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I want to hear the pros of cons of reserves. My gaming group (myself included) believes that putting units in reserves is one of the worst things you can do unless a drop pod is included (which garauntees you get your units). Even if the unit can outflank or deep strike, I still think it is absolutely terrible. The meer chance that you may not even get to use those units at any time that is relevant makes it seem not worth it to me.

So tell me: Why do I keep hearing talk about reserves on these forums when reserves seem so insanely bad to me and my gaming group?

Simple and sweet: tyranids, trygon prime and some genestealers in reserve, you can eat almost anything. I watched trygon go down to some ork, only for the next turn all 30 orks get eaten by 8 genestealers.

long and text heavy: trygon cannot mess up a deepstrike, if he lands on enemy units or difficult terrain, he simply moves back far enough to deploy normally, after he is deployed he creates a tunnel that other units can deploy from, so with say trygon and some genestealers in reserve the worst that could happen is that you either end up foot sloggin or don't get to deploy, like you said, but the potenially to drop half your army behind say, an enemy tank line, is what keeps people playing the reserves from what I've seen.

long and text heavy: trygon cannot mess up a deepstrike, if he lands on enemy units or difficult terrain, he simply moves back far enough to deploy normally, after he is deployed he creates a tunnel that other units can deploy from, so with say trygon and some genestealers in reserve the worst that could happen is that you either end up foot sloggin or don't get to deploy, like you said, but the potenially to drop half your army behind say, an enemy tank line, is what keeps people playing the reserves from what I've seen.

I have several problems with this. First off, it isn't like any of them to assault when they come through that tunnel. They pop out, sit there, and then die next turn. For genestealers, you *AT THE VERY LEAST* get to deploy them so where if you roll a 6 on your fleet roll, you can assault on the first turn. And you even agreed with me that your you might not even get to deploy them by keeping them in reserve. Wouldn't they better just starting off on the board? I realize the Trygon is an exception; however, I sort of lump him in with Drop Pods and what-not because he cannot kill himself coming in on deep strike.

I play Eldar first and foremost. Against many armies if I lose the roll to go first *coughIGcough* or against an army like demons or drop pod marines I'll opt to take second turn and deploy my entire army from reserves in larger point games.

In larger point games I usually include an Autarch in my list which grants me a +1 to my reserve roll: 3+ turn two and 2+ turn 3 and 4. This significantly increases the amount of forces arriving and reduces the piece miel nature of reserves.

It allows me to see weakspots in my enemy line, and use the mobility of wave serpents to hit the proper targets with eldar shooting. Coming in from your table edge isn't soo bad when you can move 24 inches with all your units by turbo boosting

I think its a great strategy for Eldar- who can be severely debilitated if they have to suffer an alpha strike or auto hits on tanks before even getting a chance to move. YMMV and I've never tried it with nids.

EDIT to add more sentiments:

With the number of alpha strike lists and units out there, its really nice to just let vendettas filled with melta vets, Shriked up assault marines, LSS and even leafblower IG just sit there giving eachother pink eye for two turns and still arriving en force on the bottom of turn 2.

If you have the right support it can mitigate First Turn Advantage and give the finger to those armies built around that Advantage. Which is awesome.

EDIT 2:

Also its often nice to reserve cheap scoring units (like Eldar Jetbikes) They aren't very killy anyway, but they are super mobile and good for snagging objectives. Placing them in reserves keeps them off the board for a bit longer and hence more likely to still be around to claim those objectives at the end of the game.

Akaean also didn't mention that, if you go second and put everything in reserves, you're always guaranteed to get the first shot.

Also you get an extra shooting phase more than what your opponent gets if you go second and start all in reserve. You get to shoot starting in turn 2, but your opponent doesn't get his first shot until turn 3.

