advanced squad leader – Movement Point

Esoteric Actions: ASL Journal #15 (MMP) Released

January 8, 2025 by Chris Baer

Not unlike some hackneyed box of chocolates, one never knows quite what will appear in an issue of Multi-Man Publishing‘s ASL Journal, that irregularly released magazine-and-scenario product dedicated to the Advanced Squad Leader tactical warfare system. Sporting a cover of a random Eastern Front tank on tank encounter by Ken Smith, just released ASL Journal #15 promises lots of (typically bland) German vs Soviet scenarios, but the actual contents prove a welcome surprise, all caramels and cremes and no sour quince logs…

Coming in at a brisk thirty-six pages, including the extra-glossy cover, ASL Journal #15 provides several articles, mostly of a practical and/or tactical nature; replacement overlay sheets for Doomed Battalions 4th Edition; and eleven scenarios, J247-257, on six standard thick, back printed cardstock sheets, one of the scenarios stretching to a second page. Unlike several recent issues of the Journal, ASL Journal #15 does not come with either a HASL map or a selection of geomorphic maps, so the price is commensurately more slender as a result.

I’m on record as being rather uninterested in the vast majority of articles in contemporary hobbyist gaming periodicals, seeing them as a necessary evil in getting the scenarios that I’m really buying the product for, but a few of the articles in ASL Journal #15 strike me as a welcome return to the glory days of the gaming magazine, when tactics and analysis predominated over potted amateur histories and glorified product advertisements. In particular, Johnathan Kay’s exploration of the nuances of lines of sight and Jim Bishop’s mathematically dense overview of offensive tank operations seem well worth the ink. (Full disclosure: I know Jim from way back, when I used to game with the Washington, DC, ASL crowd.) I can see both articles being pored over and referenced frequently, much like Ole Boe’s “Stop and Go Traffic” and Steve Petersen’s “Run for the Money,” two practical classics from the ’96 Annual. Finally, a magazine you really do buy for the articles!

The three included sheets of overlays replace those in Doomed Battalions 4th Edition, adding the center hex dots that were missing from those in the revised module; these “new” versions are the same as those found in the ASL Overlay Bundle and Doomed Battalions 3rd Edition, so if you have either of those products, you’re set.

The scenarios are the real draw for ASL Journal #15, and blessedly there’s not a single Eastern Front action in the bunch. Instead, we’re treated to a refreshing spin through the Plano, with scenarios covering the invasion of Poland in ’39; an attack on Danish positions in ’40, with the Danes using automatic anti-tank cannons; several actions pitting the US against Vichy French troops in North Africa; a few late war affairs between the Germans and, in various combinations, the Americans, Brits, and Free French; a hefty card featuring American troops defending against North Koreans in ’50; plus, so far as I can tell, the first official scenario set in South America, a border clash between Peru and Ecuador in ’41, with the Peruvians presented in Axis Minor greens and the Ecuadorians donning Italian grey. No night or PTO scenarios in this one, but you can’t have everything! Most scenarios do involve combined arms and clock in between 4.5 and 7 turns. They all look playable in a tournament setting or a club game session, with solid but not overwhelming force counts.

As ever with ASL, to play it all you need to own it all. The scenarios use boards from both core modules and various other subsidiary products, including one Starter Kit board, a trend I’m not enamored of. The boards needed are: 4, 14, 16, 19, 33, 43, 46, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 70, 71, 81, 83, 84, 1a, 5b, and x. A smattering of overlays also come into play.

For someone who greatly appreciates scenarios that focus on under-exposed theaters and involve under-utilized rules and counters, ASL Journal #15 is an easy purchase. With cards bringing into play motorcycles, minefields, gliders, air support, and, yes, even a Sturmtiger, there are plenty of obscure rules to look up and counters to dust off. But if you’re like me, MMP had already earned a sale the second they mentioned Ecuador…

Red Devils at 80: ASL Arnhem 2024 (MMP) Released

September 20, 2024September 20, 2024 by Chris Baer

Cover artwork detail by Nicolás Eskubi from ASL Arnhem 2024 by Multi-Man Publishing

Multi-Man Publishing, the current license holders for the Advanced Squad Leader tactical warfare system, have long engaged in charitable efforts, with their annual convention, Winter Offensive, supporting the World War II Foundation. In conjunction with the 80th anniversary of Market Garden, MMP have teamed up with the Arnhem ASL Tournament (September 12-15, 2024) to release ASL Arnhem 2024, a four scenario pack whose proceeds benefit the Airborne Museum at Hartenstein and its annex in Arnhem, the Airborne Museum at the Bridge.

