How to defend against a deep strike was requested, here ya go.

While pictures are probably easier, I don't feel like setting everything up.

Deep strike defense is easiest with a mechanized army, or a horde army; but it can be done with any army.

If you remember that no enemy models can be deployed within 1", you can protect those troops you want to and sacrifice others.

So what you do is setup either an armored box (your mechanized forces) around your army so people cannot get to your troops, or you set up a line of cheap troops around your other assets.

In 5th, incorporating terrain on your outer edge will help alot since deep striking into terrain causes dangerous terrain tests. In this instance you don't want to be IN the terrain...you want to be on the other side of it.

Usually a L shape in a corner is best but you can setup a U in the middle of the board if you really want to.

Using tanks is easy, put them hull to hull and wait for the other guy to show up.

Using infantry is a little more tricky. Setting up at the edge of your deployment zone is key. You need to move on turn 1 if you can, to force the area he can deep strike into a smaller area.

You want to have a outer ring of troops (that can be anything, not just troops choices) and behind them another ring of troops approximately 2.9" away. Repeat this repeatedly until you have a series of rings with your expendable troops on the outside and your high value troops on the inside.

When turn 1 comes, you 'decompress' the mass of troops out 6". This lets you protect high value vehicles like Land Raiders from dropped meltaguns by making it impossible to reach them, or high value assault/dev units in marine armies since they cannot be shot...only tactical marines (and possibly rhinos) can be. Just make sure you keep yourself spread out 2" apart so template weapons have little effect on you (and you maximize the space you occupy).

This kills most drop pod armies, even well played ones. If you go first (and in 5th you'll know if you do or not) you can also cripple demon armies this way.

The enemy drops, and your outer rings move back. Running away from the troops while your assault troops get into counter attack positions and your devs shoot the high priority targets is the best way to shut down demon armies.

Against drop pod armies, you don't have to run away if you don't want to. Just make sure when you setup that unless he creates a wall of drop pods you can shoot him. With the vehicle rules in 5th, removing drop pod walls shouldn't be too difficult.

Hope that helps.

Excellent write up. I've seen Sisters and Eldar players call it "circling the wagons" and use it amazing effect.

Keep in mind that this formation helps you survive the drop, it doesn't help you win the mission, but protecting your mobile assets will usually do the trick there.

the response to this as a Drop Pod player is to avoid the formation, and try to squeak out a win through mission objectives, mobile firepower (terminator assault cannons) and LOS games with the drop pod wall. In the end, a well built well played army should handle drop pods most of the time. (which is sad for me, because I love my pods).

When faced against this type of stratagy, the deep strikers are mostly screwed. The main crux of their problem is that their advantage of getting to land anywhere (almost) is marganinalized and now they have to fight the entire enemy army with only half of theirs. Not a winning situation for them.

Not to mention some units need to be close to you to be effective (flamers in the demon lists, plasmagunners in IG drop lists) and that means you need to be real close--like 2" (flamers) or moderately close--like 8" (plasma) and a bad scatter will kill you or put you in a bad spot so you can't get all of the shots (or hits) you wanted...

As far as DS defense goes, you can't beat a DH Inquisitor in your elites or HQ slot. You could equip them as a fire support squad, or just run him with 2 mystics. That will give you a free shot at each and every deep striking unit that lands near you, for a minimum of 32 points. Really, if you expect to see one and have the slot, it is a very worthwhile investment.

Speaking of "circling the wagons" and interesting tactic can be used with transports that let you disembark from the sides. At the mid-point of the line, have a transport containing a squad of short ranged shooters, and do not disembark them until the enemy Deep Strikes within range. This way, even if your enemy drops in a location that denies you line of site to the droppers, you can hit them nicely with a surprise unit. Those sister squads with the special weapons are gold for this, as not much comes back from four flamers. As many transports disembark from the back, it can be harder to arrange your vehicles to make this work and still cover all your angles.

Also, once the enemy lands, start moving the transports. Have some heavy-hitters (like four-HBolter or 4 Missile Launcher devastator squads, or a demolisher/vindicator) inside the wagons. When the enemy hits the ground, clear the area and begin hurting them. You can place just one heavy unit there to draw the enemy's attention while you move the bulk of the army, in their transports, away from the enemy to encircle them, grab objectives, etc.

open_sketchbook, I don't understand your obsession with leaving stuff inside the vehicles. You want to maximise coverage, so taking a whole squad off the table is counter-productive. Also, in what sense is this unit a "surprise unit"? Your opponent knows they're there! Lastly, Dominions suck.

Thank you.

Where should I start. I guess, "close, but missing the mark entirely" would be a good beginning.

The flaw in Stelek's defense is that it makes a whole bunch of assumptions, and tries to impose a "one-size fits all" mentality on defending against deep strikers. The problem is that the defense he advocates is situationally good, but in other situations can be the exact wrong thing to do. It also limits your options while making the choices obvious for your opponent.

There are really a couple of major considerations that he doesn't even consider, which need to be accounted for.

#1 - What style of army do you have?
#2 - What style of army does your opponent have?

Question number one revolves around a question of where your army expects to do the most damage. Is it a shooting army, or is it an assault army. Most importantly (for those that are a little bit of both), which flavor of army gives you the greatest mismatch against your opponent?

Question #2 is a bit different, because you also want to look at the speed/reach of your opponent's army. Once it hits the ground, what kind of maneuverability and/or range will it have? Again, most importantly, will it be faster/have greater reach than you?

If you have an assault-based army, and your opponent does as well, you almost certainly want to castle up as Stelek describes. You're almost certainly going to be faster, so you can take the hits coming down, and then swarm your opponent in the next turn. Contrary to what he says, however, you want to deploy as the spokes of a wheel, as opposed to the layers of an onion. This maximizes the number of targets your opponent gets to shoot at, while maximizing your ability to throw bodies into an all-out assault. If you have an assault based army and you're faced with a short-ranged shooting army, you can deploy in this manner as well.

Against a deep striking army with good ranged shoooting, castling up is the exactly wrong thing to do, because you're allowing your opponents to deploy exactly as far away as they need to be to maximize their shooting. Instead, what you generally want to do is scatter your units out across the board, getting the maximum separation possible. Your opponent will be able to target and overwhelm individual portions of your army, but barring ridiculously lucky reserve rolls, will generally find themselves with more targets than they can reliably deal with. Once they're down, you simply swarm selected enemy units en masse and proceed from there.

If you have an army with decent range and/or speed, scattering will, in general allow you to to take the initial hits, and then counterstrike with massive force.

The one time this goes out the window is if your army has a point failure source. This would be a unit that is an obvious lynchpin of your army. Unless this unit is completely rock-hard (we're talking smoked Land Raider Crusader, Monolith, or Falcon here), you're going to want to do everything you can to protect that unit.

In general, of course, this boils down to Sun Tzu: Know your army, and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated. A deep striking army (with a few notable exceptions) has limited range, and is relatively slow once it hits the ground. Force most deep striking armies to move and engage targets at range, and almost any other army will gain a significant advantage.

Where should I start.

Well, let's start with the condescending remarks and see how it goes from there.

Hey I have an idea--since everyone is asking YOU to post your insights into the game (you being the big gladiator winner and everything) why don't YOU post your own threads?

Sure is easy from the backseat.

All of this:

"Contrary to what he says, however, you want to deploy as the spokes of a wheel, as opposed to the layers of an onion. This maximizes the number of targets your opponent gets to shoot at, while maximizing your ability to throw bodies into an all-out assault. If you have an assault based army and you're faced with a short-ranged shooting army, you can deploy in this manner as well.

Against a deep striking army with good ranged shoooting, castling up is the exactly wrong thing to do, because you're allowing your opponents to deploy exactly as far away as they need to be to maximize their shooting. Instead, what you generally want to do is scatter your units out across the board, getting the maximum separation possible. Your opponent will be able to target and overwhelm individual portions of your army, but barring ridiculously lucky reserve rolls, will generally find themselves with more targets than they can reliably deal with. Once they're down, you simply swarm selected enemy units en masse and proceed from there.

If you have an army with decent range and/or speed, scattering will, in general allow you to to take the initial hits, and then counterstrike with massive force."

Utter crap. Nuff said.

Stelek’s recommendation of putting the cheap/disposable stuff on the outside of the formation to limit the damage your opponent can do on the drop is exactly the tactic I’ve been successfully using and recommending since the pod rules came out over four years ago.

While there are tactical situations and missions in which castling can really impair your ability to complete the mission, getting your important units shot to pieces on turns 2 and 3 also impairs your ability to complete the mission.

Cent, since my experience tends to be that castling is usually the best defense, I’d like to hear a bit more about your alternative strategy and the contexts in which you use it.

With some armies I could absolutely see spreading out more. If, for example, your army has a lot of cheap, interchangeable, individually disposable units, you don’t have to worry about protecting your valuable stuff. Spreading out can put you in a better position to fulfill mission objectives, as long as you’re still set up in a way that allows your units to support each other and respond to attacks. If you spread out too much you allow your opponent to take you piecemeal, which is exactly what a Deep Striking/Podding army wants.

Some mechanized armies also don’t necessarily want to castle in the corner. Mech Elder and Tau need to displace more than 6” each turn to keep SMF active, and it might be a better tactic for them to move up the side of the table, keeping their vulnerable rear armor to the table edge while moving. This keeps their SMF durability. But they still generally want to stay close enough together that they can counter-strike any unit that attacks one of them.

Stelek wrote:All of this:

"Contrary to what he says, however, you want to deploy as the spokes of a wheel, as opposed to the layers of an onion. This maximizes the number of targets your opponent gets to shoot at, while maximizing your ability to throw bodies into an all-out assault. If you have an assault based army and you're faced with a short-ranged shooting army, you can deploy in this manner as well.

Against a deep striking army with good ranged shoooting, castling up is the exactly wrong thing to do, because you're allowing your opponents to deploy exactly as far away as they need to be to maximize their shooting. Instead, what you generally want to do is scatter your units out across the board, getting the maximum separation possible. Your opponent will be able to target and overwhelm individual portions of your army, but barring ridiculously lucky reserve rolls, will generally find themselves with more targets than they can reliably deal with. Once they're down, you simply swarm selected enemy units en masse and proceed from there.

If you have an army with decent range and/or speed, scattering will, in general allow you to to take the initial hits, and then counterstrike with massive force."

Utter crap. Nuff said.

Why is this "utter crap"? Please elaborate and clear this up for us?

Great advice, as always, Centurian99.

Thanks.

It really depends on your type of army.

The wagon wheel thing is predicated on being able to swarm the pods that come down with multiple units. For example, I played with Iron Warriors and had 6 squads of 12 guys, power fist etc. Against a Templar Player, I set them so that instead of concentric circles, they made rectangular blocks. This kept the deep strike marines from being able to shoot my shooty units (MLs and Oblits) much like the concentric circles you've described Mannahnin. The difference is that when his 3 pods came down, I was able to shoot the marines from the middle pod into ineffectiveness and assault the 2 marine squads on the outside with 2 squads each. 24 CSMs vs. 10 BTs. Wagon spokes allows an assault army to mass effects of assault weaponry on the target better than the concentric circles.

I have also seen opponents with mobile firepower spread out to a HUGE degree - trusting to SMF to keep them alive. When the pods drop, all spread out, the skimmers move another 24" and the pods only get 1 turn of shooting at them. On following turns, the skimmers "mob" up and reduce podded units one by one, staying out of range from return fire. I certainly would not suggest this for every army, but some can be quite effective doing it.

