ASL: Everything is in Progress

After a few business trips and other life confusion, my ASL habit has taken a hit.

Here is what I am currently up to:

ASL: Suicide Creek, First Pass at First Love (J131)

Since I started collecting Advanced Squad Leader gear around 2004, I managed to acquire more than a few Historical ASL scenario and campaign games. To wit:

• Kampfgruppe Peiper 2 (I bought this, for some reason, a long time ago, and then sold it when I got back into the game in 2012)
• Pegasus Bridge (Got this when MMP was disposing of them on mass)
• Valor of The Guards
• Festung Budapest

(Non-ASL) Board Games in 2013

The following is a speedy round-up of what I played (Non-ASL) this last year and thought worth briefly commenting on. This was largely a year of catching up on old games, but I do have some comments on games from this year.

Advanced Squad Leader: Dubious Self-Promotion

A decade ago, when I was an aspiring theoretical computer scientist, I read Gian-Carlo Rota’s Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught. Despite the fact I’ve spent the last eight years forgetting all of the highfaluting math I once knew, all of his advice is valid and has had a disproportional impact on my life. The two statements that I constantly refer back about are Publish the Same Result Several Times and You Are More Likely to Be Remembered by Your Expository Work.

ASL: Learning to Like Beach Landings

This was written in an airport lounge — please forgive the typos and lack of images.

ASL players are a bit masochistic. Part of the the joy of the game is the insane rules overhead — in fact, the promise that this was the most complex (but good!) game ever was one of the things that first attracted me to the game. So, as soon as I was not making horrendously egregious errors, I was keen to try cavalry, en portee guns, night, gliders, and so on. Almost without fail, these are not as bad as advertised. Night is especially over-sold as being difficult (at least with the mechanical sugar of using VASL). It’s not that bad and it’s fun. Not so fun as to be the only way you would ever play ASL, but fun for the odd game. Which is half of the appeal of ASL; the huge variety of situation (and accompanying ruleset). That said, I still don’t really get how air support is supposed to work, but I’m sure I just need to play a scenario with it.

Advanced Squad Leader: best/worst scenarios played in 2013

After many years of collecting/wanting to play, I was reunited with my ASL set in the summer of 2012 and began to play in earnest that fall. This year I played 32 (maybe 33 if this PBEM game wraps up) scenarios. Luke, my regular VASL ASL buddy (and a patient teacher when I was trying to understand this game), posted a list of his favourite scenarios played this year. I thought I’d do that same.