40K Regicide Classic: Jason vs Erik

Started by JasonPratt, March 23, 2016, 06:43:16 PM

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JasonPratt

So a friend on Facebook named Erik (not one of the Eriks here) wanted to play Facebook Chess last night. Which was okay, but I thought, "Too bad he doesn't have Regicide."

Then with a little experimentation I realized I could set up a hotseat game in skirmish mode, and use that to mirror our game.

Naturally, I took video. And photos. And wrote up an AAR.

Regicide is simply the name for chess in Warhammer 40K, but the "Regicide" mode itself (I want to stress) is not chess. It's a port of some of the tabletop rules for tactical skirmishing to individual pieces instead of squads (more or less mumble mutter), on top of which are added a sort of house rule for designating figures as chess pieces and then constricting those pieces to move (mostly, pawns somewhat excluded) as their chess analogues, with the benefit that any legitimate chess move for a piece into another piece's square equals an instant kill. But meanwhile the pieces are shooting and hacking and grenading and calling in artillery and doing other normal things you'd find in a 40K game.

This is not "Regicide" mode; because Erik doesn't have Regicide and I think he had forgotten what little I told him about 40K some time ago. This is "Classic" mode, which is just chess with Space Marine vs Ork coloring.

And exploding stomachs. Because, 40K.

So we're actually playing in Facebook chess. I'm only mirroring in Regicide hotseat.

Prologue clear? On with the match.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Staggerwing

Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

JasonPratt

#2
JRP (white, Blood Angels) vs. Erik (black, Goffs)

The whole game has been played, but I plan on only posting a few moves at a time depending on what else I'm doing. Besides that way members can comment. :D

FB assigned me first move, and thus white. I haven't played Regicide enough to unlock, well, anything really, so only a few maps and teams are available to me. Given the limited choices, and my assignment as white, I chose the Blood Angels and for Erik the Goff Orks. In classic mode this means nothing other than cosmetic bling. In Regicide mode, whether skirmish or campaign or multiplayer, you level up sets and unlock more sets, and there can be some genuine differences on the field.



Here's a king's view of the central two pawns, and the field ahead. I went with a forest path board at dusk. Mist is wafting across the field from my left.




I open with Pe3. There are good reasons why moving up the King's Pawn two squares is the favorite move for either white or black, but screw that. :D I'm going to try a more defensive structured opening.

As you might expect, this choice will come back to bite me in the ass. Repeatedly.





Erik wastes no time doing the reasonable usual thing, and sends that Shoota Boy (pawn) to e5.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#3
It might seem weird to a 40K fan that Shoota Boyz are the pawns instead of Choppa Boyz -- for any guests, Choppas are the basic Ork grunts, with crude axes and pistols -- but after all Shootas are just Choppas with rifles instead of pistols, and they're facing Tactical Marines who have rifles. Granted, so would a mob of Choppas, but this is supposed to be chess where both sides are equally matched.

(Yes, Shootas are definitely not equally matched up against Tacs in almost any 40K game, but again this is chess so just whatever.)




Continuing my defensive plan (although not without pausing to consider other options), I send up the left knight pawn one square to b3. Every piece is randomly assigned personal names by the way (unless specifically assigned names by the player when building a Regicide set perhaps). The first Tac was Pellamon; this guy is Orpheus. The Orkz all have personal names, too, but I don't care. ;D

Erik decides since I'm not moving out very fast, he'll take the opportunity to start working on my left side flank by sending his Weirdboy's (queen's) Stormboy (knight) to a6.





(Um... I think the Ork 'queen' is being played by a Weirdboy, although I don't usually think of them being in 40K. I'll double check that soon.)

It's around this time that I come to realize that Regicide needs a bit more color for properly distinguishing pieces from each other and from the backgrounds. At least for screenshots.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#4
Erik's Stormboy landed square in the recently-opened shooting line of my Commander-side Devastator (King's Bishop), but being chess I can't just shoot him long range with my heavy bolter: poor... {checking} Tarvos? Tavros? Targo? would waddle all the way across the board afterward to "take and hold" that square with his Hand of Fate, and be promptly shot dead by a mere pawn.

