How do you move your common units?

[Chimpy]

As my Heroscape collection grows, I often find myself with the new hoards of units at my disposal. How do I move my army from point A to point B? Now bear with me here, I am not asking how to move from one hex to another. Rather, my main concern deals with moving large amount of common units across the map.

I like to think that there are two ways to move common units: in waves, or in mobs. Usually I will take (for the example's sake we will say G'nators) three G'nators and move them up until they are in the position I want them to be. Then, once I have them in place, I will move up my next "wave" of 3 G'nators until they are where I want them. I continue this process until I have all of my G'nators in position.

However, this has its problems. If one of my first wave G'nators die, then I only have 2 G'nators left to use in my counter attack. (As the other ones are two far behind to fight back.) Likewise, If I try to move my other G'nators up, instead of using my first wave to fire at the enemy, my opponent gets the upper hand in both position and numbers.

So, I have been trying the other method of transportation, mob movement. This kind of movement means that you never let any unit in your army get more than one turn away from each other- if I move my first wave of G'nators 6 spaces, I will move the next wave 6 spaces the next turn, keeping my army together.

Sadly, when I follow this strategy I find myself be out maneuvered. While yes, I am able to keep my army together, I lose any advantage I may have gained in positioning or speed.

So here is my question to you: Is it better to keep a small compact army, or to have a fast over stretched one?

[The Super Atheist]

I'm a wave sort of guy. move 6 zombies at a time, not alternating between the other six.

if you alternate you just allow the enemy to draw first blood.... but then again, if you had rambo...

[MegadeV]

I usually string them along. On the first activation I move up one full squad. On future activations, I usually advance with 2 of the leading figures and bring up 1 (or 2) from the rear. So after several turns, I have them strung along from the starting zone to however far the leaders have gone. Of course, this doesn't work with well with all units or in all situations. Sometimes I feel it's more important to attack with all of the leading squad, rather than move somebody up from the rear, or to just move a full squad from the rear instead of attacking with the leading group. And with squads like the Romans, with the way they help each other, I try to keep them all together.

[Aldin]

You've hit on it exactly as a power vs. maneuver issue. I tend to use ranged and glyph grabbing in waves and melee in mobs.

~Aldin, who notes that Rats are ALWAYS wave units since the reinforcements tend to move themselves

[theats]

I usually have a 16 romans, or 4 squads of knights, but anyway, with the romans, I line them up in a phalanx that is two hexes deep and eight hexes wide. However, given the terrain, I may split it up, to where there are two columns of 8 soldiers, but for an open field, the phalanx works. I move up the rear most troops, then alternate between the two. Now, given that this is four squads, I move like this:

Starting Move
R .R.R.R.R.R.R.R
. R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R
O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O

Movement 1
O.O.O.O.R.R.R.R
. R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R
O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
R.R.R.R.O.O.O.O
.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O

Movement 2
O.O.O.O.R.R.R.R
. R.R.R.R.O.O.O.O
O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
R.R.R.R. R. R. R. R
.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O

Movement 3
O.O.O.O.R.R.R.R
.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
R.R.R.R. R. R.R. R
.R.R.R.R.O.O.O.O

Movement 4
O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O
R.R.R. R.R.R.R.R
.R.R.R. R.R.R.R.R

Ok, so this takes four movement, but you have a solid force advancing. Whenever conflict is reached, stagger the approach of this first line, alternating four of them, engaging the enemy, and bringing up the other four as your forces die. Reform starting from the back whenever you move on.

With the zombies, yo ucould do this to, but have the ranks six wide. Mine are six wide and four deep, and the ability to attack with three, and move another six, makes this even more potent.

[rdhight]

If I want to do damage with commons, I almost always move the ones that are farthest from the objective, advancing them all as a group. My goal is for them to hit the enemy in one uninterrupted flood, so that no matter how quickly he kills them, I can't drop below my full attacks-per-turn until I drop below a card's worth. For melee units, this usually means a much tighter group. For ranged units, especially those that will be attacking enemy melee, it often means a strung-out advance, so that when the first rank falls, the second rank takes its full move forward and fires at the outside of its range.

For blockers or glyph-grabbers, this doesn't always hold true.

[Phoenix 133]

I agree with Aldin on the power vs manuevering thing, but personally would go for power over manuevering, at least slightly. I would advise moving units, especially ranged, in small groups, around four or five, with another small group within threat range, and, if there is room, they should spread out to kind of create a web, where each unit can be supported by nearby others.

[gorthan313]

Originally Posted by Phoenix 133

I agree with Aldin on the power vs manuevering thing, but personally would go for power over manuevering, at least slightly. I would advise moving units, especially ranged, in small groups, around four or five, with another small group within threat range, and, if there is room, they should spread out to kind of create a web, where each unit can be supported by nearby others.

I have to know: How did you find this thread from way back in 2007?

[yagyuninja]

This is cool thread necro, and an important thought to consider if you've never really thought about it.

[Onacara]

Originally Posted by gorthan313

I have to know: How did you find this thread from way back in 2007?

Going to guess he saw the other thread about the Search Function being "broken" and used my example of searching the KEYWORD "Commons" and then found it.

[gorthan313]

Originally Posted by Onacara

Going to guess he saw the other thread about the Search Function being "broken" and used my example of searching the KEYWORD "Commons" and then found it.

Ah, ok. That makes sense.

[King of the Marro]

Well I'll throughout some input since this topic's up again. I move my commons normally with one squad out ahead to serve as either assassins (if he's moved out a hero or squad to far) or to just soften up his defenses. I tend to use Stingers so 1 squad can do some damage. As they fall I slowly bring up 1 or 2 units at a time to get a bigger group going. So yes, I'm not getting the maximum amount of attacks, but my opponent is not advancing his army while I still am.