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Nurglitch wrote:SmackCakes:

In my experience the pinning you describe doesn't work in Chess because you have access to three resources: Time, space, and material. If you're using such a pinning technique to threaten material, then your opponent will simply make you pay via the time spent to pull it off and the space or position it will put you in. I know whether I'm playing a good Chess player or not by whether they respond to such 'pinning'.

Huh? When you pin, you force your opponent to respond to a no-good situation where he/she may lose material, and pinned piece is punished it it moves to any space by capturing the piece behind it. The first example described WORKS REALLY WELL. The king is forced to move, therefore you capture the Queen (provided you don't have any better moves, like say, positioning for checkmate), and have a 9-point lead in terms of material. Depending on the situation, most opponents would capture your rook (the King is there after all) so that they would recuperate by 5 points (but still a 4-point lead), therefore you also dictated how the enemy would use his space. Time, space, material: all were exploited.

All this Chess talk is a bit off topic, but I suppose it is somewhat relevant, albeit vaguely so...

OverwatchCNC wrote:

-Nazdreg- wrote:There are many different ways to pin the enemy effectively.
1. Fast deathstars placed in cover in midfield (he cannot advance because he will get crushed)
2. superior long range weaponry pointed on a certain spot on the battlefield so everything that appears there will be shot to pieces.
3. using vehicles as a wall to block ways
4. deepstriking or outflanking harrassment so the enemy must turn around under fire to deal with the new threat and will gain no progress

In my experience the best pin maneuvers will utilize numbers 1,2,3, and 4 together to create mayhem and tough choices for your opponent.

That is pretty much exactly my play style with tyranids and it has been extremely sucessful.

I don't believe in singular "gimic" armies "hey ive got 7 land raiders!" ect. I take a bunch of different elements and come at you with everything I have, in different ways, every turn. In general for the first turn or so things go poorly for me until my opponent starts to be concerned about what I am doing and reacting to me, then I dictate the terms of turns 3+ and crush them.

Grundz, would you mind going a little more in depth with that explanation? I am writing another part of that article about Xenos armies that can use the pin manuever and I would love to be able to cite/reference a tyranid list and player that uses the tactic.

Fieldcraft in 40k is entirely different from fieldcraft in chess. Once I can deepstrike a rook or outflank a queen or move all of my pieces at once, on a board that is at least twice the size, then perhaps we could make some comparisons.

As for the article, the entire point is this:

When I talk about pinning I am talking about pinning your opponents army in a specific area of the board, an area of your choosing.

Or, said another way, you get an advantage by dominating field position. Obviously this is true. If you can browbeat your opponent into a corner, odds are better than not that you're going to come out the victor at the end.

Of course, in order to dominate field position, you need to have a sufficient quantity of raw numbers of units and mobility. Ork and Guard hordes bring enough dudes, DE brings enough models and enough mobility, Drop pod marines bring enough mobility, etc. Of course, this means that certain armies are at a disadvantage, having a hard time fielding enough of this critical dominating mass.

And you wonder why you don't see foot marines ever...

Ailaros wrote:Fieldcraft in 40k is entirely different from fieldcraft in chess. Once I can deepstrike a rook or outflank a queen or move all of my pieces at once, on a board that is at least twice the size, then perhaps we could make some comparisons.

As for the article, the entire point is this:

When I talk about pinning I am talking about pinning your opponents army in a specific area of the board, an area of your choosing.

Or, said another way, you get an advantage by dominating field position. Obviously this is true. If you can browbeat your opponent into a corner, odds are better than not that you're going to come out the victor at the end.

Of course, in order to dominate field position, you need to have a sufficient quantity of raw numbers of units and mobility. Ork and Guard hordes bring enough dudes, DE brings enough models and enough mobility, Drop pod marines bring enough mobility, etc. Of course, this means that certain armies are at a disadvantage, having a hard time fielding enough of this critical dominating mass.

And you wonder why you don't see foot marines ever...

The principals are the same, but instead of 2 dimentional lines along which your units project their power you have Spheres of influence.

these Spheres can be blocked by many things. Terrain, other units.


by combining the spheres of your units you achieve greater tactical enlightenment.

Grey Templar wrote:

The principals are the same, but instead of 2 dimentional lines along which your units project their power you have Spheres of influence.

these Spheres can be blocked by many things. Terrain, other units.


by combining the spheres of your units you achieve greater tactical enlightenment.

I prefer to think of certain types of terrain as having their own sphere of influence as well. For example you can use a large piece of LOS blocking terrain (especially if it if impassible) to help create your pinning area. The terrain itself acts as a sort of dead zone which you can use as part of the containment line for your pin zone which, if done correctly, can free up units that would normally have been used to fill that gap.

Another example of a pin manoeuvre:

Annihilation against 150 Orks with hybrid guard.

Turn 2 his green tide went close on me, I sent in a knife fighters legion from the flank between my tanks and his first mob in a bit more than 12" distance.

So he has 3 possibilities:

1. Advancing and bracing for my charge with massive preparing fire afterwards.
2. Halting the advance for a stalemate with inferior firepower until reinforcements arrive.
3. sounding the waaagh early in game just for a single 80p unit and with the risk of losing a mob in return to focused fire+charge.

He took number 3, wiped the legion at the cost of 5 orks and his mob was annihilated and he was flanked soon without having a waaagh. This was lethal for his army and he ran to death.

In my opinion he should have chosen nr 2.
30 boyz in half distance (12"-24") are very hard to kill. 30 orks in close distance are by far easier to deal with.
But still it would have resulted in staying put (pinned).