Still, the reason I moved those two previous pawns up was to open a line for the bishop to get out and take up position at the end of a defensive pawn setup, so...




...I make the 'bishop' trundle out there to c4, almost as far, without shooting anyone at all dead first. Achievement achieved! {clapping self on back}

Erik doesn't care a single poot about my achievement, and demonstrates its worth by defusing it with...




...a single dang pawn to queen 4. Uh, sorry, old nomenclature; I meant d5.

So I can either trade a pawn for a bishop over the next couple of turns in order to set up some other brilliant plan (or, heck, trade a bishop and two pawns for a pawn, or even trade a bishop, two pawns, and a knight to thwack a queen'd pawn :P ) ... or, I can move trade a bishop for a pawn the other way -- which might be worth it if I suckered his queen down for some purpose, but I can't think of one.

Or I can advance my bishop to be taken completely safely by his knight next turn.

Or I can turn my little Devastator right around and waddle him back to safety somewhere.




"We've got them on the run," Torgo confidently announces as he Bishops back to D3. Well, it still keeps his options open, and he still remains protected by pawn backup.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

ErikLaurenMayle

QuoteI open with Pe3. There are good reasons why moving up the King's Pawn two squares is the favorite move for either white or black, but screw that. :D I'm going to try a more defensive structured opening.

As you might expect, this choice will come back to bite me in the ass. Repeatedly.

Yeah, I was really puzzled by that move. I wasn't sure if this was some new strategy or what, so I proceeded what for me was cautiously.

QuoteContinuing my defensive plan (although not without pausing to consider other options), I send up the left knight pawn one square to b3. Every piece is randomly assigned personal names by the way (unless specifically assigned names by the player when building a Regicide set perhaps). The first Tac was Pellamon; this guy is Orpheus. The Orkz all have personal names, too, but I don't care. ;D

Erik decides since I'm not moving out very fast, he'll take the opportunity to start working on my left side flank by sending his Weirdboy's (queen's) Stormboy (knight) to a6.

If I remember correctly, I didn't really know where you were going with things, and I don't like it when I don't know what's going on, so I tried putting the ball back in my court by forcing some decisions on your behalf. It was half posturing, half misdirection, and I was surprised by how well that it was working, but it wasn't too long before the tide turned decidedly in your direction.

I think that I have a pretty good opening game, a competent and vigorous middle game, but closing has always been my nemesis.

QuoteErik's Stormboy landed square in the recently-opened shooting line of my Commander-side Devastator (King's Bishop), but being chess I can't just shoot him long range with my heavy bolter: poor... {checking} Tarvos? Tavros? Targo? would waddle all the way across the board afterward to "take and hold" that square with his Hand of Fate, and be promptly shot dead by a mere pawn.

Still, the reason I moved those two previous pawns up was to open a line for the bishop to get out and take up position at the end of a defensive pawn setup, so...

I am of the opinion that pawns are either pivotal to your strategy or the biggest obstacle, but they are almost never irrelevant. In this case, pawns were very pivotal to my strategy.

Quote...I make the 'bishop' trundle out there to c4, almost as far, without shooting anyone at all dead first. Achievement achieved! {clapping self on back}

Erik doesn't care a single poot about my achievement, and demonstrates its worth by defusing it with...

...a single dang pawn to queen 4. Uh, sorry, old nomenclature; I meant d5.

So I can either trade a pawn for a bishop over the next couple of turns in order to set up some other brilliant plan (or, heck, trade a bishop and two pawns for a pawn, or even trade a bishop, two pawns, and a knight to thwack a queen'd pawn :P ) ... or, I can move trade a bishop for a pawn the other way -- which might be worth it if I suckered his queen down for some purpose, but I can't think of one.

Or I can advance my bishop to be taken completely safely by his knight next turn.

Or I can turn my little Devastator right around and waddle him back to safety somewhere.

See what I mean? ;)


JasonPratt

Welcome to ELM, yo!  O0

Pawns are generally crucial to my strategies, since everything in this game is made of glass.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

(Erik has seen some snapshots I posted of the Regicide mirror during the Facebook match, by the way, but all these snaps so far are new from the Shadowplay video I think.)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Have I mentioned yet that I haven't played chess since 1992? Because that seems like it might be relevant. And no, working through the first few missions of the Regicide campaign doesn't count.

