Back to Basics

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Back to Basics

Posted by fester

We here at the Pink Army pride ourselves on listening to you, the ~~customer~~ reader.

We have started to hear murmerings about Back-to-Basics Tactics, which is something we haven't really covered to well in the past, with us thinking it is all assumed knowledge.

So, I have a few things that I would like to talk about when it comes to basic tactics. What I am chasing is a list of what you, as readers think is important to cover in this series. This will not, by any means, be a "fester" series, as there are definitely things to cover that I am not qualified to cover.

At the end of this series, I hope to have learnt something from my fellow authors, and I hope they have done the same!

The list so far (in no particular order and liable to change)
- Movement Phase
- Shooting Phase
- Declaring Assaults
- Wound Allocation
- Cover
- Target Priority
- Disembarking
- Judging distances
- When to Rapid Fire, When to Charge

Please pop in the comments and let us know what you would like looked into!

Comments (23)

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Digilante · 742 weeks ago

I think a lot of games are won or lost in the deployment phase. I think an article on general deployment ideas would be nice. Some ideas:

What do I choose if I won the turn order dice roll?
Stick together or split my forces?
How do I force deployment decisions for my opponent?
How do I react to my opponents deployment?

These are the sort of things I'm learning by trail and error at the moment. While it might be too much to go army by army, I think some general ideas for broad army classifications might work (i.e. assaulty vs shooty, gunline vs midfield, rock vs MSU, etc).

2 replies · active 742 weeks ago

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TheKingElessar 71p · 742 weeks ago

To an extent, it can only be learned through Trial and Error.

That's not to say that you can't pick up general rules and assistance - as long as you remember there are no hard anf fast rules when deploying - a lot of it is playing the odds. (Eg - if you set up against MvB's Ork list without knowing the premise [Orks jump out in midfield and advance behind Trukks for cover, Trukks race at you to try and get 12 {or whatever} Rokkit Shots at rear armour a turn] you would understandably risk shooting the wrong things, because the playstyle of the list differs from the obvious in a way other builds (FootDar, Necrons, CSM) cannot.

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Kirby 118p · 742 weeks ago

Agree. Just look at the Blood Hammer articles. Those are very similar lists but with a couple of unit changes, you open or close a lot of deployment options which depend on what type of list you are playing, if you're going first or second, is there good BLoS terrain about, etc. The Articles in 5th cover deployment a tiny bit in the Basic series but we will see if we can look at more specific deployment concepts like refused flank, reserving, castling, etc.

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Venerable Brother · 742 weeks ago

I'm trying to do that over at my blog - sanguinesons.blogspot.com, addressing all mission types and all armies.. it's a massive job. It's the Deployment in Action series...addresses all the things you are looking for Digilante... (apologies to Kirby et al for shameless self-promotion)
Ven

2 replies · active 742 weeks ago

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Von · 742 weeks ago

I don't think anyone should apologise to Kirby for shameless self-promotion. :p

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Venerable Brother · 742 weeks ago

True...still politeness requires it... :)

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TheWolfsLunch 61p · 742 weeks ago

Something I really want to work on is in missions where you pick killpoints in your opponent's army, what units should be picked as killpoints and how soon should I start killing them.

2 replies · active 742 weeks ago

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fester40k 73p · 742 weeks ago

That might be a little specific to Centurion, but sure, we can do that

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Kirby 118p · 742 weeks ago

it's still an important skill to be able to determine what is dangerous to your army and identifying aspects of your opponent's army you can target.

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SneakyDan · 742 weeks ago

*raises hand* I'll do target priority and Deployment - The Castle fester. If you like

1 reply · active 742 weeks ago

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fester40k 73p · 742 weeks ago

Righto.

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Jasonc · 742 weeks ago

Army list building - components needed in your army to deal with the elements of the game.

This would be great simply to be able to refer people to a good article on this; so many newer players just have holes that they haven't though of properly.

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Bro_Lo 82p · 742 weeks ago

Yeah... sorry my series was never continued.

I think you'll find deployment and a difficult and lengthy beast to tackle, but there is definitely something that can be produced to help real beginners.

1 reply · active 742 weeks ago

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fester40k 73p · 742 weeks ago

I agree brolo.

I think I am going to take the Assault Army mantle on this series. Makes sense really with my greenskins

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Marshal_Wilhelm 61p · 742 weeks ago

..... HI, LONG TIME LISTENER FIRST TIME CALLER. I'M SHOUTING, WHAT?!
oh that was embarrassing *embarrassed laughter*
I think if deployment was covered for the three scenarios, as both first and second deployer & for shooty, mêlée, mech, hybrid and foot lists, that would be an epic saga worthy of a Bon Jovi power ballad dedicated to the writer(s).... *if* done well.

Whilst 40K is not as awkward as Fantasy, getting a good set-up and/or taking advantage of enemy gaffs during deployment can get you a game lasting advantage that can be hard to shake. Like when a sumo starts rolling back the other sumo up and off the matt.

Etc.

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Frowbakk · 742 weeks ago

I'd love to see any general tactics article which didn't have the "So, you're playing as Marines..." bias built in.

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SoCal Tom · 742 weeks ago

I want to know the competitive level interpretation of all of the rules in the BRB. It seems like there are a lot of things the average players may not understand just reading the rules over a few times.

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Brwrr · 742 weeks ago

Heck, I'd be interested in reading about setting up (deploying?) terrain well.

1 reply · active 737 weeks ago

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Kirby 118p · 737 weeks ago

I think MVBrandt would be the best one to talk about that. I'm taking a lot of guidance from him atm in terms of terrain setup.

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Archnomad 70p · 742 weeks ago

Deployment of mech armies, and placement of objectives.

:3

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SageoftheTimes 77p · 742 weeks ago

Taak roped me into posting for him, since he doesn't have an ID account, or couldn't use it at the time:

I can do general definitions of terms and look at how some, if not all of those relate broadly to each other both in the list design stage and the game itself.

Does that help?

I can leave it in draft in the blog articles section an people can add words/definitions to it so we get a good comprehensive base article set up if that works (at the other authors)? I did a similar article ages ago on ytth, not sure if it is still there but it was well recieved, just basic definitions to give new players and idea of the jargon. ••

Auretious Taak