WOO HOO!

[winterbadger]

The game I've been waiting for for 20 years arrived in the mail today.

OK, so it isn't a whole game. It's the final piece. Of the basic game. :-)

Advanced Squad Leader... let me explain... no, there is too much, let me summarize.

Way back in the mists of time, when I was a teenager, there was a WWII boardgame called Squad Leader. Kind of a misnomer, because the player was more like a company commander, with anywhere from a couple of squads (maybe a platoon) to something just short of a reinforced infantry company (dozens, scores of squads, tanks, artillery pieces, and other assets) at his command. A cool, fairly simple game.

Then the company that produced it added on modules. New modules had new armies, new equipment, new mapboards (the game used "geomorphic" maps, sectional maps that could be combined in different patterns to form a myriad of different landscapes), new rules for more complex situations. Eventually the rules had become spread out over many different booklets, and much more complicated (in places perhaps contradictory).

So in 1984 the publisher decided to create a new edition of the game. It would have all the basic rules in a three-ring binder, so they could be replaced page by page if an error was found. It would use all the maps from the old game, but new counters would be issued in a series of modules. The first set was Germans (and their Finnish allies) and Russians. The second was the US, then the partisans and guerillas, then the British, then the minor Allied nations, then the Italians then the Japanese, then the US Marines and America's Chinese allies, then the French. Then there was a long pause (while other products came out and various things happened with the company). Then, eventually, the next to last "basic" module came out: vehicles and ordnance for the Allied minor nations. The two-turreted Polish tanks. The Danish anti-tank-gun-toting motorcycles. And the Dutch trucks (a catchphrase for the module for many years of waiting). Only the Axis minor vehicles and ordnance remained. So we waited. And waited. And, like the denizens of WWII Casablanca, we waited. That was 1998.

The final "basic" module, Armies of Oblivion, has been finished and is shipping. My copy, much awaited, arrived today. Wow. When I started playing this game (well, Squad Leader), I was in high school. When ASL came out, I was in college. Ronald Reagan was president, and won his second term. The first Macintosh computer was sold. The winter Olympics were held in Sarajevo, and we all marvelled at how the place where WWI had started was this wonderful modern city. :-( Indira Gandhi was assassinated. Pierre Trudeau retired. Ferdinand Marcos was still running the Philippines. The UK agreed to return Hong Kong to China (though they didn't do it for another 13 years). The miners' strike started. Ghostbusters was relelased and Miami Vice went on the air for the first time. :-) Prince Harry and Scarlet Johannson were born. :-) Count Basie, William Powell, Sir Michael Redgrave, Ansel Adams, Richard Burton, John Betjeman, J.B. Priestly, and Francois Truffaut died. :-(

Folks, that was a long time ago. I was freakin' 22 and thought I would live forever. I couldn't imagine being 36, the age I would be when the calendar turned 2000.

This game has been a long time coming. :-)

Comments

[keethrax.livejournal.com]

So it finally shipped? Cool. I'm way behind as far as a full set goes, but playing with what I have is a blast (when I can find an opponent)

[winterbadger]

Yep, it started shipping a couple of weeks ago, and I've been in agonies of anticipation ever since. :-) My housemates can attest that I've been checking the doorstep assiduously every day. :-)

There's a board-length river overlay. There are Hungarian counters and Romanians, Croatians, Slovaks, and Bulgarians. From the errata pages included, it looks like they're going to issue new Finnish counters in pale grey. There's a scenario for what was apparently the only battle the Slovaks fought as a German ally against the Russians, then another from late in the war where they're fighting off the Germans. There are several of the Hungarians fighting the Yugoslavs and then later fighting the Romanians. There are several involving cavalry, one at least that has bicycle troops, and at least one that includes a combined force of tanks and horsemen as "cavalry". It's a weird and wonderful collection. :-)

[keethrax.livejournal.com]

I'm still trying to get my hands on West of Alamein. Yes I know I can pick up the Brits in the new one, but I want the desert stuff dammit. Though since I"m out of a job aagain, the silly prices WoA is getting pretty much means I won't be getting it anytime soon. It's also hard to jsutify coughing up that much dough for a game that sees limited use, and that almost entirely online via VASL.

[winterbadger]

Well, once they're done shipping the AoO orders, you might be able to juat order the Chapter F rules through the component-ordering service (which is turned off currently). That way you wouldn't have the counters and boards, but if you're just playing by VASL you don't need those. And you could order the other components later if you wanted, when you had more money.

[keethrax.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's sorta the plan once I get a new job. Get the rules if I can, and most of the rest from the new British box. Don't really need the maps as badly, though need and want are of course two different things. :)

The starter kits are also on the wish list so I can try get more people hooked...

[magaidhbhan.livejournal.com]

of all that, I got one thing:

"let me explain... no, there is too much, let me summarize."

ha ha!

that is all.