|
Aloha! I'm Jobbo's current partner in this insanity, the one handling the Chinese horribly. Not horrific for my first ever ASL game, but there's obviously lots of room for improvement. We're starting the next scenario later this week, so we'll see if there's any improvement. Thoughts as an ASL noob so far: * It's fun. I'm not sold yet on whether it's a reasonably accurate simulation of squad warfare or not, but it's at least enjoyable to push counters around. * A plan is necessary. The scenarios are sorry enough that you need to have a pretty concrete idea what you're going to do from the get-go: see me being too timid initially and thus unable to get to grips with the Mongolians soon enough. * The rules are actually pretty simple as far as my experience with wargames goes, but the organization leaves something to be desired, which hampers things a bit. There's a lot of flipping back and forth trying to make sure you're catching all the rules interactions sometimes. I hope the next version tries to address this but I highly suspect they won't due to inertia and resistance from the ASL grog community. The layout could also use some work, while I'm wishing for ponies. * I'm looking forward to seeing the development of weapons and vehicles as we go. It's neat seeing stuff get introduced slowly. I'm happy to answer any questions or whatever, but I'll be checking out of the thread while we're playing a scenario to avoid seeing Jobbo's side of things.
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2021 01:06
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 18, 2024 02:37 |
|
|
Shoeless posted:Yeah I got a question. If you were to replay the scenario, what would you do differently? In terms of deployment and strategy. A lot of things, honestly. I'm still getting a feel for stacking preferences and the general rhythm of combat. Some major ones that stick out: * Pick a side to concentrate on and advance more aggressively until I got into contact. The VP are split: if the Chinese kill enough Mongolians by turn 5, things are done; otherwise, they need to occupy the buildings to achieve victory. By focusing on one side of the tracks or the other and advancing aggressively, you can get into contact and start inflicting casualties (hopefully enough to trigger the early win) or put yourself into place to clear the buildings (hopefully enough to reach the win threshold at the end). * Realize that I read the OB wrong and that I had ~4 Dare Death units rather than 1, which makes them a bit more useful. * Not completely misunderstand the ? counters and actually use them as decoys (as Jobbo did). * Remember that Prep Fire is not halved before the last turn of the game and actually use it more. * Be more deliberate with assaulting held positions, trying to trigger disadvantageous fire from the targets rather than just moving up and getting shot to pieces.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2021 04:21
|
|
|
Aloha! Another scenario down, thousands more to go! I'm looking forward to the World War 1 stuff, though it's all too brief. We'll see if the brave poilus can deal with the Hun. Not too much more to say about the last one. I thought my performance was better, though obviously still had some issues. I completely missed the gun crews, which would have freed up a couple of 1st line infantry MMCs, and didn't use the Dare Death squads particularly effectively, but on the whole I'm reasonably happy with things. In the end it wasn't a close-run thing--Joboo clobbered me casualty-wise, and the building VPs were just the icing. Didn't feel like a horrible loss, though, which is the important bit, and the night rules weren't too horrible on the whole. I don't think I'd like to play them all or even most of the time, but it was interesting. Happy as always to answer whatever questions up until we start the next scenario.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 19, 2021 14:58
|
|
|
Shoeless posted:Yeah I have a question. What was your mindset in choosing your deployment? When I was looking over the scenario at the beginning, I thought to myself "I wonder if you could just push hard to deploy all the chinese onto one side and fill the other with decoys, and force the partisans to assault a much more tightly defended single position instead of a more spread out one." Did that idea ever get consideration when you were deploying? As Jobbo noted, I had to spread things out a bit. My main concern was trying to make sure that the buildings weren't easy to take, so there was some dilution of strength as a result. I have no idea why I didn't stick the 6+1 with a dummy up on the top of the map though. I was generally planning to use the conscripts and 1st line as the in-place defenders and keep the dare death elites as a reaction force. Which I did, but poorly.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2021 13:54
|
|
|
