Limited Resources Battleplan Analysis

 Introduction

Today we will be looking at the Limited Resources battleplan to develop some strategies and avoid unnecessary risks. It is an interesting battleplan because of the twist: When you control an objective and score it two turns in a row, you can no longer control that objective. This leads to some pretty interesting play and a good opportunity to explore the concept of tempo, one of the characteristics of the offense. 

Background

Let's take a look at the battleplan to do a quick terrain analysis of the map to identify any key terrain, movement corridors, and the like. This will help you formulate a plan suited for your opponent: don't plan to move block an army with fast, flying units the same way you would foot infantry units. 

One of the first things I consider when examining the battleplan is simply the disposition of the objectives in conjunction with the deployment zones. While dated, Jeremy Veysseire had a fantastic analysis of deployment analysis that is worth watching. In short, look at the objectives that are the most accessible to you and concentrate your forces there so you can efficiently move and control the board. 

In this case, we can start controlling 2 objectives from deployment. We then have two options, commit forces to the more western middle objective or the eastern. Considering your forces are likely already arrayed to control your two home objectives, you can maneuver to control the western central objective while eposing yourself to less risk. This is because you can effectively concentrate your forces in mutually supportive roles. Securing the eastern central objective could give your opponent the opportunity to isolate and destroy any assets you commit. 

There are also no places of power in the recommended terrain layout, so you can focus on placing your casters in protected, effective positions. The center of the board is rather congested with unstable terrain, creating a couple of mobility corridors along the axes the objectives sit on. This means you can use the terrain to your advantage to block or delay your opponent from getting on an objective. The obscuring terrain pieces can offer some good opportunities for later game maneuvers to control your opponent's objectives as well. 

However, you need to consider the meta-game within this battleplan. I played this map recently and made a pretty big blunder that cost me the game and gave me what I believe is a valuable lesson about controlling the tempo of your operations. The temporal component of objective control changes the strategy entirely.

Tempo

Tempo is the rate of speed and rhythm of military operations over time with respect to the enemy. In this case, that is largely dependent on how your opponent chooses to control objectives. My mistake in my most recent rep at this battleplan was gaining control of too many objectives (my two home and the two central objectives) in the first battle rounds. While this put me at an early lead, my forces' momentum quickly culminated and I couldn't readily access the last two in my opponent's territory. For some additional context, I was playing an elite infantry Sylvaneth list into an elite infantry Fyreslayers list. 

I went into the game without sufficiently weighing the impact of the scoring mechanic and focused on pinning the naked dwarf-things into their deployment zone. By then, it was already too late, I had gained control of four objectives and started that timer. My opponent cleverly realized that he could bide his time, allow me to build the early lead, and then gain control of only as many objectives as he needed to chip away at the deficit. 

Lessons Learned

If I played the same matchup again, I would take a more cagey approach, even considering only controlling two objectives at the end of the first turn. If I was also able to complete a battle tactic, this would only put me down two points and I could instead focus on staging and maneuvering for subsequent battle tactics and shape the battlefield to put my opponent in a dilemma. 

Gaining control of an objective with this battleplan should be very deliberate. Consider only doing so if you think you can compel your opponent to try to take it from you. One of the best ways to score consistently with this plan is to score an objective one turn and have it flip to your opponent the next, thereby resetting the extracting resources timer. You can do this by baiting charges or clever movement or pile-ins. Here's another blog post that goes into more depth. 

Taking into account the math for scoring each round, you'll need to control the tempo of your operations to what your opponent is doing. If you have the ability to consistently achieve battle tactics, trade well, or get your opponents to get control of your objective so you can reset the extraction timer, you will be in good shape. Thanks again for reading, stay sparkly.