Strategy: The Many Faces of Advantage

[redemptionrocks]

Great so far I would love to chip in if i am allowed.

[YodaBreaker]

Go for it; it's an open thread

[Yaggleberry Finn]

Well written, lordgravesmythe. The shrinking of the playing field definitely makes a big difference, especially as far as strikers are concerned. (But will anyone actually play it that small at home? I doubt it. I think most home games are played on much larger areas, which decidedly give the advantage to strong shooter teams.)

lordgravesmythe said:

A 12-tix striker can now be in melee range by turn 2---after all, the striker's opponent will want to move forward off the start line to form up and keep a long range missile from easily knocking figures out of bounds. Thus, if player 1 moves his 12-tix strikers their full compliment and the opponent moves just 4 tix to form up, the 12-tix strikers are only 10" (or about 10 tix) away for their next move.

But this would only work against a team of all shooters. If player 2 has a striker, the 10 tix leaves you within its range. Which leads me to this question: how would you use your own striker in response to an advancing striker with identical speed?

Certainly you don't want to move yourself within its range, and vice versa. Do they simply sit in the middle of the playing field, waiting for the other to make a misstep? Is this striker (or group of strikers) there just to stall your enemy, allowing your shooters more attacks?

2) Two groups of "light infantry" that assault the central position while maintaining separate defensive structures can win over board control by the rule of greater numbers (especially when attacking from different angles).

Two groups each consisting of General Grievous and two bodyguards (all figures series one) could accomplish this quite nicely.

[YodaBreaker]

yaggleberryfinn said:

But this would only work against a team of all shooters. If player 2 has a striker, the 10 tix leaves you within its range. Which leads me to this question: how would you use your own striker in response to an advancing striker with identical speed?

This is one of those nebulous times when you might want to break formation so that the enemy's striker doesn't take out tons of your own figures. Alternatively, you could use your shooters to try to move back your opponent's strikers so that they couldn't reach you. This is why Armored Vader is such a naughty boy: he's so fast that he can overcome a lot of these disadvantages.

Certainly you don't want to move yourself within its range, and vice versa. Do they simply sit in the middle of the playing field, waiting for the other to make a misstep? Is this striker (or group of strikers) there just to stall your enemy, allowing your shooters more attacks?

Sometimes, yes However, if you've got low-point strikers like Grievous Bodyguards or Jedi Knights, you could also set up a front of 3 well-spaced sacrificial strikers ahead of a main striker group. Your opponent would then be forced to either snipe out at most two of them, leaving the third one available to take out the opponent's strikers on your next turn. Alternatively, they could move at least one of their strikers forward to nail some of your forward strikers, thus leaving that attacker exposed for some future smackage.

2) Two groups of "light infantry" that assault the central position while maintaining separate defensive structures can win over board control by the rule of greater numbers (especially when attacking from different angles).

Two groups each consisting of General Grievous and two bodyguards (all figures series one) could accomplish this quite nicely.

Unless, of course, you can spank one "light infantry" group into the other group The mechanics of using a striker assault on an entire group of figures to attack another group of figures are quite tricksy, but if it works out, it can be incredibly productive. However, if your opponent has spread out the light infantry groups significantly and/or has positioned figures such that it would be incredibly difficult to arrange a good trajectory of figures in one group into figures in the other (which is incredibly easy for the opponent to do ), it'd be rather difficult to perform a proper spank.

The other problem with this setup is that you'd have to arrange Grievous and his Bodyguards in some sort of triplet formation. To make it as easy as possible for Grievous to shoot, you'd either need him either a) in front of the triplet or b) have his base not be behind one of the Bodyguards (Backwards Triplet). If a), the Bodyguards will be pretty easy to pick off with shooters because they're light and have no support behind them. If b), the Bodyguard that Grievous's base isn't supporting will be pretty easy to pick off, again because it has no rear support. Then the shooters could flank around and pick off the remaining Bodyguard in front. Of course, Grievous's nasty bolt could take out some poorly formed shooters in a heartbeat.

[YodaBreaker]

YB: The whole idea of two forces (and why, oh why did Yag have to go and say GG + 2 troopers out loud, anyway?) is to create a vulnerability. While not such a slam dunk kill as a chess game, it increases the odds of getting your opp's key piece(s) into more vulnerable board position.

Absolutely. And if the flanks are spread out far enough, they're guaranteed to do their job (unless, of course, you've got a fast striker group that can somehow either attack as a group or split off for an endgame involving two strikers splitting off in different directions, each of which is tasked with taking out on of the flanks). I just figured I'd point out a counterstrategy that I've used to some effect before.

Oh, and the reason he mentioned that team is it's been one he's talked about for at least a month now Although previously, he'd described it only in terms of having 2 GG's and 4 Bodyguards, without mentioning flanking or the like.

Perhaps incidentally, the elements of tactical skill and stochasticity around the success of attacks are what make Attacktix a far more interesting game to me than either chess or miniatures. Chess is essentially a game of deterministic strategy (e.g., no matter how much you play with a certain piece, it can only take out one piece at a time, and that in a predetermined way). However, miniatures seem to rely too much on sheer luck (e.g., rolls of dice, the outcomes of which are theoretically not able to be controlled) for my taste. Thus, Attacktix is the only game I've played thus far with real figures that lets me feel like I have direct influence over the success of my attacks and defense, and that also lets me practice phsyically with my figures to influence that success (as opposed to mere study of chess moves and the like or miniature strategy).

[YodaBreaker]

lordgravesmythe said:

YB: Why do you keep hitting "modify" instead of "quote" on my posts? Look at my post before your last one---"Last Edit: ...by YodaBreaker! At least you didn't screw this one up...I don't think.

This time, it was to try to put a link to a 36"x36" computer mat, as it sounded really cool as an idea for a board. Unfortunately, the link I'd found wasn't what I thought it was, so I had to go back and re-edit it. I'll stick to my own posts now...and not post after midnight my time, as that seems to make my brain move exceeding sluggish

[redemptionrocks]

i think that 5 seperatists would be better.

And as for the midfeild imagen 4-6 jedi holding the middle while 4-6 run at you...not a fun picture.

Although many stratagies differ, the same EXACT peices used by two different people will be used in entirely different ways. it all depends on your playing style honestly.

10 jedi in the hands of yoda breaker *poor jedi gonna be missing thier sabers * are gonna play different then say 10 in mine or lgmt.

[redemptionrocks]

And sadly mine works best after 11 pm...