Creating Memories in Advanced Squad Leader

Games that create memories are what we as wargamers strive for. Such games capture the imagination and immerse the player in the game. No longer are the players sitting by a table at home, but rather their imaginations have taken them to some far away battle! For my money, no other game captures the imagination like Advanced Squad Leader. This game, first released in 1985 by the now-defunct Avalon Hill (but perpetuated by Multiman Publications), is a tactical wargame of the hex-and-counter variety. The battles are primarily from the Second World War; however, it has since expanded to include the Korean War. Each player manoeuvres his squads, crews and AFVs and guns across generic and historical battlefields in games that can last anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours or even days. Practically every game will end up with a narrative that will leave an indelible mark in the memories of the players involved.  Allow me to illustrate.

I foresee no negative outcome to my decision to use fire

The date was 14 September, 1942, and as the German battalion commander, Captain Gerhard Muench, I was leading an initial attack in Stalingrad in the historical scenario "In Sight of the Volga". The simulated battle was noteworthy for several reasons. My opponent, Will, ended up being reluctant to try for his Molotov Cocktails (A 22.6).

The reason? He rolled 6 on his colored die in his attacks, voiding his attack, breaking his attackers and to add insult to injury, placing a flame in his location! This must have happened 3 times. On his fourth possible attempt, he declined to even try!

Poor Will!  Alas, I haven't even gotten to the best part yet! To win the game, I had to occupy a building that had in them a series of fortified locations. I had pushed past this building to an assault position and then planned to hit its flank. I couldn't just move up to the building (under the cover of fire, of course) and enter. You see, with a fortified location, the only way to enter is if the force was less than a squad equivalent, was pinned or otherwise not in good order. Fortunately (for me), I had plenty of firepower, mainly in the form of two STuG III G Assault Guns. In addition, not only were some of my men Assault Engineers, but they brought with them some Demolition Charges (DC). Without getting into too many details, this meant that they could place smoke rather easily and they could breach into the fortified location without having to pin or break the occupants.

Don't you know that you're my hero?

So my attack was set. I had a firebase isolating the objective. I brought forward a squad of Assault Engineers, placed infantry smoke and then used assault move to get up to the building.  So far, so good.  Now to place the DC. Now, Will wasn't born yesterday and he had anticipated this move. His defensive first fire was effective and caused my squad to undergo a morale check. With a morale level of 8, I felt confident that I would pass. As the dice settled, they indicated 1, 1. Snake eyes! This invoked heat of battle and a subsequent Dice Roll (DR).  The result couldn't have been better for me! My roll resulted in both hero creation and battle hardening! Now my squad was fanatic and a single man counter in the form of a hero was added to the hex.

Of course, I gave the DC to the hero! The attack was successful, I had created a breach and I then advanced into the location and entered into close combat with the hapless enemy! Even though it was an NKVD Strongpoint, I had the upper hand. I ended up rolling for ambush and eliminated the defenders.  It was the beginning of the end for Will's defense, though it still had a ways to go and he ended up successfully using a Molotov Cocktail on one of my STuG III Gs, destroying it.

How does ASL do this? How do such narratives come out of a simple game using dice and cardboard counters? I've played many wargames, from the tactical to the strategic level and no other captures the imagination quite the same way as ASL does. In my opinion, it is due to the many random events that the game generates. I have already mentioned one, heat of battle. Although there are some exceptions, this is invoked following any original 2 on a morale check or rally DR. The results can be very good or very bad. The results include the previously mentioned hero creation and battle hardening. Other results include berserk and even surrender. There are modifiers to the roll following heat of battle, but suffice it to say that Russians and Japanese are more prone to go berserk than other nations.

Another random event is field promotion. This can create a leader in one of two ways. If you roll an original 2 on a MMC Self-Rally or on amy MMC CC DR, that player will then make a die roll (dr) and generate a leader immediately. As with all things ASL, there are exceptions, for example, field promotion is NA to both Japanese and Finns. A less common random event is the wind change die roll at the start of all player rally phases. An original 2 or 12 will result in possible wind changes, gusts, and the like. This may not sound significant, but consider that well-laid smoke screen suddenly being blown away by a gust of wind just as your forces are in the middle of the enemy's killing zone! (Yes, it has happened to me!)

