Opening a can of worms: Advice on the Quality of Critical Hit Games

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Let's establish this critical point (pun intended) right from the start. Firstly, I have been away from ASL for some years now. Now that the kids are gone and I have some money to spend and time to spend it, I am plunging back into ASL with a vengeance, replacing old modules, trying to obtain on ebay what I missed and spreading my ASL wings in researching what is out there of interest. Naturally, I ran into Critical Hit, Bounding Fire, Heat of Battle and other third party publishers on ebay and began searching around for information about their products. Critical Hit in particular seemed to feature a large and diverse catalog on a wide variety of WW2 situations. In looking for reviews my search turned up the website Desperation Morale. (I am sure you are all snickering at this point) Needless to say, the operator of DM is not a fan of Critical Hit products. He gives product by product descriptions in which he applies his Brumbar like die roll against each one and uses adjectives like "sloppy, half baked, badly researched, overpriced, ect" to illustrate his point. My open question to the forum is, DM's viewpoint aside, how do you see the quality and playability of products from Critical Hit?

Stephen
 

Nineteen Kilo

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Let's establish this critical point (pun intended) right from the start. Firstly, I have been away from ASL for some years now. Now that the kids are gone and I have some money to spend and time to spend it, I am plunging back into ASL with a vengeance, replacing old modules, trying to obtain on ebay what I missed and spreading my ASL wings in researching what is out there of interest. Naturally, I ran into Critical Hit, Bounding Fire, Heat of Battle and other third party publishers on ebay and began searching around for information about their products. Critical Hit in particular seemed to feature a large and diverse catalog on a wide variety of WW2 situations. In looking for reviews my search turned up the website Desperation Morale. (I am sure you are all snickering at this point) Needless to say, the operator of DM is not a fan of Critical Hit products. He gives product by product descriptions in which he applies his Brumbar like die roll against each one and uses adjectives like "sloppy, half baked, badly researched, overpriced, ect" to illustrate his point. My open question to the forum is, DM's viewpoint aside, how do you see the quality and playability of products from Critical Hit?

Stephen
Stephen, you are a little vague on what you already own, but if you don't already have the official MMP stuff you should spend your hard earned cash there before moving on to third party products.

If you're covered on MMP and are wanting to start on 3rd Parties you should begin with: Bounding Fire, LFT, Friendly Fire, Heat of Battle, Dispatches from the Bunker, Schwerepunkt, & Lone Cannuck - in no particular order. After all that, if you still have the desire to spend cash then I would turn to CH. (personally I've found that is MORE than enough ASL, but we each have our own limits)

CH products need more individual scrutiny and investigation before you purchase. Some are just flat unplayable while others are fine; but why take that chance when you have all those other reliable choices available?

My two cents.
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Thank you Kilo.....apology for the vague outline of ownership. I do own all the primary modules for ASL, all the Action Packs, ASL Annuals / Journals and several HASL products, even a couple from Heat of Battle, though frustratingly, I missed out on Budapest and long ago Tawara. So I gather from your comments that CH does have some serious problems. From what I read, which was fairly exhaustively, on DM's website, the only CH product that he liked was Breaking the Gothic Line, which had been developed and tested by an Italian ASL group.

Stephen
 
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Nineteen Kilo

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Thank you Kilo.....apology for the vague outline of ownership. I do own all the primary modules for ASL, all the Action Packs, ASL Annuals / Journals and several HASL products, even a couple from Heat of Battle, though frustratingly, I missed out on Budapest and long ago Tawara. So I gather from your comments that CH does have some serious problems. From what I read, which was fairly exhaustively, on DM's website, the only CH product that he liked was Breaking the Gothic Line, which had been developed and tested by an Italian ASL group.

Stephen
Yes some have "serious problems". I finally bailed on CH a few years ago due to running into more than one clunker (and price also becomes a factor even for the decent products).

Rather than beat up on CH I'll say that I've played and enjoyed Ian Daglish's All American series of games set in Normandy. Also the CH! Magazines have some fun scenarios - Land of the Khan is in my top 50 (but again others have issues).

