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Trynant posted:Re: Vehicle rules in ASL being a mess. I'm in a weird spot right now in that I have the ASKSK#1 but am thinking I should just learn the main 2.0 rules and be done with it. The way the SK walks you through things is pretty nice but finding rules in the morass of tiny-rear end text is a pain. Looking through the 2.0 binder, I see chapter K which looks like a step-wise training program for new players which progresses chapter by chapter walking you through each chapter. I haven't dipped into it yet but it looks like it will be really helpful. Between that and the "Jay Richardson tutorials" posts on BGG, it is a decent primer to get started. At least I hope so. I am currently scanning in the rules using my ScanSnap into DevonThink so I can search all of these things at will. I did a few tests with Chapters A and B and it seems to be working great so far. Fingers crossed.
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May 26, 2016 18:14
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he1ixx posted:I'm in a weird spot right now in that I have the ASKSK#1 but am thinking I should just learn the main 2.0 rules and be done with it. The way the SK walks you through things is pretty nice but finding rules in the morass of tiny-rear end text is a pain. Looking through the 2.0 binder, I see chapter K which looks like a step-wise training program for new players which progresses chapter by chapter walking you through each chapter. I haven't dipped into it yet but it looks like it will be really helpful. Just sent you a PM with some helpful info.
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May 26, 2016 18:24
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Anybody wanna learn Next War korea with me Someone share this grog journey with me
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May 26, 2016 18:52
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Trynant posted:Overall Falling Sky first impressions were that it was a good alternate "light COIN" to Cuba Libre and the faction interplay is really well-done this time around. I'll learn to pronounce Gallic names one day. Nah. Pretty sure Gallic names in -orix are all accented on the third-to-last syllable. Vercengetorix definitely is. So, Ver-sen-JET-or-ix. His name gets said most of all Gallic names, so the C and G are now soft in English, but wouldn't have been in Latin. How often did you Devastate as the Arverni?
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May 26, 2016 19:04
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homullus posted:Pretty sure Gallic names in -orix are all accented on the third-to-last syllable. Vercengetorix definitely is. So, Ver-sen-JET-or-ix. His name gets said most of all Gallic names, so the C and G are now soft in English, but wouldn't have been in Latin. Getting serious Asterix and Obelix flashbax.
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May 26, 2016 19:23
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Trynant posted:Falling Sky stuff I'm going to try to get a game with actual people going this weekend if I can find a fourth. After my solitaire play I've pretty convinced it's an easy to learn COIN game, but definitely not as easy as CL (smaller more linear map, simpler ops, simpler events, simple battles, etc). If you want to know how to pronounce Vercingetorix watch the first episode of HBO's Rome series. It's surprisingly easy to say once you've heard it. Homullus, I was literally just thinking to myself about the hard vs. soft C and G thing last night, thanks for confirming my suspicion on it.
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May 26, 2016 20:15
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homullus posted:Pretty sure Gallic names in -orix are all accented on the third-to-last syllable. Vercengetorix definitely is. So, Ver-sen-JET-or-ix. His name gets said most of all Gallic names, so the C and G are now soft in English, but wouldn't have been in Latin. quote:How often did you Devastate as the Arverni? Never. Admittedly, we played the 30 card game, but it was one of the (many) mistakes that I saw even when the game was still going.
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May 26, 2016 21:48
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Trynant posted:Close! Ver-sin-JET-o-riks. I got lazy about syllabic division! I don't know enough about Gaulish prosody to say with certainty that the other -orix guys are also accented on the antepenultimate syllable, but they probably are.
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May 26, 2016 22:24
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Whoops I misunderstood the post, ignore this
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May 26, 2016 22:26
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newbie ASL question which is more of a semantic one -- what is "Assault Movement" meant to simulate? You give a -1 to opponents when you don't use it, so I am assuming it is moving slower than usual, picking their way through the rubble and staying low?
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May 27, 2016 12:09
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he1ixx posted:newbie ASL question which is more of a semantic one -- what is "Assault Movement" meant to simulate? You give a -1 to opponents when you don't use it, so I am assuming it is moving slower than usual, picking their way through the rubble and staying low? That's it exactly. Regular movement gives you more movement because you're just jogging along not really caring about cover. Assault Movement only gives you one space, because you're being careful and moving slowly.
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May 27, 2016 13:38
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COOL CORN posted:That's it exactly. Regular movement gives you more movement because you're just jogging along not really caring about cover. Assault Movement only gives you one space, because you're being careful and moving slowly. Thanks. Most of this game is the imagery it evokes (yes, I am hopeless) so being able to picture that accurately helps.
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May 27, 2016 13:53
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Phi230 posted:Anybody wanna learn Next War korea with me I'm getting the poland one so I was thinking about learning the system myself. Feel free to email me at my nick @gmail.com.
