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Done with GW and sick of the prices after i saw what other folks across the globe have to pay to get the smallest army going i can three 15mm armies plus the rules and some terrain for 150 bucks ... so any one have any reviews of alien squad leader. I would rather play generic sci fi war then over powered over priced bs that the GW is trying to pull. Is it a balanced i heard it plays fast and have seen a couple of small sites with feedback on it but not much. Anybody ? Thanks

I have not heard anything about it. Please post a link if you can. I do know the Ambush Alley guys are coming out with a sci fi version of Force on Force. If it plays like FoF it would be something to look into.

here the link http://www.alternative-armies.com/Alien_Squad_Leader_(ASQL)_2nd_Edition.htm there are a lot of promising minis out there in 15mm scale some of AA are pretty lousy but Rebel minis and a few others i have seen have nice and unique armies. The thing i like the most is that i am pretty sure there are NO OVERPOWERED CHARACTERS! haha

and a review i found on board game geek by Aron Clark
I originally posted this review to The Miniatures Page ( http://www.tmp.com) last year, but thought appropriate to cross-post here to give this entry some content. IMO Alien Squad Leader is an excellent set of science fiction rules that allows players to focus on tactical aspects of the game rather than the details of the rules themselves. For those who are not familiar with 15mm sci-fi miniatures, 25mm miniatures or even cardboard tokens could be used with some slight adjustments. On with the review!
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What follows is a review of a new set of rules I recently picked up. The format is identical to the reviews found in "Ragnarok", the quarterly (?) journal for the Society of Fantasy and Science Fiction Wargamers (UK). The SFSFW is publishes an excellent journal, if this genre appeals to you I can't recommend Ragnarok enough. However, it can be difficult to obtain in the US.

ALIEN SQUAD LEADER 15mm Squad-Level Science Fiction Wargames Rules Alex Self of Lincombe Barn Wargames Society aself@freeola.com 40 Pages - £3.00 + shipping

I first learned of Alien Squad Leader in a post on the 15mm Sci-Fi Yahoo Group ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/15mmSciFi/). Being your basic wargames junky, and sci-fi nut, I knew I had to find out more on about this set. Off to Google I crawled and discovered the Lincombe Barn Wargames Society where I made some inquires regarding the rules availability. Shortly there after I received an email from the game author, Alex Self.

We had a nice discussion on how I could obtain a copy of the rules being in the US. We settled on an electronic payment via PayPal. Quick and painless, and before I could get the final details on Alex's PayPal account my copy of Alien Squad Leader had arrived! Wow, talk about prompt service.

Mechanisms: Alien Squad Leader is a stand based set of 15mm sci-fi battles. Stands represent units of troops (4-5 figures) or single vehicles. Infantry is based on 50x50mm stands, while vehicles are based 50x100mm.

The introduction to this set immediately qualifies that the author has been heavily influenced by other stand based games: DBA, Warmaster, and Crossfire. Being familiar with those sets myself the similarities were readily apparent, but rather than being a sort of blatant rip-off of the mechanisms used in these games Alien Squad Leader is inspired by them.

Each army is made up of a number of regular and command stands, pointed from some very unique army lists. During a players turn each stand may take one action. This action will either be free in response to a close enemy or must be ordered by a command stand. Command stands have a radius of command and may issue orders to stands within that radius. Command success is determined by a die roll, failing this command roll prevents further commands being issued from the command stand. A bit of Warmaster there, without the successive command penalty. Some armies have special rules regarding command, such has the "hive mind" which simply dices a number of command points.

In fact the rules have a good number of army specific rule variations, that add excellent sci-fi flavor to each. These include:
* Human Imperial with their Main Battle Tanks and Indirect Fire Support.
* Human Colonial ever on the defensive with their Defense Turrets and helpless Refugees
* Alien Imperial with Superior Energy Weapons and Tribal Auxiliaries
* Alien Enslaver with Psionics and mindless Thralls.
* Mechanoid unstoppable machines
* Hive Mind tunneling bugs with a vicious bite

Ranged combat and close combat are resolved in basically the same fashion. Determine your target number, base 7+ then modified (i.e. moving, target in cover, firer taken hits, etc.), throw 2d6. Scoring less than your target number indicates a miss, scoring equal the target number suffer a reaction move (DBA inspired), score above cause a hit, score above with a double cause 2 hits.

Victory is determined by breaking the opposing army and calculating victory points. An army is broken when half it's stands are eliminated. Victory points are calculated from battlefield objectives.

Production Gripes: There are a few drawbacks to this set. The main issue being the number of figures that seem necessary to field an army. Since stands are normally composed of 4 or 5 figures an infantry army of 15 stands could require as many 75 figures. A crushing blow to my small 15mm sci-fi collections were I might have 30+ infantry figures for a couple of different factions. Although this seems fixable by reducing the number of figures per stand to 3 or 4.

Also the terrain mechanism are of a block variety, for example a patch of bad going greater than 20cm square but less than 40cm square. I don't think this means that your terrain templates must be square in nature, just that they fit within these confines. It shouldn't be too difficult to rustle up some features that meet these requirements.

Finally there is no art to speak of in this set. Although there are a number of clarifying diagrams and examples. The layout and typography is clear and well though out.

Conclusions: For £3.00 you get an excellent set of science fiction rules that while may at first seem a bit peculiar, their simplicity and elegance is quickly realized.

Not heard of ALS until now, sounds interesting, and 3 pounds for rules (about $7 NZ) is awesome!

As to GW you could always find gamers who dont care if its a GW fig or a close proxie, allow scratch built etc. I game with a bunch of old farts (we are all 35+) we've all been around GW since Rogue Trader and we all agree that GW is to expenisve and full of BS. If we play we do so for the enjoyment not the competition and we allow anything to go on the board (GW or not).

The rules have jumped to 12 pounds still a good deal. Gonna order next pay day will keep everyone informed

Have a look at Gruntz or in the name of the emporer

I bought the rulebook, intending to get into 15mm. Never had a chance to try it out, before my dog destroyed it but it was an interesting read.

It's a stand based game, with similarities to Hordes of the Things , but is not a HOTT clone. The real beauty seems to the be the very flavorfull armies. Each army is not only comprised of unique units but it also behaves differently and in some cases has different goals.

One other neat thing. Future War Commander doesn't have set base sizes, so if you make a couple of armies for Alien Squad Leader, you could use them in FWC as well. FWC is another generic Sci-Fi game that my club plays occasionally with rebased Mechwarior figs (works with anything from 6-15mm ) and we enjoy it quite a bit.

Even if the basing is a bit different than other games, you could easily purchase bases, figs for two armies and a book for $100-150 total.

In the end I didnt' end up getting into 15mm, so I didn't rebuy the book, but it did stick in my mind as a unique and well done sci-fi game.