So, you thought you were going to win pretty easily, didn't you?

The most common random event is the sniper activation.

In every ASL scenario, snipers are inherent. Both sides will have a Sniper Activation Number (SAN), which, if rolled in certain phases by your opponent, may trigger (pun intended) a sniper attack. Such an attack may eliminate or wound a leader. If this happens, especially if the leader dies outright or due to wound severity, then any troops with him will immediately undergo a leader-loss morale check LLMC). Each morale check could invoke another SAN or Heat of Battle! All from one DR that ends up causing a major swing in a game. And yes, it happened to me! I had a 9-2 leader with some squads when they were hit by a SAN. Random Selection ended up killing my leader. The squads with him, who were busy manning some machine guns, all failed the LLMC and ending up routing to cover and didn't really contribute much to the battle afterwards. I ended up winning the game in the end; however, losing that leader was critical and it ended up being a much-closer affair thanks to that one attack.

"Advanced Squad Leader" is a complex game with a very comprehensive rule set. That said, not only are the possibilities for scenarios more than one could possibly play in a single life time (By my count, there are 694 officially released scenarios and 7,858 third-party scenarios, most of which are of top-quality). The player who uses his forces wisely, by attacking the enemy weakness and avoiding his strength, will more often than not win. That said, the greatest enjoyment, for me, comes from the rich narrative that the game creates. They are a result of the various random events, only some of which are mentioned above. There is also interrogation and of course one may have to watch out for booby traps and nighttime can cause forces to jitter fire. But don't worry, players, even if you lose, you'll remember the background story that your game will create!

Advanced Squad Leader - The Next Generation

There is a perception among gamers that Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) is for old people. There is some truth to that, given that the game has been around since 1985. Almost 36 years since it was released, someone who played it since the beginning would be in their mid to late 50s. And if they started with Squad Leader when it came out in 1977, then they would be in their 60s!
The surprising thing is that there is a significant population of ASL players who are younger than the game itself. I am talking Millennials and Zoomers, or those born after 1981, who are avid ASL players. These generations, Generation Y and Z, were the first to grow up in an information age. These generations have always lived in the age of the home computer. Their members were also the first to experience the internet at a young age. Gen Xers like myself learned to adapt to the internet, but for Gens Y and Z, it’s always been there.

I first noted the younger generation playing ASL when I was at Winter Offensive in 2018. Two friends, both named Will, were playing. Both are Gen Y Millennials and both are avid ASL players. I decided to find out what motivated them to play ASL. I know for people like me, board games were all we had growing up and as such we were easily exposed to war games, such as Panzerblitz, The Rise and Decline of the Third Reich and of course Squad Leader. But I did not know what would motivate a child of the Internet to play a board-based game. I reached out to the greater ASL community, seeking people who were born after the release of ASL. I was surprised by the results and found a few commonalities among almost every respondent.

First up was David. David is now 27, and two years ago, at the tender age of 25, he participated in an ASL tournament hosted by the DC Conscripts. He played the into the finals of a mini tournament, losing to none other than Ken Dunn, a long-time player and designer of many scenario packs as well as, most notably, the Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit. This is David’s Story:

When he was 14, he first came across ASL on the website Boardgame Geek. Then 2 years later, he gave it a go and he got the first starter kit. He tried the first scenario, Retaking Vierville, but did not quite get it. He gave it up for a year or so, but it kept coming back to him. He found Jay Richardson’s tutorials online and he ended up spending hours reading and re-reading them. He then was able to learn the game to play solitaire, but then ended up teaching some of his high school friends. He eventually ended up playing full-rules ASL and has not looked back.

