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. […]
Search Results for: asl journal
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 […]
Advanced Squad Leader Rulebook (2nd Edition)
The 2nd Edition of the ASL Rulebook was published by MMP in late 2000 because the 1st Edition was long out of print and would-be ASL players could not even buy the rules. Additionally, many years of errata and clarifications had accumulated and needed to be incorporated into the rulebook. The 2nd Edition was designed […]
A Bridge Too Far
A Bridge Too Far (ABTF), as its name suggests, portrays the valiant but doomed defense of Arnhem Bridge by Colonel John Frost’s battalion of paratroopers during Operation Market-Garden in September 1944, made famous by the book and movie of the same name. With three campaign games and 9 scenarios, ABTF is a meaty module, one […]
Blood Reef: Tarawa
Blood Reef: Tarawa (BRT), along with A Bridge Too Far, was one of the first two historical releases by MMP in the late 1990s after they acquired the ASL license from Hasbro. BRT takes HASLs to the PTO for the first time, portraying the 1943 invasion of the Japanese-held atoll of Betio by the United […]
Ordeal Before Shuri
Ordeal Before Shuri (OBS) is a historical module depicting actions involving the 96th and 27th Infantry Divisions on Okinawa in April 1945, designed by David Dally. It was ostensibly the first of a three part series of modules depicting fighting on Okinawa, but it was never finished (a second module, Blood & Iron, was published […]
Doomed Battalions
With Doomed Battalions, the much looked for Allied Minor guns and vehicles finally made their appearance (ending the cries of “We want Dutch trucks!”). This is a fairly meaty module compared to some of its predecessors, with a full complement of components. The new ASL Rulebook pages provided significant errata (primarily for human waves) and […]
Le Franc Tireur No. 2
The sophomore issue of Le Franc Tireur has a historical focus, including two articles, on the Balkans and Tito’s partisans in Yugoslavia. Other articles include an analysis of smoke in ASL, a look at American tank destroyers, and an analysis of the Heat of Battle module King of the Hill. All the content is in […]
Dispatches from the Bunker
Dispatches from the Bunker is a long-running ASL newsletter from New England. Indeed, it is the longest continuously published ASL newsletter that has scenarios in every issue. Dispatches has a high reputation, largely due to its long history of consistently good scenarios. Dispatches is edited and published by Vic Provost, with help and assistance from […]
Backblast No. 1
Before MMP began creating and developing “official” ASL material (under arrangement with and on behalf of Avalon Hill), its one and only claim to publishing fame was an ASL magazine, Backblast, which lasted for just two short issues in 1994-1995. Those dates are significant because 1994 was a year deep in the “Dark Ages” of […]
Croix de Guerre
1st Edition Comments: The French–or at least some of them–come to ASL with this module. It also comes with a pair of useful boards and a variety of building overlays. It is par for the course for the smaller core modules in terms of its components, and has better scenarios than many of the other […]
Hollow Legions
Hollow Legions brings the Italians to the world of ASL, including a wide mix of squad types and AFVs. The boards included with the module expand the range of desert terrain, but the scenarios include a variety of actions with Italians on a number of different fronts. Overall, Italians are represented well in ASL, with […]
Yanks
Yanks was a major addition to the ASL series, introducing the Americans in all their glory. The complete ETO U.S. order of battle is included (Important: USMC, landing craft, and early war U.S./Filipino troops appeared originally in Gung Ho and, later, Rising Sun), as is Chapter E, the “miscellaneous” rules chapter for ASL (later included […]
Across the Aller II
Have you ever seen or heard something that so boggled your mind that you reacted by trying to say several things at once, with all of those things getting mixed up between your mind and your mouth to the point that you were rendered speechless? If so, you may have experienced something similar to the […]
Across the Aller I
Have you ever seen or heard something that so boggled your mind that you reacted by trying to say several things at once, with all of those things getting mixed up between your mind and your mouth to the point that you were rendered speechless? If so, you may have experienced something similar to the […]
Decision at Elst
Decision at Elst (DaE) is something MMP had promised (or threatened, depending on one’s point of view) for quite some time: a historical module that uses ASL Starter Kit rules rather than full ASL rules. DaE is a smallish historical module that depicts three days of fighting between British and German troops around the town […]
Winter Offensive 2013 AAR
There’s no time like the present, which means that the current time–more than a month after Winter Offensive 2013 has ended, is not exactly the time to write an AAR. But between then and now real life intruded in various ways and I did not have an opportunity. That’s a shame, as my memory of […]
Out of the Attic Issue Two
Out of the Attic (OotA) was originally conceived of as a way to bring long out of print third-party scenarios to a newer ASL audience through publishing an occasional magazine with reprinted scenarios and articles. Its first issue appeared in 2003, but apparently the reaction wasn’t what it was hoped to be–in any case, for […]
Armies of Oblivion
For years one of the most infamous examples of wargaming vaporware, Armies of Oblivion finally came out in 2006, nearly 15 years after it was first mentioned by name by Avalon Hill in 1992. Its non-appearance, year after year, meant increasing criticism for MMP and a set of expectations that no company could realistically hope […]
Point-Blank
Point-Blank was a short-lived newsletter published by the Silicon Valley ASL Club. Edited by Jon Halfin, it billed itself as “an independent free journal of ASL thoughts and ideas.” Content primarily consisted of historical articles, non-original content cut and pasted from the ASL Mailing list, and the odd article on ASL (usually Red Barricades). Some […]
Rout Report
The Rout Report was one of the more important of the first generation of ASL newsletters. It was important 1) because it published numerous scenarios, some of them quite good, 2) it was one of the only first generation ASL scenarios to have any sort of longevity at all, and 3) it proved that ASL […]
On All Fronts
On All Fronts (OAF) is the oldest “third party” publisher of ASL products; in fact, it pre-dated ASL. OAF began in 1982 as a Squad Leader newsletter published by Arkansas gamer Terry Treadaway, who proceeded to churn out issues and more issues for the next decade and a half. It is hard properly to characterize […]