In January 2017, MMP released its 12th issue of the ASL Journal, the “house” publication for its ASL line of products. A quite modest release, Journal 12 is only 40 page long, compared to the 60 pages of the previous issue, and it comes with only 12 scenarios, compared to the 28 of the previous […]
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ASL Journal Issue Eleven
After a gap of more than three years, a new issue of the ASL Journal finally saw print again in early 2016 with its eleventh magazine (J11), bringing joy to those ASLers who wondered if they would ever see another issue again. Though J11 contains no extras such as counters, maps or boards, it certainly […]
ASL Journal Issue Ten
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away and so too, apparently, does MMP. The 10th iteration of its ASL magazine departs from tradition in two significant ways–one very good and one very bad. So how did MMP giveth and taketh? Let’s starteth with the positive. After well over a decade (longer, if one includes […]
ASL Journal Issue Nine
Fans of the ASL Journal had to wait years between Issue Seven and Issue Eight, and when the latter finally came out, it was a bare-bones issue, with articles and scenarios only, devoid of any “goodies” such as maps, counters, or play aids. Luckily, the wait between Journal Eight and Journal Nine (J9) has been […]
ASL Journal Issue Eight
MMP released ASL Journal Issue Seven in 2006; few people ever thought at the time that they would have to wait nearly four years before seeing another issue of the journal. ASL Journal Issue Eight (J8) only came out in early 2010. ASL production was pretty slow for much of the mid- and late-2000s, as […]
ASL Journal Issue Seven
The seventh iteration of the ASL Journal (J7) sports another excellent cover by Ken Smith and is otherwise a fairly standard and unremarkable issue of the Journal. The only “extra” in the Journal is a Starter Kit geoboard, board v, which is part of ASLSK3, but was apparently included in J7 because a scenario, J106 […]
ASL Journal Issue Six
ASL Journal Issue Six (J6) debuted in January 2005, two years after the previous Journal had come out. The mid-2000s were a period of considerable ASL doldrums as MMP had many things to occupy its mind other than ASL and much of its ASL-related energies were devoted to the ASL Starter Kit. Long awaited products […]
ASL Journal Issue Five
Featuring another strong Ken Smith cover, ASL Journal Issue Five (J5) improved in article content, with a greater emphasis on gameplay, including a detailed article on close-in jungle tactics by Mark Pitcavage and an analysis of the campaign game in Operation Veritable by Oliver Giancola. There is also a short article by Ian Daglish that […]
ASL Journal Issue Four
ASL Journal Issue Four (J4) can immediately be seen as a stark departure from its predecessors. On the plus side, an attractive Ken Smith painting graces the cover instead of a graceless David Pentland effort. On the negative side, just as visible is the fact that J4 is noticeably thinner than its predecessors, only slightly […]
ASL Journal Issue Three
ASL Journal Issue Three (J3) followed on the footsteps of two highly successful previous issues of the Journal. At 80 pages, with 30 scenarios, J3 is the largest issue yet produced, it continues the successes of the previous two issues. First, it should be noted that there are no “extras” or “bonus” materials, such as […]
ASL Journal Issue Two
ASL Journal Issue Two (J2) was MMP’s sophomore attempt at an annual magazine devoted to ASL content, coming after an inaugural year in which they published ASL Journal Issue One, A Bridge Too far, Blood Reef: Tarawa, and Action Pack 1, plus a reprint/revision of Doomed Battalions, which saw a hasty, small release in the […]
ASL Journal Issue One
In 1998, Avalon Hill, the oldest wargame publisher in the hobby, suddenly and unexpectedly kicked the bucket, selling its intellectual properties to giant toy company Hasbro. Multi-Man Publishing, which had for several years been developing ASL products for Avalon Hill, tried but failed to buy the rights to ASL from Hasbro. However, they eventually succeeded […]
ASL Oktoberfest (ASLOK) AAR, Part I
This is part one of an after action report of ASLOK (ASL Oktoberfest) 2011, although given the Benjamin Button nature of blog post displaying, who knows in what order you may read this. If I still have the energy, after this AAR is through, I may do another post with some general thoughts about ASLOK, […]
