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I came across an article on Capture and Control that talks about using deep strikers and fast moving vehicles/units to attempt to pin your enemy in a position of your choosing. The whole article can be found here. What I want to know from the Dakka community is if this is a viable strategy. My first instinct is to say that I don't buy it. It relies too much on an alpha strike against which an opponent can simply reserve out. But it seems to work for some people so i am not sure. What do you guys out there think? Is the pin maneuver the article talks about a good/possible/reliable strategy?

the idea of pinning isn't that the enemy can't move

it's forcing him to either move and possably live or stay still and certaintly die.


forcing choices on your opponent where either choice leads to an advantage for you is good.



it is a valid strategy that does rely on a gamble, but all strategy is about gambling. taking a calculated risk in return for the chance of a big return.

As the author of that article let me weigh in. The point of the pinning strategy is to force your opponent onto his back foot by making him react to you. It isn't to, necessarily, keep the opponent exactly where you want him. With Mobility being such a huge part of 5th ed if you can keep your opponent from moving around too much or at least control where he is going you can effectively control the battle.

As Grey Templar pointed out it is a bit of a gamble strategy but can work even if you are going second or using all rhinos. I plan on doing a second part to this article soon where I will cover non deepstriking and non marine pins.

Hope this was helpful Bryan. We missed you at the tournament two weekends ago. Next time you make the trip out to Pasadena stop by GE, it would be cool to meet you in person and get a game in.

Thanks for the feed back. I will try this out and see how it works.

In 2/3's of the missions if you can keep your opponent in his deployment zone you have essentially won the game and in kill points a good offense can be the best defense as a pinned opponent will be more likely to aim at your heavy hitters that are harder to kill (and a bigger threat to him) rather than try to rack up kill points shooting at your transports or flimsy troops. Pinning isn't the most important thing though since not every army can do it (or needs to) and some armies simply won't let you do it to them (or it has no effect). The biggest thing you should take from that article is that any time you force your opponent to make decisions on your terms instead of you reacting to him you have an advantage in that you are partially controlling the game. If you can do that early its easier to maintain till the end pinning some one in their board edge is one possible way to do that.

We arn't talking about "Pinning" as in you must take a Pinning Test.


this is like a chess move where your Queen is directly between your King and my Rook. if she moves your King is in Check and if she stays she dies.

Sure, but that only works because Chess is combinatorial and there's a rule that prevents you from putting your King in check.

I think in 40k people would rather just kill the unit/let the unit die than partake in any sort of pinning situation as it is seen in chess.

I don't think that this form of controlling your opponents movement is valid. If you're to assume that you can rush up, halt your opponent from advancing using models and firepower, it may work for a turn. But if any weight is thrown against one side of the board it will crumble. Especially with the chance of deepstriking and outflanking.

But all things considered, if you did this maneuver right before an objective game would end, enabling you to gain more objectives. Thats the only way I could consider it a plausible tactic.

the point isn't to Immobilize your opponent.

it's to force him to choose between 2 courses of action

both of which you have set up so, no matter what he chooses, he gets screwed.

Nurglitch wrote:Sure, but that only works because Chess is combinatorial and there's a rule that prevents you from putting your King in check.

Any piece can be pinned in chess, all that is required is that the piece being protected is more valuable than the piece being pinned. Knights and Bishops will often get pinned to the Queen in opening games (moving them exposes the queen to attack). Pawns can also be pinned to any piece including other pawns (in more valuable positions).

The real reason pinning works in chess is because chess only allows you to move one piece in one turn (for the most part)... pins require you to move two pieces in one turn to escape. Since this is impossible a player must choose one piece to sacrifice (unless a sneaky check is available).

It might be easy to assume this kind of thing can't happen in 40k because all the pieces can move, but that would be missing the point.

In chess; moves can be considered a resource, the pin works by presenting two threats when your opponent only has enough resources to respond to one. In 40k moves aren't quite as precious as in chess, but 40k has its own precious resource that can be exploited... Special Weapons, Scoring units, Psykers, etc... All these are precious resources that can often be needed in two places at once. A good opponent would make sure that is the case, forcing you to choose what to keep, and what to sacrifice.