Aloha! Felt like I did better in this one. My initial plan was to move the regulars forward to support the Zouaves as they did a breakout. I then immediately had a mental fart and fired with the Zouaves. I honestly have no idea what I was thinking.  As Jobbo mentioned, the victory conditions for this one were very tight, and given the nature of WW1 warfare you'd have to play pretty perfectly and get good dice to win. It should be hard for the French, but this is verging on the impossible. I should have CX'd a bit more to get ahead of the Germans, and I definitely should have set up a better base of fire for bounding the platoons--things to remember for the next scenario with movement. I also completely forgot about the Kindling rules--I could have lit the grain fields on the east map (the bottom map in the graphics) on fire and protected that flank as I retreated, which would have helped. Hindsight, etc. Questions welcome as always, and looking forward to the next one! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVCrmXW6-Pk
|
|
#
¿
Jan 25, 2021 16:05
|
|
|
For this particular scenario I didn't have much of a choice--I had to exit troops, and time was short. I had to take the change with CX (we were in lots of fields, so the hindrance mod was pretty high for the most part: +2 or +3), and there were marsh hexes which absolutely stalled things. As I mentioned earlier, in hindsight I would have tried to block the whole eastern (bottom) map and exited out along the south edge of the west map.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2021 20:01
|
|
|
Just gonna say ugh. Luck and planning were not with me this game.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2021 00:40
|
|
|
Shoeless posted:Oh dang. This scenario seems like it could easily get decided within the first couple turns just by how close the British and Magyar forces start together and with how few points the Magyars need to win. Turns out those don't matter until the end! The only early win condition is capturing the level 2s.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 8, 2021 17:42
|
|
|
Jobbo_Fett posted:Post Game Analysis Yeah that one didn't make a lot of sense. I wish they hadn't used "CVP" for the terminology, because that obviously led me to think "casualty victory points." I am honestly 100% not sure how the Magyars win this one, without immediately storming the hill, which is.. iffy, because if they kill the Brits they're hurting themselves, because it removes potential CVP from the end, but they need to do that in order to secure the hexes. I think I'd probably flip the groups? The elites seem like they'd be better at storming the hill, but it's a crapshoot either way. I'm honestly not entirely sure how to play it, since there's no real way to stop the Brits from moving at will without taking the chance of killing them. You can't choose to take a less result, so welp, all those 2s and 3s you're rolling are now actively defeating your chances of victory. I mean, I guess just abandon the attempt on the hill and CX for the far side with every available trooper? I'm still not sure how you can stop them as it's pretty trivial to stop an advance through the grain cold, as was evidenced (well, at least the conscripts, though the elite with the 9-1 didn't fare any better). That said: Why is No Quarter in effect if the Magyars' intent is to take prisoners? Here's the SSR in question: quote:6. The Magyars earn 2 CVP for each functioning MMG [medium machinegun] and 1 CVP for each malfunctioned MMG they possess. All British Personnel on board at Game End are considered eliminated and count toward the CVP earned by the Magyars. All Good Order Entente Personnel may exit off the south edge on/west of hexrow I and are not considered eliminated. The Magyars' victory condition is "upon earning >= 6 CVP." I think SSR6 is there for two reasons: 1) to give the SW actual CVP, since they don't normally have them (they're not infantry, Guns, or vehicles) and 2) to make the British player push to exit his troops (as they are scored as if killed otherwise). It does not say anything about ignoring the normal CVP rules, except for the bits about considering Brits still on-board at Game End as eliminated. 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 9, 2021 07:04
|
|
|
Jobbo_Fett posted:With regards to the victory conditions, provided the Magyars capture both MMGs intact, that right away gives them 4 points, so as long as you can prevent a squad or a leader from going offboard you're in the clear. I mean, you literally cannot capture anyone in the scenario. It's just  . And if you do assault the hill, you're just making it harder for yourself later.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 9, 2021 14:34
|
|
|
Jobbo_Fett posted:You can capture in CC, No Quarter prevents you from accepting a unit surrendering. I'm missing the rule in the CC section that allows that, then--it's either eliminated or Casualty Reduction afaict.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 9, 2021 15:58
|
|
|
Oh, it's in the section on Prisoners. Silly me.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 9, 2021 16:57
|
|
|
For the love of god someone that's halfway decent at ASL please play Jobbo. He's getting bored steamrollering me.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2021 04:40
|
|
|
Just going to say, the historical result is so unlikely given the setup restrictions and reinforcement locations as to be comical. Also, Jobbo, I swear to god if you are throwing the current game because you want me to get a win...
