|
Heroscape Strategy Articles Heroscape Strategy Articles with discussions. Including Order Markers, Units, Game Play, etc. |
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread | Display Modes |
#1
|
||||
|
||||
Heroscape Competitive Rules of Thumb
Alright, most of us who have been to tournaments have made stupid little mistakes, or have seen our opponent's make stupid little mistakes. But sometimes a bunch of these little mistakes are the reasons why we lose the games/tournament. Most of these will be common sense and most of us will roll our eyes upon reading these, but Heroscape is what you put into it. If you are lazy or just don't care to scrutinize you will not perform as well as others. There are a lot of things to think about and remember while playing Heroscape. Most of the best players probably don't notice it but their minds are always buzzing about something. Here will be a list of Rules of Thumb about Heroscape that I will create with the help of all of you hopefully. Enjoy!
1. Always get height - I have seen my opponents quite frequently neglect to gain height on me, causing them to lose an advantage. Along the same lines move up to negate your opponent's height advantage and at least be on even ground. This especially includes figures that are engaged. killercactus reminded me of the "engagement dance" (which is something my girlfriend has wanted to participate in for 3 years but I digress). This has to do with getting height while engaged to an opponent's figure. This is probably the chief mistake players make. Simply moving around an enemy has many benefits: Blocking a path, preventing opponent from getting height, giving yourself height, moving so as to not be seen by enemy ranged units, etc. 2. Pay attention to to final placement on your third order marker - This has to do with situations like those you encounter on lava maps. make sure you're not on the magma at the end of your 3rd order marker, you don't want to needlessly have to take damage that could have been avoided if you just were paying attention. 3. Triple check your army's stats - This has many things included in it: Make sure you read and understand all of your army cards and the abilities printed on them. Forgetting to use the Nakita's smoke powder every turn is a killer. Also, make sure your army adds up to the points you think it does. Don't have 10-20 pts left over and forget to include Marcu or Isamu. Don't waste your points. If you have squads, make sure you have all the right sculpts and right amount of squad members with you. You don't want to be halfway through the tournament and realize you have only been using 10 zombies instead of 12. 4. Make sure you include all your modifiers - Before you roll those dice, make sure you have accounted for everything: Height, glyphs, special abilities, and auras all affect your defense/offense rolls. I have seen opponent's commit this crime more than any other. 5. Plan out your moves - Before placing order markers, make sure you plan out your moves. Account for winning/losing initiative and have a plan for both. Also, try to account for possible casualties you may encounter throughout the turn. Nothing kills an army quicker than a lost order marker because their hero died before they could activate them. This is not always avoidable but putting all 3 order markers on a fully wounded hero while you have other heroes/units at your disposal could cause you to lose several turns and in turn get others killed needlessly. 6. Check your ranges - Whether you are moving to attack or moving to get within range make sure you double check your ranges. Your opponent doesn't have to let you redo your movement phase whenever you realize you moved all your figures and they didn't get to where you wanted them to. Also know your opponent's ranges so that you can act accordingly. 7. Take out opponent's "helper" units first - Jexik calls them Children/Cheerleaders, but they are any unit that enhances the figures around them. Raelin is a perfect example of these. In almost all circumstances it is wise to go after these units before going after the units they are enhancing. Take out the helpers, and it will be easier to take out everyone else. Not doing this can result in a waste of turns, or much harder turns. Plus, you don't want to give your opponent the feeling of satisfaction that his units are doing what they are supposed to do do you? This can also apply to bonding units. Taking out all your opponent's gruts early in a round can cause him to lose the rest of his order markers (if he put them all on the gruts in order to get the bonding bonus). 