Movie Scenes that can make great Scenarios!

Movies...the inspiration for so many creative ideas. In our youth, movies would inspire many a battle with our Marx Germans and Americans in the desert or on the slopes of the Navarone Mountain. I never had a big wheel...but I had the Navarone Mountain!!!

And yes, it was awesome! Many an epic battle would be fought over that mountain on my bedroom floor...much to mother's angst. And just like now...some of those battles would last all week. My mother learned to just shut my door in those days...cause the battle would be fought to its conclusion. Looking back, leaving a couple ASL boards set up all week is no big deal compared to an entire bedroom filled with fortifications...burnt out tanks...and the hundreds of plastic warriors battling for possession of the dresser in the corner. Ahh...what great days!

 

But tonight's post is not really about Marx Playsets. No, I thought I'd focus tonight on some key movie scenes that could be made into some fine ASL Scenarios.

The first of these movies is 1958's, The Young Lions. This movie follows the lives of a pair of Germans and a pair of Americans as the war overwhelms and shapes their lives. Marlon Brando and Maximillian Schell are the Germans with Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin as the Americans.  The movie has always surprised me for its fairly sympathetic portrayal of Marlon Brando's German officer. And there are two scenes which I have always felt lent themselves very well to ASL scenarios. 

 The first of the two scenes involves Marlon Brando and a small, motorized section of German infantry as they enter the suburbs of Paris in 1940. As they approach the city, they come across a hastily thrown up roadblock defended by a mixed group of French Infantry. It's a short scene, but does a fair job of capturing a flanking maneuver as Brando successfully captures the roadblock and the French squad defending it. 

Certainly for ASL, you could expand the concept to one or more roadblocks as a larger French force sought to delay a column of Germans entering the city limits.

The second scene takes place in North Africa and again shows Marlon Brando and Maximillian Schell preparing to ambush a British position at daybreak. The scene is well laid out and shows the effective use of machine guns and concealment terrain, such as would be available in the desert. Again, it's a quick scene with a very one-sided result as the British are more or less slaughtered. So balanced the scene is not! But again for ASL, the situation could easily be altered to allow for the British to have a bit more chance, rather than simply setting up in front of some MG-42's and getting rained on. 

 All in all, this scene is one of my all-time favorites from any movie. 

The next movie up is 1949's Battleground, which dealt with the men of the 101st Airborne during the siege of Bastogne. This classic movie remains one of Hollywood's greatest. It's a nice, tight portrayal of American soldiers in combat during one of the more difficult periods experienced by US forces in the European theater.

Like many movies of that era, they are often long on personal story and short on battle scenes. Battleground is no different. The action is long in coming, but nonetheless, worth the wait. There is a terrific scene where the Germans in their snow camouflage emerge from the woods and approach a line of US foxholes. The scene is quick, but the action is furious and would play out well in an ASL scenario. Just get comfortable with snow rules and foxholes. A nice 4-5 turn scenario depicting a German infantry infiltration attempt in the snow covered woods could easily be thrown together. A few 7-4-7's an MMG and a bunch of German 4-4-7's and you have a tight little firefight.

As I'm thinking of adding a movie section to the Blog on a regular basis, we'll call this post complete. Perhaps monthly or every other month, I'll pull a couple other scenes and present them as possible ASL scenario material. I'll try to focus on the lesser know movies as well. There are some gems out there and perhaps even a few movies that many readers have not had the opportunity to see.

So we'll soon where this goes! Thanks for reading!

Tis the Season for Ghouls, Goblins...Zombies and Weird ASL Scenarios!

One of the greatest things about September is that it's next to one of the greatest months of the year...October!! And of course October means Fall...possibly the greatest of all the Seasons. Growing up in the mountains of NE Tennessee and Southwest Virginia...Fall was quite simply a magical time. These past 12 years living in Oklahoma remind me just how much I miss an Appalachian Fall. 

For those readers who may know...the next memory is for you.One of my all time favorite Fall memories occurred during a hike in 2003 along the Virginia Creeper Trail. I was in the tiny hamlet of Taylors Valley...by the stream when a wind kicked up and sent thousands of bright orange leaves dancing in a bright blue October sky. So as you can see my love for Autumn runs deep. 

Growing up in NE Tennessee also meant walking to the 7-11 with my friends. Back in those days a quarter would buy the latest Sgt. Rock, GI Combat or Weird War Tales comic book. And it was Weird War that combined World War II and horror for the first time. I remember being just a little creeped out by the Weird War covers...

