Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Kind of a misleading title...but I'm ultimately wonder from the start of the game how do you plan to win your game? Are you playing to win based on objectives or is your aim to throw caution to the wind and try to table your opponent?

I generally play to table my opponent and don't pay much attention to objects till turn 5ish

I think about objectives starting from the moment we roll the mission, and not stopping until at least the end of the game; maybe twenty minutes after.

Unless I'm really overtired or specifically playing beerhammer.

I start with taking a strong list that gives me all the tools I'll need for any situation I come across.

Then, once I know what the mission is, I ask myself what I need to do to win the mission. Then I ask myself which units in my list will best accomplish that mission. Then I ask myself what the rest of my army can do to support said unit(s) to help them do their job.

Then I deploy, based on this.

Everything else is pretty secondary.

Play for the objectives from the start. That being said, its generally easier to take objectives if there is no opponent to contest them. Do as much damage early on while going for objectives. If the game lasts long enough for objectives to be a concern, by turn 3 your units should start going for them and on turn 5 you should be there.

Don't be afraid to sacrifice everything if it means you can win - even if your force is weaker than your opponent's at the end of the game. Sometimes tying up the opponent and slowing them down from getting the objectives is better than trying to kill them.

We only play annhilation so tabling is kind of the only option. I tend to go after easily destroyable, but high cost targets (generally artillery units) or take out any high priority targets (things that can do the most damage easily, but extremely hard to dislodge, such as pathfinders holed up in ruins).

I usually don't play to win, per se. I play to kill. So I focus more on killing the enemy than taking objectives. My lists are more immobile than some, but the amount of fire I can pour into the enemy can help win the day.

I usually go for capping objectives, which has led me to playing way too cautiously, which kills me. Especially when most of the objectives are on their half of the board.

I am always fixated on the objectives, personally. Incidentally, before I go any further, I should also point out that I don't win very often.

I generally play troop heavy armies with limited mobility (I have little patience for assembling and painting transports), so I tend to follow more or less the same gameplan.

- Use heavy weapons to pin down / hinder movement of enemy troops
- Use terrain to screen movement of my slow-as-molasses foot soldiers creeping towards objectives
- Use fast attack options to harrass the long-range options from behind
- Run at least one high-risk gambit that would totally tip the table in my favor if it worked.... which it does not
- Open another beer
- Reconsider my hatred of assembling and painting transports
- Hold enough objectives to lose the battle by a nosehair
- Line up for a new battle, repeat.

I tend to have the same issues with Warhammer that I do with fantasy sports leagues: I try to translate the real world into the game world. My fantasy NFL team is a carefully crafted masterpiece of balanced offense and defense, covering key positions with solid workhorses that would have marched to the Super Bowl if they were to take the field in real life. However, because I keep forgetting that's now how fantasy football is played, I end up at the bottom of the table every year. Oh well.

The same goes with my WH and 40K battles. My armies look good, are well suited to the real life counterparts of the individual missions, and are tactically sound. I use feints, misdirects, firing lanes, well-timed assaults, artillery support, and a bunch of other stuff that doesn't really mean much in a six-turn tabletop game. But I have fun doing it!

Objectives are always the first thing I think about every turn.

Well most of the games are objective based now so as soon as we roll for objectives and they are placed I start thinking about what Im going to send where. I also try to deploy in a manner that leaves my units close enough to support each other and deter a DS into my DZ, and I try to hanker it where I deploy second and my opponent is spread out letting me avoid some of his units. My current list has everything in a transport and is a heavy mech. list. I usually leave a decent chunk to secure the closest obj. and send off my hammering units to the next obj. immediately.

Our games tend to be more 'victory zones' than anything else, so for the most part my goal is try to be as mobile as possible, killing my enemy as I go. Most of the time, battles are determined by what's left alive/what's been killed, so going for the table is generally the best idea in my league.

man, good question!

i used to take the field thinking nothing but objectives or KPs etc. nowadays, that mentality has changed somewhat.

first, i pay close attention to what the winning condition is.

second, i pay close attention to my opponent's force and what exactly is in their list that will bring all kinds of hate towards me winning the game.

last, i start the game either crippling their forces with massive firepower (my DE) or i start the game off by covering the board with bodies so that they limit any tactics my opponent might want to employ towards taking objectives (my nids).

every time i've attempted to play a denial game with either KPs or swamping objectives early has cost me more often than not. i like to get to situations where it doesn't matter what my opponent is going to do, it won't help them win. sounds like a basic idea, but i think that's what this thread is all about...do you go for a military or tactical advantage.

I've never really thought about it super-hard, and my lists don't have units like Pathfinders or such to do little more than hold and objective in my deployment zone while giving a little support (I play Eldar).

