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So here's an idea that has been presented to me that I would like to have critiqued by the strategist of dakka.

The plan is to have some immediate, super powerful first turn line breaker. These would be deep strikers that you can rely on to come in on the first turn, infiltrators, etc. Then, one, or at max, two turns later, another group attacks, whether a line of transports with excellent medium/short/ CC specialists, or fast infantry, or bikes or something else that is escaping me. By this time, footslogging reinforcements/ objective takers can close in and do whatever role they are designed to fill.

Have I struck gold? Or have I been left at the station of strategic brilliance and only now noticed it?

Does this plan even work? Or should I just go get some sleep before posting anything else

(edit) I do not believe that I invented this tactic... I know i didn't, I just wanted it critiqued... that's all.

don't hurt me...

Drop Pod Assault is an obvious way to get Deep Strike type deployment on Turn 1.

I think your concept is solid, but perhaps not totally novel, since people have been looking at the Deep Striking Sternguard for a while.

I don't think that attacking in separate waves is a good idea when it can be avoided. Consider: your powerful unit drops down in enemy territory on turn 1. Now, it's your one unit versus the enemy's entire army. Your unit dies. Now, the rest of the army shows up, and it's the opponent's entire army facing your army minus one.

40k 5th ed is mostly about focusing forces so that you eliminate entire enemy units at once without losing anything in return. It's not a bad idea to use surgical strikes with deep strikers like sternguard, but they must be supported. Only a very few units operate successfully in a rambo capacity. For what it's worth, I can't think of one enemy unit that wouldn't make me chuckle if it showed up in the middle of my army, without any backup for at least a turn...

well, unsupported suicide squads are useful on thier own, but you have to balance the costs and risks against the rewards.

cost: will the unit earn it's points back? if not, is the target valuable enough to spend it? (eg. HQ)

risk: can the unit take out the target?

reward: will this unit's sacrifice turn the fight in my favor?

If you don't have a "yes" in each catigory, then it's advisable to not send the unit to a horrible death.


maybe some dreads or termies (can they 'pod in?) could hold out OtOH..

The biggest advantage to using first turn threats is that you can use their speed (or equivalent) to pick and choose which parts of your opponents army to attack.

There is no point drop podding straight into the middle of your opponents fully deployed army, that would be suicide. Instead you must carefully choose which elements to eliminate before your next wave turns up. (This is why games against drop pod armies and demons are often decided during deployment. By castling in a corner you can force your opponent to deal with your whole army at once, rather than just bits of it.)

Once you have dealt with any significant threats with your first wave, your next waves should arrive to deal with (or at least tie up) the majority of your opponents army.

While i think this tactic can be used it requires a well built army AND good playing skills.

As an asside:

Remember kids, army choices dont have to make their points back to be effective. A rhino will almost never directly result in the deaths on enough models to make its points back. Does that mean its not an effective choice? No. Different units have different roles to play on the battlefield. The benchmark is whether a unit is effective at doing a job compared to another. If you build armies based on what will or wont make their points back, you will lose more games than you will win.

The option of a first turn assault is really very good. It's always worth having if it can be gotten reasonably cheaply. It doesn't have to be used that way if it's not useful. It doesn't even have to be supported (as has been said) to get a great result.

For example, the other day I played against relatively static shooty Tau. They castled up in a corner on an objective, and the game basically came down to me killing their troops off that objective. If I had the option to chuck a squad into them on turn one and get a squad or two of theirs locked in combat, they'd either have to let me eat those squads in CC, or counter charge and lose a turn or two of shooting. That in turn would buy the rest of my army time to get up on them. So, in that situation, even if the unit assaulting turn 1 was a total suicide, it'd still make the game a slaugther, as opposed to the more even battle it turned out to be.

It's not meant to use first turn suicide squads... sorta. The plan is to have very powerful squads attack first trun to put your opponent off balance, then by the time your opponent has had time to either kill your troops, or to reform their army to deal with your line breakers, the next wave attacks.

The first turn units are not necessarily suicide units, though that is probably what they will end up being, they are just very threatening units, ones that require immidiate attention and reaction.

It's a plan designed to keep the opponent off balance, and the idea is to deploy units that, even if they are destroyed in the first turn, require some change in your opponenents plan, which will hopefully make your opponent make mistakes, which you can then exploit.

It sounds like a weird plan, to hope that your opponent makes mistakes, but your opponent ALWAYS makes mistakes. In fact, I personally am a lot worse at actual strategy than I am at exploiting errors in my opponents plans.

I think it'll work, but would like more comments.. and votes

I personally use suicide squads with my daemons, and I did use line-breakers as you're talking about in 4e with my necrons. Worked well in 4E, in 5th though the FAQ's reversed how something critical to the strategy worked for my 'crons, so I can't do that anymore. But while I could it worked well, though I think in part it was the idea of necrons assaulting in the first place, and not knowing what wraiths were in the first place, that confused my opponents more than anything.

Now though I'm working on daemons, and there is some difficulty with the random choice of which half the army shows up, but I frequently find my suicide flamers to be invaluable. They drop down, and something dies. It's extremely rare that I can't get more wounds than there are models, so if there's a squad on the table I feel shouldn't be allowed to be there, it's the one that gets hit first, and usually disappears.

I am honored by the number of times I have been called a hack. I voted for that myself...

This is the most votes I've gotten on a dakka dakka poll as well.

and whoever said that they will worship me like a god is awsome...

Mass is on monday so you can skip school/work for religious reasons

Again... the focus is not the first wave. I would argue that the focus is the second wave, as that is the group that comes in after the first wave has forced the opponent to redeploy.