GodofForge wrote:I don't think that this form of controlling your opponents movement is valid. If you're to assume that you can rush up, halt your opponent from advancing using models and firepower, it may work for a turn. But if any weight is thrown against one side of the board it will crumble. Especially with the chance of deepstriking and outflanking.

But all things considered, if you did this maneuver right before an objective game would end, enabling you to gain more objectives. Thats the only way I could consider it a plausible tactic.

It is only meant to tie your opponent up long enough for you to control how the rest of the game will play out. I use this strategy often, not every game obviously, and even in a game with 3+ units of outflankers/deepstrikers it has worked, especially when I get first turn. In a game I played recently against IG I was able to run my army forward in LRs and Rhinos (no DP/Deep Strikers/Outflankers for me) and get him to commit to combat on his table edge. I had done so much damage with my turn 2 charges, melta weapons, and flamer templates that his outflanking Valks and Vendettas full of veterans weren't going to be able to recoup his lost KPs. You don't have to physically take keep your opponents whole army where you want it but by providing a target rich environment in his deployment zone you are keeping him there. It is hard to ignore an entire army in your deployment zone no matter how many objectives may be lying around.

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'.

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'.

Pins, forks and skewers are a cornerstone of chess strategy, pretty much every book on chess strategy that has ever been written will have pages if not whole chapters dedicated to them. Not only do they work, they are one of the most dangerous types of attack, and are played whenever possible by grand masters and chess supercomputers, who are all better at chess than you. Pins are frequently chosen by supercomputers as the best possible move in many common chess openings... And furthermore it is plainly obvious that they work. If moving your Knight means a Bishop can swoop in a capture your Queen, then even the most novice chess player could tell you that moving the Knight is pure folly... The knight is 'pinned' in place. This does not mean the Knight is guaranteed to be taken or that all pins are inescapable. But it is a bad situation to find yourself in. If the opponent starts to work the pin and puts the Knight under further threat from something like another Knight or even a humble Pawn, then it can't escape (unless you'd rather loose your queen). This is often the way even great players end up down on material, which can mean 'game over' at high levels.

I know when I'm playing a good player by the way they avoid leaving dangerous pins available on the board for their opponent to trounce them with. And I know when I'm talking to someone who doesn't know much about chess when they say: "If you're using such a pinning technique to threaten material, then your opponent will simply make you pay". This is just pure untrue. Being pinned is almost never an advantageous position to find yourself in. There is such a wealth of knowladge on this subject that It doesn't even bare discussing... go read about chess...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_(chess)

the difference between a good chess player and a bad one is how easy it is to get them Pinned, Skewered, or Forked.


40k is much more complicated, but similer tactics can be used.

Out of the theoretical and into the real....

Game #3 at an RTT this past Saturday, I was at the top table - my Dark Eldar against my opponent's Eldar. I have 15 skimmers at 2,000 points (6 wych raiders, 3 warrior raiders, 1 HQ raider, 3 Ravagers), while my opponent had 2 fire prisms, 2 wave serpents, one falcon, and two units of Vypers. =p He's got Eldrad and Uriel with a pimped Seer Council, and other nasties.

The mission had 3 objectives with different point values. The "Alpha" was worth 11 points, while the two "beta" objectives were worth 5 points each. Spearhead deployment. I win the roll to go first and do. In return, he deployed Eldrad's skimmer in his corner and reserves the rest.

Turn 1, my army moves ahead 12" and I wreck Eldrad's serpent. His turn1 is uneventful, just repositioning Eldrad's squad.

Turn2, rather than closing in to dump firepower on Eldrad (which I think he was trying to bait me to do with their rerollable 4+ invulnerable saves), my entire army instead moved flat out - lining his board at about the 6" mark, and two deep where possible, except in the corner that Eldrad was in. That meant that on his turn, he either had to move flat out onto the table to get over me (since a 6" or 12" movement would land his skimmers on top of me), or he had to castle up in his corner, which was the only place for him to move on.