What does count, is Erik deciding to send his own king's bishop -- who looks like this by the way...




...to exactly mirror where I had trundled Torgo the Devastator one turn previously.




C5, not incidentally, is also a spot currently protected by that knight Erik flanked out already on my left.

As an aside, I thought the Ork bishops were supposed to be Flash Gits -- the heavy ranged units -- but the game calls them Lootas. Maybe they're the same thing; I'll admit to not being entirely up to date on all 40K details.

I have a bunch of options for my next move, but I quickly narrow them down to strengthening my right side defense.

I could do this with more short range pawn movement. But bringing out one of my two back pieces on the right, might serve to edge the initiative back in my favor, since that might suggest to Erik he should respond to my actions over here -- he has so far only weakened his left (my right) side if anything. Convincing the enemy to respond is a key tactic in any wargame, especially one with glass pieces that die in one hit from anything (like for example chess), and Erik has gotten me responding to him right now! Time to break that if I can, while I still can.

So do I go ahead and bring out the big gun, my Librarian (queen)? Or my Assault Marine (knight)?




While the knight (moving Nf3) is technically less powerful, it does in this situation have the advantage of threatening something which, if taken, couldn't be traded off, namely that king's pawn: the only unprotected part of Erik's advance so far. By contrast, moving my queen out all the way to h5 would only draw out a protected pawn to force me back at no gain for me (and an improvement of his left position); moving it to g4 would simply get it taken by his bishop; moving it to f3 threatens nothing of his except a pawn under guard by his own king.

Roughly speaking, Erik can now either react to me or not. If he reacts by protecting the pawn, then fine but I've gotten the initiative and can try to keep it. If he chooses to try something else, I'll just have to deal with that I guess.

 


Instead, Erik mirrors me with his king's knight (that Stormboy landing on f6 in the snapshot).

Getting a knight forward certainly isn't bad, and this move certainly adds protection to his queen's pawn, so that any future tradeoff there should be in his favor. What it doesn't do, though, is protect his king's pawn in any way, shape, form, or fashion. And yet it feels like a response to my advance, so I think I've still got the initiative here.

That doesn't mean I instantly jump Alexos over to e5 to chainsword first blood out of Erik's little minion.




I thought about it a good twenty or thirty seconds first!

But I can see no downside. He can't strike back immediately, so he's now one pawn down for free; I've advanced the knight to a central position where he could threaten someone worthwhile eventually; and in the worst case scenario, I can (probably) jump the AssMarine back out of danger somewhere safely. And while I'm not definitely forcing Erik to respond, there's a good chance he might do so in a way that leaves me initiative.

Which he does by castling (to the king's side O - O).

If Erik hasn't made an arguably weak move yet, this one might be it. This could help him later, or even soon, but it doesn't help him immediately; and while sending one's king toward a corner reduces avenues of attack against it, avenues of escape reduce in proportion.

This is a wordy way of saying I don't follow by castling, too. Or ever in this game, to give a minor spoiler.

Whether I'll regret that later remains to be seen.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#9
Now my question is: what can I do to keep my initiative going? This doesn't have an obviously easy answer -- not to me anyway. Should I move my white (king's) bishop?




He has two apparently open lines of advance, but most of the squares are covered in such a way he'd be picked off instantly at no benefit to me I can see. And the few safe squares don't set up anything I can see either.

My Librarian (queen)'s path out right-forward has opened up again, but I can't go very far out without being picked off by his king-side knight. Moving her out would at best only threaten to trade his king's knight for my queen, which duh, no.

Improving my pawn advance layers, especially on my right side, wouldn't be bad, but wouldn't keep the initiative.

Eventually I decide...




...it's time to bring out my black bishop to a3.

Admittedly, this is still kind of weak, because now I've placed my bishop in danger from his black bishop for no immediate gain: his own bishop is protected by the queen's knight, with possible pawn support coming. And while my bishop is also knight-protected, this locks down my queen's knight. But I've also locked down his queen's knight -- until and unless he moves up some pawn support, which could easily happen.