Bottom line with CH it is best not to ask, "Is CH any good?" but rather to ask the more specific "Is CH's Product X any good?". Despite all the vitriol aimed at CH, folks on these boards will tell you if they like a certain CH product (sometimes grudgingly).
 

xenovin

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CH Positives: most recent modules have very nice maps, counters, and color rules/cards. They also may have the only module on a particular battle or obscure engagement. Quickly put out products that the ASL community wants (winterized boards, personal counters, etc.). Most products always in print or shortly reprinted (see negative below).

CH Negative: recycled products with different names so need to always confirm what you are buying, within the last 2-3 years the cost (seems to be 2x to 3x what you would think they would sell for - seems to have something to do with a new color printing press), playability can be an issues (like a scenario deployment areas may be wrong - so frustrating), some players don't like the switch to new 11x17 panels for HASL maps but works well when you only need a portion of a larger map. Some questionable choices about reprinting variant forms of products from different publishers.

As stated above, their products are hit or miss so do a little research first. There is tons of ASL out there so be an informed consumer!
 

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As others have noted, CH products should be assumed to be crap until proven otherwise. It has been a while since I have spent cash money for a CH product, but looking at the catalog, even the good stuff has been priced to the point of ridiculous on release/re-title.

If you can get your hands on a used reasonably priced copy of Dien Bien Phu get it.

You are much better served by getting Bounding Fire, Friendly Fire, LFT, SP, or HOB stuff.
 

Paul M. Weir

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I have most of CH stuff from it's early days until a few years ago. CH was to me the 'rough and ready' or 'cheap and cheerful' end of the ASL market. It definitely is no longer 'cheap'. The pluses were the older historical maps. Proof reading, editing, rules clarity and play testing were always a bit hit and miss. A few years ago CH put out some geo maps (IE 22"x11"), but with most the hex grids did not line up with MMP, BFP or LFT maps. Their counters did get steadily better.

The changing standards for maps, increasing prices and proliferation of versions finally did it for me and I gave up about two years ago. If CH was a coke dealer, you would have initially got 30% glucose, 70% coke, now it's seems more like 50% glucose, 10% white lead and 40% coke for 3 times the price. CH's best years seem to have been from roughly 2008 to 2012, so some of those might be worth looking at if you found a retailer with older stock, but I would not be too enthusiastic.

While I don't have the range of TPP stuff that are mentioned in DM, I will list in order of preference: BFP, LFT, FrF, LCP and SP. Both BFP and LFT are absolute 'must have's for me, quality is up there with MMP. HoB was on my 'must have' list, but is now almost dead. Just beware that some HoB stuff has or will be repeated by BFP, HoB's HG and BtB stuff are in BFP's HG2 and BtB2 which have double the boards and scenarios. HoB's OtO stuff will be in a future BFP product. The other HoB stuff is worth getting, price dependent of course.

The bottom like is BFP and LFT first. FrF and SP are purely scenario packs, though 1 FrF contained a nice geo map. LCP's bag is a mix of some mini-HASL with paper maps and mainly scenario only packs. I can't comment on other TPP as I don't have any. If there is a particular CH subject that particularly interests you then maybe, but I would not loose any sleep about CH in general.

BFP = Bounding Fire Productions
LFT = Le Franc Tireur
SP = Schwerpunkt (Sherry Enterprises)
FrF = Friendly Fire
LCP = Lone Canuck Publishing
HoB = Heat of Battle
 
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Now friends, a follow up question would be....since CH reads the same posts we do and is certainly not deaf to customer complaints then why hasn't these people cleaned up their act and responded to the multitude of justified criticism? Is CH mostly silent on these complaints? Considering that the ASL community is rather small, actually tiny, in comparison to followers of Eve Online , Magic cards, World of Tanks, D&D, and so on, one would think that companies such as CH would be motivated to keep the ASL community happy and purchasing their products.

Stephen
 

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Now friends, a follow up question would be....since CH reads the same posts we do and is certainly not deaf to customer complaints then why hasn't these people cleaned up their act and responded to the multitude of justified criticism? Is CH mostly silent on these complaints? Considering that the ASL community is rather small, actually tiny, in comparison to followers of Eve Online , Magic cards, World of Tanks, D&D, and so on, one would think that companies such as CH would be motivated to keep the ASL community happy and purchasing their products.

Stephen
:popc1:


This one could be good.............
 