When your opponent has drop pods, chaos daemon or deathwing turn 1 drops, starting all in reserve makes your opponent put those units on the table with nothing for them to attack.

alot of reserve strategy revolves around your army, its ability to take, and dish out a beating, its speed, and optimal range. who gets the first turn is also a big factor.

ill outline why i myself use reserves, and how, and why i think its a viable option.

1. for an army that can dish out alot of hurt but has a hard time absoarbing return punishment, it allows you "some" measure of protection. in that you can see where your opponent deploys, and bring your units on accordingly. this however requires your units to have speed, or long range guns to work effectivly. effectivly you want fast transports, or fast moving tanks, deep sttikers (preferrably ranged) or other quick moving units. (allows you to get to grips quicker, and take advantage of your belated arrival)

2. if your going second, and can dish out a hurt/need to alpha strike to get the game going your way, a reserve army CAN acomplish this. it allows you to see in advance where the enemy deploys, and avoid HIS first turn alpha strike. it basiaclly gives you the first turn, and in objective games, "the hammer" to make a last turn objective grab etc.

3. your optimal range can be a factor with reserve armys as well. if you have a lot of slow short ranged units, or things like devs etc, reserving might not work too well. those units have to sometimes spend 2 turns getting into a firing posistion, and thats probally 2 turns or more into the game. so that leaves MAYBE 1 -2 turns of effectivness. on the other hand, units like dark eldar ravagers, or LRBT that can move and fire with some reliability can benefit from a reserve deployment. when considering your weapons and reserving, if you cant move and fire, or if you have a short range, i would suggest deploying them as "bait" or objective holders. ive done this with some sucsess with a 20 man dark eldar warrior unit packing dark lances, or lootas, devestators, etc deploy them on your home base, or with a good LOS of the table and act as a fire base. they will probally attract attention and get killed, but with decent cover/armor hopefully they live, and maybe they draw out the other army into a more favorable posistion. units that aid your deepstrike like scouts make this even better.

so basiaclly it depends on your army, and your method of engagment. if you prefer a fast moving army that can shoot like crazy, or can assault after arriving then a reserve force can be a great way to gain an edge on the game (with regards to objectives or killpoints) and nullify the enemys alpha strike, if you dont go first. likewise, if your going second and the other player reserves everything, it gives you the option to deploy everything and pick him apart as they arrive, or do the same and attempt to out manuvere them.

just be wary of enemies that mess with your reserve roll, deepstrike stuff or armies that are as fast or faster. those can really screw a reserve force up by moving away from threats or capitializing on a scattered deepstrike, and so on. (ive seen assault termies deepstrike in, only to get shredded by shooting on the next turn)

hope that helps...sorry if i rambled.

-edit-
realized after i posted that the time i took pasting my thoughts teogether other people effectivly said the same thing only shorter above. eitherway, good advise and i reccommend trying it out with diffrent units to get an idea of how it works.

Umm... am I missing something or is it random when things come in from reserve? Because, it sounds almost as if you guys always expect for your whole army to come in turn 2 (or at the very least, a very large portion of it). While I can see the benefit making your opponent "waste" their first turn, it is completely random what it is coming in from reserves. Statistically, it should be about half of your army that comes in and does some shooting. But, then their WHOLE entire army fires back. How is that an advantage exactly? Are there lists where one could fully expect for HALF of his ENTIRE army to be blown to smithereens on the very first turn of shooting? Otherwise, wouldn't you be better of just starting with everything on the board and positioning your army in such a way to maximize the amount of cover saves you would receive since you know you are not going first?

Ok. So there are a few things that Eldar specifically have going for them. I can't speak for other armies as I don't reserve with them.

First the Autarch gives +1 to reserve rolls, meaning 2/3s of the Eldar army moves in on turn one, and everything comes in on a 2+ from turn 3 on

Second its very difficult to set up an army so that you can cover the entire board with 100% effectiveness. When you come on from reserve you place your incoming forces in a shadow of the opponents fire power so to speak, where less than the full volume of your opponents force can be brought to bear- due to range, due to LoS blocking terrain, what have you. Generally its not uncommon for me to get 2/3s of my army and be vulnerable to less than half of the opponents shooting.