@Stelek: Wow. Take constructive comments much? You do have a "one size fits all" solution to pod defense. Cent does bring up some good points and alternatives. Aren't you the one who says that there is more than one way to play the game? Why won't you listen/read what others have to say. Your initial post made some good suggestions and has some merit - but it is not the end all be all of tactical doctrine. And that is not meant as an insult. You have a fine "once over the world" of how to prepare a defense against drop pods. You have not gone into differences of different armies. You talk about setting up an "armored box" around your troops. But what about if you're playing a skimmer force. How do you set up then? If you don't move, you lose the SMF rule. If you do move, you have to break up your formation. Just because people bring up questions or offer alternative solutions to the one you propose does not mean that they are making a personal attack.

Now, how do you go about a pod defense if the scenario encourages maneuver - recon etc... Do you castle up until turn 3 and then start the march or simply castle and try to get the pod force to fight a different fight from the scenario?

You can beat any defense ....Just Deploy on one side of the board or in front of his men. You'll lose men but thats a mini war.

No plan Survives first contact

You strech way to thin if i destory a part of your line and every thing else is in one area then you'll have to foot slog over to me and i'd get another round of shooting probelly.

Just my thoughts maybe wrong but o well

Who asked you by the way to post your remarks dont be so rude.adn he posted on your remarks

its not like you the god emperor himself JC

Its just a game by the way.

Centurian99 wrote:

Against a deep striking army with good ranged shoooting, castling up is the exactly wrong thing to do, because you're allowing your opponents to deploy exactly as far away as they need to be to maximize their shooting. Instead, what you generally want to do is scatter your units out across the board, getting the maximum separation possible. Your opponent will be able to target and overwhelm individual portions of your army, but barring ridiculously lucky reserve rolls, will generally find themselves with more targets than they can reliably deal with. Once they're down, you simply swarm selected enemy units en masse and proceed from there.

If you have an army with decent range and/or speed, scattering will, in general allow you to to take the initial hits, and then counterstrike with massive force.

I'm not going to pretend to be the tactician everyone else claims to be, but:
*Doesn't that strategy also depend on your own force? Spreading out slow (often expensive) vehicles would lead to those vehicles being vulnerabel to flanking or massed shots. I'll admit this is, and using terrain as Stelek noted, are how I run mech eldar (in 40K and EPIC)- you can force them to spread and then run at them with everything-the reverse advantage of pod concentration. But I could see slower vehicles having a problem.
*Similarly, would not troop heavy landser lists (I'm really thinking troopie guard here, but could see for other non-high speed forces) potentially have difficulty? Your opponent can do the aformentioned shield wall and block off a section of your forces/objectives and hide behind it. In one test game with my rendy nids (one of only two), my genies had real problems getting around/through the pod wall for the tasties on the other side.

As an aside, its a nice tactical thread. An instant flame doesn't help discussing an interesting topic.

@Stelek: Wow. Take constructive comments much? You do have a "one size fits all" solution to pod defense. Cent does bring up some good points and alternatives. Aren't you the one who says that there is more than one way to play the game? Why won't you listen/read what others have to say. Your initial post made some good suggestions and has some merit - but it is not the end all be all of tactical doctrine. And that is not meant as an insult. You have a fine "once over the world" of how to prepare a defense against drop pods. You have not gone into differences of different armies. You talk about setting up an "armored box" around your troops. But what about if you're playing a skimmer force. How do you set up then? If you don't move, you lose the SMF rule. If you do move, you have to break up your formation. Just because people bring up questions or offer alternative solutions to the one you propose does not mean that they are making a personal attack.

Now, how do you go about a pod defense if the scenario encourages maneuver - recon etc... Do you castle up until turn 3 and then start the march or simply castle and try to get the pod force to fight a different fight from the scenario?

Respectfully, and this pains me , Stelek didn't start the flaming portion of our program.

Where should I start. I guess, "close, but missing the mark entirely" would be a good beginning.

This is not likely going to engender a reasonable interchange.

Maybe not, but "Utter crap. Nuff said." isn't a good response to Centurion99's points. I'd like to see Stelek actually rebut Cent's advice.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I'm with ozzy, and I posted already! I'm genuinely curious because now everyone I play has a demon army!

I said use a certain defense.

He said, instead, don't use it and use a nonsensical deployment that protects nothing.

Most assault troops are fast. Why do they need to be "close"?

Why do you think players are stupid and won't concentrate all of their fire on the units they want dead, if you are going to be so kind as to allow drop troops to shoot anything they want?

I.E. Rubbish advice, written solely because I said something and the krew need to put in an opposite word.

Then another member of the krew comes in and says 'yep, don't defend against the deep strike--let drop armies pick and choose the parts of your army they want to shoot'.

Woo. I am impressed by this.

This is an interesting tactic indeed, would you recommend it with speed freek style orks, or would trukks be too flimsy for the protection?

Trukks tend to run off and blow up in odd spots (including off table). They can protect you though, because he cannot blow them up when deep striking. So most of his units will be too far away from more than 1 unit 'behind the wall', so to speak.

Hope that helps.

jfrazell wrote:=
Respectfully, and this pains me , Stelek didn't start the flaming portion of our program.

Where should I start. I guess, "close, but missing the mark entirely" would be a good beginning.

This is not likely going to engender a reasonable interchange.

As I say in my sig...I'm not making fun of anyone personally. I merely heap scorn on inexcusably silly ideas.

Heaping scorn on what you consider inexusably silly ideas is a great way to make people defensive, and to make you look like a [bully]. Responding in kind just starts (or perpetuates) a downwards spiral.

A dispassionate and well-considered rebuttal, on the other hand, can be worth reading and raise the quality of a thread.


[Edited by yakface]

Let's not dump on Stelek as a matter of course.

He wrote a post with some useful ideas, and without proclaiming himself God Emperor.

At the end of the day, we all owe our thanks to Yak for this site, and it's clearly his intent that it be friendlier. If Stelek wants to be an arrogant douche, hey, I certainly lack the restraint to ignore it. But if he's being helpful and polite, let's respond in kind, and help Yak run the site as he hopes to.

I, for one, see a disagreement for the sake of disagreement. Layers of onion vs. spokes of a wheel? How many units are we talking here? How complicated a connect the dots picture can you draw with 5-10 units?

Mannahnin wrote:
Cent, since my experience tends to be that castling is usually the best defense, I’d like to hear a bit more about your alternative strategy and the contexts in which you use it.

First, I generally tend to stay away from having any units in my armies that are point failure sources. That's usually a unit or combination of units that costs a significant amount of points and is critical to success of a battleplan (i.e. GK Grand Master, Brother Captain Stern, 6 GK Terminators, and a Land Raider Crusader), or a cheap unit that has an amazing force multiplier effect on the army (i.e. Ethereals, Eldrad, IG C&C units).

If it does its job, the army wins. If it fails, the army falls apart. If I do include a point failure source in my army, I damn well make sure its protected, as Stelek advocates. But its generally much better to avoid having the point failure source entirely.

So if you design your force to avoid giving your opponent an obvious target, Stelek's idea isn't as useful, and can in fact be counterproductive.

Basically, if you want to boil it down, it revolves around concentration of forces.

Every unit in the game has a threat range. This would be either the range of its weaponry (for move or shoot weapons), the range of its move + the range of its weaponry (for move and shoot weapons), or its move (plus fleet, if applicable) and assault range. This is a pretty basic principle that most people understand. The difference is that most people think of it in terms of a range, which gives them a straight line. The trick is to think of it in terms of a threat radius, because that unit can generally (barring terrain or other LOS issues) engage any unit with a circle with that radius. This gives us an easily understood threat radius for any unit in the game, or if you want to put it another way, a clearly defined area in which they can affect the battle.

Now for a few generalizations. Yes, I know there are specific exceptions to each generalization, but I'm posting on a forum, not writing a tactical field manual here.

Deep strike armies, in general, have relatively poor threat radius. Good ones make up for that by making them extremely strong within that radius, but overall, their ability to affect the battle is limited to their immediate vicinity. Deep strike armies, in general, also effectively have a relatively low unit count. Since they're coming in piecemeal, with roughly 50% coming in immediately, and the rest dribbling in, they're limited in the number of units that they can attack. That means that the best tactics for a deep strike army generally revolve around concentrating their energies on a portion of the opponent's army, and minimizing the amount of return fire/assault that they receive. Conversely, the best way to deal with a deep striking army is to wipe out each portion as it arrives.

Now, that would seem to argue in favor of castling...except that you're then essentially hoping your opponent is a moron. Because s/he should fear having each successive wave wiped out, and taken steps to minimize/prevent that from happening. If s/he didn't, congratulations, you just won the game. If s/he did...you're screwed, because not only did you fail to wipe out the initial wave, but successive waves are arriving, and the first wave is moving into assault your firebase, greatly impeding your ability to deal with successive waves.

That's why I generally advocate the exact opposite of castling. As long as your units have a decent threat radius (i.e. larger than your opponent), spreading out is going to work in your favor more often than not. Because you're presenting your opponents with a no-win choice: either they concentrate their efforts on a small portion of your army, where they'll probably win the short-term battle, but lose the game because over the remainder of the game your units have a better threat radius and can therefore attack them while avoiding the returning favor, or they spread out to match you, which allows you (with your larger threat radius) to concentrate your efforts on key units in your opponents army, essentially creating "safe zones" that you can operate from.

Steleks approach puts all your eggs in one basket. It may work. But if it doesn't you're screwed. You've essentially created a point failure source in your army where one didn't exist before. That's its biggest error.

Greebynog wrote:This is an interesting tactic indeed, would you recommend it with speed freek style orks, or would trukks be too flimsy for the protection?

Speed freak-style orks is one situation where you almost certainly want to spread out. Because while the initial drop has the potential to be devastating, in all likelihood, your opponent won't have enough units coming in to engage every one of your trukks and kill them, and once they're down you can use your superior movement to concentrate your forces in a way most advantageous to you.

Nurglitch wrote:Heaping scorn on what you consider inexusably silly ideas is a great way to make people defensive, and to make you look like a Stelek. Responding in kind just starts (or perpetuates) a downwards spiral.

A dispassionate and well-considered rebuttal, on the other hand, can be worth reading and raise the quality of a thread.

Depends on what you consider inexcusably silly ideas, I guess. I find steleks ideas to mostly be inexcusably silly because to writes about extremely specific situations without really defining all the base parameters, and then expands those outwards to come up with general principles. Then he tries to apply those principles to every other specific situation, and ends up giving bad advice.

I hate bad advice. Because some people think its good advice, adopt it, and then when you play them in a tournament, they wonder why their plan didn't work. Generally, the conclusion they come to is because my army was unbalanced, cheesy, or somehow otherwise took unfair advantage of the rules.

If only your advice was worth the paper it was printed on.

Sadly, your advice is worthless on it's face.

What, exactly, are the units you think are single points of failure--and what does that have to do with the majority of tournament armies?

Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Here goes:

I have a space marine army. I have 30 tactical marines, 30 devastator marines, and 30 assault marines.

YOU think I should arrange these in some kind of cheesewheel pattern, so you can force the other guy to "spread his shooting around"? This is nonsense. You don't want the enemy being able to choose what he shoots when he arrives--that is the ENTIRE strength AND point of a drop pod army. God help us when people like you win gladiators and start handing out advice to the masses.

You protect the devastators (so they don't run off the board) and the assault marines (because they cost more, uhh seems obvious but it seems like you've missed this concept so I will s-p-e-l-l it out for you).