8. Check your opponent's cards before the game - By all means memorize all the cards, but not everybody has the time for that. At least make sure you know what is on your opponent's cards before playing him. Knowing his army's cards can be a great asset giving you the knowledge that his units only move "x" spaces a turn, meaning I can go "x" spaces, shoot at him, and still not be reached by him. Nothing would be more irritating than sending in all your Warriors of Ashra and surrounding Brunak only to find out that his Bloodlust could spell the doom for all your figures. Make sure you know all of your opponent's options on a given turn, that will help you plan your own moves. Checking your opponent's cards are also important so that you can make sure your opponent doesn't make any mistakes. I'm not saying to check to see if he's cheating, he's probably not. But we all make mistakes, and you don't want to be cheated out of a decent roll because your opponent accidently rolled 5 defense dice instead of 4. Doing this helps both players and keeps the game fun. 9. Pick a competitive army - This is a no-brainer and I won't go too deep into it. But if you want to play competitively then have a competitive army. There are tons of articles about this and tons of armies to sample, but the rule of thumb is that if you want to win, you need to have a competitive army. That army of deathreavers with dund and morsbane may be fun to play with and annoy your enemy, but it's not likely to do well in a competitive setting (I apologize for the example, but I could think of nothing better) 10. Always consider LOS - LOS (Line of Sight) This is a tactic rarely used in play, at least it's rarely used well around my area. This has to do with using your surroundings the best you can. Moving your figures around on the hex has a great effect in the game. Moving your figure so that your opponent can't see you, but you can spot him using the red dash on the wall pieces is just good tactics. Some people may think of stuff like this cheap or rules lawyering, but I don't think so. There are lines of obsession that can make the game not fun for anyone, but rules are in place so that people follow them (The stinger denial thread comes to mind). But using LOS to your advantage I doubt anyone would gripe over. When you have a mainly melee army, you'll want to use the trees, mountains, ruins, to hide your advancing force. If you can place your figures so that your enemy can only see you if they go to a certain spot (and this spot is where you can get height, create a choke point, and ambush him), then you are at a distinct advantage. While moving your figures, Use the terrain available, just don't think you have to move in a straight line. The point is to disrupt your opponent's plan, and nothing disrupts his plan more than for him not to be able to attack something. 11. Consider Point Differential - This has to do with the format of the tournament. Many tournaments now-a-days have point differential as a tie breaker or as the system to find out who plays whom after win/loss record. It has to do with limiting your army's losses, while maximizing your opponent's losses. No general in history won a war when he lost almost all his troops in every battle, and the same is kinda correct with heroscape. Now in tournaments that we have your remaining figures are not carried over, but what you have left can give you that extra punch to give you a good placement or even the championship if everyone has the same record. So don't needlessly send you army into the battle without a care to their well-being. It should not be a game of attrition. Play the game with the goal to not lose a single figure. Try not to sacrafice your units if you can help it, there will always be exceptions but in general try to minimize your losses, it will pay off in the end. Get that decisive victory! 12. Have a backup plan - Alright, all of us have had that horrible thing happen to us during a game, whether it is a DW (Deathwalker) roll that causes our hero to be killed, or our AE (Airborne Elite) to never drop. Heroscape games are about luck, and that luck can go bad. But what shouldn't happen when that bad luck happens is that the game immediately ends for you. Of course a long string of bad luck or stuff like that may happen, but I'm talking about a single stroke of bad luck. The DW are great heroes, but in one whiff can cause you to not have them anymore. You would do well to consider the possibility that they may be killed, and have a plan in case they do. This is a big factor to consider for order markers like what was said above, but it can also be a part of the strategy for the whole game. Don't put all your marbles into a bag of hope that your Ne-Gok-Sa will mindshackle a hero every game, and that if he doesn't, you are doomed to lose. Surely you can have a backup plan to go into effect if your warlord does not deliver. Have a couple of ways that you can win going into every game, depending on the situation, and depending on your losses. make sure your army has a backup plan to your krug dying without doing anything. Can your army still fight and win without him? If not, then perhaps you need to have a different army. Your strategy in any given game should be like a conglomerate of religions bent on insisting that everyone is correct - many ways to get to one goal. 13. Minimize your opponent's unit's effectiveness - This one is difficult to explain and I am not sure how to put in into words so that everyone can understand. This has to do with the effectiveness of a given unit and how