Squad Leader (Avalon Hill Board Game)

Lizardking · 05-15-2011, 11:34 AM,

Have played this game in my past with my Father many moons ago and I have just bought the first Squad Leader board game off Ebay. Would like to know if anyone else plays this game. I think the campaign series borrows a lot off this board game. There is also an online game called VASL which uses a game engine called VASSAL which replicates the board game Squad Leader. Oh yeah SL is a hexagonal board which uses counters and dice to resolve results.

Wolfman · 05-15-2011, 11:50 PM,

Have a look at GameSquad - they have a large ASL community with a dedicated forum

Herr Straße Laufer · 05-16-2011, 12:08 AM,

L-king,

Squad Leader is much more in tune with Squad Battles. Very similar in scale and units.
As Wolf said, GameSquad is the place to be for Squad Leader.

For me, Advanced Squad Leader ruined the fun of the game. I bought it thinking it was an upgrade from Squad Leader and found it to be simply a detail oriented glob of stuff that was heaped onto the original. I sold it shortly after I bought it.
I still have my Squad Leader map boards and use them when I play the WWI air combat game Wings (the original Wings).

Head on over to GameSquad and check them out.
Good luck!

cheers

HSL

Lizardking · 05-16-2011, 11:37 AM,

Yeh true Laufer it is squad sized battles. I do love my Campaign series and playing SL reminded me about it. Have been busy in R/L and in my free time I've been playing Lord of the rings online and Black ops. I'll check out gamesquad, thanks guys.

Herr Straße Laufer · 05-16-2011, 07:59 PM,

Unlike the CS group the ASL community is still active there.

GameSquad ASL Link

cheers

HSL

Lowlander · (This post was last modified: 05-16-2011, 08:37 PM by Lowlander.)

Was into the AH/SL early games but each new game added yet more rules which IMO smothered my boardgaming interest and took away the fun factor.
Would highly recommend the Squad Battle games which handle all the tedious calculations in micro seconds, no more arguments !!!.
So many mods and scenarios are available too enhance them and when installed you will hardly recognize the basic game.

Crossroads · (This post was last modified: 05-17-2011, 01:34 AM by Crossroads.)

(05-15-2011, 11:34 AM)Lizardking Wrote: Have played this game in my past with my Father many moons ago and I have just bought the first Squad Leader board game off Ebay. Would like to know if anyone else plays this game. I think the campaign series borrows a lot off this board game. There is also an online game called VASL which uses a game engine called VASSAL which replicates the board game Squad Leader. Oh yeah SL is a hexagonal board which uses counters and dice to resolve results.

Yes, Campaign Series owes a lot to some early Avalon Hill classics, but not to Squad Leader series as such, but to Panzerblitz and Panzer Leader. 6 minutes per turn, 250 m hexes, platoon size units, sounds familiar yes?

Here's a site dedicated to these games: http://gregpanzerblitz.com/

Most if not all of the PL situations (ie. scenarios) and some of the PB situations ( http://gregpanzerblitz.com/scenarios.htm ) are translated into CS scenarios, and can be found from the Game Depot searh page by searching for "Ode to Panzer Leader" or for "alanarv", or Alan Arvoult, the guy who's behind some of the original PL expansios for 1940 France, for an example.

http://www.wargamer.com/gamesdepot/search_key.asp

If any of you is not using the PB (EF) of PL (WF) user mods for CS, now would be the time to start doing that! Whip

gabeeg · 05-17-2011, 07:49 AM,

Squad Leader started my love of war games (that and "Wooden Ships and Iron Men"...and my first war game "Victory in the Pacific"). I agree with HSL, Advanced Squad Leader was an expensive disappointment that made a already complex system (after adding Iron Cross and Crescendo of Doom rules additions) into unwieldy mess. Obviously not all feel that way as it seems ASL still has a large following. To me Squad Leader is what I compare all tactical war games against in some way. Sadly, I got rid of all my well worn over the board war games, except Panzer Leader...just could not let it go and it was still in decent shape.

**Warhorse** · 05-17-2011, 09:05 AM,

Yep, actually started using ASL rules when I got into 1/285th microarmor, we had quite a few really cool games that way. One was outside, what a blast!! 5 inches was a 40 meter hex, worked well, I knew the rules really well, so I GM'd AND played, speeding up the whole process. Still have SL and ASL, actually I have 4-5 ASL games in total, I liked HUGE battles!! Bought the solitaire system and used to lay out monsters on a ping-pong tabel, and play them, cool times....

Mike

Tide1 · 05-17-2011, 11:21 AM,

(05-17-2011, 09:05 AM)Warhorse Wrote: Yep, actually started using ASL rules when I got into 1/285th microarmor, we had quite a few really cool games that way. One was outside, what a blast!! 5 inches was a 40 meter hex, worked well, I knew the rules really well, so I GM'd AND played, speeding up the whole process. Still have SL and ASL, actually I have 4-5 ASL games in total, I liked HUGE battles!! Bought the solitaire system and used to lay out monsters on a ping-pong tabel, and play them, cool times....

Mike

The old ping pong table...I used to set up a mix of SL and ASL boards for the summer in the garage and just play a monster game. If someone wanted to play that was fine but most of the time it was solitaire. Aside from the investment in boards and game pieces the hundred bucks for that ping pong table was well worth it Big Grin