During his turn, he took the only choice that let him shoot at me, and moved all his reserves into his corner - basically granting me control of the entire battlefield except for his corner. He got all of his vehicles except for one.

The game progressed, I shot extremely poorly as always....but he was bottled up in his corner and unable to access objectives. At the end of the game, he couldn't get within 3" of the 11 point objective because I had pinned him in his corner.

That's part of generalship, and how you wield your army, but that and a lot of other actual principles of modern warfare apply to 40k as well.

Pinning is certainly a viable tactic, in 40k as well as chess (which is my other hobby). Pinning in 40k is different than in chess, for a number of reasons.

In a KP or VP game, pinning an army seems dubious. The tactic seems to imply that you are engaging your opponents entire army with part of yours. The local superiority of forces should therefore lead to quick demise for your attempt at pinning, luck being equal. In KP and VP games its all about how well you exchange KP/VPs, and "winning the exchange" is the key to success here. This is because your units all have an inherent value associated with them, that is not a function of the board position.

In objective missions, throwing away non-scoring units to keep an opponent from claiming an important objective is an necessary tactic. If you can use a unit in such a way that it will lose eventually, but still deny your opponent the objective you are making a good play. Objective missions are different in this way, because the value of a unit is only as much as it will allow you to claim more objectives than your opponent - they hold no inherent value like they do in KP and VP missions. Pinning and sacrificial tactics therefore are more suited to objective missions.

The whole game of 40k is about choices, more so about forcing your opponent to make choices unitl he makes the wrong / bad one and you are there to exploit that with your unit/army/tactic whatever.

I see the wisdom in attempting to engage the enemy in his deployment zone but depending how fortified the deployment zone is that could be difficult.

I know how i'm playing a good chess player by playing chess with them. Hardly anyone plays chess any more, they're probably pretty good if they want to play chess.

I don't know if that's directed at me but essentially you need to create more options for yourself than you opponent has choices. So if he has 2 lascannon squads and you have 3 tanks you know that one will survive at least. You then base your decisions from this, do you expose one (bait?) hide another and hide the 3rd or do you blitz all 3 forward.. etiher way he has to make a choice.. you just have to capitalize on it.

I've read the article, found it interesting thanks for bringing to my attention.

I'm not really sure how it works though, I get dashofpepper's example but surely that is highly situational (relying on the opponent reserving the majority of his force and them not deepstriking or outflanking). Maybe its just becasue I play against a lot of orks who more often than not are happy to get up close and personal with what ever I bring.

I just can't figure out how I could strong arm an ork into a corner.

Pinning in 40k is always situational, unlike 40k chess is played on a 2D surface that is always the same, depending on terrain and objectives.

Here is a way Orks might get pinned.

say the orks are a speed freak army and deploy all in the open because they will be going first. the mission is Capture and Control. he is hoping, and the signs point to success, for his 5 Trukks to zip out their and deliver their Slugga boyz and his 2 Warbosses and their Nobs right into CC by the 2nd turn. allowing his 3 large Squads of Shoota boyz to advance unimpeded and seize the objective.

then disaster strikes as the opposing Space marine player, who is very shooty, Siezes the Inititive(thanks to Sicarius) and procedes to blast each and every trukk off the board with his 3 Rifleman dreds, Tac squad missile launchers, and Typhoons.

now the ork player is stuck with a problem. he can continue to advance with his Shootas, but their cover is blown and his warbosses and Sluggas have taken some damage and will have to walk all the way under some pretty heavy firepower unless they take the long way through some forests and Rocky terrain which will slow them down considerably.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pinning in 40k is always situational, unlike 40k chess is played on a 2D surface that is always the same, depending on terrain and objectives.