The devastators will punish whatever unit you want them to, the tacticals (what's left of them) will either tie stuff up or finish stuff off the devs could not OR soften up units the assault marines are going to hit. The assault marines, of course, should jump out and take the fight to the enemy. Drop pod armies are very vulnerable to assault troops because as a rule they do not have any! Demon armies are not vulnerable to assault, but YOU are. So you need to assault THEM. A 2 attack difference is why, again, obvious...but spelled out specifically.

You want me to be specific, while you offer nothing but generalities and 'Stelek is a tool'. Fine, I can put out the facts. Then you or the krew will come up with another reason why I'm wrong. Depends on the day and which one of you is going to give it a whirl. Probably why people aren't listening to the krew anymore.

I wish you'd create your own thread with your own "original" tactical concepts, instead of polluting mine with your obvious flamebaiting junk.

Centurian99 wrote:

Greebynog wrote:This is an interesting tactic indeed, would you recommend it with speed freek style orks, or would trukks be too flimsy for the protection?

Speed freak-style orks is one situation where you almost certainly want to spread out. Because while the initial drop has the potential to be devastating, in all likelihood, your opponent won't have enough units coming in to engage every one of your trukks and kill them, and once they're down you can use your superior movement to concentrate your forces in a way most advantageous to you.

What bad advice.

Do NOT spread out against the drop, in 5th edition Ork 'mobility' is limited--and if you think 12 boyz will smash a tactical squad to pieces and then move on to the next one...you are sadly mistaken.

Truth is, a drop pod player will GLADLY isolate 25% of your army, kill it, and laugh at your pathetic attempts to get around his drop pod wall.

That's the reality.

Don't listen to newbs. No matter how many GT wins they have.

Bad advice is bad advice.

Usually spreading out so you leave your units "unsupported" against a dropping army is disastrous. The dropping player will get to choose the terms for the fight and thats usually bad news for the defender. Thats why castle defence "usually" works for many armiees. You get all your power against the parts that drop or the dropper will have to drop far away and loose initiative on it(you get to choose the conditions instead). You might not want to do it in extreme detail like this, but the main points is in Steleks post.

Some armies might have better defences but this is a pretty standard one that works often. Also, the all out droppod army is pretty "cheesy" if the people you play is going by those standards. But then you probably already won regardless.

I appreciated the OP. I field a Drop Pod Marine force exclusively, always(hopefully always will) so I like to see how people may 'Beat me'.(Where I don't have to pay them whilst wearing Nappies)

Point1. In Australia, I have yet to come across anyone who 'knows' how to beat DP's. We are a 'Tad' behind the times.

Point2. Marines and DP's will not go together too well in the New SM Codex. 5-man Max capacity, DP has been Nerfed BIG TIME.

Thanks for the opposing strategies Stelek and Centurian99-it is all food for thought for my Brain.

Point3. The 'New' Battlestar Galactica is one of the very best Sci-Fi shows. Ever. And I am a died in the wool Star Trek fan.

Point4. Heinlens "Starship Troopers" book is one of his very best. I loved the book, and the quote you sigged.

Point5. If we were to put Albert Einstein in the middle of the Amazon Jungle, chances are he would be dead within the hour- due to eating something wrong, Snakebite, Tiger(?) type Cat thingie....does this make him 'Silly'-or just unprepared for every contingency in that particular environment? Alternatively, what if we put an Amazonian Warrior in a Chemistry Lab-how long till they are Burnt/Maimed or Dead? Silly?

IMO, they would make great reality TV shows.


It's all a matter of which environment we are used to.

Knowledge does not equate to intelligence.

"Silly" is a term that indicates"erratic, immature behaviour, charecterised usually by random/loud noises"

Are my Bowels Silly? The same activities are described.

Centurian99:

No, it does not depend on what you consider inexcusably silly ideas, it depends on the fact that you are willing to consider anything to be inexcusably silly. If you want to combat bad advice, then a calm and well considered analysis of that advice and the standard by which it is bad is better than any amount of scorn. Quite aside from not being trolled, it promotes a careful and thoughtful approach to giving and taking advice.

Stelek wrote:I disagree.

Your advice does not seem good to me.

What, exactly, are the units you think are single points of failure--and what does that have to do with the majority of tournament armies?

I do not believe there to be single points of failure, and that the concept is inapplicable to tournament armies.

Here is why:

We have a space marine army. We have 30 Tactical marines, 30 Devastator marines, and 30 Assault marines.

By the concept of points of failure, we should arrange these marines in some kind of cheesewheel pattern, so we can force the other guy to "spread his shooting around". I disagree. We don't want the enemy being able to choose what he shoots when his units arrive, since deep strike armies depend on that choice. I do not think this is the way to win.

Instead, we protect the Devastators so they don't run off the board, and the assault marines because they are more valuable.

The Devastators will shoot whatever unit we want them to attack, and destroy units one by one.

Shooting-wise, the Tactical squads will either finish off units that the Devastators did not, or soften up units the Assault marines are going to assault. Assault-wise they will tie stuff up in close combat.

The Assault marines will assault the enemy that survives the shooting, and is not tied up with Tacticals.

Drop pod armies are very vulnerable to assault troops because, as a rule, they do not have any! A notable exception is Demon armies. These armies are not vulnerable to assault. Therefore you need to assault them first to maximize your assault potential and to choose your battles.

I think we are misunderstanding each other here. Perhaps we can discuss this further to share ideas and tactics.

I find it difficult to communicate with people that will not look beyond my style of posting to approach the ideas underneath.

There, fixed your posted for you. Incidentally, you missed his entire point because your example does not apply the concept of a point of failure since there was no single unit enhancing the other units in your homogeneous marine force.

Stelek wrote:<snip> stelek ranting because I don't acknowledge his genius and mastery</snip>


Here goes:

I have a space marine army. I have 30 tactical marines, 30 devastator marines, and 30 assault marines.

<snip> more rants, but this time about a specific situation</snip>

Okay, you've now created a specific situation to debate. That's good - it allows for intelligent discussion of that particular situation. With a configuration like that, castling may be the correct way to deploy, depending on the mission and matchup. But if the mission involves seizing objectives, by castling you've just allowed your opponent to contain your force. Congratulations, you just lost.

Stelek wrote:
You want me to be specific, while you offer nothing but generalities and 'Stelek is a tool'.

You obviously missed the point of what I wrote. I said you started from a specific situation, and then expanded that out into general principles, under the mistaken assumption that you could then apply your principles to other situations. You have to be really, really, really, good at logic to do that...and you're quite simply not that good. Neither am I, for that matter. What you want to do is to determine the baseline principles first, and then apply those to specific situations.

As I said, sometimes you want to castle. But in my experience, that's a rarity.

Stelek wrote:
Fine, I can put out the facts. Then you or the krew will come up with another reason why I'm wrong. Depends on the day and which one of you is going to give it a whirl. Probably why people aren't listening to the krew anymore.

I wish you'd create your own thread with your own "original" tactical concepts, instead of polluting mine with your obvious flamebaiting junk.

Criticism doesn't suit you does it?

I don't run armies with single points of failure, nurg.

You should recognize this from my posts about Orks with KFF, hating Eldatar, etc etc.

I consider doing so giving away an advantage to the other player before the game even begins, so in a purist sense I can't say 'protect the cheddar!' is a good idea when I don't bring just the single can...it's the army as a whole.

Actually Cent, I was letting the players decide what they wanted to do with the general advice I was giving.

I wasn't asked "PLEASE SHOW ME HOW MY ARMY DEFENDS AGAINST THE DEEP STRIKE AND HERES MY LIST THX DUDE".

I was asked to describe defending against the deep strike.

I did so.

Everything you do and say seems geared to flamebaiting me. Why are you an article mod?

Kallbrand wrote:Usually spreading out so you leave your units "unsupported" against a dropping army is disastrous. The dropping player will get to choose the terms for the fight and thats usually bad news for the defender. Thats why castle defence "usually" works for many armiees. You get all your power against the parts that drop or the dropper will have to drop far away and loose initiative on it(you get to choose the conditions instead). You might not want to do it in extreme detail like this, but the main points is in Steleks post.

Some armies might have better defences but this is a pretty standard one that works often. Also, the all out droppod army is pretty "cheesy" if the people you play is going by those standards. But then you probably already won regardless.

Castling is easy, but in an objective-based mission, its a recipe for failure. It also depends on being able to overwhelm the dropper as they come in, with the near immediate collapse of your army if you fail.

Spreading out in an unsupported fashion is also a recipe for failure. if your opponent can consolidate fires on isolated units, and have the time to react to your attempts to preserve the operational integrity of your force, you lose.

As I said, it's all about the threat radii. You want to spread out enough so that your units can generate localized advantages on the tabletop, while still preserving their freedom of maneuver (so they can either pursue the mission objective or run away if necessary). So if you picture each of your units at the center of the circle that they can affect, you want as many overlapping circles as possible, while keeping your units as widely dispersed as possible.

Stelek:

Yes, we recognize that you don't find the concept of armies with single points of failure to be useful. You showed us how to run an army without any single point of failure. The problem is that you have yet to show how the concept is inapplicable to tournament armies. Would you like to show how the concept is inapplicable to tournament armies by showing the inherent weakness of a hypothetical sample army?

Stelek wrote:Actually Cent, I was letting the players decide what they wanted to do with the general advice I was giving.

I wasn't asked "PLEASE SHOW ME HOW MY ARMY DEFENDS AGAINST THE DEEP STRIKE AND HERES MY LIST THX DUDE".

I was asked to describe defending against the deep strike.

I did so.

And I was pointing out the flaws in your defensive plans. Because while they're not bad plans, they don't take into account a variety of conditions or a defensive army that's different than what you might field. As I said, close, but missing the mark. You're not writing about how to defend against a deep strike army. You're writing about how to defend against a deep strike army that can't shoot more than 6" effectively and that faces an army like the one you field. That's what's known as "criticizing an idea" instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks.

To be a bit more specific in my response (since you gave the courtesy of providing a specific defensive situation)...in the situation you describe (with 30 tactical marines, 30 devs, and 30 assault marines), what I'd probably do is immediately split the tactical marines and devastators into combat squads. All the heavy weapon-equipped squads form a two or perhaps three castles in my deployment zone, positioned so that they can mutually support each other. While the special-weapon/sergeant equipped marines form an outer perimeter/guard flanks along with the assault marines. Prior to the arrival of the deep strikers, assault marines and special tactical combat squads expand outwards, while still remaining within their operational threat radii.

Now what does the deep striking player do? Swarm the assault marines? There's still 30 bodies there...takes a lot of fire to put them down, and the special weapon combat squads and heavy weapons combat squads (which should, ideally, be able to cover different firelanes, while the assault marines are in the middle of potential shared firelanes) move in to the rescue. Swarm the special weapon tac squads...with the assault marines and heavy weapons ready to pounce? Or swarm the heavy weapons castles.

Stelek wrote:
Everything you do and say seems geared to flamebaiting me. Why are you an article mod?

To answer the first...pointing out flaws in your (or anyone's) posts is not flamebaiting. Criticizing ideas is not flamebaiting. Responding to personal attacks may be flamebaiting, but nobody's perfect...and my impulse control has never been the best.

And to answer the second question, I'm not sure why I was asked to be an article mod, but it might have something to do with how long I've been posting on Dakka (do the names Drew Riggio and Snord ring a bell?), posts I've contributed to over the years (from the "How to have a rules discussion" that I edited for Mauleed to a series of long-lost tactica on now-defunct armies), the fact that my day job until relatively recently was as a professional writer and editor, or just that someone recommended me to Legoburner.).

