Rolling Dice: If This Is Your Plan, Stop!

Today's is a very short post on a problem I've noticed in the burgeoning local community: people don't plan beyond rolling dice. The movement phase and assault phase are all about getting to dice tossing. The entire game boils down to fistfuls of dice and a roughly even chance of whose army rolls better. I'm going to break my broad, sweeping advice into two segments: Strategy and Tactics.

Strategy

Strategy is often a broad term, so I'm going to narrow this down to my purpose and the context in which this post (and indeed this blog) will use it. Strategy is the overlying principle or principles which a player will use to design their army and set their goals. In essence, strategy is isolating what factors you are going to control in order to win battles, whether it is by having a rock solid defensive line which you will use to deny secondary objectives and control the board, and therefore at least some primary objectives or if it is by fielding a mobile, versatile force that will rely on denying the enemy access to the tools and opportunities they rely on for victory. Strategy is primarily the building of your list and the deployment of your army based on the set objectives of each battle.

The Practical Application: Strategy is about sitting down and deciding what it is you want your army to actually do. It is about thinking beyond "well, a battle tank is awesome so I'll take three!" and starting to look deeper, such as "with three battle tanks I can effectively deny an attacker line of sight and assault lanes to a large section of the field, and lay down a large area of heavy fire support to control my chosen area." It is planning units around more then just the damage they can deal, but around how, where, and when they can deal or prevent that damage and how you can use that to win.

Tactics

Tactics, unlike strategy, do not revolve around a cleverly written list and the over-arching plan to win. Tactics are smaller-scale, and based upon the use and manipulation of individual units to gain immediate advantage in the battle. So, for example, strategy is planning to have your troops near the opposing side to go for Line Breaker at the end, while a tactical decision is moving your predator down the flank to get side armour shots should the enemy advance. This is the part of the game that most people focus on, and while easier to achieve competence with, it is just as difficult to master. Planning your movements and assaults around a coherent strategy is important, just as making sound tactical decisions as you implement that strategy  is important. Some basic tactical decisions that should be coming up every game, and actually taking a moment to think them through is what makes the difference between my decisive victory or head-shaking defeat:

• Use of Cover vs Retaining Mobility
• Maintaining Force Coherency (not stretching too thin)
• Comparison of Weights of Fire (ensuring my forces will apply more pressure then theirs)
• Use or Denial of Objectives (don't just focus on one or two,have a plan for all of them!)
• Controlling Assault (using mobility and planning to decide when and where assaults occur)

Long story short, go into every battle with a plan, and then don't lose sight of that plan in favour of a quick strike at an inconsequential target. Find your strategy, and hone your tactical awareness to ensure you don't inadvertently threaten your own plan. Too many warlord get cocky, advance too quickly and get good models killed for vainglorious bloodlust!

Terrain Density and You

Terrain: How Much, and What Does It Mean?

I was given a topic by a reader, and it was interesting enough to make me want to write about it: terrain density and how it affects the game, both in balance and from the perspective of what I view to be the primary goal of the game (fun!). Firstly, terrain density is broken into two sections for me: line of sight blockers and cover saves. The former affects what targets are available and the latter affects how resilient any given target can be. Both dramatically affect game balance and the way various armies will interact, lending natural advantages to certain army types and stripping advantages away from others. Starting off, let's look at the basics.

Terrain Density

We've all shown up at a tournament (or at least seen pictures) and seen the three trees, one hill and a mid-sized ruin off to the side and wondered if the tornado that carried all the terrain off is going to come back. Likewise, I can think of a few times when I showed up and thought "my land raider needs a dozer blade" because there are no clear paths wide enough. The range of how much terrain people place is huge, and there are certain advantages and disadvantages to both. One point to consider is that highly dense terrain heavily favours two types of armies: assault armies such as Tyranids, and armies with less resilience then space marines. In both cases, the abundance of a cover save gives the entire army a better chance to survive against the shooting that is almost inevitable, and it makes it very difficult for the opposing team to properly counter move and bring up counter assaulting units to where they are needed most. It is also far more forgiving towards a poor deployment phase, it softens the blow of going second by mitigating the advantage of first turn, and makes reserves less of a risk as your units on the board are far less likely to evaporate under plasma fire and artillery.

