My 2020 in ASL

bprobst

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Last year I completed 34 games (and played most of the way through another, but didn't complete it until after 31 December so I'm not including it here). Also not counted are two or three playtests of scenarios not yet published.

I play most of my games via VASL anyway, but of course as we all know circumstances in 2020 were ... special. So only a handful of games were played ftf, at the beginning of the year. Restrictions having now eased in Melbourne ftf games are an option again. After such a long break, actually touching physical counters again felt weird.

Of the 34 games I won only 9, sadly not all that unusual for me, although there was a stretch there where I felt that God was out to punish me, personally, as I had what felt like an interminable streak of shitty dice rolls. Dice may have no memory, but it can be argued that they're still bastards.

By ROAR rating that I assigned:

The good

Must Play

188 "Zon with the Wind" (won v. Gordon Stokes)
HG15 "King Darges" (lost v. Jamie Westlake)

Highly Recommended

RPT108 "Catching the Bear" (won v. Jamie Westlake)
FrF51 "Bite of the Bassotto" (won v. Neil MacPherson)
WO35 "Heroes' Day" (lost v. Jamie Westlake)

Recommend

Q6 "Per l'Onore di Roma" (lost v. Dave Wilson)
FT43 "Infantry Probe at Argentan" (lost v. Simon Shields)
FrF52 "Dying for Danzig" (lost v. Tim Reade)
J169 "Few and Far Between" (lost v. David Wallace)
SP72 "One Tough Canuck" (won v. Jamie Westlake)

Slight Recommend

MM28 "Sonderkommando Benesch" (won v. Jamie Westlake)
J33 "The Slaughterhouse" (lost v. David Wallace)
J122 "Bloody Bois Jacques" (lost v. Jamie Westlake)
D20 "Smoke the Kents!" (lost v. David Wallace)
FrF76 "Pain in the Neck" (lost v. David Wallace)
TOT42 "Thunderbolts" (lost v. David Wallace)
ESG79 "Blasting Through" (lost v. David Wallace)

The Indifferent

As Many Above as Below

SP210 "Tea at Three" (lost v. David Wallace)
SP189 "Hell's Last Issue" (won v. David Wallace)
G32 "A Helping Hand" (lost v. David Wallace)
AP111 "The Katanas Come Out at Night" (lost v. Jamie Westlake)
SoSB3 "Marauding Marauders" (won v. David Wallace)
AP123 "Busting in Balta" (won v. George Bates)
J62 "Lee's Charge" (won v. David Wallace)

The Bad

Slightly Unfavourable

FT149 "Tombés Pour la France" (lost v. David Wallace)
ATP5 "A Walk in the Sun" (lost v. David Wallace)

Unfavourable

KGP3 "Panthers in the Mist" (lost v. Jamie Westlake)
FT196 "Spittelmarkt" (lost v. David Wallace)
164 "Torment at Tormua" (lost v. David Wallace)
DB004 "Devils Play" (lost v. David Wallace)

The Ugly

Highly Unfavourable

GONA-CG "Those Ragged Bloody Heroes" (lost v. David Wallace)
D9 "Preparing the Way" (lost v. David Wallace)
SP247 "The Golden Arrow" (lost v. David Wallace)
OzB1 "Vines of Red Marines" (lost v. David Wallace)
 

Cpl Uhl

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I'm interested to know more about your view of the Gona TRBH CG please. Did you play the entire CG? Brief summary? Why the negative review? Anything good about it ?
 

Robin Reeve

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Nice list, not only with recent scenarios.
Thanks for the evaluations.
 

bprobst

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I'm interested to know more about your view of the Gona TRBH CG please. Did you play the entire CG? Brief summary? Why the negative review? Anything good about it ?
The Japanese get to setup a lot of pillboxes filled with MGs that can cover any given hex that the Australians must enter if they are to get anywhere near their destination. Australian strategy therefore becomes "I hope I don't fail the many, many, many MCs that are about to come my way". That's not a good strategy for any game. (Note that by SSR the Australians have no SMOKE available in any form.)

There are other problems. Both sides get (roughly) the same number of points to buy stuff, but the Japanese buy their infantry in platoons while the Australians buy them in companies. That means the Australian forces are very limited in where and when you reinforce (because companies are very expensive compared to platoons), whereas the Japanese can quickly plug holes in their line, should any develop.

We played a few turns of the first CG date at which time there were only a handful of unbroken Australian units while the Japanese had taken relatively few casualties. Neither of us could foresee that the Australians would ever get anywhere.