See, here's the thing. You have ideas. I have ideas. Malfred has ideas. Everyone has ideas. Hence, ideas are worthless.

If you're going to post your ideas, expect to have your ideas critiqued, refined, thrown back in your face, laughed at, appreciated, and used. That's the internet...and in particular, that's Dakka. Notice that people have to work really, really, really, hard to get permanently banned. As opposed to some other forums, where people get banned for saying Po-tay-to instead of po-tah-to. The side effect of that is that you have to be willing to read, and accept criticism. You don't have to agree with it. But there's a world of difference between saying "Well, I guess we're going to disagree" and "You're an asshat moron who can't add 1+1".

Hmm, maybe someone should write an article about that...

Po-ta-too.

Stelek wrote:Po-ta-too.

Ban incoming in 3... 2...

You all offer some great ideas,
but sometimes you guys act like high-school girls....

Make a point, awsome.
Hear a counter-point, awsome.

But shut up with all the, "he said this, well he said this" crap. As said before, it's just a game.

XOXO Darth Balls

Darth-Balls-As said before, it's just a game.

SACRELIDGE!! Inquisitorial troops are on the way to your Co-hab.

I found both Stelek's and C99's comments useful. The needless flaming, not so much (and I don't think C99 was baiting it).

whitedragon wrote:I'm with ozzy, and I posted already! I'm genuinely curious because now everyone I play has a demon army!

Everyone you play has a demon army? I'm not the deathdaring maverick I thought I was?

Darth Balls wrote:You all offer some great ideas,
but sometimes you guys act like high-school girls....

Make a point, awsome.
Hear a counter-point, awsome.

But shut up with all the, "he said this, well he said this" crap. As said before, it's just a game.

XOXO Darth Balls

Darth we don't allow that kind of sense round these parts...er where's Malf when you need him? They say if you say Malf's name three times he magically appears...

Malf ... ... ... ... Malf ... ... ... ... ... ... No, I can't do it, its not worth the risk.

Can't see how spreading your forces out in any army would be of any benefit against deep strike, surely the closer your units are the more firepower you have to concentrate and the more CC support you have.

If they were all spread out thinly then won't be in range to lend support. IMHO

Some good points raised here by everyone.

I saw the post as a "How to" not a "Do it my way" so thumbs up from me for what its worth. Will hopefully put the ideas to good use next week when i organise another game, I've previously had my squads to far apart to counter a major Deep striking force.

I can see it for some lists. Highly mobile lists can use this effectively. You reverse the tables. It forces the DS opponent to spread out, while you can use your high mobility to concentrate on one portion of his force and then destroy it in detail. This strategy always worked with my eldar. I'd be hard pressed to see it work with guard.

Another thought with the castle defense:

With Guard, Tau, and some other very weak HtH armies, it can be beneficial to move the outer ring as close to the dropping squads as possible. (at least in 4th). If you do withdraw and form a smaller center of the castle, it allows the podding forces to consolidate from combat to combat. Moving further out gives essentially another round of shooting against a podding force.

Just a thought but another derivitive on the base defense.

With Speed Freaks, the idea is not to spread out all over the table, but to stay withing the threat range of each unit. By establishing your forces in supporting areas, you won't be charging 10 marines with 12 orks, you'll be charging 10 marines with 36 (or more) orks. The idea is that you need to kill the dropping units in a turn to deal with the remainder. If you have 6 squads of trukkboys and a bunch of other stuff, you leave them about 13-15" apart. This lets you move, waaagh, and assault with multiple units wherever the pods come in.

To bring in a real world example: At Iwo Jima the japanese pillboxes were set up to be mutually supporting. The Marines had a very difficult time getting to any single one because it was under supporting fire from at least 2 others. The only way to crack it was to send in overwhelming force to destroy each one.

With Freaks, you can force the marines to do the same thing. By staying mounted, you lose your 35 point truck but keep your boys mostly together - losing 1-2 when the truck goes boom. Then, other trucks within supporting range plus the orginal squad swarm the marines. This also makes it easier to get multiple squads into contact.

jfrazell wrote:

whitedragon wrote:I'm with ozzy, and I posted already! I'm genuinely curious because now everyone I play has a demon army!

Everyone you play has a demon army? I'm not the deathdaring maverick I thought I was?

Dude are you kidding, the second that book came out, everyone was like, "HOORRAAAY, now we can play armies that don't start on the table on turn one!!!" I pointed out that drop podding space marines, drop troop guard, old skool speed freaks, and to some extent dropping tau, but I was drowned out by the screams of glee about demons.

Does this mean I should save funds for the inevitable sell off of armies?

I found both Cent99 and Stelek's advice very intriguing. I agree with Stelek the basic strategy against deep strike armies is to castle up. But on the other hand, Cent99 does bring a good point not with just his "cover the field" strategy but in his words before talking about flexibility in your plans and your opponent knowing what you will do.

Cent99 I have always valued your advice even before you won GTs and Gladiators and Stelek, your army building helped make me a very powerful guard army that I need to tweak further into something that should give many armies a run for their money.

My whole dealing with a deep strike army has to depend on what I am fielding and what he is fielding and the mission itself. Sometimes my army will have to do a castle with layering and other times it has to spread out. Other times you have to spread out. An Inflexible plan in a game can mean certain doom if your opponent trumps that plan.

PapaNurgle wrote:With Guard, Tau, and some other very weak HtH armies, it can be beneficial to move the outer ring as close to the dropping squads as possible. (at least in 4th). If you do withdraw and form a smaller center of the castle, it allows the podding forces to consolidate from combat to combat. Moving further out gives essentially another round of shooting against a podding force.

I said you want to move out against a podding force...

jfrazell wrote:Does this mean I should save funds for the inevitable sell off of armies?

I know I am. Not because I want a demon army for 40k, but I'd like one for fantasy and I'll gladly re-use others discarded demon armies from 40k for it.

thehod wrote:But on the other hand, Cent99 does bring a good point not with just his "cover the field" strategy but in his words before talking about flexibility in your plans and your opponent knowing what you will do.

My whole dealing with a deep strike army has to depend on what I am fielding and what he is fielding and the mission itself. Sometimes my army will have to do a castle with layering and other times it has to spread out. Other times you have to spread out. An Inflexible plan in a game can mean certain doom if your opponent trumps that plan.

That isn't a tactic though.

That's playing the game within the game correctly.

I call it common sense, that which you should know and act upon as should your opponent (aka the NE).

Centurian99 wrote You're an asshat moron who can't add 1+1".

thats easy 2. Gold star for me

*This is about Drop Guard

Why dont speard out if you have 180+ Models ? ? ? Your denying them Landing sectors?

If you Play Drop Army you have to land in one sector
to destory there sector of the army.

If speard out they have to land in one area then go from part to part. and be countered

And Drop can be beat if you have CC Experts near. Drop comes in and shoots thats it really.

Even if you Try to hide in a bubble ok theres always Death squads to land and kill and then die. and theres always that lucky hit on scatter

And bad drop can just be cause of the player cause they'll wana go for TOO(targets of opportunity) and not killing off the real threats

*This is about Drop Guard

As for others i dont know so much i know Marines Drop Pod which is Amazing. but yea

How many GTs have you Won ? ?

akira5665 wrote:I appreciated the OP. I field a Drop Pod Marine force exclusively, always(hopefully always will) so I like to see how people may 'Beat me'.(Where I don't have to pay them whilst wearing Nappies)

Point1. In Australia, I have yet to come across anyone who 'knows' how to beat DP's. We are a 'Tad' behind the times.

Point2. Marines and DP's will not go together too well in the New SM Codex. 5-man Max capacity, DP has been Nerfed BIG TIME.

Thanks for the opposing strategies Stelek and Centurian99-it is all food for thought for my Brain.

Point3. The 'New' Battlestar Galactica is one of the very best Sci-Fi shows. Ever. And I am a died in the wool Star Trek fan.

Point4. Heinlens "Starship Troopers" book is one of his very best. I loved the book, and the quote you sigged.

Point5. If we were to put Albert Einstein in the middle of the Amazon Jungle, chances are he would be dead within the hour- due to eating something wrong, Snakebite, Tiger(?) type Cat thingie....does this make him 'Silly'-or just unprepared for every contingency in that particular environment? Alternatively, what if we put an Amazonian Warrior in a Chemistry Lab-how long till they are Burnt/Maimed or Dead? Silly?

IMO, they would make great reality TV shows.


It's all a matter of which environment we are used to.

Knowledge does not equate to intelligence.

"Silly" is a term that indicates"erratic, immature behaviour, charecterised usually by random/loud noises"

Are my Bowels Silly? The same activities are described.

Point 2: What!?!?!?!?!?! Where'd this info come from.


And yes, BSG is a very cool show.

If you have 180 models, and 1 turn to move...isn't "spreading out" what I said to do?

My version of spreading out takes away landing zones.

Cent's version gives them up, allowing a drop pod army to target your units as it sees fit and therefore isn't a tactic, it's just playing into the other armies strength.

Which is the whole point of this defense, preventing that strength.

My advice, good. Cents advice, bad.

Capiche?

1. Drop Pods in the new codex will still have 10 man capacity. The pictures which recently leaked show that the new plastic model is actually designed with 10 physical spots for the marines to be strapped in.

2. Centurian's advice was predicated on the ideas that a) you are using an army that does not have any particularly valuable/critical components and b) you are playing a mission in which castling in a corner will significantly hurt your ability to win the game due to objective points. He further explained in his second post that he did mean for you to still keep your units sufficiently close together to focus your counter attack on Deep Striking units as they arrive.

Stelek wrote:
My version of spreading out takes away landing zones.

Cent's version gives them up, allowing a drop pod army to target your units as it sees fit and therefore isn't a tactic, it's just playing into the other armies strength.

Which is the whole point of this defense, preventing that strength.

My advice, good. Cents advice, bad.

Capiche?

The thing is, with the exception of all-infiltrating guard or kroot, I've never seen an army able to completely deny DS armies a way in. So what you do instead is bring them in where you want them to. Your advice doesn't really deny drop zones either - it just denies drop zones in a very small section of the board. Which is fine, if the only mission objective is annihilation, but if there are any kind of objectives whatsoever (or even just table quarters) you've essentially just conceded the game.

Your advice is good, in a very narrow circumstance with a specific army build. My advice is intended to be more general, and focuses on overall strategy and meant to be adapted to the particular circumstance of a player's army and an opponent's DS force.

Without detailed information about both sides, and the mission being played, its impossible to come up with a "1-size fits all" tactical solution to the problem of defending against DS troops. You end up being the Germans defending against the 82nd and 101st at Normandy, in having a seemingly solid defensive setup that ultimately loses.

Mannahnin wrote:
2. Centurian's advice was predicated on the ideas that a) you are using an army that does not have any particularly valuable/critical components and b) you are playing a mission in which castling in a corner will significantly hurt your ability to win the game due to objective points. He further explained in his second post that he did mean for you to still keep your units sufficiently close together to focus your counter attack on Deep Striking units as they arrive.

Thanks, Ragnar. My point entirely.

Units can lend support to any other friendly unit within their threat radius. Its a mental obstruction to think that having units support each other means that you have to have those units standing next to each other, and doing so willingly concedes unnecessary advantages to your opponent. With screening being almost completely useless (even in 40K 5 with the cover save), there's simply very little advantage to having units grouped up (unless you're playing Guard).

