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“The supreme art of war is to win without fighting.” -Sun Tzu

In today’s world of mathematical efficiency and strong emphasis on list building, the art of table top maneuver is being lost. An appreciation of the effects of terrain and cover, as well as how those advantages can be both exploited and mitigated, risks being lost through simplistic answers such as “Take more flamers.” Speed is losing its place on the discussion boards in favor of firepower and survivability without any real appreciation of its advantages except in terms of late-turn objective grabbing. The truth of the matter is that an army build on speed can shape a fight even before the first dice is rolled through a thorough understanding of its strength and weakness.

1. The Attribute Triangle and Trade Offs

Each unit in the game encompasses three attributes: speed, firepower and survivability. As part of the game balance, most units are only strong in two of these three attributes. Vypers have good speed and firepower, but are not very survivable. Terminators have good firepower and survivability, but are incredibly slow. Some units are even able to trade between attributes. Eldar Grav tanks moving flatout have good speed and survivability, but lose all their firepower that turn. They can also choose to move slower to reduce their speed and survivability, but increase their firepower.

This balance of attributes necessitates tactical decision making on the part of the player every turn. Is it better to move a vehicle a slight distance and take a shot at the side armor or am I better off leaving the vehicle in place to maximize its firepower at the front armor? Will maneuvering forward increase my survivability because now it’s more difficult to hit my vehicle in close combat or put me behind cover? Do I accept risk with my maneuver by potential being in assault range of something if my shooting does not destroy it? Answering these questions can be partially done with math (i.e. aim I more or less likely to destroy the target with a side armor shot than I am with two, three, etc. front armor shots?), but it also requires understanding how to best maneuver your models on the table top. Sometimes the right move is to shift units at oblique angles so that they can benefit from increased survivability (i.e. moving behind cover low enough to prevent enemies beyond it from claiming a cover save) while still attaining a more advantageous firing position.

Once you have analyzed the situation and understand the tradeoffs your units must make, you can prioritize which trade offs are most important for fulfilling your tactical objectives. In a kill point mission, you might choose to fall back a unit behind cover to increase its survivability (commonly known as “kill point denial”) whereas in an objective mission you might push a reduced troops choice forwards because its presence on the objective is more important than the advantages of any nearby cover. Of course, in an ideal situation you could have both cover and an objective but such ideals rarely occur. It is also important to consider which units you are willing to expose to increased firepower in the short term in order to destroy a high value enemy target (i.e. are you willing to put your fire warriors into the open to slow down the orc nobs barreling down on your position?).

2. Being the Tiger

Ho Chi Minh once said “It will be a war between an elephant and a tiger. If the tiger stands still, the elephant will crush him, so the tiger never stands still.” This quote accurately describes 40K units that rely on speed for their survivability. Vypers perform best at long ranges, where they are outside the range of most small arms and high rate of fire weapons and able to snipe at exposed flanks and quickly able to reposition to meet any units sent to chase them down.

Armies successfully built on speed require an intimate understanding of each unit’s strengths and limitations. Committing an Eldar jetbike squadron too early will only result in their death, because the 3++ save does not compensate adequately for being only T4. A 12” regular move allows bike units to be relatively dispersed and then quickly concentrated to combine their firepower against a single enemy target (much like the Chinese “cloud” formation). The same applies for vehicle mounted infantry units and jump infantry. Through careful positioning, experienced players can engage isolated enemy targets from maximum range, destroying them to prevent assaults and then dispersing their fast units again to encourage the enemy to split off and isolate another unit while chasing down the aggressors.

Especially in objectives game, speed-based armies need to begin encouraging opponents to split their forces through objective placement. With multiple units capable of turbo-boosting or moving flat out, players should spread objective liberally across the board. This encourages opponents to deploy dispersed to contest multiple objectives and allows your army to take advantage of its superior mobility to achieve local superiority at a given point.

You can also encourage opponents to split off units by providing diversionary units, such as Scouts or Pathfinders, which your opponent sends out units to confront. This is especially effective if those units are holding objectives. This forces your opponent to make the strategic trade off of conceding control of the objective or exposing part of his force to contest it. See the below figures for visual depiction of this.

In conclusion, speed is an under rated attribute in the current 40K discussion forums because it is difficult to quantify. There are no easy percentages to calculate that show you a tangible battlefield effect. It does however have a profound effect on the battlefield that can be exploited to gain a continuous and systemic advantage.

