Monday, August 10, 2009

Long March


Another ASL free weekend for me, but I at least I had a new product to pour over.

HOB's The Long March showed up my mailbox last week. It's a 17 scenario pack from the iconic period of the Chinese civil war, as Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists chase Mao's Red Army all over China.

$32 is a bit high for just a scenario pack, but it's ASL, and Heat of Battle has a well deserved reputation for quality products, so....what else are you going to spend your $32 on?

With one exception, the scenarios are all infantry. Standard Chinese counters are used for the Nationals and partisan counters represent Red Army troops. Scenario size runs the gamut. There are rules for linking the scenarios at a quasi-campaign game. The folder features a historical summary.

Many of the scenarios have unique SSR's to add historical flavor (and frankly, to give the all infantry scenarios each something distinctive.) For example, LM 11 ,Medieval Warfare, is played on DASL boards and depicts the Red Army scaling city walls and being attacked by cauldrons of boiling rice porridge. A Porridge Cauldron apparently attacks with 12FP (duh!), and is not penalized for use as advancing fire. Yeah. I guess not!

Looking forward to trying one of these.

I'm signed up for the Chinese mini at ASLOK this year, so maybe Bret will pull something from this pack.

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