargames rules (see below, forget the highbrow writing and text - do the diagrams make it clear? All you need to do is get your head round the legend.):

• https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-dynamic-influence-diagram-for-the-example-problem_fig2_2503143
• https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tze-Yun-Leong

First paper I read:

• https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a203045.pdf  

Some heavy lifting papers (I warned you): 

• http://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~parsons/events/gtdt/gtdt06/polich.pdf
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0888613X1400173X 
• https://www.ai.uga.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/Chandrasekaran_Muthukumaran.pdf
• https://www.ijcai.org/Proceedings/15/Papers/013.pdf 
• https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a230752.pdf 

Anything that can reduce ambiguous text in a set of rules is a good thing to me though. 

10mm Vietnam Game: Take That Village Playtest

Something in the pipeline, play tested once with a friend and it was good, then lots of other interesting things got in the way, but it is about to be picked up again (see below, the jungles of Vietnam created on Kallistra terrain): 

A Vietnam game without a Huey? Never! (see below, which a chemistry see through paperweight, hurriedly pressed into (very effective) service as a flying stand): 

The wide expanse of the "jungle table" means that the figures seem lost in its midst. which feels about right (see below, it it only possible to spot the troops, because of the camouflage, with teh aid of counters - which again seems about right): 

The Pendrakon 10mm figures although small are beautifully sculped (see below, US Blue - NVA/VC Red, naturally): 

Looking forwards to play testing this home-brew rule set of a friend ;)