Squad Leader - Advanced Squad Leader and VASL

Advanced Squad Leader and VASL

By 1983 and the release of GI, there were four separate rulebooks with sometimes contradictory or poorly integrated rules. For one example, US forces with lower morale were penalized by the fact that morale ratings were used to determine at random the ability to push ordnance through snow or mud. Logically, morale should not have an effect on such an attempt.

James Collier, in a piece entitled "Glass Anvil: A Dissenting View of GI: Anvil of Victory", presented in Volume 20, Number 1 of The General, described the situation:

By now it should be recognized that the Squad Leader series is virtually unique among WWII board games by being a game in evolution. The succeeding gamettes have not been mere additions to the original, but instead have introduced substantial revisions to the original parameters. This is even more true with GI where the bulk of both components and rules represent revisions rather than new material. There are, for example, only 300 more counters than provided with CRESCENDO OF DOOM, and well over half the GI counters represent replacements for counters previously introduced (only a handful of the original SL counters are still usuable (sic) in their printed form)... Though one must pay the price of forfeiting obsolete materials above and beyond the purchase price, the loss can be accepted as the cost of progress. There are few who would quibble with the appropriateness of the added dimensions of the revised vehicle and ordnance counters presented in CROSS OF IRON. That process is, of course, carried forward in COD and GI to include the relevant nationalities. Now GI introduces a similar order of revision for the infantry counters in addition to a number of new maneuvers and capabilities. As this evolution continues, one is eventually compelled to ask where it is going and why?

It was clear that the system had grown in ways never dreamed of in 1977; large amounts of "nutmail" arriving at Avalon Hill convinced the developers of the need to streamline the rules. Originally this was anticipated as being a simple compilation of the rules in existence, possibly redoing the "To Hit/To Kill" system used to simulate armour protection and penetration in tank combat. In the March–April 1983 issue of Fire and Movement, developer Don Greenwood stated that he saw the next project as being a hardcover or loose-leaf version of the rules, with the "entire game system ... rewritten and revised where necessary" to make one combined "advanced" version. Greenwood also, in one of the replies to Collier in the Volume 20, Number 1 issue of The General, described this project as "...a rewritten, succinct and complete compilation of the entire game system in one rulebook."

Greenwood envisioned the new rulebook as not being available before 1985, and thought it would be followed by a gamette featuring the fighting in North Africa (and allowing a redo of the German armour counters while also introducing the Italians), followed by a Russian Front gamette redoing the Russians, and a final gamette featuring the Far East, with Chinese and Japanese troops. After that, it was expected to release historical offerings with maps modelled after actual locations. In Volume 20, Number 1 of The General, he also anticipated "the Advanced SQUAD LEADER Rulebook will be a major publishing event greater than any of the previous gamette releases."

Greenwood's prediction was correct as far as time frame; in 1985 the Advanced Squad Leader system debuted. Greenwood had stated the following in the Introduction to the GI: Anvil of Victory rulebook:

During the past two years in which G.I. has been under design, I have been simultaneously making copious notes for the project which must ultimately follow it: THE ADVANCED SQUAD LEADER RULEBOOK. Don't let the title fool you. It will not be an even more complex version of what you already have, bound together between two covers. Rather it will improve the final game system by simplifying, cutting, and rewriting. The end result will be both a more comprehensive and a much shorter set of rules.

However, the Advanced Squad Leader Rulebook became much more than just a simple rewrite of the rules, it in fact became a complete replacement of the games of the original SL series. Some fans were much taken aback by the need to replace the four modules they had spent so much money on; only the mapboards of the earlier series would be compatible (indeed, necessary) to play the new games. Squad Leader alone has 520 1⁄₂-inch counters and 1925⁄₈-inch counters rendered obsolete by the new system (in fact, many had already been made obsolete by the time GI was introduced). GI: Anvil of Victory has 1568 counters all of which are rendered useless by anyone wishing to continue on with the Advanced version. Greenwood's predictions on future gamettes were also inaccurate given the need to redo every counter in the system from scratch; twelve "core" modules would be needed to introduce the wide range of nationalities. The historical gamettes (called "modules" now) did evolve as predicted.

The new game is also a minimum purchase of two components, the Advanced Squad Leader Rulebook, and an initial module, either Beyond Valor, which contains a brand new counter mix for the German, Russian and Finnish armies, as well as all necessary system counters, or else Paratrooper, which contains a limited counter mix for system markers, US paratrooper units and their German opponents in Normandy. Either initial module also requires ownership of boards from SL in order to play the included scenarios. Future modules also make use of mapboards previously released only with SL.

The new game does not feature Programmed Instruction, requiring a thorough reading of at least four chapters of the ASL Rulebook in order to play a game with ordnance and/or vehicles in it. Even the most basic ASL components are no longer introductory in nature, though Paratrooper, masquerades as such. (This would be redressed in 2005 by the introduction of ASL Starter Kits). Avalon Hill actually suggested that anyone wishing to play ASL also purchase the original Squad Leader and gain experience with that system first, and kept the original SL and three gamettes in print. The necessity of owning boards from these modules in order to play printed scenarios in the core modules of ASL may also have been a factor in this decision. So while ASL was intended to replace SL, there was a certain ambiguity for many years about the status of SL's replacement; the original game was still necessary as a stepping stone to learning ASL, and a source for needed mapboards.

However, the original Squad Leader went out of print after Hasbro purchased Avalon Hill. Nonetheless, there are still many aficionadoes of the original SL system, who prefer the simplicity of the earlier design to its much more complicated offspring. There are also projects similar to Virtual Advanced Squad Leader (VASL) for the original game system, which allow for live online play of Squad Leader in a virtual environment, like Virtual Squad Leader (VSQL) for the VASAL game engine. At least one programmer is working on an Artificial Intelligence (or AI) for the virtual version of SL. As home publishing software and hardware get more sophisticated, it is possible to produce high quality "unofficial" game components from scenario cards to custom sized mapboard to personalized leader counters.