2009: The Year in ASL
Today is January 1. The Old Year has exited the map and the New Year is on the board edge, waiting for the MPh so it can enter. A propitious time, then, to take a look back at the year 2009 as it pertains to the Advanced Squad Leader world and even to offer a […]
Beyond the Beaches: ASL Starter Kit Bonus Pack #1
Beyond the Beaches (BP1) is a small supplement for people who play the ASL Starter Kits, adding another map to the system and a few scenarios. It is small in size, but symbolically represents a point of departure that ASL players should perhaps consider seriously (click here to skip the “consider seriously” part and get […]
The Tactical Wargamer’s Journal
The Tactical Wargamer’s Journal is an irregular (averaging around one issue per year or so) wargaming magazine available from a print-on-demand service in both electronic and print form, although the print form is prohibitively expensive. The massive magazine is published by Canadian Michael Dorosh, known primarily as a player of computer wargames. The first issue […]
ASL Classic
With ASL Classic, Avalon Hill decided to reprint some of the better ASL articles and scenarios that had appeared in out-of-print issues of The General. The articles also included the most influential/controversial ASL-related article to appear any other ASL-related publication, the dreaded “One-Half FP: The Incremental IFT Variant,” which introduced the IIFT to ASL. This […]
ASL Annual ’96
The ASL Annual ’96 marked the beginning of the final era of the Annual, as former third party publisher MMP took over the development of the ASL line of products for Avalon Hill, with Annual ’96 as their first product. Resembling past issues of Backblast or future issues of the ASL Journal more than it […]
Solitaire ASL (SASL)
Although Advanced Squad Leader itself plays fairly well as a solitaire game, Solitaire ASL (SASL) takes the notion to the next level, creating a framework of generic scenarios (called “missions”) in which enemy forces are more or less randomly generated and act and react according to certain game procedures. Designer Charlie Kibler created a fascinating […]
Canadian Wargamers Journal
The Canadian Wargamers Journal was a relatively low production quality ‘zine devoted to wargames, featuring variants, strategy articles, and similar items. Although amateurish, it really served as Canada’s de facto wargaming magazine for a decade (it was published from 1985-1996). Its ASL content was very slight (CWJ was much more interested in World in Flames […]
Journal du Stratège
Journal du Stratège was a French wargaming magazine published in the late 1980s/early 1990s by Didier Rouy. It lasted for over 70 issues. Its ASL content consisted of the occasional scenario, in French. These include some of the earliest third party scenarios published for ASL, most designed by Pierre Forget or Robin Reeve. The physical […]
Onslaught to Orsha 2
In 2002, ASL third party publisher Heat of Battle released the first “monster-sized” historical module, Onslaught to Orsha, which was in most respects considerably larger than any previous official or unofficial historical module for ASL, featuring a large map, many scenarios, and a lot more as well. Moreover, it was designed by Chas Smith, whose […]
Special Ops
Special Ops is the confusingly named successor to MMP’s former house magazines Operations and Operations Special Issues, which ended in 2008 and 2010, respectively. The new Special Ops basically resembles a significantly down-sized (at only 36 pages) Operations Special Issue. MMP announced its plan to make them twice-yearly, but in wargaming, most such plans falter. […]
Red Factories/Red October
One of the most popular ASL products ever released was Red Barricades, published by Avalon Hill in 1990. It was the first ASL product to use a historical map (and a massive and interesting map it was, too) and the first ASL product to provide a campaign game that could allow weeks of extended, meaty […]
Le Franc Tireur No. 14
If you’re anything like Desperation Morale, you like your ASL products like you like your sandwiches: meaty. If so, Le Franc Tireur No. 14 certainly delivers the goods, as it is an ASL magazine with more than 100 pages of content, 32 scenarios, plus counters to boot. There’s a lot of there, there. Le Franc […]