|
|
#
¿
Apr 3, 2021 05:19
|
|
|
Drone posted:I bought Starter Kit #4 (the only one in stock here in Europe at the time) after binging this thread one night and am looking forward to probably never opening the drat thing. You could always volunteer to play a side in one of the multiplayer scenarios coming up...
|
|
#
¿
Apr 5, 2021 23:30
|
|
|
You know, if I'm doing illegal moves/shoots, just say something.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 7, 2021 15:26
|
|
|
Taczankas can kiss my rear end.
|
|
#
¿
May 22, 2021 06:06
|
|
|
Factionalism is real, and the Bolsheviks are dirty splitters.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2021 05:13
|
|
|
This was an interesting scenario, but I agree with Jobbo that it really needed that third player. I think we did OK with it, but the Reds suffered from a lack of focus and were pulled back and forth during the turn as Jobbo or I did things with them. Lacking a proper AI system, though, I think it'd be harder to do better than we did. The scenario does also have the problem of being a pretty static fight, since everything is focused on the main building the Reds are in. I fully admit to just going "what sounds like fun to do" with regard to a lot of decisions, so the Mensheviks were a little random in their choices sometimes.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 27, 2021 01:44
|
|
|
Locating all the various features of (particularly) vehicle counters is irritating, because you end up having to look over all of them trying to find the exact combo of vehicle trait symbols whatever unit you've actually got has. And the symbols for wheeled and fully tracked are too close for my elderly eyes.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 29, 2021 05:23
|
|
|
From the Red Chinese side: This is kinda unfair for the KMT player, because you're pulling them into a trap. I chose to put most of my force on the left side, in the field bounded by the hedge, as it seemed more defensible to me. The MMGs were placed to cover anything coming up the road and the big grain field to the right, with some supporting infantry. The dice definitely helped out this game, as you see--nothing seemed to go the KMT's way. The scenario could turn into a see-saw if both sides are having poor luck with rolls (or good luck, conversely), but with my initial luck it became obvious the thing to do was just keep as far away as possible while attacking targets of convenience. The long lines of sight through the grain don't help; you need to be 5+ hexes away to lose LOS IIRC, and there's just not enough maneuver room. As we'll see in a later scenario, when those long lines of sight go away it becomes much harder to play touch-and-go like I did here. These scenarios suffer a bit from a desire to be "historically accurate" to some degree--often the situation is tilted against one side to reflect the historical situation and that ends up making the scenario frustrating.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2022 14:59
|
|
|
Yeah, no excuses there, just didn't feel any confidence in my ability to prevent a victory. The trenches were not going to be retaken, all my support weapons were gone, and there was really no way to prevent the KMT from seizing the necessary two(?) huts to get a victory.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 22, 2022 17:24
|
|
|
Most of these scenarios seem interesting from a historical perspective but they're not all that fun to play, imo. They work, they're competent(ish) but there's just something missing.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 8, 2022 23:14
|
|
|
It was an interesting scenario, and I didn't realize the stack across the river was reasonably bulletproof and I should have been aggressive with them. Honestly this is the only one of the Long March scenarios so far I'd be interested in replaying, just 'cause we have a better handle on the SSRs. No matter, onward!
|
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2022 03:59
|
|
|
Banemaster posted:Quite lot of not so well known battles and conflicts in these. Sheer variety of missions reminds me of Steel Panthers. There's like 5000 scenarios in our list, iirc, so yeah, there's going to be a bit of variety. 🥳
|
|
#
¿
May 8, 2022 22:43
|
|
|
Uh oh what's this sorcery?
|
|
#
¿
May 16, 2022 00:04
|
|
|
Yeah the Irish scenarios were interesting but Lord they needed a ton more polishing. Very much felt like a "poo poo we need x scenarios for this, Bill, throw something together" situation. Couple of things that are becoming very clear as we go through these is that ASL scenarios definitely need rigorous playtesting, and that attempting to exactly replicate historical situations tends to end poorly.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2022 06:32
|
|
|
I think I actually couldn't cavalry wave for some reason--unit density, maybe?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 12, 2022 12:44
|
|
|
Oh, the dice are going to pay me back in the next scenario.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2022 05:53
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 18, 2024 02:37 |
|
|
Looks like the SCW scenarios are a lot better put together than some of the earlier ones. Thanks for continuing! 🤘
Hypnobeard fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Apr 2, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2023 13:52
|
|