Art De La Guerre

[PHGamer]

The purpose of this is to start a conversation on strategies of setup of the game.

I have played enough of these games to question a few things with the game setup. Having lost far more initiative rolls then I win, which is expected as my armies have weak generals and not much in the way of Light Cavalry. My opponents almost always pick attacker and plains. They also always pick the minimum number of terrain picks, in order to get the maximum number of terrain movement rolls. I always go for 3 terrain picks and 1 movement roll.

I am clearly in the minority on the decisions of this process. But I think my reasoning is sound. Defense sets up first, but with two ambushes up to 7 IU's into the board, almost half my army is not view-able on deployment. I regard that as an advantage.

With regard to amount of terrain, pick 3 with 1 movement to me is an advantage over pick 2 and 2 movement rolls. Any piece of terrain has a 50/50 chance of being on my side of the board. Where as the movement roll has a 1/3 chance of failure, and cannot move what is not there. I would be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this.
_________________
Phil
Japanese telephones work pretty much like ours, except the person on the other end can't understand you.

[Commodore]

Initiative, terrain control, deployement are as much important as your army design.
Your army as to be build in accordance with its doctrine.
Example : a mongol empire army, all cavalry except expendable levies, has to play in steppes to be efficient. The only terrain for mongol empire is steppes, that's fine. But your opponent knows that steppes is ideal for you. So even if he gains initiative, he will let you play first but choose something else ( forest, mountain...) So, you must work for gaining initiative (high command, strategist, light horse ) up to +4 or even +5 initiative.
Other example : If your army is design to have a strong shock power but restrain attack front, ( german ) you must create corridors, so, acting as defensor ( forest or mountain) with a strong terrain control ability ( strategist).
If your army is strong but unmanoeuvrable, you must close your opponent very quickly to avoid complex manoeuvers.
Conclusion : initiative terrain choice and terrain control have to be considered as integral part of the army design.
_________________
"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead"
Cdr Farragut,Mobile 1864

[Sean Walker]

I've made sure that when I have an army that doesn't like brush, fields etc I have created the smallest foot print possible.
When I have troops that need that terrain or where it does disadvantage the enemy, I have these as large as possible.
This is very important.
Sean