Harold

I had a grandfather and two uncles serve in WWII. The one grandfather flew in the 15th? AF in Italy. I had one uncle die in the Phillipines after being taken POW. The other uncle, who was the brother of the one who died, server as an FO for the 4th AD. Flew what was basically a Cub and got the bright idea to strap bazookas to it to hunt German AFV's. Knocked out 7. There is at least one replica of the plane he flew in a Florida Air Museum but the name escapes me. For those interested. Here is some info when I did a search. http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:h5slWxpieqEJ:www.warbirds-eaa.org/featured/featured/Featured%2520Articles%2520-%2520Vol.%252025,%2520No.%252004%2520-%2520June%25202002,%2520In %2520%2520Sun%2520%27n%2520Fun%2520Coverage.pdf+Rosie+the+Rocketer&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 Medical conditions disqualified another grandfather and uncle. Both wanted to serve but were unable.

I had a grandfather and two uncles serve in WWII. The one grandfather flew in the 15th? AF in Italy. I had one uncle die in the Phillipines after being taken POW. The other uncle, who was the brother of the one who died, server as an FO for the 4th AD. Flew what was basically a Cub and got the bright idea to strap bazookas to it to hunt German AFV's. Knocked out 7. There is at least one replica of the plane he flew in a Florida Air Museum but the name escapes me. For those interested. Here is some info when I did a search. http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:h5slWxpieqEJ:www.warbirds-eaa.org/featured/featured/Featured%2520Articles%2520-%2520Vol.%252025,%2520No.%252004%2520-%2520June%25202002,%2520In %2520%2520Sun%2520%27n%2520Fun%2520Coverage.pdf+Rosie+the+Rocketer&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 Medical conditions disqualified another grandfather and uncle. Both wanted to serve but were unable.

I had a grandfather and two uncles serve in WWII. The one grandfather flew in the 15th? AF in Italy. I had one uncle die in the Phillipines after being taken POW. The other uncle, who was the brother of the one who died, server as an FO for the 4th AD. Flew what was basically a Cub and got the bright idea to strap bazookas to it to hunt German AFV's. Knocked out 7. There is at least one replica of the plane he flew in a Florida Air Museum but the name escapes me. For those interested. Here is some info when I did a search. http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:h5slWxpieqEJ:www.warbirds-eaa.org/featured/featured/Featured%2520Articles%2520-%2520Vol.%252025,%2520No.%252004%2520-%2520June%25202002,%2520In %2520%2520Sun%2520%27n%2520Fun%2520Coverage.pdf+Rosie+the+Rocketer&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 Medical conditions disqualified another grandfather and uncle. Both wanted to serve but were unable.

One thing that I think gets missed with boardgame conversion scenarios is non-boardgamers or non-owners of the boardgame or scenario should know the composition, etc. of forces of both sides before playing. These scenarios were originally designed when players did know the makeup of both sides. Play full FOW of course.

I go there for the ASL scenarios converted to CM. Some are good, some aren't, but they are all worth at least looking at.

Tobruk was a neat game. The maps looked horrid though. Terrain was non-existant and the color of the maps reminded me of pumpkin pie. Oh yeah and the lovely Bofors. Once it acquired you had 40 some dice rolls of shooting to do. Each DR represented one shell. Didn't have to K-kill anything. Just M-kill and F-kill and turn the tank into a pillbox.

What is the wrong color problem? My new PC has an FX 5200. Any advice, CM or other would be appreciated. Thanks.

I looked at D#3 and took it off my "to do" list because of the sickles. However, if you substitute trucks or something of the like it might be fun. I did play it as the boardgame version and hated it simply because one side would make a sweeping move while the other watched and then the other side got its chance to do the same. ASL is IMO not a good game to simulate large armor movements. It was meant to be an infantry game. The time dilation, especially with fast armor like that found in D#3 really skews it. However, CM is another story and it is worth looking at. Good luck with it.

The manual states cliffs are in the game yet I can't find any tiles for them in the editor. Did they not make it into the game?

I enjoy converting scenarios probably more than actually playing so once the game comes out I will be hard at work doing conversions of something. I may have read Michael's Conversion guidelines if it was up on the old ASL2CM site but I'm not certain. One thing I did for leaders when converting them to CM was a 10-3 went to a +2 attributes on all of a Battalion/Company/Platoon HQ, a 10-2 +2 on 3 and a +1 on the 4th and so on until you got down to a 7-0 which only had two +1 attributes or one +2. I then used these as a kind of balancing mechanism first before making changes elsewhere. Seemed to work.

A few combined arms scenarios include The Defense of Luga, The Liberators, The Awakwening of Spring and Hill 253.5. Good all armor incluse Tiger, Tiger and Clash along the Psel. Quickies include Sklovs Labors Lost, Guards Counterattack and Soldiers of Destruction. One thing that may help or squash some scenarios is how large city buildings are dealt with. In CMBO all city boards were difficult to convert because of the inability to move from building to building or make one bigger one. It sounds like things will be quite different in CMBB and I hope so. Then there will be Red Barricades and Valor of the Guards...........

I don't recall is the ASL2CM website had the logos and artwork copied but many of the scenario titles and some of the briefings were a bit too close. I think it would help to call them "CM Conversions", use original briefings and change the title some. It would help if the boards were titled differently, like maps with Roman Numerals instead of standard numbers. So what you would have is "CMC 1, Counterattack of the Guards using map I". Units of course are already different just by the nature of the system and time frames are often different as well since what works in ASL doesn't always work in CM timewise.

