Orc's Tips to Improve Fast

[legoboy]

Great article. Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I posted a link in my Club thread for any of my new players who want to step up their game.

[caps]

sigh that 2016 game. I still believe I could have won that game by making better decisions in the end game; notably, keeping Sam Brown out of engagement with the WoA. What the hell was I thinking? Talk about giving your opponent opportunities...

[weebaer]

Haven't been on here in a while. Good stuff, OEAO. I often play as if everything is going to go in my favor. Occasionally it bites me, but Heroscape almost always favors the aggressor. So that's what helps influence my decisions and is one of the reasons I love this game so much. Obviously I take each match-up into account, but careful, aggressive play wins games.

[DoomCarrot]

I agree with almost all of this. Heroscape is definitely a game of skill, and I absolutely agree to playing B- armies you know rather than A+ armies you don't.

A few weeks ago I played a 3-way free-for-all that ended up basically being 2 vs 1, as I separated the other two from each other.

I was up against krav on one team and warriors of ashra on the other. Pretty solid builds. I managed to destroy one opponent and take out roughly half of the other opponent's army, with a hodgepodge army of shaolins, marro, and orcs. I lost, but it felt like a victory.

Yes, strategy matters. Knowing when to grab glyphs and not matters. Knowing when to press the offensive or fall back matters.

However, I do disagree with the "don't blame the dice" rule. I have seen Ne-Gok-Sa mindshackle a full health Charos. You can't seriously mean that a game like that is winnable and that the dice did not decide the game on occasion?

[OEAO]

Originally Posted by DoomCarrot

I agree with almost all of this. Heroscape is definitely a game of skill, and I absolutely agree to playing B- armies you know rather than A+ armies you don't.

A few weeks ago I played a 3-way free-for-all that ended up basically being 2 vs 1, as I separated the other two from each other.

I was up against krav on one team and warriors of ashra on the other. Pretty solid builds. I managed to destroy one opponent and take out roughly half of the other opponent's army, with a hodgepodge army of shaolins, marro, and orcs. I lost, but it felt like a victory.

Yes, strategy matters. Knowing when to grab glyphs and not matters. Knowing when to press the offensive or fall back matters.

However, I do disagree with the "don't blame the dice" rule. I have seen Ne-Gok-Sa mindshackle a full health Charos. You can't seriously mean that a game like that is winnable and that the dice did not decide the game on occasion?

Two parts to this. First, surely the Charos player should be preventing the Mindshackle? If they let NGS waltz up to Charos, they deserve to be shackled.

Second, if they do all they can and that 1-life NGS shackles for game, sure, that's accounted for in the 1% being determined by dice. It can happen, but the absolute vast majority (read: 99% of games in a competitive setting) the dice do not determine the outcome.

[vegietarian18]

I don't think the rule is that 99% of games aren't determined by dice, but rather in 99% the outcome could have been not determined by dice. If both players are playing roughly equal at a medium skill level, then dice probably will "determine" 50%ish of games. But there were also "mistakes" by both players that could have been avoided to get rid of the opportunities for the dice to determine the game.

[Unhinged Manchild]

Originally Posted by OrcElfArmyOne

Two parts to this. First, surely the Charos player should be preventing the Mindshackle? If they let NGS waltz up to Charos, they deserve to be shackled.

Second, if they do all they can and that 1-life NGS shackles for game, sure, that's accounted for in the 1% being determined by dice. It can happen, but the absolute vast majority (read: 99% of games in a competitive setting) the dice do not determine the outcome.

Agreed. Mostly.

Should be using common squaddies/range to kill/tie up NGS, his single attack of 3 is garbo. I mean, I suppose if Charos vs NGS was the endgame fight, you'd have no other choice, but that instead becomes something you can ask yourself in hindsight "what should I have done to prevent that late game matchup?"

Although I'm not quite in the "99% not decided by dice" boat (I personally feel like ~80% is not decided by dice,) I firmly believe NGS mindshackle is a relatively preventable with some forethought.

[caps]

On the other hand, NGS mindshackle seems low chance enough that basing your whole strategy on staying out of his reach seems extreme to me. Does he really command the board that much?

[DoomCarrot]

Exactly. Heroscape is largely about risks and chances of things happening.

