Attack or Defend?

Jeff Shields>
In a recent game the question came up as to which side we play best. Do most of us prefer to attack? or defend? Preferences aside, are you a better attacker or defender?

I'm a better attacker and prefer to attack, but I know at least two players who are better defenders even though they may prefer to attack.

I prefer to attack because I like aggressive play and I like to take calculated risks that are more damaging on the defense. When I defend I tend to play too aggressively and lose by not falling back in time or by losing most of my force. I like games where both sides lose lots of cardboard counters.

1. A defense is something you can prepare well in advance of the scenario. You can fine tune, adjust, find those killer bore-sight locations, and pick the perfect place for the Psk-toting HS. As the attacker, you can have a general idea of what you want to do, but, until you see the defender's setup, you can't get too specific.
2. The Berserk Commissars (my Portland-based ASL club) have all, at various times, commented that my attacks are usually of the "iron fist" variety. That is, rather than get fancy with flanking groups and such, I load up everybody on one side or the other and attempt to bludgeon what I perceive to be the weaker side of the defender. Unimaginative, and not very flexible. It works sometimes, though. My attacks mostly rely on the mistakes of my opponent, not so much on my own devious plans.
3. (Somewhat immodestly) I am a master skulker. This is a game mechanism that I've developed to near-perfection. I'm comfortable making decisions about when to back out and when to stand and die. Essential for a defender.

I guess I feel more comfortable defending, but I can't explain why my attack/defend winning percentage is so different. As the attacker, you have to dictate the tempo of the game, and maybe that's hard for a relative young'un like myself; when and how hard to push, and when you can lay back.

Attack tactics are also maybe more complex than defense; I have First/Subsequent/Final fire down pat, along with firelanes, boresighting, etc, but attack tactics take more coordination, especially when you've got infantry and armor working together. Do you use armored assault or Overrun or Riders or Human Wave/Banzai? Infantry or armor smoke? Run halfsquads up first? Stack with leaders or not?

Someone mentioned this before, too - the defender has more flexibility than the attacker, and can usually set up to shift the defense to wherever the attack point is. Once the attacker chooses that point, however, it's very hard to shift gears and hit some other part of the board. So the defender has the easier decisions in setup too.

Sometimes, this is very good. In other cases, it's a disaster. In a static defense scenario, I'm at a disadvantage. In a night scenario where you can't move afterwards - yuck!

On the attack, I'm quite aggressive. One of my local opponent tells me that it's nerve-wrecking to play me because he knows he'll never be allowed to relax. This can be devastating against a good defense, and I have great problems in scenarios where you're supposed to go slow and safe. The result is that I either win big (rushing my opponent and crushing him really quick) or lose big (being crushed while charging) in most games.

I find defending hard. I know I'm getting better at it, but I had to get good at attacking before I really felt like I knew what I was doing in setting up a defense. The way I've improved is by knowing exactly what to watch out for from the attacker. Usually it boils down to knowing your rout paths and places to skulk in advance. This gets really tricky against unopposed armor or the Japanese, who aren't easily stopped from cutting off rout paths if they're determined to do so.

TQR> Comments to RK
That won't happen very often vs a setup; the attacker usually needs a few turns to create and exploit a weakness. A good defense will have some kind of reserve to reinforce the attack point.

The attacker can make all kinds of mistakes that a defender will benefit from in various ways.

• Timing - if the attack is going too slowly, the defender automatically benefits, regardless of his skill level.
• Force allocation - If the attacker doesn't send the right units to do certain jobs, he's gonna be understrength somewhere. The defender can also often use Dummies/HIP to mask the real strength of the defense.
• Tactics - The game gives the attacker several ways to do things: take out an MG nest, for example. If he does the suboptimal thing (like failing to cancel FFMO through use of smoke, armored assault, etc), then the defender automatically benefits (ie, by getting the FFMO DRM), regardless of his skill level. Eventually, using suboptimal tactics will wear the attacker's force down cuz they're gonna be broken or KIA.

RK>
This may be true in the big picture, but I'm talking about micro-tactics here. Some examples would be

• Missing some LOS that allows a lot of attacking units to slip through.

• Setting up in a location where the attacker will be able to assault move concealed units ADJACENT, making you have to decide between firing on them to strip concealment so you won't get whacked in CC and firing at other attacking units running past.
• Concentrating your firepower into stacks when the attacker has good SMOKE
• Placing vehicles in places where attacking vehicles can pop into LOS at close range and out of CA.

TQR>
The attacker can make all kinds of mistakes that a defender will benefit from in various ways.

Obviously, there are many ways for the attacker to do something wrong: bad Prep Fire decision, move in stacks, inappropriate Banzai timing. However, the attacker can afford a certain degree of sloppiness. He usually has local superiority, so he doesn't have to worry about units covering each other. He doesn't have to worry about every potential LOS, and he almost never has to worry about having his rout paths cut.

The difference is really that the attacker's mistakes will be punished by the system, in terms of bad DRM or whatever, but the defender's mistakes get punished by the other player, by maneuver that takes advantage of some avenue of approach that's insufficiently covered. To stop making so many mistakes as attacker, you need to become familiar with the rules, but in order to play a tight defense, you need to become familiar with the tactics.

