Wargamer's Corner

But the rules apply to an of the battles...

I suspect the page count for WitW2 will rival that of WitE2.

Robear wrote:

But the rules apply to an of the battles...

I thought a large portion of the ASL ruleset is specific for certain terrain, troops, weapons, and vehicles. And that they get pretty granular, down to specific types of tanks, etc. So there are snow rules that only apply to snow scenarios, and rules for certain Italian tanks that apply only to those scenarios where those tanks appear, etc. The result is that for most scenarios you're only using a very small portion of the entire 700-page rulebook.

Yes. But the scenarios are not different games, or even types of games. You can, for example, modify scenarios with different units, terrain overlays, weather, whatever, and you are still playing the same game. One rules set, one game.

Otherwise each scenario is its own distinct game… Which just seems weird.

I picked up Battle Academy 2 in the recent Slitherine sale, and I'm looking forward to trying it out this weekend.

I've also seen that Fantasy General II from Slitherine is currently in a bundle on Fanatical, it was a bit pricey on release but this seems a good deal, I think I remember reading some here have played it? I'm keeping an eye on my backlog but if FG2 comes recommended, I'll likely pick it up at this price.

How did you do with BA2?

FG2 is well worth it, in my opinion. Branching path story with interesting tactical battles and differentiated factions. You also make choices that change your future battles and story options. The fights are mechanically similar to the Panzer General style of goal-oriented movement and combat, but tactical.

Robear wrote:

How did you do with BA2?

FG2 is well worth it, in my opinion. Branching path story with interesting tactical battles and differentiated factions. You also make choices that change your future battles and story options. The fights are mechanically similar to the Panzer General style of goal-oriented movement and combat, but tactical.

Thanks Robear, that sounds good to me, the bundle was purchased

I'll be playing BA2 this weekend and I'll get to Fantasy General II once I take a break from Old World.

Lock'n'Load Digital Tactical: Enemy at the Gates released yesterday (Early Access as usual, which will be true for all the modules until the game is done, so don't be scared). This is one of the ones I've been waiting for... Tactical Stalingrad! Dzerzhinsky Tractor Works, Red October Factory, Pavlov's House, River Landing defense, Mamayev Kurgan, Severe Rubble, MG42 and Maxim MGs, ROKS-3 flamethrower and StuH 42, sewer movement, even repositionable snipers to allow historical use cases. $9 initial price on Steam.

Of course this adds the maps and units and rules to DIY and random scenarios, too.

Robear wrote:

Lock'n'Load Digital Tactical: Enemy at the Gates released yesterday (Early Access as usual, which will be true for all the modules until the game is done, so don't be scared). This is one of the ones I've been waiting for... Tactical Stalingrad! Dzerzhinsky Tractor Works, Red October Factory, Pavlov's House, River Landing defense, Mamayev Kurgan, Severe Rubble, MG42 and Maxim MGs, ROKS-3 flamethrower and StuH 42, sewer movement, even repositionable snipers to allow historical use cases. $9 initial price on Steam.

Of course this adds the maps and units and rules to DIY and random scenarios, too.

I was going to post about this but you beat me to it! I've been really looking forward to this one. I'm excited to get into it.

Side note, have you or has anyone else tried to play LnL online?

Nah. I suck at that. And I've played too many abusive ASL folks over the years to be fully comfortable with it.

Robear wrote:

Nah. I suck at that. And I've played too many abusive ASL folks over the years to be fully comfortable with it.

Yeah, having a 2000 pg rule book will make you ornery.

It was more the ratings system that discourages beginners. Back when there was one.

I feel like it's easier to find helpful and friendly ASL people now than perhaps it was before? I've started in on the Starter Kit, and have encountered a good number of people on Twitter and the ASL Discord who seem like they'd be in it for the same reasons.

Probably. But those days are behind me with the advent of good computer wargames in the 90’s, and my current health situation tells me I’d be better off with quick-to-learn computer versions than the complicated board games I loved back in the day. The exception being solitaire boardgames that I still pull out once in a while to enjoy.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

I feel like it's easier to find helpful and friendly ASL people now than perhaps it was before? I've started in on the Starter Kit, and have encountered a good number of people on Twitter and the ASL Discord who seem like they'd be in it for the same reasons.

