The Playing Possum Strategy

[BrianC]

Hey Guys,

I just wanted to throw out a question about gaming style.

Being a Roman player I find my opponent often times not advancing towards my line but rushing his usually superior cavalry out to defeat mine before his main line advances. Now being Roman I want to mix it up as soon as possible. I have no problem with this strategy as my opponent is playing to his side's strengths.

How is this viewed by other players in both private and tournament games? If one side does not move but rather lets his opponent come to him is that acceptable or frowned upon?

Just a friendly question,

Thanks guys

Brian

[jlopez]

Hey Guys,

I just wanted to throw out a question about gaming style.

Being a Roman player I find my opponenent often times not advancing towards my line but rushing his usually cavalry out to defeat mine before his main line advances. Now being Roman I want to mix it up as soon as possible. I have no problem with this strategy as my opponent is playing to his side's strengths.

How is this viewed by other players in both private and tournament games? If one side does not move but rather lets his opponent come to him is that acceptable?

Just a friendly question,

Thanks guys

Brian

I think it is perfectly legitimate as long as you don't fanny about and deliberately waste time to avoid the main clash. One thing is having a defensive plan, another one is playing for time.

Julian

[OhReally]

Hey Guys,

I just wanted to throw out a question about gaming style.

Being a Roman player I find my opponent often times not advancing towards my line but rushing his usually superior cavalry out to defeat mine before his main line advances. Now being Roman I want to mix it up as soon as possible. I have no problem with this strategy as my opponent is playing to his side's strengths.

How is this viewed by other players in both private and tournament games? If one side does not move but rather lets his opponent come to him is that acceptable or frowned upon?

Just a friendly question,

Thanks guys

With my Seleucids against Romans I prefer to liver kick their cavalry while holding my pikes back so I can use my Cav to smack the flanks of the Legos once the pikes commit.

Might want to consider advancing your cavalry WITH the Legos to avoid this happening.
Brian

[carlos]

How is this viewed by other players in both private and tournament games? If one side does not move but rather lets his opponent come to him is that acceptable or frowned upon?

In private, play the best way you can. I certainly expect no less from my opponent. That doesn't mean all inches will be measured and all die rolls have to be in my presence, but I expect him to do his best. If that involves being defensive at first and counter-attacking, then cool. Playing to a draw in a private game is a bit silly, unless you are going to lose and are trying not to lose by a lot.

As far as tournaments go, all is allowed within the rules. To do otherwise would be to create new rules that only serve to please a particular type of player. I like this article on this subject:

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/intermediates ... the-scrub/

[davidandlynda]

FOG is a lot more difficult,probably impossible to sit and do nothing like you could in DBM,giving the initiative to your opponent means they will be able to move things to where they need to be and finish you off,that said I think the best game I've had so far under FOG has to be a 0-0 draw at Britcon,last round .sounds boring but it was played at a fast pace lots of manoever, attacks then counter attacks,skirmishers played a big part,much more entertaining than sitting waiting for the big crunch then rolling some dice
David

[babyshark]

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/intermediates ... the-scrub/

That is a great article; thank you for bringing it to my attention. It sums up a lot of the things that I have occasionally wanted to say during a tournament.

Full points to you, sir.

Marc

[carlos]

David Sirlin knows a lot about game theory and competitive play. I think there's a fine line between playing hard and fair and bending the rules to win. Fair is all I can expect from an opponent.

[philqw78]

I like to play to see what happens in club games. New armies, new tactics, what happens if, and give the enemy a game.

In competitions I'm starting to play to win only. I obviously used to be a scrubber, and am a scrubber at heart.

[Ninthplain]

Hello all,

I play Romans and I have gotten used to this. Most people you face understand that the Legion is the meat of the army and will attempt to stall as long as possible before they commit. I basically keep everything in tight, (I kept losing all my cav and lights), point the Ele and Legion blocks at the camp, and move as far and as fast as possible. Eventually they will have to fight you. One of the best games I have had was like that, marched the Legion across the table losing almost all my other BG's. Ended up with a very narrow win once I got to the other side.

