The Time is Rapidly Approaching...

...When I will be able to rejoin the active ASL online community:

• The rebuild of the PC is almost complete, and should be home by this time next week.
• The  final pair of monitors will be here by October 17th and set up by the 18th.
• I should be able to retrieve all my VASL games by the end of the month which means I will be able to get started on the visual AARs finally. (Trebled 24" 1920 by 1200 screen real estate will allow much multi-tasking.)

Still have to buy a decent headset/mic combo and sort out the archived data, but all that costs is time rather than $$$ which has been the bottleneck until now.

Time to look at an updated playlist and then post a few challenges, particularly for my UK and Euro ASL brethren as the time zone difference is much less of a hindrance with a three day weekend.

It has been a very long and frustrating seven-and-a-half months, in which time I have truly come to loathe tablets and the iPad as the only conduits to the Internet available for me. This is why the current plan is to have a second PC dedicated to gaming ready and available by the end of the year,
just in case.

Keeping It Positive

The week didn't start particularly well with a meeting at work to advise that my role, and the entire team I work with was being shuffled offshore for the usual reasons. So I'm looking for a new job at the moment, but I won't be unemployed as I can return to my former role at the end of the month if necessary.

In the meantime, I'm heading off to play some Face to Face ASL this evening, DASL 1 Guryev's HQ. This is something of a skills exercise with a less experienced opponent who has played it before but as the Germans and is now looking to take the part of the Soviets.

Guryev's HQ is a scenario I think teaches far more core infantry skills to a newcomer to ASL than most so-called intro scenarios such as Gavin Take, any of the Para module or Fighting Withdrawal from Beyond Valor. The use of opportunity Fire, scouting by half-squad and smoke grenades by the attacker are critical to playing ASL further, and on the defender's part, fire discipline, concealment and knowledge of the rout paths and withdrawing while in contact are just as vital to learn early on.

After tonight's game it's on to the Bearz, but unless there's a pick up game of ASL, I doubt I'll be there past the morning, Then it'll be back home to do the latest round of PBeM moves which have been affected by the aforementioned external events at the beginning of the week. 

Who knows, I may even get a local regular Face to Face game out of this evening, as the person I'm playing lives approximately 6-7 kms away as the crow flies but transport to and from his place is an issue for me as it's only serviced by one public transport bus route and is too much of a real mission to cycle or walk.

I'm looking forward to it and I'm hoping that it's not the only good news I have, particularly as Crucible of Steel hasn't arrived as yet.