Publisher/Date:
Encircled Productions (2021)
Product Type:
Scenario Pack
Country of Origin:
United States
Contents:
6 scenarios on cardstock
The Three-Player Pack is the 2021 offering for the March Madness ASL tournament held each year in Kansas City. It’s a small scenario pack with a very interesting theme: three-player scenarios. Ever since Kinetic Energy published the three-player scenario Dogs of War in Time on Target Issue #3 in 1996, three-player scenarios have garnered a certain mystique as being both rare and desirable. Not only do they provide a “Mexican standoff” sort of feel, but they are also practical–every veteran ASLer has ended up being the odd man out at an ASL event as people paired off to play. With a three-player scenario that extra player can always be accommodated. No third wheels!
Of course, players can informally split the forces of any scenario to have a three-player scenario, like two players playing the Soviets against one German player in the scenario Hill of Death. A true three-player scenario, however, is designed from the start for three players, with a sequence of play that factors in three players, and victory conditions that can allow any of the three players to win. There are two types of such scenarios. The first type is a formalized version of the split-one-side situation. This is most interesting when there are two different forces fighting against a common enemy, as when Red Army troops and Polish partisans briefly teamed up to liberate the city of Vilnius/Vilna/Wilno from the Germans in 1944. The second is the unicorn three-player situation, depicting three separate forces, each fighting the other two. Such situations are very rare in World War II (even Dogs of War had to fudge the history). Sometimes one can get close. In 1944, members of two of the major Filipino guerrilla groups, the Hunters ROTC guerrillas and the Marking Guerrillas, who were antagonistic, encountered each other in Luzon and started a firefight. However, their fighting was abruptly interrupted when a Japanese force stumbled upon the fighting and attacked both guerrilla groups. Even here the fighting was sequential–first, the guerrilla groups against each other, then the Japanese against all the guerrillas.
So what sort of actions do the scenarios in this pack have to offer?
The first scenario, MM68 (Oliwa’s Escape), is a three-sided scenario set in Poland in the spring of 1944 during Operation Tempest–the ill-conceived plan of the Polish Home Army to launch uprisings and operations against the Germans in eastern Poland as the Red Army entered the country. It depicts, more or less, a well-known incident in which a Home Army unit cooperated with the Soviets and Communist partisans against the Germans, after which the Soviets arrested its officer corps and conscripted its rank and file. It’s not a good historical situation for a three-player scenario in that, while the Poles and Soviets fought the Germans together, and then the Germans fought the Poles alone, the Poles and the Soviets did not fight. However, this scenario depicts a simultaneous free-for-all among all combatants. So a little dubious, historically.
The second scenario, MM69 (Marsch Rückkämpfer), is set in the Pripyat Marshes in June 1944 during the first week of Operation Bagration. It ostensibly depicts a situation in which soldiers from a surrounded German infantry division attempt to break out of encirclement while fighting the Red Army and Ukrainian nationalist partisans. I’m unfamiliar with this action, but it would be very odd for the UPA to cooperate at all with the Red Army, given that it fought the Red Army from 1944 to 1950. So it’s a little strange. The historical description for this scenario does not describe the three forces as all fighting each other, though that is what the scenario card has them doing.
MM70 (Vilnius Breakout), the third scenario, coincidentally depicts the Vilnius situation I described near the top of this write-up, in which Polish Home Army and Red Army troops cooperated to attack the Germans. Again, the scenario has this as a three-sided free-for-all, but the partisans and Soviets cooperated during the battle (afterwards was another story).
The fourth scenario, MM71 (The Brits Lend a Hand, Part I: Foy-Notre Dame), takes place in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge and features American, British, and German troops. It’s a two-on-one situation, with different players taking the British and Americans. The fifth scenario, MM72 (The Brits Lend a Hand, Part II: Boisselles) is a sequel to the fourth scenario that can be played independently of or together with the other scenario.
The final scenario, MM73 (Guerrillas in the Mist) is a hypothetical scenario set in the Belgian Congo in 1941 depicting a fabricated conflict between Italian, Belgian and Congolese forces. I’m not sure how Italian forces could realistically have ever gotten to the Belgian Congo (though Belgian Congo units did fight the Italians, successfully, in East Africa), so it may be more of a fantasy scenario.
From these scenarios, one can see just how difficult it is to find a true three-sided action during World War II (and probably most conflicts). One scenario here is made-up, three are fudged, and the remaining two are split-sided scenarios. No wonder three-sided actions are considered unicorns.
It’s worth noting that, to get to play these three-player actions, ASLers will have to put up with a lot of very small text, as well as a lot of SSRs. It would probably have been better to spread most of these scenarios out on a few more cards.
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