3 Flags Thoughts

I have played the new 3 flags scenario some and i've noticed a new dynamic from the last version i thought i would share. In the old version i noticed that i often wanted to go first to get a chance to sort of redeploy on the relevant flags and threaten past them before the scenario went active. Now i think i highly prefer going second. All the flags are equally valuable now and none go away. in almost every situation a player will need to contest 2 of the flags and give up the third to maybe running a model to contest. If you run your stuff so it is threating the flag turn 1 then it becomes very difficult for your opponent to even try to score what i've seen happen a bunch is that the person going first needs to either give stuff away trying to contest or engage the opponent at the absolute maximum range of their threat where they are the least effective. Moreover, by the second players second turn you can generally see the two flags the first player plans to fight
over. so, on the turn scoring starts the second player can send something small to control the off flag  and turn their entire army into the flags their opponents want. A lot of the time you can hurt the stuff put into position to contest maybe even kill it with guns or long range melee (i'm thinking a scythean deployed directly across from a flag or something equivalent like karn). so, i see three things happening:

1) They jam past/commit to control the flags/fight your army top of 2 thereby letting you alpha them without a reasonable opportunity for them to score to score (seems bad).

2) they try to contest the flags with the bare minimum of force which seems terribly difficult on three different flags considering that armies rarely have that many durable AND expendable models that can spread out that far. You probably get to kill some stuff and at least score the off flag. (seems bad, too)

3) they might not even contest the flags for fear of losing stuff to your models threating the flag in which case you can score three points by running stuff. at this point they need to clear or contest all three flags and you are on the cusp of winning. (seems worse)

4) they contest two flags aggressively planning to score 2 points on their third turn and abandon one flag. You can then run to control the flags they've abandoned and set up to threaten the flags they will inevitable try to control. This gives you 1 point before your armies smash into each other. At which point your opponent needs to exert enought pressure to win the two flags he's claimed while also extending sufficiently to at least clear the third flag. this is a game i feel that is playable for both but significantly favors the second player. (seems okay)

So, I think the changes turned this common scenario on its head and now going second is the natural choice. This tactic doesn't work for slow, bricky armies. However, those armies were never particularly good in this scenario anyway. Also, since you're going second you can counter deploy against the flags they plan to capture. Try to put a light warbeast or warjack on the flag they want to concede because those will require the most from your opponent to remove and they won't just die to a gunmage or a blast. The key seems to be to trivially apply pressure on that third flag for the entire game while fighting over the other two flags with the majority of your force. Every list seems like it can play for scenario by going second due to the simple fact that practically no list can play for scenario by going first.

As much as I loved the google group it had some issues.  For one, it isn't very inclusive for discussions and it would be fun to have a more open face for the group.  It also had some problems in directly replying to the group.

A open blog to post and respond to these lists and other thoughts could be fun and get the discussion rolling.  I was also inspired by taking to some tripbrut disciples and how they have been working on perfecting the work Joe abandoned with Mak3 over some Blog.

The only down side is I know some of you don't have a gmail account.  You'll need a Google account to post and likely to reply as well.  You should already have one of these but I know half of you are luddites as it is.

I need to figure out how to have the Blog inform me when there have been updates.  Also the template is likely going to be awful for a while.  I will give people admin writes once they sign up so people who would like to can adjust all that.