War College: Accidental Defender

We've all had it happen, we underestimate what our opponents are bringing to the table or end up on the bad side of a die roll and get stuck playing Defender when we didn't plan for it.

So what do you do now?  I'll look at a couple of battle reports from games I've played in where it happened.

The first game is the one we played at Greenfield Games back in 2018.  We had five players and elected to play a Skirmish.  Which means we were allowed three or four Frames each.  Everyone came to the table with 4 Frames and 16 systems.  I ended up on the bad end of a die roll and had to drop a Frame from my squad -- which was configured to come in "heavy" and my strategy was built around being Primary Attacker.

After some quick thinking, and some deep breathing exercises,  I set my Station (red star) in the center of the battlefield and placed my two initial Frames (red rectangles) at the farthest points possible from  the Station.  This carved a rough oval (red oval) of empty space my opponents couldn't enter -- leaving them two roughly triangular sections on either side, and at either end, within which they could place their Frames.  Tom placed his Station inside my Perimeter during set-up -- the Rook Maneuver -- and I captured it with the placement of my final Frame (red pentagon).  The wide perimeter and extra points gave me a little breathing room at the start.

My plan was to fade inwards from the perimeter, run, and just survive as long as possible.  That didn't happen.  The balloon goes up and I get hit by three of the other players without provocation -- yes, I know I was in 1st place -- and lose two Frames.  After that it's just a scramble to keep my single Frame alive and grab whatever open Stations I can to maintain my point total.  I manage to keep my Frame alive -- even through a stupid slap fight with Joshua -- to the end of the game but I lose all the Stations I had once controlled.

What could I have done different?  I should have activated my Frames first and retreated into the two empty areas at the corner of the battlefield and then kept running away as much as possible.  I would have lost the Stations but possibly kept more Frames.

The next game is a little more recent.  This was our last game of 2021, held at the Paper Asylum.  I think Tom was hoping for someone to come in "light" and configured his squad to fall in to the middle by dropping one System.  Instead this led to him being Defender with every other squad coming in maxed out -- which is what I mean by the term "heavy" I used earlier.

So, what does he do?  He places his Station (black star) towards the center of the battlefield to establish his Perimeter (black oval) then sets his Frames (black rectangles) towards the back end of that oval to keep them away from his opponents.  While this doesn't create as large a Perimeter, this does leave a lot of space to traverse if you don't have Artillery.  Over the course of the game Tom moves his forces out of the corner to reinforce his Station when it appears most of the conflict is going to be between Nikko, Pete, and PJ Nicht.  In the process he loses a Frame and the Station but keeps his other Frames, this gives him a third place finish.

When I asked Tom about the game, this is what he wrote.  "Being accidental defender probably means you don't have the optimal squad for the job. This puts you at a disadvantage at the start of the game, not unlike getting a poor position during setup. So you'll need to take risky moves to win. But as defender, risky moves aren't the same as when playing from behind. Losing a frame is a huge loss of points, so you need to protect them. For example, instead of over extending to grab a base and hope you hold it, you'll move your frames out of range and hope your opponents don't roll enough movement to get the base. It can be agonizing, as you probably have a squad built for attacking, but a lot of times you need to sit back and do nothing."

Hopefully this helps if you get stuck in the same position.