I'm running as low end (500/64/16vid) as you can get on CMBB and still play the game. For me it looks very similar to CMBO. Could anyone with a newer machine please post a screenshot so all us lowenders can get a perspective of the video potential of CMBB? Include machine specs and scenario you got it from as well. I have looked at the screenshot page and they all look fantastic but I don't know the machine specs they came from. Thanks.

To the Last Man is a great 3 player scenario. It uses 3 of the deluxe city boards and Has Russian Guards on both sides with SS in the middle. The object basically is to hold out if you play the SS or wipe out if you play the Guards. Would probably make a good quick CMBB scenario.

I did a Hill 621 map nearly two years just waiting for the moment the correct combatants would be finished and ready to fight over it. However, I hear it is not possible to import CMBO maps into CMBB. That may not be a bad thing though as there were things I wished the map editor did and I also wanted a larger selection of terrain. Had a lot of fun doing ASL remakes and several even saw the light of day on the now defunct ASL2CM site.

Commissar, It's a question that only you can really answer. ASL is ASL and CM is CM. The only thing they really have in common is that they both "recreate" WWII. I do think that if you are possibly looking to get back into it to go to the mailing list http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mhb/aslml/ , the virtual Advanced Squad Leader website http://www.vasl.org/ and the ASL Home site http://www.advancedsquadleader.com/ before deciding. You will get a better feel for the state of the hobby by going to these websites.

I usually comment on the ASL threads since I still play ASL on a regular basis. I hope to touch on some of the questions or comments. 1) ASL is alive and well. The latest, Operation Watchtower was just released and is based on the fighting on Guadalcanal in 1942. Retails for $40 US dollars. Other Third Party (non-MMP) releases include Genesis '48, The First Arab Israeli War and Guerra Civil, The Spanish Civil War. 2) The ASL mailing list is doing fine as well. Yes, the IFT/IIFT debate still rages. Kind of like blondes/brunettes/redheads or pitcher/designated hitter debates. It will never end and it is part of the fun. 3) There are still a fair amount of players that play Squad Leader exclusively. The ASL scenarios can be converted to SL by those who choose to so fresh material is not a problem. There are over 1000 scenarios to choose from. 4) I agree that most of the recent box art is rather smeary looking. CM's ain't so hot either though. It's what is in the box or manual that counts. Here are some links for those interested. MMP's website: http://www.advancedsquadleader.com/ Virtual Advanced Squad Leader: http://www.vasl.org/ Web version of the mailing list: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mhb/aslml/ Harold

http://www.consimworld.com/ . Not too sure if it has more as here but it is certainly more diverse.

The true ASL port to computers is VASL and it can be found here http://www.vasl.org/ . It is NOT a computer game but a downloadable program with the virtual boards, maps and counters. You still need the rulebook and opponents and still need to read and understand the rulebook. Very handy if you cannot find local opponents or just prefer playing on the computer. Harold

I have to chime in with my two cents since I have been an ASL player for 12 years and a CM player for 1.5 years. First, neither are going away anytime soon. Both are unique products with fanatical followers and both are heavy on historical research and accuracy of that research. However neither are perfect. SL/ASL has been around for 24 years and it has gone through rules rewrites no less than six times if you include the many changes that occurred when a new SL module came out. ASL is currently on its second rewrite. CM has had its quirks and bugs too and like ASL the designers have gone way out of their way to fix those issues. Second, CM is at Squad Leader on the SL/ASL evolutionary ladder. By that I mean it has just begun its long march. Give BTS 24 years to perfect their system. That is if we don't drive them nuts before then javascript: x(). Last, they are really two different game systems with only one thing in common: WWII. If you play both enjoy them for what they are good at instead of focusing on any weaknesses. Harold

Snake eyes et al, Cavalry, motorcycles, bicycles, etc. are all extremely vulnerable in ASL as they were historically and IMO not much worth the time learning the rules. Once the shooting started dismounting was the first thing done, whether I had those units or my opponent. The CM battlefield will be just as brutal and the input by BTS in coding this stuff and the actual output is just not worth the time. Too many other things they need to get into the game. Harold

Franko, I hope you reconsider your stance on MMP. If it wasn't for them ASL the boardgame would literally be dead. MMP is basically Hasbros eyes and ears on possible copyright infringement and if they don't follow through on that Hasbro will pull the plug on them and thus on ASL. They are between a rock and a hard place and are often unfairly lumped in with Hasbro. Though I have never personally met any of them they are just like you and I with regular day jobs and do this to keep the game and a few other titles alive in paper format. Well most have regular day jobs anyways Harold

As one who did more than a few ASL conversions I can certainly understand Hasbros POV on the maps being reproduced and the titles, intros and aftermaths being copied. I tried to avoid making the intros and aftermaths the same but the title and the maps were just a wee bit harder to dodge. That being said I think in a few years the ASL conversion process will die off permanently. The historical foundation is already out there to make thousands of scenarios and with the ever increasing access and utilization of the historical terrain that the battles were fought on it will be rather silly to fight on anything less than the real stuff converted to pixels. Of course this brings up a whole other ball of wax when someone creates a a scenario using historical terrain and OOB and someone else "copies" their stuff. Thats when the real fun will begin. Still converting and playing ASL scenarios was some of the most fun I ever had with CM. Harold

Does anyone know why Col. Klotz shut down his ASL website? Some said he got too busy with school/work. Others said the copyright issue w/ Hasbro popped up. Harold

With Klotz' ASL website long gone who has the crop of ASL/SL scenarios? Just wondering. Harold