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'Evening, ladies and gents!
I'm asking all you veterans out there for your informed opinions on deep striking, and whether it's worth the risks. How can it be employed effectively? Is my and my opponent's luck really just that bad?

I ask because in my limited experience thus far (6 games), I've rarely seen it used successfully.
-A Weirdboy scatter-teleported his unit of ork boyz right into firing range of every one of my units, and died without a chance to scream.
-A tyranid spore pod full of poison-tipped termagaunts rolled a mishap and disappeared into the warp; allowing my army to survive an extra turn with minimal losses and win.
-My Terminator squad, with my Chaos Lord, scattered one inch too far into an enemy unit, rolled a mishap and effectively launched themselves to the bottom of the ocean. This constituted 1/3 of my army points. (Somehow still won that game?!)
The only times it has worked out is with my friend's Dark Angels; his bikes have a homing-beacon-thingy, so he doesn't scatter his terminators. Ever.

So the big question is whether I should bother trying it again. If not, do I have any other options to flank with my CSM army? Is there a hidden way to get a homing beacon, or avoid scatter?

Thankee kindly for your time!

If there isn't a teleport/homing beacon in your book, then you don't get to use one.

Deep striking is a risky maneuver, but one that may pay off well if done correctly. Time to wear the long pants...

The spore pod is really hard to make mishap - just don't target the table edge and you'll be fine.

For some units it's a good idea - small footprint ones mostly. For something like a 20 man Gargoyle squad it's just never a good idea.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
If there isn't a teleport/homing beacon in your book, then you don't get to use one.

Deep striking is a risky maneuver, but one that may pay off well if done correctly. Time to wear the long pants...

Dark Angels however, do not require said pants. IMO that's likely to be repeated in C:SM as well. Because well, marines right.

I should specify, definitely running CSM. No homing beacons, and I've looked hard.
Atm the units I'd be looking at potentially deep striking are my squad of 5 Terminators+termie Chaos Lord, and my black mace DP.

What should I look out for when deep striking? What qualifies as a safe landing spot, and what doesn't?

I use Drop Pods, so that helps. (Pods make it so you don't mishap for scattering onto impassable terrain or other models.) Locator Beacons (which can be taken by Drop Pods in Blood Angels, Dark Angels, and vanilla armies, Scout Bikers in the vanilla dex, and regular ol' scouts in the Blood Angels 'dex) reduce scatter to nothing for any friendly model arriving within 6' of them. Teleport homers, available to a variety of Space Marine sergeants, can reduce scatter for teleporting units (usually terminators).

When it comes to Deep Strike scatter, my feeling is 'no balls, no babies.' Find the optimum position and assume no scatter. I prefer to go with risky and dangerous. That being said, I've scattered over a third of my army off the table before, so take my advice with that in mind. It generally tends to work out more often than not, though. The Deep Strike Mishap table became way more forgiving in 6th edition, so that just encourages even more risky tactics on my part.

I used to never DS my termies in 5th (unless it's marines in pods). But now in 6th, my DA termies are deepstriking left and right, even in a mishap there's less chance of losing the unit outright.

As far as CSM go, you got 2 choices:

-SAFE: place your deepstriking model and make sure you've got at least 12" from impassable terrain or other units

-BALLS TO THE WALL: make sure sure you've got enough room for your squad and pray to the dark gods for a hit

If your DP is DS does that mean he has wings? Because you might be better off starting him on the board and getting into assault range turn 1 (24 inch move) then assaulting turn 2( with a 12 inch move and then 2D6 change). This would also mess up you opponents formation and potentially give you a hole to DS your Termies into. This is from a Non-Chaos player perspective mind, so I might be suggesting a stupid tactic. But this is have I play my Flyrants.

Other than that, as people have said:

Option A: Play the DS safe, with a zone well out of harms way. This means your DS is unlikely to be terrbily effective.
Option B: Take a risk, DS close and pray for a hit or minimal scatter.

I deepstrike a lot, but all my stuff has systems which avoid units/impassable terrain (Nid Spores and Trygons/Mawlocs) and so I only have to worry about table edges, or I have homers (my DA)

Isn't there a piece of wargear that CSM sorcerers can get that stops deepstrike scatter - IIRC you kill someone in cc and no more scattering from deepstrike.
It only works if your other hq is huron so you can infiltrate him somewhere he's liable to get charged turn 1. As if you footslog him forwards, most of your reserves will be on the table already by then. And everyone wants a sorc in cc.


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 phoenix darkus wrote:
-BALLS TO THE WALL: make sure sure you've got enough room for your squad and pray to the dark gods for a hit

+1 This

Was bringing in abaddon - didn't know whether to ds safely or near the vindicator to try and take it out.
Struggled with the decision, got annoyed with myself for taking ages - so I frisbee'd a base onto the table.
Played it from where it landed.

Rolled a hit, shot some meltas at half range = no more Vindicator.