Third: redundancy helps you know what units you get. having multiple dragon squads, multiple anti infantry troop squads, gives you some solid idea of generally what assets can be expected on the board.

In the end I'd much rather deal with a little uncertainly than eat an alpha strike from mech vets and be pounded by LR battle tanks for a turn before I even get a chance to turbo boost... I think my odds are much better playing an autarch enhanced reserve game TYVM.

EDIT: This is especially especially true against drop pod lists. A bunch of foot slogging marines with melta guns and flamers is hilarious. You come in on turn 2 against an immobile opponent with no range, no way he can retaliate effectively.

Kurce wrote: But, then their WHOLE entire army fires back. How is that an advantage exactly?

Aha, but their whole army doesn't fire back. Half of your army, 2/3 for Eldar with an autarch or IG with an astropath, should be able to dish out enough shots to decrease, or possibly cripple, the opponent's firepower when you move on in turn 2. (If it can't then you shouldn't be reserving).

Here, read some sample battle reports that should help make it clear:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/340795.page

My Chaos Chosen Marines always come in from reserve.

All the better to kill,when you are behind the enemy lines.

Flavius has got it. Reserves are good when you feel that proper application of part of your force is enough to cripple or handicap the enemy. If you think 1/2 your army shooting when they come in is enough to cripple the enemy in the right spots (and for some armies it is) then reserving is a good way to garuantee you get those shots and don't get alpha struck yourself.

I have also seen it used defensively with a lot of success. Go second, reserve, 1/2 your army isn't even on until turn three, and there is a real chance the enemy only has turns 4 and 5 to shoot at half your army. If the match up is right, you can put close combat troops on objectives in those two turns, your shooty based enemy simply doesn't have enough shooting phases to get rid of you, and they can't come close to you because you'll assualt them to death.

It's all situational, but knowing how to make the best out of every situation is what makes you a great player.

Kurce wrote:I want to hear the pros of cons of reserves. My gaming group (myself included) believes that putting units in reserves is one of the worst things you can do unless a drop pod is included (which garauntees you get your units). Even if the unit can outflank or deep strike, I still think it is absolutely terrible. The meer chance that you may not even get to use those units at any time that is relevant makes it seem not worth it to me.

So tell me: Why do I keep hearing talk about reserves on these forums when reserves seem so insanely bad to me and my gaming group?

Reserving can be very good, and critical for some armies. Outflanking is my personal favorite, but deep striking and coming in from your edge are all viable options. I really don't know where to begin here...

I will start off with my situation. I run a fairly static and fluffy Imperial Fists list. While my army is almost always deployed on the table, I still run small units of scouts and usually outflank them. Outflanking scouts (storms, bikes, on foot) is a very nice anti-tank, or anti infantry reserve force for my main army. They rarely let me down. Sometimes, if I lose 1st turn and the enemy has a ton of anti-light armor (hydras ect), I will place my Land Speeder typhoons in reserve to ensure they at least get one shot off.

Sometimes, in spearhead deployment, regular units can be put in normal reserve and act as a pseudo outflanking unit, the way the deployment is set up.

Some armies rely heavily on reserves. Daemons is a 100% reserve army. Descent of angels, Dual Autarch, drop pod lists, outflanking lists (khan ect), and other specialty reserve lists rely heavily on reserves, and usually have some kind of bonus to reserves to make it worthwhile. Normal armies will reserve to counter this sometimes, and it essentially becomes a battle to force 1st turn on the other player, so the person going 2nd can beta strike.

Some armies are forced to go all reserve. If a Dark eldar flying circus loses first turn to a full mech IG parking lot, they have no choice but to go all reserve, otherwise they would be wiped off the board in the 1st turn shooting phase.

