Scenario Designer's Handbook (ISBN 978-0-9782646-8-0) is intended as a reference for those interested in designing historical scenarios for the Advanced Squad Leader game system. The book features 216 full-colour pages with a variety of information to assist in force and terrain selection, including company, battalion and divisional break-downs of the major armies that participated in the Second World War. Additional chapters deal with scenario lay-out, publishing, researching, walk-throughs of the design process and discussion regarding the various components of ASL scenarios. Scenario Designer's Handbook is not an official publication of Multi-Man Publishing or Hasbro and neither the author nor canadiansoldiers.com/tacticalwargamer.com are in any way affiliated with MMP. A full preview is available at http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/publications/sdh.htm
You must be logged in to post a review.
Please log in
3
People Reviewed This Product
By Don Lazov
May 14, 2013
Michael Dorosh, has created a wonderful resource in this mighty tome. A wealth of information is locked away in this book. With over 200+ pages of very useful information, it is very well organized, beautifully laid out and besides that there are include in the book 6 scenarios (4 originals). The book begins at the beginning with scenario essentials, and gives tips on research and excellent links to resources (including official sources), terrain, making maps, resources for maps, OOB's (Orders of Battles) and TO&E (Table of Equipment and Organizations) from all nationalities A-Z that participated in World War Two, tips/ideas on victory conditions, ASL SSR's, tips on testing, balancing, and getting published, and a very exhaustive Appendix containing; Scenario Checklist, Moon Phases, Optional Rules, and a VC Survey. This book also is sprinkled with vast amounts of colorful tables and charts, that can easily be spotted, looked up, and referenced through the book. The author writing... More > style is both friendly, informative, and easy to comprehend, he does a very excellent job of going down into the nuts and bolts of a topic and the bringing it all together to make it clear, consise and to the point. I like the way the author brings it all together in Chapter 10 (From Start to Finish) its a very excellent wrap up. I would highly recommend this book to any serious scenario designer, no matter their experience, and if you you never produced a scenario if your into DYO, this contains a wealth of information to help those that love that genre to create nice and balanced DYO scenarios or campaigns. However, for those that are taking their first plunge into scenario design, I would suggest they make sure they like designing scenarios before taking the plunge with the cost of this book for a 'newbie'. The only "gripes" I would have with this book, is that for the 4 original scenarios (and perhaps the 2 're-formatted' ones) to have been printed or produced on a 'traditional' scenario cards, or as a free download so that they could be printed off so as not to destroy this excellent book. Also some of the VASL artwork is outdated and it would have been nice to have the graphics updated with the v5 maps and counters. All in all this a fantastic resource for any level scenario designer and not only contains a wealth of information but is well worth the price. I highly recommend this book.< Less
"Re: Solid Reading" I agree with the reviewers comments. At the conclusion where we see: Pros: colorful, useful, good descriptions, good info ME: I AGREE! Cons: info overload in parts ME: I cannot agree here on info overload since there are very few available books of this nature--ASL. If it is info overload-- I must say it is a good thing-- the more the merrier! I actually love info overload at a reasonable price since I don't have to buy another book anytime soon. Thank you.
"Solid Reading" SDH is really two books for the price of one. About half the pages are devoted to a how-to guide to building scenarios for ASL. The how-to guide includes step by step instructions, a listing of maps and overlays, and quotations of other scenario designers. The other half of the book is a guide to the armies of World War II. The guide is useful as a starting point for OOB but may not always be totally applicable. Physically the book is laid out nicely. Colors are vibrant. Some pictures have pixellation and numbers on counters are blurry. Photos are nice, and color coded to nationality which is a nice touch. Text is dense, and may require a careful read. However, chapters are short - with exception of OOB chapter. Probably could have split this up. It takes up half the book! Tables seem good. More tables on non-standard OOBs would be nice, but covers most major units nicely. Pros: colorful, useful, good descriptions, good info Cons: info overload in parts