David getting his prize at Human Wave 2019

William, previously mentioned, was born in 1987, 2 years after ASL was first sold. In 2008, he did a Boardgame geek search about tactical warfare in world war 2. He saw ASL and decided to try it. He went to eBay and got a 1st edition of Beyond Valor, Streets of Fire, Paratrooper as well as a 1st Edition Rule book. It was all unpunched, however, there were no maps! He then went to Game Squad and reached out and was able to find opponents. He loves the game, but it must be noted that he has a young family and is finishing up grad school, so there is little time to enjoy it.

Ross was born in 1985 and first heard of ASL around 2002. He admits he grew up on console and computer game, but first experienced board games with Settlers of Catan. He played it “hundreds of times” and sought more complex games. This led him to Boardgame Geek and he poked around and found what he was seeking: a complex and rich game he could enjoy.
His first experience of a hex and counter game was Memoir ’44. This intrigued him and he remembered “this other game” whilst poking about on BGG. He found ASL and loved poking around the photos and the posts. He was interested of course, but as a 19-year-old just getting ready to go to college, the price for the rule book was just beyond his means.
By 2007 he was in Boston and heading into graduate school. He found a group that met weekly (at a minimum) and in this group he ran into some hard-core ASL players. By 2011 he dipped his toe into ASL by playing ASL Scenario #181 – Gavin Take.

"Gavin Take" in Progress

It took him the better part of the day to get through this relatively small scenario and he does not remember who won, but he left the table with a buzz. He knew then and there that this was the game for him. He bought the rule book and Beyond Valor and started studying. For the next two years, he almost-exclusively played ASL. Looking back, the Remote On-line Automated Record (ROAR) says that he won 15 and lost 23 of those matches. These games were all played in person with some of the members of the Yankee ASL Group out of Massachusetts. Ross says that though he still likes to win, he plays mostly because the game system creates some incredibly memorable narratives. As he says in his own words, “I vividly remember wild rolls and tactical missteps from a decade ago. No other game has done that for me.”

Now we go to Europe and we meet Lalus, who was born in 1989. He first ran into ASL in Brno, Czech Republic in 2013. He was at university and some local players were talking about it, all positively, in spite of its complexity. He played his first game then and there and has since played mostly Starter Kit but has moved up to full rules ASL. He plays mostly using the freeware program Virtual ASL (VASL) and has a few regular opponents.

Example of Play in Virtual Advanced Squad Leader (VASL)

Staying in Europe, we meet Azim, who was born in 1999 in Istanbul. Back in 2014, he saw a copy of Starter Kit 3 for sale in a Facebook group. That was the first time he had heard of ASL. He already was into historical gaming, so once he did his research on what ASL was, he was hooked. He went to the ASL Facebook group for help and he found it. He and his mentor got through all three starter kits via VASL. Once gaining a good-enough understanding of the game, Azim started playing ASL with some local friends, guiding them through it. As he says, the way in which ASL conveys the tactics and strategy of battle at this level captivates him. “I love the rules, aesthetics of the counters and the maps and above all, the people. The community in which this game lives on is so kind and helpful, I simply adore all the people I come across.”

Let us now come to Andrew, born in 1985, a few months after Beyond Valor was released. He had played some board games growing up, including Risk and Axis and Allies. His first exposure to the world of ASL was in 1999 or so when an uncle sent him a copy of the original Squad Leader. Upon seeing the game, his father talked about how he and his uncle would play Squad Leader, but gaming died off when things such as marriage started to compete with it. Andrew tried to learn the game on his own, but it was just a bit too much. He did play with some of his own rules, but by the end of the year, the game was shelved and started to collect dust.

By Christmas 2014, Andrew was married and they had a son. His wife got him a copy of Memoir ’44 so he and his son could play. This rekindled his love of wargaming and within a few months he had discovered Boardgame Geek. He started buying various games in the marketplace. By 2016 he remembered that dust-collecting box of his and pulled it out. He was no longer a 13-year-old boy, but a grown man by now and dived back into the rules. He was able to play it solo and he enjoyed it in spite of its dated artwork. He had heard of Advanced Squad Leader, perhaps on Boardgame Geek and soon learned that people were still playing ASL. He was under the impression that it was a long-dead game, buried with its creator, Avalon Hill.

