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Kurce wrote:Care to do the math for me on that 16.7% ? I don't see how it is only 16.7%.

I assume you win the initial roll for to go first 50% of the time, I don't think we need math to show that you out-roll you opponent 50% of the time. Therefore you lose 50% of the time. Sieze is base 16.7% (1/6) of the 50% you lose. So improving that to 50% or 4/6 is a 33.33% increase. So increasing your odds of going first 33% of 50% of the time, is 16.7%. For various reasons this is worse that the other special character that gives +1 on the initial roll to go first. If anything, I would use him.

Kurce wrote:Also, you realize Vect is a powerhouse of a special character, right? The only reason why I am holding off on Hammys is I have heard through the grapevine that GW are releasing new Hammy models along with Venoms in the spring/summer timeframe. I am a big fan of having "official" and straight out of the box stuff. I don't like kit-bashing and custom building models. So, I'll just stick with Vect. He has not disappointed me yet. Well, except this one time when I got really brave and decided to take a Lascannon shot on him instead of an Incubus (all my Raiders/Ravagers were wrecked or near useless so he had nothing else to shoot at) and I rolled a 1 for the Shadow Field. Other than that, he has utterly destroyed everything he has came into contact with. Except that time he got tied up with a Defiler. Luckily, Vect also has Haywire Grenades, but needing a 6 to hit a walker with them pretty much tied him and the defiler up for most of the game.

I have no illusions about his strength in CC. I see that he is good. I run a succubus for 85 points has my HQ who is also a powerhouse. I also run bloodbrides and not incubi. They have never lost a CC either, and are much cheaper. At some point CC power becomes overkill. I try to spend points as efficiently and effectively as possible, and that means Vect is just too expensive considering that I don't really need his overkill.

Kurce wrote:And I am still leery about the effectiveness of holding your entire army in reserves. There is just something about getting a random part of your army coming in that makes it sound terrible. It might be half. It might be more. Hell, it might be only 2 units that come in. This game has enough randomness as it is, why add even more randomness by holding everything in reserve? Just doesn't seem worth it to me.

EDIT:

Also, a lot of you make it sound like the game is automatically over if you don't get the first turn. If you don't get the first turn, then you should deploy your army accordingly where you can maximize cover saves and what-not. Then, if you steal the initiative, you just move 12" and fire all of your Dark Lances. All DE vehicles are fast skimmers with 36" lances on them. Even if I deploy my army in a defensive manner and get to steal the initiative, it should not be the case where I can't shoot at anything...

Getting a small number of units turn 2 is not a terrible thing, since you have more to hit turn 3. Sure, you can get screwed by reserves, but your paper planes are not going to weather a good gunline who gets an alpha strike. The chance of you getting really screwed on reserves if far less than just losing outright because you had to take a turn of full firepower from a very shooty army.

Automatic is not the word, its simply more likely that you will lose if you don't get first turn against an army with good shooting power. More likely than if you reserve everything in many cases, therefore making reserving everything the better option.

DakkaDakka wrote:

Flavius Infernus wrote:

Kurce wrote:

You don't have to hod everything in reserve though, you can start with some things on the board, and hold the units that can be clutch later in the game, but are vulnerable early on in reserve.

Can you give me an example of a unit that would be "clutch" later in the game? Give me some examples for a KP game and some for an Objective game. I realize that certain units will excel in certain scenarios over others. Also, this sounds like a worse idea. If you are not going first, and you deploy 2/3 of your army, that is less targets for your opponent to shoot at. So now, those units get focus fired even harder than they did before. How is this better?

I know a necron player who always puts all his warriors in reserve. They're unlikely to do any significant damage if they deploy, and it makes him *much* harder to phase out.

I have also done it with a minsize unit of Eldar jetbikes--leave them in reserve and don't use the autarch's reserve roll bonus. Eldar bikes won't do anything on offense, but from reserve they can zoom in turn 4 or 5 when most of the threats have been eliminated (or are occupied) and claim an objective or find cover to conserve the KP.

