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There is often a discussion about whether something is a strategy or tactic so here are the definitions I use:
Strategy: A Strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. Also, the science and art of military command exercised to meet the enemy in combat under advantageous conditions

Tactics: a: The science and art of disposing and maneuvering forces in combat b: the art or skill of employing available means to accomplish an end

From my perspective, strategy is used when creating the army list (choosing concepts, selecting units, and defining roles). Tactics is how I deploy and maneuver them on the battle field to fulfill those strategies.

** I borrowed these definitions from a wiki and Merriam-Webster. **

I agree; insofar as Warhammer 40k is concerned army building is strategy, doing stuff on the board with that army is tactical.

Which is why it's kind of odd when people tend to give strategic advice in this forum (problem with unit X? Take unit Y!), rather than figuring out what sort of tactics to apply given a particular set of strategic concerns (armies, mission, terrain, victory, etc).

I would also extend strategy to the set up of your army. Seeing the board and deploying along your strategy with your armies strengths and weaknesses in mind. Everything after that is following your strategy hence tactics. So start of turn one seems to be a tactical game at that stage.


Just my 2 cents...

Making plans at the beginning of the game based on the terrain and what you now know of your opponent's force would seem be the final level that could be considered strategy, before the in-game conduct of tactics.

Good army design includes strategic thinking about how your army will capture objectives, conserve kill points, deal with particular enemy armies or situations, etc.

"Take unit x to defeat unit y" is very simple and easy, and (in fairness) IS applicable to many people's local play environments, in which they face a known opponent and have the luxury of tailoring a list. It can be applicable to unknown opponents too, if you know that a particular powerful unit is generally popular, or that it presents a particular threat to YOUR army, for which you need a counter.

I agree though, that posts in the Tactics forum are most apropos and interesting when the original poster poses a problem which needs to be addressed AFTER the list-design stage. "Using these tools, how do I achieve x?" Where "x" is killing a particular enemy unit, or making the best of a particular tactical challenge. But these threads do require more time and work, and for the original poster to be detailed in their description of the challenge.

I think the terms are a lot more vague than any one definition would imply.

Generally they seem to be a matter of scale. Strategy being on a larger scale than tactics.

Regardless, I don't think there is much benefit to defining these terms too rigorously. If somebody uses the word "tactic" to describe something you think is a "strategy" or vice versa, it's really not going to impair your understanding of what they're saying, nor is it going to undermine the utility of the strategy/tactic.

Mannahnin:

It might be helpful to think of strategy as planning to achieve some goal, whereas tactics are the method used to achieve that goal.

Consider the Prisoner's Dilemma, for example. Your goal, in the PD, is to get the best result possible given whatever strategy your opponent may choose. There are no tactics, because the only decision in the game is what to do given which strategy your opponent may choose.

If, however, you could extend the Prisoner's Dilemma over multiple iterations such that each iteration of the game was a turn in a larger game, then you could make tactical moves during each iteration directed towards the strategy of the larger game.

In Warhammer 40k, for example, you could parse this to mean that every decision you make as a player can be considered as a strategy, and that every option for enacting that decision is a tactic. You may, for example, wish to destroy an enemy vehicle as your strategy for that turn. Your tactics, in this example, may be the options of charging the vehicle with unit x, shooting it with unit y, or holding it in place with unit z (guess the army you're using in this example!).

But considering games of Warhammer 40k in the abstract, and from the beginning, how the game is set-up determines your strategy for winning, and what happens on the board are the tactics you use for implementing that strategy.

Though this may make me seem unimaginative, I think that the difference between strategy and tactics is objective, and one based mostly on semantics.

Ex:

"What tactics will I use to achieve my goal?"

"What strategies will I use to achieve my goal?"

maybe it sounds different, but is it wrong? Does the difference really make any difference?

If it does, I would like someone to prove it to me by telling me which one of those is the correct sentence and why, and if it sounds like an english assignment... sorry.

Shrike78 wrote:Though this may make me seem unimaginative, I think that the difference between strategy and tactics is objective, and one based mostly on semantics.

Ex:

"What tactics will I use to achieve my goal?"

"What strategies will I use to achieve my goal?"

maybe it sounds different, but is it wrong? Does the difference really make any difference?

If it does, I would like someone to prove it to me by telling me which one of those is the correct sentence and why, and if it sounds like an english assignment... sorry.

No, they're not the same. I think the difference is fairly clear.

Strategy: I want to get my marines into a short range firefight.

Tactic: I use Gate of Infinity to teleport into rapid fire range.