Spooky stuff to be sure, but I was also intrigued by the creative story telling. And I've always striven to bring that same creative spark to my own Halloween Scenarios.

 

Now in the past several years, I have had the chance to create some different ASL Scenarios centered on horror themes. Sadly, there are some aspects of World War II which lend themselves to more terror and horror than would be appropriate for an ASL Scenario. There are some things which simply shouldn't be gamed...if for no other reason out of respect for the suffering of so many other human beings.

That said, Zombies are always a great option for an ASL Scenario. The East Side Gamers have a very famous and well done Zombie Pack. I imagine it's just the thing for a cool Hallow's Eve with cider, pretzels and some hot dice!!  As I began delving into creating some Halloween themed scenarios, I focused my efforts on the Third Reich. It just naturally lends itself to scary, horror-filled stories. I of course stayed away from anything regarding the Holocaust, for the reasons discussed above. Instead I looked for those stories that would fit the Zombie Genre. So my previous three Halloween Scenarios are based on Germans facing terrors on the Eastern Front. I did note that a few folks expressed some exhaustion with  Zombies. And yeah...I sort get that. There has to be some other ways to bring horror to the ASL world without Zombies.

Many years ago, TSR's Dragon Magazine had a terrific article about a German half-track and squad that passed through a mysterious mist and found themselves in a fantasy world. Attacked by trolls, they were only saved by a lucky Panzerfaust Shot. Can you imagine Gary Gygax and John Hill sitting down together to create a game....oh...the game they would have come up with!!!!

So, here we are with another October just around the corner. I have been hard at work on this year's offering...DAS GOLEM, which is based on the mythical Golem of Prague that protected the Jewish Ghetto. Once again, the Germans find themselves facing other worldly terrors in Eastern Europe. Next year...I'll have to do something in the Pacific...or perhaps a wintry adventure with some scary Finnish mythical monsters...

So now in an effort to get excited for October, I'm re-posting the previous three Grumble Jones Halloween Scenarios on this blog. As always these "basement" quality scenarios that I put out there are for fun only and hopefully help you recapture your own Fall and Halloween Memories!!

Remember to open pictures in a new window in order to maximize the size. And as always, these scenarios can be downloaded from The ASL Scenario Archive (just search on Grumble Jones).

Happy Fall and Happy Halloween!

Das Golem II

Second teaser video for the annual Halloween Scenario from Grumble Jones. Play as the Germans and escape from the terrors of the Golem in old Prague or play as the Czech Resistance and the Golem. Some crazy, ASL Halloween fun!!

 

Our Saturday Game, Kansas ASL Scenario PP03 Ukrainian Mutiny

For our Saturday game, Dan Best and I decided to do another scenario from Kansas ASL's The Very Best of March Madness Volume 1. The selected scenario was one of Dan's designs and is titled "Ukrainian Mutiny". This scenario is based on a little known incident that occurred in July of 1943 at the Auschwitz Death Camp. The Ukrainian Guards within the camp had become concerned after witnessing so much horror, that they themselves may one day become victims. So on the evening of July 3rd, 1943, a group of Ukrainians seized weapons from the camp armory and fled the camp. The German SS guards pursued them to a quarry near Chelm Slaski in Poland. Despite fierce resistance they were ultimately overcome and later executed. Following this mutiny, the Germans removed all Ukrainian SS to other camps and other duties.

This scenario depicts the desperate efforts of the Ukrainians to hold out against a large force of German SS. Anytime you get the opportunity to play the designer of a Scenario whether as a play test or regular game, it's always good to discuss how they came up with the ideas for the scenario. Dan and I spent about a half an hour last night discussing it. To my surprise and interest, Dan had spent some time traveling in Poland and visited many sites around Crakow and Warsaw. During his visit and research, he came across this particular mutiny of the Ukrainian guards and when he received his copy of Paratrooper and looked at Board 24, it just immediately struck him that it was a perfect board for representing a quarry. And so a scenario was born.

For this particular game, I drew the Ukrainians and Dan the Germans. This particular scenario includes caves and sangars, which we don't normally see in an ETO scenario. The caves of course reflect the fact that much of the fight occurred in a quarry. The victory conditions were pretty simple. The Germans must eliminate every partisan/Ukrainian unit. With that in mind, I tried to put myself in the mind of the Ukrainians. They would have been very aware that they had to stay hidden and try to remain undetected by the Germans. The SSR's for this scenario allowed for most of the Ukrainians to set up HIP. So naturally, I decided to build my defense on keeping at least one Ukrainian unit completely hidden, while my other units would draw the Germans away from where that unit was hiding. You'll see if I was successful as this AAR rolls along.