Still, I've increased directly threatening pressure on his line, and I've set up the potential for a long distance effect up where he's currently trying to hide his king; and I've done so in a way that he can't simply write off as a toothless threat: trading bishop for bishop isn't like trading a knight for my queen. At worst I've complexified his life on that side of the board.




Much to my surprise, he brings the pawn which could free up his knight by supporting his bishop, forward to b5.

You will notice that in my screenie, I'm helping illustrate this by highlighting how I can attack him with my white bishop.




There's a reason for that.




Sure, Tarvos is standing unprotected in the dishonored guts of Erik's pawn spilled across the battlefield, but at the moment no one can threaten him, and I'm opening up more pressure on Erik's king's corner, and Erik is now down two pawns which could translate to fewer options in the late game.

What I don't realize is that I've inadvertently given Erik the opportunity, and the goad, to bust my left side as wide open as the Shoota Boy who's now clogging Tarv's boot cleats.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

ErikLaurenMayle

Yeah, I never enter into a game with the idea of not losing any pieces. It's more like, how am I going to spend these pieces to purchase my adversary's demise? xD

JasonPratt

So, what's the problem?




That guy. Erik's queen rook. He's the problem.

I just fell for a classic pawn bait trap. I zip my bishop out, take the pawn in a safe spot with strong presence, why wouldn't I do that?




Because pawns have to be awesome or dead for rooks to accomplish much in this game, since a pawn will always normally be in the way of a rook moving forward anywhere. I just got rid of a Shoota Boy in the way of that Nob, and unlike 'real' 40K I can't mow him down at long distance with my heavy bolter if he steps over to the left once; but he can dang well charge down and spackle me all over the ground!

So if he moves one step left, I've got to retreat from that line -- which, granted, I can do safely while still keeping some pressure on Erik's king's hole.

But then Erik can bring his Nob out from the backfield. Even if he can't attack my well-defended left side immediately, he safely pins down a number of things while getting ready to shift leftward (my rightward) across the board (while my rooks all remain neutered in the backfield, and his other rook gets ready to come forward, too) to threaten all kinds of nastiness on my undeveloped --




--  ---

uh.

Sooooo... Erork just skips all the preliminaries and goes straight to threatening my queen with his white bishop at g4. Where he's protected by the king's knight meanwhile.

To be honest, I foresaw neither that nor the rook maneuvering I described earlier. That was just a hindsight threat I was headslapping myself about after the fact, as an alternate to worrying over what Erik actually did.

Now, my king (at the moment) or my king's rook (if I castle) will zorch his Loota for messing with my Librarian. But trading a queen for a bishop is not good for any coming late game situation. Nor am I particularly keen on the idea of trading a knight for a knight (and allowing his knight to advance closer to me).

So it comes down to two options. I can either bury my Librarian deeper into my left backfield to protect it, or...




...I can Pg3.

This puts an immediate threat of a bad piece-trade on his bishop, while protecting my 'queen'.

(Although to be honest I had to keep reminding myself that was a bishop not a knight while planning my move; because I'm not used to the 'shapes' of the pieces yet, and because my short-term memory really is that terrible.)




This time it's his bishop stepping back (Bf5) after a threat advance, to avoid being pwnd!

He has still materially strengthened his left side (my right), while opening up a nascent threat on my left side.

He has also just removed that knight's final protection on my left side.




Which my white bishop promptly exploits.

By which I mean my Devastator promptly explodes that Boy's Rockit!




And steps up to a6.

Where my bishop can't really do much, honestly, except move back when Erik flushes him out with Qc8.

...wait, no, what? WHAT??!?




Qd6. Forks my king's knight and my white bishop. Forks them ENTIRELY OVER!

By far the best move of the game so far. Possibly the best move all game.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Let us consider just how screwed I am, shall we?




I've labeled the major pieces; everything else is a pawn. (Knights as usual are "N". The little white targeting recticule on Q8, shows where a piece previously moved from, Black's queen in this case, represented in this game by an Ork Weirdboy.)

Currently I have lost no pieces: I've still got all 8 pawns, my queen, both rooks, both bishops, and both knights. I'm up on Erik by three pawns and, just recently, his queen's knight.

