Publisher/Date:
Encircled Productions (2022)
Product Type:
Scenario Pack
Country of Origin:
United States
Contents:
8 scenarios on cardstock.
[Note: A review copy of this product was provided to Desperation Morale.]
The 2022 iteration of the annual March Madness scenario pack features 8 scenarios designed by a “guest designer,” K. Scott Mullins, the person behind the Grumble Jones Blog, an ASL blog that has included scenarios. According to Encircled Production, the publishers of the March Madness packs, “the scenarios have been cleaned up..and play-tested by both old and new fans of the Grumble Jones Blog.”
The layout, as usual for this series of scenario packs, is bare-boned in nature, with no counter graphics or map graphics. However, the price is economical; only $15, as of this writing.
The 8 scenarios are a mixed nuts assortment, with actions from different theaters at different times, including the Soviet Union 1941 (Soviets vs. Germans) & 1942 (Soviets partisans vs. Germans), Italy 1943 (Canadians vs. Germans), Guam 1944 (Americans vs. Japanese), Netherlands 1944 (British vs. Germans [2 scenarios], Belgium 1944 (Americans vs. Germans), and the Philippines 1945 (Americans vs. Japanese).
A majority of the scenarios are large in size (5 of 8), often with the attacker having a much larger force than the defender, while one scenario is medium-sized and two more are small. One scenario uses OBA and another scenario uses Night rules, but no scenarios use Air Support rules. Three of the scenarios are SSR-intensive.
To play all the scenarios, one needs the following ASL geoboards: 4, 5, 6, 19, 35, 40, 73, 75, 6a, 7b, and 9a; DASL board i; ASL Starter Kit geoboards n and o; and Bounding Fire Productions geoboards DW-2b, BFP N, DW-4a, and DW-4b, all from Crucible of Steel, though this is nowhere mentioned on the product front or back cover, or the scenario card, or the product website. Third party publishers need to tell their customers where to find any third party geoboards used in their scenarios. Your Humble Author is a veteran player, but would have no idea what product BFP N is in, and would have to do searches for it.
The scenarios in this pack are noteworthy for their use of “color SSRs.” ASL SSRs basically fall into several categories. Parameter SSRs are SSRs needed to establish the basic situational parameters for the scenario, including overlays and terrain modifications, weather and environmental conditions, rules allowed or disallowed (such as No Quarter or Deployment), and so forth. They are often individually short and typically straight and to the point. Weapons/Equipment SSRs establish conditions for SW, Vehicles, and Guns, including offboard weapons such as OBA. “Grudge Rule” SSRs, a type of SSR to be deplored, replace official ASL rules with alternative rules of the scenario maker’s design because he dislikes the official rules in question. Finally, “color” SSRs, also known as “flavor SSRs,” are included in a scenario to recreate something unique or unusual about the historical situation that can’t be simulated by normal ASL rules. For example, in scenario J1 (Urban Guerrillas), designer Pete Shelling simulated unpredictable partisans appearing to plague the Germans with an SSR that randomly generated partisans based on SAN rolls (see image).
Although many of the most popular ASL scenarios have color SSRs, not that many designers include them (in fact, some third party publishers almost never have any). It is, of course, possible to overdo them. In any case, K. Scott Mullins is not a person who shies away from color SSRs; they appear in a number (though not all) of the scenarios here. Two examples illustrate their nature, both involving dogs. In MM75 (Woodland Pursuit), a scenario pitting elements of a German security division against Soviet partisans, a few German squads are armed with dogs. The scenario includes rules that can allow these notional canines to sniff out concealed or HIP partisan forces. In MM77 (Sake at Sunrise), a PTO scenario set on Guam, the USMC units in the scenario are also accompanied by dogs (USMC “devil dogs”). These dogs, too, can cause loss of concealment or cloaking for Japanese forces, albeit by a different mechanism. This scenario, actually, has a whole host of color SSRs (probably too many), including not only dog rules, but also rules for tents, for intoxicated Japanese, for USMC Walking Wounded, and for rear area Marines formed into scratch units.
Since its 2022 release, the scenarios in this pack have not (as of late 2024) accrued enough playings on ROAR (in either their original website incarnations or their revised versions in this pack) to reliably determine overall balance or playability of any of the actions here. Players will have to discover that for themselves.
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