I haven't seen it first hand, but it seems like it would be the same deal with units of Tau fire warriors. 6 warriors in a basic devil fish aren't a threat to anything, but can come in in the late game (especially using positional relay to limit reserves) and claim objectives when there isn't enough time left for the enemy to deal with them.

^ Nailed it in one post!!!

Also, reserving Infiltrating units, like Tau Stealth suits, and then Outflanking them will keep your enemy on the backfoot because they don't know when they will come in or which side of the table.

Then there is always the deep striking units. These can be great for either denying cover to infantry, hitting the rear armor of vehicles with good Anti tank weapons, or just giving your opponent something to think about when they deploy and as they play.

One of the biggest advantages to reserves in any game, be it Kill Point, or objectives, is what they are going to do and why they are kept in reserve. If your opponent knows your army well and your play style, and then you show up at a game and say," Ok, my Stealthsuits/Kroot are going to stay in reserve and enter play via Outflank," or "My Battlesuits are going to be in Reserve and are entering play via Deep Strike", it throws them off their game and makes them have to wonder what surprise you have for them.

And of course, there is nothing like an Outflanking/Deep Striking/Flat Out or TurboBoosting squad coming on the board in turn 4 and all of a sudden they are contesting that one objective that your opponent had that was keeping the game in his favor or tied. It will really throw them for a loop, especially if it is turn 5 and you drop a Battlesuit onto his home objective (or within 3") and now all of a sudden, you go from a draw to a win if the game doesn't continue. And if the game does continue, you do everything that you can to keep that suit alive and contesting, and watch how your opponent will all of a sudden go from trying to take you off your objective to shooting/assaulting everything they have to to get rid of that one suit in order to keep that draw, which gives you the chance for some good fire opportunites or for something that is close to move in and assist with the contesting.

Sorry its a bit long winded but wanted to give you some ideas of how it can be strategically advantageous to put units in reserve no matter the mission type.

Galador wrote: ...

^ Nailed it in one post!!!

Also, reserving Infiltrating units, like Tau Stealth suits, and then Outflanking them will keep your enemy on the backfoot because they don't know when they will come in or which side of the table.

Then there is always the deep striking units. These can be great for either denying cover to infantry, hitting the rear armor of vehicles with good Anti tank weapons, or just giving your opponent something to think about when they deploy and as they play.

One of the biggest advantages to reserves in any game, be it Kill Point, or objectives, is what they are going to do and why they are kept in reserve. If your opponent knows your army well and your play style, and then you show up at a game and say," Ok, my Stealthsuits/Kroot are going to stay in reserve and enter play via Outflank," or "My Battlesuits are going to be in Reserve and are entering play via Deep Strike", it throws them off their game and makes them have to wonder what surprise you have for them.

And of course, there is nothing like an Outflanking/Deep Striking/Flat Out or TurboBoosting squad coming on the board in turn 4 and all of a sudden they are contesting that one objective that your opponent had that was keeping the game in his favor or tied. It will really throw them for a loop, especially if it is turn 5 and you drop a Battlesuit onto his home objective (or within 3") and now all of a sudden, you go from a draw to a win if the game doesn't continue. And if the game does continue, you do everything that you can to keep that suit alive and contesting, and watch how your opponent will all of a sudden go from trying to take you off your objective to shooting/assaulting everything they have to to get rid of that one suit in order to keep that draw, which gives you the chance for some good fire opportunites or for something that is close to move in and assist with the contesting.

Sorry its a bit long winded but wanted to give you some ideas of how it can be strategically advantageous to put units in reserve no matter the mission type.

I really like what you said, but Deamons per say, they always get this advantage (unless you mean only for armies which get to start stuff on the board but then come in later). Also, wouldn't it be considered playing any army with reserves just like playing Deamons (baring the all comes in as deep striking)? You get to place a portion of your army on the first turn and the rest come in by dice.