An excellent treatise.

A fantastic and enjoyable writeup (though I'll admit my bored line ADD butt only made it through portions)

As an eldar player I use speed, maneuvering, and distractions as an every game staple. Hell I even put a sword the size of a wraithlord on my wraithlord to say "shoot this big nasty thing running at you" so that hopefully they don't care for the jetbikes and serpents that are seemingly harmless.

Good thread, very true.

Remember your opponent and your dice have a say in it.

This is the first guide on maneuverability in 40k.
It is especially applicable to fast forces like Eldar.

I think that if you were to read through the army list forums, you might be surprised at the evidence to the contrary of your post. Over the last year, lists have shifted towards mechanization and speed.

Ork players have been shifting to KoS involving trukks and battlewagons, or stormboyz crossing the board quickly.

Tau players have sworn off the gunline (much to my chagrin because I still swear by it) in favor of mechanized Tau or "Hybrid" tau that have elements of speed; a lot of folks will tell you that firewarriors inside a devilfish with the ability to rapidly re-deploy and shift around the battlefield.

Eldar need no explanation, but their own mechanization and speed need no support.

Dark Eldar have always been a speed-based army and that hasn't changed.

Tyranid players are using ever increasing amounts of genestealers to maximize their speed and ability to outflank and close with an enemy quickly.

I see a lot of drop pod lists to define the battlefield, space marines using speeders and fast vehicles to bring multi-meltas downrange quickly, Necrons using scarabs to control the battlefield through fast movement, deep-striking monoliths....

I think that speed is increasingly an integral part of army lists. I'm not sure what 40k discussion forums you browse, but I read dakkadakka's religiously and think that the contrary to your post has been evolving.

I have read the army list forums, but I tend to disagree that mechanization equates to speed in that case. The majority of people seem to advocate transports for improving the squad's survivability rather than outright maneuver piece. The SM plasma wagon comes to mind as a good example (10 Tac Marines, Plasma Cannon, Plasma Gun in a Rhino). The IG Mech Vet chimera as a melta gun delivery system is not far behind, its sole purpose being to keep the troops alive long enough for them to close the range. Even the mechanized orcs look more at speed in a straight line threat movement rather than actual maneuver (i.e. "I can assault a total of 28" out of my truck" rather than "If I shift 13" to the flank this turn, my opponent is too slow to shift his forces to match and I can roll his army up from the flank").

While maneuver discussions might be occuring offline, I see very little evidence of them on Dakkadakka.

I think the idea isn't that lists aren't using speed, it is just that they are not using it to their complete advantage.

40k boards are not big enough to emphasize speed to outmaneuver your opponent.

You should put this into the Articles, and we could start up the actually "Manuever-based and tactical 40k" section this site should already have.I've got quite a few mavuevers with Rhinos and stuff that I would like to share.

@ cryonicleech: Very well put. Thank you.

@ zack: Write it up and I'll edit it in.

Hell, looking back today, I had a chance to use this exact same tactic today, but failed to utilize it.

I believe that maneuver is still very important in 40k, whether you are an assault type or or a shooty type army.

For an assault type army, your maneuver and movement determines who and how you assault. Remember there are set rules in assault in 40k which limits how you move your assaulting models, and whom to contact. Thus the movement phase is CRITICAL for an assault army to properly pull of it's assaults.

For any shooty army with an form of mobility, then proper positioning will oftentimes make the difference between a shot versus the front vs flank armor, and vice versa especially if your mobile unit is a tank. In addition, even infantry will have to be moved in order to take advantage of possible flank shots as well as crossfire opportunities. The treatise above also reminds me of the WD article on split deplyment where the IG force has a sacrificial as well as a victory flank, which is also a very valid treatise. A veteran player will recognize opportunities where it is more worthwhile to move some units instead of shooting, in anticipation of possible situations which may occur in the future. This is especially true of today's scenarios where capturing and holding something is more important than wiping out the enemy.

I put a heavy emphasis on mobility in almost all my games. The ability to maintain you own mobility while restricting your opponents is an often overlooked part of 40K.
Maybe because it is not easily quantifiable.

The use of Rhinos, Chimera, Trukks, Drop Pods et al as mobile terrain channeling your opponent or to screen friendly units is a quite powerfull tool in any armys arsenal.

