Back in the days before Klaus Fischer was involved in the release of HoB's "Onlslaught on Orsha 1st. ed.", at Grenadier tournament he used to host some "special events".
Among these were two team-double blind games. Each team had 3 or 4 players. The playing area was something like a good dozen of geo-boards or so. The double blind ran for the entire duration of the tournament (i.e. outside the tournament). Teams were set up in separate rooms, each with a playing area set up. Klaus Fischer was walking from room to room relaying to the opposing team what they saw and heard (sic!).
There was much more Fog of war. If you were in a tank stopped, you could 'hear' tank noises approaching possibly before seeing any tank. If your engine was running, enemy sounds were swallowed up by the noise. If you were BU, you saw not much at all. In one of these games, the objective for the Geramans was to capture an enemy airfield. Each player in each team commanded part of the OoB of a given side. Some motorcyclists were sent ahead as scouts - and did simply vanish... So we know that 'something' was in the area the Germans had to cross, but not where or what it was. I remember that the Germans drove a Panther up a Woods road stopping at some crossroads to interdict another section of that woods roads. The report we Germans got was that we could discern a column of black smoke rising from the area of the crossroads which caused loud cussing on our part. When Klaus went next door we heard the allied team cheering. After the game, it turned out, that next to that crossroads some US infantry had lurked with a BAZ that the Panther never percieved before he went up. In another situation, we were informed that shells in between 50 and 75mm were falling around our units. However, we could not "see" from where the fire was coming, which surely created an eerie feeling. Later, it turned out to be a Russian 57L Lend-Lease Halftrack at looong range. But before we found out, it was a tough decision for the Germans of whether to push down the open road in the open area despite the fire (and who knew if more was in stock) or to take cover and lose time. In yet another situation, our units were approached by a truck. When it came nearer, it turned out to be friendly. We were absolutely confused because our OOB did not list such a truck at all. Then one of our players said to Klaus: "My 8-1 here is located in the road. He steps out, calls to the Truck to stop it to inquire what this is all about." Splendid idea! The Truck stopped and the 'driver' (played by Klaus) told the 8-1 that he was from Supply Detachment 123 searching for unit XYZ to deliver a load of 75mm APCR shells but had lost his way. Our 8-1 answered (again splendid idea!) that the road to unix XYZ were blocked by the enemy but that our tanks in the treeline over yonder were short on APCR. So he talked the supply truck to dump the ammo there, raising our APCR-Depletion for the game by 2. During the further advance, we found a woods-road full of wagons and unarmed units. We were informed, that civilian refugees were clogging the road. We could either push trough relentless, likely causing some casualties in the process or to slow down to avoid just that. Our commander decided to push through. Bad idea! After our behaviour had caused some forseeable civilian casualties, some of them turned Partisan and began to attack our column with a few Panzerfausts. We had to place to go with our vehicles in the woods...
All this was great fun. It was ASL with a lot more fog of war without the omniscience we are otherwise used to. Furthermore, it contained some roleplaying elements.
The biggest issue was, that play was veery slow because Klaus had to move to and fro between rooms. Otherwise, exceptional fun.
Nowadays, play could be sped up in the following configuration:
Two teams in two separate rooms with physical kit. Three laptops, VASL & Skype connected. The referee "owns" all pieces, i.e. he can decide which counters both sides see. The other two laptops are one for Axis/Allies each. The Axis 'computer man' reports (but not moves himself) the move of a unit as directed by the players that move it on the physical board. The referee in the middle will handle the moves of all units in VASL. That way, the referee can decide, which units of which side can see/hear the enemy (which was handeled by DRs and DRMs in our setting). The Allied 'computer man' sees the referee's moves and reads them out to his team, which move the physical pieces.
Cheers,
von Marwitz