itself comes with 12 different scenarios, each one introducing more complicated rules in a system called "programmed instruction". Each scenario card includes historical information, victory conditions and play balancers for each side. However, Squad Leader also has a "design your own" system where forces are selected by drawing playing cards from a standard 52 card deck and comparing the result to a table where different forces were described. There is also a point purchase system for "buying" opposing forces. New scenarios were published in Avalon Hill's gaming magazine, The General, as well as additional scenario packs (the rogue scenarios, for example, see below). Third parties also produced scores of SL scenarios. StrengthsSquad Leader attempted to simulate many types of battlefield phenomena not addressed before in a tactical board game, and enjoyed a cosmetic treatment unmatched then and afterwards. Some of these strengths include: The effects of leadership on morale is elegantly handled, with extraordinary leaders (only) having direct effects on the ability of men to move, shoot, and resist enemy attack. The rigid turn sequences of earlier war games was dispensed with in favor of the innovative eight-phase turns described above. Units can interact with enemy units during the other player's turn. The game, as explained by John Hill's designer's notes, encourages players to learn and adopt basic infantry tactics - defenders are encouraged to site machine guns to dominate fields of fire, while attackers are encouraged to have some men give covering fire while others moved. Some support weapons can fire multiple times in a phase, and machine guns have the ability ("penetration") to inflict damage through a line of several adjacent hexes - two hexes for a light machine gun, and six or even eight for a heavy machine gun. The system is flexible and open-ended; the geomorphic boards can represent reasonably well many types of terrain, and the use of "scenario special rules" expand these possibilities even further. Victory conditions are also flexible and imaginative, not being confined to mere shootouts between opposing forces, scenarios could simulate all manners of military missions (especially in the follow-up modules), such as successfully escorting convoys, parachute and glider assaults, a deliberate assault on prepared positions, an ambush, a meeting engagement, a hasty attack/defence scenario, a passage of obstacles, a withdrawal under fire, and even such things as hostage situations. Missions that real life company commanders would have faced and performed.