It’s a tidy shrink-wrapped package, just four scenarios back-printed on two pieces of standard scenario cardstock, with a glossy cardstock coversheet featuring art by Nicolás Eskubi, and an equally nominal price of $10. As might be expected, the four scenarios all take place in and around Arnhem, pitting the “Red Devils” of the British 1st Airborne Division against German forces of varying quality from September 17 through 21, 1944. In keeping with the association with the Arnhem ASL Tournament, all four scenarios have a “tournament” feel to them: moderate length with a decent but not overwhelming number of counters on each side, intended to be played in fairly tight quarters—if European ASL tournaments are anything like their American counterparts!—in the span of five to six hours by players who don’t dilly-dally.

Two of the scenarios are by MMP’s Brian Youse, and two by Jens Thomander. The longest and largest, AR1 Broken Column, comes in at 8.5 turns and covers most of three half-maps which might be pushing “tournament”-length, while the shortest and smallest, AR3 Bricks in Flames and AR4 The Overlook, come in at 5.5 turns and play out on roughly three-quarters of a single board. Vehicles and guns feature in three of the four, with AR2 Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing being the sole infantry-only affair.

My picks of the scenarios have to be AR3 and AR4 by Jens Thomander, if only because they each feature French B1-bis tanks pressed into German service. One simply cannot get enough Char-Bs in one’s gaming diet!

Quite a few boards and overlays come into play on the cards, so while counter-wise only Beyond Valor, For King and Country, and Croix de Guerre (for the aforementioned AFVs) are needed, a full eight maps (20, 38, 42, 62, 67, 70, 84, and l as in Lima) are needed, plus assorted Brush, Building, Woods, Open Ground, and Orchard overlays. So, certainly one for aficionados with access to a full range of maps, including, unfortunately, an ASL Starter Kit map, l. (I know they’re fully interchangeable with standard ASL maps and that many players of the One True Game™ own a full set of boards from the junior partner, but I’m not a fan of full ASL products requiring their usage, even though most people, myself included, are playing via VASL these days anyway. Consider me old fashioned.)

ASL Arnhem 2024 is a nice pack of scenarios at a pittance of a price benefitting a worthy cause. And if it feels a bit steep, postage-wise, to just grab ASL Arnhem 2024 by itself, then do what I did and pick up the latest issue of Special Operations, complete with four ASL scenarios and a small HASL map, to help lower the per item postage while you’re at it…

Dutch Trucks: Doomed Battalions 4th Edition (MMP) Released

December 25, 2024September 7, 2024 by Chris Baer

Back in 1998, as Avalon Hill prepared to meet that great creditor in the sky, they published a few final titles, among them Doomed Battalions, a core module for Advanced Squad Leader bringing Allied Minor guns and vehicles to the tactical World War II conflict simulation system. The fabled “Dutch trucks” made it out the garage just before the doors closed and Avalon Hill became nothing more than a memory and a convenient brand name for new owners Hasbro to slap on games with a military/conflict theme. For fans of ASL, they were uncertain times, with real concerns that Doomed Battalions would be the last product ever officially produced for the system.

Fast-forward a quarter century and the current ASL license holders, Multi-Man Publishing, have just released Doomed Battalions 4th Edition, proving that their stewardship of the game system has put those fears from the late ’90s to rest.

A quick chronology and overview of the various editions of Doomed Battalions might be helpful. The First (1998) edition contains three map boards (44, 45, and the long-missing “rogue” 9), eight scenarios (83-90), plus overlays (introducing railroads to ASL), counters, and supporting rulebook pages for all the new toys; the Second (1999) edition is identical save for the company logo on the box, being a straight reprint by MMP as one of their very first projects.

For the Third (2009) edition, MMP folds the contents of The Last Hurrah into the box, providing a single module source for Allied Minor troop, gun, and vehicle counters. All prior Doomed Battalions content appears, with boards 11 and 33 added along with updated rulebook pages from both earlier modules, the scenarios from The Last Hurrah (43-50), and eight additional scenarios (137-144), all featuring Allied Minors and previously published in other AH/MMP products.

