November / December 2011 Volume 5, Issue 6

We come into this issue with a look at one of the Desert Rats free scenarios available from ASL WebDex, for download. This one takes us to Herr Major Becks stand at Hellfire Pass in 1941. Next, in part due to more than a few requests by ASL opponents/ friends for tips on these; I have taken liberty to rate the playability factors of the many various and sundry Mini- CGs out there, both official, and TPP, of which I own and therefore have at least some familiarity with. If your particular fav item isnt in the list, it isnt because I felt it didnt meet the requirements of being called a Mini- CG, it is more that I do not nor ever have owned a copy of it for myself to feel any ability to comment upon it. We will also be looking at the freebie of the Provence Pack, a long- available and somewhat maligned set of scenarios almost every ASL player can get by downloading them from MMP, yet rarely played nowadays. Without further ado..

Inside this Issue

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

PREP FIRES The Editors column. BOUNDING FIRE

An Independent Journal of ASL Thoughts and Ideas

Published free of charge by the Silicon Valley and Nor Cal ASL Clubs. If you paid for this, you need to get your money back! ASL is a registered Trademark of Hasbro Inc. and Multiman Publishing Inc. Artwork includes counter art and map art from Rodney Kinneys brilliant creation of VASL. This artwork is used with permission from Mr. Kinney. Thanks to both Mr. Kinney and Carl Fago for the quality work on one truly innovative product for our hobby!

AAR: Desert Rats the rarely played scenarios. DR3 Hellfire Pass HASL in Miniature the MiniCGs rated by one biased opinion and how they stack up. The Provence Pack why you SHOULD play at least a few of these. Club News: SVASL and Nor Cal ASL Club info CLOSE COMBAT Ordering information

Prep Fires
Silicon Valley ASL Club publishes Point Blank as a non-profit magazine. The editor is Jon Halfin Please submit any articles or comments to the Editor at witchbottles@gmail.com All submissions become subject to the rules of this publication upon inclusion. Articles are accepted in any electronic format. Please include artwork maps or variant counters in a separate .gif,.jpg or .bmp file.

Your Editor, Jon Halfin Welcome to the end of 2011! Its been an entire year full of events and ASL related gear for every interest, to be sure. For the gotta have it all collector, it has been an expensive year for ASL, too! With too many products to list being released, and the many exciting and a few tragic events to our hobby this year, it has certainly been a time of change for us all.

(My GS Forum Avatar, for those who may not have noticed )

Bounding Fire
Having placed that all important Pre order for my own copy of FB, I am now looking forward to seeing RS in 2012, or by WO 2013 at the latest, and this will be the pinnacle, I believe for ASL in 2012. With the purchase of the HASL module, it brought up the concepts of

CGs vs. mini CGs vs. standard scenarios for regular FTF meeting playing within our local ASL play group. Let me first state to each his own ASL is much too specialized of a niche hobby market to assume there is a Standard ASL player or a standard for ASL play. Some prefer HASLs and CGS (me included) some do not desire to play them at all. With that in mind our rousing debate was insightful and modified my thinking on the preference for the mini CG in particular, and the freebie scenarios out there for anyone to use. I look forward to the opportunity to acquire and analyze those small sized HASL units I do not as yet own in 2012, but for now, it is not in my ability to do so very quickly, so my desire for 2012 is to receive my FB copy, to order and receive a copy of B and J before it goes impossible to find, and to find a reasonably priced copy of Journal #6 to complete my collection of? Annuals / Journals. Then, money will get stashed for the Wheres RS? account, and if I actually have any leftovers, Ill go looking for some TPP HASL smaller items, topping that list is Carnage at Cassino by CH. We all wonder if GameSquad forums will end or dissipate come the New Year. There has been debate, and Don Maddox has told everyone of the possible changes or demise of the forums. Given that most ASL players would of course make some donation towards the idea of retention, there is also the fact that most of us could not afford to continue to do so month after month, and this would in the end result in demise of this wonderful resource. I personally feel that if / when the times change, most of the ASL users, me included, will migrate to other resources not as easily usable as GS Forums, such as CSW or BGG boards. Until then, well issue one very welcome round of thanks and sincere appreciation to Don

Maddox, for what he has brought us for a number of years has performed above and beyond the call of our hobby.

