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I acknowledge there are multiple variables that can influence (and hence for every circumstance change) the answer to this question but in general do you view yourself as a defensive or offensive player?
Are you reactive or proactive in games, do you try and sieze the initiative or wait and see what your opponents plan will be?
Even if you play what might be generally classed as an offensive army, do you adapt its stlye to suit yours or charge headlong forward?

In the past I was very much a defensive/reactive player. I'd have a general strategy for a game but usually waited for my opponents to play their hand/make the offensive moves.
I think this was down to the style of armies I played (Dwarfs in WAR and "defensive" Necrons/Tau etc). In addition in 2nd ed I used to play a lot of KP games and keeping your troops alive was very important (as there were points for damaged vehicles/50% squad kills etc).

However of late Ive been playing somewhat more offensively, Im not sure why. Obviously in 5th ed claiming objectives is paramount to winning and can lend itself towards a more aggressive strategy since if you can get to the obj early and dig in it can be hard to displace/retake.

"War once declared, must be waged offensively, aggressively. The enemy must not be fended off; but smitten down. You may then spare him every exaction, relinquish every gain, but til' then he must be struck incessantly and remorselessly."

-Alfred Thayer Mahan (architect of modern naval doctrine)

Turns 1-4: Offensive.
Turns 5-7: Defensive.
Assuming 2/3 of the games are objective based.

Turns 1-7: Offensive in Kill point games. (Defensive with mauled squads only if they can hide easily)

95% offensive, seeing as my chosen armies are Orks and Chaos Marines.

The only defensive units will be either a unit of grots or lootas or in a very large game I'll sometimes leave a squad of marines with nothing but a heavy weapon on my home objective.

Well in my case I must distinguish.

In general I tend to play defensive armies with pressure on the opponent and offensive armies with caution.

I like it to dissect armies slowly, but I also like the devastating effect of a general attack.

So I try to not attack unprepared and I try to keep the initiative even on the defending part.

To picture this in turns I would distinguish:

Turn 1+2: opening moves, preparing fire
Turn 3+4: attacking moves, decisive fire/assaults
Turn 5-7: consolidation, exploiting successes, diminishing losses

I am not a friend of a first or second turn all out attack. And I dont like spray and pray for 5 turns either. (Although I performed both) I think both is required.
My motto again is: Dont advance uncovered and dont retreat without pressure.

But overall I tend to play defensively

I like to handle my opponent's "rock' unit, either by blasting it off the table, leading it astray chasing a nonimportant unit, or laying an ambush for it. after that, it is all ahead full pushing the initative and securing mid board and objectives where posible. of course this is all fluid and can change in a minute.

I play pretty offensively either setting up for massive turn one alpha strike or a turn two multi-assault. My motto is the best defense is a good offense. I like to play highly mobile MSU armies where each unit can threaten everything cheaply so that I can afford to throw away units in order to keep high pressure on and focus on enemy linchpins, limit opponent mobility and try to keep them as defensive as possible. So far its been working very well for me.

Interesting responses so far.

I play pretty aggressively. I find offense to be the best option early as your army is likely to be at full strength. The best defense is a good offense, simply because if you kill their guys they are not around to kill you. Get yourself in a position to win early. That way your opponent has to react.

However, around mid-game I tend to consolidate the position to try and hold onto the win. I'm normally very happy to take an early lead in KP, then hold on to it. Same goes for objectives. Get an early lead and plan late game contesting. Just make sure you keep everything in your head as to how the next few turns might play out and how long it takes for KPs to rack up or objectives to be captured/contested, and you should be able to tell mid-game if you are likely to win.

I'd say on that axis I'd fall on "offensive/reactive". I'm proactive when my opponent likes sitting there doing nothing, but even then, one could argue that that's me reacting to them doing nothing.

As for offensive v. defensive, that one is obvious. You can not win 2/3ds of your games (the objective-based one), you MUST attack to win, and in the other third, I've usually seen the victor as the one who played the most aggressively and controlled the initiative the best.

It completely depends on the army I'm playing. For example I play necrons on the defense, and deldar and CSM aggressively. The funny thing is it's never a conscoius desicion.

I think it's because I have all the fluff and so on floating in my head as I play an army, so then I tend to play in concert with the army's theme/style i.e. slow crons, fast deldar, and so on.

Ratius wrote:I acknowledge there are multiple variables that can influence (and hence for every circumstance change) the answer to this question but in general do you view yourself as a defensive or offensive player?
Are you reactive or proactive in games, do you try and sieze the initiative or wait and see what your opponents plan will be?
Even if you play what might be generally classed as an offensive army, do you adapt its stlye to suit yours or charge headlong forward?

