Over the Next several weeks I be posting each battle I faced in the “playoffs” of “The First” tournament. I hope to show all the new (and some old) players how torment are played out and the level of play that they must be at in order to get to the playoffs. The Analysis of the battles will get more and more in-depth as time goes on, but for now we will mostly be looking at the fundamentals of the battles.

This battle show us just how important it is to split units and make the most out each and every single one.

By turn 13 he had lost most of his attackers, and was in the process of loseing 2 more groups. While I did lose several groups of attackers the important thing to see here was that my groups were split up. Fodaze very first turn is a good example of this. He used 50 eagles to attack and kill 25 of mine. It is overkill, but more importantly he lost 35 due to my counter attack. In this game you must “trade” units, that is attack and be attacked. You can not protect all of your units all of the time… you will lose units. When splitting up your units you give your opponent less targets to attack. He attacked me just as much as i attacked him (in the early rounds) but each time i attack i got the maximum amount of kills while he could only kill what i had in the group.

There is another reason having many groups is a good plan. Go to the very end >>| then go 15 turns back <<. We can see here that he has 4 groups of Attackers while I have 8. Now look at all the squares he can attack, then look at how many i can attack… There is no question my units can reach almost any square on the board, while he is very limited. While i do have more units that really doesn’t matter as much as the position i am in. My units can control just about anywhere he can go, and i can counter any attack he can throw at me even with the spider’s paralyze attack. While his units are split half on one side of the board and half on the other. I can attack at will in this position, while any attack he does will be meet with a counter attack.

Both of our use of light units was not the best, while mine was worst. Attacking 7 Taurus with 50 Rains is overkill again and even though he was the attacker he lost that “trade”, not only by units but also by spending 5 movement points to move in the Rains. On the Other side I didn’t get any heavy kills off of my Rains, that’s just not playing smart. Again you want to trade in your favor, and killing off heavies while only loseing light units is almost always a good trade. One in witch I failed to do.

Both sides blocked very well. It is important to block, or use cannon fodder. It comes down to trading again while you get to attack your opponent’s good ships you only give them very few light ships in witch they can attack, it is just smart any way you look at it. That is why Eagles, Destroyers, and the Taurus play such a big role in this torment as we will see later.

I hope this battle clearly illustrates just how important it is to constantly be splitting up your units, not only to make the most out of your “trades” but also with board position.

That is all for now. Next time we will be looking at the next battle, VS JBarata.