Each turn consists of two player turns, each of which have 8 "phases":. The name of the game is actually a misnomer, as in most ways the player assumes the role of a company commander i. The squad leaders in Squad Leader are actually "factored in" to the squad counters, and only exceptional leaders - officers and NCOs - are portrayed separately, by their own counter. Leaders can exert a favorable influence on the firing of support weapons, or the morale rolls of squads with whom they are stacked, although if a leader fails a morale check the squads stacked with him must check for morale a second time.
Most scenarios give each player, generally speaking, enough simulated men to make up a company, though order of battle is not precise and most scenarios only give a flavor of what the real life battles were like rather than a direct simulation. One aspect of the game that adds greatly to its popularity are the generic "geomorphic" mapboards, each of which can be aligned to any edge of the same length to any other mapboard except river boards.
This allows for an almost unlimited number of combinations to create any terrain situation, including player designed scenarios. Printed overlays, first introduced in the gamette GI: Anvil of Victory , also provide additional terrain types to mapboards. Line of Sight LOS is determined by sighting between the dots in the center of each hex.
String can be used to check LOS, and the printed terrain depictions on the photo-realistic maps are used to determine blockages hexes are not considered automatically filled by terrain therein.
These LOS rules were innovative for board games when introduced in the s. The original game contains mapboards mounted on heavy durable cardboard, which was and remains expensive but a design feature long associated with Avalon Hill games. Each mapboard measures 10 columns of hexes high by 32 hexes wide, numbered from hex A1 in the top left corner to hex GG10 in the lower right. The design philosophy that John Hill brought to Squad Leader was "design for effect.
Using this principle, he was able to employ a single table to create combat results of the various weapons systems used in the game. A similar principle is employed in dealing with support weapons - rolling a certain number might cause a weapon e. Squad Leader is a game system by design rather than just one game. The game itself comes with 12 different scenarios, each one introducing more complicated rules in a system called Programmed Instruction.
Each scenario card includes historical information, victory conditions and play balancers for each side. However, Squad Leader also has a Design Your Own system where forces were selected by drawing playing cards from a standard 52 card deck and comparing the result to a table where different forces were described. There s also a point purchase system for "buying" opposing forces.
New scenarios were published in Avalon Hill's gaming magazine, The General , as well as additional scenario packs the Rogue Scenarios, for example, see below. Third parties also produced scores of SL scenarios. Squad Leader attempted to simulate many types of battlefield phenomena not addressed before in a tactical board game, and enjoyed a cosmetic treatment unmatched then and afterwards.
Some of these strengths include:. Some of the weaknesses that keep Squad Leader from being a true simulation of the decisions that a World War Two commander would make are well known and attempts have been made to address them; others were simply ignored for the sake of "playability". Some of these include the following:.
Few tactical games during this period mid s are comparable to Squad Leader , It also displays the typical American fascination with gadgets while ignoring war's social, political, and logistical aspects. The original handful of vehicle and ordnance types in Squad Leader are expanded to include just about every type that saw service on the Eastern Front.
Even before Squad Leader debuted, plans were being made to expand the initial release; these expansions would be called "gamettes" and concentrate on particular eras or theatres, all the while developing the basic game system with additional rules, new weapons types, and different terrain. Cross of Iron expands the armor and artillery systems considerably.
The "design for effect" philosophy that had guided Squad Leader's development gave way in the case of tank combat to "actual data" taking priority over "effect data.
John Hill and Don Greenwood admitted afterwards that the project got away from them, Hill sensing that he was too easily persuaded by playtesters who probably had a higher threshold for complexity than average gamers, and Greenwood saying that had he known from the beginning that the gamette would end up so large, he would "have broken it into two expansion kits - it simply is too much for one. Also Series was released in consisting of 10 additional scenarios for Cross of Iron, direct from Avalon Hill.
Despite the additional complexity, armor buffs were pleased. After wading through the infantry-oriented scenarios of Squad Leader , where the occasional rare appearance of one of the really bland and nondescript tank types was widely cherished, Cross of Iron Now, instead of being a good infantry game, particularly with regard to support weapons and leadership effects, the system represents one of the best combined arms representations available from either a boardgame or miniatures approach.