 The OOB's for both sides were starkly different. The Ukrainians would have 3-1/2 squads total vs. 11 German SS 4-4-7's. But the these would be needed in order to scour the board and find the HIP Ukrainians. Dan would deploy three squads at the start and these 2-3-7's would be extremely useful in covering a lot of ground, but would lack some necessary firepower during the encounters with my Ukrainians. This game also gave me the first opportunity to to use some of the Bounding Fire, SS 4-4-7's from Poland in Flames.

With only 5 turns available to him, Dan moved aggressively from the very start. I had placed my 8-1 officer, a 5-2-7 and my MMG in the stone house at M6. My plan was to stall the Germans at this crossroads for as long as possible. I had placed all but one cave towards the west half of the map. I placed none of my men there, but hoped that Dan would divert forces into that area in order to search all of the caves.

 One of my questionable placements was putting a 5-2-7 under concealment in J8. I did this primarily to put some doubt in Dan's mind as to whether or not my other ? stacks were really dummy stacks. It didn't really work out the way I hoped, and my 5-2-7 quickly became prisoners.

 Back at the Crossroads, my boys in M6 would begin their heroic stand. They would hold out for four turns and take a lot of Germans with them, before they were finally captured.

 During the defense, one of the German 2-3-7's went Berserk.

 My 8-1 managed to eliminate them with the MMG.

 

 Undeterred by my boys in M6, Dan kept his troops moving ahead and searching. I was very impressed with Dan's search discipline. I could tell that he knew how to play this scenario and several times, I was glad I had not chosen certain hiding places as Dan scoured the map.

       Dan's Germans searched every gully and woods hex.

Dan also coordinated his searches with bringing his troops into position to encircle my boys in M6.

 One of the bigger misfortunes for Dan centered on his MMG's. He malf'd and eliminated one and the other was stuck on the south board edge with a broken 4-4-7 that couldn't be rallied until Turn 3 when his hard charging 7-0 raced halfway across the map to get to them. This lack of heavy firepower would certainly benefit my defense.

 It was at this point that Dan had accounted for all my Dummy Counters and all of my forces, except for the 2-2-7 half-squad with an LMG. And he very nearly stumbled upon me in the northern woods. His 4-4-7 searched adjacent to my HIP boys and then turned back to the south to explore the cave. Dan would not go back to that patch of woods, as he believed my unit was hiding in one of the western caves.

Oh so close...my Ukrainians could smell the sweaty leather kit of the Germans....but fortunately, they moved away without locating my boys.

 My boys in M6 would continue to hold out against multiple attacks. My 8-1 would be DM'd and ELR. And per an available SSR would take his own life rather than allow himself to be captured. The 5-2-7 continued to fight on and repelled the Germans and even managed to win the Close Combat ambush  roll and escape from CC.

Dan kept streaming forces at my M6 position.

 After escaping to M5, my boys then went into close combat with the Germans in M4 who also had my other captured 5-2-7 with them. They got the ambush again and eliminated the Germans and freed their comrades. But it would be a brief moment of freedom only.

 As the battle neared its end, Dan's Germans were engaged in three separate operations. #1 was eliminating my boys in M4, #2 was eliminating my boys in J2 and #3 was searching the caves for my still hidden half-squad that was in M2. 

Dan's Germans were running out of time.

 The fighting intensified in the German phase of Turn. My boys in M4 would finally be killed and captured. But my 7-0 and 3-3-7 in the fortified location of J2 would survive.

 As the German phase of Turn 5 ended, Dan gave the concession. With the 7-0 and 3-3-7 still alive and the hidden 2-2-7 still unaccounted for, Dan realized his couldn't achieve the victory conditions. So my Ukrainians managed to secure the victory.

My own personal observation of this game was that Dan played it exactly like the German must. He successfully searched the entire map and just barely missed finding me hiding in the woods. The Caves have to be searched and my decision not to hide in the caves bore fruit. 

Dan also made a great observation that the Ukrainian player has to not only hide, but also try and inflict losses on the Germans in order to slow them down and limit their searching opportunities. My 8-1 and 5-2-7 in the M6 House did this very well and I believe contributed the most to the Ukrainian Victory.

Another great game with Dan and already looking forward to next Friday's contest!