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Usually spreading out so you leave your units "unsupported" against a dropping army is disastrous. The dropping player will get to choose the terms for the fight and thats usually bad news for the defender. Thats why castle defence "usually" works for many armiees. You get all your power against the parts that drop or the dropper will have to drop far away and loose initiative on it(you get to choose the conditions instead). You might not want to do it in extreme detail like this, but the main points is in Steleks post.

Some armies might have better defences but this is a pretty standard one that works often. Also, the all out droppod army is pretty "cheesy" if the people you play is going by those standards. But then you probably already won regardless.

I appreciated the OP. I field a Drop Pod Marine force exclusively, always(hopefully always will) so I like to see how people may 'Beat me'.(Where I don't have to pay them whilst wearing Nappies)

Point1. In Australia, I have yet to come across anyone who 'knows' how to beat DP's. We are a 'Tad' behind the times.

Point2. Marines and DP's will not go together too well in the New SM Codex. 5-man Max capacity, DP has been Nerfed BIG TIME.

Thanks for the opposing strategies Stelek and Centurian99-it is all food for thought for my Brain.

Point3. The 'New' Battlestar Galactica is one of the very best Sci-Fi shows. Ever. And I am a died in the wool Star Trek fan.

Point4. Heinlens "Starship Troopers" book is one of his very best. I loved the book, and the quote you sigged.

Point5. If we were to put Albert Einstein in the middle of the Amazon Jungle, chances are he would be dead within the hour- due to eating something wrong, Snakebite, Tiger(?) type Cat thingie....does this make him 'Silly'-or just unprepared for every contingency in that particular environment? Alternatively, what if we put an Amazonian Warrior in a Chemistry Lab-how long till they are Burnt/Maimed or Dead? Silly?

IMO, they would make great reality TV shows.


It's all a matter of which environment we are used to.

Knowledge does not equate to intelligence.

"Silly" is a term that indicates"erratic, immature behaviour, charecterised usually by random/loud noises"

Are my Bowels Silly? The same activities are described.

Centurian99:

No, it does not depend on what you consider inexcusably silly ideas, it depends on the fact that you are willing to consider anything to be inexcusably silly. If you want to combat bad advice, then a calm and well considered analysis of that advice and the standard by which it is bad is better than any amount of scorn. Quite aside from not being trolled, it promotes a careful and thoughtful approach to giving and taking advice.

Stelek wrote:I disagree.

Your advice does not seem good to me.

What, exactly, are the units you think are single points of failure--and what does that have to do with the majority of tournament armies?

I do not believe there to be single points of failure, and that the concept is inapplicable to tournament armies.

Here is why:

We have a space marine army. We have 30 Tactical marines, 30 Devastator marines, and 30 Assault marines.

By the concept of points of failure, we should arrange these marines in some kind of cheesewheel pattern, so we can force the other guy to "spread his shooting around". I disagree. We don't want the enemy being able to choose what he shoots when his units arrive, since deep strike armies depend on that choice. I do not think this is the way to win.

Instead, we protect the Devastators so they don't run off the board, and the assault marines because they are more valuable.

The Devastators will shoot whatever unit we want them to attack, and destroy units one by one.

Shooting-wise, the Tactical squads will either finish off units that the Devastators did not, or soften up units the Assault marines are going to assault. Assault-wise they will tie stuff up in close combat.

The Assault marines will assault the enemy that survives the shooting, and is not tied up with Tacticals.

Drop pod armies are very vulnerable to assault troops because, as a rule, they do not have any! A notable exception is Demon armies. These armies are not vulnerable to assault. Therefore you need to assault them first to maximize your assault potential and to choose your battles.

I think we are misunderstanding each other here. Perhaps we can discuss this further to share ideas and tactics.

I find it difficult to communicate with people that will not look beyond my style of posting to approach the ideas underneath.