In comparison with the SL system, the new game mechanics for tanks are both terribly involved and interesting, since the degree of tank trivia has both exceeded the infantry and approached a level that only Tractics has previously attempted in the field of miniature armor rules COD provides blanket coverage to the Western Front of , including French and British infantry, vehicles and ordnance most tanks and guns being palpably less powerful than the late-war equipment in the previous gamette, giving an interesting feel to the scenarios as well as infantry for Finland - elite troops who had the rare ability to rally themselves without the presence of a leader - and the "Allied Minors" including Belgium, Norway, Poland and the Netherlands.
Like COI, a complete order of battle of British and French armor and ordnance is included, though American built vehicles in British service are not included which was consistent with the pre timeframe of the gamette.
Whereas COI expands the armor and artillery rules, COD gives more nuanced rules regarding the infantry and other foot soldiers, including such things as cowering and pinning, while introducing Scouts and morale disadvantages for early war infantry facing off against tanks. Additionally, many new terrain types are introduced on the two new mapboards, including marsh, river, large bridges, and orchards, as well as no less than three kinds of boats to cross a river with - Scenario 27 covers the crossing of the Meuse at Dinant by parts of the German 7th Panzer Division, with a highly-rated leader counter deemed to represent Erwin Rommel himself taking personal command.
Just as COD was finalizing its playtesting, plans were made for two further gamettes; the September-October issue of The General Magazine announced that GI: Anvil of Victory would include both American and Italian forces, and that a fifth and final gamette covering the Japanese would be released a year after that. While the original Squad Leader game was a work of art with regard to its fine balance of playability and detail The end result of the amazing efforts being made to make the SL system as complete as possible is that one is presented with tanks which act pretty much like they did in real life It's a miserable gaffe on the part of the developers, because the weapon sound effects are quite good when heard at the proper level.
Anyway, your man is hit, and convulses in death, crying, "I'm Where the! And who the! It abides by none of the real world factors successfully modeled in other games you might intuitively expect, like distance to target, amount of cover between spotter and target, time of day or weather neither modeled at all in SL , stance of target, etc.
A soldier has a degree range of view, and if the program can trace a line from his head to any part of a target's body within that range of view, regardless of other factors, the target is spotted.
This appears to apply also to tanks! The end result is a lot of unbelievable sighting situations. In the scene described earlier, a German soldier had spotted your man from a distance of 26 squares, over a stone wall, down an elevation level, through a window on one side of a house, and out a window on the other side of the house. Remember that your man was crawling belly to the ground. I think this summarizes the basic problem of LoS in Squad Leader nicely.
The reason that players, myself included, were more forgiving of this system in Chaos Gate is that that game had a science fiction setting and consisted of bulky, powered armor-wearing units stomping around, firing gigantic plasma bolters at one another.
The high-tech setting allowed for a greater suspension of disbelief, because we could always assume the Space Marines had vision enhancers in their helmets or something. SL asks that we try to immerse ourselves in a believable WWII setting, where being seen or not seen is a vital issue, and then tells us a man lying prone in the underbrush can be spotted all the way across the largest size map if even only his feet are visible.
And then killed in one shot. Although the similarly flawed accuracy system assists in the denial of player immersion, at least its variables such as soldier and weapon statistics are tweakable by the user in the included rules files. This allows some room for the hearty who surivive the game's gauntlet of frustrations and annoyances and still give a hoot to significantly alter the way the game operates. A good move on the part of the developers, but no excuse or real remedy for a game wherein the basic hardcoded algorithms are broken.
On the upside, Squad Leader features more believable weapon and grenade ranges that any other game of its kind. Grenades seem able to be lobbed as far as they could be in real life, which is a rude but welcome awakening to a player accustomed to other games of this type. I should also note that in the course of many hours of play I observed some decent AI behavior. Enemy soldiers exhibit good grenade-throwing habits, liberally peppering smoke-obscured areas that might conceal threats or tossing them over hills at troops out of LoS.
They may take the offense or defend a location, according to the desires of the scenario designer, and the combination of these attitudes can make for some very interesting challenges. Mission objectives can be very vague in their briefing descriptions.
For instance, on the first mission of the German campaign, the objective reads, in entirety, "Exit at the far end of the road. The times that I exited all of my units without killing every enemy, the game just let me keep clicking the "End Turn" button with none of my soldiers left on the map.