PanzerLeader wrote:I have read the army list forums, but I tend to disagree that mechanization equates to speed in that case. The majority of people seem to advocate transports for improving the squad's survivability rather than outright maneuver piece. [snip] Even the mechanized orcs look more at speed in a straight line threat movement rather than actual maneuver (i.e. "I can assault a total of 28" out of my truck" rather than "If I shift 13" to the flank this turn, my opponent is too slow to shift his forces to match and I can roll his army up from the flank").

While maneuver discussions might be occurring offline, I see very little evidence of them on Dakkadakka.

+1. From the vast majority of discussion I've seen, Ork transport discussion revolves around three considerations: what turn will I get to charge, how many boys will it dump out, and how likely is it explode before I get there? Rhinos are, for SM, essentially mobile bunkers (although not terribly strong ones, the word "survivability" almost always accompanies the discussion), at best - otherwise they serve to rush tac squads to objectives and then sit there as terrain pieces, or jam up firing/movement lanes... and sit there as terrain pieces.

Good article,

The ability to use this strategy does depend on the race your playing.
Even with a heavily mech'd SM/CSM/Ork army this is difficult to enact over 1 turn, as most units will only be able to move 12inches/turn.
For these armies the unit or group of units will likely only be able to do this 2-3turn manuever once per game.

Tau/Eldar/Crons/DE, can easily pull this strategy off to throw an opponent off balance, as they can move the majority of their forces across large sections of the board in a single turn with fast transports. For these armies this strategy could be used mulitple times in a game.


On Zack's point, this would be great for a strategy/tactics section drawn out in 3-4 turn diagrams with notes.

Even just some basic tactics like Kill point denial, or optimal 1st turn Rhino movement would be usefull.

Not only Eldar have the choice between mobility/speed and firepower, a mechanized IG force has to make this decision all the time, as moving Chimeras inevitably means less firepower, and sometimes it is not only the heavy bolter that cannot shoot but the squad as well, seeing as it often carries short-ranged weapons. Of course they can always get out but then you'll have to chose between firepower and resilience.

It is not an equilateral triangle though. As already mentioned, the limited board size negates many of the benefits high speed will net you.

As the enemy advances; move+assault range constantly constricts the manuvering area available for your forces. A standard foot soldier has a 12" assault range, or a 24" assault diameter, or as far as a bike can turbo boost. While terrain can lower that likely radius, there are always faster units, 18" R; 36" D jump infantry, 20" R; 40" D Land Raider/ Battle Wagon (or 21" R 42" D if red) and even more for specific armies/occasions (i.e. 27" R 54" D on Waaagh!).

And since the vast majority of armies can not escape CC once it is initiated, speed becomes a limiting factor (you have to successfully out manuver every turn, you only have to get caught once)

Add in flankers to make 12" on either side of the board suspect.

Speed and manuverability are a definate factor in the game, but it has to be paired with either supierior fire power or assault to make holes in the enemy constriction of the field of play to make it a real factor.

Kroot Loops wrote:It is not an equilateral triangle though. As already mentioned, the limited board size negates many of the benefits high speed will net you.

As the enemy advances; move+assault range constantly constricts the manuvering area available for your forces. A standard foot soldier has a 12" assault range, or a 24" assault radius, or as far as a bike can turbo boost. While terrain can lower that likely radius, there are always faster units, 18" R; 36" D jump infantry, 20" R; 40" D Land Raider/ Battle Wagon (or 21" R 42" D if red) and even more for specific armies/occasions (i.e. 27" R 54" D on Waaagh!).

And since the vast majority of armies can not escape CC once it is initiated, speed becomes a limiting factor (you have to successfully out manuver every turn, you only have to get caught once)

Add in flankers to make 12" on either side of the board suspect.

Speed and manuverability are a definate factor in the game, but it has to be paired with either supierior fire power or assault to make holes in the enemy constriction of the field of play to make it a real factor.

I agree 100% with your conclusion. But if you notice, I highlighted that all units are strong in two of the three aspects. Units can be fast and survivable or fast and shooty for example. Depending on which two you excel in, you make a tradeoff of somewhere else. For example, bike units trade 12" of movement to use its it firepower or it can sacrifice its firepower to move further and get a 3++ save for increased survivability.