On the other hand, it dramatically changes the balance of the game. Deep striking units no longer have great swathes of area to appear in, leading to the mechanic being purely detrimental, especially for large and expensive units like the wraithknight and monolith. Highly mobile units like jump packs, bikes, and mechanized infantry (infantry in transports like rhinos) must risk the ever present dangerous terrain tests simply to use the advantage they have over regular infantry. Armies designed with the standard low density table in mind are punished, while less carefully designed armies tend to have a lesser disadvantage to overcome. Further, specialist armies, such as a blood angels assault company, daemons with their deep striking, and any mechanized force that didn't spend 5 points per vehicle to mitigate rolling through terrain. This is a good thing for friendly games, or for those who wish more of a skirmish style game, but for competitive play equalizing specialist armies is the opposite of what you want to be doing.

Line Of Sight Blocking Terrain 

This, contrary to some belief, is not directly tied to density, and offers advantages and disadvantages very different to the above section. This terrain includes things like statues, hills, impassable scenery, and other pieces of terrain that don't simply fill the board with labels of 5+ and 4+ but actually change where the battle may be fought. You can have a very sparsely covered board, but still emphasize tactical thought and force players to plan their turns. Most people tend to think "more terrain, more tactics and strategy" but as I pointed out above, this is not always the case and often the opposite. The difference between changing how the battle is fought and where/when it is fought is important.

By keeping to the standard of 25% terrain (which is a surprisingly dense board coverage) but replacing much of the standard open door and window ruins with solid walls, statuary, and terrain that restricts sight lines, you can have your cake and eat it too, allowing specialist armies to use their advantages, but allowing softer lists to make use of the battlefield to mitigate their disadvantages. This sort of a field places the stress on how you use the terrain, while a swathe of cover saves simply changes when you use it - that subtle difference can make or break your gaming.

Lastly, I want to touch on a topic that doesn't fit neatly into either, but does dramatically change the game: movement through terrain. The generally accepted standard is to simply "melt" through anything not declared impassable, but how different would your games be if any ruin that isn't a door frame was impassable? The tactical impact of blocking movement lanes can't be overstated, so this is something both players need to think about before every game, and tournament organizers need to specify!

In conclusion, I remind everyone that the most important part of a fun game is to discuss this sort of thing with your opponent before dice start rolling. Having everyone on the same page prevents anyone from feeling like they just got suckered in the gribbly bits and keeping everybody involved makes them feel invested in the narrative, not fighting against it.

I now ask you all: how do you play? Do you feel that the tournament standard of sparse terrain needs to change? How much is too much? Should more people look into line of sight blockers, or should there be a hard rule on terrain as a whole?

Target Saturation: How to do it, how to beat it

So we'll start with the simple question that needs to be answered for this to be a comprehensive post: what is target saturation? Target Saturation is the idea of having so many high priority targets that your opponent is unable to properly address all of them, leading (often) to panic and confusion, and an inconsistent goal. An example would be a Tyranid list featuring three Tervigons, a flyrant, and a smattering of trygons. The opponent must choose between shooting the resilient and very important baby-makers to prevent the board from flooding with troops, taking out the devastating and fast flyrant, and the combat monster trygons that will devastate his lines. Few armies have the sort of firepower or close combat punch to reliably take all of these things out before they wreak havoc, which puts whoever is facing them in a position of trying to do too many things at once, and leaving only a slew of bad options.