AAR: Desert Rats #3 Hellfire Pass

(A playing of one of the very rarely played free DR pack scenarios from ASL WebDex website) With the drive in my personal ASL to return to the desert and the many ASL DTO related projects Ive taken on in 2011, I thought to bring my AAR thoughts and some views of our recent game to everyone. My esteemed opponent, Andrew Kerekes, conceded after both the 88 ATGs faulted out on Turn 3, but this was an interesting scenario, that perhaps was a case of just being too brittle to be too popular, similar to Barkmanns Corner ( DASL 15). To begin, the 88s and their supporting infantry get to set up on the Escarpment, overlooking a plain desert board, giving them a huge advantage in LOS to begin with, but also allowing the Brits to consider using either side Wadi as a covered approach towards a secret VC area as designed in the scenario. This alone forces the German commander to consider from 2 basic strategies. #1 fights from the Center in

an inverted V formation with both ATGs in the center front, or split the defense to cover the approaches to both of the board side wadis. The layout favors a split approach, but a center V approach is also a viable, if less considered option. For the Brits, it will be a straight choice of 2 entries, either all left or all right to run up a wadi to the designated VC area, while taking advantage of the smoke making, the pre game smoke bombardment, and the veh dust walls to avoid too heavy casualties. The designer leaves a bit of confusion as to the exact procedure for the pre game smoke, but careful reading shows this will only be dispersed smoke in a standard OBA layout by MPh1a beginning. No too much to prevent possible hits, but every bit helps. I decided on a top left up the left side wadi entry and VC area, figuring a hard push on in the first two turns should leave me enough to hold the VC area from the wadi in crest / HS status for a win. Accordingly, the OBA pregame went down to cover the board edge entry, and all AFVs came on CE and firing smoke dischargers and smoke grenades, with all infantry going DT to get close to the wadi. The 88s fired, and 2 dead AFVs. Turn 2 saw my approach to try to get the 88 on my side so the rest could reach the cover of the wadi, and a very lucky 51* mtr smoke hit on the 88 hex itself helped tremendously here. The 88s fired again, 1 malfs, 1 dead AFV, 1 immobilized AFV. Turn 3 sees my troops reach the wadi cover and begin to move up the Escarpment. The far 88 (malfd) Xs out on the RPh repair dr, and the smoked 88 fires, kills, fires IF, and rolls a 6, 6. At this point in the DFP3a, there was little chance of causing any more casualties to me without the T5b reinforcements, so my opponent conceded.

close. This acts much in the same way as the SSRs do in Barkmanns Corner, making the scen a battle of not getting a bad set of DR / dr , as there is absolutely no way to recover from them if it happens. Perhaps an SSR that prevents the 88Ls from using IF would be the fix this needs to maintain balance throughout the scenario. Overall, it was a fun DTO play with dust. And a mild breeze for the SMOKE cover; and a nice non official use of the E1 overlay. Now Id like to try the Supercharge scenario from this set one fine day!

Beginning setup of German defenses and entering Brit units. The Top left roundel is the secret VC location. The 10-2 and other 88L are guarding the opposite side of the map.

HASL In Miniature
Rating the playability of the MiniCG sets across a wide spectrum for the use in a regular ftf play session schedule. One of my now more constant FTF opponents who normally has steered away from the Operational / Grand Tactical level of ASL presented in the majority of the more well versed HASL modules like RB and VotG had spiked my interest in one of our informal ASL chats about the usefulness of still enjoying certain HASL CGs in a regular FTF meet setting, where there is not the capacity nor availability to leave