It all depends on the situation, and a good general will assess the situation, and determain what needs to be reserved - if anything needs to be reserved at all.

Reserves is a powerful but risky option. Static shooting elements do not benefit from them much, however mobile and fragile elements do. I use reserves a lot even with my Space Marines - no one likes to see a landspeeder come in and get a shot off before you can respond to it. A static gunline might hold its counter-assault unit in reserves to make it immune to early shooting.

However, I most often use reserves with my Dark Eldar. They can't take a hit. Therefore the idea is to hit hard enough that you don't get hit back. Losing a roll for first can means I don't get the option of deploying AND hitting first most of the time, so that means that most or all is going to come in from reserves. This also effectively gives more game turns of play to the player going second and reserving everything. If I know my opponent will be reserving his stuff and I win first, I will likely even hand them first turn and reserve everything myself, just to make sure I get that first hit.

Reserves are far from useless. My guess is that may local players from the OP play MEQ, where reserves are not needed as much.

Kurce wrote:I want to hear the pros of cons of reserves. My gaming group (myself included) believes that putting units in reserves is one of the worst things you can do unless a drop pod is included (which garauntees you get your units). Even if the unit can outflank or deep strike, I still think it is absolutely terrible. The meer chance that you may not even get to use those units at any time that is relevant makes it seem not worth it to me.

So tell me: Why do I keep hearing talk about reserves on these forums when reserves seem so insanely bad to me and my gaming group?

Rhino rush. When you rhino rush a marine or guard gunline, and you get there and 20/30 tac marines or a platoon of guardsmen show up...

Teaches ya reeeaaaal quick and good. Some armies more so than others. I'll also point out if you roll a spearhead deployment, your table edge is the long edge (ahaha i just remembered last time I did that with two vindicators. Flanked by siege tanks haha)

Oddly enough in most cases reserving vindicators is not a good idea. They generally need a turn to move before they can start shooting. You want to reserve units that are going to be effective as soon as they arrive. That's not to say there is no reason to ever reserve a vindicator, but rather that vindicators themselves do not posses the qualities of a unit you would normally want to reserve.

Dracos wrote:Oddly enough in most cases reserving vindicators is not a good idea. They generally need a turn to move before they can start shooting. You want to reserve units that are going to be effective as soon as they arrive. That's not to say there is no reason to ever reserve a vindicator, but rather that vindicators themselves do not posses the qualities of a unit you would normally want to reserve.

Of course. I'm just saying the situation where vindicators will pop up on the side of the enemies force is a good example of when to reserve. Doesn't have to be a vindi- could be a rhino with marines, going for the objective not in your quarter for example. The vindicators are "x", replace them with what the situation calls for. But based on previous experience, In a spearhead deployment, things are going to get up close and personal, quick. I find most times when the tables split in quarters my vindicators have to either shoot through too many objects that their targets in cover all the time, or theres CC blocking the shot/leaving me unable to shoot the unit i want to, or i move around the side, opening my side armour up in a big way.

Or i could reserve them and have them rock up on your flank.


...I'm just sayin'

In an objective game, when you have troops that would do nothing but sit on their butts camping the objective, you reserve them and have them get into their position later in the game, when the opponent has a lesser chance of wiping them out before games end- think of fire warriors in a devilfish.

Also, The chance of deep strike mishaps isn't really that high unless you play with butt tons of impassable terrain.

But at the end of the day, reserving works best when it is part of a larger gameplan, not just doing it haphazardly.

Slick wrote:In an objective game, when you have troops that would do nothing but sit on their butts camping the objective, you reserve them and have them get into their position later in the game, when the opponent has a lesser chance of wiping them out before games end- think of fire warriors in a devilfish.

Also, The chance of deep strike mishaps isn't really that high unless you play with butt tons of impassable terrain.

But at the end of the day, reserving works best when it is part of a larger gameplan, not just doing it haphazardly.