No "Mission Failed" message, just click, click click, quit. Other than those outlined above, the greatest hindrances to play have been a good half-dozen desktop crashes and hard lockups. Which brings me into the realm of plain old programming mistakes and inconsistencies, but in the interest of cutting my losses I'll limit my complaints to the standout oddities:. Short, tedious increments is the only way to go.
And there is no "continue path" button, so movement must be re-plotted every turn, or every time a soldier stops upon spotting an enemy. So, for instance, two men with the same number of Action Points, one toting a full load including a Vickers. Vehicles in Chaos Gate could move diagonally, so I have to assume the developers just didn't have the resources to include four more poorly animated angles per vehicle.
In a whimsical touch, shells fired from a tank resemble little glowing pink golfballs. Shoot a tank, a paved road, a window, another soldier -- and you are rewarded with silence. No richochets, no gut-wrenching fleshy thuds, nothin'. Also, when a soldier is carrying a body or sometimes when he's walking around on the second floor of a building, his footsteps will make no noise. There are no "before and after" numbers again, pardon my repetition, as featured in Chaos Gate to give the player even a smidgen of satisfaction.
MORALE: The rulebook makes a big deal out of the fact that soldiers' morale -- reflected in the "Combat Effectiveness" rating -- can be affected by many things, including enemy presence, leader influence, losses inflicted, losses sustained, and wounds. The noted morale states are shaken, berserk, and routed. I have yet to see the Combat Effectivess of my soldiers change in any way, and I have witnessed none of the abnormal morale states. Soldiers can be suppressed for a turn by enemy fire, but it has no apparent morale effect.
Wounded soldiers carry on without complaint until they are incapacitated or killed. You may wonder why, with all of these aggravations and insults to my status as a game consumer, I haven't awarded Squad Leader the infamous GDR Junk Award.
The truth of the matter is, after slogging through all the bugs, exasperating rules, annoying quirks, and molasses gameplay, I managed to have some fun. Just enough fun to keep me from tossing the CD into the trash. I've played many of the stand-alone scenarios to completion and am currently on the fifth mission of the British campaign; I might even try to finish the damn thing. The main reason I'm able to eke out some enjoyment is my rabid and long-standing desire to play a game that does all of the things that Squad Leader claims to do.
I played the old Victory Games Ambush! What strategy gamer's imagination hasn't been sparked by the idea of commanding a platoon of WWII soldiers through the tension and terror of a virtual battlefield? To its finite credit, Squad Leader allows for a rich variety of settings, mission objectives, and decision-making, despite the size of the lump you'll get from banging your head against the table at the results of the latter. When the animated smoke clears a little, I find some things about the game I like, and even admire.
I like that suppression fire is modeled, so spraying a bunch of enemies with automatic fire may cause them to flatten out and lose their next turn; I like that units within command range of a leader get an Action Point bonus; I like that heavy weapons can be crewed for an increase in efficiency. I admire Random Games' decision to release a mission and campaign editor, and may even try my hand at it.
Above all, the use of standardized abbreviations and jargon made the rules very technical in outlook; this language is known as "legalese" and is in contrast to more "conversational" types of rules. The debate of the merits of both approaches went as far back as the original Squad Leader rulebook written by John Hill and Don Greenwood.
The new rulebook also includes minor material not covered in any previous issue of errata, making ownership of the 2nd Edition essential for compatibility with new products or other players who use the 2nd Edition. The 2nd Edition does reflect most, but not all, previous changes to the rules via issue of replacement pages.
There are also cosmetic differences such as larger typeface and improved layout. Perhaps one of the most unusual elements of the ASL system is the use of dice. While using two dice to obtain a bell curve result between 2 and 12 36 possible outcomes is not unique to ASL, there are many other ways in which the dice are used. One die is a "colored" die, so that when two dice are rolled, not only will the sum of both dice be used for example, an attack by a machinegun on an enemy unit will have the result of two dice cross-referenced on the Infantry Fire Table IFT , but other results may also be achieved simultaneously.
To continue the example, if the colored die is equal or less to a printed Rate of Fire ROF number given for the machinegun, it may fire again in that phase. Comparing the results of the two dice to each other will also create simultaneous results; so while the sum of the dice will be used on the IFT, two sixes a natural 12 will result in the machinegun suffering a stoppage.
