Ideal SASL Historical Campaign Length

[rykirk]

Long time ASL player who is relatively new to SASL, planning my first campaign using section 17. I have started researching the historical actions of the Hungarian 2nd Army from Barbarossa til its destruction in early '43. I would like to structure my campaign around these actions and was wondering what experiences people had with intervals and with the total number of missions that a campaign can endure...can it potentially go on forever barring elimination, or does attrition start to add up? Should I space my intervals such that I keep the overall number of missions relatively low? Any tips based on experience would be appreciated.

 

[tommyl]

I've been running one based on the unit history of the Royal Ulster Rifles. Started with weekly mission for their time with the BEF (4 weeks) then a refit followed by 3 weeks in Greece, refit, 2 weeks in Crete, refit and now working on monthly mission for their time in the Italian campaign. Seems to be working ok, without getting to run down.

Also see S17.9 Rest & Refit. Basically if your company drops below 70%, you skip the next mission losing 1 CG VP. You might want to lower the threshold if historically the unit soldiered on with severe casualties, to get the full "flavor", but doing that for more than 1 or 2 mission that might also lower the fun factor.

 

[rykirk]

Thanks, that's a good point about the Rest and Refit dates. Glad to hear your campaign is going well. I may use variable intervals to reflect the action going on at the time.

 

[daniel zucker]

Hi all good to see some movement in the SASL thread

Years ago I ran a Group SASL campaign for the US 1st Inf Div , the Big Red One. their were 12 missions covering the time form D-Day 6/44 to the end of the war 5/45 the first two missions were 6/6/44 and 6/7/44 then two missions in July 44.

A GSASL is a bit different form running your own campaign but I would recommend that if you are going to follow the SASL RB (Rule Book) then a 12 mission campaign. If you are going to base your campaign on a real one then do as many missions as you want and try to follow the same actions as the historical unit did resting when they did and doing refit then or as per the RB.

You can do pretty much what you want but if it feels wrong; then you know.

daniel

 

[thedrake]

I have played many of the SASL Historical missions from Hans Mielant's website: http://www.mielants.com/Simulation/ASL1D.html I prefer the smaller CG's myself (usually 8 to 12 Missions.)

Hope this helps.

 

[Barking Monkey]

I'd recommend looking at what Ahriman667 did with his 194th Infanterie-Regiment campaign (I'm having great fun playing through the Fall-of France portion of it now). I don't really see any reason you can't sustain a campaign as long as you like if you apply the rest&refit rules. If you're contemplating simulating a "fight the company down to nothing" historical series, like Tommyl mentioned above, I'd recommend reducing the campaign VP penalties for losing missions or boosting the FRIENDLY RE numbers in them.

I've not got as much ASL/SASL experience as some here, but it's my experience that close-action (e.g. cityfight) missions grind away your company at an accelerated rate - CC eats squads off your roster like nothing else. This might be worth keeping in mind as you do your campaign design.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

 

[rykirk]

Thanks for the input everywhere, I haven't looked at my material for a few days being busy with other things, but I'm still mulling things over.