I would suspect that most players have a better win record as defender. I believe it is eaier to defend. Following are some reasons why:

1. Time is usually on the side of the defender
2. Mistakes are more difficult to recover from for the Attacker than for the defender
3. A defender tends to get more shots (the attacker is manuvering more than the defender plus the defender has more opportunity to skulk)
4. The Attacker needs to maintain momentum. Momentum is difficult to maintain and easy to loose.

Martin Snow>
Re Tate's #2: I would think that the opposite is true. It's very hard to recover from a bad setup, but it's usually not too hard to shift the focus of an attack. This of course depends on whether it's a fixed defense (e.g. pillboxes or caves) or a fallback defense.

In particular, a scenario with a lot of caves can be over on turn 1 if you've set them up poorly.

One story I have to tell. I was playing Sea of Tranquility as the Japs. I put one AT Gun in a pillbox one the right side of the horseshoe ridge, facing into the center. The other AT Gun went in the other pillbox directly across from the first AT Gun. My thinking, he'll see one of the Guns, turn his tanks to have the front facing the Gun and to shoot at the pillbox. When he does, the other AT Gun will get a rear shot. I never expected it to work, but by a stroke of luck he did exactly what I had thought. Got one Sherman in the rear and another in the side when he tried to run away. :-) Usually, though, these great defensive plans never work, but it is great when they do.

When I attack, I usually suck. Probably because I expect too much from my troops. Funny, running them into massive firepower never seems to work as I planned. In most scenarios, attacking takes cautious aggression and I never seem to get the balance worked out right. Either I am too conservative and need some last turn heroics, or I get too aggressive and don't have any troops left for the end of the game. Oh, well. I guess I need more practice.

Looking back at my experience, I became a solid defender before I became a solid attacker. Even though when I first began playing I preferred to attack as I was more comfortable doing so. When forced to defend, I was very jittery and indecision always crept in. Eventually I became comfortable defending too and I was probably better at defending for a long time. Though I eventually became quite capable at both, it took much longer to be as confident on the attack as defense. I guess, for me, attacking was much easier to do but much harder to do well. Defending was difficult to do but easier to do well.

I think this has a lot to do with the level of rules knowledge a player has. Early on, I was overwhelmed by the capabilities of units. Attacking was easier because I could make decisions "on the fly" and if I discovered a new trick (most often because the defender pulled it on me) then I could adapt my tactics to include it. But I soon ran into a wall which I only overcame by studying and practicing the various rules sections which I had only skimmed before. This eventually opened my eyes to new possibilities and tactics.

I was fortunate enough to have a very active ASL group to learn with. We only had about 6 players at any one time, but we met weekly (at least) and they loved to do DYO scenarios. It was a long time before I played even a majority of the published ones (including only the modules and the one annual) as most of my early experiences were with DYO. I firmly believe that DYO builds ASL skill faster than anything else (save perhaps studying the rules).

We played a lot of meeting style engagements (most all combined arms) which taught me how to grab objectives or inflict casualties and then hold on to what I had. It also taught me to evaluate enemy (and friendly) units for their real value vice their perceived ones. For example, facing Panthers as the US is seldom enjoyable from an armor aspect. Against a mostly infantry force however, Panthers aren't too much more of a threat than a STGIII. Certainly there are differences, but the main weapon (the MA) is the same. OTOH, a Flak IV demands serious consideration vs infantry where it may just be a nuisance against Shermans.

I highly recommend DYO play for new players. The lessons you learn (often the hard way) are invaluable. How better to learn about FT Tanks than use 3 or 4 of them in an attack. How many scenarios out there can do the same? Your grasp of playing the game will go up very quickly.

As for the defense, I really didn't feel good about defending until I had played quite a bit. I guess it boiled down to understanding what threats units represented and how to at least limit their effectiveness. This took a while, but wasn't that hard to improve on. I became a very good defender much faster than attacker. In fact, the first time I placed 3rd at ASLOK, I did so by playing the defense in all but one game. Of course that one game was Rude Awakening which I played against Louis Tokarz and came up a couple of VP short. It was the only game I lost all weekend.

Since then, I primarily attack when the opportunity arises because I have found that I need much more practice at it to stay good than defending. I suppose I feel that I can always put up a good defense (it may not always result in a win though) no matter what the situation. Sometimes I get nailed by scenario selection and get into a hopeless position, but that happens a lot when you leave scenario selection up to your opponent as often as I do.

Brian WIlliams>
I was thinking of posting this to the list just yesterday. I haven't yet been to a tournament, and judging by my preformence during 10+ hrs of play I think I would lose anything after the first day! No offense to my last opponant (Hey Steve), but if I hadn't have been playing for 10 hrs previously, I think I would have won our last game of _Children of the Kunai_. Before that I lost in a game of _Battle for Rome_ in which I thought I had won, but after about 10 hours, lost my focus in the last two hours of play. Not eating for the 10 hours was probably a mistake too.