It's largely because the player base is aging and there aren't as many opponents to choose from anymore. Back in the 1990s, they had their pick and I had a lot of bad experiences and stopped playing strangers because of it. Now I'm just used to doing my own thing...and they're constantly badgering me to get on VASSAL.

Edit: an example of what it was like back then, an ASL website I frequented had a competition for a prize, it was a scenario pack or something like that. I ended up winning, but the guy running the competition decided I wasn't a big enough name and he refused to give me the prize. He's still a big name in ASL circles too. And I play LnLT now.

An awful lot of ASL fans - and older wargames in general - are real a-hole MAGA types, or just plain anti-social. It's a problem. But since I don't do ftf/MP anymore, except with certain friends, it's not *my* problem lol.

One thing to keep track of... CMO is currently a few weeks into Beta test for the "Tiny" patch, which has *amazing* upgrades for the game. Chief among them are:

The addition of laser, EMP and palletized weapons;

a shift from abstract ground units to modeling individual units, complete with armor and separate weapons, electronics, etc;

revamp of various weapons types to be more accurate, including hypersonic and ballistic missiles;

revamp of aircraft AI handling of missile combat, to prevent things like aircraft "bouncing" down a line of SAMs outside of their operational area while trying to evade;

a better formation editor, along with the flexibility to deal reasonably with narrow bodies of water;

and a ton of other bug fixes, enhancements in all parts of the game, and so forth.

I also found something interesting. The commercial game system is the full Professional version, except that the Pro version allows the addition of new platforms, not just modding existing ones. So the selling point for Pro is that the customer can take the game and add their own classified weapons systems and units, and the dev team never sees that info. Which means in turn that what *we* get with the commercial version has the same *systems* and base units. As such, the game currently has lots of drones and up to date systems. I had thought they were behind on that but it turns out they are not, and with the new updates to ground combat, when this leaves the Beta branch, we'll be able to do some *really* interesting simulations.

Of course, the Beta branch is available to all on Steam, so you can get it right now, modulo bugs that are still being fixed.

Robear wrote:

An awful lot of ASL fans - and older wargames in general - are real a-hole MAGA types, or just plain anti-social. It's a problem. But since I don't do ftf/MP anymore, except with certain friends, it's not *my* problem lol.

No, but it's *our* problem as a community, so we have to push back wherever this kind of toxic behavior arises. I was at a wargaming con two months ago which featured the sadly stereotypical sociological members of the wargaming community: old, white, conservative men. ASL, being a niche hobby within a niche hobby, is even worse. I can't wait for the community to radically change, and I spend a lot of time pondering how best to do that.

I've pushed back on that side of the culture since the 80's. It's been about as successful as pushing back on Trump Republicans. Which, oddly enough, many of them are...

Yeah I remember being on the ASLML in the mid 90s into early 2000s; it didn't get political often, but when it did... well, Curt Schilling was on the list since he'd invested enough into MMP for them to buy the game.

I also bought the L&L Stalingrad pack; I've only played one scenario so far- good ol' Guards Counterattack, or whatever they're calling it now, it'll always be Scenario A to me :). I'm hoping as I've said here before for a good Red Barricades experience but for now this will do. I think I'll be doing a bunch more PC wargaming over the next couple of months as I've just broken my left middle finger, which puts a bit of a dent in my WASD skillz.

Robear wrote:

...

a shift from abstract ground units to modeling individual units, complete with armor and separate weapons, electronics, etc;

This is great news! I always found the modeling of ground units took me out of the game a bit. Or rather, limited my ability to make scenarios that I wanted to try out. Very much looking forward to this.

Natus wrote:
Robear wrote:

An awful lot of ASL fans - and older wargames in general - are real a-hole MAGA types, or just plain anti-social. It's a problem. But since I don't do ftf/MP anymore, except with certain friends, it's not *my* problem lol.

