An interesting thing happened earlier this year. This past January was the 25th anniversary of the announcement in 1999 by MMP that they had secured a license for ASL and would be continuing the ASL line of games, thus ensuring its future. For the ASL community, disheartened by the sudden collapse of the game system’s […]
08.09.24 The Road Not Taken: An ASL Poem (with apologies to Robert Frost)
The Road Not Taken: An ASL Poem You’re welcome, ASL/poetry nerds.
03.20.21 Quality in ASL: A Reconnaissance in Force
There’s a witty apocryphal quote often attributed to Josef Stalin: “Quantity has a quality all its own.” One can easily see the relevance of such a concept to the massive Red Army. But it turns out, when you start to think about it, quality itself has qualities all its own as well. By that […]
04.19.20 ASL and the Pandemic: Social Responsibility and Board Wargaming
The development of a highly contagious global pandemic threw an unexpected spanner into the works of the ASL world this spring, causing a number of ASL tournaments and informal get-togethers to be canceled around the world. While some have resorted to VASL to get their ASL fix in, other players have now found themselves spending […]
10.14.19 ASL Gear and the Systainer System: An Introduction
The longer you play ASL, the more ASL gear you accumulate. For some, accumulating ASL gear is almost an end in itself. A lot of ASL stuff will remain in your gaming room most of the time–Festung Budapest is not exactly common tournament fare, after all–where it can be played at your leisure or simply […]
03.26.16 The Top 20 ASL Communities by Country
So I went and took the page view totals of the “new” Desperation Morale website (i.e., from around mid-2014 through March 2016; not quite 2 years worth of data) and created a spreadsheet that totaled them up and organized them by country. I took the Top 20 countries, in terms of page views on the […]
07.11.15 World of ASL major update
I have finally made live the first major update to the World of ASL since last fall. The new additions are all viewable if you look at products from 2015 (a few are in products from 2014). If you notice errors, let me know.
02.21.15 2014 Chronology of War Now Downloadable
Thanks to the generosity of ASLer Jim Traver, who currently compiles ASL’s Chronology of War spreadsheet, a listing of virtually all official and unofficial ASL scenarios, Desperation Morale is now hosting the latest (2014) version of the spreadsheet. It is available here (it’s the very bottom one). Enjoy!
01.13.15 Rest in Peace, John Hill
The wargaming world learned that on January 12, John Hill passed away, victim of a sudden heart attack. For those who may not know, John Hill was the game designer whose many works included the original Squad Leader, without which there would be no Advanced Squad Leader. John Hill was responsible for many of the […]
12.20.14 Yuletide “World of ASL” Site Update Announcement
Happy holidays, everybody. The year 2014 has been an amazingly busy year for Desperation Morale, with countless hours spent creating the new look of the website, migrating and converting all old content to the new format, and then catching up with nearly a year’s worth of ASL products that kept coming out while I was […]
07.30.14 It’s a Whole New World, Baby
Welcome to the “new” Desperation Morale website! For some, this new site may come as a surprise, while others may have been following news of its slow progress for some months. The bottom line, though, is that the original site was long past obsolete. I can say that I was a very solid web designer […]
08.05.13 Happy Birthday, Neil!
What is better than a spouse who, if not sharing your hobby, at least appreciates how much you enjoy it? ASLer Neil Brunger got a pleasant surprise recently when his wife presented him with a surprise birthday cake–an ASL-themed surprise birthday cake, that is! Isn’t it great? Happy birthday to Neil, and a hearty congratulations […]
02.19.13 Winter Offensive 2013 AAR
There’s no time like the present, which means that the current time–more than a month after Winter Offensive 2013 has ended, is not exactly the time to write an AAR. But between then and now real life intruded in various ways and I did not have an opportunity. That’s a shame, as my memory of […]
02.18.13 Museum Fest January 2013 Pictures
Museum Fest is an outgrowth of Office Fest, which was a thrice-yearly two day ASL gathering in Detroit, Michigan, hosted by P. J. Norton. Now it is hosted at a small military museum in Eastpointe, Michigan (still Detroit, basically). There are now non-ASLers playing games, too, but I did not take any pictures of that. […]
02.18.13 Winter Offensive 2013 Pictures (Part III)
See Part I for the usual explanations and disclaimers. Nice map holder! Mumble mumble playing Wayne Hadady Camera shy. Can’t tell who either one is. Maybe Jeff Evich on the right. Jim Mehl on the left. Not 100% sure who is on the right. I don’t know these gentlemen. I don’t know these people, either, […]
02.18.13 Winter Offensive 2013 Pictures (Part II)
See Part I for the usual explanations and disclaimers. The new stuff available at Winter Offensive. You probably have all this by now. For those who have never tried a Friendly Fire pack, Best of Friends is something you should definitely get. Some big East Front action. I hope they realized that this scenario is […]
02.18.13 Winter Offensive 2013 Pictures (Part I)
I’ve included some photographs from the 2013 Winter Offensive ASL tournament, held each January in beautiful (ahem) Bowie, Maryland. The Winter Offensive tournament is the only ASL tournament actually hosted by MMP, the producers of ASL. It is the 2nd largest ASL tournament in the U.S. and thus the world. In recent years, alas, MMP […]
02.18.13 World of ASL Compendium Update
I’ve been getting a lot of people asking when the ASL World of Compendium is going to be updated. Just to let you know, today I’ve begun the process of doing a major update, adding all the products released at/since ASLOK (i.e., October 2012). There have been a lot of them. This update will take […]
10.18.12 Passing Your Personal Morale Check
Some ASL players never surrender. As long as they have a mathematical chance of winning a scenario, no matter how astronomical the odds against them, they will keep playing, even if it means hours of additional play with no meaningful chance of victory. I’m not crazy about such die-hard play, because it can often be […]
10.13.12 Hands across the Water: An Interview with Suzuki Takuya
[Interviewer’s Introduction: In March 2011, I was contacted by a Japanese wargamer and ASL player, Suzuki Takuya. Takuya had reached out to me, as well as Pete Phillipps, publisher of the British ASL newsletter View from the Trenches, to ask for permission to translate and reproduce some content from my website/Pete’s newsletter for publication in […]