well it performs when it is wounded, or missing some members. his is a tough and situational strategy to master, but if done well will single-handedly win you games. The krav maga, are an awesome squad, but if you take out even a single figure, their effectiveness goes way down. If you take out a figure your opponent may think twice about using them a lot, and if he does then you have effectively taken that unit out of the game (for now). If you are facing two different squads or a squad and a hero it can sometimes be good to take out a couple of the squad or wound the hero several times. Of course if it is a bonding unit, taking out the bonding squad is probably wiser (refer above). By taking out a couple members of a squad or wounding a hero a couple of times presents your opponent with an interesting dilemma. When he has to place order markers for the next turn he is forced to try and predict whether or not his hero or squad will be taken out first. He will probably split his order markers or if you're lucky put them all on one of the cards. Now all you have to do is guess which card has the earlier order markers or just kill the unit that has all the order markers and then you have a free turn! Make the game tough for your opponent and force him to make calls he does not want to make. And when he makes a decision make him regret it by killing the unit that he put all his order markers into, giving you a free turn to destroy his whole army. 14. Know the rules - R˙chean points out the importance of knowing the rules of the game. I have touched on it in a couple of areas such as knowing your cards, knowing your opponents, and knowing that you can move around a player while engaged, but I never flat out said "know the rules". I can't even begin to say how important and advantageous it is to know all the rules. To know that you sight from the little red dash mark on the wall pieces so therefore you can remain unseen from your foes yet be able to see them. Stuff like that. As R˙chean so eloquently reminded us: "Knowledge is Power", and to quote from our great cartoon past time: "And Knowledge is half the Battle!"....with luck being the other half in terms of heroscape. 15. Luck is Heroscape - Soberman commented on this. Now this is not necessarily a rule of thumb, but a reminder that could be used as a rule. With dice you have luck, and when you have luck, you have bad luck. It is going to happen, everyone runs into it. But you can minimize the effect of bad luck to a degree, such as not putting all your marbles into trying to win with one figure every time, stuff like that. But on the same token knowing that heroscape is a luck-based game allows good players to understand that: yea, shooting krav maga from range, who are on height and within sight of raelin, have 6 defense dice and only need 1 shield to block all damage, but why not shoot at them while you are approaching them? By all means make sure you are hiding on the way up but if you have to be in the open and you have a chance to shoot at them why not shoot at them? Heroscapers coined the term "Deathwalker roll" for a reason, meaning that even something that has a ton of defense and should (on average) roll at least 1 defense die, sometimes they just don't, then they're dead. This sort of reasoning is what makes the arrow gruts so good. Nobody expects the arrow gruts by themselves to do well, so they are overlooked. This is exactly the moment where you take pot shots at other units and laugh with glee when your measly 1 attack takes out your opponent's AE perched on a glyph on extreme height. So remember that Heroscape is luck-based, remind yourself that no matter what, bad luck will happen. You can minimize the damage from getting bad luck and use luck as a chance to surprise your opponent from time to time. After all, even those deathreavers have 1 attack, and I have seen them kill things like knights, WoA, and even Brunak. 16. Have Fun - Heroscape is a game, it's supposed to be fun. This may not seem like a strategy but it's hte most important thing about a game. You can have all the strategy and win every game but if you're not having fun then everyone around you won't have fun either. Then pretty soon nobody will play with you and Heroscape will end. Plus I personally beleive that if you are having fun, the better you tend to do. This may not be true but if your'e having fun you won't notice that you're losing as much. If your are nice and having fun opponents will also be more inclined to let things slide, or let you fix a little msitake, or help you if you make a glaring mistake. Enjoy yourself, make new friends, and good things will come your way. 17. Consider Disengagement - This is a tricky one. This is used very rarely by a select few number of heroscape players. I wouldn't even say that they are the best Heroscapers, but they are definetely not newcomers. This has to do with disengaging from a figure for the chance at a better opportunity. Say your Jotun is engaged with a deathreaver or two. It would most likely be benefitial to disengage from that rat(s) in order to get