The Importance of Positioning

[greygnarl]

I've been wondering about this recently. I mostly play casual Heroscape with my dad. For the most part we just bum rush each other with whatever we have. There is some strategic movement and positioning using hills or whatever but for the most part, rolls seem to make or break the game.

Anyway, we recently bought 2 new boxes of Romans and 2 of Orcs bringing us to 3 of each of those squads. We had a battle and I decided to use a mostly flat field for once. Using the Legionairres led to a lot more finnicky movement and not rushing forward.

The thing I'm wondering is if you're in a competitive tournament, how much of your time is spent counting squares from a million different angles.

[marrowick]

Not much for some people up to 10 minutes for others (A.K.A Foudzing in the recent tourney). But it all depends on how long you want to spend doing it. You should consider the different height and angles but you don't have to if you don't want to. I don't spend too much time doing it but I do consider them, and most of the other people I've played with don't spend too long doing it either. I hope this helps .

[greygnarl]

We spend time looking at height advantage and stuff like that but not a lot counting how far away this squad is, how far their threat range is. We almost always move as close as we can with melee squads rather than getting out of threat range and things like that.

[ibechief]

It just depends how strategic you want your fights to go. If you invest the time it almost always pays off in the end. But as long as neither of you are playing that way the game play should be matched still. Try a game with some strategy involved and see if you enjoy it more.

[Unhinged Manchild]

I'm pretty sure when tourney directors (or whatever title that is) make and/or choose maps for tourneys, things like starting zones and positions of glyphs (and the distance to them from the starting zones) are extremely important. Split starting zones are neat and offer a different flavor to maps. I think some mapmakers even intentionally place glyphs so that figures with 6 move need 3 order markers to get to them.

One of the other important things to consider (I think you mentioned it) is threat range. It's really useful when you have ranged units and you're shooting down some melee units, so that you can do some running and gunning without becoming engaged.

But all in all, it really comes down to how casual or hardcore you wish to be.

[Garenex]

A lot of it also depends on what figures you and your opponent are fielding. Using or fighting against something like the 10th Reg or 4th Mass requires a lot more thoughts about positioning then if you have two hero based armies. Especially something like the Templar Calvary you have to position carefully as their main ability is all based on how far away they are from opponent at the beginning of their turn.

Like others have said though, a lot of it comes down to styles of play. If two people are playing the same way, neither care too much, but if you're someone who doesn't think too much about the positions and you're fighting someone who pours over every angle with a fine tooth comb, it's easy to get impatient.

For me, I try and fall in the middle (as I'm sure most people do), while I analyze how to get the best position, I try to not be overly obnoxious about it.

[dok]

Playing strategically and playing quickly are not mutually exclusive. As you become more experienced in the game you will probably develop some natural feel for how to deploy your armies so that they don't get strung out and so that you are making the most of their movement. You really don't need to spend 10 minutes staring at the map.

[Sheep]

Originally Posted by dok

Playing strategically and playing quickly are not mutually exclusive. As you become more experienced in the game you will probably develop some natural feel for how to deploy your armies so that they don't get strung out and so that you are making the most of their movement. You really don't need to spend 10 minutes staring at the map.

Exactly! Usually once you've play an unit enough you will develop a rough strategy that can be used on nearly any balanced map. However, some maps with terrain features such as Heavy Snow/Ice, [Molten] Lava, Road, Trees, Castle, Outcrops, Shadow, and Jungle (and even Normal Snow/Ice, [Swamp] Water, and Dungeon depending on the figures you are playing) will effect your strategy from the slightest to largest bit.

EDIT: The key is getting to know your figures and what their strengths and weaknesses are - both against armies and types of maps. After that I personally studied every HS card out. I knew I had to do this because if I didn't there could come a tourney that my opponent is playing a figure I don't have or haven't played before. Then you're saying, "oh, crap! I don't know if my Romans are good against this guy or not!" And I'll say the most recent tournaments had a format of you take two armies I take two armies; dice off; highest roller gets to pick out of the four; lowest roller picks from the remaining three - so knowing your opponents figures was a necessity.

[Foudzing]

Originally Posted by marrowick

Not much for some people up to 10 minutes for others (A.K.A Foudzing in the recent tourney).

This is funny because in casual games or in "offline" tournaments I play really fast (I'm saying "so you play? You play?" all game long.

But online I don't know why, it's completely the opposite, I like to analyse almost all the different moves before choosing what to do. And also I was playing with the Trons, so you have to anticipate the 8 moves in your head, before moving anything (at least that is how I do it), that makes loooong turn.
Last thing, you watched only the final, and I had a hangover this day, which increase more and more the time to take a turn.

If I play you in next season, I will try to play fast, I'm not running Trons again so it'll help.

[marrowick]

Originally Posted by Foudzing

If I play you in next season, I will try to play fast, I'm not running Trons again so it'll help.

Good . You'll play a lot faster .

Originally Posted by Foudzing

Last thing, you watched only the final, and I had a hangover this day, which increase more and more the time to take a turn.

You probably shouldn't drink it's bad for you .

[Foudzing]

Greygnarl, what I can say is that more you advance in the game more you'll find that taking height advantage is far to be the only criteria to choose where to move your units, you'll started to anticipate your opponents turn, and know where he will go or where is likely to go, then there are plenty of things to check and balance, each move will have an advantage and a desavantage you'll have to balance which is the best.
If you're really good, you can anticipate your next attacks and calculate fast how many chance you have to kill this unit, or this one, or how many wounds you're likely to do, all that before your move, then you'll move in order to target the targets you want (because it's easier to kill, or because it's more dangerous, or because you can kill it without taking any risk).

For example others things than height there is:
. using the auras and synergies of your armies (be at same level and in Raelin is better to be higher but without Raelin, but it's better to be at same level or higher without Raelin than to be lower and with Raelin)
. move in order to target the uit you want or to target multiple targets (even if you don't have height, sometimes it's better to take a risk and going forward)
. be where the opponents want to be,this is pretty effective against double-hex figures, you can really easily block all the interesting spots, or in a melee battle where all is clamped.
. choose or not to make a move which could be good immediately, but which will slow down your initial strategy
. and many more...

So yes, thinking to all this take a while, but as said dok, you will almost automatically reduce the choice of moves to 2 or 3 possibilities.

Originally Posted by marrowick

You probably shouldn't drink it's bad for you .

It's bad but... it's good. (joke)
More seriously, don't worry for me, I know when to stop, it's my special ability, and I never drink alone of course.
But of course if you manage to have great fun without any kind of this stuff, I encourage you to not drink at all.

[Smithy Winfred]

I normally don't take too much time, but some factors can come into play especially with

- Multi attacks, making sure you get the most out of your attacks

- Squads, so you can attack as many people as possible

- and figures w/ dodges / smoke powder, make sure they don't steal your attack