No, but it's *our* problem as a community, so we have to push back wherever this kind of toxic behavior arises. I was at a wargaming con two months ago which featured the sadly stereotypical sociological members of the wargaming community: old, white, conservative men. ASL, being a niche hobby within a niche hobby, is even worse. I can't wait for the community to radically change, and I spend a lot of time pondering how best to do that.

I'd been away from wargaming for about 20-25 years and over the past year have started playing a lot, and this was one of my biggest concerns. I think the hobby has dramatically improved over the past two decades and I've been amazed by the inclusive wargaming communities out there now. (There are definitely still pockets of dinosaurs out there, for sure. I'm looking at you, Facebook, which seems to be their stronghold.)

I'd go so far as to say the change is already happening. I'd be happy to guide people to stuff that will give you hope for the wargaming community. Some thoughts...

- The wargaming community is widening to take on "historical conflict simulation" as a game design element. Many more games on diverse and progressive conflicts getting adopted by the community.

- Check out the Zenobia Awards for a promising and highly progressive initiative.

- If you're on Twitter, check out SDHistCon's stuff. Saturday they held a one-day online conference on the Levy & Campaign series (GMT's new medieval game series). Super progressive and inclusive, and many of the biggest names in wargaming design are involved in the work. I've been to 3 of their online conferences now, and they've all been incredibly inclusive. The winter one featured the Zenobia Award finalists and winners, and was a big theme of the conference.

Here's an example of one of their tweets.

I mean, sure, there are still issues, but I think they are much easier to ignore now, and I've found it much easier than I thought it would be to find a community I can enjoy.

My problem, really, is sticking with old friends and "gaming buddies", I think. Narrows the field and they are stuck in the 70's socially, and the 80's politically. Except for the Trumpers but I don't see them anymore.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:
Natus wrote:
Robear wrote:

An awful lot of ASL fans - and older wargames in general - are real a-hole MAGA types, or just plain anti-social. It's a problem. But since I don't do ftf/MP anymore, except with certain friends, it's not *my* problem lol.

No, but it's *our* problem as a community, so we have to push back wherever this kind of toxic behavior arises. I was at a wargaming con two months ago which featured the sadly stereotypical sociological members of the wargaming community: old, white, conservative men. ASL, being a niche hobby within a niche hobby, is even worse. I can't wait for the community to radically change, and I spend a lot of time pondering how best to do that.

I'd been away from wargaming for about 20-25 years and over the past year have started playing a lot, and this was one of my biggest concerns. I think the hobby has dramatically improved over the past two decades and I've been amazed by the inclusive wargaming communities out there now. (There are definitely still pockets of dinosaurs out there, for sure. I'm looking at you, Facebook, which seems to be their stronghold.)

I'd go so far as to say the change is already happening. I'd be happy to guide people to stuff that will give you hope for the wargaming community. Some thoughts...

- The wargaming community is widening to take on "historical conflict simulation" as a game design element. Many more games on diverse and progressive conflicts getting adopted by the community.

- Check out the Zenobia Awards for a promising and highly progressive initiative.

- If you're on Twitter, check out SDHistCon's stuff. Saturday they held a one-day online conference on the Levy & Campaign series (GMT's new medieval game series). Super progressive and inclusive, and many of the biggest names in wargaming design are involved in the work. I've been to 3 of their online conferences now, and they've all been incredibly inclusive. The winter one featured the Zenobia Award finalists and winners, and was a big theme of the conference.

Here's an example of one of their tweets.

I mean, sure, there are still issues, but I think they are much easier to ignore now, and I've found it much easier than I thought it would be to find a community I can enjoy.

First of all, you clearly know more about all of this than I do. I can only say what I've experienced and who I'm surrounded with, which quite possibly is a wake-up call for yours truly. I'm very very pleased to see the hobby changing this much. I'm not on Twitter (though I do browse occasionally) and I had no idea about the SDHistCon's account even though I'm on their Discord! It's still amazing to me that a somewhat arcane and supply-driven game like Nevsky birthed so many siblings in such a short amount of time. New Volko design...just add water and voila!

