Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) is a game of squad-level combat from World War II. Players command the forces of the various nations that participated in that war in "mini-games" called scenarios. These scenarios pit two opposing forces against each other in games in which each game turn equals two minutes of real time.

ASL employs the traditional, "you go, I go" format of turns, where each player navigates his forces through eight game phases. ASL does, however, have one unique feature ... the ability for the defensive player to fire at his opponents' units as they move. In this way, all of the offensive players plans do not automatically come to fruition.

Although the squad is the base unit of play, players can also command half-squads, gun crews, vehicular crews, tanks, and ordnance. The game system can create heroes, cause units to go berserk and charge the nearest enemy unit, give units that extra courage to go on, and also turn elite units into sniveling cowards right before your very eyes.

The games are played on combinations of the numerous geomorphic mapboards. These mapboards have been designed to be placed against each other in any combinations to recreate the terrain of any battleground in the war.

In addition, a series of "historical" add-ons has been created, each with its own "battle-specific" mapboard that has been recreated from actual reconnaisance photos or actual battlefield maps. These historical modules allow players the ability to replay any of the major campaigns represented by the modules.

ASL is not a computer game. It is a board game with charts, tables, maps, counters, and a rulebook that exceeds 200 pages in all its glory. ASL is not for the novice wargamer, although that's not to say that a novice won't understand the game. Perhaps, uncluttered by other rules of other games, the novice wargamer could make perfect sense of the ASL rules.

Brien Martin

Advanced Squad Leader is a registered trademark of the Avalon Hill Game Company, a subsidiary of the Hasbro Corporation, for its squad-level tactical game of combat in World War II. The Tri-State ASL Club Web Site is not affiliated in any way with the Avalon Hill Game Company, the Hasbro Corporation, or Multi-Man Publishing, LLC, who hold the licensing rights to the Advanced Squad Leader game system.

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