Essentials

Quick Hit: Multi-Man Publishers, the caretakers of ASL since Avalon Hill’s demise in 1999, deserve a great deal of praise for this introduction to the world of ASL.

Subscribe Today

• Subscribe to Armchair General Magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!
 

Reviewed by Mark Pitcavage.

Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit #1 (ASLSK1).
Published by Multi-Man Publishing.
Designers: Ken Dunn & MMP staff.
Retail price: $24.00.
Contents: Two 8” x 22” mapboards, 280 1/2" counters, rulebook, chart sheet, six scenarios, two dice.

Introduction and ASL Background

When I was a boy growing up in West Texas, my parents took me to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which boasts some of the largest, most spectacular caves in the United States. When I approached the cave entrance, a relatively modest crack in the earth, I had no idea at all what a huge world waited on the other side. We walked for miles far underground, gaping at a never-ending series of subterranean spectacles, yet there were still so many caves and tunnels we had not seen?which were not, in fact, even open to the public. It was an entire new world to explore?a world to which I returned repeatedly over the years.

The Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit (ASLSK) is quite a bit like that cave entrance. It is a modest package that enables people to explore a huge new world. Fun to play on its own merits, it also guides gamers into the universe of Advanced Squad Leader (ASL), simultaneously the most detailed and most exciting board wargame depicting World War II tactical combat.

ASLSK has a distinguished lineage. In 1977, noted game designer John Hill debuted Squad Leader, a squad level game that Hill designed to capture the key moments of decision for World War II infantry leaders. Imagine, for example, a lieutenant faced with an enemy-held building across a street. At some point, that lieutenant must order his men into the road. Has he sufficiently suppressed enemy fire? Should he wait a little longer? It is that type of decision that Hill wanted his players to make, and he succeeded magnificently. Squad Leader became an instant hit and spawned a series of sequels.

In the 1980s, Avalon Hill took all the Squad Leader games, combined them, rewrote the rules, and added many new concepts to create ASL, the ultimate World War II wargame. While still capturing John Hill’s moments of decision, ASL greatly expanded the field of play. Players had control of units ranging from reindeer-drawn sledges to amphibious landing craft, and could play scenarios set anywhere in the world, from the jungles of Sumatra to the steppes of Russia to the beaches of Normandy.

ASL came, however, at a price in complexity. The rules were long and somewhat intimidating, especially to the casual gamer. Many people bought all the ASL modules, but never got around to playing the game. Others were simply too daunted by the rules to purchase them at all. And still others looked curiously at ASL, but didn’t want to commit themselves to the hefty entry cost.

ASLSK Contents

The Game

The ASLSK is perfectly designed for all these audiences. It provides the essence of ASL (and its predecessor, Squad Leader), without all of the special circumstances. For an almost trifling $24, it provides a perfect way to enter the ASL world. A single countersheet provides squads, weapons, and leaders for American, German, and Russian troops. Two geomorphic mapboards (meaning that they can be placed together in different configurations to recreate different situations) featuring urban and village terrain provide the battlegrounds. The mapboards are mounted on thick cardstock, as opposed to the more traditional mounting of older ASL and Squad Leader boards. This is not an exception created for the ASLSK; the prohibitive cost of traditional mounted mapboards means that this is the future for all ASL maps.

Help Armchair General by bookmarking to