Exactly. Troops doing nothing but camping on an objective is a solid choice of reserves. You can also use them to shore up your line where you need it, and if they are in a transport they can come on the field away from their objective, help gun down some stuff, and scoot over to the objective. I do this with Marines (of all flavors) fairly often, it can be highly useful to have a full fresh squad to bulk up my forces.

classic example: If the prince had been at the battle on time, the Austrian flank would not have moved forward, and would have held in their solid defensive position. Their flank got wasted in an attack that wasn't even part of the defensive plan, because the generals found it dishonorable to hold the line against nothing. When the Prince DID rock up, with his fresh 100,000 men, they steamrolled the Austrians.
"When on July 3, 1866, the Prussians attacked, Benedek had a numerical advantage. Yet he expected to face only the Prussian First Army, and the arrival of the Prussian Second Army under Crown Prince Frederick William, attacking the Austrian flank at Chlum, disrupted the Austrian lines. Benedek ordered a retreat and crossed the river himself in the evening and informed the emperor that the catastrophe he had feared had indeed taken place."

This stuff so doesn't work IRL! Shoosh you

There are only about two MEQ equivalent armies at my gaming group. One plays Plague Marines, squads of 7, all in Rhinos, with two plasma guns in each squad, and 3 Defilers with all the guns stripped except for the Battlecannon to get as many bonus attacks as possible in close combat. The other plays a Salamander list with Vulcan with several drop pods full of meltagun/flamer toting Dreadnoughts and tons of Speeders with meltaguns and flamers. Other than that, nobody else up here plays MEQ armies. Occasionally, someone might show up with their Space Wolves, but he plays off the wall lists like all Thunderwolf Calvary and things like that.

However, I most often use reserves with my Dark Eldar. They can't take a hit. Therefore the idea is to hit hard enough that you don't get hit back. Losing a roll for first can means I don't get the option of deploying AND hitting first most of the time, so that means that most or all is going to come in from reserves. This also effectively gives more game turns of play to the player going second and reserving everything. If I know my opponent will be reserving his stuff and I win first, I will likely even hand them first turn and reserve everything myself, just to make sure I get that first hit.

Would you still do this if you ran Vect in your list?

Kurce wrote:The other plays a Salamander list with Vulcan with several drop pods full of meltagun/flamer toting Dreadnoughts and tons of Speeders with meltaguns and flamers.

This salamander list depends a lot on the punch of those podding dreadnoughts, so it's an especially good list to reserve against. He wants to score sucker punches with the dreads' melta on turn 1 and 2, killing a few easy vehicles and then having the walker in your lines.

If you go second and start in reserve, pretty much all the dreads will be on the table by the time you start to arrive turn 2. If they drop anywhere on your half of the table, you can take out the dreads with your own transported melta-type weapons, before they get a shot off. Melta speeders also have pretty short range, so coming on from reserve you can outrange them and kill them before they shoot too.

Kurce wrote:There are only about two MEQ equivalent armies at my gaming group. One plays Plague Marines, squads of 7, all in Rhinos, with two plasma guns in each squad, and 3 Defilers with all the guns stripped except for the Battlecannon to get as many bonus attacks as possible in close combat. The other plays a Salamander list with Vulcan with several drop pods full of meltagun/flamer toting Dreadnoughts and tons of Speeders with meltaguns and flamers. Other than that, nobody else up here plays MEQ armies. Occasionally, someone might show up with their Space Wolves, but he plays off the wall lists like all Thunderwolf Calvary and things like that.

However, I most often use reserves with my Dark Eldar. They can't take a hit. Therefore the idea is to hit hard enough that you don't get hit back. Losing a roll for first can means I don't get the option of deploying AND hitting first most of the time, so that means that most or all is going to come in from reserves. This also effectively gives more game turns of play to the player going second and reserving everything. If I know my opponent will be reserving his stuff and I win first, I will likely even hand them first turn and reserve everything myself, just to make sure I get that first hit.

