Boardgames

Morale and ELR are the "saves" if you will for a unit in ASL that has received fire during a scenario. It represents any number of things, from elan/esprit-d'corps or training, to just plain fanaticism (with and without Fanatic status). For ASL, the Base Morale ranges from a lowly 4 (some broken conscript half-squads) all the way up to 10 for some leaders and certain situations for other infantry.

MC and the 'Bell Curve'
Now is the time to review a bit about Morale Checks (MC) and the "bell curve" of 2d6. You can re-read those blog posts for a bit ...

Ok, short intro for the non ASL readers. In ASL, drm and DRM are two different things, as are dr and DR (die roll v DICE ROLL). For a very few mechanics, the DR is modified by a dr, usually to the colored die in the pair. (Glider landings come to mind, because I'm just starting a Pegasus Bridge Campaign Game...)

Some mechanics in ASL are on the original roll, be it DR, dr or cdr (colored dr in a DR), or wdr (white dr in a DR). For mechanics based on the original roll, the odds are very straightforward, even for DR.

For all the other mechanics, drm/DRM have varying ...

Cowering is one of the game mechanics in ASL that is a bit on the "wow I rolled well, but still lost out". Some folks don't like it, but it does add a bit more variation to the odds of breaking your opponent.

The Rule
In short, whenever you roll doubles, your firing unit(s) cower. There are exceptions, such as an attack that has leadership present (even the poor leadership of a 6+1), along with first line or elite Commonwealth forces, and Fanatics.

The effect is a column shift down for the attack roll, and a loss of Rate of Fire (ROF) for any SW used ...

If you've read my rate blog entry, you already know I'm opposed to fixing things that aren't broke, as well as adding complexity where none is required.

Well, I've got a solution for all those ASL players who insist on giving every FP it's due. Unfortunately it means adding a d12 to all your non-standard IFT FP rolls. I'm sure someone else started the "throw in another die" course of discussion in one of the IFT v IIFT threads, so I can't claim complete ownership of this idea.

One of the things required from the changed FP resolution, is to keep the fixed ...

After the IFT v IIFT blog, I figured I might want to post about some of the other game mechanics in ASL. This blog post is about Rate of Fire (ROF).

Normally you throw a colored die (cdr) and a white die (wdr) as part of the (I)IFT attack DR. Some sets of ASL kit come with a red+white, some black+white, and others had different colors paired with the white die. Having multiple colors also speeds random selection, but that's another blog post...

(Non ASL player reminder, dr = 1d6, DR=2d6.)

So for a HMG (Heavy Machine Gun) which normally has a ROF ...