There, fixed your posted for you. Incidentally, you missed his entire point because your example does not apply the concept of a point of failure since there was no single unit enhancing the other units in your homogeneous marine force.

Stelek wrote:<snip> stelek ranting because I don't acknowledge his genius and mastery</snip>


Here goes:

I have a space marine army. I have 30 tactical marines, 30 devastator marines, and 30 assault marines.

<snip> more rants, but this time about a specific situation</snip>

Okay, you've now created a specific situation to debate. That's good - it allows for intelligent discussion of that particular situation. With a configuration like that, castling may be the correct way to deploy, depending on the mission and matchup. But if the mission involves seizing objectives, by castling you've just allowed your opponent to contain your force. Congratulations, you just lost.

Stelek wrote:
You want me to be specific, while you offer nothing but generalities and 'Stelek is a tool'.

You obviously missed the point of what I wrote. I said you started from a specific situation, and then expanded that out into general principles, under the mistaken assumption that you could then apply your principles to other situations. You have to be really, really, really, good at logic to do that...and you're quite simply not that good. Neither am I, for that matter. What you want to do is to determine the baseline principles first, and then apply those to specific situations.

As I said, sometimes you want to castle. But in my experience, that's a rarity.

Stelek wrote:
Fine, I can put out the facts. Then you or the krew will come up with another reason why I'm wrong. Depends on the day and which one of you is going to give it a whirl. Probably why people aren't listening to the krew anymore.

I wish you'd create your own thread with your own "original" tactical concepts, instead of polluting mine with your obvious flamebaiting junk.

Criticism doesn't suit you does it?

I don't run armies with single points of failure, nurg.

You should recognize this from my posts about Orks with KFF, hating Eldatar, etc etc.

I consider doing so giving away an advantage to the other player before the game even begins, so in a purist sense I can't say 'protect the cheddar!' is a good idea when I don't bring just the single can...it's the army as a whole.

Actually Cent, I was letting the players decide what they wanted to do with the general advice I was giving.

I wasn't asked "PLEASE SHOW ME HOW MY ARMY DEFENDS AGAINST THE DEEP STRIKE AND HERES MY LIST THX DUDE".

I was asked to describe defending against the deep strike.

I did so.

Everything you do and say seems geared to flamebaiting me. Why are you an article mod?

Kallbrand wrote:Usually spreading out so you leave your units "unsupported" against a dropping army is disastrous. The dropping player will get to choose the terms for the fight and thats usually bad news for the defender. Thats why castle defence "usually" works for many armiees. You get all your power against the parts that drop or the dropper will have to drop far away and loose initiative on it(you get to choose the conditions instead). You might not want to do it in extreme detail like this, but the main points is in Steleks post.

Some armies might have better defences but this is a pretty standard one that works often. Also, the all out droppod army is pretty "cheesy" if the people you play is going by those standards. But then you probably already won regardless.

Castling is easy, but in an objective-based mission, its a recipe for failure. It also depends on being able to overwhelm the dropper as they come in, with the near immediate collapse of your army if you fail.

Spreading out in an unsupported fashion is also a recipe for failure. if your opponent can consolidate fires on isolated units, and have the time to react to your attempts to preserve the operational integrity of your force, you lose.

As I said, it's all about the threat radii. You want to spread out enough so that your units can generate localized advantages on the tabletop, while still preserving their freedom of maneuver (so they can either pursue the mission objective or run away if necessary). So if you picture each of your units at the center of the circle that they can affect, you want as many overlapping circles as possible, while keeping your units as widely dispersed as possible.

Stelek:

Yes, we recognize that you don't find the concept of armies with single points of failure to be useful. You showed us how to run an army without any single point of failure. The problem is that you have yet to show how the concept is inapplicable to tournament armies. Would you like to show how the concept is inapplicable to tournament armies by showing the inherent weakness of a hypothetical sample army?

Stelek wrote:Actually Cent, I was letting the players decide what they wanted to do with the general advice I was giving.