Now, we didn't have any particular problems with the PL CG rules. It should also be noted that the scenarios that come with the package all represent completely different situations than the CG (and thus may be perfectly decent, but I have yet to play any of them). My opponent and I both felt that the problem was the design of the CG itself, and we strongly suspect that while the scenarios would have been designed and playtested by the Paddington Bears, the actual CG may have been designed by someone else (Tapio, presumably) and not playtested at all. I don't know this, but it's sure how it feels.
 

JoeArthur

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Why did you rate 164 "Torment at Tormua" (lost v. David Wallace) as unfavourable please?

Tough one on the Russians?

I played D20 "Smoke the Kents!" recently against the designer, Marty Snow. He was saying that MMP changed the scenario by putting the overlays in. He thought it was because the DeLux overlays had just been issued and they were looking for scenarios for people to use them in so just added them to his.
 

klasmalmstrom

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I played D20 "Smoke the Kents!" recently against the designer, Marty Snow. He was saying that MMP changed the scenario by putting the overlays in. He thought it was because the DeLux overlays had just been issued and they were looking for scenarios for people to use them in so just added them to his.
The re-issued version Deluxe 20 has the same overlays as the original version (from an The General 30-5). So if any overlay were added compared to a submission that was done along time ago, and that issue of The General was published in 1996 by Avalon Hill.
 

tipsyweasel

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The re-issued version Deluxe 20 has the same overlays as the original version (from an The General 30-5). So if any overlay were added compared to a submission that was done along time ago, and that issue of The General was published in 1996 by Avalon Hill.
Joe and I were discussing the differences between the submitted design and the one that emerged from playtest back in 1995. At the time, MMP was publishing under the AH banner.
 

bprobst

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Why did you rate 164 "Torment at Tormua" (lost v. David Wallace) as unfavourable please?

Tough one on the Russians?
Well, let me put it like this. My Russians did extraordinarily well in the first few turns of the game, mostly because the Finns were rolling incredibly poorly at virtually every opportunity. I came close to eliminating the entire Finnish village garrison. Down along the woods-road, I wasn't doing quite as well, but still pretty well regardless.

Then the Finnish reinforcements came on board and just totally cleaned up my Russians and retook the entire village, almost without effort.

Now, in a normal game the Russians could not possibly do as well as I actually did. So there would be a heck of a lot more broken Russians, and a lot more unbroken Finns. Who then get reinforced.

I don't really see how the Finns can lose this, assuming competent play and "normal" dice.
 

boylermaker

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I played it with the balance given to the Russians, and won as the Russians, although didn't end up thinking that the balance was strictly necessary: http://www.gamesquad.com/forums/index.php?threads/asl164-torment-at-tormua.146943/

I wasn't as successful clearing out the village, but had more success defending than Bruce did. The woods-road area is a rich source of CVP for the Russians, so you don't necessarily need to hold too much of the village to win as the Russkies.
 

buser333

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I played it with the balance given to the Russians, and won as the Russians, although didn't end up thinking that the balance was strictly necessary: http://www.gamesquad.com/forums/index.php?threads/asl164-torment-at-tormua.146943/

I wasn't as successful clearing out the village, but had more success defending than Bruce did. The woods-road area is a rich source of CVP for the Russians, so you don't necessarily need to hold too much of the village to win as the Russkies.
I don't think the Finns should stick around long at all on the woods-road. My opponent (Joe from above) wisely set his guns as far north as possible and had them pushed onto Board 42 by the end of the first turn, leaving just enough HIP units behind to make sure I couldn't just run down the road willy-nilly. And I couldn't just drive my thin-skinned tanks ahead of them or they would've been easy pickings for either the guns or Finnish infantry. His guns were then instrumental in helping defend the village. I didn't think the scenario was bad to play, but it is tough for the Russians.
 

boylermaker

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I don't think the Finns should stick around long at all on the woods-road. My opponent (Joe from above) wisely set his guns as far north as possible and had them pushed onto Board 42 by the end of the first turn, leaving just enough HIP units behind to make sure I couldn't just run down the road willy-nilly. And I couldn't just drive my thin-skinned tanks ahead of them or they would've been easy pickings for either the guns or Finnish infantry. His guns were then instrumental in helping defend the village. I didn't think the scenario was bad to play, but it is tough for the Russians.
I think that's a smart play, and my opponent did some of that, but letting the two Russian forces combine has risks of its own, and while the Russian tanks may be ~useless offensively, I suspect that you could get them into the village, you could find some nice spots for them to safely assist in repelling the Finnish counterattack.
 

bprobst

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Not just him. There was a period where I felt like I couldn't buy a good DR no matter who I was playing.
 
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