ASL rules, tips, and tactics
Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in The Hazmo Horizons, Issue 1. I purposefully do not include a PDF in this document as Chuck and Chad make the Horizons issue available for free. Visit Hazardous Movement to get a download of this, and many other fine articles. In all of ASL, there are no more…
This article stems from a discussion that took place on my blog. A reader was trying to understand how and when a vehicle could Intensive Fire during its MPh. While the discussion was short, the implications of the question continued to puzzle me for a while. I had a discussion with my friend, and he…
Read More “The Basics of AFV Combat in ASL – Intensive Fire in Bounding First Fire” »
This article was originally published in From the Cellar #12 from Le Franc Tireur. Xavier has given me the green light to republish this article here. It was always my intent to place this article here, but only after sales of FTC 12 tailed off. LFT still has some in stock so please go get…
Today we examine A26.1x, Gaining Control. For a concept so essential to victory, it is alarming how many questions there are surrounding this topic. Sadly, I think much of the confusion lies in the rules’ language itself. Trying to be pithy made the rule more confusing than it should be. In this article, I will…
This article stems from a discussion that took place on the ASL Discord server. A user asked if people playing the Finns used their leaders differently because the Finnish units can self rally. JR VanMechelen provided a really nice answer, offering a broad overview of how to use leaders in ASL. Some of his thinking…
I attend a lot of ASL tournaments. I also take part in a lot of on-line ASL forums. Attendance allows me to meet and greet ASL players from all over the world. These meetings invariably reach a point where people recognize I am the author of this blog. Eventually the conversation gets around to when…
A fellow player asked a question on Discord regarding Motion Fire and Critical Hits. Specifically, he asked if an Original 1,1 is a Critical Hit when using Vehicular Target Type. Before we dive into this together, take a moment to see what you think. Got it? Good! I have written a whole series of articles…
This article stems from a discussion that occurred on the ASL Discord server. A member pointed out the A11.11 Close Combat Table on the QRDC says Sequential Close Combat (CC) (A11.3) is resolved in this order: Ambush, AFV, Prisoner. They then asked if this was incorrect and it should instead be Prisoners, Ambush, AFV instead. …
The area I most often get asked about, with regards to improving ASL play, is attacking with AFVs. Many players, it seems, are dissatisfied with their tactical play and feel they are not deriving the maximum benefits from their AFVs. Often they will declaim that their AFVs don’t last long and get destroyed by defending…
There has been some recent discussion regarding production of scenario packs. This led to discussions on selling packs in PDF format. From there discussion flowed into scanning existing scenarios. As part of this discussion, people have asked how do you scan existing scenarios? How do you organize them? Where do you store them? How do…
This article will examine a very narrow section of the rules. In it, we will explore when and how to apply Wall TEM to an AFV in a couple of different circumstances. For some, this is likely old news but for some others, this may help to shed some light on this section of the…
The best articles ever written about ASL are a series of articles written by Robert Medrow. These First Impressions articles appeared in The General magazine and delved into the mathematics of ASL. They are the first articles listed in the Resources section of my blog. They were among the first to look at ASL from…
Read More “A Summary of First Impressions: Armor Training” »
Today’s article borders on pedantic. Some might say it has built a castle well within pedantic lands. To be fair, I agree with the latter. This article briefly discusses the mechanics of bypass movement and how to represent it properly when moving your pieces across the board. Now some will ask “who cares?” Others will…
While working on the article covering Fortifications and Obstacles in ASL, I gave some thought to types of defenses in ASL. Sitting and thinking about it, I came up with five types of defense: area, point, defense in depth, mobile defense, and disruptive. Some of these seemed a little arbitrary to me, so I delved…
In a recent game, my opponent said something like this: “This is a 6 +1. Basically, a four even shot.” To be fair, I have heard this said far and wide by players at all skill levels. Let’s look and see how accurate this really is. For this discussion, we will ignore cowering. Let’s get…
Le Franc Tireur published my article Attacking In ASL – A Mid-Level Player’s Perspective in From the Cellar #12. I am very happy with how the article turned out and I hope people find it helpful. I originally intended this article for my blog but publishing it in FTC gives me a wider audience. This…
Read More “Attacking In ASL – A Mid-Level Player’s Perspective” »
“Fortification” is an ASL catch-all term used to describe various terrain changing features captured primarily on ⅝” counters. I believe this characterization is too generic, hiding a subclass in plain sight. In my opinion, it is more accurate to say there are “Fortifications” and “Obstacles.” In this article, I will seek to break down the…
Stop me if you have seen this. It is the Advance Phase and you or your opponent have just Advanced a unit into an enemy unit’s Location. You reach for a CC counter and place it on top of the Location. Have you ever considered why you do this? Can you point to a rule…
I recently published a correction to my first ever article here on my blog. While that article is now technically correct, it doesn’t accomplish what I set out to do: show how Banzai movement can provoke Final Protective Fire shots from the Defender. With that in mind, let’s re-examine that article and show how an…
This article is tangential to playing ASL. Speaking about storage systems is likely to cause a holy war akin to a classic IFT/IIFT debate. With that in mind, what I present here is simply my opinion and my approach to storage. My thinking about this topic has developed over two decades. I have had many…