ASL History: Kampfgruppen Commander

[M.Koch]

Whilst going trough my ASL stuff i stumbled over these Kampfgruppen Commander remains.
Invented by Christian Koppmeyer and Klaus Fischer, KGC was the first try to combine ASL with strategic aspects.
Twenty years ago i was involved in the first playtests. These cards are dated 2013, so i guess they are the same as those were used by the playtesters in Swizerland. However, by that time, Klaus Fischer was out of the project as well as HoB.

You can see Belgian, French and German cards, since the first KGC module was about France 1940.

 

[Honza]

When Advancing Fire release their stuff you will be able to compare it.

 

[hayman]

I would have loved this project to get off the ground. ?

 

[M.Koch]

When Advancing Fire release their stuff you will be able to compare it.

I think the KGC and the AF project are different in many ways.

 

[M.Koch]

I would have loved this project to get off the ground. ?

By the time i was involved in the playtestings, KGC was "untestable", since too many things where random, unit and board wise.
That led to a complete revise of KGC, what made it leaner and less random.

 

[olli]

I remember getting this playtest stuff away back, it was a New take but was hard to make it work

 

[Jacometti]

Hennie and I playtested a scenario and really enjoyed it, although we never got the feel of a campaign since we played only once, IIRC.

 

[von Marwitz]

I have not been involved in playtesting back then, but I saw the material and talked about it with Christian.

It reminded me somewhat of the popluar computer game 'Panzer General' by SSI, in which you retain some units throughout the campaign that can gain experience due to combat or lose it due to raw replacements, that can take losses and be repaired/replenished/upgraded. Other units are only available for the given scenario.

von Marwitz

 

[thedrake]

Would love to get a copy of that card deck file to use for solo play.

 

[M.Koch]

I have not been involved in playtesting back then, but I saw the material and talked about it with Christian.

It reminded me somewhat of the popluar computer game 'Panzer General' by SSI, in which you retain some units throughout the campaign that can gain experience due to combat or lose it due to raw replacements, that can take losses and be repaired/replenished/upgraded. Other units are only available for the given scenario.

von Marwitz

That was the core idea behind KGC.

 

[von Marwitz]

Would love to get a copy of that card deck file to use for solo play.

Kampfgruppen Commander was not a 'card driven' game. The cards alone would not enable you to 'play' it.

von Marwitz

 

[Tuomo]

Would love to know what dance that KG Commander's silhouette is doing.

 

[Harms]

It is a variation of the well known macarena dance. The Fuhrer had a slightly different version known as "Heil macarena". All commanders had to learn this during officer training. Not too many people know of the way the modern version of the dance originated from the original version.

 

[Houlie]

Would love to know what dance that KG Commander's silhouette is doing.

I think it's Travolta with a Luger in Saturday Night Fever.

 

[footsteps]

Would love to know what dance that KG Commander's silhouette is doing.

 

[M.Koch]

Would love to know what dance that KG Commander's silhouette is doing.

THAT

 

[tunixx]

Is there any chance of seeing this finished? As far as I know the game was in an advanced stage. No one interested in picking this up and completing it?

Whilst going trough my ASL stuff i stumbled over these Kampfgruppen Commander remains.
Invented by Christian Koppmeyer and Klaus Fischer, KGC was the first try to combine ASL with strategic aspects.
(...)

 

[M.Koch]

Is there any chance of seeing this finished? As far as I know the game was in an advanced stage. No one interested in picking this up and completing it?

I think with Christian´s passing, KGC died as well, since he was the mastemind behind the project.
I know he was in contact with Xavier from LFT about publishing KGC but that´s all i know.
Personally i have no intentions anymore in KGC (and that came pretty quick after the first playtests 20 years ago) since i have no interest in ASL going strategic.

 

[Jazz]

Would love to know what dance that KG Commander's silhouette is doing.

I thought we were going to not post after visiting the Dispensary?

Or is extended social distancing taking you back to your Idaho days?

 

[Xavier 658]

Gutentag Herr Koch!

I know he was in contact with Xavier from LFT about publishing KGC but that´s all i know.

Yes... In fact, the original concept was an idea of Eddie Zeman, from HoB. We started to talk about it during his visit at home about 30 (or 35?) years ago, on one occasion I was by my parents in Paris. At this point I'm thinking I'm getting old... With the internal problems of HoB, KGC faded away and was retaken many years after by Christian and several other German players (many!).

Christian and I had been discussing many many times about KGC, since one of the biggest problem of the campaign (One French Summer IIRW) was that it depicted units of the German 7th Pz Div against several French units. Thus, only the German player would get the "benefit" of playing a campaign, while the French player would have a different feeling. Anyways, I still have all the material since Christian sent everything to me, and I am pretty sure most of his PT group still has it as well. One of them contacted me directly a couple of years ago I think, but we haven't been able to resume this project yet, as it requires a lot of time. But this would be a nice tribute to Christian Koppmeyer... He was really a nice guy.

All the best,

X