Another view on LFT’s Battle for Seoul map. So, I’ve been finding ASL’s interpretation of the Korean War quite interesting in The Forgotten War module. Then I read Mark Pitcavage’s really interesting critique of it on his excellent Desperation Morale site, and I think he makes really good points - particularly about how Chinese forces are portrayed, as well as several “grudge” rules additions (bayonet charges, HEAT ammo deflection). I haven’t been totally sold yet on the Infantry Platoon Movement rules just as a game mechanism, but Mark points out that they are also highly suspect historically (as is the nerfed Chinese leadership structure) as the CPVA units that intervened in Korea were battle-hardened and capable units; certainly more tactically proficient than many early Soviet or Rumanian or late-war Japanese units which suffer no similar penalty in ASL. Now, I get that it’s a game and you make choices to evoke a historical flavor and that means by necessity heightening contrasts. The baseline 6 morale for US units has always been a choice that was maybe hard to defend on strictly modeling grounds, but when combined with their 6 firepower rating made US units play differently and in a way that did heighten different approaches to small unit tactics that could easily have been lost if the had been rated more “realistically”. The CVPA and the US, ROK, and other UN forces did fight quite differently in the Korean War, and the design does portray that quite well by exaggerating differences in a similar way. But I do suspect that extra restrictive rules like IPM probably went too far, and the game would have been better off without them. Anyway, if you play ASL, go read Mark’s writeup on desperationmorale.com, as well as the designers’ response in the comments. I like the module and am glad to have it; but Mark makes excellent points. #advancedsquadleader #boardgamegeek #boardgames #consimworld #aslkorea (at Game Kastle - Santa Clara) https://www.instagram.com/p/B85BJTVBrv0/?igshid=13sg19tn8x1d5
