Game rules on a board game are made to keep the flow and outcome of combat within the boundaries of the possible, and game designers need to compromise the realism within one hex to deliver realism across the board. In perspective, Advanced Squad Leader is a remarkable accomplishment of game design that those chits could deliver so much plausible, entertaining warfare. Advanced Squad Leader has its idiosyncrasies, which are the result of being trapped in cardboard pieces whose fate depend on dices. It is apparent that everybody steered clear of porting Advanced Squad Leader to the computer in a literal way. Over the years, many computer war game designers took inspiration on Advanced Squad Leader and came out with series like Combat Mission (Steve Grammont at ), Steel Panthers (now published by Shrapnel Games) Squad Battles (John Tiller at ), and (according to to some un-corfirmed versions) Close Combat. Advanced Squad Leader brought everybody interested in tactical war gaming to a table, just because -damn those long sets of rules- the game was telling stories to them. But that didn't stop the board gamers back then. The rules were complex and a single game would eat up hours. Advanced Squad Leader (a board game from the 80s) is one of the landmarks of tactical war gaming.
