With the new year, many gamers across the land get excited for the annual Winter Offensive, hosted by the folks at Multiman Publishing (MMP). With over 150 attendees, this is one of the larger annual conventions, but it differs from many in that it does not focus on a wide variety of games. The two major games here are Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) and the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War (GCACW).
There were some other games being played, but those two were the main ones. Furthermore, the Winter Offensive is a charitable event, with the benefactor being the World War Two Foundation. Every year, MMP raises thousands for this important group, raising awareness of this important event in our shared history.
“Summer’s here and the time is right For fighting in the street, boy” – The Rolling Stones, Street Fighting Man. 1968.
I was reading up on some challenges of gaming recently, and the challenge the author was pondering was how to game fighting in built-up areas (FIBUA), or Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT). Whichever you prefer. I cannot for the life of me find that article now but suffice it to say that the author couldn’t find a suitable game.
Editor’s note: This week David takes a look at how the hobby of TT Wargaming helped him through a tough emotional time. In this story, he reminds us that our games are not just about the counters, the figures, the little toy soldiers, but about the people across the table from us. The hobby can be community as well. And that can help us all.
By David Garvin
On the 4th of July this year, my mother died. She lived her last days at a hospice near the shores of the Bay of Quinte in eastern Ontario, Canada. Almost as if on cue after her passing, a pair of CF-188 Hornets of the Royal Canadian Air Force flew overhead as they conducted a series of touch-and-goes at nearby 8 Wing at Astra, Ontario. A fitting tribute, especially how much my mother loved going to the base to watch the air shows.
Personally, I was at my mother’s side in her last days, being able to visit with her while she was still lucid and able to ensure that her spiritual needs were fulfilled and being able to pray in her presence, finishing with an Angelus for her less than an hour before her death.
When I first played Squad Leader back in 1983, I found that 35-page rule book to be rather complex. The rules were laid out in Programmed Instruction in order to facilitate ease of learning. This just meant that the player only had to read a few pages, play a scenario and then progress. By the time the player had gone through the book, he or she could then play any scenario.
This method of instruction continued through the original series, up to and including GI: Anvil of Victory. By that time, the player could play any of 47 scenarios released with the games, and a number more of officially-released scenarios. There were a few third-party scenarios, including some from On All Fronts and even Dragon Magazine. That said, as I attempted to parse some of the rules while hanging out with my friends, the language was at times dense.
What did I just read?
Later as I delved into Advanced Squad Leader, (ASL) I found the rule book to be too much for me to initially comprehend. It was around 1986 and I failed to put any serious effort into learning the rules or the game. Programmed Instruction was now a thing of the past, and even though there was a learning chapter, my friend Gary and I just never really got into it.
Imagine my surprise then, many years later as I was learning how to play, that not only were many people playing ASL – likely more than at any other point in its history – but also that there was a very large and vibrant international community of players. In fact, one of the first of many third-party producers made ASL scenarios in French!
From March 23 to 26, I attended the 27th Annual Nor’EasterAdvanced Squad Leader (ASL) tournament in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. With the restrictions of the COVID pandemic waning, this tournament saw quite a resurgence. 49 players registered in advance, and in spite of a number of late-notice cancellations, just over 50 players showed up to roll the dice in the field of cardboard combat! That said, there were actually four tournaments: the main tournament and three mini tournaments. As well, and as is becoming more common, there was some ASL Starter Kit (ASL SK) play as well.
One thing I’ve found in war gaming is that I tend to stay in one genre for most of my gaming. In spite of the computer evolution of the 1990s that saw many war games be released in digital form, I have almost always come back to play my games on cardboard. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part, I have stuck to tossing dice.
For a while, I did get into Flames of War (FOW), but my interest faded with the advent of edition 4, which coincided with my deep dive into Advanced Squad Leader. But one thing that I do like about war games, in general, is that the variety of genres allows many people with various interests to play.
From 14 to 16 October, I was the Tournament Director for an Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) Tournament in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. I hosted one there last year and had about a dozen gamers show up, from as far away as Hamilton, Ontario and even from Massachusetts. This year, in spite of some buzz generated online, a number of unfortunate situations such as illness, moving, work and more caused many to cancel. In the end, a mere 4 gamers showed up to play. But in the end, that didn’t matter. We had our games, we had our opponents and we all soldiered on. This is a story of gaming in the face of adversity!
The dictionary defines “tank” as “an armored, self-propelled combat vehicle, armed with cannon and machine guns and moving on a caterpillar tread.” That much makes sense. Practically every war game depicting combat in the 2nd World War has tanks, and Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) is no exception. There are many other iconic weapons and platforms that stimulate the imagination when it comes to war, but none more so than the tank.
There are defining tanks, such as the Sherman, the T-34, and of course the Tiger. I will discuss this in this article, but I’ll confine myself to tanks and try to avoid discussing other Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFVs), such as half-tracks, tank destroyers, and assault guns. For the purposes of this article, I will expand upon the definition and further demand that tanks have a turret (or turrets) that house their gun. That said, the purpose isn’t to teach players how to use Tanks in ASL, but rather to show how the designers took the real-world use of tanks and translated that use to the game.
In Early July, 2022, Advanced Squad Leader players from the DC Area and beyond gathered in Tysons Corner, Virginia, for the 5th annual tournament to be hosted by the DC Conscripts, an ASL club in the greater DC metropolitan area. Human Wave started by pure will back in 2018 and was almost a disaster.
The room booked for the tournament lost air conditioning and the venue moved to what was essentially a glorified hotel room. That said, the players played on and the tradition of hosting an annual tournament began. The event in 2019 was in a better venue (and coincidentally, the same weekend as ComiCon.) The Pandemic forced Human Wave 2020 to be run virtually using the online tool Virtual Advanced Squad Leader (VASL). 2021 was a hybrid, thanks to loosening restrictions, but this year saw Human Wave back to its original and best form: in person.
When playing any game, and Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) is no exception, having readily-accessible material to help you learn the game is a bonus. I have already explained how to improve your play, but in this post, I’m going to discuss what kind of support one can find when learning ASL. Let’s face it, ASL is not an easy game to master.
By researching articles on The Game™, one can find insights that maybe one would never have thought of. This can span the decades since ASL first came out, spanning the divide from the pulp and paper industry of the 1980s through to the bits and bytes of the 21st Century. And it has certainly been quite the journey! Some articles are in fact videos found on such platforms as YouTube. But first, let’s see where this all began.
By David Garvin
