We did the first scenario in the Starter Kit: a pretty simple 1944 German attack on an Allied-held village with no support weapons or other such funny business. It’s a great introduction to moving, shooting, finding cover, and making really stupid tactical decisions. Some of Billy’s Germans, probably at this point in the war some 14 year old kids from Bremen or something, ran straight out onto a road and wound up getting shot to pieces- the remainder of the squad ran into some woods and hid for the rest of the game. I had a really nice stack of elite Paratrooper units positioned in a building on the East end of town laying down suppressing fire but never hitting any of the advancing units. I dubbed them the Apple Dumpling Gang. There was a pitched close combat battle in a building on the west side of the village that went on for several turns, tooth and nail right up the very end. It’s a five turn game and all the Germans need to do is to get an unbroken unit into one of four buildings so on turn five Billy decides to race a few units up a road through the middle of the village in a daring (yet amazingly foolish and ultimately tragic) 11th hour gambit.

Who won? Neither of us—we realized we had screwed up a few things and chalked it up to educational experience. Although I’m confident we played the game about 75% to-the-letter we missed a lot of key rules, particularly in that big close combat battle that would have changed the outcome drastically. But more importantly than who had won or lost, we had played ASL. And lived.

What really surprised me was that even though ASL is an extremely mechanical game- meaning that it’s very rules-heavy and almost helplessly dependent on procedure and structure to function- it’s a hell of a lot of fun. It provides a surprisingly narrative, descriptive, and even thrilling experience. There were some moments of high drama even in our ramshackle learning game as exciting as anything else I’ve experienced in gaming. What’s more, the interplay of these mechanics, which cover everything from unit morale to assault movement to reduction in troop quality, generates a very complete feeling of situation and atmosphere, a holistic approach to simulation that reminds us of how excessive abstraction strips games of meaning and significance.

The depth of the game- even in a simple scenario- reveals just how much of a farce it is to hear programmatic, efficiency puzzle games like PUERTO RICO or PRINCES OF FLORENCE referred to as “deep” or the suggestion that having three possible routes to victory is somehow a barometer of a game’s quality of decisions. Every phase of the game offers many more choices, many more possibilities, and many more potential outcomes than most of today’s popular games.

Even the setup in ASL is significant and informs your long term strategies- placing a unit in a starting position that renders it useless can literally cost you the game but smart deployment and knowing how and where to apply resources seems to be a key skill and it can feel a little frustrating trying to figure out what you ought to be doing. ASL is very much a game of little epiphanies; the first moves are like fumbling baby steps; you take a couple of really bad, wasted shots, you fail to coordinate movement between units to get strong fire groups, or you lose a whole stack thanks to a single devastating attack. But when you figure out how to break an enemy position so you can walk right up to him and slaughter them in close combat, use a demolition charge to bring a building down on top of a heavy machine gun emplacement, or use smoke grenades effectively the sense of accomplishment is immensely satisfying. I came out of the game feeling that ASL, above almost any other game I’ve ever played, rewards pure, experienced skill while maintaining elements of luck, risk-taking, and creative play.

Billy and I both felt somehow changed by our first experience with ASL. It was kind of that “why I have waited so long to do this” sensation. My first impulse after playing it and falling almost instantly in love with it was to go home and order the rulebook and BEYOND VALOR, the first module. Yet the reality was that we had played only a very small percentage of the actual game and there was still two more starter kits (covering field guns and armor), let alone five more scenarios in the first one. Beyond that, I do find myself wondering if the three starter kits, with their streamlined and simplified rules, some 18 scenarios, and pretty much infinite replayability will sate my newfound hunger for that forbidden fruit that is ASL.

Now, Billy and I both are many games into our ASL journey thanks to easy solitaire play and the use of the VASL engine- a JAVA application designed specifically for playing ASL online or play-by-email. After all the mythologizing about complexity, the admonitions from other gamers that ASL is somehow unplayable or obsolete, and the general sense of trepidation myself and many other gamers have experienced regarding the game I do have to say that I’m quite surprised that what has quickly become one of my favorite games is something I never expected to have the initiative or inclination to learn to play.

After all this, I wouldn’t recommend ASL to anyone. You’re either going to totally dig it and fall helplessly in love with it or you’re going to run screaming from it and I won’t be held responsible for either situation. You either know that it’s something that you want to get into or it may be that you aren’t quite ready for it but when the time comes I hope you’ll take the step Billy and I did over espresso and day-old gingerbread cakes. Don’t be afraid, most of the rules in those big old binders you’ll never encounter and a lot of them are for very specific situations, units, and are intended mostly as reference- not for routine play.

ASL is nothing to be scared of, come to find out. It’s just a game after all.