Slightly OT: CMBB and ASL

[John O'Reilly]

I have noticed that there are quite a few designers adopting ASL scenarios to CMBB. Just finished "Berezina River" by Abbott for example which was a real blast. Now, I stopped playing ASL just over four years ago when I emigrated since it is not exactly the most portable of games! Now that I am returning home I intend to play it again.

One thing that always "bothered" me was the rate of fire of tanks. Each ASL turn is a couple of minutes and when a tank fires (dice are rolled)this is abstracted to represent in fact several shots. Ok, but really, barring "intensive fire", or a lucky "ROF" roll you are limited to engaging one target per turn. When I first tried CMBO about one year ago I was amazed by the rate of fire of the tanks and there was no problem engaging multiple targets. From what I have subsequently read it seems accurate.

Now with the death clock the number of targets engaged in a CMBB turn may be less although this is a function of many variables including luck. Since I am returning to ASL I would like to have opinions from those who play it and have experience with CM regarding ROF. Does ASL simply have it wrong? I hesitate to ask such a question of the ASL community since I am all out of fire retardant!

John

[ December 05, 2002, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: John O'Reilly ]

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by John O'Reilly:

I have noticed that there are quite a few designers adopting ASL scenarios to CMBB. Just finished "Berezina River" by Abbott for example which was a real blast. Now, I stopped playing ASL just over four years ago when I emigrated since it is not exactly the most portable of games! Now that I am returning home I intend to play it again.

One thing that always "bothered" me was the rate of fire of tanks. Each ASL turn is a couple of minutes and when a tank fires (dice are rolled)this is abstracted to represent in fact several shots. Ok, but really, barring "intensive fire", or a lucky "ROF" roll you are limited to engaging one target per turn. When I first tried CMBO about one year ago I was amazed by the rate of fire of the tanks and there was no problem engaging multiple targets. From what I have subsequently read it seems accurate.

Now with the death clock the number of targets engaged in a CMBB turn may be less although this is a function of many variables including luck. Since I am returning to ASL I would like to have opinions from those who play it and have experience with CM regarding ROF. Does ASL simply have it wrong? I hesitate to ask such a question of the ASL community since I am all out of fire retardant!

John

This issue ought not to be all that inflammitory

(I hope as I now comment).

I understand Steve and Charles were VERY keen to get the armour penetration values and realistic concepts of tank fighting modeled MORE correctly in CMBO (and later CMBB) because they were personally dissappointed with how poor WWII armour combat was modeled in ASL.

If I am mistaken, I am sure someone here will correct me or elaborate.

I don't think you will be needing that fire retardant

-tom w

[General Panic]

I think the armor modeling in SL/ASL was mostly okay, given the limitations of working with a hexgrid and two-minute turns.

[John O'Reilly]

Tom,

Oh I didn't mean around here, I was thinking of places like the ASL mailing list and such. Just an open question relating to a core mechanism is prone to ignite a considerable conflagration

Interesting to know that Steve et al might have started this whole business through dissatisfaction with ASL armoured combat.

General, I recognise the limitations imposed by the fact that it is a boardgame, but if indeed the ROF of tanks in ASL is too low it should not be too difficult to create rules to increase it.

John

[ASL Veteran]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

I understand Steve and Charles were VERY keen to get the armour penetration values and realistic concepts of tank fighting modeled MORE correctly in CMBO (and later CMBB) because they were personally dissappointed with how poor WWII armour combat was modeled in ASL.

If I am mistaken, I am sure someone here will correct me or elaborate.

I don't think you will be needing that fire retardant

-tom w[/QB]

As far as I know, the only person at BFC who has even gazed upon the outside of an ASL box is Moon ... and even that might be incorrect. However, I know for certain that Kwazydog has never played it, and I have sincere doubts that either Steve or Charles have played it (or even looked upon it). Doesn't make them bad people of course . ASL had a lot of limitations from being a turn based cardboard and paper game. If you were patient enough, ASL could be played blind with three sets of identical maps and an independent judge informing each player of what was happening, but that was pretty tedious.

[John O'Reilly]

Actually, I don't mind the limitations, they are inherent in the form. In fact, I quite enjoy the "feel" of ASL and many other boardgames. Plus there is something special about face to face gaming, especially when multiple players are involved. Also it is easier to curse dice than some digitised random number generator

[demoss]

Although it is probably true that ROFs in ASL tend to be too low, it is true across the board, so it doesn't really matter much. Two minutes/turn was really just a ballpark figure by the time ASL supplanted SL, and as detailed as ASL is for a boardgame, there's still a heck of a lot of design-for-effect that you can see under the hood if you look closely enough. Increasing the ROFs might well break the game.