About keeping stuff in reserve and creating less targets to fire at, why would your opponent fire at something else on the board if the threats that are already on the board is what he is aiming for? Take Tau for instance, if I place Broadsides, Crisis Suits with Missile Pods, and Hammerheads with Railguns, it would not matter if I also had a squad of Fire Warriors out there, you are still not going to fire those Dark Lances at the Fire Warriors because I decided to deploy them instead of reserve them are you? And Fire Warriors are good targets to fire Shard weaponary at as Suits and Broadsides have much better saves and most likely drones to protect against massed shots of low Strength fire therefore denying a good valid target to be firing those Shard weapons.

On the flip side of this, when you place units in reserve, no matter how little fire support or whatever they provide, those points are not providing anything meaningful to the battle. Those units could be taking fire off of your other units or maybe causing a random unsaved wound at the right time. An example of this would be Fire Warriors getting shot at with Shard weaponary instead of your Broadsides (while normally can take shots like this all day long, you are still dealing with dice and can just randomly lose a wound).

Maybe you can not fit reserves into a nice black and white catagory. Every game is completely different and there is no right or wrong answer into how to use reserves, what units should be reserved, how they should be reserved, and against what armies and their respective builds. Basically it only comes down to personal playstyle and experience.

If you take these three arguments for reserves, isn't it always better to never place stuff in reserve because you know they will provide at least something to the battle by either taking shots, or causing wounds on something. I want to use reserves as I think they are beneficial but I just am not convinced by what I am seeing and from what I have experienced while playing my games.

Zyllos wrote:

On the flip side of this, when you place units in reserve, no matter how little fire support or whatever they provide, those points are not providing anything meaningful to the battle. Those units could be taking fire off of your other units or maybe causing a random unsaved wound at the right time. An example of this would be Fire Warriors getting shot at with Shard weaponary instead of your Broadsides (while normally can take shots like this all day long, you are still dealing with dice and can just randomly lose a wound).

In both the case of the Tau fire warriors and the Eldar jetbikes, those are comparatively fragile scoring units. In an objective game, their most meaningful thing scoring units could possibly do is to be sitting on an objective at the end of the game--far more meaningful than what a burst cannon and a couple of gun drones can do. Staying alive is the most meaningful thing they can contribute to the battle.

So taking fire off other units is the last thing you want scoring units to do in an objective game, because in the end the scoring units are the only ones that matter. I will happily burn my entire army to the last man to protect my scoring units and make sure I hold one more objective than my opponent at the bottom of the last turn, because that's how you win.

Flavius Infernus wrote:

Zyllos wrote:

On the flip side of this, when you place units in reserve, no matter how little fire support or whatever they provide, those points are not providing anything meaningful to the battle. Those units could be taking fire off of your other units or maybe causing a random unsaved wound at the right time. An example of this would be Fire Warriors getting shot at with Shard weaponary instead of your Broadsides (while normally can take shots like this all day long, you are still dealing with dice and can just randomly lose a wound).

In both the case of the Tau fire warriors and the Eldar jetbikes, those are comparatively fragile scoring units. In an objective game, their most meaningful thing scoring units could possibly do is to be sitting on an objective at the end of the game--far more meaningful than what a burst cannon and a couple of gun drones can do. Staying alive is the most meaningful thing they can contribute to the battle.

So taking fire off other units is the last thing you want scoring units to do in an objective game, because in the end the scoring units are the only ones that matter. I will happily burn my entire army to the last man to protect my scoring units and make sure I hold one more objective than my opponent at the bottom of the last turn, because that's how you win.