I think this scenario hinges very hard on the 88s, their initial position and their viability. If they both fail in operation, or if they are not set up to provide a good interlocking field of fire for maximum casualties to the approaching Brit armor, the game will fail to be even

large maps and many counters set up for long periods of time. Our conversations naturally turned to those among the group of HASL products, both official and TPP, that would be of perfect size in allowing a single CG date playing in each FTF session, and easy and complete takedown and storage of all the appropriate maps and markers between playing. With that in mind, I began really examining a number of HASL modules and Mini CGs I owned but did not have large amounts of play time with. This was the results of that examination, in no particular order per se. Sand and Blood: The GT CG one of the first to fall under a possible heading of a mini CG, however, it became far more than that, almost a full blown HASL in and of itself. The 3 scens individually in this set make up a VERY good primer on the full use of PTO rules, from IJA to jungle, to caves , to seaborne Assaults, to Naval gunfire. The CG, however, is anything but small and easy to handle. It is small, but it is also a VERY long, drawn out and bloody fights for both sides and not all players have managed to pass their personal MCs from initial losses in the 1st 2 CG dates to make it to the finish. To do so, is four complete 10 game turn scens, one of them being a night scen with a "re - set up required. A long haul indeed for the cardboard warriors and their human commander. Next up is one that really isnt a Mini CG it was presented in the Annual, but it IS very well conducive to becoming just that, a series of 4 scenarios played in Sequence for a best of 4. The Nphum Ga Map and related scenarios of A115, 116,117 and 118. This makes a very nice full PTO without the Seaborne Assault and Cave rules. Some of these scens might be longer than your average pair of ASL players could commit to a single FTF date, however, and this is a prime consideration for this category.

Moving into Journal 1; we look at the J9 - J10- J11-J12 best of 4 mini for Malaya campaign "The Gin Drinker's Line" mini - CG. The only carry over between scens is final VCs are best of 4 for the win. As it is played only on geo maps, with full PTO in effect, and all the scens are average or tourney length, this one certainly looks to be a winner in the play 1 per FTF meet category , at least insofar as PTO is concerned. Journal 2 brought us Steve Swanns beautiful work: KR. J13-J14-J15-J16-J17 played best 3 of 5 for a win for a possible mini CG and full PTO + caves and its own HASL map. The only drawback in our review is the cave complexes and movement rules between them, along with the full PTO rules and a longer scenario or two will make this again possibly not ideal for finishing each scen in a single FTF meet. Next in the chute we have the Journal 4 Plains of Steel Mini CG, LOTS of SSRs to establish the "refit" phase per se, best of 3 scens played, all are very well done however. J52-J53-J54 and none are very long. This makes one of the most ideal set ups for the conditions we are looking at, lots of combined arms action, Ost Front style, and armor battles to boot, all in a neat and tidy inter-related package. Perhaps the item to get the #1 all around vote for best to meet the requirements. If the J1 Malaya setup would be the #1 for PTO related, this setup in Journal 5: The Alam Halfa Mini CG. Is perfect for the DTO and Night rules. With a Matrix for VCs and refit steps per se in the article. Best of 3 scens matricing the VPs from each in turn for the CG "win" J79-80-81 in turn. All DTO rules are here in effect and night in the last one, too. The hands down DTO winner in this bantam weight HASL division. Adding in the Cptr E rules into our bantam weight division contenders, and we begin with the Journal 7, the

Croatian Air Brigade Mini CG best of scens J107-108-109 no refit items to handle, ETO and some chtpr E only. Small and a good starter setup for this type of mini HASL. Is Late war ETO the forte to play? Then look no further than the Journal 9, Nuremburg Mini CG best of 3 scens matriced against the article CVP losses from each and a miniature "Refit phase" actions between scens are J143-144-145. ETO only some of these scens are very large though, and perhaps this might detract from the contention of finishing each scen in a single ASL play session. These are the ones I have that are official small CGs that are playable, with their details. Now for the TPP small CGs that lend themselves well to this: Starting with what I might put as #2 contender in the TPP category-CH: Cemetery Hill - nice small OoB and well balanced CG, 8 dates, minimum of effort with the ETO and airdrops involved, and some broken terrain rules from Cptr F. (olive groves etc.) the RePh rules (PL 2.5 and 3.0 are hard to decipher sometimes. If there is any detraction, and the ultimate reason Id place this one firmly at #2 in TPP offerings to fit our requirements, it is the PL CG rules themselves). We add this one only for completeness of my collection of ASL gear, not for its playability.CH: Grain Elevator a completely historical sim of the situation, a total washout to play as completely unbalanced. Perfect shining example of a good sim is not a balanced scen; however, nice small HASL map and easy to handle items make this one a possibility in a noob vs. grognard matchup (and the only really good urban city fight in the entire matchup.) CH: TRBH CG - well done full PTO even seaborne Assaults in effect, but small and easy to handle OoBs and well designed for 1 play per CG