As to the board size, you still have 3456 square inches to maneuver in. There is alot more room on the table than people initially think, especially when they limit the idea of maneuver to simple calculations of assault radius. Sometimes, the right maneuver is to retrograde an inch into cover and then leave your opponent an inch or two short of that assault radius and setting yourself up for a massive turn of fire the next turn.

Like many tactics articles, this one assumes too much that your opponent will play how you want them to play.

Also, there is no mention of range. Range is key, as units with speed can both utilize it well, but are also defeated by enemy units with superior range.

If you think that the "Art of Table Top Maneuver" is being lost, then you're not playing against very good players.

Also, Tau are not in the "speed" category, their skimmer tanks only move as fast as a rhino.

willydstyle wrote:Like many tactics articles, this one assumes too much that your opponent will play how you want them to play.

This describes all theoretical tactics ever discussed both in a board game and in reality. It didn't stop Clausewitz from discussing his ideas or western military from adopting them did it? All theoretical discussion that relates to tactics makes generalizing assumptions.

Personally I found it interesting. I wasn't expecting that theorists like this existed for this game.

willydstyle wrote:Like many tactics articles, this one assumes too much that your opponent will play how you want them to play.

Also, there is no mention of range. Range is key, as units with speed can both utilize it well, but are also defeated by enemy units with superior range.

If you think that the "Art of Table Top Maneuver" is being lost, then you're not playing against very good players.

Agreed. Last game i had below 1000 points i prevented taking any Leman russ shells from my opponents single russ by using a modest hill to block LoS, then a farmhouse, then a powerfist on it.

My friend took out my land raider by preventing me from moving my landraider to garuntee his WB would be able to PK it from a boarding ramp. He parked me in with trucks and the bosses wagon (1 on each side)- i could not even pivot

Range is also vastly important. Your Vyper/jetbikes may have scooted away from the bulk of my force, but my Autocannons can still reach out and put them down.

I'm with willydstyle that range is the most frequently overlooked tactical factor in 40K.

Range has a huge effect on firepower, allowing you to put at *least* an extra shot or two downrange during the course of a game.

Range has a huge effect on survivability because if you can stand off and still shoot, the enemy often can't hurt your shooters at all.

Range negates, to some extent, the need for mobility and impairs the opponent's mobility by blocking fire lanes and destroying transports.

Typhoon speeders versus MM/HF speeders are a perfect example of the huge effect of range. The MM speeders often take out a more important, vital target, but seldom get more than one shot during the course of a game, whereas my typhoons shoot the whole game and actually kill more. My MM speeders always get killed the turn after they shoot (or sooner) while one or more typhoon speeders is nearly always still around at the end of the game. MM speeders mostly have to deepstrike or roar around the board at top speed--only shooting one weapon or the other--while typhoons can nearly always max their firepower if they want by shuffling along at combat speed. The extra 12-24" range of the weapons has a huge impact on how the unit works tactically.

willydstyle wrote:Like many tactics articles, this one assumes too much that your opponent will play how you want them to play.

Also, there is no mention of range. Range is key, as units with speed can both utilize it well, but are also defeated by enemy units with superior range.

If you think that the "Art of Table Top Maneuver" is being lost, then you're not playing against very good players.

Also, Tau are not in the "speed" category, their skimmer tanks only move as fast as a rhino.

You have to make those assumptions. It is impossible to account for every possible reaction your opponent can do when formulating your general plan. In essence, these kinds of articles serve as "doctrinal templates", i.e. they give you a general idea of what you want to do before applying the specific variables of terrain and enemy list/deployment. I do not assume that an Eldar army would fight the same way against foot orks as it would against mech orks. But you can still use general theory before hand. Just like I'm sure Jihallah would have adjusted his plans if the hill and the farmhouse had not been present and he had to fight the same general plan to kill a LR with a slightly different application.

Flavius Infernus wrote:I'm with willydstyle that range is the most frequently overlooked tactical factor in 40K.

Range has a huge effect on firepower, allowing you to put at *least* an extra shot or two downrange during the course of a game.

Range has a huge effect on survivability because if you can stand off and still shoot, the enemy often can't hurt your shooters at all.

Range negates, to some extent, the need for mobility and impairs the opponent's mobility by blocking fire lanes and destroying transports.