When I start a game, I do consider the mission and I consider (when placing objectives) where I want them to be. Against immobile armies (like guard), I either want objectives to be far apart (to make it hard for them to move from objective to objective) or spread them apart (to give my skimmers an opportunity to shine).

I always keep the mission in mind, and take note of things like KP during games, but less so with objectives. I usually start thinking harder about it later into the game we go, for obvious reasons, but on turn 1, I'm generally worried about my opponent and how to handle their army.

Keep your eye on the prize.

Objective game: Play solely for the objective. Eliminate his scoring units if you can, but otherwise, keep your focus.

Killpoints: Maximise your firepower and assault capacity. Ideally, kill so many that they fall back, and chase them down (or if marines, just shadow them. It stops them regrouping and then they have to fall back again).

I usually play against daemons. I work quickly to ensure that the other half of their force never hits the table. I have to annihilate by turn 2.

I awlays focus on the Victory Conditions. If it's Objectives, I have a plan when I deploy. If it's Annihilation, I try to focus my firepower on one goal at a time.

I go for a genestealer army with gargoyles and the parasite of something something and some zoanthropes cause the gargoyles force the attention away from the genestealers and can attack fast and ignore the terrain go straight for them the zoanthropes are like phycic connection and the parasite attacks infantry and creates a new threat elsewhere and sometimes gets me an objective all by it self (as in kills the whole unit by making them fight ripper swarms) and genestealers to kill stuff and seem threatening

I plan on arguing and nitpicking over minor rules violations until my opponent gets so fed up that they forfeit.

Actually since I play a footslogging BT, I run everything across the board and kill whatever I can find with whatever I have left.

I never really get round to having a plan... just go for it i suppose... probably explains why i don't win that often.

Depends on the mission & my opponents list. If it's objective & my opponent only has 2 troops choices because he's a moron I kill them. Then the best he can do is tie. The rest is pretty much a wrap up.

If it's kill points I generally go for what is a big threat. Kill the transports & stop the enemy from being mobile which is a huge part of fighting against an MSU army like mine.

I don't play to win.

i play not to lose.


if you focus on what will lose you the game and try to avoid it, you may find your win ratio improve.

I disagree Grey Templar, the best way to win games is to play to win. The best way to not lose games is to play not to lose.

That's an important distinction. If you're playing competitively, draws aren't the same as wins, and you won't win a tournament with draws.

In order to win, you have to risk losing. It's much easier to play conservatively and neither win nor lose. But it's not as interesting.

In order to win, I typically analyze my opponent's army. What are their biggest threats to my army, and what are they likely to try and do?

How can I neutralize their biggest threats (and as often as not, the answer isn't kill it - killing things involves dice rolls and has that random chance thing going on.)

How can I mitigate their advantages? Are they more mobile than I am? If they are, I need to position my guys to support each other more. If they're less mobile, how can I use my mobility to keep some of their forces disengaged?

I kill my enemies troop scoring units as folk seldom seem to take enuff.

Man, it's all about objectives. If you forget the objectives, you lose. You can try to table your opponent, but winning objectives is always easier.

I have a relaxed attitude. Winning isn't that important. What IS important is having fun. Truth be told i have a bit more fun when I win, but a close game i lost is often just as much fun (if not more!)
I most often used to play with my orks, so any "plan" boiled down to "krump it / hose it with dakka" in order of threat.. and hope to god i have enough troops to hold the objective while big green plates hover menacingly over my boyz
Space marines just aren't as fun to play

Both. Kinda have to.

My buddies are super skilled players. One of them fields IG. I ususally play Necron. With the sheer amount of numbers, and fire power, I have to think about them as much as the objective.

If you dont widdle them down, and go straight objective, we'll against IG, your pretty much dead, before you get to the objective.

DamnTanks/Phase out.

Early game I rush in to cripple their power as much as possible, near end game I double back and grab victory conditions. Shock and Awe man.

Mannahnin wrote:

Unless I'm really overtired or specifically playing beerhammer.

wise words. I play beerhammer and try to blow up as much stuff as I can. This is usually far more fun than worrying about objectives, KPs, or anything other than destruction.
I find that I can get KPs by killing stuff, rather than worrying about how many KPs I can get, I just kill stuff. I usually win/draw KP games and lose/draw objective games more often than the other way around so maybe I'm not the best final round pick in the tournaments but it's always a fun bloodbath.

bottom line of my philosophy:
"How do you win?"
- "kill as much stuff as possible."
"But you didn't win, how does that work?"
- "because I still killed lots of stuff"

L_Dawg wrote:I usually play against daemons. I work quickly to ensure that the other half of their force never hits the table. I have to annihilate by turn 2.

Why would that stop the other half from arriving?

You run Wolves. Take x3 units of long fangs a good 4 or 5 x5 man Grey Hunter units in Razorbacks and four Rune Priests.


Then wonder why you don't have any friends.