Could your squad of venoc vipers take down a far away dw8k if they get the frenzy roll? Yeah, possibly, but that doesn't mean it is a good idea to take the risk of failing the role and then getting mowed down by rapid fire.

If you only have some weak attack squads, who are mostly pinned down trying to hold back a wave of romans, and you need to take down Ne-Gok-Sa quick because he is on an attack glyph that is absolutely wrecking your army, is it worth the risk to fly charos over to take down the tank?

Of course it is in certain situations. That 1% risk of failure is worth it in comparison to the 90% risk of losing if you don't find a way to get him off the glyph quick.

Some situations are nearly unavoidable based on the matchups and the map, and there are plenty of units in the game who are designed to be game-changing on a lucky roll. The real strategy is less about avoiding those units imo, and more about building an army to maximize their effectiveness, and vice-versa an army that minimizes the threat of a "lucky roll" character like NGS or DD

[vegietarian18]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

On the other hand, NGS mindshackle seems low chance enough that basing your whole strategy on staying out of his reach seems extreme to me. Does he really command the board that much?

I mean, 5% is a lot. And if he gets next to Charos once, he's probably going to be able to do it again. I know that I have disengaged from NGS with Q9 to avoid further mindshackle rolls because the only way I could lose the game was if Q9 got shackled. Assuming a Charos and Greenscales vs. NGS/melee bonding matchup, using the Greenscales to pin NGS and negate any chance of losing Charos and losing the game is definitely the right play.

[OEAO]

Pulling 10 hour retail shifts makes it so I don’t really care enough to argue, but all I have are hundreds of tournament game statistics between myself, my father, and the rest of the KoM. That sample size of over 1000 tournament games highly suggests that dice make roughy 1% of games unwinnable.

[Sir Heroscape]

This is an interesting discussion. Part of me agrees and disagrees with the "dice decide the game" argument. I probably agree too much with the dice can decide the game only because there are plenty of times I would rather just blame the dice (because it's all chance right?) rather than admit my own tactical failures. But, a valid argument that the dice CAN clearly decide games is that Heroscape IS NOT Chess. Any way you cut it, it just isn't. There are Chess elements in the strategies used and the way you can "trap" your opponent into some hard decisions, but at the end of the day, the dice still decide the fate of the interactions between the opponents. Chess is a game of PURE calculation and strategy 100%. In fact, there are even very clearly RIGHT and WRONG decisions you can make because it is a game designed almost with a "science" and a certain methodical-ness to it. Heroscape is NOT the same. While there are some poorer tactical decisions that can be made in Heroscape, there are no WRONG decisions imo because the game of chance could always swing in your favor. I do agree though that the best and most successful players will put themselves in the best situation where the dice will be optimized in your favor OR where if the dice fail you, your strategy and tactics are not ruined. One of the most important questions you can ask yourself in a game of heroscape is "How bad would it be if I fail this roll [or this move][or this...]?" Planning for if your plans don't succeed helps mitigate the damage done when the dice don't go your way, and helps you remain in a strong position. I truly believe the words of a dear friend who has said, "No amount of strategy can save you if the dice turn against you." When all that is set and done, there is some hard core truth to that. Kite all you want, set a defensive wall, put yourself behind a screen but if your dice fail you, your gunna lose that game. That said, you're less likely too because you've made the right strategic move to prevent engagements or attacks etc, but dice can still do you in. Another quote i'll share is one of my own, and that's, "You've never truly played Heroscape until you've lost a tournament game to an 8yr old." Now, I consider myself a pretty competitive player (winning 65-75% of my tournament games)...but even my skill and strategy can't save a game where a pumped up 8yr old, against all odds, can walk all over me in a game where he made extreme tactical blunders, but the dice were hot and my dice were cold. At such a young age, they have a simple strategy, go kill something and sometimes that works all else aside. So, while I do agree the "better" players will use position and tactics to optimize dice rolls for the best CHANCE of success, I disagree with the sentiment that only 1% of games are decided by dice. Any game with dice is a game of CHANCE, and unfortunately that means that sometimes against all odds, things will happen that shouldn't and it's not always because someone made a tactical error. I think that's why this game has lasted for so long is because a dad and his young boys or a joe off the street can come in, play a game with little or no experience and still succeed or beat players who're more experienced. Chess doesn't offer you that luxury. Heroscape does.