In fact, very few DS players will willingly DS drop pods or other DS troops where they can scatter off the board. That means that you essentially have a 7-10" theoretical safe zone around the board edges that provides some additional restrictions on where units can DS.

To look at it in terms of the most common DS armies, you've got three armies to consider:
1) SM Drop Storm
2) Lysanderbomb (You could also classify Deathwing in here)
3) Daemonic Assault

The other deep strike armies (IG Drop Troops and DE Screaming Raiders) are rare enough (and to be quite honest, different enough) that they require significantly different tactics.

The SM Drop Storm has the advantage of the drop pod rules, which allow them to safely DS closer to your forces. In return, they generally have poor range, slow movement after landing, and random arrival. Unless you face PapaNurgle-level luck and face the entire force on turn 2, they're usually only going to have 50% of their army coming in. That's 50% of their shooting, and most importantly, the ability to only engage 3-6 targets (at the usual tournament level of 1500-1750).

So in other words, a Drop Storm wants you to castle. It makes it easier to use drop pods as a LOS-blocking screen, makes it easier to get into assault, and makes it easier to consolidate from unit to unit. As I'm rarely a fan of doing what my opponent wants me to do, I'd rather find another option. Scattering (but keeping units within the threat radius of friendly units) means that you'll probably lose a few units to the initial drop...but by concentrating the efforts of your remaining units, you can cripple or kill the initial dropping units, and effectively leave them out of the battle.

Against a Lysanderbomb, you'll generally have numbers on your side, but the arrival of massed terminators and their assault cannons can easily cripple portions of your army without too much effort. With a 30" threat radius (6" move + 24" range on the assault cannons and stormbolters) they've got greater range than most dropping units, and unless you're spamming lascannons and plasma, that many 2+ saves can be a bitch to deal with.

What you want to do depends largely on your army, but what you essentially want to do is find ways to concentrate on isolated portions of the Lysanderbomb. Castling pretty much encourages your oppoonent to consolidate their forces as they drop. This leaves you with the necessity of engaging all the terminators at once, which is usually not what you want to do. Scattering not only encourages your opponent to spread out, it also essentially greatly reduces the safe deep strike areas. Since the terminators don't benefit from the drop pod rules in a lysanderbomb, they have to worry about bad scatter rolls. Off the table, onto your troops, or onto their own troops will all easily cost them a 250-300 point unit, which they know they can ill afford. So essentially, your units have (against a reasonably intelligent player) a 7-9" "safe zone" around the board edges and surrounding your own units. (Unless of course, there are teleport homers in play, which is why those things are a priority target in turn 1.)

The final army, a Chaos Demons army, is probably one of the trickiest to counter, because it offers some things that very few other armies offer...namely the boatload of special rules to keep track of. In general, though, I'm theorizing (since I've yet to play against a Chaos Demons army), that countering it will be very similar to countering a Lysanderbomb. They're not going to have nearly as much shooting (unless its a strongly tzeentch themed force) but they'll generally make up for it with some very fast moving, hard hitting assault units.

In general, I dislike castling up because it essentially turns the game into an all or nothing gamble. Either your castle holds, and you wipe out the enemy, or your castle gets breached, which will usually be followed up shortly by the utter destruction of your army. I'm withholding judgement on V5 counters until I've read through the 40K 5 rulebook, but even with the rumored change in consolidation rules, I don't see the Castle becoming that much stronger, especially since it will effectively reduce the efficacy of heavy weapons in the center/rear of the castle formation by providing the targets with 4+ cover saves.

Stelek you didnt answer my question i was just wondering how many GT's have you won cause

you said cents hasnt won any and you have or something....I was jw....

And Centurian99
Is'nt attacking you he's just puting his IDEAS out on a FORUM ....just saying

Centurian99
has good comments about the Marine DS army.

Cent, I gotta say my experience both using and against pods leads me to exactly the opposite conclusion regarding fighting pods.

The big weakness of a pod army is that only half of it is on the table to start. If you concentrate your forces you basically get the benefits of an old-school Refused Flank, and can overwhelm the units which come in as they arrive, focusing 100% of your army (less whatever they kill on the drop) against 50% of theirs.

Whereas if you spread out, the fact that the pods can safely drop right next to you allows them to safely wedge into gaps between your units. If you spread out they are frequently able to divide your force using the pods and focus fire on your stranded units while using terrain and the pods themselves to shield you from counter fire. Thus reversing the concentration of force advantage. They are also able to get their short ranged guns (heavy flamers, paired plasma guns, paired meltaguns) in range of the best possible targets, unless they happen to scatter badly. But given the pod special rules (their ability to safely drop 1” away without risk of death), the chance of a scatter bad enough to take them out of range is substantially reduced.

The advantages of the castle are a) built-in concentration of force and b) protection of your more vulnerable/expensive/critical elements at the back of the castle, out of range of the podding units’ short-ranged guns. Your strategy still allows you to concentrate force, but as you describe it you still give the podders the opportunity to match their guns against the best possible targets.

A Lysanderwing is much trickier, and this is why Mauleed switched over to a terminator-heavy version when he was still playing pods. Assault Cannons, as you’ve noted, give the podders much longer strike range in addition to superior mobility and threat radii as compared to podding tac marines. This I have less experience against, though obviously its longer range makes the depth defense less effective. Still, the castle (especially the expanding castle Stelek described) does limit their targets a bit, and allow you to set up LOS blockages to hopefully keep some stuff protected.

Daemons, OTOH, seem to me the more likely candidate for the counter-tactic you’ve described. They don’t have much shooting, but they DO have a lot of assault power. Against them you’re probably better off to spread out in mutually supporting positions which can concentrate fire on units dropping near any one of them, while cofferdamming the damage sustained when the daemons assault any one portion of your force.

Nice good post make's sense

Hmmm. Why are we talking about lysanderbomb? I'm certain I didn't mention it. Oh right, the inexperienced has mentioned another red herring once again.

Sigh.

Lysander wing is a Legion of the Damned style army, deemed too powerful and is in the process of being removed from the game. So I don't see much point in discussing it. Can we not? Thanks.

If you really want deathwing in the discussion, it is an assault force. It can't shoot you to pieces like a lysanderwing can. It also does not all arrive all at once and is vulnerable to an anti-deep strike defense (the one I laid out, not yours).

I guess my problem with your 'tactics' cent, is they don't hold up in the real world. Show me an army that can be spread out against a drop army, like a wagon wheel, and bring effective firepower to bear. If my tactical squad is spread out 15" and only 3 guys are in rapid fire range if they move...how is this good? All of your comments and advice is dubious at best. You are running theoryhammer, and you aren't doing a good job of it.

Especially a demon army in theoryhammer. Why you'd spread your army out in such a way they can pavane multiple units into flamer range is beyond my ability to comprehend. You obviously don't have ANY experience playing against a demon army, but giving them multiple targets is stupid. Pavane is short ranged. Dropping is not guaranteed, so they aren't going to be in range of much of anything...and who cares if they move you D6" the turn they drop? If you are spread out in a 'spokes of the wheel' formation you are encouraging demons to put big old templates onto multiple units. That's the only kind of shooting they have, and that you can stop with my deep strike defense.

Please for the love of all that's holy, stop posting endless pages of nonsense. I know you can't help yourself, but your lack of actual game experience is showing.

Mannahin has a better grasp, as in here:

"Daemons, OTOH, seem to me the more likely candidate for the counter-tactic you’ve described. They don’t have much shooting, but they DO have a lot of assault power. Against them you’re probably better off to spread out in mutually supporting positions which can concentrate fire on units dropping near any one of them, while cofferdamming the damage sustained when the daemons assault any one portion of your force."

Sadly, this theory does not work.

Demons can drop behind terrain away from one flank with fast movers.

They then drop in front of another flank with everything else, someplace your other flank cannot shoot them well.

Now you're dead. The fast movers get into your other flank, and the slow movers are on top of your flank. Since you've spread out, you cannot concentrate rapid fire into the demons that are vulnerable to it--and you cannot stop them from assaulting you.

Game is over at that point.

If you concentrate everything into one corner, you can bring every shot possible to bear on the demons. It's a necessity. You need to be able to immediately dump everything your army has into the demons that have dropped, and reduce them sufficiently so they are no longer threats to you--and keep yourself intact as you do so. That's the whole way you kill demons with a foot army. Mechanized armies just win against demons, so I don't see much point in discussing them. You don't need fancy tactics to crush a demon army if you kill their 4-8 fast moving guys and shoot the rest to pieces. Oops sorry did I give away a secret? My bad.

By the way, Cent--you did have one semi-decent point. About objectives. Sort of.

The new 40k missions have two sets of objectives: One mission with 2, so your comment is invalid as you can secure yours easily. The other mission has multiple loot counters, so it requires you to move your guys...not. Only if there are 5 counters do you need to move. Guess what happens if there are 5 counters? You can sit on 2 of them. That leaves 3 more, and if a demon army wants to park 3 troops choices on 3 loot counters--by all means, laugh at your opponent, beat his army, and shoot him off just 1 objective. Then it's a "draw", and it goes to VP's. If he has 2 troops left, odds are you'll be highly favored to win off of VP's--because demons are a coin flip army, and either win big or lose big.

Just out of curiosity Stelek. why should anyone listen to your advice regarding 40K, this deepstrike topic in particular? We all know what Centurian99's credentials are. We also know that PapaNurgle won the Adepticon Gladiator 2 years ago with a drop pod army, so why should we listen to you, as opposed to players who have far greater experience than you?

As the, self-styled expert than you claim to be, what are your credentials and accomplishments?

Why should we listen to you?

Darrian

Dude Stelek i am also tried of you thinking your the gak for wining Warhammer 40k . and you complain about no one to play with cause your so good. Surpised any one plays with you if you Stomp them so much

Dude its a game i dont even now why i care about 40K

Its to have fun with not to be serious.

Dude chill and same for others it's 40k ......jc

as for your credentials and accomplishments i know your pretty good i havent seen you play but i've seen them.

But if your so good Play a Grey knight Deep strike Army and win a GT ....

Darrian, argument by authority is less interesting than actually reading the tactics described in some detail.

C99 has both the credentials and the chops. I've been surprised so far by the missing details in his posts in this thread and by the unneccessary shots at Stelek. While Bill doesn't owe anyone any cool tactical analyses or detailed descriptions of deployment formations and maneuvers, they'd sure be nice to read and do a better job showing us how much he knows.

I post what I know.

I didn't realize I needed street creds to post what I know.

At least I post what I know.

I'm not someone that needs to hide my list, my knowledge, or the benefit of my experience because I'm afraid someone will gun for me and beat me.

I know alot of guys that are like that. They're here, right now.

You one of them?

K well thats fine I've been playing for years I can ask a bunch of the Gamers at my store for advice.

I just think he shouldnt act like he's better then everyone for winning for "10" years at 40K

I've read the Tatics meant to say there ok if you look at my post.

But some one shouldnt shoot others down when they actually give good advice for all yall,.

Stelek wrote:Hmmm. Why are we talking about lysanderbomb? I'm certain I didn't mention it. Oh right, the inexperienced has mentioned another red herring once again.

Sigh.

Lysander wing is a Legion of the Damned style army, deemed too powerful and is in the process of being removed from the game. So I don't see much point in discussing it. Can we not? Thanks.

If you really want deathwing in the discussion, it is an assault force. It can't shoot you to pieces like a lysanderwing can. It also does not all arrive all at once and is vulnerable to an anti-deep strike defense (the one I laid out, not yours).

Um…the topic of your post is “Deep Strike Defense”.

