Mostly news from MMP catching my interest at the moment. Brian Youse posted on ConSim World on the 8th:
“It is with great, well, shock, that we have to announce that Yanks, the American expansion for ASL, is out of print. Ten years and 8 days after we signed our contract with Hasbro.
I, personally, never thought we’d sell out of Yanks. I am still shocked.”
Yanks was reprinted by AH shortly before being bought out by Hasbro, and MMP has always characterized the stock as being huge (consider that they’ve reprinted Beyond Valor which you need before Yanks two or three times, and are about to run out again in the same period of time).
A quick look at the state of ASL ‘core components’:
Rulebook – 2nd edition in print.
Beyond Valor (Russians, Germans, system counters) – Just a few left, due to be reprinted when they can gather the cash. Say this summer.
Yanks (Americans) – Out of Print. They’re going to have to recreate the entire thing from scratch. Presumably, they have the original art, and that’s it. Given the time it takes MMP’s tiny part-time staff to do this stuff, it’s going to be a couple years at least. Expect to see the scenarios from Paratrooper (which is permanently gone) with it when it does get printed.
Partisan (Allied Minor infantry) – Considered obsolete and on sale until gone. Presumably, its scenarios will be in the next printing of Armies of Oblivion, but until then, they’re only available here. (Admittedly, it doesn’t have any that players consider anything special.)
For King and Country (British) – Replaced the combined British/desert West of Alamein, and is out of print. Due to be reprinted with Beyond Valor, it should be going onto the pre-order list soon to help them raise the money.
Hollow Legions (Italians) – Out of print. This had the rest of the desert materials, and the plan is to reprint it with all of the desert materials. The Italian part has been printed by MMP before, but the desert materials (chapter F and overlays) need redoing.
Pacific (Japanese, Chinese, USMC, Pacific theater rules) – Both the old Code of Bushido and Gung Ho are long out of print, and they are going to be re-released as one big module (actual name unknown). They’ve been working on the layout of this for some time, so it’s possible it’ll come out late this year—or not.
Croix de Guerre (French) – In print, and I think, still AH stock.
Doomed Battalions (Allied Minors) – Originally rushed out the door as the last thing AH did before the Hasbro buyout. Out of print, but due to be reprinted at the end of January. The new version will also include all the materials from the old Last Hurrah module (also in print…).
Armies of Oblivion (Axis Minors) – Marked ‘temporarily unavailable’ on the MMP site, but you can still order it there. Not sure what’s going on.
Also, Action Pack 5 is out and shipping to customers. The reprint of ASL Journal 2 sounds like it will go to the printers about the same time as Doomed Battalions. And they’ve put a new scenario pack up for preorder, Turning the Tide. It’s going to have 20 scenarios translated from various Squad Leader sources. I haven’t kept track, but that sounds like just about all that’s left on that front.
Outside of ASL they’re also keeping busy: PanzerBlitz: Hill of Death (once known as “PanzerBlitz 2000″…) has started printing components, the game itself will probably ship in February. Bastonge and GD’42 are also going to the printers.
They’ve also put a reprint of Guderian’s Blitzkrieg II up for preorder, along with Battle Above the Clouds. This last has me particularly excited, as it’s a new game in the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War series, which gets great reviews… but has been completely out of print for some years. I can only hope that this is just the beginning of more work (and reprints) of the series.
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