Unfortunately, my own queen (played in this game by a Marine Librarian), and both my rooks are stuck behind my pawn line; one of my knights is busy guarding my black bishop; my black bishop can't do anything more than threaten his well-protected black bishop; and my white bishop has gotten tangled in my upper left corner where it's more of a sitting target than a threat. So while I've got a lot of potential power, practically speaking only my king's knight is in a position to do much.

Whereas, Erik has moved a lot of his main firepower forward, and could bring his rooks out within a couple of moves easily, given any opportunity.

What this translates to, in the current crisis, is that I have no way to stop his fork: his queen will take either my only free-roaming knight, or my only free-roaming bishop.

I can't put his king in check, disrupting and perhaps dissolving the fork.

I can't take his queen (and even if I could, his queen and his black bishop are protecting each other, and his surviving knight is also protecting the queen, and also one of his pawns! -- so I'd have to think about how much of a tradeoff I wanted to instigate there).

I can't block the path to my knight, and even if I could he'd just take my bishop.

I can't block the path to my bishop, and even if I could he'd just take my knight. (More precisely, only that knight could block the path to my bishop!)

I can move either piece to safety, but that would leave the other to be taken. (And any place I move the knight, he'll still be in immediate danger of being taken by Erik's white bishop, or by a pawn or the king's rook!)

Ideally, I would move one of the pieces to protect the other, but I can't do that either: my knight is on a black square, and my white bishop is too far away from my knight.

I can move up a pawn (on the F column) to protect my knight, but he'd just take my bishop.

Strictly speaking, the proper trade would be to save my bishop and sacrifice my knight.

But, that really depends on which one of those pieces has a more immediate and important tactical use. If I can use the knight in the next few moves to really mess with Erik, then I should sacrifice the bishop.

On the other hand: the fork could be a way to sucker the queen into a developing trap.

A related option, is to think in terms of this being an extended exchange where Erik is already down one knight. In that sense, if he takes one important piece, but I take two of his, I'm still ahead. And his black bishop could be shot by my black bishop any time. That would give Erik three important targets, but he could only take one. In fact, I'm likely to take that bishop anyway the moment his queen nukes one of my other pieces, since he can't do that and still protect the black bishop.

So in the short term, I'll actually still be ahead on an expanded exchange, with Erik down a knight and a bishop in exchange for whatever I give him (knight or bishop) in the fork.

So I'm not quite as much in a panic as might otherwise be.

Unfortunately, I can't think of anything to do in the short term with either the knight or the white bishop which would justify sacrificing the other one.

In hindsight, I should have sent my knight up to f7, taking the pawn in front of the rook, tempting Erik to rook (or king?) my knight and escaping my bishop afterward. Or I should have escaped my bishop, leading him into a developing pawn trap by taking my knight.

Instead...



...I jump Alexos to c4, in front of Erik's black bishop.

I cannot honestly say, several days later, what the heck I thought I was doing here. My guess is that I was hoping he'd pawn my knight and then I could bishop his pawn and escape. "Knight and Bishop are still forked, just differently," I texted.

This is one of those moves I'd have to put a {?} behind in tracking notation. Maybe I thought it was so whackadoo that Erik would suspect a trap he couldn't see, and look for a third option himself.

"Ah, you see more than that as well, I see," Erik eventually replied.

...what?

...wait, what? Is this... my freakish bluff isn't actually going to work is it??




Well, no, he didn't try to find a third option. But he does pawn my knight!

Do I promptly escape my bishop over c4 and the blasted ruin of that pawn? Does a bishop wear a tall hat?!




...well, not in this game. And that's a heavy gunner, not 40K's version of a bishop (which is standing in for the chess queen, by the way.)

But otherwise, dang skippy I do.




Your gene seed will be recovered, Alexos; you have served the Emperor well.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

-budd-

Nice AAR i've added the game to my wishlist, nice variation on chess. But now thats out of the way, shouldn't you be defending Moscow or something  :)
Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.  ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Be Yourself; Everyone Else is Taken ~Oscar Wilde

*I'm in the Wargamer middle ground*
I don't buy all the wargames I want, I just buy more than I need.

JasonPratt

No doubt. Go get Barth to send in his turn!  ^-^
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!