So that would mean we are talking about defending against:
Demon Armies
Lysander Wing/Deathwing
Drop IG
Drop Pod Marines

So to bring up Lysander style drop armies would seem reasonable. We still have at least 6 months of them even if the new SM codex changes things, so they are still a valid topic.


As far as what I do is that I turtle up in a corner. As Cent99 says, I have “points of failure” in my army, so I normally have to hide them in the rear with the gear. Since the effective range of a melta gun is 12” I know that if I put my tanks in the back corner, I can put enough meat shields in the way to push the deep-stikers back beyond 12”.

Stelek wrote:
I'm not someone that needs to hide my list, my knowledge, or the benefit of my experience because I'm afraid someone will gun for me and beat me.

So what army are you bringing to the LVGT?

Stelek wrote:Hmmm. Why are we talking about lysanderbomb? I'm certain I didn't mention it.

Can you give me a shout if/when you mention Trollbloods? I'm planning on making a P&M post at the weekend, featuring Trollbloods.

O yea but like on your blog why dont you do Grey Knights for the GT to show all the Smarts you now. About warhamms 40k ? ?

If i sounded rude i'm sorry but your being rude to others for no reason (its 40k ) it's not like your actually fighting for the Lives of others

And i dont need you creds to see that your good.

But some one who wins for 10years and

if you keep winning then play a harder army

could answer me how many GTs you've won like you said earlier and i asked earlier? ?

What ever i was just wondering why your bashing someone who has experince that is good and why can't you respect him.

Mannahnin wrote:<snip>lots of good points</snip>

That is a potential outcome. That's why the dispersal itself is important. On reflection this may have something to do with my propensity for mobile firepower. The drop pod wall becomes much less effective when the majority of ones heavy weapons can move and fire, even if that movement is limited to 6"/turn.

Stelek wrote:<snip>lots of ranting and creation of straw man arguments</snip>

Remember, we've come up with three basic methods of defending against Deep Striking armies here. The one you advocated (onion castle), and two that I advocate (spoke castle & pseudo-dispersed) deployment.

Onion deployment gives you layers of defensive depth, and allows for maximum protection of vulnerable units, but gives you very little room or ability to respond to enemy arrival, and makes for a deployment that folds ridiculously quickly if its breached.

Spoke deployment allows for the protection of a smaller number of vulnerable units at the cost of putting more units at risk, but allows for a much more effective and immediate counterstrike. It suffers from many of the same flaws as the onion castle, in that if breached it tends to collapse rapidly, and gives up effective control of massive portions of the table to your opponent.

Pseudo-dispersed deployment appears far more vulnerable and weak than the castles, and to be honest, is on initial contact. But if you disperse carefully, keeping units within the threat radius of other friendly units, what you create is a situation where your opponent seems to have lots of good places to drop, but most of which are really traps. This only works if you've got an army without point failure sources, or whose point failure sources are well protected. Pseudo-dispersed deployment also gives you the maximum ability to contest and seize objectives in the midgame and endgame.

After weighing in on both sides I'll have to say:

First one to post theirs as an article wins?

I keed!

(Or do I?)

If only yours were worthwhile against the armies you listed.

Take pictures and show me how it works.

From your descriptions, I laugh at your two.

They both lead to defeat in detail.

Stop spamming the same stuff and give us credible examples WITH DETAIL that explain how opening up your army to attack gives an advantage versus armies that need an open defense to have any chance to succeed.

Put up already.

it seems to me that this has gotten unnecessarily complicated. Unless I'm missing something, the way to beat deepstrikers is to engage elements of his force with all or most of yours. This is usually pretty easy since all buy Lysanderwing arrive peicemeal. It appears that the question is: do you castle up and hunker down, or scatter to the five winds and make him chase you down?

The answer, to me, is: depends. If you have a high model count with fragile yet powerful units, scattering them will simply lead to your punchers getting shot. If you have a low model count army, then castling will cripple your abiliyt to seize objectives or even respond to the enemy.

In some armies, more expensive and/or more powerful units are more durable (Mech Eldar, chaos, necrons, tyranids) while other armies are more or less the same durablity regardless of power or cost (IG, Orks, DE, Tau). Castling to protect more durable units is counterproductive, but sending expensive yet fragile units abroad will lead to a short lifespan.

Castling or scattering are two methods of the same tactic: creating a fully supporting network that can respond to the enemy. Which one to choose has more to do with what army you play then any tactically correct choice. As a general rule: any unit that can be reliably destroyed by a one or two units of shooting in a turn should be hidden or castled. Units that can shrug off all but an amzing turn of shooting from one or two units can scatter out.

after 3 pages of this i'm still not sure precisely what centurion means by wagon wheels and dispersed.

particularly wagon wheels. it kinda sounds like conga lines radiating out from a hub. that would just be...bad. or is it a central hub of units surrounded by a ring of small groups? that would make more sense, but i don't exactly see a significant difference from the expanding castle described in the OP.

a dispersed deployment i understand can't really be defined since it's going to depend entirely on terrain. the concept makes sense in general i suppose. you spread out as much as your threat range allows, giving your opponent better target selection in exchange for better board position. i'd just add the note that killing everything in sight is always as good as any mission objective.

maybe i'm having a hard time visualizing this stuff because i play necrons and thus have completely different deep strike defense options available.

Stelek wrote:Stop spamming the same stuff and give us credible examples WITH DETAIL that explain /snip

Put up already.

ghostmaker wrote:could answer me how many GTs you've won like you said earlier and i asked earlier? ?

I think it is time I chime in.
I am the person who PMed Stelek for some advice on anti-deep strike. The sole reason why Stelek is the one I PMed, is that is saw him mention deep strike defense in another thread.
Had Stelek PMed me back I would have been perfectly happy.

Now I am even happier since this turned into a thread that interest me.

But, please don't turn this into a pissing contest.

@Stelek

While I appreciate your willingness to help me out, you chose to make it a public discussion yourself. Opposing oppinions WILL occur. Please take this in stride and let's keep this thread informative and dynamic. This goes for you too, Cent.

corinth wrote:after 3 pages of this i'm still not sure precisely what centurion means by wagon wheels and dispersed.

particularly wagon wheels. it kinda sounds like conga lines radiating out from a hub. that would just be...bad. or is it a central hub of units surrounded by a ring of small groups? that would make more sense, but i don't exactly see a significant difference from the expanding castle described in the OP.

a dispersed deployment i understand can't really be defined since it's going to depend entirely on terrain. the concept makes sense in general i suppose. you spread out as much as your threat range allows, giving your opponent better target selection in exchange for better board position. i'd just add the note that killing everything in sight is always as good as any mission objective.

maybe i'm having a hard time visualizing this stuff because i play necrons and thus have completely different deep strike defense options available.

Necrons definitely have different deep strike options available, and different considerations (namely res orb coverage and veil for counter-deep striking)

But by a spoke castle, I'm talking about putting any vulnerable/critical units at the hub, and radiating the majority of your other units outwards in a conga line.

Dispersed wouldn't work as well for Necrons because of the need to maintain res orb coverage, unless you're running a flying circus, in which case it works just fine. Of course, flying circus is one of the stronger builds out there.

Jazz is for Losers wrote:

Stelek wrote:Hmmm. Why are we talking about lysanderbomb? I'm certain I didn't mention it.

Can you give me a shout if/when you mention Trollbloods? I'm planning on making a P&M post at the weekend, featuring Trollbloods.

Well, Kaya's Spirit Door is pretty similar to deep strike, but if you Wagon Wheel with Reach, you should be able to pop her or her Warpwolf when they come a knockin'.

Stelek wrote:
They both lead to defeat in detail.

By the way, have you ever heard of infestation tactics?

I'm not sure how those tactics apply to 40k unless you are playing cityfight.

Enlighten me.

Infestation tactics doesn't have anything to do with cityfight. If you don't know what infestation tactics are, it'll take way long to explain.

They don't work for every army, but they do work if your army is constructed around them. You need to have a force that has a relatively consistent threat radius for its units, and you have to avoid having any easily destroyed lynchpin units.

In essence, you're offering your opponent what looks like a defeat in detail...but what you're really doing is denying your opponent any obvious schwerpunkts that they can focus on.

To bring it back to the defense against a deep strike army...you're going to lose units. But you present your opponent with what is essentially a no-win situation. They can either disperse to deal with your disperal, which because most deep strike armies have extremely short threat radii, allows you to outmaneuver them, or they concentrate their forces...which makes it even easier to outmaneuver them. Either way, you're playing to the real weakness of the deep strike army - its lack of maneuverability once it hits the ground.

Deep strike armies are vulnerable to immediate counterattack, because of their general low numbers/unit count compared to the force that starts on the table, but good players have developed tactics and army builds to compensate for this.

Matching strength to strength has never seemed to be a good tactic to me.

Sorry, you're full of beans.

Infestation tactics have EVERYTHING to do with fighting in a city.

This might be a tactic you made up, but that isn't what infestation tactics are.

Maybe you should look it up. It's cutting edge military theory, so it's not like it's on a wiki for you to read up on.

Your theory is also chock full of nuts.

It isn't better than a deep strike defense in the slightest, it's far worse and it still gives a deep strike player a field day.

Sigh. It's pointless discussing this with you. Either you really don't grasp tactics at all, or you're just doing your best to flamebait and be obstinate in hopes I'll blow up.
Just keep flying your trolling under the radar. I'm sure everyone else in the krew is highly amused by this whole thread.

Stelek wrote:Sorry, you're full of beans.

Your theory is also chock full of nuts.

Why? Seriously, I want to know.

It isn't better than a deep strike defense in the slightest, it's far worse and it still gives a deep strike player a field day.

Again why? I don't understand.

Thanks.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Stelek wrote:Sorry, you're full of beans.

Infestation tactics have EVERYTHING to do with fighting in a city.

Only so much in as urban combat is a major concern of the modern military. But infestation tactics can be applied to any battlefield situation, and the principles underlying them can easily be applied to almost any 40K game.

As developed by the Marine Corps (which has taken the lead in developing them) infestation tactics rely on the fact that on the modern battlefield, you can achieve concentration of force without proximity of forces. With modern communications and combat networks, proximity of forces is not a requirement to achieve the unity of command and coordination necessary for effective battlefield operations.

Since on the 40K tabletop, command and control is rarely an issue (baring a few exceptions, namely units like Wraithguard, units that have to shoot/assault certain units, and Tyranids subject to instinctive behavior that are outside of synapse), the principles of infestation tactics can have direct application. Especially in units that rely on shooting as their primary means of causing damage, actual proximity to friendly units is generally a non-issue.

So you are carefully not mentioning what the actual tactic is.

Since it cannot be applied in games of 40k, I'll explain to you what it is first and then I suppose we'll see what other nonsense you are going to add.

First off, the Israeli Defense Forces have taken the 'lead' in developing infestation tactics--both in combating them and in using them itself. The marines are about a decade behind the Israelis at the moment.

Second, the entire concept of infestation is not the bull you said. It's all about turning the inside into the outside.
Meaning, my house is my yard--and I don't go into the 'real' yard.

So, my two original statements hold true.

You don't know what you're talking about, and you aren't fooling anyone.

The only application infestation tactics have in 40k is within the cityfight ruleset, and/or on a very heavy cityfight board.

Please, stop commenting. I'm tired of correcting you constantly.

Ozy I'll see about getting some pictures, just for you.

