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Competitive Armies Discussion Discuss, critique, and build ideas for tournament-caliber armies.

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Old August 27th, 2023, 01:25 PM
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Free For All Army for chas' Switcheroo Scenario?


Well met!

From A Guide to "Free for All" Heroscape by Sir Dendrik:

II)Strategy

"Strategy without tactics is the most circuitous route to victory, but great tactics without a strategy is just the cacophony before defeat." ~Johngee

I’m not going to go over tactics, because they apply to all Heroscape games and deserve another article, and over and above tactics are a zero sum game in Free for All. You can train your whole life, learn everything there is to know about the game, draft Q9, Hydra, Raelin, 3xRats, but it’s not going to give you much of an edge if you don’t understand the strategy of the format.

A) The First Rule of Fighting…

“Don’t be there.”

In a perfect world, the best strategy in an 8 player game would be to sit back and watch the other 7 players demolish each other while your army remained completely unscathed. Then, when only 1 player was left, with dwindling forces, you could easily crush him. This will never happen, but you can learn from its principles.

The less you make yourself a target, the less battles you get caught up in, the more likely you will win when everything clears out. You want to keep your army intact as long as possible while the other players destroy each other. It’s an ideal that you will have a difficult time achieving, but if you can manage to glean some benefit from this principle you will come out ahead.

I had a friend who used to play the Krav Maga Agents last, and when he was reduced down to 1 agent he would retreat and hang out in his start zone until everyone else was finally reduced down to his size. Rather than being completely discounted from those games, he gave himself a fighting chance. If you can figure out your own way to put this idea to use, do it.


B) Alliances

Gang up on the strong.

Conversely, if you see someone who’s kept a sizeable army in his start zone while the rest of you have had your armies reduced by a sizeable amount, then you know that player is on the path to victory. So what do you do when one player is way ahead? Strike up some alliances, team up with the other players you’ve been tearing apart, and go rip that turtling mofo a new one.

Not to say that turtling is the only way to come out ahead: Whoever plays the best, strikes up the best alliances, etc. is going to come out ahead. But that does not mean they’re anywhere close to winning—it just means it’s time to bring the fight to them so they don’t march on to victory unchecked.

Alliances are a huge part of Free for All battles. You’re not just attacking whatever’s nearest to you: you’re weighing the strength of each players’ army and seeing who needs to be cut down to size. As soon as that player is cut down, a new leader will emerge soon enough, rinse and repeat.

It’s also to a players’ advantage to strike up alliances with players next to their start zones to protect their inert units from being hosed down, and to cut down the number of fronts you’re fighting on.


1)What’s In An Order Marker?
Imagine there’s one player with 400 points left, and the other 3 players have been reduced down to 100 points each. The 400 point player has more units than all of them combined, so there’s no chance the other 3 will beat him down, even with a 3 way alliance, right?

Wrong. If the other 3 gang up, which they should, they will have 3 units activated per round vs. the leader’s 1. Imagine those three players combined into 1 player with 9 active order markers at her disposal, activated one after another. I’d put my bets on that player even if it were a single squad of 10th Regiment of Foot vs. 3 squads of 4th Mass.

a) Let the Weak Live
Because of this principle of Order Marker value, it’s often a good idea to keep weaker players in the game. This is because that player can be used as a mercenary, so to speak, to help take down the leader later in the game. Basically, the more players there are the more fluid the balance of power becomes, and it prevents any one player from gaining a monopoly, which is an entirely different game.

And, of course, it’s better to keep players in the game as long as possible because then they’ll have more fun, but that’s a different issue.


2)Kill AJ While You Have the Chance

Who’s AJ, you ask? Whelp, you’re reading an article by him as we speak.

This is a strategy which organically rederives itself with whatever group I teach Heroscape to. Because I understand tactics so much better than the new players, having played since I was 12, I will often have a very strong showing in the games that I play. This has lead people to realize that even if I just have that 1 figure on the board and it’s got its upset value, it’s still better that they just kill me then, whatever other sound strategy may advise.

So in a game I played recently I had 2 life left Cyprien, another player had 2 Phantom Knights, and another played had 4 life left Alastair MacDirk with four 4th Mass. Normally I would propose an alliance with the Phantom Knight player to take out the clear lead, but I had been doing ridiculously well that game, as Cyprien was basically my only unit the whole game, aside from an Airborne Elite squad that died immediately, and I was still holding my own against four 500 point armies. So the Phantom Knight player knew that I would win, somehow someway, if he made the alliance, so he opted to just try to wipe me out and take his small chances with the valiant player, caught between a rock and a hard place.

Abstracting this rule: Kill the players who play well, as their units are worth more in their hands than they would be in a vacuum. Normally it’s better to keep the upset value, but in this case it’s better not to.

I’ll often strike alliances with players that have the clause that if it’s just the two of us on the board at the end of the game, then they win automatically. It’s helped edge out this tactic, but only applies if you’re more interested in fun than winning, and why would anyone ever want to do that?

