Sweetie Plains: Jumping the Bombshell Wall

[daHsu]

Just had an epic game on Sweetie Plains, so epic that I just had to talk about it. That, and general Sweetie Plains strategy.
Background
My main account is in very low Masters, although this game was in my second account on low Gifted, so take my analysis however you want. Being a strict adorables lover and a hardcore bombshell hater, this game was basically awesome.
outwitters://viewgame?id=ag5vdXR3aXR0ZXJzZ2FtZXIRCxIIR2FtZVJvb20Y-sfdAQw
Not to mention this has got to be my worst stage ever, and the other guy had FTA

Breakdown
1-18: mostly prep
19:action starts, he leads attack down middle
20-29: attack countered, I attack up his wit hex side
30:I score a mobi+sniper hit!
31-45: Abstract warfare, mostly impasse
46: he leads attack again on my wit hex side
47-54: he manages to runner rush for this time, taking my base down to 2.
55-73: more shapeless fighting with him turtling
74: One more attack down his wit hex side
75: Victory!

The Mobi-Sniper Slingshot
One of the only reasons I use adorables is because the mobi works so well with snipers. (The other is that he is so damn cute!) For fluffy and clever league players looking at my starting strategy, know that I'm pretty bad at the setup, so I won't go over that.
Just know that you should keep both of the main entrances to your base guarded, and then you'll be safe to make your mobi (turn 18 for me). Turns 20-30 is a good example of sneaking down the wit hex side with a mobi. It would have worked better if I took out the sniper earlier. Note that I managed to hit him, but lost all my attacking troops, which is a good reason to only attack if you can still have your base protected.

The Bombshell Wall
Something that all Scallywag players all do to piss me off is use bombshells. It's the toughest special unit out there, and is basically why there were long periods of impasse. My opponent did a good job of timing his bombshells right, so watch his side to see how to use them. Once he got them out, my chances of attacking down the middle was basically 0.
The mistake he made was not pushing them forward. If you look towards the end, he unshells one of them, but never moves it-big mistake. He was totally able to push them up one by one, but never did so.
The title of this says jumping the bombshell wall; I actually don't do that, because you simply can't I went around it. That's a mistake I've made so many times. If you spend the resources to take out a bombshell (at least 4 wits, usually more), the opponent will be free to decimate the rest of your units.
Which, again, is why pushing two bombshells across the stage is so effective.

Runner Rush
I've seen a lot of raging threads on annoying runner rushes, but I've never actually experienced one that worked until turn 46 of this game. Single runners that take out a medic or a sniper are annoying, but not a very real threat (although it is costly). When my opponent ran 4 runners down the side, to hog the wit space, that was annoying.
Why did it work? Simply put, your wit hex side is very hard to defend, since the only unit that can reach that side in one step is a runner. And when my opponent outnumbers me in runners, and is controlling one of my wit spaces, it's really quite easy for him to dominate.
Defending rushing runners is not easy. The best move is not to counter with massive amounts of runners; the one wit space that he has more than you is a huge burden, even though runners are so cheap. In order to retailiate, you need to make a soldier (when he only has runners, soldiers take 6 wits to kill), and walk him into position. Sure, you'll take a couple hits (I went down to 2 hp), but after that you'll have an advantage. Runner rushing is nothing to be feared.

The one wit hex
In sweetie plains, the game revolves around the side wit hexes. As mentioned before, the only quick way to reach your own is with a runner, making it extremely hard to defend.
The three successful attacks made in this game (turns 30, 47, and 74) were all made on the side of the defending player's wit hex. My opponent lost because he centralized all his units on the middle. If you look at the turn 73, you can see that his middle is literally filled with units! There is no way to eat through that wall of bombshells and heavys. But on the wit hex side, he was extremely weak. He had units there, but chose to move them away-always keep some there.
The best way to attack the wit hex is with two soldiers and a runner; use the soldiers to clear the area and the runner to take the wit hex.
Because that area is usually sparse, it's also perfect for a sniper+mobi. My move was a bit slower, since I had to clear out his units, but in the end I got my 3 damage in.

Mass Attack
If you look at turn 72, I literally made no advance to his side. On turn 74, I literally shifted all of my army onto his side. Toward late game, when both sides are well guarded, you absolutely must save up wits before attacking. Although the game was won on the wit hex side with my 2 soldiers and 2 runners, I also hit on the right side of the middle. If you see turn 75, without the soldiers down the middle, he would have held out.

Tldr: The most important thing on Sweetie Plains is the wit hex on the side. Keep it guarded well. There is no easy way to kill mutiple bombshells; try to win by going around them.

[worldfamous]

It looked to me like he quit because he accidentally moved his bombshell without filling the hole. If he could take that turn over, He would've shelled right there and been fine. Maybe I read it wrong, but that's what I saw.

[2dhh]

Very impressive, took me 3 viewings of the replay + reading worldfamous' comment to figure out how you've won.

It was well done.

[DaVici]

I just wanted to tell you that I saw an incorrect amount of -1wits on your opponent at turn 33.
I'm not sure if this is a bug, if this means he hacked the game, or if it is just a fault in codepenguins programming, but I thought it worth noting.

Screenshot

[joelduque]

(11-08-2012 07:42 AM)DaVici Wrote:  I just wanted to tell you that I saw an incorrect amount of -1wits on your opponent at turn 33.
I'm not sure if this is a bug, if this means he hacked the game, or if it is just a fault in codepenguins programming, but I thought it worth noting.

Screenshot

Looks like a programming issue. Fired mortar cannon and attacked runner for 3 damage were shown as 2 different entries but are the same.

[DaVici]

Well thats good then