Ya, but the issue with my Fire Warriors is I run their Devilfish as a Warfish. Honestly, I think those Warfish can place a lot of wounds on targets as long as your not firing at something with FnP. Maybe I should just remove the SMS and Targetting Array from the Warfish to downgrade them to a Devilfish and take some more markerlighters (I would be able to take 6 more I believe). I would feel more comfortable with reserving the Devilfish and 6 man Fire Warrior squads but I still do not have a Positional Relay to force them to not come in until approximately turn 3 or 4. Of course, those Devilfishes are from Pathfinders.

Zyllos wrote:

Ya, but the issue with my Fire Warriors is I run their Devilfish as a Warfish. Honestly, I think those Warfish can place a lot of wounds on targets as long as your not firing at something with FnP. Maybe I should just remove the SMS and Targetting Array from the Warfish to downgrade them to a Devilfish and take some more markerlighters (I would be able to take 6 more I believe). I would feel more comfortable with reserving the Devilfish and 6 man Fire Warrior squads but I still do not have a Positional Relay to force them to not come in until approximately turn 3 or 4. Of course, those Devilfishes are from Pathfinders.

I'm just starting Tau, but I understand there's a big debate between the people who prefer warfish and the people who prefer to just put disruption pods and nothing else. But with 3-4 fish with drones, you also have the option of using them for screening and maneuver, which is arguably more valuable than their firepower anyway and would be a reason not to keep them in reserve. In theory it gives you the ability to advance on objectives earlier and more aggressively. Or, in games where there are a lot of threats against devilfish, you still have the option to reserve them.

Also a rule point: you can't deploy fire warriors into a pathfinders' fish, unfortunately, including in reserve. The only unit that can deploy/reserve inside a dedicated transport is the unit it was bought for. So that may answer the question of whether to reserve anyway.

Zyllos wrote:I really like what you said, but Deamons per say, they always get this advantage (unless you mean only for armies which get to start stuff on the board but then come in later). Also, wouldn't it be considered playing any army with reserves just like playing Deamons (baring the all comes in as deep striking)? You get to place a portion of your army on the first turn and the rest come in by dice.

TY for the compliment. the rules for Daemons are not reserves for the first wave, as that is simply how their army deploys. They have an advantage in that they dont have to roll for it, it just comes on the board. Reserves, at least in what I was talking about, was for armies who aren't forced to deploy only one way. There is an extreme difference in play between Demons and any other army, as what works for Demons will simply not work for Space Marines, or Tau, or Dark Eldar. Dark Eldar(being my army so I will use for the example) would be severly crippled if they had to deploy like Demons, and all you would see would be uber-shooty lists as our assault punch (one of the mainstays of our army) would be severly hampered by DSing.

Zyllos wrote:About keeping stuff in reserve and creating less targets to fire at, why would your opponent fire at something else on the board if the threats that are already on the board is what he is aiming for? Take Tau for instance, if I place Broadsides, Crisis Suits with Missile Pods, and Hammerheads with Railguns, it would not matter if I also had a squad of Fire Warriors out there, you are still not going to fire those Dark Lances at the Fire Warriors because I decided to deploy them instead of reserve them are you? And Fire Warriors are good targets to fire Shard weaponary at as Suits and Broadsides have much better saves and most likely drones to protect against massed shots of low Strength fire therefore denying a good valid target to be firing those Shard weapons.

Lets take your example and run with it, shall we??? Lets say I shoot one Ravager at your Hammerhead, and I stun it?? It is no longer my target priority for my Dark Lances, because it can't hurt me next turn, so I would move on to my next target. Lets take those three Broadsides with their drones, lets go so far as to say that you even put 2 drones with them (can they take more?? Not 100% sure). Why would I waste Dark Lance on them, if I have Splinter Cannons on Venoms that can potentially force 12 saves?? Where you seem to think that low strength weaponry is a bad thing to shoot at Broadsides, I think when I can force them to roll enough saves to kill off the drones, hence taking away their invul saves, then I shoot them with Dark Lances, negating their chance of saving ANY wounds from the Dark Lances. And lets say I have no Lances left to fire, thats where splinter weaponry really shines!!! I treat Broadsides just like MEQS... I throw alot of shots at them and kill them through attrition unless I have the heavy weaponry of Lances to spare. As for your broadsides, the true Tau MEQ... They are way to easy to destroy with Splinter weaponry, so it would almost be a waste to use Lances on them. Besudes, why would I bother shooting your Battlesuits when I cn reliably hit them with a 10 man wych squad no later than turn 2??? And once those wyches have those Battlesuits/Broadsides tied up in CC, they won't be shooting at my Raiders/Ravagers anymore! And lastly, your Fire Warriors. Your right, for the majority of the game, I won't shoot them with Dark Lances, but I will peg them with blasters, which are the same thing, just half the range, so that I can also fire my splinter rifles at them.