In the past I was very much a defensive/reactive player. I'd have a general strategy for a game but usually waited for my opponents to play their hand/make the offensive moves.
I think this was down to the style of armies I played (Dwarfs in WAR and "defensive" Necrons/Tau etc). In addition in 2nd ed I used to play a lot of KP games and keeping your troops alive was very important (as there were points for damaged vehicles/50% squad kills etc).

However of late Ive been playing somewhat more offensively, Im not sure why. Obviously in 5th ed claiming objectives is paramount to winning and can lend itself towards a more aggressive strategy since if you can get to the obj early and dig in it can be hard to displace/retake.

ideally in 40k you want to call the shots, make your opponent react to you, attack him, wipe him out, etc. you defend yourself only in the sense that the faster you kill all his stuff the sooner he loses the ability to kill yours.

I draw a line along the middle objectives. The enemy will not cross it. Shoot anything that moves. I guess that's "defensive".

Full-out attack. If my opponent wants to shoot me, a good game is one where he has 1 round to do so.

That being said, I can be fairly defencive vs. other assault armies. Place Hormagaunts to take their offensive thrust, then counter-attack.

But, I mostly attack.

It depends for me. I play mid-field CSM and CC Templars, so I usually have to play offensive in order to have a chance, but against certain army types (such as DS armies) I'll close up my formations defensively and double or triple-team units as they drop in, since many DS armies are good at destroying isolated or vulnerable units.

It's really to an army's advantage to be both, and you have to learn how to do both. If an army can't do both and their opponent recognizes that weakness then it's a weakness that can be capitalized on.

A good specific example of defensive versus offensive tactics is the use of the Vendetta. The offensive use would be for player 1 to scout forward, dump off suicide melta vets, and fall back 6" per turn while blasting with 3 TL LC. The defensive use would be player 2 reserving a vendetta, and trying to keep it out of trouble in turns 2,3,and 4. Sometimes that means going down from 3 TL LC shots a turn to a single shot in order to stay mobile & out of trouble. The goal is to keep the bird alive until turn 5 where it can flay 24" forward and grab an objective on turn 5. Sometimes a unit can do both, such as player 1 scouting the Vendetta forward, dropping off suicide vets, flying 24" back on turn 1, pick up a cheap infantry squad on turn 2, blast 3 TL LC from the back field on turns 2-4, and fly forward 24" to grab an objective on turn 5.

What makes good units & players great is the ability to play both offensively and defensively.

Well, I like to be reactive, but I find that I mainly focus on killing my opponents units, as opposed to castling up and holding objectives all game, which IMO isn't a great strategy. When you build a list, you really only need one thing in mind:killing power. As long as you have enough troop choices, you shouldn't really bother with anything else. Of course you need survivability and mobility, but those are just tools with which to destroy enemies easier. If your fast, you can outmaneuver and destroy them, and if you can weather their fire easier, you can obviously give back more damage.

I think that leaning too far defensive or offensive is a bad idea. If you focus on killing them you may lose objective missions, or just lose lots of units in the process, if you play defensively, you don't usually die any easier, since its hard to avoid getting shot at by something, and you don't kill your enemies nearly as well.

All in all I'd say a mix, as I just use whatever works in my given situation.

It largely depends on what I am facing. my last game was VS Daemons and playing the basic SM codex I had a lot of shooting with Sternguard I kept my combat squads in front of my sterguard to defend them from shooting and assaults but I moved forward till I found it in my best interest to counter assault his bloodcrushers with my dread or my stern would have been in CC.

as for shooting armies like tau IG etc I always take the offense as trying too out shoot such an army is too risky.
So I try and move in the interest that suits my enemy the least.

Offensive. I play IG with big guns. I like to shoot stuff.

Also, I don't want to have them shooting back at me.

Sanctjud wrote:Turns 1-4: Offensive.
Turns 5-7: Defensive.
Assuming 2/3 of the games are objective based.

Turns 1-7: Offensive in Kill point games. (Defensive with mauled squads only if they can hide easily)

This absolutely this Sanctjud is correct

Used to play a lot of RTSs back in the day. Best strat I've learned is you got to beat the piss out of your enemy before he can set up for anything. Works great in Starcraft, Rise of Nations, Civicy, hell even 40K dawn of war.

It also makes the game more fun, and hey I play orks it's kinda what they do. ;D