All or nothing!

I have lost a 10 man squad with attached librarian only once. Its worth it 95% of the time. You wanna go for the big win and land in the spot that can cause the most devastation but minimize your chances or scatter death. I pick my spot and then try to measure 7-10 inches from that spot, generally you want that range to be clear. This reduces the chances, if you scatter, of clipping terrain or another model. 11 terminator bases in a cluster is a large footprint so doing this will reduce your chances of loosing them or you opponent getting the chance to place them in an opposite table corner out of the way.

When you land the deep strike where you want it though it can cripple your opponent.

PredaKhaine wrote:
Isn't there a piece of wargear that CSM sorcerers can get that stops deepstrike scatter - IIRC you kill someone in cc and no more scattering from deepstrike.
It only works if your other hq is huron so you can infiltrate him somewhere he's liable to get charged turn 1. As if you footslog him forwards, most of your reserves will be on the table already by then. And everyone wants a sorc in cc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 phoenix darkus wrote:
-BALLS TO THE WALL: make sure sure you've got enough room for your squad and pray to the dark gods for a hit

+1 This

Was bringing in abaddon - didn't know whether to ds safely or near the vindicator to try and take it out.
Struggled with the decision, got annoyed with myself for taking ages - so I frisbee'd a base onto the table.
Played it from where it landed.

Rolled a hit, shot some meltas at half range = no more Vindicator.

All or nothing!

Dimension Key is a Horrible Item.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

PredaKhaine wrote:
Isn't there a piece of wargear that CSM sorcerers can get that stops deepstrike scatter - IIRC you kill someone in cc and no more scattering from deepstrike.
It only works if your other hq is huron so you can infiltrate him somewhere he's liable to get charged turn 1. As if you footslog him forwards, most of your reserves will be on the table already by then. And everyone wants a sorc in cc.

Dimension Key is a Horrible Item.

It is on the shocking side of rubbish/useless.
Any item that requires your opponant to make a mistake is not a good item.

I love deep strike for my Tau. Of course the unit I am deep striking has 3 models and costs less than 100 points, so I can afford to take insane crazy risks with it (and I have a 6" safe landing zone just in case).

The thing about it is that with 2d6 scatter distance you get a bell curve shape (i.e. by far the most likely result is 7", and larger/smaller numbers get progressively less likely the farther they are away from 7").

There's not all that much in the way of impassible terrain on my tables, so I generally place them 8 or 9 inches away from the unit I want to light up in the shooting phase and hope for the best.

The Dimensional Key is really bad - you have to get a kill in close combat as early as possible AND pray that your units don't arrive on turn 2 for it to be useful. It *very* rarely works out that way.

I prefer deep-striking aggressively, but that's because I play Blood Angels and have access to DOA, making the whole thing much friendlier for me. For Chaos, my best advice would be to try and leave yourself a 7" clear zone if you can, as that's the average scatter roll. Something I've tried before which falls somewhere inbetween aggressive and safe is having a completely clear drop zone to one side, even with something close on the other - if you do scatter, that's only roughly a 50% chance that the arrow will point the wrong way.

Lastly, I try to only deep-strike one or two units (now that I can't deep-strike EVERYTHING, that is). Bringing more units in this way only increases the chances of at least one of them having a mishap...

 Super Ready wrote:
The Dimensional Key is really bad - you have to get a kill in close combat as early as possible AND pray that your units don't arrive on turn 2 for it to be useful. It *very* rarely works out that way.

I prefer deep-striking aggressively, but that's because I play Blood Angels and have access to DOA, making the whole thing much friendlier for me. For Chaos, my best advice would be to try and leave yourself a 7" clear zone if you can, as that's the average scatter roll. Something I've tried before which falls somewhere inbetween aggressive and safe is having a completely clear drop zone to one side, even with something close on the other - if you do scatter, that's only roughly a 50% chance that the arrow will point the wrong way.

Lastly, I try to only deep-strike one or two units (now that I can't deep-strike EVERYTHING, that is). Bringing more units in this way only increases the chances of at least one of them having a mishap...

Alo, increasing your chance of losing because BOTH of them had a mishap. OOps.

How to make Deep Striking good: Assault from Deep Strike.

I deep strike in almost every game, multiple units of TDA. Of course, its a Ghostwing, using Mordrak, a Libby, and a Teleport Homer.

SJ

I love deep striking Warp Spiders, but they basically have built-in protection from bad placement with their jet pack move (previously warp jump), and now even more with Battle Focus.

Deep strike is really a Risk vs Reward thing without some form of beacon/Drop pod.

Don't deep strike huge 1000 point squads with giant 20 model footprints unless you are willing to take the chance of half your army just dropping into the warp, but don't deep strike some piddly little 5 man squad of Tac marines with bolters via Drop pod because they are not gonna do a thing.

I don't Deep Strike without the Tau Warlord trait that gives him and his friends 100% accurate deep strike because I'm not willing to risk 250-300 points on a mishap.

