Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 skchsan wrote:

Drager wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean by "maximizing" the effect of tripointing. The reason for tripointing is to hide your units in combat from ensuing enemy shooting phase. It's an "either-or" situation and not really a "how much of" situation.

The reason for target priority is to maximize damage, that doesn't mean there is no skill involved. I'm a competitive player, mainly, and I've been helping some people at my local shop with tri pointing and how to make the best use of it. It takes a while to get all the nuances of how exactly to employ the technique and what it can be used for. It's difficult to explain on a froum as I can't position models to show you without a lot of picture making I don't have time for, but I';; give you one scenario as an example.

Say I'm playing with Slashing Impact reavers with Grav talons. These do ~6 mortal wounds on the charge and a good load of attacks. My opponent has a Knight screened by 3 IG squads. If he moves his knight out of his deployment zone he'll be able to get a bead on units I have camping an objective. I can charge my reavers into the central gaurd squad and use my charge move to set up consolidation into the other two. The central one will be mostly killed by mortal wounds and finished off by CC attacks, but I can tri point the other two squads. This sets up a cordon of bikes that the Knight can't move over and locks both the infantry squads in place, allowing me greater control of how to remove them on my next turn. I lose a bunch of bikes to Knight close combat, but less than I would have if he'd been able to shoot them and score the objective, give myself more time to deal with the knight and get his units out of position, mostly down to careful tripointing.

Yeah.... but this is more of how to use "BIKER" keyword to maximum and not how to "maximize the effect of tripointing". I do it all the time to tie down a knight.

In your particular example, the knight should just charge the reavers instead of dillydallying because it can't move over BIKER - which then goes to show the lack of skills/thought on the defender moreso than the skills/thoughts of the attacker (the one who tripointed).

He did charge them. As I mentioned in my post. Settign up the tripoint correctly is essential to that particular example. there are lots of other similar examples. They all interact with other mechanics too, that's mostly where the skills come in, leveraging it to your advantage.

With any luck, this discussion is moot very soon.

 skchsan wrote:

Drager wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean by "maximizing" the effect of tripointing. The reason for tripointing is to hide your units in combat from ensuing enemy shooting phase. It's an "either-or" situation and not really a "how much of" situation.

The reason for target priority is to maximize damage, that doesn't mean there is no skill involved. I'm a competitive player, mainly, and I've been helping some people at my local shop with tri pointing and how to make the best use of it. It takes a while to get all the nuances of how exactly to employ the technique and what it can be used for. It's difficult to explain on a froum as I can't position models to show you without a lot of picture making I don't have time for, but I';; give you one scenario as an example.

Say I'm playing with Slashing Impact reavers with Grav talons. These do ~6 mortal wounds on the charge and a good load of attacks. My opponent has a Knight screened by 3 IG squads. If he moves his knight out of his deployment zone he'll be able to get a bead on units I have camping an objective. I can charge my reavers into the central gaurd squad and use my charge move to set up consolidation into the other two. The central one will be mostly killed by mortal wounds and finished off by CC attacks, but I can tri point the other two squads. This sets up a cordon of bikes that the Knight can't move over and locks both the infantry squads in place, allowing me greater control of how to remove them on my next turn. I lose a bunch of bikes to Knight close combat, but less than I would have if he'd been able to shoot them and score the objective, give myself more time to deal with the knight and get his units out of position, mostly down to careful tripointing.

Yeah.... but this is more of how to use "BIKER" keyword to maximum and not how to "maximize the effect of tripointing". I do it all the time to tie down a knight.

In your particular example, the knight should just charge the reavers instead of dillydallying because it can't move over BIKER - which then goes to show the lack of skills/thought on the defender moreso than the skills/thoughts of the attacker (the one who tripointed).

Agreed. Also, if the intent is to limit the Knight's movement there isn't even any need to charge since the Knight can't move over the bikes regardless. Sure, by tri-pointing you keep the bikes "safe" (they still die to the Knight's charge, most likely) and reduce the shooting from some Guard squads but your example isn't really a great example of the utility of tri-pointing since the survival of the bikes is in your opponent's shooting phase is very much secondary to limiting the Knight's movement.

Having had more time to think about why I consider tri-pointing to lack skill I think it ultimately boils down to a lack of any real decision-making. Tri-pointing is just something you can do by working your way down a completely objective checklist of actions and that checklist isn't particularly long. Your opponent may be able to prevent you trapping their units through either casualty removal or their own positioning but again that's also just working through an objective checklist of actions too. There's no randomness, no real chance to get it wrong for either side like there is with splitting fire, for example (which is still a fairly rudimentary skill in itself). Talk of how nuanced you can get with tri-pointing seems to me to be looking for complexity where it just doesn't exist.

What you make of the situation after tripointing may be worthy of discussion elsewhere, but no matter how you spin it, the act of tripointing is not skill dependent.

As others have said, a particular game strategy is 'gamey' when it is legal but breaks from custom and the intention of the rules. Tripointing is a perfect example of such play. It's not an explicit strategy in the rules, just an application of the rules that a model cannot move through other models.

In the most benign form, it may just happen as part of normal piling in and consolidating with the goal of getting the maximum number of models into combat range and up the field, surrounding a model for death in future combat rounds. This is a thematic use of close combat units. They assault the enemy, kill everything they can, and surround the remainder so that they can finish the job in the next round of close combat.

In the most aggravating form, it is players maneuvering and playing in a manner to minimize the amount of damage they do during the initial assault. They then so take 1 model 'prisoner' to prevent the opponent from falling back and exposing them to shooting attacks by the enemy. It is not thematic. Never in the history of history has someone said, "don't kill those guys too fast, someone may shoot at us". No one images a horde of blood thirsty killers allowing only one member of their squad to fight, with him using his fist rather than his daemon sword.

That being said, what starts out as gamey over time becomes just part of the game. The NFL Victory Formation or Quarterback Kneel is a perfect example (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarterback_kneel). It was always legal, but considered to be unsportsmanlike. It became standard practice and then the rules were formalized to make it safe.

tneva82 wrote:
It is gamey and silly. But in 8th neccessary. Gw should fix both extremes. Locking stuff into melee with no way to escape leads to death of shooty armies

Uhhh, I don't think the previous 4 editions (at least) support that statement.

That will be a yes and a no, Martel:

Yea, I think this is a gak "fix", but whatever. Desire to play 9th just went down a LOT. Unless they modify charge move such that all models that CAN reach MUST reach.