Typhoon speeders versus MM/HF speeders are a perfect example of the huge effect of range. The MM speeders often take out a more important, vital target, but seldom get more than one shot during the course of a game, whereas my typhoons shoot the whole game and actually kill more. My MM speeders always get killed the turn after they shoot (or sooner) while one or more typhoon speeders is nearly always still around at the end of the game. MM speeders mostly have to deepstrike or roar around the board at top speed--only shooting one weapon or the other--while typhoons can nearly always max their firepower if they want by shuffling along at combat speed. The extra 12-24" range of the weapons has a huge impact on how the unit works tactically.

Agree with the tactical effects of range. I usually consider it a subsect of firepower and survivability but I will edit to clarify. Right now, range as a tactical consideration could probably be its own article given the vast number of Marine armies designed around Vulkan to fight at 24" or less.

I AM LOVING THE NEW HELLHOUND RULES. 32" Inferno Cannon means the package gets delivered np. I'm also lovin the Lumbering Bohemeth rule... mobile pieplates!

Other posters have made it clear that range is a factor that is involved with all three attributes, but that doesn't kill pan's model on the drawing board. The strenth of it is that the 2/3 attributes paradigm seems pretty solid. We should define 'firepower', 'survivability', and 'mobility' more precisely.

40K uses objectives as victory conditions and therefore we can talk about maneuvre tactics for objectives, but I agree that you can't really talk about 40K maneuvre warfare in general without talking about range, as it's all about getting to or staying out of optimum weapon (or assault) ranges...

I liked this. In my DE Tactica (an army that obligates a player to hone speed as a tool) I include an entry on speed and discussed the ability to redeploy to dictate the pace and location of the battle as well as nabbing/contesting objectives, but it was hardly the place to go into overall general maneuverability tactics. Are you planning to write any more on this? You've barely scratched the surface of battlefield control tactics and how speed, range, and positioning can affect them, and it could be nice to get some discussion in that direction.

I play mostly static IG, so I can't really do any fancy manuevering. I try to make that up with infiltrators (Callidus and Marbo) and weird deployment.

Last game was a 2 objective game against my Necron friend. Well, my infantry got trashed and I couldn't get to his objective in time. The only scoring unit I had left near mine in turn 4 was a meltachimera about 18" away.

He was about to walk over me, so I moved that chimera over to the objective, and pulled all my chimeras/hydras back to the objective and made a 2-deep semicircle around the objective (half was blocked by impassable terrain). Just to piss him off, I did absolutely nothing on turns 6 and 7, and he just tried desperately to destroy my vehicles (a total of 8 AV12 vehicles) to get to the objective. 'Twas funny, and ended with a draw.

Manueverability? LoL

I agree that units have 2 of 3 traits but...

If you have manuevering + surviveability, you may never die, but you are not contributing to the main goal: killing your opponent, and most survivability units cost too many points.

If you have manuevering + surviveability, you usually have to decide between the two each turn and you end up only having one of the two (moving flat out and not shooting or shooting and barely moving)

Thor665 wrote:I liked this. In my DE Tactica (an army that obligates a player to hone speed as a tool) I include an entry on speed and discussed the ability to redeploy to dictate the pace and location of the battle as well as nabbing/contesting objectives, but it was hardly the place to go into overall general maneuverability tactics. Are you planning to write any more on this? You've barely scratched the surface of battlefield control tactics and how speed, range, and positioning can affect them, and it could be nice to get some discussion in that direction.

Yes, I have noticed the need for additional discussion on speed, range, and positioning in my original post. I'm going back and editing it into the word file I have and will post the revision either later today or tomorrow. I've also read your DE Tactica and it was a very good article. Any specific examples you have to contribute to this discussion would be most welcome. I'm not above collobarotion and sharing credit if it makes for a better end product.

Nenya97 wrote:Manueverability? LoL

I agree that units have 2 of 3 traits but...

If you have manuevering + surviveability, you may never die, but you are not contributing to the main goal: killing your opponent, and most survivability units cost too many points.

If you have manuevering + surviveability, you usually have to decide between the two each turn and you end up only having one of the two (moving flat out and not shooting or shooting and barely moving)

You just summarized my exact conclusions from above. Plus there is a difference between speed and maneuver. Before attempting to mock me, please actually take the time to read what was written in both the article and the replies.

Nenya97 wrote:Manueverability? LoL

If you have manuevering + surviveability, you may never die, but you are not contributing to the main goal: killing your opponent, and most survivability units cost too many points.

*sigh*

Perhaps you have never played against a good eldar or chaos player if you think survivability is and speed are unimportant.