Jazz

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Now friends, a follow up question would be....since CH reads the same posts we do and is certainly not deaf to customer complaints then why hasn't these people cleaned up their act and responded to the multitude of justified criticism? Is CH mostly silent on these complaints? Considering that the ASL community is rather small, actually tiny, in comparison to followers of Eve Online , Magic cards, World of Tanks, D&D, and so on, one would think that companies such as CH would be motivated to keep the ASL community happy and purchasing their products.

Stephen
Ray sells product lines other than ASL.

I suspect that the only reason he continues to sell ASL compatible products is that it is the only way he can continue to thumb his nose at the Dotts (former owners of AH that tried to sue him) and MMP. It is a very easy (if you're not worried about quality or balance) translation from his ATS system to ASL. The fact that he has to recycle existing products under new names, with little-no new content or quality control, and at exorbitant prices is an indication of just what he needs to do to make it profitable. There will always be a given number of gamerz with spare cash that will buy anything that has an historical map and/or counters.

I used to be one myself until I realized that I was only getting glorified playtest kits and not real products.

<shrug>
 

Nineteen Kilo

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Now friends, a follow up question would be....since CH reads the same posts we do and is certainly not deaf to customer complaints then why hasn't these people cleaned up their act and responded to the multitude of justified criticism? Is CH mostly silent on these complaints? Considering that the ASL community is rather small, actually tiny, in comparison to followers of Eve Online , Magic cards, World of Tanks, D&D, and so on, one would think that companies such as CH would be motivated to keep the ASL community happy and purchasing their products.

Stephen
Tread carefully Stephen, you're about to step on the third rail of ASL. Safer to just look through the archived posts on the subject.
 

Proff3RTR

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Tread carefully Stephen, you're about to step on the third rail of ASL. Safer to just look through the archived posts on the subject.
As Kevin has very wisely pointed out, do not wake this sleeping monster up, it tends to get messy.
 

xenovin

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I suspect that the only reason he continues to sell ASL compatible products is that it is the only way he can continue to thumb his nose at the Dotts
That would be one hell of a grudge to turn out ASL for 20 years to spite somebody who probably isn't even still alive! I'm sure is puts a grin on RT's face for whatever market share he has but I would think there is an underlying interest in the game to keep CH going all these years. Now if Ray sent the Dotts a box full of SMC severed heads, than I might have to agree with you :devious:
 

Jazz

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That would be one hell of a grudge to turn out ASL for 20 years to spite somebody who probably isn't even still alive! I'm sure is puts a grin on RT's face for whatever market share he has but I would think there is an underlying interest in the game to keep CH going all these years. Now if Ray sent the Dotts a box full of SMC severed heads, than I might have to agree with you :devious:
So, I go to the CH! web site. I see listed (in order) Moments in History, ATS, ASLComp, and BRL1192 (whatever the hell that is?). I would be curious to know what sorts of revenue he generates from these various categories. I have very serious doubts that he has any interest in the future and health of the game of ASL, but thats just me.

When the Dotts and MMP went after Ray, they raided his business, which also happened to be his home. More than enough to foster a serious grudge IMMHO. I know I would.

Lets not fool ourselves. Ray has not been cranking out ASL. The various contributors that designed the products for him were the ones cranking out ASL content. He only took the stuff in, mucked with it as needed to fit his needs, and turned the crank on some print runs.
 

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Nah, I think ass er I mean jazz has all the bases covered thus far but he fails to mention he still buys ch stuff, this was told to me by his fellow Colorado buddy Snudle who lives in France now. BTW Bob when are we going to play?


Scott
Ask Gunner Scott what he thinks. Lol.
 
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Jazz

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Nah, I think ass er I mean jazz has all the bases covered thus far but he fails to mention he still buys ch stuff, this was told to me by his fellow Colorado buddy Snudle who lives in France now. BTW Bob when are we going to play?


Scott
You actually listen to Hundsdorfer?

I have not seen each other for something like 5+ years. I had stopped buying CH a long time before that. He thinks I should have defended him here instead of calling him on his BS. He'll friggin tell any story that serves his purposes and blame it on being mentally damaged goods, which he is proud to tell you he is.

If you want to take him at his word, go for it. You'll just end up looking more the fool than you do already.
 

bendizoid

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Tapio still owes me 20 bucks for beating him arm wrestling 12 or so years ago. I have witnesses. So I wont buy any Critical $h!t until then.
 
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