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May 28, 2016 03:51
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I'm doing a mock playthrough of Advanced Squad Leader's first scenario of Beyond Valor: Fighting Withdrawal. It's not a simple set up: Finns are trying to escape more units than Russians to a south border of the map, and half way through said map are a couple of fires that thanks to the environmental conditions (mild wind and dry weather) are going to spread fast. You can really tell that this is a scenario that wanted to showcase all the new fancy tricks ASL had over Squad Leader. I've been taking pictures. First, a couple sheets of plexiglass, a mapboard, a scenario card and scenario aid, a side tray of game markers, and a tray for spare units that'll probably end up in play (e.g. half-squads when units suffer casualties, weaker squads from units demoting, leaders if they randomly appear). The pencil is for scale, I suppose.  First off, a couple of buildings in the southern stretch of the map are on fire. In the middle of each player's turns (end of Advancing Fire Phase specifically), a check is made to see if said fire spreads to any flammable hexes. That's going to be a thing. The Russians set up first on this map. They get a lot of ? counters indicating they start off concealed. Gameplay-wise that makes them harder to hit and the opponent is going to have to guess what the hell that question mark is hiding until it does something. In an actual game the Russian player can place up to two hidden squads (or their equivalent half-squads) in any part of the board south of the very top road you see (i.e. behind all those ? counters). Fun fact: ASL knows that I'm a horrible nerd loser and have no friends crazy enough to play this, and equates those hidden units to simply adding a few more concealed units. Advanced Squad Leader knows. The Finns set up second, north of the road at the very top of the map. The game depicts these guys as utter bad-rear end fighters, by the way. Their squads can rally themselves when other nationalities have to use leaders to do that, among a few other perks that scream "these guys eat Russians for breakfast and it's morning, motherfucker." Unfortunately for the Finns is that big Sniper counter the Russians place. In ASL when an opponent fires they can cause the enemy sniper to perk up and shoot them. For this to happen a player needs to roll a certain number on a 2d6. The Russians activate the Finnish sniper on a roll of 2 (1/36 chance); the Finns activate the Russian sniper on a roll of 7 (1/6 chance!). This and Russians' concealment at the game start give them some extra oomph. Also, the stacking limit for troops in any given spot is 3 squads and 4 leaders. While this can end up in a pile of a dozen pieces or more when game markers start flying, 90% of the time it's an awful idea to stack out a location. Fire in this game attacks an entire hex rather than one piece within it, and leaving half your squads in one spot is an invitation for getting murdered by one good roll.  Finns have the first turn in the game, and this is the end of Movement Phase (third thing you do in the game). No weather change in Rally Phase, and the Prep Fire Phase (i.e. squad can fire at full-strength but forfeit moving, or move but fire at half-strength later) was a bunch of misses--all those white markers with orange letters should equate to a lot less brown ? pieces than are still there. The main goal here, and one of the core conceits of the ebb and flow of Advanced Squad Leader in general, was to soften up a few squads on the east end so that I could sneak a couple of Finnish squads behind a nice wall with hopefully less people shooting them. While running, however, one squad broke under fire, one got pinned down, and that left a leader hiding in some woods by the end of it. At least no one got completely wiped out yet....  Russians turn, end of the Defensive Fire Phase. One of the big things to learn in Advanced Squad Leader is that the most powerful shots you get are on the other player's turn. Defensive Fire allows squads to shoot moving targets, and likely those moving targets will be easier to shoot unless they're moving slowly and not in open ground, and after all movement, the non-active player (i.e. the DEFENDER, in this case the Finns) can have any squads who haven't fired yet fire at full strength. Really, when its your turn in ASL you just want to set your squads up to shoot the opponent on their turn. The Finns got a lot more shots in at this point. A lot more ? marks are gone, meaning the Finns can fire at full strength at their targets (since they can see them now). That particularly large stack of counters on the right with a Prep Fire marker on it has a berserk Russian squad standing up over a broken leader and another squad. This might suck for the Russians since they'll have to charge their berserk group towards the closest enemy, even if that means getting shot to pieces doing so.  Ironically the Russian berserk unit never had to move, because a Finnish squad went berserk on the second Finnish turn's Movement Phase. Since they went berserk while moving, said berserk Finnish rushed the berserk Russians (of which there were now two thanks to even more incredulous dice rolls) and both sides survived long enough for Close Combat to occur at the end of the turn. That resulted in the Russians completely eliminating the outnumbered Finnish, and when a berserk squad kills an opponents group in CC, they un-berserk. Russians are somehow doing alright. I'm leaving the game on the table right now, and hopefully will mess around with this a little more. As it stands, solo-play of ASL while still getting a hang for the full-game rules takes a lot longer than playing with someone else. Having to think for both sides is a lot of stuff to keep track of. But I thought that the way ASL manages to pull a ton of random, interesting events out of two dice and some tactics was worth reporting about for a bit.