This new Fourth (2024) edition takes everything from the Third edition and turns it up to eleven (Module Eleven, that is!), adding eight more previously published (and renumbered) scenarios (307-314), with known errata incorporated in all thirty-two scenarios included in the box. The counter artwork also comes up to the current standard, with new infantry types introduced for the Poles, added in conjunction with MMP’s forthcoming Polish Eagles project on Polish forces throughout the war. (A new Chapter A footnote indicates that testing for Polish Eagles revealed a need for slightly more robust Polish troops.) Rules for those troops—which are not retrofitted to earlier scenarios but enter the system officially for future use—plus additional rules added to the system in Twilight of the Reich, and some new charts, round out the updated components.

So, for those keeping track at home, Doomed Battalions Fourth Edition comes with five geomorphic maps in the now-standard “Starter Kit” cardstock style (9, 11, 33, 44, 45); thirty-two scenarios (43-50; 83-90; 137-144; 307-314); four countersheets featuring half-inch and five-eighth inch counters with updated artwork; three sheets of terrain overlays; updated rule pages for Chapters A, B, and H; and two updated charts (Ch. B and National Characteristics) thrown in for good measure. Good thing it’s a decently big (2.5″ deep) box, with cover artwork of a wee tankette under fire by Ken Smith.

Just examining the fresh additions to this edition, the new countersheets, featuring the last of the core system counters to receive the new, crisper artwork and printing, look quite sharp. I do worry slightly about new Polish infantry counters, with a tiny white eagle on a red field in the top left corner to differentiate them from other Allied Minor counters. The standard ASL counter is a model of spatial efficiency, and the insignia feels ever so close to the corner’s edges; as ever, MMP’s printing is top notch, so there’s no danger of the insignia falling into the die cut gutter, but for those who consider counter corner rounding to be amongst the noblest of arts, there’s a danger that the practice might snip the eagle’s wings, so to speak. Also of note on the new countersheets are some errata counters for misprints in Twilight of the Reich and a few revised Axis Minor counters.

The fresh scenario additions reach beyond the usual assortment of reprinted cards from The General and various Annuals/Journals, picking up some long out-of-print gems from packs like Out of the Bunker and Out of the Attic 2, which are notable themselves for bringing some third-party scenarios into the official fold. All thirty-two cards here, on standard cardstock, have, as noted, received errata and balance passes. The pick of the actions include 43 Into the Fray (starring a baker’s dozen Polish Uhlan squads on horseback against German armor); 90 Pride and Joy (with possibly the largest cavalry charge in the game as twenty-four Greek squads ride against dug-in Italians); 137 Italian Brothers (a rare-for-its-time Spanish Civil War scenario pitting Italians on the Nationalist and Republican sides against each other); and 313 Airborne Samurai (Dutch defenders in the Celebes holding off a Japanese air drop with air support).

Indeed, Doomed Battalions provides a wealth of early-war scenarios, full of tin-can tanks and more than a bit of valor from soldiers fighting against against more numerous, better equipped foes. If you’re tired of Shermans slugging against StuGs and Tigers taking on T-34s, if you enjoy digging through Chapter H to see just why there are port and starboard turret counters in the mix, this is a mandatory module. Ownership of much of the rest of the ASL system is, as ever, needed to play all of the scenarios included, just by dint of the number of boards and overlays represented on the cards. But with only two PTO scenarios (one of which features the sole British appearance), one featuring Axis Minors, and none with the Americans, you can probably get by, counter-wise, with just Beyond Valor and Hollow Legions—boards and overlays, of course, notwithstanding.

For owners of the first two editions of Doomed Battalions, this new edition is pretty much an automatic upgrade, featuring everything you already love and lots more of it. The value calculus for Third edition owners is perhaps more complex. It’s been fifteen years since the Third edition came out, and the state of the art has improved, so for the updated counter artwork alone, I would recommend a purchase—they just look better. The revamped Polish troops, too, will certainly find their way into new scenarios, though one expects the forthcoming Polish Eagles module will also contain them. The new charts, as up to date as can be, also add to the appeal, and the additional scenarios feel a welcome addition to the binder. It’s certainly not a cheap upgrade at US$172 retail, but the contents justify the price. Still, there’s nothing here that invalidates the Third edition in any real way, and one assumes that the refreshed rules pages will make their way to the electronic version of the ASL Rule Book in due time.

