Hi folks. I'm Christian and on this blog I'll be documenting my relationship with Advanced Squad Leader. I have a general gaming blog over at Ski's Games. Here's some background on me and ASL. Back around 1984/85 I ended up with a copy of Squad Leader thanks to one of my Canadian cousins. It was played a few times but at my age (12 or 13) there wasn't much in-depth gaming going on. SL did however kindle a strong interest in wargaming in me.
Fast forward thirty years. Gaming buddy Mike Baker bring Squad Leader out at a gaming get together and I play a short game with him. I had a good time with it but it was one of those things where I wasn't really sure what was going on - Mike was zipping through the rules without much explanation.
Mike, David and I play Star Fleet Battles sort of regularly. SFB is a complex game. It is old, weird and utterly amazing. We love it to bits.
At some point, Mike suggested we play SL or ASL. We laughed it off as silly since he was the only one with rules and we didn't want to get into that "one person knows the game" dynamic. At Christmas (2016) my brother-in-law got me ASLSK#2.
The gift wasn't entirely out of the blue. It was on my Christmas list, but more as a laugh than anything else. Well, when you've got something, you may as well try to get some use out of it. I began reading the rulebook. Oh. My. God. SFB is positively elementary compared to ASL. I'm not sure if it's just the rules layout/presentation or what, but it may as well be written in Sanskrit.
I shelved it for a couple months. Then, a few days ago broke it out again hoping to get it on the table with David. I found a good baby-steps tutorial here:http://www.advancedsquadleader.net.
Make no mistake, after the basic tutorials, it again gets really deep and weird. It was however enough inspiration to go with, so now David and I are planning to play an introductory game Saturday evening to start getting familiar with ASL. We're just going to put a few infantry counters on a map board and practice basic game concepts. It should be interesting. I'll try to remember to take many pictures and document the proceedings. Obviously an AAR will be in order. Wish us luck!
Fast forward thirty years. Gaming buddy Mike Baker bring Squad Leader out at a gaming get together and I play a short game with him. I had a good time with it but it was one of those things where I wasn't really sure what was going on - Mike was zipping through the rules without much explanation.
Mike, David and I play Star Fleet Battles sort of regularly. SFB is a complex game. It is old, weird and utterly amazing. We love it to bits.
At some point, Mike suggested we play SL or ASL. We laughed it off as silly since he was the only one with rules and we didn't want to get into that "one person knows the game" dynamic. At Christmas (2016) my brother-in-law got me ASLSK#2.
The gift wasn't entirely out of the blue. It was on my Christmas list, but more as a laugh than anything else. Well, when you've got something, you may as well try to get some use out of it. I began reading the rulebook. Oh. My. God. SFB is positively elementary compared to ASL. I'm not sure if it's just the rules layout/presentation or what, but it may as well be written in Sanskrit.
I shelved it for a couple months. Then, a few days ago broke it out again hoping to get it on the table with David. I found a good baby-steps tutorial here:http://www.advancedsquadleader.net.
Make no mistake, after the basic tutorials, it again gets really deep and weird. It was however enough inspiration to go with, so now David and I are planning to play an introductory game Saturday evening to start getting familiar with ASL. We're just going to put a few infantry counters on a map board and practice basic game concepts. It should be interesting. I'll try to remember to take many pictures and document the proceedings. Obviously an AAR will be in order. Wish us luck!
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