Warhammer Fantasy Deployment Tactics Part 3

Hello again, Nikephoros here with more Fantasy deployment fun.  The final installment in this series is a deployment method that is used primarily with shooty armies with a large amount of war machines.  A tradition straight across the board deployment for a gunline/shooty is begging to be smashed by the Strong Flank deployment, so clearly there has to be a better way.  This deployment method, like the others I've detailed utilizes fast cavalry with vanguard moves to create the tactical situations it needs for success.  Guess what that means for Dwarves?  

The best army to use with this particular deployment is Empire, because they have the shooting, decent close combat counter charge units, and excellent Pistoliers to conduct the fast cavalry operation.  But it's practical with almost any shooty army besides Dwarves.

Warhammer Fantasy Deployment Tactics Part 2

Dakka

Hello, Nikephoros here.  In part one, I talked about a fairly basic deployment strategy, the Strong Center.  That deployment is fairly strong when you have powerful infantry units that can dominate in close combat and usually a magic bunker backing them up.

This article will be about a deployment near and dear to my heart, the Strong Flank.  As you might guess, this is a deployment where you stick your money combat units all crammed into one flank.  The goal is to quickly overwhelm one of your opponent's flanks with the full force of your army and destroy his army in detail.

Warhammer Fantasy Deployment Tactics Part 1

Dakka

Hey all, Nikephoros here.  I thought I would do a post about some basic Fantasy deployment tactics and strategies.  I originally posted these articles on my blog about two years ago, so I updated them a bit and thought they would be useful here.

Fantasy deployment is great, because of alternating unit deployment.  Each unit you deploy sends a message to your opponent about what your strategy will be.  The key, you'll see, is often times sending messages to your opponent that aren't correct, to trick them into making poor deployment choices.  It is a chance to game your opponent, and you ought to take advantage of it.

Advantages of Mech: Re-mobilistation

We all know mech is super strong in 5th but there are many reasons to why this is so beyond being amazingly durable. One of them is of course mobility and compared to normal infantry, vehicles are less affected by terrain (being slowed only 1/6th of the time) and can move faster. Considering how important the movement phase is, this advantage is obviously huge. There are corresponding advantages for foot lists of course but we won't look at them in this post but rather focus on the mobility advantage mechanised armies have. Specifically this post looks at re-mobilisation.

In gaming terms re-mobilisation is the ability to move some or most of your army from one part of the board to another. Mechanised armies can do this very well as everything can move 12", even through terrain. Whilst there are some mech units which do not do this as well (Walkers, Leman Russes, etc.) and some which do it even better (Fast, Skimmers, etc.), the ability to move your army quickly from one spot to another is massively advantageous in a game where movement dictates a lot of the options you and your opponent have in subsequent phases/turns and where the missions emphasise the ability to capture and hold objectives outside of your deployment zone.

Back to Basics: Deployment 102 - Line deployments

Deployment is a really hard aspect to cover in articles without going into true specifics (i.e. individual armies or as specific as individual games). There are just a lot of variables to cover for a lot of different army types including who's going first, deployment type, mission, what's your opponent's list, what's your list, terrain, points level, etc. etc. SneakyDan has started to cover some of these aspects in a previous post but today we are going to look at one of the most basics mistakes of a rookie 40k player, deploying in a line without consideration for their surroundings. Here's what I mean by a line deployment:

Jumper/BA DoA Deployment 101

I  had an e-mail and a couple of PMs on this recently and and after Vince's play at Centurion, I think it needed to be addressed (not picking on Vince :P). We all know Jumper BA have some bad match-ups and when all your anti-armor is close ranged, it happens. This is why adding Devs helps against a lot armies but deployment is also a huge thing for Jumper based armies. Let's take a quick look then at some of the things you should and shouldn't do. The key unit here is Vanguard Veterans.

These guys are not just taken to clear out bubble-wrap and open the way for the rest of your army. They are also generating cover for your whole army (read: whole) so you don't need to land in ruins (though you are backed up by Shield from the Libby) and in turn bubble-wrapping the weaker ASM from stronger units. That's why they have SS and why I don't like to outfit them with a ton of combat potential. They are meant to die at some point. This is where I see a lot of people go wrong with VV, once they've cleared the bubble-wrap they run off and do their own thing or deploy the rest of the army where the VV can be ignored/negated. You should rarely if ever do this.

Combining this understanding with the short-range and 'small' nature of the army, you need to drop in a localised fashion. Do not spread out around your army. This effect is three-fold.