Now then, why would I need reserves for any of this, you ask??? Simple. If you have a Hammerhead and Pathfinder squad, you Markerlight my 20 man Warrior squad sitting in cover on my objective on turn 1, which you then use to deny my cover save and drop a large blast template on, more than likely killing most, if not all of the squad, depending on my setup. At the least, forcing a leadership test, which they might fail and then run off the board, and no longer be holding the objective! But if I keep that 20 man squad in reserve, and they dont come on the board until turn 2 or later, after I have started making your Hammerhead and other infantry killers useless/less powerful, and they fleet and take the objective, they are much harder to get rid of with less things to shoot at them/less turns to shoot at them.

For the Broadsides/Battlesuits, a DSing unit of Scourges, or a WWP unit of wyches, would need to be in reserveto use that advantage. If I can bring more wyches cause I don't need to give that one wych squad a transport because of Reserves and the portal, that just leaves me free to bring another killy unit! If you have the Broadsides set way back where they are hard to reach (which any Tau player will always do) That's where the scourges (5 or 10 man, your choice) shine. They DS within 18" of the Broadsides, and unleash between 15 to 30 (depending on squad size) shots that are 3+ to hit, 4+ to wound, forcing alot of saves on you. Granted may not kill the Broadsides off, but then there is something in good threat range of your broadsides that you will have to focus fire on if youwant to keep your broadsides alive after my next turn.

Zyllos wrote:On the flip side of this, when you place units in reserve, no matter how little fire support or whatever they provide, those points are not providing anything meaningful to the battle. Those units could be taking fire off of your other units or maybe causing a random unsaved wound at the right time. An example of this would be Fire Warriors getting shot at with Shard weaponary instead of your Broadsides (while normally can take shots like this all day long, you are still dealing with dice and can just randomly lose a wound).

I don't know about Tau, but us Dark Eldar play to keep ourselves alive, not to have a distraction unit to take the pressure off of something more important. And honestly, it must be different in Tau, cause there is nothing in my armies that will cripple me if I lose, because I am able to bring redundant units in order to keep myself balanced and without a real handicap if my first wych squad dies. But if the majority of my troops are getting shot up/assaulted and destroyed, that one unit that I held back of warriors could make all the difference by not being out there to also get assaulted/shot at the whole game in order to be able to grab that objective/deny that kill point at the end of the game. Or that 3 man Reaver jetbike squad that we all know has no chance of surviving for 5 turns that comes on on turn 4 or 5 and Turboboosts 36" across the board to contest your objective, while using its Bladevanes to hit the Infantry unit you have on it for up to 9 wounds that might make you test and run away. There are always strategies to be used, I have just never used the "well, I hope they shoot at this unit instead of that one." Plus any good player is going to know that the Broadsides are a larger threat than the Fire Warriors, so why would I waste shots on them when the Broadsides are in range???

Zyllos wrote:Maybe you can not fit reserves into a nice black and white catagory. Every game is completely different and there is no right or wrong answer into how to use reserves, what units should be reserved, how they should be reserved, and against what armies and their respective builds. Basically it only comes down to personal playstyle and experience.