date. Again, you must resort to deciphering the PL rules for the RePh items. In fact, the only drawback here is the PL CG rules, but in this instance, their ill interpretation effects are minimal to say the least. This design to accommodate the PL CG rule gaps has moved this one firmly into my #1 choice among the TPP offerings. All of these lend themselves well to this type of an endeavor, any of them I have in personal possession and have played. I have many other HASLs Official and TPP (HASL is MY thang), but they, like the GT- CG are not really well suited to finishing 1 CG date per playing session.

ended abruptly after many of the American made tanks went up in SMOKE as it were, one after the other. Shortly thereafter, I devoured a very interesting strategy article on PP10, and the play therein of a very interesting smaller scenario of multi national origins. Fast forward to 2009, and I got the opportunity to play out as Free French, to a last turn loss of PP1 vs. the esteemed Albert Kirkpatrick. I am and remain firmly convinced that despite any possible balance issues these scens may have, there are several items going for them that make the pay of the Provence Pack well worth your time: 1. Size- every one of these scens is well suited to a single session playing. There are no hugantic and ginormous monster scens here, and no over in 2 hours 4 GT scens, either. Orders of Battle: Each of these is very good examples of tourney sized combined arms late war fighting. Interesting VCs and twists in the SSRs make for some very intriguing actions, from the friendly fire to variable reinforcements.

Club News:
Having passed our Contact DR with 8s all around; heres the news from our local ASL scenes.

SVASL Club:
SVASL Club regular meetings are scheduled for the 4th Saturday of every month, at the game room of the Game Kastle, located at 1350 Coleman Ave., Santa Clara, CA 95050 ph: 408-727-2452 http://www.gamekastle.com Everyone is welcome to post to the Club board at the Yahoo Group Website if you would like to pre-arrange a scenario or opponent.

I hope this run down may help those considering such an endeavor. We hope to find one or two of these to become our regular FTF play CGs, and look forward to the rest as good all around HASL, after all, all HASL is good ASL

2.

Nor Cal ASL Club:

Nor Cal ASL Club has three separate meeting locations for the ASL players in the group. The primary one is 2nd Saturdays at: Location: Olde World Games, 123 Peabody Road, Vacaville Street: 123 Peabody Road City State Zip: Vacaville Phone: 707-455-8445 Opening bell is at 11 am and closing bell is at 11 pm. See you there. We have subsidiary groups meeting throughout the valley also most notably: The Miniature Wargaming Society of Sacramento meetings is only on Sundays, at the Carmichael library here in Sacramento. We have 2-3 ASL players involved so if you come up for a

3.

Provence Pack- Revisited:

Why every ASL player should avail themselves of a good playing from this free scenario collection Many years ago, in the bad ole days of VASL 3.x versions, I had the rare opportunity to have Mark McGilchrist promptly and without ado, hand my poor Free French tanks a resounding loss in PP7, in a PBEM match that

The best reason of all to try these, theyre 100% free for download from MMP, making them a guarantee of availability to both players in any ALS game. If youve never tried one of these, give the Free French a whirl, who cares if theyre represented by Brit 457s or American 667s? ASL isnt always the perfect simulation, just a good, well developed game.

day trip, let us know in advance and we can get you into a game. And also: There's also a small group playing ASL on the 1st and 3rd Sundays at Endgame in downtown Oakland. The NorCal ASL group hosted their winter ASL game Day with prizes: without further ado, heres Dennis with the AAR:

day. He rolled 8 '12s' in one game. The prize was $100 in Border's gift certificates! Oh! Bad luck Gary! Thanks for being such a good sport, by-the-way. Mike won the ''Best Sport" artwork award (made and donated by Steve Bowen). This was awarded to the person who made the most personal morale checks and remained calm during play. (See the pictures for details). Mike earned it esp. after a series of very lucky British OBA attacks and ensuing unlucky Italian MCs, on top of piles of malf'd Italian ordnance and SWs.