If the roll was for an attack by an infantry squad, identical results on both dice would result in "cowering" and a different column on the IFT would be consulted with the dice roll. Double ones will result in a Critical Hit if rolling for an ordnance weapon "To Hit" an enemy target. The dice thus feature heavily in game play providing multiple random events every time they are rolled. The following is a list of Advanced Squad Leader Modules , and the dates of their release. There were complex prerequisites for just about all modules after the release of Beyond Valor and Paratrooper , and 2nd Editions of most of the following have reorganized the mapboards and rules chapters released with each.
Specifically, re-release of boards 1 to 4 has been necessary given MMPs decision not to reprint the original Squad Leader game and its three gamettes.
A tremendous strength in the ASL system is its flexibility. Most tactical situations from Second World War history can be recreated using the components of the game system.
However, special rules, maps, or map overlays may be required in order to properly portray these situations. ASL modules usually have dependencies on one or more previous module s in other words, use of the material in one module is dependent on ownership of another. Very few modules can be played in isolation. As well, the problem of prerequisites extends to the playing of printed scenarios, many of which require components from multiple modules, particularly those scenarios released by third party publishers.
For instance, the Order of Battle OOB from a module may be needed to play one module while a single map board from the same module may be required to play a particular scenario. Finally, the release of the 2nd Edition rules further complicates the process by making some sections of the 1st Edition obsolete. Full compatibility with 2nd Edition rules is only possible by owning the 2nd Edition. An area the new rules simplifies is the Chapters included in various Modules.
Any players wishing to use these rules in a following Module would also have to own Yanks. The 2nd Edition helps to alleviate this problem by supplying more rules in one binder.
It still does not supply all rules for all situations. For instance if you wish to play a scenario using Jungle terrain you will need the Code of Bushido module with its rules section. Also, the OOB of particular nationalities and the map boards from particular Modules may still be required for subsequent Modules. They include new scenarios and boards.
They do not contain new rules or counters, with the exception of AP 2 and AP 4 which have new rule pages inserts. Intended to be a fusion of scale miniatures so-called "micro-armor" and Squad Leader , the concept never really took off, at least in the printed form sold by Avalon Hill , and only two modules were released, both in These mapboards were 11" by 26" and had greatly enlarged hex grids, each hex being 2.
The maps were designed to be used in conjunction with scale miniatures, but could naturally be used with the standard cardboard counters and a very brief rulebook chapter gave some additional special rules for using the cardboard counters in the larger hexes. Only two modules were released; the drawback of the larger scale mapboards was that the terrain being simulated had to be fairly close-in, and scenarios based on fighting in these kinds of environments.
The two official releases focused on city fighting and the hedgerow country in Normandy. Streets of Fire was the first of only two Deluxe ASL modules to be released; the maps were very similar and depicted city terrain similar to that found on the mapboard 1 from Squad Leader or the "city boards" found in Beyond Valor.
The maps represented typical bocage country, with many hedge depictions and more rural type terrain types. Several modules known as Historical Advanced Squad Leader modules , or HASL, feature maps based on actual terrain as well as historical "campaigns" known as Campaign Games CG where interlinked scenarios depict several days of fighting over historical objectives.
A module designed for solitaire play was designed by MMP, using dice and charts to generate "enemy" actions, in a system similar to earlier solitaire games like Ambush! Only one module has been released, and MMP has announced that no reprint will be made. No new boards were released with the module, though Chapter S was included covering the special rules for SASL a 2nd edition was released with expanded solitaire rules , informational counters, several types of charts, and 14 "Mission Cards", which were the SASL version of scenarios.
A 2nd Edition was released expanding the charts to include all nationalities covered by ASL, with the exception of Axis Minors and the Finns. An expanded version of Chapter S was included and 21 Mission cards. Prerequisites for play of SASL depend on the nationalities involved. In , in recognition that newcomers to the ASL hobby would have a hard time learning pages of rules quickly and happily, the Starter Kits were introduced.
Along with the new semi-mounted mapboards replacing the older mounted style, these kits provided newcomers to ASL with everything they needed to get into the game with a minimum of reading.
In a form of Programmed Instruction not possible with the ASL Rulebook, each starter kit comes with a small pamphlet outlining only the bare minimum of rules necessary for play of the game. Each kit focuses on a particular aspect of ASL.
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