Here is a way Orks might get pinned.

say the orks are a speed freak army and deploy all in the open because they will be going first. the mission is Capture and Control. he is hoping, and the signs point to success, for his 5 Trukks to zip out their and deliver their Slugga boyz and his 2 Warbosses and their Nobs right into CC by the 2nd turn. allowing his 3 large Squads of Shoota boyz to advance unimpeded and seize the objective.

then disaster strikes as the opposing Space marine player, who is very shooty, Siezes the Inititive(thanks to Sicarius) and procedes to blast each and every trukk off the board with his 3 Rifleman dreds, Tac squad missile launchers, and Typhoons.

now the ork player is stuck with a problem. he can continue to advance with his Shootas, but their cover is blown and his warbosses and Sluggas have taken some damage and will have to walk all the way under some pretty heavy firepower unless they take the long way through some forests and Rocky terrain which will slow them down considerably.

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
5. using MSU local superiority on one spot and pull the enemy away there
6. charge with AV12+ walkers^^

in modern warfare we know terms like "suppression fire" and "crossfire". They can be adapted to 40k too.

-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
5. using MSU local superiority on one spot and pull the enemy away there
6. charge with AV12+ walkers^^

in modern warfare we know terms like "suppression fire" and "crossfire". They can be adapted to 40k too.

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.

It seems to me that this whole debate could be avoided by a simple paraphrasing: make your opponent react to your army instead of being able to act with theirs.

SpankHammer III wrote:I've read the article, found it interesting thanks for bringing to my attention.

I'm not really sure how it works though, I get dashofpepper's example but surely that is highly situational (relying on the opponent reserving the majority of his force and them not deepstriking or outflanking). Maybe its just becasue I play against a lot of orks who more often than not are happy to get up close and personal with what ever I bring.

I just can't figure out how I could strong arm an ork into a corner.

The example I gave was indeed situational. EVERY example I can give is situational.

How to pin Orks in the corner? Well, I play mechanized Orks. See my signature - I've got quite a few batreps that you can read and gain some perspective on how I use them. As a Dark Eldar player, if I come up against a mechanized ork list....Each turn I will successively plop an empty raider (or full) in front of the mechanized line. Here's a batrep against Orks where I did just that: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/296453.page#1599983



Those empty raiders up there are blocking his battlewagons from getting anywhere near my expensive stuff. I went flat out with them so I have a 4+ cover save, and they dodge his rams on a 3+.....meaning that he's stuck on place unless he wants to split apart from his KFF battlewagon.

I agree 100% that Warhammer is about making your opponent make difficult choices - forcing them into bad situations and capitalizing on them. I can't give an example for EVERY possible scenario with every army against every other army - but like I said earlier - the same principles of chess, or principles of warfare, or Sun Tzu, or whatever you like......they all work in 40k too!

That's a great illustration of a pin Dash. I think some of the contention over the pin strategy I wrote about comes from my basing it on my experience with Marine armies. But your picture shows a well executed pin using non-marines and not having to use your entire army. Thanks for adding that to the thread!

Similar thing happened to me last thursday I played a game against an ork player and a Dark Angels player with my teammate being another Eldar player he was pretty much all jetbikes except for one serpent with DA's inside and a group of rangers I was predominantly footdar with one falcon. At the beggining my team mate moved his Shining spears to attack the ork players Deff koptas that had scouted to within about 6 inches of our deployment. By the time he had destroyed those the ork player was withing about 18" of us and decided to come for me the less threatening footdar army which was a huge mistake because I doomed his boyz guided my guardians and fortuned them too. My team mate ran the orks into a wall of incoming fire and within 2 turns the ork player was gone because he ran right into a wall of gunfire while simultaniously getting his rear flanks hit by shining spears.

Sun tzu said:


Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.

By holding out advantages to him, he can cause the enemy to approach of his own accord; or, by inflicting damage, he can make it impossible for the enemy to draw near.

*strokes beard*

So basically . . . use a unit to suck the enemy closer . . . or destroy transports to slow the enemy down . . . Sun Tzu you cunning 40k player you

Oshova