Ask the Dragon

 

Gambit

 

This week’s email is from Crazybirdman:

 

can you explain this center of the board point rule thing?

 

I believe the term you are looking for is ‘gambit’.  That is how it is often referred to in tournaments.  Basically what it does is it rewards a player five points for having a character within four squares of the center of the board.  You only get it once per round, at the end, and you only get it for one character, not multiples.  If you have one character or five characters in gambit you still only get five points. 

 

How you find the ‘gambit zone’ is find the exact center of the map and count four squares out in every direction (diagonals still count as two), and that is your zone.  If the exact center of the map is a square, then you count four out not counting the actual center square.  If the exact center is a point between four squares then every square surrounding the point counts as being two squares away as you are essentially going diagonal into the first squares.  Her is what it will look like:

 

O=Open Square

G=Gambit

C=Center

 

Square gambit                                                Point Gambit

OOOOGOOOO                                 OOGGOO

OOOGGGOOO                                 OGGGGO

OOGGGGGOO                                 GGGGGG

OGGGGGGGO                                 GGGGGG

GGGGCGGGG                                 OGGGGO

OGGGGGGGO                                 OOGGOO

OOGGGGGOO

OOOGGGOOO

OOOOGOOOO

 

This form of play came about because early on the main strategy to winning was to get a kill lead on your opponent, and then use R2 to lock the door and force a draw the rest of the game and win.  There were also games where neither player would advance, making for a very boring game.  Gambit now prevents the formation of ‘Turtling’ squads, where a squad sits back and does not advance.

 

Most every game I have ever played, gambit has not made a difference in the game, but every so often you get a really close match that is decided by how long someone was able to get a character in the gambit zone.  At times a 5-10 point gambit lead will win you the game.  However do not think that it is everything.  Do not rush headlong into the gambit zone thinking you can’t have your opponent get a gambit lead.  Most games you can give your opponent a round, maybe two, of gambit if it means you are going to make a safer approach.  This is mostly because if you make your push correctly, you can push them out of gambit and control the center and make the points back. 

 

Another thing to watch for though, mainly in 100 and 150 point games, is that when points killed + Gambit points equal the format total, the game is over.  In 100pt tournament, if you kill 75 points and gather five rounds of gambit for 25 points, the game is over at the end of the round because you have achieved 100pts total.  This isn’t so big in 200 pt games because 200pts is pretty hard to achieve unless you have pretty much killed off all of the enemy anyway.

 

Study your maps.  Almost every map has a favored side when it comes to gambit.  On most maps, one side can make gambit from round one.  Then there are a few maps like the Death Star map where Gambit is wide open and its hard for anyone to get there and gain points.  This is generally where Lobot’s reinforcements come into play as losing them does not score victory points, but can make you opponent have to come out.  Knowing how to work these gambit zones can be huge in tournaments that use it.

 

I hope this has given you some insight into gambit and how it works, Crazybirdman.  I really think that adding this has been a real asset to the game.  Even if you do not play DCI games, try it out sometime and see what you think.  This will be the last AtD article for a while.  Between Pojo vacations and next week’s Gencon, we wont be doing anything again until the week of the 20^th.  Tuesday, the 21^st, we will be back with more minis reviews, and I will have a series of articles on the happenings at Gencon, including an email I have been sitting on for quite some time from Calum about what are the top squads in the game.  After Gencon, I will finally be able to answer!

 

If anyone has any questions or topics you would like me to cover, drop me a line at sithdragon13@yahoo.com.  I will get to ALL emails, so if you have sent something be patient.  I know I have a few stacked up right now.  It’s coming ;) 

 

May the Force Be With You.