So, the first segment: How to do it?
It largely depends on the army, but the basic principles apply to every single one. For starters, you must have that ever important basis of boots on the ground. Most games involve scoring, or at least getting linebreaker, and for that you need some infantry to get you the points for winning. My general policy is to dedicate 1/3 of my points in smaller games or 1/4 in large games to putting raw, basic troops with no upgrades on the table. So, in a 1500 point game, I would take 325 points and cover the basics, bringing 25 Necron Warriors or 20 Immortals. The beauty of this system is the simplicity: Having covered troops, I now have a dedicated points allotment of 1175 to simply bring as many deadly units as I can. In Necrons, I may bring 2 Annihilation Barges for anti infantry and flyers, a Monolith to provide a tough, dangerous centrepiece, two squads of six wraiths for a fast moving multi-threat squad that is very difficult to wipe of the board for 800 points. Now imagine trying to determine what you're shooting at with that list, with 5 separate targets that are all too dangerous to ignore. Complement this by spending the remaining 375 to fluff out your core, put in a Destroyer Lord for counter-assaulting, add some extra troops to a squad and maybe a resurrection orb for stiffening gives your backfield a sturdier foundation and some much needed counter-assault from the fast movers, and perhaps some scarabs for the ever valuable invisible assault.

The second key component to using this kind of list is playing it well. All of these powerful options present huge threats that must be dealt with, but how do you stop them from being dealt with? The key here is to push equally hard with all your options. Don't rush forward with your wraiths, putting them and them alone in the dangerous focus of enemy heavy fire. Rather, advance them a turn or two behind your monolith, or use the serious speed of them plus the frightening rush of scarabs to outflank, forcing your opponent to shuffle and lose firepower instead of focusing and eliminating one target at a time.

Now how to beat it?
The first step is to ensure you are building the right lists. If your army is one that focuses on long range death-dealers like tau, ensure you have enough units capable of dealing damage. Now that doesn't mean weapons, because we all know how well a crisis or broadside team can deal with almost anything. This means you must have enough separate units capable of dealing severe enough damage to be registered as a threat to split your opponent's attention, and to dish it out to multiple enemy units each turn. This means not investing too many points into any single unit, which prevents you from properly distributing potential across your whole army. Tempting as a 250 or 300 point riptide or crisis team can be, the difference in effectiveness between a 300 point riptide and a 200 point riptide is nowhere near as big as it needs to be to justify the extra cost. A good rule of thumb is 200 points per unit capable of destroying or crippling one vehicle or infantry squad per turn. Yes, this is almost identical to the above segment, because good list building is important no matter what.

Now, the play. Against powerful assault lists, unless you're tau with supporting fire, DO NOT CASTLE. Castling (a static, overlapping deployment causing attackers to have to go through layer after layer of troops before reaching the juicy center). Castling causes meat grinders like Daemons and Tyranids to drool as they surround your small army and simply feed your poor soldiers into sausage. Against assault lists, it is important to control how they move, draw the strongest and fastest enemies into overlapping fields of fire and perform a fighting retreat - deploy along your front edge, then move back with all your infantry and vehicles while maintaining a fusillade of fire to keep the opposing front rank declining. This constant mobility, even at a mere 6" a turn, can deny the first assault by 1 or two turns, and since your strength is their weakness this is key!

Against shooting armies, you actually want the opposite. You want to cluster as much of your firepower into as small a part of their line as you can, ideally on a flank, while presenting a strong enough appearance on the weak flank to draw the enemy into defending it. By dividing your opponent's forces, you allow the statistics behind your superior force to deal enough damage to their weakened counterpart to give you the advantage when the rest of the armies wheel and reform. This is easier for highly mobile armies, like Dark Eldar, who can re-position and change the match ups with frightening efficiency.

Finally, fighting what I call spoiler armies. These are ones like the Dark Eldar, who simply can't be caught in conventional traps by virtue of their unique builds - in this example the insane mobility of a purely fast skimmer army. These you must play on a case-by-case. Dark Eldar fear Castles, because they need to pick off flanks, and with only one knot of resistance they're forced into a straight up fight - their worst nightmare on the field. The Necron Air Force is another, they are simply too much of a niche for many armies to face. The over-saturation of flyers and the inability to account for so much unique threat leaves armies with little to no skyfire out in the cold.

Hopefully this was helpful, please leave some comments below!

BangBang's Batreps: Episode 1: Necrons vs Iyanden

Here's the first of three I have filmed, the other two require editing and I'm still playing with conversion software to prevent the lagging and the poor quality. My new software I'm doing Episode 2 with will hopefully fix these issues!

Please do enjoy, and feel free to leave comments below!