Stelek wrote:So you are carefully not mentioning what the actual tactic is.
<snip>Stelek talking out of his ass</snip>

Actually, I just wanted to see if you had any ground to stand on. For all your vaunted claims of "expertness" and sound grounding into modern military theory...you remind me of a friend of mine who steadfastly claims that the most high-speed special operations force in the world are the USAF PJs. Not to show them any disrespect...but my buddy has some strange notions.

Anyway, I could refer you to the Marine Corps Gazette, September 1997 issue, and the article "Infestation Tactics and Operational Maneuver From the Sea; Where Do. We Go From Here?", or I could refer you the numerous other studies and papers done by various military theorists, such as William Lind and his theories on the RMA, or a whole boatload of studies done by the Rand Corp. I don't necessarily agree with all of them (our current military situation is a case in point) but there is a lot of hard thinking that's gone into them.

In fact, here's a few links to some published studies on the subject:
http://rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1100/MR1100.chap4.pdf
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/battle/chp3.html
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/ppt/walters_dist_ops_history.ppt
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub229.pdf
http://www.usafa.edu/isme/JSCOPE98/Dunlap98.HTM

In the RW, infestation tactics involve the realization that the concentration of effect is what matters, not the massing of forces. The basic idea is to "infest" the enemy with small, mobile, dispersed units, who's primary job is not necessarily to engage the enemy directly, but rather to call in supporting superior fires. By not providing the enemy with a target they can mass their forces against, you avoid sustaining major casualties, while engaging the enemy from multiple directions and with locally superior forces, supported by massive precision fires. The main obstacles to successfully executing infestation tactics are the C3 and training requirements, which are fairly extreme. You need good, well-trained troops, and you need a C3 system that allows for the rapid exchange of data through the fog of war.

Now, the question I looked at was can you apply this to a game of 40K. And the answer was that you could, if your army was designed around it. Because the core principle of focusing on the concentration of effect instead of just the massing of forces definitely applied. In addition, because 40K is a wargame, with an emphasis on the game, C3 issues are largely irrelevant (because its no fun to have an army that doesn't do what you want it to do).

There's one commander, whose will is pretty easy to communicate to each unit...after all, each unit does exactly what the player wants it to do. (with the exception of some relatively rare special rules). The major difference in applying infestation tactics to 40K is that each unit can't call in the superior fires (with a few exceptions) - they generally needs to be responsible for its own firepower...which thanks to the glories of the 41st Millenium, is relatively easy to do.

To bring this around to the original point of this post, which was defending against deep striking armies...I've found that the key in defeating an all-deep strike army isn't in surviving the initial drop of enemy forces. If you design your army well, that should never be an issue. Instead, the key to winning against deep striking armies is in preserving your army's ability to control the battlefield in the turns after the deep strikers arrive.

Which is why I think that castling, in general, is a bad idea. If its necessary...I'd argue that's because your army list isn't designed well, with too many point failure sources that have insufficient protection. Because by castling, you essentially cede large portions of the tabletop to your opponent, which has the potential of crippling your game in the later turns of the game. All the deep striking player needs to do is to survive your initial counter-assault, and you're toast. Because you've got no room to maneuver.

I've watched this happen with drop pod armies, with Lysanderbombs, and I don't expect Daemon armies to be any different.

Stelek, I think Mauleed's old advice definitely applies to you...because you're nowhere near as expert as you try to portray yourself as.

"Read more, post less." or in your case, "Don't speak of things of which you don't know."

Ok, gentlemen. Please stop butchering the concept of infestation tactics. To quote from Dunlap's Virtous Warrior in a Savage World: "Furthermore, a revolutionary new battlefield strategy is under development called “infestation tactics.” Employing advanced communications systems to coordinate large numbers of small infantry teams assaulting the same objective, the “most revolutionary aspect” of the new concept is that the infantryman does not rely on his personal weapon to engage the enemy, but will instead call in a wide range of deadly support fires."

And from http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/battle/chp3.html: "The organization and tactics of such ground forces are difficult to visualize today. Some have suggested that twenty-first century variants of the so-called Hutier tactic developed by the Germans in World War I--Stingray or infestation tactics--would be useful. Such tactics would combine deception and bombardment with infiltration and attacks against strong points. The ground forces may be a small number of Army infantrymen, marines, or special operations forces, delivered deep in enemy territory by air and equipped with high-technology linkages to space-based or atmospheric strike systems, in effect acting as part of a sensor-shooter network."

The idea behind infestation tactics is that you can have a small number of units capable of independant operations, coordinated from a centralized command post, and capable of calling in immense firepower from stand off distances safely outside the enemy's threat range. The concept is that you can apply the nine principles of war to coordinate a devastating attack by simultaneously destroying key enemy targets with a minimal signature. It is important to note that infestation tactics are not designed to be used in isolation. They are used in conjunction with traditional military strategies to achieve battlefield dominance. Look up the German offensive of 1918 for an example of how infestation tactics were used as a precursor to a traditional assault.

And before the ad hominem attacks begin, my credentials are that I am a professional military officer. I am by no means the leading expert in the field, being only a first lieutenant, but I do have extensive experience with the subject as it is being embodied into the reconaissance doctrine and I am an Armor officer (i.e. I work with tanks and scouts for a living).

Respectfully,
Mike K.

EDIT: Was typing this post while Cent was typing his last one. He's explanation is pretty solid.

Great post Cent. You defnitely got me thinking. I am sure that you used infestation tactics in your "stealer shock" list that you won the Chicago GT with. I am going to play in an RTT tomorrow and I will use the stealer-shock list and try to apply some of your ideas to the list tomorrow.

Thanks for the knowledge

Sigh. Another worthless, long winded post with alot of words but no substance.

For some reason, Mike is equating german stormtrooper tactics with current infestation tactics. They are not the same. The idea you quote isn't what infestation tactics are all about.

Since you don't seem to understand high-level game theory versus tactics, I'll explain.

One of two issues you've related are high-level game theories proposed by various US government and non-government (but still part of the military underpinnings of the US) agencies. That's the current US theory on 'infestation' which is in reality just a complete rehash of the WWI stormtrooper tactics.

The second issue you've related is your belief in what infestation tactics are. These beliefs you have are laughable. I realize it's difficult to believe anyone can be 'ahead' of the US tactically, even dirt poor regions without access to more than rifles and home made bombs...but it is in fact true.

The Palestinians, the Vietnamese, and many other 'small dirt scrub' nations/regions/whatever have mastered the art of infestation.

The US never has, because the US does not believe in expending human life for human life and does not have the political will to sacrifice non-combatants to kill combatants as a matter of policy.

Israel, and to a much lesser extent, the US military in Iraq; has experienced the modern version of infestation tactics.

None of the nonsense you've put out deals with the reality that the Western concept of 'infestation' is in fact isolated advance groups of men infiltrating into the main battle line and using direct observation to bring in the heavy fire necessary to breach said line. That's what happened in WW1, and to the marines regret--in Fallujah.

Is that infiltration followed by small unit actions and heavy firepower? Yes. That's stormtrooper tactics. It works fine so long as the only enemy in the MBL are indeed combatants. It does not work so well when there are non-combatants in it. The marines experienced this in Fallujah. The US and British (and the Poles) have experienced this failure of tactics throughout Iraq.

Infestation tactics are not what you erroneously believe them to be. They are a completely different tactic, deployed in the modern era first by the Russians in WW2, the Vietnamese for decades, and the Palestinians for the past decade.

Israel proved it is very difficult to beat without modern weapons and a supply system that functions. Hezbollah taught Israel it can lose if it runs into said foe, and that lesson has reverberated within the US military (and it's opponents).

So, what IS the tactic of infestation? How does it differ from Stormtrooper tactics?

Infestation is the direct opposite of stormtroopers. You aren't infiltrating elite units into the enemies main battle line by themselves with the intention of blowing a hole in said line. First off, stormtrooper tactics work out in the open--where you can readily see and identify your enemy. Note the lack of success for the Germans in WWI going into towns using this tactics. Ditto for WW2, for example against the russians who used infestation tactics to defeat the german stormtrooper tactics. You can't be both tactics at once, gentlemen.

Instead, you are spreading your forces around inside of a city. That is the key difference here. I hope you understand this point, because I'm close to just giving up and writing an article without you. Infestation is inside-out tactics. This means you avoid the parks, the streets, anything outside. You blow holes through walls, ceilings, and floors to negotiate INSIDE the buildings of the city. You never leave the inside. All of your battles are fought inside. If you are a defender, you can encourage massive air strikes. The marines (foolishly, and against Israeli advice) did NOT do this at Fallujah. They ran stormtrooper tactics, and leveled whole city blocks with their actions (much like the Germans did at Stalingrad) which unfortunately did little damage to the enemy but did create alot of defensible terrain to sit in....which totally destroys the stormtrooper concept as it is built on mobility and ruined cities are not places you can demonstrate mobility.

Against the Palestinians, the Israelis were faced with an infestation tactic--one not designed to bring in massive airpower or artillery (since they don't have any...) but designed to bring the Israeli troops into the open, into killing zones with exploding roads, mines, and even explodable buildings (and yes, even entire blocks). So the Israelis countered with an infestation of their own. You can read more about these combats by both regular troops and elite Israeli paratroops during the battle of Nablus. They forced the palestinians out into the open, where they couldn't stand the superior firepower. Blowing a building up with stormtrooper tactics is not useful against infestation tactics, you can only kill so many of the enemy because they aren't concentrated. I think this is where you get confused about diffusion of force versus concentration of firepower.

Since you won't take my word on what it is, how about a current article with data given by a currently active Israeli general that's a very lovely 12 pages long. He wrote the orders for the infestation tactics the Israelis used to secure the camp.

FYI I've got alot of years in with the military, but I don't go spouting off about it unless you press me on why I know what I know. I go to alot of conferences and try to impress upon the grognards fighting their pretend battles that the Israelies, who've been fighting an insurrection using infestation tactics for a very long time now, might know what they are talking about. Getting their asses handed to them militarily AND politically because they think 'technology beats all' is slowly opening their eyes and ears to what the Israelis do.

It's not like the Israelis are using American equipment or anything...hey wait a minute!

That article can be found here:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3647/is_200702/ai_n18632567

Please, stop trying to 'refute' what I'm saying. Theorywar and theoryhammer are equally worthless when the reality already exists for you to look at.

Accept it, and move on to the topic of discussion:

Show me pictures of your defense. I'll take some tomorrow of mine and yours. I'm not saying yours might not have merit, but without pictures your words are pretty meaningless. So are mine, but I'll take some pictures and post them. Why, I might even use paint to draw neat little crayon arrows and gak.

Darrian, can you add something besides love and admiration for cent? That'd be a useful contribution to dakka. If you care for that sort of thing, anyway.

Actually, many nations are ahead of the US in their use of small unit tactics, especially when it comes to light infantry. Poole's "Tactics of the Crescent Moon" is a very good example of this. Good article you provided, btw. The description of the fighting in Nablus is very detailed. Essentially, the Israelis choose to by-pass obvious kill zones created by the urban terrain by reshaping the terrain through the use of explosives. That causes the insurgents to reposition through the kill zones, which the Israelis are overwatching. Very clever. It also apparently spared the majority of the building, making it easier to rebuild the area and the goodwill of the people. I'll be tucking this article into the professional development book.

The only point of yours I will refute is that the use of infestation tactics is limited to an urban environment. It should be equally applicable in all types of complex terrain that allow the defender to channel attacking forces. I'll see if I can find anything comparable from the mountain fighting in Afghanistan. The idea is to use principles to shape tactical decisions because every tactical situation is unique. What works for the Israelis in the West Bank will not work without modification in a different situation. Hence, infestation tactics on a traditional battlefield resemble WWI storm trooper techniques. In an asymmetrical environment, they will resemble something closer to the Israeli action in Nablus---I agree with you there.