I can fit them into a nice black and white category if you want. Reserves can be strategically useful in denying your enemy an advantage or giving yourself one, but in the end it depends on the mission/deployment type, and who your opponent is. You are right that there is no right or wrong answer on reserves, each player has their own playstyle, and reserves might compliment that, or it might not. You can find a reason for almost every unit in the game to either put it on the board during deployment or to put it in reserves, it all falls back to the circumstances that your game has involved in it.

Zyllos wrote:If you take these three arguments for reserves, isn't it always better to never place stuff in reserve because you know they will provide at least something to the battle by either taking shots, or causing wounds on something. I want to use reserves as I think they are beneficial but I just am not convinced by what I am seeing and from what I have experienced while playing my games.

No, it is not always better to never place anything in reserve, because if you face a big Alpha Strike army (like Dark Eldar) then all you are doing is handing your whole army to them at once and letting them decide what they feel should die first, and that puts you on the back foot right away as you are trying to make up for the units that are dead/stunned/locked in combat that can't do what they are supposed to do for you because of those reasons, and a few others. Now, I don't play Tau, as I said, so I don't know how beneficial reserves are for you. But, I can almost guarantee you there are ways that you can use reserves to benefit you/hamper your opponent. And I don't mean this is a bad way, like you are trying to cheat or be cheesy, I mean it as it can provide an interesting twist on a fun game, or can make or break a Tournament winning game in the right situation.

In the end, it all boils down to individual battles, like you said earlier. There are reasons to reserve things, and reasons not to reserve things. Some days, I will put everything on the board right at the 12" pitched battle line and obliterate and army as fast as possible, and other days I will bring Duke Sliscus and DS all my Raiders and Ravagers just to have my opponent wondering what the heck am I thinking. All in all, its about keeping your opponents guessing and keeping the game fun and interesting. So why not at least try something in reserve that you think might change a part of the game for you, or your opponent? You never know what strange new strategy you will find by trying something you thought wouldn't work or couldn't work, only to find out that it works brilliantly when it happens at a certain time and to a certain unit.

/end monologue.

Galador wrote: ...

Thank you, Galador, for the time reviewing my post and giving your reasonings behind why you use reserves.

I had always figured this was the way to play reserves, dependent on what your playing with and against. I will take what was written (or spoken, however you view it) and ponder on the gift that was offered to me and try to apply it in a meaningful way. At least it still reinforces my standing that reserves are not useless but I need to reevaluate how I use them.

Hopefully this helped move forward the thread in a revalent way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Flavius Infernus wrote:

Zyllos wrote:

Ya, but the issue with my Fire Warriors is I run their Devilfish as a Warfish. Honestly, I think those Warfish can place a lot of wounds on targets as long as your not firing at something with FnP. Maybe I should just remove the SMS and Targetting Array from the Warfish to downgrade them to a Devilfish and take some more markerlighters (I would be able to take 6 more I believe). I would feel more comfortable with reserving the Devilfish and 6 man Fire Warrior squads but I still do not have a Positional Relay to force them to not come in until approximately turn 3 or 4. Of course, those Devilfishes are from Pathfinders.

I'm just starting Tau, but I understand there's a big debate between the people who prefer warfish and the people who prefer to just put disruption pods and nothing else. But with 3-4 fish with drones, you also have the option of using them for screening and maneuver, which is arguably more valuable than their firepower anyway and would be a reason not to keep them in reserve. In theory it gives you the ability to advance on objectives earlier and more aggressively. Or, in games where there are a lot of threats against devilfish, you still have the option to reserve them.

Also a rule point: you can't deploy fire warriors into a pathfinders' fish, unfortunately, including in reserve. The only unit that can deploy/reserve inside a dedicated transport is the unit it was bought for. So that may answer the question of whether to reserve anyway.

Typically what I do is just move the Devilfish forward ~8" and if another squad of Fire Warriors comes off, I move them into the Devilfish. But ya, normally I should be taking their own Devilfish but I just do not have enough models yet. I really need to order another 2 Broadsides and 3 Devilfishes but that is besides the point.

