Skills aren’t thing’s necessary to play the game. You can be well versed in the rules and still enjoy your game.
But when you are playing, there are certain skills that can give you an enhanced edge against your opponent. Skills are mostly are rule independent (in that you don’t need a close understanding of the rules), you can just practice them, then just apply them.
Following are some skills that can help your game play.
Spotting Line Of Sight Opportunities.
Being able to estimate Line of Sight sucessfully
There is nothing like being able to see what others can’t. There is the saying “In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king.” You can be that one eyed guy.
Whether it helps you avoid an unnecessary shot, or it allows you to take one against your unwitting opponent, it can come in handy.
| Develop a Dead Eye For Line Of Sight | Hex centre to hex centre. Guestimating longer LOS. |
| Is That Vertex In The Way? | Hex centre to to hex centre. Guestimating if you clip a vertex in your LOS. |
| LOS, Blind Hexes & Dead Space | Determining blind hexes created by obstacles when you or your target is at a different height. |
Determining Risk (Probabilities)
Knowing Your Chances, And The Likelihood Of You Having An Effect.
ASL is a game of dice and odds. So all actions and their effects are subject to probabilities, and the way you apply your moves can increases or decrease those probabilities in your favour.
The risk of a move is relative to the odds of the action being effected, the current situation AND your risk tolerance. Taken to extremes to prove a point:
Reckless
One player takes their actions without ANY regard to the probabilites and is impulsive.
They don’t put any forethought into what happens to their forces. “I am going to move here, if something bad happens, let me know.” “I am going to fire at that guy, now tell me what did that do to him?” Its a bias for action.
Paralysis
Another players takes their actions only after all possible factors have been determined and weighed and is paralysed by the effort.
They are overly worried about what happens to their forces. “I could move here, let me add up the modifiers for that. So that’s a 6 on the 8 firepower column if he fires. Now compare that to …“. Its a bias for analysis.
There is a middle way.
Being able to determine if the action you are about to take is risky or not (based on probability), or whether the action you about to take is likely to achieve the effect you were hoping for (based on probability).
“If I storm across there into that hex, they have a greater than 60% chance of hittting me, and then I have about a 30% chance of breaking. Or … if I do it like this, they have about a 25% chance of hitting me, and then I have a 30% chance of breaking.”
Mathematical types can work it out in their head. I can’t, I am still struggling with basic arithmetic, so I am memorising what I need.
Which leads to the question. Why would you bother memorising charts?
| Recalling Results on the IFT | How to recall IFT results without refering to the chart. |
Counting Counters
Reducing uncertainty & anticipating your opponents deployment.
Concealment counters are there to create the fog of war. But what if you could lift some of that fog, and reduce some of the uncertainty?
Counter counting can help with that. Although not fool proof, you can make a a calculated guestimate of what you think is under the opponents concealment counters.
Working hand in hand with your own approach to risk, it can help give you a better basis for some of your tactical decisions.
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Six Plus One 