Andy Looney writes:
>That can be tricky. Most of the time, prisoners end up getting squandered.
>Any old Icehouse vets want to help out with this one?
Hmm.
1. Use the prisoner to knock off a blocker of the same size (by using
a standing block). This does put the former prisoner at risk --
but leaves it counting for points, and is often slightly more
effective as a block than you could do with a regualr tip-block
(and in some ways, more effective than a tail-block).
2. Use the prisoner to tail-block attackers -- either by attacking one
of your one-point pieces (ie a sacrifice), or by attacking an
opponent. While this does involve losing a point, the sacrifice is
particularly notable, since by its nature, it lays out a trap that
unaware opponents can fall into -- as continued attempts to
attack that area will often hand you free prisoners.
3. Use the prisoner to ice a third opponent. Obviously, this is
inferior to using it in a "prisoner" fashion, but once you have
picked up hostile prisioners, it's a nice way to get it counting
for points (and is less risky than attacking with your own pieces.
>> 2) Could you demonstrate a cool pieceniking project that would be easy
>> to do at home? I haven't had much luck with filling pyramids with sand
>> (the glue at the bottom frequently doesn't seal, so the sand leaks out),
I've found hotglue to be fairly easy to work with -- the important
thing is to have a hot glue pad -- as that lets you get a nice smooth
seal without having to chip away the extra clue. As some people know,
I've even gotten this method to work with water-filled pieces -- the
Dicehouse pieces (and a water+sand filled set that is much more
subtle) and over the three years since I did that project, only a
handful (3/15? 4? Something like that) of pieces have needed to be
redone.
>Sorry, I'm not much of a pieceniker, since I'm happiest with standard
>factory-made pieces we dreamed of getting made for so very long. But again,
>maybe others on this list could run with this idea.
I do think the factory-made pieces have made peiece-nicker's jobs
much, much easier. We are far beyond the days where you had to cut
your own pieces in metal shop. (As cool as Number 12's set is).
--
Joshua Kronengold (mneme@(io.com, labcats.org)) |\ _,,,--,,_ ,)
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