2 normal Devilfishes for Fire Warriors and 2 Warfishes from the Pathfinders. Thats what I would like.

Zyllos wrote:

Galador wrote: ...

Thank you, Galador, for the time reviewing my post and giving your reasonings behind why you use reserves.

I had always figured this was the way to play reserves, dependent on what your playing with and against. I will take what was written (or spoken, however you view it) and ponder on the gift that was offered to me and try to apply it in a meaningful way. At least it still reinforces my standing that reserves are not useless but I need to reevaluate how I use them.

Hopefully this helped move forward the thread in a revalent way.

Anytime Zyllos, its always fun to help someone see something from a different perspective.

How do you use reserves now??? I gathered from the first post that you don't use them at all, but I could be wrong on that.

Grots are another classic example. 40pts for a scoring unit which can hold an objective but has almost no killling power. Ork armies frequently put them in reserve all the time, just to minimize the opportunies the enemy has to target them. In KPs they hide in the corner. In objectives they walk on and hold an objective or two on your side of the table, while the rest of your army smashes face.

Kurce wrote:Also, this sounds like a worse idea. If you are not going first, and you deploy 2/3 of your army, that is less targets for your opponent to shoot at. So now, those units get focus fired even harder than they did before. How is this better?

How about if you have sufficient LOS-blocking terrain to completely (or largely, against most of the enemy) hide part of your force, but not all of it? I frequently deploy my HQs, a couple of Rhino squads, Havocs and Oblits and reserve other stuff, because I can hide all that stuff or put it in substantial cover where a lot of my opponent's army doesnt' have LOS.

Galador wrote:Anytime Zyllos, its always fun to help someone see something from a different perspective.

How do you use reserves now??? I gathered from the first post that you don't use them at all, but I could be wrong on that.

I used reserves based on what I thought needed to be in reserve dependent on the situation (and it has never worked out as I have like a 3/30 record with Tau). My gaming group keeps telling me that reserves are bad and I should never use them but I always thought it was never reserves but either my bad playing, my opponents exceptional play, or bad dice.

A fun example- I was playing SW vs orks in DoW, with orks going first. There were two objectives on the left, and one in the mid (all 12" roughly from each other, almost a perfect triangle) and one on the far right in a ruined area. The 2 of the objectives were in area terrain (trees), and the best lane of fire was on the mid for my side was on the right hand side. He deployed aggresively as far forward, and i deployed my priest on the centre left on a hill (to join my walking LF's) and a squad of plasma GH in a rhino on the far right, directly below the objective. I also held another GH Rhino (flamers) in reserve. And he played right into it.

He moved most of his army in the central area, but also a squad of boyz, a deff dread and a nob squad on the right, hooning through the ruined area (detouring around stuff). My army came on the mid and the left, forcing him to channel his army through the gaps between the ruins and the two forests, and the GH squad moved full speed towards the mid. He sent his boyz on the objective but forward, in case he needed to throw them in the fight, and the nobs came for the plasma rhino, who gunned down the truck and then the nobs when they (of course) charged and wasted the rhino. The rest of our armies clashed in the middle, with him coming through two tight points and me gunning the out of him and assaulting anything left. The reserve rhino came on turn three, and scooted straight for the objective on the right, and with some truck opening skills courtesy of a rifleman and what was left of the LF's, torched the boyz.

The idea was that when I moved on and my plasma rhino legged it, I wanted him to think i was aiming for 2-3 of the objectives in the centre and abandoning the right flank. This made him leave behind just a token unit and also made his army come the way I wanted it too, through chokepoints and having to manuever through the ruins. Not only was my flamer squad going to do nothing but playing cards in their rhino for the start of the game anyway, holding them in reserve meant I could back up my clash in the middle if needed, or do my hopeful hijinks of taking "his" objective.