Defensive Fires

Opponents wanted:
Seeking VASL PBEM opponents for HASL related items of all sizes and shapes and manufacture . I prefer IFT. Please e-mail me at witchbottles@gmail.com if you are interested.

Hello all, Here is a re-cap of Saturday's meet: Mike and I played "A Push in the Bush" - and Italian vs. British 1940 from one of the EuroPacks. We called it at 9 pm as our brains were mushified. I would like to play it again as the Italians had a tough job of defending and the Brits a tough time getting through all that wire. Gary and Jeffrey (back after a 10 year hiatus) played "A Helping Hand". Germans vs. US paratroopers - I heard lots of laughter and saw lots of smiles so I think they had a good time. Everyone put in $5 towards a store credit prize which Gary won. Jeffrey and I won a set of CounterSmith's pack #4 - the British and American turret counters. Mike scored Wild Bill Guarnere's book "Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends" along with the autographs of Lou Vecchi and George Whitworth, both vets of 'the real' Easy Company - the outfit portrayed in the Band of Brothers series.. Gary won the Box Cars award, which was presented to him for having the worst luck of the Congratulations to all! Thanks for coming out to play. Thanks too to all of the generous sponsors, and those who donated prizes or their time. Regards, Dennis

Letters to the Editor:

Hello, Good job on the newsletter. Thanks for keeping a 'finger on the pulse' as they say. Steve mentioned that you two really clicked and had a good couple of games. Will we see you Saturday?

With all of these options, we hope that any ASL player in the greater Bay / Valley Area can make contact and find a game! If you are new to the greater Bay / Delta area in Northern CA and play ASL, please contact any one of our groups, and we can get you networked into the local ASLrs for some games and meeting dates. Most of our local ASL players are available at varying times to arrange some FTF play, regardless of your location about the Bay. Sounding Off!

-Dennis Thanks very much Jon! Mark Humphries

Hi Jon, Thanks much for that. Very nice issue. The Bedouin Blitz scenario sounds intriguing. What boards is that played on? I was a little abashed to see my name so boldly in print. The shy part of me would probably have preferred "Anonymous FtF Player" :)

I've been working away on my modified-SASL project. I'm trying to fix the two glaring problems that I see in SASL. First the way that VPO and S? are scattered over two or more maps. Company sized units simply were not told things like "Go out and capture 5 widely spread victory locations over many square miles". They were given a single objective and pointed towards it. Second is the poor way that SASL handles armor and activations that include armor. I've come up with a system that pleases me fairly well. I just need

to run it through its paces a few times and then I hope to get together a couple of missions and special rules section. Hopefully I'll have the completed missions (or at least one) ready by the next Point Blank! Steve Also read Point Blank, very nice article. Especially like the Sherman vs. Panther article, though how do you take on 8 Panthers and 6 King Tigers? LOL!!!! Cheers Andrew

Point Blank! A product of The Silicon Valley ASL Club and Nor Cal ASL Club Published completely free of charge No material from this publication may be sold of exchanged for goods without written consent from the Editor. Otherwise, all material may be reproduced for FREE distribution or revision into other FREE magazines, or personal use, only.

Close Combat
For SVASL Club membership or questions, please visit our WebPages at: Http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SVASL Witchbottles@gmail.com

Distributed via E-mail or Direct Download as a free newsletter and journal of the SVASL, and Nor Cal ASL Clubs

For Nor Cal ASL Club membership or questions, visit our Website at:
Http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/norcalasl

I am always accepting articles. You dont need to be a whiz as ASL to write about ASL. Look at me! If you would like to submit an article, see Pg.1 notes.

Subscriber Name Older volume Back issues of Point Blank! Are still available by Current E-mail address, complete. E-mail only. Please forward your email address to >>>>>>>>>>

Or, look for our newsletters posted to the files sections of our Yahoo! Groups WebPages for your download convenience. We also post the download links to GameSquad ASL Forums.

*Note Copyrights to the articles herein are still jointly held by their respective authors. Please see the Close Combat box for details on use in the Public Domain*

Point Blank

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