October has arrived and with it cooler temperatures to Oklahoma...the oven heat of 133 straight days was finally broken. Of course we went from 90 to 40 in a day...but that's Oklahoma. I'll take the cool down...this summer was brutal...really no joke...it really was a summer of overwhelming heat this year.
ASL wise, it's been a year of misery for me. I've struggled all year to win games and execute my plans. Dice rolls whether rolled by me or the VASL Dice Bot have often acted as a second opponent this year. Rate of Fire is very sporadic for me even with a 3 RoF...I struggle and when do I get rate...I invariably MALF the weapon. My opponent's dice have been hot all year and rate of fire is almost assumed when he fires. Close Combat has been so pathetic that I avoid it when possible. Lost Ambush rolls and the inevitable 11 when I do get ambush and am 2-1...has given me a strange kind of ASL PTSD. My opponent is a highly aggressive player and knows how to take advantage of my poor dice. Half squad flooding generally forces a First Fire...which sometimes lands and KIA's the half squad...but cowering and otherwise poor rolls even with a -2 often cause my positions to fold early and often. As the Defender you have to capitalize on moving in the open shots...when you routinely miss those...and your opponent simply walks right up to you unharmed...well let's just say the enjoyment of the game collapses. ASL's mechanics are built around rolling an average of 7. A 4 factor shot -2 and you rolling a 7 gives you a 1 check. Your opponent might pass that...but you still made him roll...a 10, 11 or 12 are the only rolls that won't give you a result...and yet...I cannot tell you how often that happens when trying to stop an enemy unit moving in the open. There is a certain humiliation you experience as a defender when you cannot stop your opponent from brazenly moving in the open.
I will say that utilizing the VASL dice bot has given me a better overall dice roll experience...still too many 12's popping up with one game over 8 of them with the devastating impacts you can imagine. I won't look back on 2026 with a lot of favor. It's been a grinding year of disappointing games. But...it's ASL...and even the worst ASL experience is better than no ASL.
Today's post is a follow up to my most recent YouTube video Grumble Jones Halloween 2026 . As I promised in the video, I'm attaching the content slides here, as it allows readers to take their time and read the slides without the rush through of the videos. I talk a lot about the inspiration for creating horror themed ASL scenarios and walk through 10 of the most recent. I did leave out a couple from the early days and of course the movie-themed scenarios were not included.
The audience for paranormal/non-historical scenarios is small. It's not a lot of ASL player's cup of tea. And in fact, non-historical scenarios are generally not well received. But our system allows for a lot of creative thought and hypotheticals that are worthy of exploring. What if the Japanese had landed troops in Hawaii or Midway or even coastal Oregon? How about German Paratroops being dropped in England during the Dunkirk evacuations? How about a German assault on Iceland or Greenland...Gibraltar, the Middle East? There are so many what-if's that would be fun to experience. But of course the amount of historical situations that can still be put into ASL are still massive. Even at over 9000 scenarios...there is still a mountain of small unit actions that haven't been modeled in ASL.
Taking hypotheticals into the paranormal is even less desirable by the community as a whole...but that's exactly the kind of things Grumble Jones enjoys. I really enjoy taking historical events and wrapping then inside a paranormal/horror experience. And interestingly, the most viewed Grumble Jones scenario on the ASL Archive is Die Glocke...to my knowledge no one has ever played it. Schatgraber, The Heroes of Hollis, and Razz'n Sasquatch have all been played and all three have proven to be fun...silly of course, but fun.
Here now are the slides.
Thanks for letting me share my crazy Halloween creations with you.
No comments:
Post a Comment