It’s nice to have Doomed Battalions back in print. One must wonder, indeed, after four editions, if more Dutch trucks and Belgian tanks and Greek field guns exist in cardboard form than ever did in real life…

Burma Shave: ASL Action Pack #19 (MMP) Released

July 26, 2024July 26, 2024 by Chris Baer

Just in time for the week-long gaming bacchanal known variously as AvalonCon, DonCon, or the more quotidian World Boardgaming Championships, Multi-Man Publishing has released the latest in their long-running series of map-and-scenario compilations for Advanced Squad Leader, Action Pack #19: Roads to Rangoon. With three double-sided maps and ten scenarios on cardstock designed by Gary Fortenberry, and featuring a cover sheet illustrated by Nicolas Eskubi, this bagged expansion centers on actions between March and April 1942 in Burma, pitting British, Commonwealth, and Chinese forces against Japanese troops and their allies in the Burmese Independence movement.

Something of a sequel to Action Pack #9: To the Bridge!, also by Fortenberry, which mostly concentrated on combats in Burma in February 1942, this new Action Pack provides a number of small-scale encounters; only two cards have more than fifteen squads per side and just four run longer than six turns, making these strong candidates for tournament or single-session club play.

The three double-sided geomorphic maps (20a/b, 21a/b, 22a/b) in the style known colloquially as “Fortenberry” maps come in the familiar “Starter Kit”-type thick cardstock finish. The two sides of each map look mostly the same, having different map-edge woods hexes to enable them to mesh seamlessly with other boards. With crisp art by the inestimable Charlie Kibler, they make a solid addition to the jam-packed ASL map inventory, most notably bringing a pair of new river boards (20a/b, 22a/b) to the game system as well as a hill-festooned forest/grain explosion (21a/b) with a small stream, chapel, and graveyard tucked in for good measure. 22a/b is the pick of the crop, featuring a two-hex river running against a built-up village; walls guard one side of the water feature and imposing stone buildings run along an orchard-lined road, making for a very difficult riparian crossing under fire…

The Not-So-Peaceful Pacific: Le Franc Tireur 16 (LFT) Released

April 7, 2024April 6, 2024 by Chris Baer

Fresh from French shores comes Le Franc Tireur 16, the latest issue of the well-appointed magazine and scenario combination by the company of the same name for use with Advanced Squad Leader. Focused entirely on the Pacific Theater of Operations during (and shortly after) World War II, the publication, which can be broadly compared in content and approach to Multi-Man Publishing’s ASL Journal, comes as an A4-sized magazine of seventy-eight pages of glossy stock with a thick stock cover. The fifteen scenarios arrive on ten A4-sized glossy stock sheets without much thickness, separate from the magazine, with several scenarios running longer than a single card.

Third-party producers have been creating products to be used with the Advanced Squad Leader tactical combat game system for just about as long as the original Squad Leader itself has been around; early issues of TSR’s The Dragon contained new SL scenarios as early as 1980. These days, third-party products—which is to say, any game materials published by other than the holders of the ASL license, Multi-Man Publishing—run the gamut from scenario packs to full-blown modules with maps and counters. LFT 16 also comes with maps and overlays, after a fashion.

Initially, LFT intended to provide twelve double-sided geomorphic maps with LFT 16, as well as seven sheets of overlays, and apparently copies sold outside the USA will contain the components, which are redrawn versions of the original Avalon Hill/MMP PTO maps and overlays, with bespoke terrain graphics. Though details remain thin on the ground, one might assume that the redrawn maps run afoul, at the least, of the tacit agreement that MMP has cordially maintained with the various third-party producers in terms of respecting MMP’s intellectual property rights. Given that images of the maps look busy and cluttered beyond belief, and that LFT itself acknowledges in the magazine’s “Editor’s Foreward” that the new maps’ lines-of-sight differ from those on the real maps, I personally find their omission to be no significant loss (and indeed, the lower price for LFT 16 without them makes for a more palatable purchase).

What is here looks quite promising, at least as far as the scenarios are concerned. The magazine itself contains a variety of articles, including several tournament recaps, a player interview, and some potted history pieces. More useful are primers on playing PTO scenarios, arranging defenses as the Japanese side, and on conducting seaborne assaults, all of which come in quite handy with the actions on the included scenario cards. (If it isn’t obvious, I purchase LFT products almost exclusively for the scenarios; the accompanying articles are an occasional bonus.)

