3 and X on the same card?

[dok]

As you all know, a major goal of OM placement strategy is to make your opponent unsure which figures you will be activating on each turn. So, given a certain desired order of activation, you want to limit what information your opponent can glean from unrevealed order markers. Your greatest weapon in this regard is the "X" order marker.

One of the most obvious ways you can reveal information is to have all your unrevealed OMs on a single card. After you've revealed OM 2, the only two unrevealed OMs are 3 and X. Therefore, you can ensure that you never commit this gaffe (all unrevealed OMs on the same card) simply by always splitting 3 and X. So, you should never put 3 and X on the same card, right?

Wrong.

As I said, the goal is to deny your opponent information. "I never put 3 and X on the same card" is a lot of information to give away. And as I can show with a few common examples, placing OMs in this fashion can tell your opponent as much or more than "I know where 3 is because there's only one card left with OMs".

Example 1

Say your opponent is playing a 2-OM army. Say, Knights and Nilfheim. All the OMs are going to go on one of two cards. Your opponent start the round with two OMs on each figure:

KoW: ? ?
Nilf: ? ?

Your opponent's first turn is on the Knights, leaving:

KoW: 1 ?
Nilf: ? ?

Now, let's say your opponent never puts 3 and X on the same card. You therefore KNOW that Nilfheim can't have both 3 and X. If Nilfheim doesn't have 3 and X, he must have some other OM... 2, of course.

KoW: 1 ?
Nilf: (2) ?

So, because he refuses to ever make the location of his third OM obvious, your opponent has basically told you where his second OM is. He's traded secrecy on his third OM for secrecy on his second OM. That doesn't sound like a great trade to me.

Now, if your opponent is simply willing to occasionally put 3 and X on the same card (not all the time, but once in a while), I can't assume anything about OM 2.

Example 2

Same situation, only this time my opponent has a 3-1 OM distribution:

KoW: ? ? ?
Nilf: ?

This one is much worse. If I know that 3 and X aren't on the same card, then Nilfheim has either 3 or X. That means that before a single OM is revealed, I know where both the 1 and the 2 are:

KoW: (1) (2) ?
Nilf: ?

So, by insisting on keeping OM 3 a secret, my opponent has revealed both of the other OMs for this round. That's a terrible trade. On the other hand, if there's some chance that my opponent put 2, or even 1, on Nilfheim, then I can't make any assumptions.

---

Putting OM 3 and X on the same card does give away OM 3. It's not something you should do all the time. But if you're unwilling to ever do it, you actually give away even more information.

If I may, I'd like to draw an analogy to the most popular of incomplete information games - poker. Putting 3 and X on the same card is like making a raise with a weak hand. If you do it all the time, that's poor play. But if you never do it, then people will never call your bets when you have a good hand ("that guy only bets with a full house"). So it's something you need to do, even if it's a bad idea to do it all the time.

[Sisyphus]

Order marker placement is one of those things I often overthink. 9 times out of 10 it doesn't really matter where you place the X but that doesn't stop me from trying to get tricky with it.

There was a thread about this before.

...

Originally Posted by Sisyphus

I agree. If I have a badly wounded hero that I know won't last long but I want to get a turn with I'll put order marker 1 on that hero and order markers 2, 3, and X on another unit. From my opponents perspective I am abandoning my wounded hero and its order marker is the decoy. So if I lose initiative he ignores it and focus on the unit I have 2, 3, and X on. This comes handy from time to time.

[CheddarLimbo]

This is some great insight dok! I've been known to put the [3] and [X] together from time to time, but I hadn't really thought about it to this degree.

However, I have to wonder...at what point would I, as a player, ever be certain that my opponent would never place [3] and [X] on the same army card? Or any other action, for that matter?

The way I see it, it would have to be someone I already played with frequently where I could make a consistent observation of their habits, or the person would have to tell me that out right (and I would then need to assume they were telling the truth).

But who in their right mind would say "Oh me? I always do [whatever strategy in question] - no question. I don't care what's going on, I'll always do it." That seems like a bad idea no matter what specific strategy is in question.

[dok]

Good point on using this in the case of the wounded hero, Sisyphus. Another good example of the "fake decoy" strategy is when you only have one bonding squad figure left, and you can get one more squaddie activation with a 1 & 2,3,X configuration.

CheddarLimbo, OM placement is something a lot of people don't put a ton of thought into. Splitting 3 and X is one of those orthodoxies that some people ascribe to because it makes obvious sense at first glance. If you don't give it more serious thought, it's easy to believe that it's always the right strategy.

[Jexik]

I tend not to put the 3 and X on the same card.

In that Example 1 you gave, I still think there's a bit of misinformation out there about what you're doing even if they believe you won't put 3 and X on the same card. Not knowing where the 3 is makes big difference that round, because it's the difference between Nilfheim taking two more turns and the knights zero, versus each taking one more turn.

I like playing the Knights and Nilfheim army a lot, in part because there are all kinds of tricks you can play with your OMs, including putting the 3 and X together from time to time.

[Grungebob]

Yes, the not putting 3 and X on the same card has been talked about for years. Don't do it folks. Hehe

[kolakoski]

Well met!

Shiori.

David

[dok]

Originally Posted by kolakoski

Shiori.

Point taken. The considerations of figures like Shori or Ornak or Spartacus, with their peculiar rules for OM placement, are going to obviously take precedence over these sorts of game theory arguments.

[mecha frog]

I've used the 3 & X on the same card as a defensive maneuver. During the last Indy tournament I was facing wdgrant and had Stingers and Q9 left. Q9 with one life left. Wdgrant had two minions adjacent and flanking Q9. I placed all of my markers on the Stingers. The hope was that WD would ignore Q9 and give me the opportunity to get better position with my Stingers.

Part one of the plan worked like a charm. WD didn't bother with Q9 at all...letting him live another round. The problem was the Stingers failed miserably on their attacks.

[falls78]

The point is, with any game, if you do the same thing over and over and over, your opponent is going to figure you out. The x marker is their to keep your opponent on their toes, so use it creatively and keep them guessing.

[Zhoom45]

Good post. Of course, there are worse things you can do to reveal information. Such as put all markers on the same card. Believe it or not, I have seen that one. There are also times when you can rather easily guess where OMs are.

[Swamper]

Well, if your army is all bonding, such as a grut or knight army, you want to put all your OM's on one card.