Would you still do this if you ran Vect in your list?

I play in the same group and there used to be several CSM but for some reason those players either stopped playing or moved to Fantasy (myself getting an Ogre Kingdoms army).

Talking about reserves, the Tau Positional Relay is something I have been interested in using for my 2 Warfish + 6 Fire Warrior squads to get them both to come in on like Turn 3 or 4. This lets my scoring units to come in and shoot a bit then capture/contest an objective before the end of the game but avoiding all the fire. The issue is that them being Warfishes, I really want them in the field. So I might end up running two regular Fishes with Fire Warriors and use the drones to contest objectives late in the game.

But in the end, I really can never get my reserves to work correctly, Tyranid or Tau. And both armies have ways of manipulating the reserves.

Would you still do this if you ran Vect in your list?

I wouldn't run vect. I don't like the idea of deploying as if you are going to seize. Sure you get an extra 16.7% chance to get first turn, but that involves deploying incorrectly 50% of the time. I don't like to lose the game on a single 4+ dice roll.

I don't use seize the initiative much, and the cost of taking a 4+ seize (not just the points) is not worth it imo.

Kurce wrote:There are only about two MEQ equivalent armies at my gaming group. One plays Plague Marines, squads of 7, all in Rhinos, with two plasma guns in each squad, and 3 Defilers with all the guns stripped except for the Battlecannon to get as many bonus attacks as possible in close combat. The other plays a Salamander list with Vulcan with several drop pods full of meltagun/flamer toting Dreadnoughts and tons of Speeders with meltaguns and flamers. Other than that, nobody else up here plays MEQ armies. Occasionally, someone might show up with their Space Wolves, but he plays off the wall lists like all Thunderwolf Calvary and things like that.

That sounds like heaven!!!! I mean the very few MEQs, not the podding dreads, although they would be fun also.... reserve and watch them pod in, then on comes the 4 trueborn blasters in a Venom to his side or rear armor and watch him blow!!!!

but seriously, where can I find this "few MEQ equivalent armies" place that you speak of???

Galador wrote:

Kurce wrote:There are only about two MEQ equivalent armies at my gaming group. One plays Plague Marines, squads of 7, all in Rhinos, with two plasma guns in each squad, and 3 Defilers with all the guns stripped except for the Battlecannon to get as many bonus attacks as possible in close combat. The other plays a Salamander list with Vulcan with several drop pods full of meltagun/flamer toting Dreadnoughts and tons of Speeders with meltaguns and flamers. Other than that, nobody else up here plays MEQ armies. Occasionally, someone might show up with their Space Wolves, but he plays off the wall lists like all Thunderwolf Calvary and things like that.

That sounds like heaven!!!! I mean the very few MEQs, not the podding dreads, although they would be fun also.... reserve and watch them pod in, then on comes the 4 trueborn blasters in a Venom to his side or rear armor and watch him blow!!!!

but seriously, where can I find this "few MEQ equivalent armies" place that you speak of???

Don't get your hopes up. While he is saying there are only like 3 players that play MEQ armies, we generally only have 6 to 8 players at any given time. And some of those other players play Imperial Guard. He also forgot we have a few players that show up rarely and they play Blood Angels and Black Templars.

Zyllos wrote:
Don't get your hopes up. While he is saying there are only like 3 players that play MEQ armies, we generally only have 6 to 8 players at any given time. And some of those other players play Imperial Guard. He also forgot we have a few players that show up rarely and they play Blood Angels and Black Templars.

The majority of my local metagame is Space Wolves, Blood Angels, and Orks, with a small amount of IG. I am the only regular DE player here, we have one occasional Eldar player, and 2 guys that have started DE armies but I have yet to see them on the board. So after dealing with long fang spam, razorback spam, Bjorn, and castling SW, not to mention Baal Predators and Death Company, I am ready to see something that is NOT wearing power armour across the table from me for a change!!!

