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'Ol Fezziwig

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[QUOTE="lightspeed,


..
Complaining about skulking is an artifact of forgetting about the design for effect philosophy.

jmho.

indy
[/QUOTE]

Uhhh, no it isn't. It is a white-hot hatred that burns at core of my being.
Get off my damn lawn.
 

Gordon

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I'm not sure the ASL prophets, blessed be thy names, actually "designed" skulking into the system. Of course I could be wrong.
 

skarper

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My issue with skulking is not that it has an unrealistic effect, only that it is inconsistent and that it 'looks' wrong.

Some kind of 'full cover' option would work better IMO.

Tinkering with ASL rules might be in order to allow units in foxholes/trenches to 'skulk' while they currently cannot.

In my own system there is no 'defensive final fire' and no advance phase.....so skulking is neither necessary nor possible....
 

Mister T

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In my own system there is no 'defensive final fire' and no advance phase.....so skulking is neither necessary nor possible....
That would do it nicely but it would be too much for us. It should have been implemented twenty years ago, we are now too far down the v1/2 road to accept such a change in the ASL paradigm.
 

skarper

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That would do it nicely but it would be too much for us. It should have been implemented twenty years ago, we are now too far down the v1/2 road to accept such a change in the ASL paradigm.
Exactly. It would be easy to address many of the issues but the shear mass of ASL material that would be rendered obsolete means it can't be done. I enjoy discussing it, and over several years developed a system I am 90% happy with, but it is just a thought experiment for most of us.
 

Robin Reeve

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I'm not sure the ASL prophets, blessed be thy names, actually "designed" skulking into the system. Of course I could be wrong.
I seem to remember that an article about Cross of Iron evoked skulking.
I am quite sure that it is around from the beginning.
I believe that one should take the sequential aspect of a game turn (vs. a simultaneous one) : it helps understand that some "unnatural" mechanics are linked to that factor.
There are ways to limit the effects of that tactic - typically by encircling the defender.
I personally have not the slightest problem with skulking : it is just one of the blades of the Swiss knife which regroups an array of game mechanisms.
 

Gordon

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Don't get me wrong it's part of the game and can't be changed. I'm just not sure if it was a design choice or a quirk of the mechanics.
 

Robin Reeve

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If it existed in the SL system and was not changed when ASL was created, one can be rather sure that the designers were aware of the skulking tactic and not excessively disturbed by it.
 

skarper

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In the early days of SL people played in relatively closed groups and some tactics that are obvious now were just not thought of. I think some players skulked routinely, and some did not. Later when the groups encountered each other the impact of skulking was enormous on those who had never considered it.

I agree that it was 'around' at least as early as Cross of Iron in articles in the General. I remember first noticing it in an article about the GI scenarios. In my very small group we mostly shot rather than skulked. We also seldom fired at broken units! Not sure why nobody thought of this - perhaps we were all just a bit dim!
 

Joelist

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Put me in the club that does not want wholesale changes to ASL. But that does not mean one cannot even propose tweaks to side mechanics. And as Fortified Building only exist by SSR any tweaks to the mechanic are not core to ASL by their nature.
 

stuh42asl

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Rule #1 ASL is not broken.........so does not need to be fixed, that is going down the road of the likes of Flames of War, Warhammer etc

Rule #2 see rule #1
 

'Ol Fezziwig

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If it existed in the SL system and was not changed when ASL was created, one can be rather sure that the designers were aware of the skulking tactic and not excessively disturbed by it.
I disagree: even SL was a complex beast for it's time, and many nuances that, today, are taken for granted, just weren't thought of. I don't look at that as a failure, mind you, but as part of the, what, 40 year evolution of the system?
 

Robin Reeve

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I disagree: even SL was a complex beast for it's time, and many nuances that, today, are taken for granted, just weren't thought of. I don't look at that as a failure, mind you, but as part of the, what, 40 year evolution of the system?
It seems that it was thought of at the time of CoI.
And skulking is quite a basic tactic : if you don't Prep fire, you will want to move your units out of harm's way during DFPh.
 

Paul M. Weir

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You're all wrong, it's 0x41 to 0x5A.
 

hongkongwargamer

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Skulking is a tactically bankrupt abomination.
You have a solution.

Don’t skulk and don’t play people who skulk.

I think people who play not wearing pants are tactically bankrupt abominations.

So I always play wearing pants and I don’t play people who don’t.

That’s it. Move on.
 
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