Secondly, I am desperately trying to learn Nevsky and Almoravid for some online games, so your videos are very welcome at this time (can't believe I've missed your channel until now!) What a relaxing voice...kudos!

Third, I was utterly ignorant about the Zenobia awards, so that's great news. Thanks for all the info!

Natus wrote:

First of all, you clearly know more about all of this than I do. I can only say what I've experienced and who I'm surrounded with, which quite possibly is a wake-up call for yours truly. I'm very very pleased to see the hobby changing this much. I'm not on Twitter (though I do browse occasionally) and I had no idea about the SDHistCon's account even though I'm on their Discord! It's still amazing to me that a somewhat arcane and supply-driven game like Nevsky birthed so many siblings in such a short amount of time. New Volko design...just add water and voila!

Secondly, I am desperately trying to learn Nevsky and Almoravid for some online games, so your videos are very welcome at this time (can't believe I've missed your channel until now!) What a relaxing voice...kudos!

Third, I was utterly ignorant about the Zenobia awards, so that's great news. Thanks for all the info!

To be fair, there are still tons of problems. I've seen and experienced retrograde opinions and had comments on videos that are downright head-shaking. (My favorite: One guy arguing that the German invasion of Russia in WW2 was a noble endeavor to protect Europe from the Bolsheviks.) But I've been encouraged by the strong voices in the hobby who are making progress.

I'm only a few days into learning the Levy & Campaign series as well, and will be playing a VASSAL game of Nevsky in the next week or so. In case it helps, you might find these helpful...

1 - This 3-part video series on learning Nevksy, from JeanMichelGrosjeu. I bounced off the rulebook and other resources until I found this. It's brilliant! I've only watched the first one, and it's an hour+, but I felt like it was the thing that really got me past the roadblocks.

2 - The Levy & Campaign Discord is very active. It has a design focus, as the designers are in there building teams of playtesters and getting feedback. But it's a great source of information on the series, and there are always people willing to help if you ask nicely. A good amount of people playing games or looking for games too.

And thanks for the kind words on the videos!

PWAlessi wrote:
Robear wrote:

...

a shift from abstract ground units to modeling individual units, complete with armor and separate weapons, electronics, etc;

This is great news! I always found the modeling of ground units took me out of the game a bit. Or rather, limited my ability to make scenarios that I wanted to try out. Very much looking forward to this.

I messed around with the scenario creator in the beta last night and I can confirm that you can drop individual tanks on the map. Very cool.

Any word on when the beta will finish? Not sure if it's worth jumping into the beta branch or not, people are reporting UI weirdness...

Robear wrote:

Any word on when the beta will finish? Not sure if it's worth jumping into the beta branch or not, people are reporting UI weirdness...

I haven't heard, but the UI was a bit janky. The database images weren't working right for me but, I'm not sure if you still have to download them separately like you had to with the original game.

I really just wanted to see how granular it got and boy, is it granular.

Attack at Dawn: North Africa is a new wargame on Steam that dropped today. I was watching a let's play of it and it looked pretty cool. You can play in real time or wego mode.

If anyone grabs it, I'd love to hear impressions. My plate is pretty full right now so I probably won't jump in until closer to the holidays.

PWAlessi wrote:

Attack at Dawn: North Africa is a new wargame on Steam that dropped today. I was watching a let's play of it and it looked pretty cool. You can play in real time or wego mode.

If anyone grabs it, I'd love to hear impressions. My plate is pretty full right now so I probably won't jump in until closer to the holidays.

Oh I was waiting for that to come out. Will probably get some time to play this weekend.

Thanks for the heads up.

PWAlessi wrote:

Attack at Dawn: North Africa is a new wargame on Steam that dropped today. I was watching a let's play of it and it looked pretty cool. You can play in real time or wego mode.

If anyone grabs it, I'd love to hear impressions. My plate is pretty full right now so I probably won't jump in until closer to the holidays.

Oh, this looks interesting, for sure. I'm a sucker for North Africa, too. Thanks for sharing.