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May 30, 2016 23:29
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Is Valor & Victory any good or should I put the time and cost from printing it out into another game? My friend is keen that we start playing some chit based wargames, which I'm happy to oblige.
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May 31, 2016 11:14
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Don't forget that there's wind, so there will be 3 hexes of smoke blowing from the fire in whatever direction the wind is blowing (I can't remember). That helps a lot with the Russians' withdrawal tactics.
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May 31, 2016 13:45
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Got my first three-player run of Falling Sky done. Since I knew the game slightly better, I ran Romans + Aedui. I figured a good strategy would be to spread the Aedui out to Raid and Suborn while Caesar kept the Belgae in check in the north. His mere presence with all those troops and legions kept the Belgae from expanding. The Arverni player spent most of his time in the Arverni region, reversing the tiny setbacks the Aedui were able to give him rather than placing Allies, until the Clodius Pulcher card sent Caesar back to Provincia . . . with no troops there. Then Winter hit, so I couldn't march there to save him. Vercengetorix invaded Provincia with his Winter Campaign capability, and killed Caesar. While in Provincia, he then also killed the successor in the first turn of Spring. I was able to play the Drought on him, which utterly crippled his ability to get out of the south with his troops. I sent the Roman troops from the north to clear out Provincia (probably a mistake), and the Belgae won easily when the following winter came sooner than expected. tl;dr Arverni player ignored his victory objectives to smash Aedui and Romans (me), Belgae player coasts to victory as a result.
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May 31, 2016 14:15
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How soon do you guys think Cuba Libre, A Distant Plain, and Falling Sky will show up in online stores? My friend wants to grab some of them and I don't know whether ordering direct from GMT right now would be much faster than waiting for the free shipping from CSI or Amazon.
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May 31, 2016 15:17
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Trynant posted:I'm leaving the game on the table right now, and hopefully will mess around with this a little more. As it stands, solo-play of ASL while still getting a hang for the full-game rules takes a lot longer than playing with someone else. Having to think for both sides is a lot of stuff to keep track of. But I thought that the way ASL manages to pull a ton of random, interesting events out of two dice and some tactics was worth reporting about for a bit. This is great stuff. Thanks for posting it. I have been having fun clipping counters and organizing components for the last few days but I did a playthrough of the first scenario from the ASLSK#1 and, you're right, it takes a while to think through both sides not to mention that I was checking and double checking the rules. I love this game so far.
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May 31, 2016 16:03
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CaptainRightful posted:How soon do you guys think Cuba Libre, A Distant Plain, and Falling Sky will show up in online stores? My friend wants to grab some of them and I don't know whether ordering direct from GMT right now would be much faster than waiting for the free shipping from CSI or Amazon. This is mostly anecdotal, so someone else please call me out if I'm wrong, but I don't think Cuba Libre and ADP's reprints will hit shelves as quickly since they haven't shipped out for pre-orders yet (?). Falling Sky will probably be out for sale soon'ish. GMT tends to give their games to distributors not too long after they ship out the P500 stuff. COOL CORN posted:Don't forget that there's wind, so there will be 3 hexes of smoke blowing from the fire in whatever direction the wind is blowing (I can't remember). That helps a lot with the Russians' withdrawal tactics. Good catch, I knew I was forgetting something with the weather. I played this scenario ways back with someone more experienced with the system handling a lot of the procedural stuff. Going back on a mock playthrough like this is practically reverse engineering how I played last time.
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May 31, 2016 16:10
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Finally got around to playing Sekigahara again this weekend - it's been sitting forlornly on my shelf for like a year now. drat good game, need to get it to the table more. I crushed as Tokugawa 
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May 31, 2016 16:46
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Fat Turkey posted:Is Valor & Victory any good or should I put the time and cost from printing it out into another game? My friend is keen that we start playing some chit based wargames, which I'm happy to oblige. I found it pretty dull and the scenarios I played had questionable balance. You could try it out solo on vassal.
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May 31, 2016 17:33
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SavageMessiah posted:Finally got around to playing Sekigahara again this weekend - it's been sitting forlornly on my shelf for like a year now. drat good game, need to get it to the table more. I crushed as Tokugawa Can't wait for the p500 to ship, my one play made me reallyw ant it. Still not as good as NT though. 
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May 31, 2016 18:06
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It's about a million times easier to understand, at least.