Action Pack #13: Oktoberfest XXXII
Two years after the organizers of the ASLOK tournament and their Cleveland-area friends teamed with MMP to release Action Pack #12 at ASLOK 2015, this winning combo is back with another scenario pack that was released at ASLOK in 2017. This action pack comes with two new geoboards (78, 79). Board 78 is mostly a […]
Poland in Flames
Poland in Flames (PiF) is the first new product from Bounding Fire Productions in five years, a significant gap in time for an active third party publisher of ASL products. Part of the reason for the delay is the fact that BFP tends to focus on very large products, instead of producing smaller products on […]
Schwerpunkt Volume 21
If Schwerpunkt, the long-running annual ASL magazine with scenarios, could somehow drink liquor, it would now be legally old enough to do so, having reached its 21st iteration. On the other hand, 2015 marks only the 20th anniversary of Schwerpunkt, rather than the 21st, as Schwerpunkt Volumes 5 and 6 came out the same year. […]
Dare-Death
Dare-Death is a Chinese-language ASL newsletter published by Zhen Wang, originally from Chengdu but recently living in Japan, and Zunwen Kyle Li, currently living in California. It is the first Chinese-language ASL newsletter or magazine (the inaugural issue clocked in at 16 pages, which puts it right at the border between magazine and newsletter, but […]
CH Annual Issue 1
In the mid-1990s, Critical Hit released one of the first third party ASL-related magazines with its Critical Hit Magazine, a magazine that limped along in fits and starts for about a decade. The quality of its contents was uneven at best, with classic scenarios and barking dogs alike. Inconsistency was its hallmark. It died a […]
About the Desperation Morale Site
The Desperation Morale site is the ASL website of Mark Pitcavage, who created a bare-bones site in 2002 as a place to share ASL-related play aids and resources that he had originally designed for his own use. Over time, Pitcavage added a few other downloads and in 2003 he added a whole new section, the […]
Rising Sun
Rising Sun (RS) is the long-awaited reprint/new edition of ASL’s PTO rules, combining the contents of Code of Bushido and Gung Ho! as well as incorporating additional material from elsewhere, notably the Gavatu-Tanambogo mini-HASL that originally appeared in ASL Annual ’93b. For many years, these rules have been out of print, depriving newer ASLers of […]
Le Franc Tireur No. 13
Le Franc Tireur reaches a baker’s dozen worth of issues with Le Franc Tireur No. 13 (LFT13), released in early 2013 and focusing on the East Front actions in the Crimea on the Black Sea. At 100 pages, LFT13 is the largest issue of the magazine yet published (and more than twice the length of […]
Rivers to the Reich
Rivers to the Reich (RttR) is a scenario pack that finishes the conversion to ASL of all of the official scenarios originally designed for the Squad Leader series of modules, a process that has taken over 20 years (see chart below). It is the third and last in a trilogy of packs, following A GI’s […]
Hands across the Water: An Interview with Suzuki Takuya
[Interviewer’s Introduction: In March 2011, I was contacted by a Japanese wargamer and ASL player, Suzuki Takuya. Takuya had reached out to me, as well as Pete Phillipps, publisher of the British ASL newsletter View from the Trenches, to ask for permission to translate and reproduce some content from my website/Pete’s newsletter for publication in […]
20 Rants: The Curator Responds to His Critics
The observant among the ASL audience may have noticed that the World of ASL compendium was just recently updated with a whole bunch of new entries. I thought this might be a suitable time to discuss some of the criticisms or observations made about the World of ASL compendium from time to time. I know […]
Festung Budapest
The long-waited Festung Budapest finally debuted at the Winter Offensive tournament in January 2012. This “Magyar Opus,” designed by Bill Cirillo, had been a playtesting staple at many previous iterations of the WO tournament, and 2012 attendees were delighted to see it finally come out. Festung Budapest (FB) is a massive HASL module depicting part […]
Winter Offensive Bonus Pack #3
The Winter Offensive Bonus Pack #3 (WO3) is the third of a series of mini-packs released annually at the Winter Offensive ASL Tournament in Bowie, Maryland. Each pack typically contains one or two unmounted geomorphic maps and 2-3 scenarios. The highlight of WO3, of course, are the maps. Boards 64 and 65 are a bit […]