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
I love deep striking Warp Spiders, but they basically have built-in protection from bad placement with their jet pack move (previously warp jump), and now even more with Battle Focus.

Those are the same two reasons to NOT deep strike them - with 6+2d6+d6+2d6 movement (avg 23.5') you don't need to. By turn 2, you can be pretty much wherever you want on the board, and be shooting on the way there with no risk of mishaps.

Belly wrote:

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
I love deep striking Warp Spiders, but they basically have built-in protection from bad placement with their jet pack move (previously warp jump), and now even more with Battle Focus.

Those are the same two reasons to NOT deep strike them - with 6+2d6+d6+2d6 movement (avg 23.5') you don't need to. By turn 2, you can be pretty much wherever you want on the board, and be shooting on the way there with no risk of mishaps.

I find that it messes with my opponent's head a lot more when he knows that they're coming and he doesn't know where from. It also makes it much easier to hit rear armor or put them where they're absolutely needed most.

Deepstriking is far too much of a risk unless you have a bonus to it like drop pods, trygons or descent of angels BAs.

Gaining a small to moderate tactical advantage most of the time isn't worth the risk of losing a game some of the time.

 Carnage43 wrote:
Deepstriking is far too much of a risk unless you have a bonus to it like drop pods, trygons or descent of angels BAs.

Gaining a small to moderate tactical advantage most of the time isn't worth the risk of losing a game some of the time.

What about a large advantage for an infinitesimal risk?

Problems with Deepstrike are horribly overrated.


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Belly wrote:

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
I love deep striking Warp Spiders, but they basically have built-in protection from bad placement with their jet pack move (previously warp jump), and now even more with Battle Focus.

Those are the same two reasons to NOT deep strike them - with 6+2d6+d6+2d6 movement (avg 23.5') you don't need to. By turn 2, you can be pretty much wherever you want on the board, and be shooting on the way there with no risk of mishaps.

Counterpoint, T3 3+ unit wants the alphastrike, deepstrike greatly increases your odds of getting one.

I use Warpspiders as anti-flyer and anti-vehicle, but what good are they if the Helldrake (example) fires first?

Just realized something, the acronym for "Descent of Angels" also spells "Dead on Arrival"... it's not really a material point, but I think it's funny.


Also, on topic, I just love being able to put a crisis suit with drones anywhere I want. The enemy will often just deploy differently if he knows things are coming in from reserve. That said, I do put a homing beacon on my Ethereal so they can always drop right in the center of the gunline if I want them to.

I should probably just keep them on the board and use them for even more interceptor or something, but having a couple of "throw away suicide crisis suits" meant to drop on something and alpha it to death with plasma/burst cannon is just so incredibly useful from a tactical standpoint.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Just realized something, the acronym for "Descent of Angels" also spells "Dead on Arrival"... it's not really a material point, but I think it's funny.

I've noticed that too. My Salamander Vanguard Vets frequently have DoA too, I joke, just not the good kind...

What about a large advantage for an infinitesimal risk?

Problems with Deepstrike are horribly overrated.

^^ This guy gets it.

Most people have one bad experience, largely amplified because they were going overly aggressive and had some bad luck, and then proceed to remove both baby and bath water from the equation.


Deep striking is a fantastic mechanic for those who know how to wield it. Don't always be super aggressive, but sometimes you should. The cheaper and more redundant the unit (say three solo Mutilators) the more aggressive you should be. Also, always take the current state of the board in before judging how aggressive you can be.

DSing is good, but like a lot of things it depends a lot on the current situation.

If the board is congested with terrain or they have a large horde of stuff; probably not going to want to DS much if anything.

If the stuff you can DS has a large footprint, keep it and mind and realise it's very likely to cause it to mishap if it does come in that way. This is the problem the land raider and wraithknight have. They can, but you probably won't want to.

It's like running, outflanking, etc. Keep in mind the positions and abilities of things to try to take full advantage of it.

33% direct hit

Under 9 inch scatter (83% likelihood) the other 66% of the time.

Make sure you're clear for 7-9 inches in 50-75% of the 360 degrees of your deep strike point.

Odds of a clean, usable strike following these rules is going to anywhere from 66%+ depending on your risk factors.

If their unit is in a straight, narrow line with nothing behind them, feel free to strike right next to them as you will likely scatter over them if a scatter is rolled in their direction.

People tend to either play too cautiously, putting themselves drastically out of position, or without consideration and into a severe risk situation.

Play your odds and play aggressive, but be smart and mind your distances both to and over in the 7-9 inch range.

Unless I've got some sort of "it'll land where it's supposed too" I don't generally deepstrike. I only seem to roll hits on the scatter die when Marbo throws things.

How many drop pods would you consider a good amount in a 1500 pts list? I´m thinking about taking 3 (1 for a dreadnaught, 2 for GH with a RP). Is this sufficient enough?