Activation and Positioning

[Faceface]

Hello! 

This question is relevant outside Ressers, but since they're my chosen faction I hope I can find some help here. 

How do you go about approaching activation order and positioning? 

I currently play Reva and have expanded my crew pool to include the usual suggestions found on the forums here. I've played about 6 games or so. 

In every game so far I have consistently shot my self in the foot with my positioning, and I've often felt like I'm activating models purely in reaction to my opponent, rather than feeling in charge of the turn. 

I often end up with models blocking each other, split up, or exposed, despite my best intentions. 

I'm sure a big part of this is just play more games, better familiarity with my crew etc. But I'd appreciate if anyone had some wisdom or systematic approaches to share regarding how they plan their turn and position their models. 

Cheers! 

[Maniacal_cackle]

The first advice of course is to play more games, but a bit more advice can speed up the process. I think I can share a few thoughts to be aware of.

1. Reva loses initiative flips.

In general, Reva is not very strong on initiative. You are generally going to have your opponent deciding who goes first, so strong positioning at the end of each turn is important to set up your next turn.

2. Keep your distance with key models.

The insane thing about Reva relative to other crews is how much range you have.

A grave golem can easily start a turn 19" away from someone and hit them with hurl corpse. Reva can then start her turn 16" away from that to get three attacks, or more safely 23" away for two attacks. Dead Rider can start 16" away and charge into position to take an attack AND a 5-crow bonus action.

The crew has great range, just punish stuff for getting near you, and let the tanky stuff be up front taking the hits.

You don't really need Take the Hit on shieldbearers IMO to protect your stuff - if the enemy is close enough to hit you in melee, you've possibly messed up (Take the Hit is great against range or alpha strikes though 😜 )

3. Activation order.

Game-defining, but it is a hard art to teach. Practice, practice, practice. Start to focus on first and last activations of the turn, and from there you should start to develop patterns.

4. Don't respond. Retaliate.

Let's say you activate Reva, and the enemy starts attacking her now that she is stuck in place. You can either scramble to protect her (where she will probably die anyway because she is squishy). Or you can retaliate.

If you made a mistake and they're killing Reva, ask yourself: should you try to save her, or should you retaliate by killing one of their models.

One-for-one is a viable strategy. I've seen so many games lost because people try to punish the model that just killed their stuff, instead of turning around and killing another viable model.

5. Activate stuff you don't want to die as late in the turn as possible, or position safely early in the turn.

The later a model activates, the more able it is to respond to danger. Once a model activates, an opponent is free to kill it. If you don't want a model to die, activate it late in the turn.

If you have to activate a model early for whatever reason, don't be afraid to put it WAY out of harm's way. It is better to have Dead Rider 30 inches away from the action on turn 2 then have it die on turn 2. Only do this with hyper mobile models (Reva, Dead Rider, Bone Pile, Archie, etc). Do NOT do this with stuff like grave golem.

For slower stuff that activates early, just take advantage of them sitting attacking your model by hitting them back with your other models. Trading models is fine.

Final thoughts

Reva has insane range on her abilities, but they require setup. Feel free to ask for advice on specific setups. One key thing is the relative position of your models (for example, if grave golem is up in the opponent's faces, it is much easier for the rest of your crew to be 10" away from their crew. If you don't have a beater tying up their front lines, 10" away is NOT a safe place to be).

[Maniacal_cackle]

Oh, also, if you can download vassal, just practice your first turn on a scenario a few times. Or do it on the tabletop at home.

You'll be surprised how quickly you pickup mistakes (whoops, can't move things in that order or I block my movement path).

[Maniacal_cackle]

And one last tip I swear:

Once a model has activated, it is done.

Often you see a model activate, do some damage, and end its activation. Often people scramble to respond to this model. But why rush? Barring the rest of the team having shenanigans, models generally stay put after they activate. You have all the time in the world to deal with a model once it has activated. Focus on the models that haven't activated yet for most of the turn (unless you're specifically trying to kill or reposition an activated model for some reason, like they make a mistake and leave their beater vulnerable).

[Faceface]

Thanks so much for the advice here!

Pulled up Vassal this morning and spent some time First Turn planning for upcoming Fauxvember game; insanely useful! I always suffer a bit of First Turn Panic. Hopefully this will help. 

[theamazingmrg]

31 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

And one last tip I swear:

Once a model has activated, it is done.

Often you see a model activate, do some damage, and end its activation. Often people scramble to respond to this model. But why rush? Barring the rest of the team having shenanigans, models generally stay put after they activate. You have all the time in the world to deal with a model once it has activated. Focus on the models that haven't activated yet for most of the turn (unless you're specifically trying to kill or reposition an activated model for some reason, like they make a mistake and leave their beater vulnerable).

I'd caveat this with: But be aware of the Master you're playing against.  If that Master has easy access to Obey (Lucius, Zoraida, etc) then just because a model has activated doesn't mean that it is necessarily done for the turn.

 

If there's no Obeys in the enemy crew then this is 100% solid advice though.

[Maniacal_cackle]

3 minutes ago, Faceface said:

Thanks so much for the advice here!

Pulled up Vassal this morning and spent some time First Turn planning for upcoming Fauxvember game; insanely useful! I always suffer a bit of First Turn Panic. Hopefully this will help. 

Yeah, Reva has tricky turn ones, so definitely helps to just practice it out!