War College: Defender Station Placement

I almost titled this "Defending Stations" but that's a completely different topic.  This post is inspired by a question on the MF0 Facebook group.  (BTW, I know it's Facebook but, it's criminal how little traction that question has gotten.)  I realized after answering the question that every post about Station placement that I've made is from the Attacker's point of view.  So let's change that.  I'm going to look at my Station placement from a number of games where I was Defender.  Mainly because I know what I was thinking/planning, and while I might be able to guess what other people might have been thinking I'd rather stick with something I'm at least somewhat sure of.

So the main point behind placing your Stations and Initial Frames on the battlefield as Defender is to deny your opponents space and opportunities.  By doing this hopefully you put them in to conflict as well.  The secondary (tertiary?) point is to give yourself room to maneuver and/or retreat if necessary.

Game 1.  The Red oval is a rough approximation of the Defensive Perimeter.  The Black hexagon is my Station.  The Yellow dots are the two initial Frame placements.  While the oval should really be centered on the Station, I wanted to show how much the placement of my initial Frames pushed back my opponent's Frames.  I chose that end of the battlefield because I felt like it had the better selection of structures that I could use for Cover and enough room for me to retreat into once my opponents started moving forward.  The Frames I chose to set the Perimeter were Artillery units and, if you look at the battle report, the Yellow one was essentially trapped in front of the "wall" created by the pumping tubes.  Luckily no-one capitalized on that.  My secondary Frames bore the brunt of the damage in this game.

Game 2.  The Red oval is a rough approximation of the Defensive Perimeter.  The Black hexagon is my Station.  The Yellow dots are the two initial Frame placements.  I used my Purple and Yellow Watchtower Frames to set the outside edges of the Perimeter.  My squad was set up to try the "Sniping Turtle Formation".  This time I went more towards the corner trying to block out more space for myself.  After setting the perimeter the Watchtower frames collapsed inward to coalesce the formation while dropping Spots.

Game 3.  The White oval is a rough approximation of the Defensive Perimeter.  The Black hexagons are my Stations.  The Yellow dots are the two initial Frame placements.  I used my Green and White Frames to set the outside edges of the Perimeter.  This squad was a sort-of variant on the Sniping Turtle except I had mis-remembered the idea I was copying.  I probably would have been better off placing my Stations further to the left in the photo to cut off the corners of the table on that side.  I also should have retreated and leaned into my Artillery options more.

Game 4.  The Black circle is a rough approximation of the Defensive Perimeter.  The White spot is my Station.  The Black hexagons are the two initial Frame placements.  I couldn't quite cut off the corners but I did secure a Cover dense section of the battlefield.  I also managed to capture two opponent's Stations during the Set-Up Phase.  Two opponents dropped Frames into the open corners but all the other Frames were squashed into the remaining half of the battlefield that I didn't claim. 

Game 5.  The White circle is a rough approximation of the Defensive Perimeter.  The White spots are my Stations.  The White pentagons are the two initial Frame placements.  With Cover being pretty evenly distributed I chose one corner that I felt had a little heavier cover and set up.  The Red and Lime Frames are my initial Frames and they helped to push my opponents to the "North" and "West" edges of the battlefield.  There was a small hole in the "Southeast" corner that Occam's Spork snuck a Frame and Station into.  I honestly should have just collapsed my forces inward and gone after Occam's Spork's other Station, or maybe tried to move to the "Northeast" corner to escape everyone.  But I basically stood and fought which is never really a good idea when you have a smaller force.

Game 6.  The Orange circle is a rough approximation of the Defensive Perimeter.  The Orange spots are my Stations.  The Orange hexagons are the two initial Frame placements.  This gave me two Elevated positions and plenty of really solid Cover.  This also left a fair amount of empty space for my opponents to move through.  While this seems like a good defensive position It may have lulled me into a sense of security.  A better choice might have been to set up in the trees and push my opponents into the open spaces of the buildings and force them into moving through the trees to get to my Stations.

Basically placing your Stations as a Defender boils down to a few steps.  1. Pick the area on the battlefield that you think is easiest to defend.  2. Position your Perimeter to limit your opponent's access.  3. Create as much space for yourself as possible when creating your Perimeter.  What you do after that depends on the squad you brought to the table and the actions of your opponents.  I hope this helps you and good luck in your next game.