I wasn't asked "PLEASE SHOW ME HOW MY ARMY DEFENDS AGAINST THE DEEP STRIKE AND HERES MY LIST THX DUDE".

I was asked to describe defending against the deep strike.

I did so.

And I was pointing out the flaws in your defensive plans. Because while they're not bad plans, they don't take into account a variety of conditions or a defensive army that's different than what you might field. As I said, close, but missing the mark. You're not writing about how to defend against a deep strike army. You're writing about how to defend against a deep strike army that can't shoot more than 6" effectively and that faces an army like the one you field. That's what's known as "criticizing an idea" instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks.

To be a bit more specific in my response (since you gave the courtesy of providing a specific defensive situation)...in the situation you describe (with 30 tactical marines, 30 devs, and 30 assault marines), what I'd probably do is immediately split the tactical marines and devastators into combat squads. All the heavy weapon-equipped squads form a two or perhaps three castles in my deployment zone, positioned so that they can mutually support each other. While the special-weapon/sergeant equipped marines form an outer perimeter/guard flanks along with the assault marines. Prior to the arrival of the deep strikers, assault marines and special tactical combat squads expand outwards, while still remaining within their operational threat radii.

Now what does the deep striking player do? Swarm the assault marines? There's still 30 bodies there...takes a lot of fire to put them down, and the special weapon combat squads and heavy weapons combat squads (which should, ideally, be able to cover different firelanes, while the assault marines are in the middle of potential shared firelanes) move in to the rescue. Swarm the special weapon tac squads...with the assault marines and heavy weapons ready to pounce? Or swarm the heavy weapons castles.

Stelek wrote:
Everything you do and say seems geared to flamebaiting me. Why are you an article mod?

To answer the first...pointing out flaws in your (or anyone's) posts is not flamebaiting. Criticizing ideas is not flamebaiting. Responding to personal attacks may be flamebaiting, but nobody's perfect...and my impulse control has never been the best.

And to answer the second question, I'm not sure why I was asked to be an article mod, but it might have something to do with how long I've been posting on Dakka (do the names Drew Riggio and Snord ring a bell?), posts I've contributed to over the years (from the "How to have a rules discussion" that I edited for Mauleed to a series of long-lost tactica on now-defunct armies), the fact that my day job until relatively recently was as a professional writer and editor, or just that someone recommended me to Legoburner.).

See, here's the thing. You have ideas. I have ideas. Malfred has ideas. Everyone has ideas. Hence, ideas are worthless.

If you're going to post your ideas, expect to have your ideas critiqued, refined, thrown back in your face, laughed at, appreciated, and used. That's the internet...and in particular, that's Dakka. Notice that people have to work really, really, really, hard to get permanently banned. As opposed to some other forums, where people get banned for saying Po-tay-to instead of po-tah-to. The side effect of that is that you have to be willing to read, and accept criticism. You don't have to agree with it. But there's a world of difference between saying "Well, I guess we're going to disagree" and "You're an asshat moron who can't add 1+1".

Hmm, maybe someone should write an article about that...

Po-ta-too.

Stelek wrote:Po-ta-too.

Ban incoming in 3... 2...

You all offer some great ideas,
but sometimes you guys act like high-school girls....

Make a point, awsome.
Hear a counter-point, awsome.

But shut up with all the, "he said this, well he said this" crap. As said before, it's just a game.

XOXO Darth Balls

Darth-Balls-As said before, it's just a game.

SACRELIDGE!! Inquisitorial troops are on the way to your Co-hab.

I found both Stelek's and C99's comments useful. The needless flaming, not so much (and I don't think C99 was baiting it).

whitedragon wrote:I'm with ozzy, and I posted already! I'm genuinely curious because now everyone I play has a demon army!

Everyone you play has a demon army? I'm not the deathdaring maverick I thought I was?