I would also add that in some cases, English for example, the army is built to stay in one spot and wait for you to come.

<BRIAN>

[GKChesterton1976]

Make the price of getting at your weaker cavalry a journey through the field of fire of some artillery - worked all right for my principate romans in a recent game against medeaval german

Adrian

[Redpossum]

First let me say I was taken aback by the title of this thread. To quote a famous line from the Marx Brothers, "I resemble that comment!"

Secondly, that article is, hmmm, controversial, let us say.

Note the games he takes his examples from.

1. Most common - Street Fighter.
2. Other Fighting Games.
3. Counter-Strike.
4. Starcraft.
5. Magic the Gathering.


Right, two computer games, two console games, and a card game.

I have never been a console player so I cannot comment on the first two.

In the First Person Shooter gaming world, Counter-Strike players are usually considered the bottom-feeding scum of the community. Cheating, exploiting, trash-talking, hacking, pirating, dirt-bag lowlifes. I spent most of 6 years playing various incarnations of the Team Fortress mod concept. Roughly 18 months of that in league play, meaning 2-3 hours of practice three nights a week and then a game on Sunday. I know my FPS gamers!

Starcraft is so old and so irrelevant, I can't believe he even cited that.

My point is not that anything he says is wrong, just that I disagree with his conclusions.

He has cited a series of examples from games where asshat behavior is accepted, and then concluded that asshat behavior is acceptable in all games.

"Dude, it's OK to act like a jerk. No, people won't hate you for it; they'll think you're cool!"

The author makes many good points, and I learned from reading that article, but his ethical standards leave a great deal to be desired.

In his defense, he does at least advocate courtesy to one's opponent before and after the match.

And the whole Sun Tzu thing, oh please! Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz have been used to illustrate everything from football to selling vacuum cleaners, and it's getting to be a little bit cliche. "Oh, look at me! I'm so clever, I can quote Sun Tzu!" Yeah, yeah, yeah, wake me up when you're through showing off....

Sorry if I'm attacking a sacred cow here. I've never heard of the guy before, and I'm just judging by what I see.

[BrianC]

LOL Sorry Possum I couldn't resist the title it fit too well .

And thanks for all the feedback, its great to hear other perspectives as to what others are doing in both private games and tournament. Seeing that I am playing private games for now, I'll try to emulate what I think a Roman would do. If and hopefully when we start having tournaments in Canada I will play to win I am sure. I am going to try really really hard to get to England next year and sync it up with a big tournament.

I too find that I tend to keep my width smaller and have more depth. I played a 1,000 point game where I had 3 if not 4 lines. I formed up in a square formation and advanced on his line of Pikes. While evading with my cavalry I engaged his line and got decimated. A combination of bad rolls and loosing my Inspired Commander the first turn which didn't help matters.

Brian

[hammy]

I too find that I tend to keep my width smaller and have more depth. I played a 1,000 point game where I had 3 if not 4 lines. I formed up in a square formation and advanced on his line of Pikes. While evading with my cavalry I engaged his line and got decimated. A combination of bad rolls and loosing my Inspired Commander the first turn which didn't help matters.

One might ask why your IC was in the front rank.....

Using Romans in FoG is a bit like using Swiss in DBM. You are very very tough frontally over a relatively short frontage. The key is getting as much of that frontage into contact as possible. The more points and AP you 'waste' on troops that aren't legionaries the worse things get.

[carlos]

Sorry if I'm attacking a sacred cow here. I've never heard of the guy before, and I'm just judging by what I see.

It's fine w/ me, I don't even play computer games.

You are right about being controversial, and there are some points I don't agree with, especially the win at all stakes versus newbies comment. In a tournament, I guess it's okay because to do otherwise will put a top player at a disadvantage against other top players w/ less compassion. In a more relaxed atmosphere, the constant slaughter of the noob will soon leave the top players alone at the top. I've found this to happen during my errrrrrr "glory" days of 40k back in Portugal. Myself and a friend were winning all the tournaments and club games being both ruthless and fair but this drove away all the younger players from the game. It took a while for the game to pick up again in Lisbon. Obviously popular video games and stuff like M:tG can afford to have ruthless tournaments as the player pool is so big, but not something like FoG.