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May 31, 2016 18:28
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cenotaph posted:It's about a million times easier to understand, at least. I mean. I guess? You really want a teacher either way. I found NT to be much easier without a teacher than sekigahara was without a teacher but then again NT makes a weird perfect sense to me so 
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May 31, 2016 18:35
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Teachers are an uncommon luxury and I don't have to re-read the same three paragraphs over and over to find the single, offhand mention of an important rule in the Sekigahara rulebook so my vote is for easier.
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May 31, 2016 18:53
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cenotaph posted:Teachers are an uncommon luxury and I don't have to re-read the same three paragraphs over and over to find the single, offhand mention of an important rule in the Sekigahara rulebook so my vote is for easier. Completely fair on all points.
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May 31, 2016 18:59
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I was able to teach my friend to play by skimming through the rulebook having not played or looked at the rules in nearly a year. It took < 10 minutes to explain stuff and we only screwed up one thing and that in a way that didn't affect the game. I'm glad that I have at least one wargame that is not a huge chore to teach. Turned out a lot better than when I tried to teach Next War: Taiwan to my dad after not having touched it in a long while lol.
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May 31, 2016 21:00
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Why yes, Cool Corn should do another ASL thread.
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May 31, 2016 22:03
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Ooooo. I never saw this one. 
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Jun 1, 2016 01:41
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Not one, but TWO failed starts! I'm hyperventilating just thinking about doing another :P each post took like 2 hours to put together.
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Jun 1, 2016 01:49
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COOL CORN posted:Not one, but TWO failed starts! That's what nights and weekend are for..
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Jun 1, 2016 02:22
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COOL CORN posted:Not one, but TWO failed starts! Yeah, that was about the amount of time it took for each turn I did for the solo runs (that didn't quite go too well  )
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Jun 1, 2016 02:37
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So I've been archive diving the Simmons Games blog, and I'd like to try breaking out Guns of Gettysburg again, probably with a new player. How the hell do you go about teaching this monster, aside from handing over the spare rulebook and saying "good luck?" Cuz Simmons' rulebooks aren't exactly known for their clarity or teaching ability. (Unrelated, the blog is making me very sad that Stavka is not a game that exists yet. The whole abstracted front idea seems painfully clever, and I want it in my life. See also: every other Simmons game.)
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Jun 2, 2016 00:07
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I don't think GoG is a difficult game, until you get into the multi-hour turn section. Just do some sample assaults and see how it works, and stress the importance of unit coherence.
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Jun 2, 2016 00:09
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Gutter Owl posted:So I've been archive diving the Simmons Games blog, and I'd like to try breaking out Guns of Gettysburg again, probably with a new player. I've had more trouble teaching GoG than NT but we've already covered me being a weirdo. My rough plan: Field of Fire (who can see what) How to win (objectives, fof required for this obv) General orders Withdrawal and March moves (and which orders allow which) Reinforcement chits and moves Attack moves Multihour moves of all types Whatever's left (time chits, nighttime, basic tips, setup) I think that's it?
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Jun 2, 2016 00:15
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Hey ASLers. Some dumb questions: Is this the closest thing to an ASL goon thread? What other forums are you guys reading for decent news? I am on Gamesquad but its realllllly ... hm.. not great? Maybe I'm spoiled by folks on here. Still clipping counters. The entire Soviet, German and a smattering of US and Finnish forces have all ben clipped in their entirety. Now down to just the informational counters to go... but then I got shipping notification that Rising Sun arrives today...
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Jun 3, 2016 17:50
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Yeah, this is the closest thing. I had an ASL LP thread going but it fizzled out. The best place I've found is actually the various Facebook groups that are out there. Any question I have is answers within like 15 minutes. Just do a search for ASL or Advanced Squad Leader and you'll find them. Gamesquad and Consimworld are definitely options, but... yeah, they're not great.
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Jun 3, 2016 18:09
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Desperationmorale has a rarely updated blog, but is a great website for resources. As for ASL goons, COOL CORN is the only person I've seen even bother trying to LP or show off ASL. Although, I've had an idea for using multiple threads (or Discord, nowadays) and having regular start times + input for called/picked units and so on but I'm not exactly on a regular schedule 
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Jun 3, 2016 18:17
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COOL CORN posted:Yeah, this is the closest thing. I had an ASL LP thread going but it fizzled out. That's a bummer. Facebook is so terrible I don't even go on there and Consimworld looks like someone converted BBS code from 1987 into a webpage. I guess it is to be expected given the median age of ASL players but I didn't want to bog this thread down with my thirst for knowledge or just an experienced ear when I complain about how my hands hurt from clipping counters. The game does appear to be experiencing a bit of a renaissance of late which may just be my skewed perspective but it'd be nice to have some new blood in the community. I'm actually going to a Philly Area ASL meeting tomorrow to see what's what. I'm going in deep with this apparently.
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Jun 3, 2016 18:19
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