Unlike CH, there aren’t any ’sales’ or Ebay specials, so I think everyone will be paying the standard $40 for it. In the package, you get 8 scenarios, a bunch of one-hex debris overlays, two starter-kit style maps, a big factory overlay, and a monster ‘ruined city’ overlay. Just as a comparison, Multimanpublishing’s recent AP3 Few Returned (which is roughly comparable IMO) is 12 scenarios and three maps for $24 plus shipping. As far as quality is concerned, the printing, graphics, and overall look and feel of ITR holds up quite well against MMP’s gold standard. In short, if you’re a beginning ASL player on a budget, going with the MMP product will give you somewhat better value. Of course, that’s the case for pretty much every third party publication vs MMP comparison ever. For everyone else, I can’t call ITR an incredible bargain, but it does look to be well worth the money.

Moving on to the heart of the product, the scenarios all look very interesting and several are being added to my already lengthy ‘wanna play’ list. Most of the scenarios are big and meaty (my personal preference), appear to have a very high carnage factor (also a big plus in my book), and cover an excellent range of years and theaters. I think it was a smart idea to include such a wide range of nationalities and time frames, as the scenarios could otherwise have blurred into a series of similar city fights. Here are some more details on each scenario:

ITR1 Debacle at Sung Kiang: this is a Scott Holst design (the only non-Chas Smith scenario in the group), and has 17 Japanese squads attacking 16 Chinese squads over 6.5 turns. Both sides get some armor. Beyond that, the scenario feels a little generic. Still looks fun, but doesn’t stand out compared to some of the others.

ITR2 Factory In Flix: Some Spanish Civil War action here, with 16 Nationalist squads trying to hold off 24 Republican squads. Could be a fun early-war pillow fight.

ITR3 Tough As Nails: This is a big (two page) scenario with the Germans trying to take away downtown Stalingrad from the Russians. Lots of squads (70 or so), Stukas, flame-throwing tanks, this looks like bloodbath central.

ITR4 Clash At Ponyri: Another two page Russian vs German scenario, this time at Kursk. This is another one I really want to play. Interestingly, there are none of the typical Tigers or Panthers of this period, but the Russians get some ISU-152s and as such have the monster tanks in a fun change. Forty total squads, 17 tanks, guns, OBA, oh my!

ITR5 Fire Teams: Americans attacking in Aachen with (as you might guess) FT-toting crews. Looks like a neat tactical puzzle, with 38 total squads and 8 total tanks.

ITR6 The Ceramic Factory: Late war fighting in Budapest, with some tired 5-4-8 SS getting sandwiched between two massive groups of attacking Soviets. Fifty-five total squads, tanks and guns for everyone, this looks like a real fun bloodbath. I think the scenario is missing an SSR allowing commissars and I’ve written an email asking for confirmation, but that’s the only rules question I have for the entire product. Impressive! The other thing that struck me was how familiar this scenario looked. I had to pull out DASL A To The Last Man to realize this is an awesome-looking remake. Really want to play this one!

ITR7 Rebounded Spirit: Another Budapest scenario, with the Romanians attacking Hungarians. Looks pretty cool: 37 total squads and some reinforcing Zrinyis.

ITR8 Beyond The Slaughterhouse: Late-war East Prussian action, with 20 Soviet squads attacking 14 German squads. The Germans get some variable OB to spice things up, and if this one is as good as The Slaughterhouse scenario, it’s gonna be a winner.

That’s pretty much it for the quick and dirty overview. The only other point of interest is that many of these scenarios have a MUCH higher ratio of machine guns to squads than you’d normally see. ITR5 The Ceramic Factory, for example, gives the defense eleven MGs for twenty squads, and the attacker gets fifteen MGs for thirty-five squads. I’m not sure if the justification is that troops got more firepower in dense urban terrain or what, but I thought it was interesting and would love to hear the designer’s thoughts on the decision. Beyond that. just to sum up, this is an excellent-looking product with top-notch components and scenarios I can’t wait to play.

Thanks for reading!

Zeb Doyle

Thanks for the great AAR!

Head over to the download page to get the new stuff.

http://www.gamesquad.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1010047#post1010047

Walter McMillian - Fire Teams

Matt Shostak - Clash at Ponyri

Nick Drinkwater - Debacle at Sung Kiang

Zeb Doyle - Into the Rubble Overview

Charles Sloki - Rebounded Spirit

If anybody sees any other reports out there, let me know.

It has been a lot of fun trying to keep up with all of the orders, and I can only recall two slips. I hand-delivered one copy at Winter Offensive, then came back to Charlotte and mailed another copy out on that order. The other slip was only mailing ITR, and I missed adding a copy of LFT11 to the package. Considering all of the orders, that is still over 99% accurate shipping.

Please email us if you don’t have your ITR soon!

Let this statement inspire you though … They look awesome. The card stock is perfect, the size is perfect, the cut along the edges is right through the center dot on all 4 sides, the colors jump, etc.

The fold was backwards, but they will fold the rest the other way.

I recently complained about printers in general, and ICI Printing was one of them. As the other 3 print companies continued to live up to their previous standards, ICI Printing won the job with excellent customer service and has done everything I asked and more. They pick up and deliver disks and proofs at my office, and the quality of printing is as good as I have ever seen, if not better.

With the fast turn-around promised by ICI, I think ITR will be shipping out next week. With their recent performance, I even have the confidence to make that statement public.

Messages jumped back and forth about the vague post, so Chas quickly issued another official announcement that Bounding Fire is back in business and Into the Rubble is available to be ordered.

I was in the process of getting all the ordering information in place, so it was a mad scramble to get it finished. The first order came bouncing into my mailbox minutes later. 12 hours later, things are looking very promising, especially as the European guys are waking up to the smell of a new ASL product and ordering away.

I keep learning more and more about CSS and how it applies to nice, flexible web designs. My web sites in the past have always been a playground for expanding my knowledge - someday maybe I can even make money at it. Meanwhile, it is rewarding enough just to get it to look and function the way I want it to.

I am always welcome to ideas for change - either in site appearance or function. If you can offer graphics, content, links, etc., I am ready to incorporate almost anything.

Tanks!