Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit Scenario Design Contest (2005)

Overview

The Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kits (ASLSK) depict World War II combat at the tactical (company-sized) level, using squad-sized units in an interactive phased turn sequence based on the original 1977 Squad Leader game. The game was intended as a gateway to the Advanced Squad Leader system created from the original Squad Leader in 1985.

Discussions at the Armchair General/Strategy Zone Online (SZO) forums in 2005 led some to surmise that the ASLSKs in many ways brought back the “feel” of the original Squad Leader, having just a handful of unit types, mapboards, and rules necessary in order to play. A controversial design aspect of that original Squad Leader game was the use of four mapboards, laid end-to-end, in the design of two of the twelve enclosed scenarios. From these discussions, a contest was announced on November 29, 2005, to see if it was possible to recreate the "feel" of those original scenarios using Starter Kit components.

Pete Shelling took the prize from among a talented field of contestants, including veteran gamer Murray McCloskey, Tom Morin, editor for Dispatches from the Bunker who has since seen his popular Valor of the Guards module released by MMP, Ola Nygards, whose Eastern Front scenarios have seen print in ASL Journal, Jean-Pascal Paoli, a regular contributor to French ASL magazine Le Franc Tireur, and veteran scenario designer Pete Shelling, who has had scenarios published in The General and ASL Journal in addition to various third party venues.

Scenarios include:

Scenario A: To the Soldiers of the Ostfront Scenario B: Exhausting But Productive Scenario C: Thank Heavens, We Lost Scenario D: Crimson Snow Scenario E: Glimmer of Hope Scenario F: Air Assault on Drvar Scenario G: Siege Without Shells Scenario H: Aidez L'Espagne!