Indeed, the scenarios remain the star of the show here, and on a brief perusal of the fifteen encounters on offer, numbered LFT327-341, I see several that jump right to the top of the play queue. Each scenario is set notionally in the PTO, though not all invoke PTO terrain, and other than one scenario, FT338 RJ177, which is termed a “micro-campaign game,” none should take more than a decently-long game day to finish. Four scenarios use the amphibious landing rules—with one, FT336 Fourteen Paddles, giving water transport to both sides!—and two scenarios are set at night, including one of the seaborne assault actions, FT327 Thai Beaches, representing the same landing as in AP83 Thai Hot! from MMP’s Action Pack #9.

My picks from the scenarios on offer here include the aforementioned FT336 Fourteen Paddles, with New Zealander infantry landing against Japanese forces trying to conduct a seaborne evacuation; a armor-on-armor confrontation between the Japanese and Americans in the Philippines in FT329 Gaining Time at Baliuag; and FT340 Spring Cleaning, a cat-and-mouse affair pitting the French against the Viet Minh in early 1946.

It should be noted that three third-party geomorphic maps are required to play all the scenarios in LFT 16: Hz1 from Hazardous Movement and LFT’s own LFT1 and 2. Otherwise, just the regular gamut of MMP maps are required, as is ownership of just about every official MMP module, given the inclusion of Italian, French, British, American, Japanese, Chinese, Axis Minor, and Partisan counters in the scenario set. It’s truly one of those ASL products where to play it all, you have to own it all, and then some.

Given my eclectic tastes in scenarios, LFT 16 is an easy product for me to recommend; putting Thai or Punjabi forces in a scenario makes it a personal must-buy, though I would have been far happier if the scenarios were simply sold as a pack on their own. Your value proposition might be altered by the extra expense of a magazine that is the epitome of a hobbyist publication, for good and for ill. The tactics articles do seem worth their cost this time out, given that they work through some of the wrinkles in the PTO rules, which are not exactly the pinnacle of clean rules writing themselves. For PTO enthusiasts, as well as aficionados of obscure forces and rule sections, it’s worth a look, assuming you own the needed counters and maps.

Bowie Bundle: Two New ASL Products from MMP Released

February 4, 2024January 25, 2024 by Chris Baer

As inevitable as snow in winter (well, most years), January means Winter Offensive, the East Coast’s premier Advanced Squad Leader tournament, held annually by Multi-Man Publishing in bucolic Bowie, Maryland. This year’s tourney saw the release of two new ASL products, the fifteenth edition of the Winter Offensive Bonus Pack and the somewhat uncategorizable Twilight of the Reich. Is it a core module, a sort-of-historical module, an Action Pack gone mad? It’s big, that’s for sure.

Taking the simpler, but by no means unremarkable, Winter Offensive Bonus Pack #15 first, this scenario-and-map bundle comes, as ever, in a loose cellophane bag with a cover sheet depicting flame-lit street fighting in Stalingrad by Nicolás Eskubi, a tantalizing hint of the actions on offer within. Two of the four scenarios feature rather large engagements set in that ruined city, with each side cramming upwards of thirty squads each onto three deluxe boards. For yes, Bonus Pack #15 follows in the footsteps of Bonus Packs #9 and #13 by including deluxe sized maps, all on the now-standard “Starter Kit” cardstock, likely accounting for much of the $32 retail price. (All of MMP’s proceeds from this, and all the WO Bonus Packs, go to the WWII Foundation, so it’s a reasonable price by any standard.)

The new scenarios number WO46-WO49, with Pete Shelling supplying two of them (one of the Stalingrad actions and another US vs German tiff set in April ’45 with a trademark Shelling force purchase matrix). Tom Morin contributes the other Stalingrad scenario and Kevin Meyer brings us an action featuring the Canadians in Operation Goodwood. The back of the cover sheet provides a nice overview of the factory rules to accompany the three factory-festooned new maps (Dp/Dq/Dr). Dq and Dr are essentially a matched pair, as they split two giant factories across one of their long sides, making these some of the first “non-geomorphic” Deluxe maps, if not the first, in terms of not matching to other boards along those edges. (No, I’m not digging my Deluxe maps out to check.) It makes for a quite striking factory complex. As the kids today say, you can fit so many squads in these bad boys…