BTW does anyone a have a video of McCain discussing the difference between tactics vs. strategy from the debates? Because that moment made me laugh

Shrike78:

You're correct that the difference between tactics and strategy is objective, since it is the same for everyone, and you're correct that the difference is semantic, to do with the meaning of the terms.

However your example is wrong.

Where we take the term 'tactics' to be synonymous with 'means', and we take the term 'strategy' to be synonymous with 'ends', then:

S1. "What means will I use to achieve my goal?"

S2. "What ends will I use to achieve my goal?"

S1 does not mean the same as S2, and S2 means the same as:

S3. "What goals will I use to achieve my goal?"

S3 is not empty though, since one can take the steps required to reach an over-arching goal and set goals for those steps, in effect nesting a series of goals so that their ordering and collection constitutes a tactic.

Likewise in S1 the means need not, and often cannot, be analyzed into further means and ends since it is possible for the means to some end to be merely procedural rather than constitutive of strategic options.

40k is more about list-building than it tactics. Usually a player with the stronger list can make more mistakes than his opponent. The only real tactics involved is the movement phase. Morale in 40k is a joke, shooting is far-less devastating than HtH, and very shallow mission objectives.

Please dont look at this discussion as its a military operation, because you will forget that this is a game and games are on or lost on strategy rather than tactics.

I disagree on both counts.

One can have a good game of 40k (perhaps even a better game) where one forgoes the list-building aspect.

As for disregarding tactics in a game, that's a bad idea where 40k is concerned.

There's plenty of tactics in the shooting phase, particularly since infantry now how the option of running instead of shooting, including the order in which weapons are fired, which weapons are used, and the concentration of fire a player is interested in exerting.

Obviously there are tactics in the movement phase since that is where lines of sight become open, units arrange themselves in formation, and the next two phases are generally set up.

The assault phase in particular depends on the prior two phase, but like the shooting phase it depends on the order in which assaults are resolved in order to weaken whatever material advantages the defending side may have and to set up restrictions on their movement in the following turn.

I don't see how anyone has looked at this game as anything like a military operation since the framework of tactics and strategies is game-theoretic rather than any attempt to model "real-life" or whatever the kids are calling it these days.

Strategy: What you plan to do...

Tactics: how does it get done...

QFT Orkmi.

Strategy: "The talk".

Tactics: "The walk".

thehod wrote:40k is more about list-building than it tactics. Usually a player with the stronger list can make more mistakes than his opponent. The only real tactics involved is the movement phase. Morale in 40k is a joke, shooting is far-less devastating than HtH, and very shallow mission objectives.

Please dont look at this discussion as its a military operation, because you will forget that this is a game and games are on or lost on strategy rather than tactics.

The physics from Warhammer 40k and real life are different obviously, but every game has its own strategy and tactics. How do you pick which unit to shoot with your lascannon? Where do you place your sniper team? Do you try to load up one flank or spread out evenly? Etc etc.

Compare those tactical choices to actual tactics. Read FM 7-8, Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad, or any other field manual, for examples of what 40k categorically fails to implement.

Before you whine that 40k is a game, I must remind you that 40k is a wargame, and as such, needs to include the whole war part. Right now, 40k is weighted far more towards the game aspect of that, as the vast majority of winning army list use "gamey" gimmicks to win, rather than actual thinking.

Ogiwan wrote:Before you whine that 40k is a game, I must remind you that 40k is a wargame, and as such, needs to include the whole war part.

Have to disagree here. Clearly one of the main facets of designing any given wargame is deciding HOW MUCH of the “whole war” you are trying to simulate. There’s an incredible spectrum available, and realism is by no means the primary determinant of a game’s quality. Chess is much less simulationist than Warhammer, but that doesn’t make it an inferior game.

Ogiwan wrote:Right now, 40k is weighted far more towards the game aspect of that, as the vast majority of winning army list use "gamey" gimmicks to win, rather than actual thinking.

I’m not sure if you’ve got the wrong idea here or just expressed yourself wrong. “Actual thinking” doesn’t have to be about real life tactics. There’s a lot of real thinking in well-played Chess and Poker (and yes, even well-played 40k), regardless of how little relation it bears to any real-world situation.

“Gamey gimmicks” are in the eye of the beholder. I disgree with your “vast majority” assertion. It doesn’t match my experience.

I'd have to agree with Mannahnin here. A wargame is still a game, and should be treated as a game. You might as well claim that war fiction should be treat like war rather than fiction. Well, I'm sorry, the subject of a game does not affect the fact that its nature is that of games and not the subject.