He read more and more of it on Boardgame Geek and his interest grew. World War II is his favorite era to wargame and with his growing interest, he bought the pocket rule book and started reading. He did not get overwhelmed by the comprehensive rules, but instead he picked away at it, piece by piece. The itch never went away, but he did not have any opponents to play.

Over the next few years, he bought some modules and the starter kits, which only fueled his interest in the game that much more. Still without opponents, Andrew kept playing solo. But in 2018, his grandfather has passed away and he went to Michigan for the funeral. He stayed with his wargaming uncle and they played Guards Counterattack using the old Squad Leader rules. His uncle was not really into gaming anymore and Andrew found himself mixing up Squad Leader and ASL rules from time to time. That said, this face-to-face gaming experience with his uncle gave him something he had not experienced and to this day he says it is one of his most cherished gaming memories.

Later that year, he ended up on YouTube watching some ASL Scenario playthroughs. Reading the comments, he discovered that the video was made at a store not too far from him. He went and found himself joining the group now known as the Puget Sound ASL Club. He had no idea there was such a strong ASL community!

ASL Players need no introduction to the name Sam Belcher. Sam took Andrew under his wing and donated plenty of ASL gear, from rules, counters to boards. This led to his first ever ASL match (face to face) in 2019. Most of his games have been via VASL but being a father with three children competes heavily for his time.

What keeps Andrew coming back to ASL and playing it is the narrative. As he says, it is unmatched. An ill-planned attack will be doomed to fail, just as in real life, but sometimes a perfect attack will also fail, due to the unexpected, such as a machine gun breaking at the wrong time, or a feat of individual heroism that saves the day for one side or the other.

There is a downside to ASL for Andrew, however. That is that it has ruined his taste for some other tactical game systems. He does play other games, but when he does, he finds that they pale in comparison to the rich narrative weaved in a playing of ASL. The game is indeed complex, admits Andrew; however, almost every conceivable situation seems to be accounted for. The layout of the rules, as well as its index and cross-referencing, makes it quite manageable. Though he does find himself diving into the rule book from time to time, he does not find this distracting from the enjoyment.

These stories are all compelling and they ought to serve a lesson for all who play wargames. These generations rely on the internet to seek knowledge about their interests. They all have experience in gaming online or with console games, but all of them seem to have sought out and found that which they were looking for with ASL. Boardgame Geek gave them an initial peek into the world of wargaming in general and ASL in particular. In every case, ASL gave the players the feedback they were seeking. Console games certainly have much to offer, but these players all seemed to want more.

Player's Eye View

One common observation of ASL was its narrative that each game seems to create. It is through the comprehensive and exhaustive rules that the random events seem to generate the improbable. These random events range from failing weapons or tanks to heroic acts at just the right time. They all serve to deliver the gaming excitement that the Millennial player seems to be seeking.

Another component not found in online and console gaming is the interaction with your opponent. A constant feedback from players of all levels is the friendships found playing ASL. Azim mentions how a player from Canada had messaged him and said that he was going to be in Istanbul and offered a face-to-face match. The pandemic has somewhat restricted peoples’ ability to play in this method; however, with such freeware as VASL, there remains the possibility to play people remotely, but at least in real-time.

So there you have it. Six young players of ASL, five of whom grew up in the computer age as Millennials and one Zoomer who grew up in the post-911 world, all of whom found ASL, tried it and not only stayed with it, but have kept coming back to it as their game of choice. They all used the internet in general and Boardgame Geek in particular to learn about the game. But the digital age is not that which gives them the gaming pleasure, it is the rolling of the dice and the moving of the cardboard against their human opponent that entices them. They may not have been there when ASL was in its initial golden age, but they are here for its current golden age and with their continued enthusiasm, they are its future.