Darth Balls wrote:You all offer some great ideas,
but sometimes you guys act like high-school girls....

Make a point, awsome.
Hear a counter-point, awsome.

But shut up with all the, "he said this, well he said this" crap. As said before, it's just a game.

XOXO Darth Balls

Darth we don't allow that kind of sense round these parts...er where's Malf when you need him? They say if you say Malf's name three times he magically appears...

Malf ... ... ... ... Malf ... ... ... ... ... ... No, I can't do it, its not worth the risk.

Can't see how spreading your forces out in any army would be of any benefit against deep strike, surely the closer your units are the more firepower you have to concentrate and the more CC support you have.

If they were all spread out thinly then won't be in range to lend support. IMHO

Some good points raised here by everyone.

I saw the post as a "How to" not a "Do it my way" so thumbs up from me for what its worth. Will hopefully put the ideas to good use next week when i organise another game, I've previously had my squads to far apart to counter a major Deep striking force.

I can see it for some lists. Highly mobile lists can use this effectively. You reverse the tables. It forces the DS opponent to spread out, while you can use your high mobility to concentrate on one portion of his force and then destroy it in detail. This strategy always worked with my eldar. I'd be hard pressed to see it work with guard.

Another thought with the castle defense:

With Guard, Tau, and some other very weak HtH armies, it can be beneficial to move the outer ring as close to the dropping squads as possible. (at least in 4th). If you do withdraw and form a smaller center of the castle, it allows the podding forces to consolidate from combat to combat. Moving further out gives essentially another round of shooting against a podding force.

Just a thought but another derivitive on the base defense.

With Speed Freaks, the idea is not to spread out all over the table, but to stay withing the threat range of each unit. By establishing your forces in supporting areas, you won't be charging 10 marines with 12 orks, you'll be charging 10 marines with 36 (or more) orks. The idea is that you need to kill the dropping units in a turn to deal with the remainder. If you have 6 squads of trukkboys and a bunch of other stuff, you leave them about 13-15" apart. This lets you move, waaagh, and assault with multiple units wherever the pods come in.

To bring in a real world example: At Iwo Jima the japanese pillboxes were set up to be mutually supporting. The Marines had a very difficult time getting to any single one because it was under supporting fire from at least 2 others. The only way to crack it was to send in overwhelming force to destroy each one.

With Freaks, you can force the marines to do the same thing. By staying mounted, you lose your 35 point truck but keep your boys mostly together - losing 1-2 when the truck goes boom. Then, other trucks within supporting range plus the orginal squad swarm the marines. This also makes it easier to get multiple squads into contact.

jfrazell wrote:

whitedragon wrote:I'm with ozzy, and I posted already! I'm genuinely curious because now everyone I play has a demon army!

Everyone you play has a demon army? I'm not the deathdaring maverick I thought I was?

Dude are you kidding, the second that book came out, everyone was like, "HOORRAAAY, now we can play armies that don't start on the table on turn one!!!" I pointed out that drop podding space marines, drop troop guard, old skool speed freaks, and to some extent dropping tau, but I was drowned out by the screams of glee about demons.

Does this mean I should save funds for the inevitable sell off of armies?

I found both Cent99 and Stelek's advice very intriguing. I agree with Stelek the basic strategy against deep strike armies is to castle up. But on the other hand, Cent99 does bring a good point not with just his "cover the field" strategy but in his words before talking about flexibility in your plans and your opponent knowing what you will do.

Cent99 I have always valued your advice even before you won GTs and Gladiators and Stelek, your army building helped make me a very powerful guard army that I need to tweak further into something that should give many armies a run for their money.

My whole dealing with a deep strike army has to depend on what I am fielding and what he is fielding and the mission itself. Sometimes my army will have to do a castle with layering and other times it has to spread out. Other times you have to spread out. An Inflexible plan in a game can mean certain doom if your opponent trumps that plan.

