Friday 3 February 2012

Road Works & Improving Your Game - Part 4 (Know Thy Enemy)

Acting much like one of the Ten Commandments, 'know thy enemy' is vitally important in Warmachine and Hordes.  There's a lot of things that will ruin your day simply because you didn't know they existed.   Just look at spells like Rampager or Domination, or eHaley's feat.

A friend of mine - Colin - and I were chatting about this series of articles just after I'd published the first one (I actually wrote all of these in the same day, but chose to space them out over several days) and he said "Always ask for your opponent's cards."  I agree with this and feel the need to emphasize this point: ALWAYS ASK FOR THE CARDS.  Once, Jim went off in a giant nerdrage when he killed Colin's Farilor only to discover that the standard bearer was the one who brings mage static to the Legionnaires.  This could have been avoided by having a quick glance at Domination.  Of course now Jim will never, ever, forget that the standard bearer is the one with mage static, which neatly segues (pronounced SEG-WAYS) into the next paragraph.

If you don't instantly gather a vital piece of information whilst glancing through your opponent's cards, be sure to remember what surprised you.  Store that little gem of information and ensure that no one will ever be able to catch you out with it again.  I'm never going to forget that pVayl can cast Rampager on my warbeasts immediately on turn two, so I can guard against by simply having Banishing Ward up earlier than usual.  Sure it cost me the game in the last UK Masters but it's never going to happen again.  I took my mistake and learned from it, in doing so I have removed a vital tool from any pVayl player's arsenal.

Having an academic knowledge of what something does only takes you so far, until you experience it you're likely either to fail to comprehend the threat or misunderstand it.  When the unexpected happens, be sure to remember it and file that information away.  Uniting academic knowledge with practical application is science at its finest.

So what have we learned from this series of posts so far:
  1. Space is important.
  2. Know threat ranges.
  3. Everything in your list should have an easily identified purpose.
  4. Know what enemy models do.
  5. Learn from your mistakes.

These are the basic concepts required to improving your game.  There are more advanced concepts, but those will be explored in later blog posts.  I think the next one will concentrate on board control.

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