I played it over several days, with a lot of breaks, so I canвЂ™t tell you how long it took to play. The scenario is 10 turns long, which is fairly standard for the original Squad Leader scenarios. It introduces rules for half-tracks and Anti-Tank Guns, neither of which are particularly challenging. The scenario I played is the 5th of the original game, вЂњHill 621вЂќ. I play Squad Leader because I am fascinated by the history of games and seeing where games came from. My grasp on Squad Leader rules and tactics is fairly primitive, and isnвЂ™t particularly aided by my play of ASL. It is, in short a significant game, and itвЂ™s sad that its designer is no longer with us. It had three expansion sets (or gamettes), and was revised into Advanced Squad Leader in 1985, a game that is still around today. Released in 1977, it sold upwards of 200,000 units, which is a huge number of copies, especially in todayвЂ™s market.

Squad Leader was one of the stand-out games of the war-game era. It feels odd writing this now because earlier today, I learnt that John Hill, the designer of Squad Leader, had died of a heart attack. My ASL games with Michael are on hold as our schedules just havenвЂ™t matched up too well of late most of the time weвЂ™ve got too many players so my multiplayer games come out at that time. As with a lot of my war-gaming activity, I played this game solitaire. I began playing this game five days ago, having gone a little too long without playing any serious war-games.

Squad leader scenarios