After a game today, I decided to write up a few tips that have helped me in
40k. I'm not the best
40k player but I'm not the worst. I've been playing
40k now for 18 years, and I do tend to win more games than I lose. That said, some of these tips are well known, some may be novel, and they are mostly meant for the casual player wanting to improve their game. Most roughandtumble tourney folks are probably all well-familiar with these tips, and for them this will be far less helpful.
1. Relax and shut up.
If you've been playing for long enough, I'm sure at one point or another you've made a comment that clued an opponent into your intentions and cost you a unit, an assault, or even a game. If you're trying to win, calm down, and let your opponent make their own mistakes. In your turn, telling your opponent
what you're doing is enough, and you aren't obligated to tell them
why. Basically, the thinking out loud, where you tell your opponent your entire thought process, is probably counterproductive.
2. Understand why certain matchups are bad, and why certain matchups are good.
This is really one half gameplay and one half list building.
Certain armies rely on psychic powers. Certain armies have psychic defense and some don't. Sometimes, a bad matchup can be turned into a favorable matchup by killing off one specific enemy unit. A good example of this type of army is Eldar. Eldar relies heavily on psychic support. The same bastard providing psychic support is also nerfing YOUR psykers. You kill the Farseer, you solve a lot of your problems.
Certain builds in specific armies have strengths that should be taken into account during list building when you consider matchups in your Metagame. A Dark Lance or Bright Lance kills AV14 just as easily as AV12, so spamming Chimeras or Rhinos in a Lance-heavy meta is beneficial to running Raiders. Conversely, if you have a Missile Launcher-heavy meta, AV14 is particularly effective.
3. Target Prioritization.
This should be fairly obvious, but here it is:
For shooting at vehicles, shaken/stunned is enough. Otherwise, shoot to maximize the effectiveness of your shooting against the broad range of the opponent's army, reducing effectiveness where it's easiest. The most dangerous unit may not be where you want to focus fire on turn one, if it won't be a real threat for a couple turns.
4. Deployment usually decides the game.
Knowing when to choose sides and deploy first, should you win the dice roll, is essential. As a general rule, in Dawn of War you want to go second, and vs. Alpha-striking armies want to go first. Deployment also influences movement so know what types of deployment force certain armies into certain positions. General enough? Here's an example: Pitched Battle allows you to spread out while Spearhead forces you to cluster together. After the first turn, you and your opponent will likely spread out so if you're relying on lots of Ordnance or Blast weapons with long range, you probably want to go first and hit 'em while they're clustered up.
Another issue that most people don't know is that in Spearhead, your Reserves come on along your long table edge, not just the half on which you deployed. So if you want to minimize your exposure, perhaps reserving units and bringing them on closer to the enemy is a good option.
5. Know units' vulnerabilities
Some of the toughest nuts to crack fall the hardest to certain attacks. Most of the really tough Deathstars aren't actually fearless. A good example is Twolf Cav deathstars incorporating Wolf Lords on Thunderwolves. They're very vulnerable to
LD-style attacks, so hit 'em with Weaken Resolve from a
PBS and shoot them, Lash them, Fear the Darkness them, pin them, etc. And if they do run, then escort them off the board with one of your own units!
Nids have some really nasty T6 5 or 6 whatever wound Monstrous Creatures. You can deal with them via multiassault: Assault the
MC AND a nearby unit of weaker infantry like Gaunts. Put one model into the
MC and everything else into the Gaunts, wipe them, and force the
MC to take a ton of saves. Ouch!
6. Know how to control an opponent's movement.
How meaning, through what methodology, but also meaning in what way you
want them to behave.
This can be either via influence, such as during deployment and territory denial, or by means such as tank shocks, assaults, psychic powers, etc.
If they want to come to you, then maximize the distance. If they want to deep strike on top of you, maximize the likelihood of mishap. If you don't want the enemy in a certain portion of the map, then babysit it with nasty high S low
AP powerhouses like Demolishers and Vindicators or ugly counterassault elements.
If you want to bunch up enemy units for templates, or want to move them closer to you, then force them to displace via tankshock. Typically this clusters the unit, so if they have a nasty
IC, try to shock the unit in a way that clusters him in (more on this later). Basically, force the squad to displace off to one side of the vehicle. For more on how to do this, read the Tank Shock rules in the
BRB.
7. Read the rules
Seriously. There are some game-changing little gems in there. Here are a few things that most casual players don't know, IME.
A) Death or Glory vs. Tank Shocks. Only a model
in the vehicle's path can attempt to Death or Glory. So if you tank shock a unit, avoid the Power Klaw or Meltagun and run over some random Broseph.
B) When shooting at a vehicle, if the model can't see the facing which he occupies (ie: he can only see the front of the tank, but he's in the side arc) it receives a 3+ coversave.
C)
ICs in assaults move immediately after the first model so if you don't want them to be involved in an assault, position your models so that your
IC is boxed in after the first assaulting model moves. If you do want him to be in the assault, then put him in a position to make b2b.
8. Go in with a gameplan and play to it
If you need to assault your opponent, you need to know how many turns it'll take for you to get there. If you're playing for time, then sacrifice units to force opponents to make choices or tarpit their units. If you NEED psychic support or defense then protect your psykers. If you know what makes an army "tick", then you know how to beat it. For example, Kan Walls rely on proximity of the Kans to the
KFF Mek. If you split your army in two, there's no way that all the kans can remain in close proximity to a single mek.
9. Force your opponent to make decisions
Recent psychology research has shown that people do not respond well to being presented with many different choices. People can process around 5-7 choices, and after that, it becomes quagmire. If you force your opponent to make choices, they will make mistakes, and they will hang themselves with these mistakes.
10. Remember what you're fighting for.
This isn't some patriotic statement, it's about Mission Type. If you're playing Cap N Control or Seize Ground, then don't worry about blasting the crap out of everything that moves. I've won many a game because my opponent got caught up in trying to kill certain annoying units. Lash Sorcerors make great Objects of Hatred for this purpose, by the way.
Hope you found this interesting or entertaining, and if you have anything to add please chime in.
suckers.
Tyranids 500
1k
Chaos
