D's Thought on Shaping the Field

[D_acolyte]

Before I get started, if you are wondering why I did not do an “ask an acolyte” this pass month well the reason is that I did not get any questions.

I am not sure where I heard this first but I will quote it anyway “he who controls the field wins the battle”. So by shaping the battle we are looking at often controlling how our enemy and the field of combat interacts. This include how they interact with us, themselves and the terrain.

Now for the thing you’re all here for. How do you assess a models worth based on how it shape the games? Simply count the number of times you or an enemy do something because of each models. That seems simple right, well no then it comes to how you wait the type of event. The key thing about how a model shapes a game is it not a measure of what a model necessarily do but more about the reaction to the potential the model has.

Now how do you figure out how to threaten and shape the field? There is no good answer other than experience but I can get you started. First thing you need to do is an accurate assessment of what alters your play when it is on the board. Remember this does not have to be models that are combat models but ones that would have a negative effect on your crew. For me it is armor or hard to kill, these are the biggest threat to my crew as it slows me down to a crawl and I need to be fast and make fast work of thing. For some crews it is range damage that do not care about cover, as they are moderate health but with rely on the negative flips to save them. I remember one time I played a game as 10 thunders and my enemy tried to hug cover at first vs a samurai and then seeing it did not work ran to engage another model, yes run as in 2 walk not charge. Is this shaping the field, I would say so. To those that play models that like bubble masters or aura base models they tend to fear lures.

Once you can understand how to read your crew and see what has an effect on your play we can now look at how to read other crews. It is basically the same principle with a lot of guess work. The next thing is to try and apply models in a way that forces choices or reaction. I cannot stress this enough, sometimes it is hard to know if you are acting or reacting but it is always better to act. In my opinion (this is tautology), about the best way to tell the rather gray line difference is are trying to stop something or do something. An easy example is if you have a model down to 1 wd and your trying to franticly heal it. A gray example is I move to cover 9 inches from a Joss so he cannot charge but no has to take care of me to accomplish an objective. First one is obviously a reaction the second one could be an action or a reaction depending on how it goes, in fact I would call it a calculated non action.

In general the models that tend to have the largest effect on enemies are range models early game, not especially snipers, and tanks mid to late game. The reason for this is enemies may move to cover or less then there full move to have an effect on range combat. The reason why snipers tend to shape the board early game less than normal is because they are focusing as well as gaining a 28+ range attack and therefor cover and distance matters less. Tanks start having an effect on games as soon as they get to where they can be a problem, do I want to engage Joss because I will be stuck there until I die or him and he has a better life expectancy than me.

Finally the order of activation threat. Understand that in most cases the threat of a model that turn disappears as soon as it activates. After they activate and you are attacking them you are trying to accomplish something or prevent the threat next turn. Generally up until engagement it is better to hold off on some of your threats in you activation order. For instance I will generally activate my Mature Nephilim last turn 1 and may be 2 but early every other turn where Angel Eye goes the opposite way. This is because early game I want her to move and take pot shots while she can but late game because she does not randomize I want her to threaten my enemy as a cleaner, killing models that get close to death in a hopes that they will spend cards or stones to not get close enough to worry about her. I also like running her with mimic blessing to make dealing with her in this role more difficult.

I think that is it. As you can see this is just scratching the surface but covers some good ideas. Let me know if you have any questions. I find the armies that tend to be good at threatening are Guild, Neverborn, and Gremlins because of their attack power and secondary actions. Resurs are not bad but often slow but do it more through harmful conditions and control effects. Arcanist have some good options but I feel are more resolute and resilient, which does not mean that they do not shape the field but it changes it; look to December Acolytes and Joss for shaping the field. 10 Thunders and Outcast really depends on their build.
Note all control effects are about shaping the field in some way shape or form.

[D_acolyte]

So here is a fun one. Apparently my brother who plays with snipers more thinks they influence the field a lot and that there main purpose where I who never run them but always see them on the other side of the table think I will just make a target rich environment and something will get through.

What do you all think?

I did play with Hans this past week end at a tournament with a lot of 2-3 terrain on the table and my enemy basically hid out behind it. Just about all of the terrain on that table was Ht2+ hard cover blocking.

[Ludvig]

I think Hans in particular is designed to shut off areas of the board with his upgrade-shots.

The other snipers probably aren't scary enough to influence bigger models but they sure influence how I use riflemen, wastrels or other easily one-shotted models.