St. Nazaire (Operation Chariot) from Le Fran Tireur

[King Scott]

I got my copy of Le Franc's Tireur's latest release, St. Nazaire (aka Operation Chariot), on Friday. There have already been a few reviews on some of the various ASL sites (GameSquad ASL Forums, Pitcavidge's Desperation Morale site), but I wanted to point out what a nice looking product this is.

The “HASL/HASSL” contains a magazine style booklet containing three main sections of material. The first section are all of the rules for the St. Nazaire scenarios. Rules sections cover some of the new terrain features (buried fuel tanks, tidal mudflats, dockside cranes, flak/searchlight towers to name a few) and rules introduced in the pack (searchlights, British Commandos, Royal Navy Assault Force to name a few). I read through the rules quickly over the weekend, and they all apear to be well written and intuitive.

The next section in the magazine are the rules for MGB's (Motor Gun Boats). Rules in this section cover aspects such as Crews/Riders, movement, attacks, smoke layers, torpedoes, and rocket armed MGB's and other rules covering MGB useage. Once again, the rules apear to be well written and fairly intuitive, but this is new territory for ASL, so you will need to spend some time digesting these new rules before you are ready to play McHales Navy and try to sink Captain Binghampton's launch.

The third section of the magazine is the “Chapter H” for MGB's. There are notes covering MGB's for Allied/Axis Minors, British, Finnish, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and American MGB's ov various sizes, armaments and capabilities. Each of the entries has it's own diagram of cover arcs for the myriad of weapons on the various MGB's. There are some very interesting tidbits of information to be found here.

The “module” contains a large map of the St. Nazaire port. The map is in two pieces, and when put together is aproximately Red Barricades size, perhaps a little smaller…I did not count the hexes to be able to give you exact dimensions, perhaps tonight I can do so. The art on the map is nice and clear wit hstandard ASL colors…but you've never seen this much blue on a map before. One minor complaint about the map that has been expressed is the color shift between the two “halves” of the map. While the color variance is noticeable, I do not think that it is of any major concern (I only brought it up because others have expressed concer over the color difference).

There are a total of 15 scenarios included. The first 8 all cover the raid on St. Nazaire and take place on the map included. All of these scenarios take place at Night, with the eighth scenario begining as Night and progressing to twilight. Scenarios cover various aspects of the raid, including the HMS Cambletown's ramming of the lock gate. These scenarios all require the use of the StN rules and SSR's. The remaining 7 scenarios cover other MGB actions around the globe…and I do mean around the globe. Scenarios include actions covering Brits v. Germans, Marines v. Japanese, Russians v. RLA (Russian Liberation Army), and Germans v. Russians. All of these MGB scenarios use geo-boards, with only one scenario requiring the use of board LFT 1 (the beach board that was included in LFT#11)…the remainder use river boards or Beach/Ocean overlays.

Included is one sheet of counters. I have not had a chance to take a close look at the counters just yet, but they apear to be the same high-quality counters that we've seen in the past couple of LFT magazines. Counters are provided for all of the various nationalities MGB's, boat crews, British Commandos and SMC's (with Royal Marine emblems in place of the unit class designator), and various informational counters. My personal favorites are the SMC prisoner counters…HOB did some of these years ago in one of their SS packs, and I have used them a number of times over the years…nice to see more of these. There is also one massive counter to represent the HMS Cambeltown that you will have to cut out yourself. The counter is the equivalent of three 1″ counters side by side. The counters come in a separate envelope due to the cutting process causing the counters to fall off the tree…some have complained, but I am a playing collector, so they were going to get punched and trimmed anyways so it is no big deal to me.

Also included are several scenario cards with charts, player's aids and cloaking displays to assist with the St. Nazaire scenarios.

All in all, this is one packed module. As advertised, this is not for the faint of heart…this is advanced ASL that will require brushing up on many rules sections that the average ASL player either has not used, or has not used in some time. (I will have to do some serious rules reading to get up to speed on this to be able to play.)

Semper Fi!
Scott

[testuser]

Thanks for writing the review, Scott! It sounds like a good module but probably won't see much play because of the Night focus and the historical situation isn't as well known as other HASLs.

I hope you'll bring it by when you show up again to play.

[King Scott]

The VASL module for this (map and counters) can be downloaded from LFT's website here

http://www.lefranctireur.org/spip.php?rubrique11

It is all the way at the bottom of the page. If the link does not work, go to http://www.lefranctireur.org and click on the “goodies” under the main menu to get to the downloads. (I'll be downloading mine tonight to check out how it looks…Xavier said that it is a first version that may be refined later.)

Semper Fi!
Scott

[Jim Aikens]

Scott,

Thanks for bringing this the Gameology. For those who haven't seen it, it is quite impressive. Very high quality components, IMO. Eric Morton just ordered a copy; we will definately be playing something out of this on Thursday nights. For those who might be put off because it's Night, fear not. Night is cool and fun, and not all that difficult.

-Jim

[King Scott]

Thanks for the reveiw Scott!

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