Oh, and offering some of your credentials is not bragging. Establishing a baseline for your knowledge is generally useful when dealing with people you've never met through the internet. I would love to hear more about what exactly you do, since I am one of those "grognards" as you call them.

Respectfully,
Mike K.

that's really interesting stuff.

but i don't think 40k is sufficiently complex to warrant cutting edge real world analysis.

it's just overlapping threat radii after all.

the only army that does anything like the real world concept is tau with their marker lights. which is a really cool mechanism that i hope gets expanded on.

corinth wrote:that's really interesting stuff.

but i don't think 40k is sufficiently complex to warrant cutting edge real world analysis.

it's just overlapping threat radii after all.

the only army that does anything like the real world concept is tau with their marker lights. which is a really cool mechanism that i hope gets expanded on.

Ding ding...gold star.

You can't take RW concepts and just cut and paste them...after all, like I said, 40K is a wargame, emphasis on the game. But the underlying principles to RW military theory most definitely can be applied...the trick is identifying the relevant parts. As a rule of thumb, any RW concepts that rely on command and control, logistics, and, in general, intelligence, can be tossed out the window, because the 40K system either ignores them, applies them poorly, or fall outside the scale of a 40K battle.

But there are nuggets of gold in RW military theory, if you've got either the patience and/or desire to look for it.

I don't see how you can apply 'infestation' tactics, especially at a GT.

The boards are 70% open terrain.

Often as not, the main battle is centered around ONE terrain piece.

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just not a believer in applying the tactic to a wargame that discourages mass use of terrain.

What do you think?

Oh I'm in IT now.

And 40k.

And fantasy.

Dabble in FOW.

Thinking about expanding into AT-43 in the fall, once 5E dies down.

I do DND, and some MMO's (as a substitute for DND, really) but none now.

And that's my life. Woo. I'm pretty boring really.

Stelek wrote:I don't see how you can apply 'infestation' tactics, especially at a GT.

The boards are 70% open terrain.

Often as not, the main battle is centered around ONE terrain piece.

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just not a believer in applying the tactic to a wargame that discourages mass use of terrain.

What do you think?

You just saw the early 2007 tables, which Dave and the crew got complaints about. Later in the year they had substantially more terrain. By Baltimore there was much more, including a lot of 4+ stuff.

You'll excuse my skepticism but it's been that way for the last ten years, actually.

Then there are the lava tables...unplayable since introduction, but there year after year.

I don't expect that to change anytime soon...and when you say 'much more' I've got to disagree.

From what I understand, anything past table 20 was still a barren wasteland. The top 20 tables had as much terrain as the top 6 tables at Vegas, but is this:

5 large, 2 small pieces

Really better than:

4 large, 1 small piece

It's not 'much more'. It's 'a bit more'.

Besides, most of the terrain is crap--either it's unplayable, it's a block, or it looks like a 5 year old painted it with a squeegee.

That's the reality. If at some point the GT terrain is focused on playability AND it ever approaches 50% density I'll be quite surprised.

I haven't seen it yet, and people have complained about the lack of terrain since the GT's started...and Baltimore doesn't mean a whole lot since they have Glen Burnie to draw on. It has a huge amount of terrain, especially...buildings.

Sorry for the rant, I just wanted you to know it isn't easily fixed nor is it going to be fixed this year.

Making terrain that's usable and good-looking is a talent completely separate from imaginative and beautiful terrain. The latter is where GW focuses.

Silver lining: They got those flat areas of forest with movable trees spot on a few years ago. Now if only they'd make tiered hills and buildings you can play on without injuring yourself...

Hey Cent, PJs actually are pretty good. I won't go on and say best in the world (since I think every special ops group toots that horn), but they do very remarkable things. When you're comparing US military SOCOM units, you're generally comparing apples to apples (with maybe the exception of Marine Force Recon). However, USAF Para Jumpers have an extremely gruellling school and are generally ranked right up there with the Green Berets, SEALs, and other members of Special Ops Command.

Having no real experience with foreign military special operations groups other than the Georgian Commandos, I really can't comment on the British or Australian SAS, any of the EU nations special ops or the Spetznas, but Para Jumpers are definitely the gak.

Especially when they come get me out of my shot down helicopter

Sorry, carry on.

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:Hey Cent, PJs actually are pretty good. I won't go on and say best in the world (since I think every special ops group toots that horn), but they do very remarkable things. When you're comparing US military SOCOM units, you're generally comparing apples to apples (with maybe the exception of Marine Force Recon). However, USAF Para Jumpers have an extremely gruellling school and are generally ranked right up there with the Green Berets, SEALs, and other members of Special Ops Command.

Having no real experience with foreign military special operations groups other than the Georgian Commandos, I really can't comment on the British or Australian SAS, any of the EU nations special ops or the Spetznas, but Para Jumpers are definitely the gak.

Especially when they come get me out of my shot down helicopter

Sorry, carry on.

Like I said, not to show them any disrespect...PJs do their job exceptionally well. But my buddy classifying them as more high-speed than other US SOCOM units is (he's pure civilian, btw)...is one of those inexcusably silly ideas I like to heap scorn on.

Sorry to add nothing worthwhile to the thread at hand(may be spamming, sorry).

But the last 10 or so posts have enthralled me. Thanks for the links and the excellent read!

Well done Gentlemen! Great Tactics and explanations.

it's fascinating to read what you guys are saying, really. However, I think you're throwing some military tactical pearls before Warhammer 40,000 swine. It's not as complicated as an infestation tactic.

Really, a good deep strike defense focuses around the fundamental of Security in bother Cent99 and Stelek's cases. It could be argued that Cent also employs some of the fundamentals of reconnaissance.

Fundamentals of Recon are as follows:
1)employ maximum recon forces forward
2)orient on the location or movement of the objective
3)report information rapidly and accurately
4)retain freedom to manuever
5)gain and maintain contact with enemy forces
6)develop the situation rapidly

Fundamentals of Security are as follows:
1)orient on the main body
2)perform continuous reconnaissance
3)provide early and accurate warning
4)provide reaction time and manuever space
5)maintain enemy contact

I'm going to assume average dice rolls, equal opponents 25% or more terrain, objective style game, and suitably tailored lists.

Of these above, we can toss out a few as not relevant to the game of 40k. Those are 3) from reconnaissance and 2) from security.

Centurian99 favors what I'll term a distributed defense. You give the deep striker no place to mass his forces for a decisive blow- relying on the fact that he has insufficient firepower in his first drop to damage your forces so badly that you cannot achieve force parity or superiority in following turns.

With this is mind, you push maximum (recon) forces forward to determine where the opposition will launch their attack. Once the attack has been launched, you (by viture of your list design) can rapidly orient on secondary and tertiary objectives with a view on completing the primary in the end game (for instance, the destruction of mobile units and units threatening the primary objective).

To complete your objectives, you use superior mobility and larger threat radii which allows you to retain your freedom to manuever. This in turn means you can develop the situation and seize the initiative from an army that by it's very nature needs the initiative to win games.

Deep Strikers need to attack. They need to spend the entire game in close range fire fights and/or close combat. This, along with being able to strike the first blow by the nature of their arrival on the table, is how they seize the initiative. If they are forced to disengage while you can stay engaged, they cede initiative and most likely the battle.

The X factors are how mobile the deep stikers are and how much long range firepower they have. If they can solve those two problems (and I don't know of a deep strike army that can) then the distributed defense is a wash since you lose your two advantages.

I see Stelek's "defense in depth" as adhering to the fundamentals of security more than reconaisance. He's oriented on his main body- that is- his high value targets. His recon screen spread out to cover his battle space. This provides reconnaisance since there are less places for highly vulnerable (yet highly deadly) deep strike units to hide. I'm thinking flamers here but I'm sure you can think of others as well.

His main body now has early and accurate warning on enemy threats. Now, not only does he know what the enemy threat consists of (by virtue of knowing what his opponent has brought for an army) but he now knows what the opposing commander's Most Probable Course of Action is based on his deep initial deep strike. This way, he can move to counter the MPCA while taking steps to limit the MDCA (most dangerous course of action)

Most importantly, his main body is provided with reaction time and/or manuever space. By seeing where the enemy is and just as importantly, is not; Stelek now has time to either shoot/assault the enemy to death or manuever his main body/unengaged screens to facilitate the same local superiority that Cent's distributed defense hopes to achieve.

Maintaining enemy contact in both cases is key. Podding armies are going to try to play LOS games with you, Daemon armies are going to try to hide as they close in for the kill. The more that you can play your game and he is forced to adapt to you, the better your game will go. Press your attack, deep strike armies don't like to be on the defensive- and don't let them play their game.

Ideally, this is done by outranging/manuevering your opponent. If he can't hurt you while you can hurt him, you've won. Another way to do it is to "fix" your opponent in place, letting your main body manuever for the objective/kill. The third (least desirable option) is to outfight your opponent. Most deep strike armies want you close. They only have knives so they want you in a knife fight. Fighting them on their terms is handing your enemy the initiative and asking for a loss.

Obviously, alot of those points could apply to either Cent's or Stelek's tactics but it's all generalisation. Does it fit perfectly? no, but I think it's pretty good. I think Stelek's defense in depth is easier to pull off, relies less on list design, and is easier to "grok." Centurian's relies on specific list designs (mobile with long/medium threat radii), no single lynchpin units, and an opponents unwillingness to take fairly significant risks.

That's my 4 cents (too long to be 2 cents)

@Cent, I played in an RTT today at Third Planet Torrance and I did play your stealer-shock list. I faced a Necron and 2 SM lists. Both SM lists used some deepstriking/drop podding. I employed your defense and I was able to minimize the effects of the drop pod/deepstrikers. I went 3-0.

Thanks for the advice.

@Stelek, don't be jealous of my complimenting Centurion99. Someday you might do something that may engender admiration from others, but I doubt it.

Darrian

They both have valid points I think. A universal deep strike defense is pretty hard to come up with. Ideally, you would have several options. One for podders, one for teleports, one for daemons.

Also, Darrian, I don't think some deep striking is really the same as a deep strike army. If there are elements of the enemy army already on the board, this changes the nature of the game substantially for any number of really obvious reasons. So, out of curiousity, when you say "some deepstikers/ podding," how much are you actually talking about?

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:<snip> lots of good commentary</snip>
That's my 4 cents (too long to be 2 cents)

That's at least a quarter. You're absolutely right that I prefer a distributed defense, and that I prefer to avoid the decisive blow by giving my opponent no place to really deliver it.

Darrian13 wrote:Thanks for the advice.

Always welcome. Out of curiosity, was the Necron list a standard Necron list or a destroyer Flying Circus? I still haven't figured out how to crack the Flying Circus build...the closest I've come was a near-draw (lost, but was a 2+ roll away from a draw).

Wait, darrian insulted me again?

This is new? News?

lol we all laugh at the predictability.

Ok I played too many games yesterday lol soooo I didn't take any pics. I'm setting up some scenarios now though for this, so I'll be able to get some pics up.

I think I'll put them in a separate thread to better focus the discussion.

Darrian13-
@Stelek, don't be jealous of my complimenting Centurion99. Someday you might do something that may engender admiration from others, but I doubt it.

Good tactics is good tactics, despite the delivery/tone/arguments/snipes.

He has admiration from me on a few points-so lay your doubts to rest, Sir.