To mark the 10th
Anniversary of Squad Leader, Rodger MacGowan's Fire &
Movement had a good article on the history of tactical
wargaming in their May-June 1987 issue. (On a personal note, this
article is what has inspired my ongoing interest in the history of
tactical gaming, and provides a good, solid (though brief)
background in the earliest years of the hobby from 1969 and the
release of Tac Game 3 up through the development of ASL).
Also published in that issue was an ASL scenario as well as these
two mapboards. Some interesting comments by the designer:
John Hill has
said that in creating Squad Leader he has found himself
"building" a system rather than "presenting" one. This way a
"very firm, solid game system would be created that would have
enough flexible handles that any combat effect could simply be
plugged in or out like a replaceable module."
I have taken him at his word. My introduction to the game was
such a delight that I began tailoring the game to suit my
wants almost immediately. I felt I had stepped back to
childhood, maneuvering my toy soldiers through the bunkers and
fortifications I had once constructed in my backyard.
Most changes were in graphics, simple alterations in the way
the game looked. Much as I had felt compelled to add color and
detail to my toy soldiers.
The first alteration was purely accidental. I was still
playing the first three scenarios and I had left a game set up
in my studio while I worked on another project. When I came
back to it, the sunlight striking a portion of the playing
field had faded some of the German counters to a lighter
shade. I like the faded counters better. They reminded me of
how the Germans' field uniforms were said to have faded with
wear. "These are my old vets," I decided. I then started to
experiment with other changes.
The German S.S. counters were one change. The black counters
provided in Cross of Iron were dramatic; they
introduced a psychological factor that I found awesome. But
still, the black was more appropriate, I felt, for Death Camp
guards (or Panzer crews). I experimented with new counters,
speckling the colors to resemble the battle dress the S.S.
soon adapted for use on the Russian steppes.
The "berserk" units were also revised. While I appreciated
their uniqueness, I felt their status shouldn't be so readily
obvious to one's opponent. I ordered a second set of regular
counters and placed a red dot over the morale factor of each
to indicate "berserk" status instead.
Some interesting
conclusions can be drawn from these comments; chiefly that some
artistic sensibilities should be kept as far away from wargame
design as humanly possible.
Some of the comments in the
previous blog entry on the Waffen SS may be of interest here.
Game players are not often uniform historians as well. My own
personal interest in these comments is as both, having published
three books on Canadian Army uniforms of the Second World War in
addition to some magazine and other articles on the subject. Ivy's
comments were, I hope, written for effect, as I've not read that
the German uniforms were any more prone to fading than anyone
else's, excepting those worn in the desert, which indeed faded
rapidly to almost white. The use of faded counters to represent
veterans, however, is something that comes up often among SL/ASL
players, and others, and is a reasonable comment.
The entire point of the berserk counters he mentions, however (and
for those who never played the original SL, they were bright red
for high contrast) was to do exactly what Ivy wishes they didn't -
"make their status readily obvious to one's opponent."
The maps
The maps illustrated above were part of Ivy's re-imagining of the
graphic presentation of Squad Leader. Veterans of the
system will recognize some immediate shortcomings as far as
applying them to SL/ASL, such as the layout of the walls.
The maps use a one-inch grid - slightly more comfortable than the
standard 5/8" SL/ASL boards, but the lack of hexes make them
difficult to position units so that covered arcs are clear, and
impossible to determine such things as ability to bypass obstacles
(a special rule permitting a unit to avoid the cost of terrain in
a hex by moving around it, IF there is sufficient room between the
obstacle and the hexside to do so).
Ivy's plan was to create eight of these boards, claiming that
wargaming "is more than an intellectual exercise. unlike Chess,
'mood' or 'feel' is critical. I need earthy browns and somber
grays, barren trees, stubbled fields, washed gullies, muddied and
rutted roads and cobble-stoned squares to put me there as much as
I need the rules." Citing a "'Springtime in Europe' school of
gameboard design", he derided the standard SL boards, saying "No
matter what the scenario called for - assaulting a block of
rowhouses in Stalingrad or defending a crossroads in the Ardennes
- my senses were insulted by the lush greens of a landscape in the
full flower of spring."
My final word
From a purely personal standpoint, I enjoy the full flower of
spring and don't require my senses to be badgered by depressing
imagery to "put me in the mood." I was much disappointed with the
3D world in Eric Young's Squad Assault, for example,
because it seemed so drab and depressing; even the simplistic
scenery of Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord seemed welcoming
and inviting. I think there is something to be said for lush
greens, frankly, though I would agree that Stalingrad in January
1943 and the Ardennes in December 1944 needn't look that way.
My question to you
Has anyone actually played on these maps marked C and D (one
source cites a B and C map) and has anyone ever seen the
others that were planned by Mr. Ivy? I do not imagine they were a
success for the ASL crowd, though they were billed as being
applicable to any game system of similar scale. The buildings are
so incredibly large, I suppose even a man-to-man game could have
made use of them.