C)Stages of Gameplay

Most Free for All games in which players are paying attention to the above strategies will go something like this:

1)Chaos
Players are rushing around, their start zones are getting mobbed, their start zones are being ignored, they’re attacking their own units because they don’t understand the game, they’re having units commit suicide off the edge of 4 high sand piles, they’re taking 5 leaving engagement attacks a turn so they can get to that particular Arrow Grut.

It’s chaos. And really, this is just the primordial ooze from which the game will be born. Right now not much matters, but very soon it will.

2)King of the Hill
Now’s about the time when players see that Billy is way ahead and needs to be teamed up on, and some meaningful alliances will arise. Maybe two strong players will ally and do a lot of damage to the other players, such that it seems those 2 strong players are invincible. But eventually, it will be clear who would win head to head between those players, and the weak players will have such dwindling forces that they can be ignored. Then their alliance breaks, and they’ll have left the other players alive to try for the upset if things don’t go right.

This is when the real gameplay starts, when the deals are struck, when people try to leverage their position and the cards they have at this point to try to win in the…

3)End Game
This is a separate phase because the type of units which are effective change a lot. Squads have all been broken, and the player with Sgt. Drake 1.0 stashed in his start zone can now go for the win. Alliances are formed and dissolved so rapidly that they become nearly meaningless, and everyone is trying to kill the players that do well against them so only the players they can plow through are left.

And in the end, one player rises to the top. Winning.

You cry, you cheer, but in the end you had such a good time that you don’t even care who won. That’s Heroscape at its finest.

chas' Switcheroo Scenario:

SCENARIO FOR MY GAME ON SEPTEMBER 16

HEROSCAPE SCENARIO: SWITCHEROO!

By Chas


Armies: This is a free for all game. Players field armies of 500 Points, occupying a maximum of 12 spaces, set up in individual 12 Hex Start Zones. After 10 Turns, do Full Card scoring. The player with the highest score wins. If there is a tie, only the players who tied play one more Turn, without switching cards. If the game is still tied after this Turn 11, this is the final result.

Classsic, VC and AOA cards may be used, but no Marvel/Supers. Duplicates of AOA cards may be used for the very first time now in different players' armies.

The Switch At the beginning of Turns 3, 6, and 9, before Order Markers are placed, make a Special Initiative Roll (“SIR”), In this order, players will make their switch. Powers affecting the regular Initiative Roll, which will be made afterwards normally, may not affect the SIR.

Making The Switch


Take 1 Card. One at a time in SIR order, each player may take one card from any other player who still has at least two cards left. They may not take the card that costs the most Points which their victim has on the table at the present time.

*Only 1 card can be taken from each player during each switch.

*The taking player now controls the card they took. Figures with cards that are switched remain as they are on the board as is. They now treat only other cards in their new army as friendly.

*A card that is taken cannot be taken a second time that Turn.

*A card that is defeated (eliminated) cannot be taken.

*A card that is taken, if wounded, may remove 1 wound if a Hero, or add one figure if a Squad who has lost figures but has not been defeated.


My army for this:
Spoiler Alert!

Hopefully, there will be more than 3 players for it. As this will be a free for all game, my army is not too strong (no A+ units), and mostly ranged. My plan is simple. My big bopper will be positioned to destroy any unit that is taken. My units generally support one another, but the loss of any particular card will not be very hurtful. And this army will be fun to play.

What would you do?

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Old August 28th, 2023, 07:54 AM
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Re: Free For All Army for chas' Switcheroo Scenario?

Looks solid to me. But since you've got a couple of weeks before the game, you'll probably keep tinkering, azs you usually do. Everyone's second strongest card will probably be the prime targets for stealing. It occurs to me now as I type that you may have the opportunity to grab them back in a later Switch phase!

You will be happy to learn that we have four players signed up for the game (including me), with a possible 5th not yet heard from. Its a good thing we just found a good proxy for Kozil, eh? I'm now storing him in an easier place to find.

I still need to choose a map and build my own army.

I particularly remember an exciting and subtle game Free For All played at Islandscape (our old local Con) where diplomacy was used every turn as a balance of power among the several players depending on how each move advantaged one player or another; it was perhaps the best one I ever played!

For Scapers looking for interesting scenario and many other ideas to keep Heroscape alive and breathing, you can't do better in general than checking out our group thread linked in my signature line below to The New York City Gang of Four. Now there are actually five of us, and the Gang has been playing together for over 15 years, with a new custom scenario every month). You'll find photos, interesting army builds, and much more there. The Gang now includes Chas, Kolakoski, Sherman Davies, Tablewalker, and Thrasher Darkrai. If you've been on the site for any time at all, you've probably bumped into some of us. And if you're in or near NYC, come join us!

Last edited by chas; August 28th, 2023 at 08:25 AM.
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