to the more "meatier" targets like Raelin or Sir Gilbert. If you have someone like Krug then you should definitely be disengaging on occasion as Krug only gets stronger with wounds. Now there is a great debate on whether you should disengage if you are close to dying, this includes squad members and heroes with 1 or 2 wounds left. This is very situational and honestly a "rule of thumb" cannot exist. My point is to consider it from time to time. You only have a 50% chance of getting a wound from a disengagement, and I have found that figures rarely get killed from disengaging. It's one of those wierd things that seem to happen. Take a chance sometimes. If you have a Marro Warrior engaged to a rat with a Krav maga in the distance by all means try a disengagement. Your warrior will most likely not survive an attack from the krav and you're not doing very much by attackign the rat. Don't let your opponent use his rats effectively and get over there and hav a chance at killing his krav. That will definitely surprise him. That's another good thing about considering disengagement. It will throw a curveball at your opponent that he wasn't expecting. His plans will most likely be knocked off course and that is always a good thing. One last thing to consider about disengagement is to remember if any of your units have disengagement. This is something your opponent most likely overlooked or counted on you not remembering. I have committed this crime on a number of occasions with the orc gruts: setting up this great choke point only to realize that my units actually don't keep the gruts in their place. Disengagement is a great ability and should be used as often as possible. It is very discouraging for an opponent and even if you leave a figure to go attack the same tye of figure you have moved and may throw you opponents off or confuse them, which can cause them to make a mistake later. 18. Know some statistics - This comes from reading a wonderful thread full of the probabilities and chances of getting a certain roll. Thanks Sisyfus! I am sure it will be updated with various abilities but it is a great strength to have during a game. Just the simple knowledge that you are more likely to wound a figure if you have the same amount of attack dice as an opponent's defense dice is something. Knowing statistics will help you assess situations in Heroscape with a little more clarity and control. No more do you have to rely on what that figure did for you the other day (although I will still continue to use this logic from time to time), you can instead rely on what should happen, and make your choices from there. All things being equal you should fair well if you put yourself into situations where you will statistically come out on top. Here is the thread I read (I know there have been others, but this one is new and will generate some positive feedback I believe). http://www.heroscapers.com/community...=511897#544149 |
#2
|
||||
|
||||
1. This is not a big issue once you become accustomed to the game, but is a huge issue for new players. If you think, "Well, a height advantage won't help me for this attack," or "He doesn't have order markers on that figure, I will keep the height advantage, anyway," you're simply out-thinking yourself. Always get height. Very seldom may remaining on a lower space work to your advantage, such as blocking an opponent from moving around you, but generally, newbs, GET HEIGHT!
2. Final placement on any order marker can be just as important. Don't leave Ornak's aura with Tor-Kul-Na and Su-Bak-Na unless you have to! (Why do I keep shouting?) 3. Ah, yes. So important. I've royally screwed myself on a draft before because I assumed I couldn't be wrong that Nakitas were 110 points. Needless to say, I'll never forget how many points they cost now. I have also gotten the wrong amount of figures off the shelf more than once. This can be friggin' embarassing, ESPECIALLy when you grabbed 8 rats instead of 4, 6 Nags instead of 3, etc. 4. I agree, this is the major culprit among all players, including experienced ones. None of us has not forgotten we were on a glyph or thought they were even with someone they were higher than. 5. So important to realize the risk you're taking by placing all 3 markers on someone that is already "in the fight." I try to avoid it whenever possible. Nothing stinks worse than losing all 3 turns. 6. Most experienced players know their cards' ranges, but make sure you are also aware of your OPPONENT'S ranges. 7. Whatever your opponent does NOT want you to do is USUALLY the best choice, and no one wants to lose that +2 defense within 4 clear sight spaces. Absolutely, helpers must die. There are a few exceptions to this one as well, though. |
#3
|
||||
|
||||
I'm glad that you put number one first. When I think about it, 3 of my 5 losses in tournaments so far have been because I neglected or failed to control the high ground. There's really little way around it. Putting a squad figure onto higher ground is like giving him an attack, and a defense glyph. That's really the most important thing to keep track of I think.