I wouldn't run vect. I don't like the idea of deploying as if you are going to seize. Sure you get an extra 16.7% chance to get first turn, but that involves deploying incorrectly 50% of the time. I don't like to lose the game on a single 4+ dice roll.

I don't use seize the initiative much, and the cost of taking a 4+ seize (not just the points) is not worth it imo

Care to do the math for me on that 16.7% ? I don't see how it is only 16.7%.

Also, you realize Vect is a powerhouse of a special character, right? The only reason why I am holding off on Hammys is I have heard through the grapevine that GW are releasing new Hammy models along with Venoms in the spring/summer timeframe. I am a big fan of having "official" and straight out of the box stuff. I don't like kit-bashing and custom building models. So, I'll just stick with Vect. He has not disappointed me yet. Well, except this one time when I got really brave and decided to take a Lascannon shot on him instead of an Incubus (all my Raiders/Ravagers were wrecked or near useless so he had nothing else to shoot at) and I rolled a 1 for the Shadow Field. Other than that, he has utterly destroyed everything he has came into contact with. Except that time he got tied up with a Defiler. Luckily, Vect also has Haywire Grenades, but needing a 6 to hit a walker with them pretty much tied him and the defiler up for most of the game.

And I am still leery about the effectiveness of holding your entire army in reserves. There is just something about getting a random part of your army coming in that makes it sound terrible. It might be half. It might be more. Hell, it might be only 2 units that come in. This game has enough randomness as it is, why add even more randomness by holding everything in reserve? Just doesn't seem worth it to me.

EDIT:

Also, a lot of you make it sound like the game is automatically over if you don't get the first turn. If you don't get the first turn, then you should deploy your army accordingly where you can maximize cover saves and what-not. Then, if you steal the initiative, you just move 12" and fire all of your Dark Lances. All DE vehicles are fast skimmers with 36" lances on them. Even if I deploy my army in a defensive manner and get to steal the initiative, it should not be the case where I can't shoot at anything...

You don't have to hod everything in reserve though, you can start with some things on the board, and hold the units that can be clutch later in the game, but are vulnerable early on in reserve.

You don't have to hod everything in reserve though, you can start with some things on the board, and hold the units that can be clutch later in the game, but are vulnerable early on in reserve.

Can you give me an example of a unit that would be "clutch" later in the game? Give me some examples for a KP game and some for an Objective game. I realize that certain units will excel in certain scenarios over others. Also, this sounds like a worse idea. If you are not going first, and you deploy 2/3 of your army, that is less targets for your opponent to shoot at. So now, those units get focus fired even harder than they did before. How is this better?

Kurce wrote:

You don't have to hod everything in reserve though, you can start with some things on the board, and hold the units that can be clutch later in the game, but are vulnerable early on in reserve.

Can you give me an example of a unit that would be "clutch" later in the game? Give me some examples for a KP game and some for an Objective game. I realize that certain units will excel in certain scenarios over others. Also, this sounds like a worse idea. If you are not going first, and you deploy 2/3 of your army, that is less targets for your opponent to shoot at. So now, those units get focus fired even harder than they did before. How is this better?

I know a necron player who always puts all his warriors in reserve. They're unlikely to do any significant damage if they deploy, and it makes him *much* harder to phase out.

I have also done it with a minsize unit of Eldar jetbikes--leave them in reserve and don't use the autarch's reserve roll bonus. Eldar bikes won't do anything on offense, but from reserve they can zoom in turn 4 or 5 when most of the threats have been eliminated (or are occupied) and claim an objective or find cover to conserve the KP.

I haven't seen it first hand, but it seems like it would be the same deal with units of Tau fire warriors. 6 warriors in a basic devil fish aren't a threat to anything, but can come in in the late game (especially using positional relay to limit reserves) and claim objectives when there isn't enough time left for the enemy to deal with them.