Tigers on the hunt

[Richie61]

SL/ ASL maps in the editor? Try around 60 plus maps. 44 new scenarios added since last week. Squad Leader classics and ASL ones too. Plus a few custom ones.

No multi story buildings or sewers yet. But Peter has big plans for new modules and features.


TotH does the book keeping like in SL/ ASL/ Band of Brothers/ Conflict of Heroes or any other board game.

I fought behind the scenes during beta testing about PBEM or MP. I thought the public wouldn't go for it, but I was wrong.

It's not a 100% ASL game. It has some rules and not others. Course games that came after SL uses lot of the same numbers and factors. The Advanced Tobruk games (old AH title), Lock N Load games and the new Old School Tacical
game system all use the same scales, movement points per terrain and other pieces that mirror or copy SL/ ASL.
Same goes for the phases of a turn. The SL sections of phased turns has been copied in part or whole by lots of companies. GMT and even the Panzer Command PC titles used a SL type phased turns setup.

Peter the designer did start this in 2006 and was working with MMP to produce an ASL PC game. MMP bailed. Guess MMP only has the rights to produce board games and not PC games of the old AH titles. Peter then went back and overhauled the game engine and change around game factors to get rid of the ASL format.

I am very happy with TotH so far and I am having a blast playing solo games and making SL scenarios. I still love SB too. :)

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

The no pbem sucks, but am still probably going to pick up the game, more than likely at the end of the month. As I mentioned somewhere, it is always a possibility to have a website where players can show up and wait for opps to play right there and when finished, jump in another one. That would be the next best thing if no option for one turn pbem like Squad battles has. Even if it was like 10 bucks a month. Better than having to go through connecting to another's IP address.

I have been trying to get to Matrix forums, but no matter what I do, it logs me in as guest so I cannot post anything. Richie, you said you did the SL/ASL look for units, I think. What I was going to mention or ask is how difficult would it be to modify some of the units, specifically AFVs and at guns, arty etc for their facing. I think it looks a bit goofy to have an AT gun pointing down and to the right, but firing at enemy up and left. Same with vehicles, the non turret gun vehicles just always point in the direction the front of the vehicle is facing, but a modification would be done for the turreted vehicles. If I remember correctly, the SL/ASL had generic turret pieces to enable pointing gun one way while vehicle face another.

As for the maps, I was just wondering if one is able to create those boards and then grab them and drop them, rotated or not when having to use the same board in other scenarios. It appears I probably won't have to worry about that by the time I get the game.

I also cannot remember, was there mention somewhere about a random battle generator? Even choosing how large q force you wanted? Similar to Campaign Series?

Thanks for letting me bug you.

[Richie61]

I want PBEM! But I do understand why it's not happening right now. Turns are like board game days. I move a unit into the
street from a building and the other side says "stop, I want to OP fire". You resolve the OP fire on that unit and then I can
continual my moves. So every time there is a phase in turn segment you want have to save the game and send the file tothe other player. The files/ e-mails would be HUGE. I tried it against myself during beta testing. It sucked with saving and e-mailing. Plus FOW isn't there for this type of exchange.

Now this might work for MP gaming with TotH.


The images are roughly about the same pixel area as most HPS/ JT counters, so you can do a lot with images.
But it's like SB games and doesn't have rotating facing if guns or vehicles. It does have a colored arrows on the counters

for facing and turret facing. Plus starting, stopping engines, button or unbuttoned crews.

You can make your own maps in minutes and save them for future uses or use any of the current 60 plus maps. It still needs terrain items like walls, sewers, hedges (all lacking in SP for example), but Peter is talking about adding them.
When you design a scenario, you attach the map name to it and then this scenario uses that map or maps. It's wicked
easy to build a scenario.

Right now you have about 95% of all the German, British, Soviet and US weapons, squads and vehicles from 1939 to 1945 Europe/ Eastern Front. Peter is talking about adding more Nations next and Italy/ North Africa. He did say that the
Pacific won't happen unless someone can figure out how to extend his life span to beyond 100 years old

Peter is also working on a "random battle generator" right now.

It's not a perfect game, but neither are all the current games out there. But Peter designed this game and wrote the game coding himself. He is only working on this game and not 10 other titles. His hobby is TotH and making it better.
He has been very upfront during testing and pre-release what the game does and why it does do this or that.

Ed

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

I get what you are saying about the maps, but what I am asking is if one created the SL/AL map boards, as you know, each board is used in many scenarios, can you save the one board and when creating the scenario, can you grab each board as needed to create the scenario map at that point so one doesn't have to continually create the same board several times? Create it once and only have to grab the needed boards and drop them in the created scenario?

[Richie61]

Mark,

Yes. In the editor you pick the setting you want like sides, forces, number of maps. You can have 3 maps wide x 4 maps
tall. You import the map or maps you want for the scenario and then save it as a name like "Where Iron Crosses Grow".
Now you pick your said scenario and as long as the map is in the map folder, it starts the scenario like SB. Course the map is in the "map" folder since you "imported" it in the editor.

Ed

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

Sweet.

[Don Czirr]

For those that have tried TotH - does it fill a need that SB games do not?

I am keeping TotH in mind for my future Squad Level game selections but am wondering if it would compete favorably with buying another JTS SB game - where I know the system is enjoyable.

[Richie61]

Replace SB? Nope. Both are based on squad sized combat, but both differ in details.

TotH is like Squad Leader/ Advanced Squad Leader/ Band of Brother /Valor & Victory Old School Tactical. Abstract combat with full and half squads and combat weapons based on made up data. You don't control each weapon of a squad. You
point and fire.

Squad Battles is based on a number of men and detailed weapons they carry. You can fire all small arms or say just your MG 42's.  SB has more details of squads and terrain.

I like both games. TotH is like my Squad Leader board game in 1977. It's a good solo game.

If TotH had PBEM or MP, I would still pick Squad Battles all day long. 

Ed

[Don Czirr]

Thanks for the comparison Ed.

It's good to have options and mix things up a bit.

I still play HOS (even though the spotting is flawed) due to the atmosphere and story like campaign.

I think I'll wait for the big Matrix xMas sale to purchase TotH and in the mean time pick up the next SB title on my list.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

Richie61,

Do you know of anyone who has looked into the possibility of converting some CS,PB, PL scenarios to this size? Do you think it would work? Obviously, they would be bigger scenarios. I questioned before about the same thing but with SBs, but the lack of a map editor kind of squashed that possibility. I obviously see that all the SL/ASL scenarios would be created somewhere first, just wondering about the possibility of the future. I should be able to pick the game up at the end of the month, barring any unforeseen inconveniences.