Publisher/Date:
YankeeASL (2024)
Product Type:
Scenario Pack
Country of Origin:
United States
Contents:
20 reprint scenarios in PDF form only
Best of the Bunker! is a reprint scenario pack containing 20 scenarios originally published in the long-running ASL newsletter Dispatches from the Bunker. To date, Dispatches from the Bunker (DftB) has released 58 issues of its newsletter, with 193 scenarios total. From the 1990s onward, several individual DftB scenarios were reprinted by MMP in the ASL Journal, such as J23 (Kampfgruppe at Karachev), and in 2010, MMP reprinted 14 more DftB scenarios in a dedicated scenario pack called Out of the Bunker.
More than a dozen years later comes Best of the Bunker! (BotB), another collection of DftB reprints, this time “published” by YankeeASL, the New England ASL gaming group. This product includes 20 scenarios chosen from among the scenarios originally numbered 57-158. Whether or not they truly are the best is an exercise best left to the player. Unlike Out of the Bunker, BotB is a purely virtual release, available only as a downloadable pdf file from the YankeeASL website. It is up to players to print out the scenarios themselves if they want a physical product. As of this writing, BotB sells for $40. Generally, $2 a scenario is a pretty reasonable price for a scenario pack, but given that these scenarios are neither original nor physical in nature, the price seems a bit high. For only $75, as of this writing, an ASL player can purchase “The Works” from DftB, which is a 4-issue subscription plus all DftB back issues–which means players get far more scenarios as well as all the newsletter content (though the scenarios reprinted by MMP are excluded).
The 20 scenarios (see image for list) are “mixed-bag” in nature, but heavily weighted towards 1944-45 actions, especially in the ETO.
The one big difference between the scenarios here and the scenarios as originally published in DftB (other than possibly the odd bit of errata inserted) is that the scenarios here have been re-typeset by Alan Findley, featuring the counter artwork he developed for his Broken Ground alternative countersheets. DftB scenarios do not themselves contain counter artwork, instead identifying squads by factors (i.e., 4-4-7) and vehicles and guns by name, type, and factors (gun type, MP, etc.). The BotB versions of these scenarios now have artwork for all counters. Some people like the Broken Ground style, others don’t, but those opinions matter more for physical counters than the do for a scenario card. Most players will have no issues with the counter depictions here, with one exception: as on the counters themselves, the counter artwork on the BotB scenarios has vehicle IDs that are far too small to comfortably read. Players who organize their AFV/Gun counters by vehicle/gun names may find this very irritating. The BotB scenarios are also in color, while earlier DftB scenarios are not (later ones, once the newsletter moved to pdf-only, do have color). In pdf form, some of the color on the BotB is of quite a Day-Glo variety, although this should be muted somewhat if printed.
The main advantage of the BotB scenario format over the original DftB format is that the BotB has a much more conventional layout rather than the boxy, line-heavy, “We hates margins, my preciousss” layouts of the newsletter. It is much easier to read SSRs, historical background, etc., in the BotB versions than the original DftB versions.
To be honest, there are not a ton of reasons to get this pack. Many hardcore ASLers likely already have all the Dispatches scenarios, either through subscribing or purchasing “The Works.” Someone who wants to sample DftB scenarios can simply purchase a 4-issue (two-year) subscription, or purchase Out of the Bunker for $18. It might have value for the ASLer who has no DftB scenarios and doesn’t intend to acquire them all, but simply wants some of the best scenarios to come from the newsletter.
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