Interest in non-historical scenarios?

Kijug

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Dunno if this has been discussed before, but are any folks interested in non-historical scenarios? I'm thinking anywhere from basic skirmishes to using terrain and perhaps HASL features in non-historical settings. Various combatants not normally against each other. Combos of toys not historically correct. Etc., etc. Lots of ideas, but wondered, so long as the scenario was playable and play testing gets the players basically event, would that be enjoyable? Or do all scenarios have to be historical?

Just wondered....
 

A_T_Great

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Dunno if this has been discussed before, but are any folks interested in non-historical scenarios? I'm thinking anywhere from basic skirmishes to using terrain and perhaps HASL features in non-historical settings. Various combatants not normally against each other. Combos of toys not historically correct. Etc., etc. Lots of ideas, but wondered, so long as the scenario was playable and play testing gets the players basically event, would that be enjoyable? Or do all scenarios have to be historical?

Just wondered....
For your interest
 

hayman

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Coming from a player who likes the historical aspect of ASL (and other games), I personally would not be interested in 'non-historical scenarios, but...a nice little tournament-sized game (5 turn max) that can be used at a local tournament as an ice breaker on a Friday afternoon/night over a few beers may be welcome by a tournament director.
Some suggestions -
The usual: U.S. vs Soviet heavy metal clash in late '45
Battle for the bottom of the barrel: Italians vs Chinese.
Japanese vs any and all takers ;)
 

Eagle4ty

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With geo-boards for terrain and OBs tailored with design-for-effect aspects in mind (or simply insufficient research), that's enough non-historical me. I really got into wargaming in general and ASL in particular for the "historical" aspect of the interaction and as such enjoy the background descriptions almost as much as the actual game itself.
 
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zgrose

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I am interested in good, balanced scenarios. The flavor text is nice but I’ll take a good scenario over a good narrative or accurate OoB.
 

Eagle4ty

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I am interested in good, balanced scenarios. The flavor text is nice but I’ll take a good scenario over a good narrative or accurate OoB.
Yes, that's the great thing about ASL; one can have a passing interest in the history and enjoy the flavor of the game with all its intricacies or have and real interest in the history and enjoy the challenge of a reflective history experience with the game.:)
 

Paul M. Weir

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I've always viewed ASL as a great big WW2-ish toybox. As I have mentioned before I'm a dilettante solo player, my real joy is the historical research (equipment, OOB, etc). Over the decades I have cooked up many non-historical clashes for myself. Some have been ahistorical sides (eg Patton vs Katukov '45), some were clashes that could have, but didn't happen. One area that I did mess around a lot was some thing like a late-'41 Soviet Tank Brigade vs a '41 Panzer Abteilung, just to get a handle on relative strengths and weaknesses.

If you think about what historical scenarios have been put out, most of those have been trimmed on one side or the other for balance or counter limitation reasons. The times I tried my hand with historical OOBs, the result was mainly unbalanced dogs. That is unsurprising as real life commanders don't like evenly matched stalemates, unlike us game players.
 

Gordon

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Indeed, one of Nicholas Moran's (The Chieftain online) points is that the reason everyone says it took 5 Shermans to kill a Panther is that if a unit called back up the chain of command because they were facing a tank, a platoon of Shermans was sent, which was the base tactical unit. You'd never send just a single sherman.
 

Robin Reeve

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DYO would be the best way to play non historical situations.
Having designers spend time on non historical concepts would be a waste of energy and of time, IMO.
Perhaps with the exception of the odd Zombie pack or a what-if in the style of Seelöwe, which some may be interested in.
I personally am not.
 

Michael Dorosh

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Indeed, one of Nicholas Moran's (The Chieftain online) points is that the reason everyone says it took 5 Shermans to kill a Panther is that if a unit called back up the chain of command because they were facing a tank, a platoon of Shermans was sent, which was the base tactical unit. You'd never send just a single sherman.
Strangely enough, I seem to recall that the Germans operated their tanks in platoons as well....

But your average ASL player finds it far more interesting to take a Marder II, a Tiger, a Lynx and a Sd Kfz 250 into action per the typical scenario card, than to do anything historical with 3 or 4 PzKpfw IV.
 

Paul M. Weir

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That indeed was the recommend minimum. However I have seen sufficient upbraiding by senior officers in circulated tracts of what they saw as frequent breaches of those guidelines. So penny packeting of AFV must have been a fairly frequent occurrence to merit such missives. Shortage of AFV and length of fronts would have had a lot to do with it.
 

Michael Dorosh

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That indeed was the recommend minimum. However I have seen sufficient upbraiding by senior officers in circulated tracts of what they saw as frequent breaches of those guidelines. So penny packeting of AFV must have been a fairly frequent occurrence to merit such missives. Shortage of AFV and length of fronts would have had a lot to do with it.
Yes, I suspect so. And there was a little bit of mix and match of course. I had some info from the old "Armor Site" by Fabio Prado that talked about Tiger tanks forming wedges with P-III and P-IV tanks, for example.
 

ineation

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I am quite sure that good What If scenarios, on top of being fun, could have a lot of historical and pedagogical value.
 

zgrose

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I would be cool with hypothetical, meaning historically plausible, not something with zombies. :rolleyes: :)
Fairly certain that's what most people mean when they're asking for ASL scenarios not founded on an actual time/place/OoB.
 
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