Monday, August 6, 2012

I've come down with Avalon Hill Syndrome

The last few weeks I've been bitten by a "nostalgia" bug which has never hit me before. I've become obsessed with trying out some of the old Avalon Hill wargames. I remember looking at these bookcase games back in the day, but I found them too intimidating for whatever reason. Now I've only limited experience with real wargames, but I'm determined to give a few of these a go. Only problem is I don't own any of these games! So I'll be looking to get one or more of these in the next few months. My experience of wargaming comes down to a handful of various boardgames like The Game of Thrones boardgame and Harpoon a naval simulation game by techno-thriller writer Larry Bond and which helped inspire his friend Tom Clancy to write The Hunt for Red October. Here are two of the games on my hit list:

Squad Leader: I've been looking at the box for this game for a huge section of my life. It might be my favorite box cover ever even though I've never owned the game! I'm super excited to play this along with the first expansion Cross of Iron. From what I've read with Cross of Iron is where the game's design was at its strongest point. The two later gamettes added lots more "chrome" to the basic engine of Squad Leader and began to pull toward the total simulation of what would become Advanced Squad Leader. ASL is still in print and has a large active fanbase (which is great), but I'm not looking to invest that much in a game right now. I'm just looking to finally get a chance to play the original Squad Leader.  

Panzer Leader: This game covers some of the same ground as Squad Leader in that it is a tactical WWII game featuring tanks, but it is really an entirely separate game. It is the sequel game to the popular Panzerblitz which was criticized for a number of rules that Panzer Leader manages to fix. I'll try to report back about the outcome of my foray.
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11 comments:

  1. Roger G-SAugust 6, 2012 at 12:45 AM

    Squad Leader is the easiest for an RPG'er to get into. It has very nice, intuitive mechanics, the use of 2d6 gives a real "crits and fumbles" edge to the gameplay, and the scale goes down to the single leader - there's even an RPG-like campaign you can play following the progress of one leader.

    Although SL has tanks, CoI introduces much more detailed armor rules, and a bigger selection of armored vehicles than the "infantry support" emphasis in SL.

    Panzer Blitz/Leader is a completely different kind of game despite also being "tactical." It's on a platoon rather than squad level and combat is much more abstract. After you've experienced the Squad Leader sequence of fire, you may consider some of the tactics that are optimal in PB to be "gamey" (like the infamous Panzerbush syndrome exploiting the lack of opportunity fire to zigzag from forest to forest in plain sight).

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  2. NickAugust 6, 2012 at 12:58 AM

    I think that Panzer Leader specifically introduced rules to alleviate the "Panzerbush syndrome", but I'm not 100% certain of this.

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    1. Roger G-SAugust 6, 2012 at 2:38 AM

      I think you're right - it was an optional rule, "opportunity fire."

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  3. Black VulmeaAugust 6, 2012 at 1:06 AM

    Squad Leader is a great game - we also used the game boards as the map for our Bunnies and Burrows campaign.

    The two Avalon Hill games I need to track down at some point are Kingmaker and Source of the Nile.

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    1. NickAugust 6, 2012 at 7:56 AM

      Those map boards look great from what I've seen online.

      Of course I've always also been curious about Dune. Fantasy Flight games recently did a clone game of Dune called Rex: Final Days of an Empire, but wouldn't you rather be playing the Guild and The Harkonnens? I guess the Dune license is rather difficult to acquire these days.

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    2. Black VulmeaAugust 6, 2012 at 9:50 AM

      Yeah, the map boards are really cool - one of the best reasons to buy the expansion sets is the additional boards. We used to lay out some really epic battlefields on the living room floor - the trick was to keep the dog out of the room so we didn't end up with the equivalent of a nuclear blast in the middle of France or Russia!

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  4. Robert MorrisAugust 6, 2012 at 10:11 AM

    I went on a jag of buying some of the old Avalon Hill games recently. I was able to get quite a few great games for fairly little money. Unfortunately, Squad Leader, the expansions, and Panzer Leader/Panzerblitz aren't among them yet. I'm loving going through these games and checking out the old rules. It takes me back to some of my earliest gaming.

    If you're interested in online play at all, you might be able to get a game going with Vassal (http://www.vassalengine.org/). You can also check out a lot of online play opportunities through the Avalon Hill International Kriegspiel Society (https://www.ahiks.com/AHIKS/Home.html).

    Looking forward to hearing how it goes!

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    1. NickAugust 6, 2012 at 12:15 PM

      Thanks for the heads up Robert.

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    2. NickAugust 6, 2012 at 6:37 PM

      Robert--what titles did you pick up?

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    3. Robert MorrisAugust 7, 2012 at 1:56 AM

      The AH games I've gotten so far are: Trireme, Circus Maximus, Samurai, Kingmaker, Frederick the Great, 1776, Richthofen's War, Rise and Decline of the Third Reich, Origins of World War II, Air Assault on Crete, Source of the Nile, Battle for Italy, and Wooden Ships and Iron Men.

      I also picked up some other games from Columbia Games (1812 and Quebec 1759), SPI (World War I, Rescue from the Hive, and The Battle for Cassino), GDW (The Battle for Moscow and The Great Patriotic War), Decision Games (The Alamo), GMT (Paths of Glory, Silver Bayonet, and Twilight Struggle), and a few miscellaneous magazine games.

      I've still got several dozen others on my grail list, but I'm holding off on adding more for a bit. If you feel like playing any of these on Vassal, drop me a line.

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    4. NickAugust 7, 2012 at 9:47 AM

      Sound like quite a haul. I'm curious about Richthofen's War and Rise and Decline of the Third Reich. I saw an old copy of RaDotTR the other day at my local game store.

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