As for some of the other stuff, when I play a new player, I often remind them of their bonuses, even in a tournament. I remind people to roll for Eternal Hatred just as often as I do for Smoke Powder. Even in some of the more competitive games with some of the people I've played with in Iowa and Minnesota, it's customary to say, "My 4th Mass is attacking that Gladiatron, from height and with a glyph, but you have Raelin, 4 vs. 5. Now this one, same thing, 4 vs. 5." And so on. Sometimes it also develops into silly goading like, "Are you going to juice them [the stingers]? Or, "go ahead attack my Krug, he likes it!" While I agree that killing supporting units is important, I also find that sometimes it helps to play defense back at them and force them outside of Raelin or Laglor's aura. Obviously, this can be hard to do with the Laglor situation since he'll have more range than you, but if you just charge a well supported position on height, you're in for a lot of pain. |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Never let the enemy attack first if you can help it. I play a strategy against a friend of mine that drives him nuts. Whenever I'm too far away to attack anything, I place the units one hex out of the threat range of all of his units that have order markers. The reason it drives him nuts is because on his turn, when he can't attack me, I say "Oh, convienently located just out of range." Seriously though, a lot of times you can, and should, avoid being attacked first.
Jugger It's like football with swords or LARPing without the geeky stuff. In other words, it's awesomely perfect! |
#6
|
||||
|
||||
Quote:
Circumcision? HIS body, HIS decision. A person should have the right to their own body. "Sometimes you're right but you're always an asshole." - Anonymous neg rep |
#7
|
||||
|
||||
Re: Heroscape Competitive Rules of Thumb
Quote:
Like battle reports? Click Tourney Reports (New 10/21/2012 - Cutters / Brutes!) KC's Maps Click KC's Customs Scaper of the Week #57 |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
|
#9
|
||||
|
||||
Re: Heroscape Competitive Rules of Thumb
Quote:
|
#10
|
||||
|
||||
I think it is vitally important to know your stuff. I posted this in another thead recently:
Quote:
|
#11
|
||||
|
||||
Just out of curiousity, gamjuven, how well do you feel I do on these points? I always seem to come out smack in the middle of our rankings.
I have started to think of late, that if HS isn't largely about luck, tournaments are. What I mean is, strategy, or tactics if you prefer, can be 100% in place, but a player can sit down at a rectangular board to find an opponent with 4x ranged squads and heros who gets the range glyph on the second turn and can now shoot your army anywhere on the board, even the starting zone. (As has happened to me against Royaldoy, who made the map- and he says I cheat. ) Or you can draft Chompy and go against an all large heroes army...as with you and I this past wekend. I haven't based this totally on my own misfortunes. Look at Royaldoy...former champ, and now he has come in below me using a synergistic army. Tiberius- same deal, and an even sharper lapse to dead last. These are good, solid players drafting cooperavtive units. At home, I think HS has more strategy than a tourney. Drafting, knowing what your opponent is bringing to the table in advance, or knowing the layout of the board in advance clearly allows for more strategy. I realize that numerous other tourneys have relatively consistent results...or do they? I know ours have fluctuated dramatically of late. You have stayed at or near the top, though, 'cuz you da man. Being "da man" brings us back to luck, however... For instance...nobody brought Cyprien to a MELEE tourney in which you crafted an all hero army?!??!?? W to the T to the F, yo? _________________________________ now playing: nuttin'- at public library |
#12
|
||||
|
||||
Cyprien isn't that good against melee units. I wouldn't think of bringing him to an all-melee tourney.
|
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|