PapaNurgle wrote:With Guard, Tau, and some other very weak HtH armies, it can be beneficial to move the outer ring as close to the dropping squads as possible. (at least in 4th). If you do withdraw and form a smaller center of the castle, it allows the podding forces to consolidate from combat to combat. Moving further out gives essentially another round of shooting against a podding force.

I said you want to move out against a podding force...

jfrazell wrote:Does this mean I should save funds for the inevitable sell off of armies?

I know I am. Not because I want a demon army for 40k, but I'd like one for fantasy and I'll gladly re-use others discarded demon armies from 40k for it.

thehod wrote:But on the other hand, Cent99 does bring a good point not with just his "cover the field" strategy but in his words before talking about flexibility in your plans and your opponent knowing what you will do.

My whole dealing with a deep strike army has to depend on what I am fielding and what he is fielding and the mission itself. Sometimes my army will have to do a castle with layering and other times it has to spread out. Other times you have to spread out. An Inflexible plan in a game can mean certain doom if your opponent trumps that plan.

That isn't a tactic though.

That's playing the game within the game correctly.

I call it common sense, that which you should know and act upon as should your opponent (aka the NE).

Centurian99 wrote You're an asshat moron who can't add 1+1".

thats easy 2. Gold star for me

*This is about Drop Guard

Why dont speard out if you have 180+ Models ? ? ? Your denying them Landing sectors?

If you Play Drop Army you have to land in one sector
to destory there sector of the army.

If speard out they have to land in one area then go from part to part. and be countered

And Drop can be beat if you have CC Experts near. Drop comes in and shoots thats it really.

Even if you Try to hide in a bubble ok theres always Death squads to land and kill and then die. and theres always that lucky hit on scatter

And bad drop can just be cause of the player cause they'll wana go for TOO(targets of opportunity) and not killing off the real threats

*This is about Drop Guard

As for others i dont know so much i know Marines Drop Pod which is Amazing. but yea

How many GTs have you Won ? ?

akira5665 wrote:I appreciated the OP. I field a Drop Pod Marine force exclusively, always(hopefully always will) so I like to see how people may 'Beat me'.(Where I don't have to pay them whilst wearing Nappies)

Point1. In Australia, I have yet to come across anyone who 'knows' how to beat DP's. We are a 'Tad' behind the times.

Point2. Marines and DP's will not go together too well in the New SM Codex. 5-man Max capacity, DP has been Nerfed BIG TIME.

Thanks for the opposing strategies Stelek and Centurian99-it is all food for thought for my Brain.

Point3. The 'New' Battlestar Galactica is one of the very best Sci-Fi shows. Ever. And I am a died in the wool Star Trek fan.

Point4. Heinlens "Starship Troopers" book is one of his very best. I loved the book, and the quote you sigged.

Point5. If we were to put Albert Einstein in the middle of the Amazon Jungle, chances are he would be dead within the hour- due to eating something wrong, Snakebite, Tiger(?) type Cat thingie....does this make him 'Silly'-or just unprepared for every contingency in that particular environment? Alternatively, what if we put an Amazonian Warrior in a Chemistry Lab-how long till they are Burnt/Maimed or Dead? Silly?

IMO, they would make great reality TV shows.


It's all a matter of which environment we are used to.

Knowledge does not equate to intelligence.

"Silly" is a term that indicates"erratic, immature behaviour, charecterised usually by random/loud noises"

Are my Bowels Silly? The same activities are described.

Point 2: What!?!?!?!?!?! Where'd this info come from.


And yes, BSG is a very cool show.

If you have 180 models, and 1 turn to move...isn't "spreading out" what I said to do?

My version of spreading out takes away landing zones.

Cent's version gives them up, allowing a drop pod army to target your units as it sees fit and therefore isn't a tactic, it's just playing into the other armies strength.

Which is the whole point of this defense, preventing that strength.

My advice, good. Cents advice, bad.

Capiche?