Operations Special Issue #3
Operations Magazine had been the long running house magazine for The Gamers, and after it was acquired by MMP in 2002, became that company’s house magazine, though dominated by Gamers content for some time. In 2008, MMP announced that it would soon debut the first planned annual “Special Issue” of Operations, which would not only […]
Blood Reef: Tarawa Gamers Guide
The Blood Reef: Tarawa Gamers Guide (BRTGG) is one of the more unusual ASL products around, essentially a loving valentine to a niche ASL item. It was developed by a group of Blood Reef: Tarawa fans, mostly from the northeast (Tom Lavan, Paul Sidhu, Jim Torkelson, Oliver Giancola, and Carl Nogueira), who wanted to make […]
Blood and Jungle
Because of the size of this product, this is a long review. To skip straight to the scenario discussion, click here. To go all the way to the concluding “bottom line,” click here. But try the whole thing. After being neglected by much of the ASL community for some years, the PTO certainly got some […]
Schwerpunkt Volume 15
In the introduction to Schwerpunkt Volume 15 (SP15, the latest annual issue of Schwerpunkt, editor Evan Sherry takes advantage of the round-numberishness of the issue to reflect on Schwerpunkt’s accomplishments, which as of then included 180 scenarios (not to mention 40 more in the four Rally Point packs published to date). He proudly notes that […]
Turning the Tide
Ever since Advanced Squad Leader debuted in the mid-1980s, there have been those who have clamored for the conversion of all the original Squad Leader/Cross of Iron/Crescendo of Doom/GI: Anvil of Victory scenarios to the ASL system. Over the years, Avalon Hill did this with some scenarios (they appeared in its periodicals), but not all. […]
Action Pack #4: Normandy 1944
Normandy 1944 is the second, following 2007’s Few Returned, of MMP’s “new” Action Packs (the first two Action Packs were published back in the late 1990s). Unlike Few Returned, which re-issued several long out of print geomorphic mapboards, Normandy 1944’s major selling point is its three new geoboards, the first to be created since Armies […]
Valor of the Guards
Of all the different items of “ASL vaporware” over the years, Valor of the Guards is one of the most infamous, second only to Armies of Oblivion. Yet VotG differed from AoO in that the latter was vaporware for so many years primarily because of a lack of people working on it, whereas VotG was […]
Schwerpunkt Volume 12
Schwerpunkt Volume 12 (SP12) features the usual designers’ and players’ notes; it also features a lengthy article on the British in ASL by Brook White. Many ASLers may consider this overkill, as they were already treated to an endless two-part treatise on the British Army in ASL Journals #6 and 7, which itself was an […]
Le Franc Tireur No. 9
Le Franc Tireur No. 9 (LFT9) came out nearly a year late, due largely to the posting overseas of editor/publisher Xavier Vitry, a serving French Army officer, and the illness (and, alas, eventual death) of Jean Devaux. LFT9 continues the practice established in the previous issue of including much of the article content, as well […]
Break Contact! Aussie Tournament Pack
Break Contact came onto the ASL scene like found money: unlooked for and unexpected, but appreciated. However, like found money, many may consider it hard to find. It is basically only available from one source, the Australian games e-tailer Warchest. It turns out that “Break Contact” is Straylian for “tournament sized scenarios,” because that is […]
Operation Veritable
MMP’s second “historical study,” Operation Veritable (OVHS) portrays fighting between German and Canadians (making their HASL debut) in the Reichswald forest in February-March 1945. It continues the trend of naming HS modules after uninspiring operational plans. OVHS represents a significant improvement over Operation Watchtower. The map is both more manageable in size and more attractive, […]
Le Franc Tireur No. 7
Le Franc Tireur No. 7 (LFT7) was almost guaranteed to be popular because of this theme: Barbarossa 1941. Additionally, this issue was the first issue that many North American ASLers were able to get their hands on. As a result, Le Franc Tireur scenarios (all in English) began to see more widespread play with this […]