[hammy]

Interesting reading.

I have to say that in my later DBM days I would always make sure I beat poor or new players but I would also explain to them exactly how I was doing it and then I left an opportunity for them to kill one of my elements if they made a clever move I regularly told them how to achieve that goal. That said if I was playing you at DBM and I start telling you how to block a pin, slip an element into a small space or conform one of my elements to death you could be sure of two things, one that I really didn't care if the element in question died or not and two that you had already lost the game but just didn't know it yet

Some of the nicest comments I have had in my Wargaming career are from players who I handily beat but appreciated the 'lessons' they learnt as a result.

[BrianC]

I have to admit this was in my learning stage. I had played about 4 games against an opponent playing the Carthaginian starter army and he placed his TCs with his cavalry BGs and made them elite. He had good success until I learned how to skirmish with my Roman cavalry rather than charge forward. So I tried the same thing, boy was that a failure. I couldn't believe it, the first turn I lose an IC. Fighting against the Selucid I wanted to throw in the towel right there as he had more of everything including commanders. I chose an IC to hopefully reassure my line against his pike. I will never ever do that again. I learned that lesson the hard way and know better now

Brian

I too find that I tend to keep my width smaller and have more depth. I played a 1,000 point game where I had 3 if not 4 lines. I formed up in a square formation and advanced on his line of Pikes. While evading with my cavalry I engaged his line and got decimated. A combination of bad rolls and loosing my Inspired Commander the first turn which didn't help matters.

One might ask why your IC was in the front rank.....

Using Romans in FoG is a bit like using Swiss in DBM. You are very very tough frontally over a relatively short frontage. The key is getting as much of that frontage into contact as possible. The more points and AP you 'waste' on troops that aren't legionaries the worse things get.

[BrianC]

Some of the best lessons are the ones you learn on the battlefield as your seeing it in action rather than just being told. Experience can be a great teacher.

Brian

Interesting reading.

Some of the nicest comments I have had in my Wargaming career are from players who I handily beat but appreciated the 'lessons' they learnt as a result.

[flameberge]

I'm kind of surprised at this thread. I'm a Roman player and can't understand why I would have a problem with an opponent playing whatever strategy he chose to use. As long as he doesn't cheat I'm OK with any strategy.

As far as letting new guys win or taking it easy on them I guess you should know your opponent before you do this. I'm all for explaining to a new guy why something they are doing is foolish and explaining the rules to him but if an opponent lets me win, even if I'm new, I find it insulting and it annoys me that I wasted my time playing a game I can't loose. I've learned to not let this bother me so much any more since I know the person is only trying to be helpful but failure is a great teacher.

[OhReally]

If you don't make new players cry then you are doing something wrong!

[BrianC]

The original theme in this thread was that I wanted to know if any kind of strategy was either gamey (cheese) or frowned upon. It seems that most games both sides advance towards the other and battle it out in the middle. At least that has been my experience. Except for a few times where one side would just sit at its starting point so as to not engage. A while back I played a game where as a Roman I did not want to rush forward and battle my opponents pike BGs until the cavalry battle was completed, we were actually winning that one. But I felt at the time that its my move I must move the full 3MU otherwise I'm just playing a cheesy style. Or is it ok to huddle around your camp in a corner when faced with a numerically superior opponent? Using the board edges to protect your flanks.

I just wanted to find out what others were doing and what was acceptable and or not acceptable. Just trying to get a general feel.

Brian

I'm kind of surprised at this thread. I'm a Roman player and can't understand why I would have a problem with an opponent playing whatever strategy he chose to use. As long as he doesn't cheat I'm OK with any strategy.

As far as letting new guys win or taking it easy on them I guess you should know your opponent before you do this. I'm all for explaining to a new guy why something they are doing is foolish and explaining the rules to him but if an opponent lets me win, even if I'm new, I find it insulting and it annoys me that I wasted my time playing a game I can't loose. I've learned to not let this bother me so much any more since I know the person is only trying to be helpful but failure is a great teacher.