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.

A tactic that has me a little flummoxed.

On a KP mission, Pitch Battle (PB, which is unimportant, as you'll see), I win the roll to go first and deploy forward and aggressive, ravagers or raiders (depending on enemy's composition) screening each other.

Opponent elects to go all Reserve.

So, I use Turns 1 & 2 to position as best possible, using terrain to cover the Ravs' rear ends (like it makes *much* difference) and I be sure to 'Flat out' for the Cover Saves when the opponent's stuff starts arriving.

The opponent managed to not get *anything* in on Turn 2. So I be sure to adjust and go 'flat out' again.

He gets both SRGs and some jumpers on Turn 3. This denied my army 3 rounds of offense. Since DE skimmers go down so easily, my opponent gained the lead on the KP race, and with only a few rounds, I couldn't catch up.

Besides case-by-case adjustments, anyone got any experience dealing with this?

My 1850 list:

3 venoms w/ extra SplitCan. Each has 4 Trublasters
3 hamewych raiders+FF, haywaires hekagonizer. Liquifiers on the haems
3 Ravagers FF
Venom w/ extra SplintCan & 5 warriors
5 warriors

Opponent was a BA list with 2 StormRGunships & 2 units of jumpers (priest with FNP). 2 sets of TH/SS termies and a libby Dread.

A failed pinning check for one set of wyches didn't help, but this denial of offensive opportunity has me ... hmm, flummoxed.

Well, the KP mission balances out the two objective based missions.

Its one of the downsides to running with the power of the skimmer based DE, if your opponent is savvy, he will reserve and take your skimmers out as he comes in.

What you could do is to reserve everything too.
In this way, you could do some damage (with dark matter) when your units arrive.

This is the reason I'm not a fan of suicide trueblasters in venoms.

But, as far as this particular battle...

Your opponent made a smart move by reserving. It gives him the chance to make the first move and bring down your fragile skimmers before you can hit back. It's smart, and it tends to put DE players into a reactionary stance, which is bad for us. We're supposed to try and dictate the flow of the battle, and be on the offense, our paper mache bones makes it so.

However, I have some advice I've gleaned from more experienced players and playing two similar games myself.

First; stop caring about the killpoints. You've got more killpoints on the board, and your opponent is going to have an easier time wracking them up. Your objective should be to wipe him off the board. Very little else will help you win Annihilation missions. That's how I've learned to approach all Annihilation games, nevermind those played against just deep striking armies. Kill them all, leave no survivors, because if you wipe them off the board, your own losses cease to matter.

To that end, your opponent got very lucky by not deploying anything on the second turn and then getting such a big surge of troops on the third turn. The dice gods just weren't with you there my friend. However, there is a flaw in his strategy that (if the dice gods hadn't been on his side) could have cost him the game. That is his army is coming in waves, not at you as a whole. Statistically speaking, half his army should have deployed on the second turn, and then get reinforced in subsequent turns. If that had happened, you would've had to weather a hail of fire from his initial assault, but hey. Only half his army is on the board. Go get 'em. He might kill two of your trueblaster squads, but then you've got three ravagers. Might have taken three ravagers, but then you've got three trueblasters. Again, don't worry about the kill points, worry about wiping him out. And when he decides to offer you his army piecemeal, all the better to focus your fire and absolutely obliterate him.

That's really all you can do.

Wiping out the enemy is an option.
However, then you'll have to build the army around this.

wuestenfux wrote:Wiping out the enemy is an option.

Lokas and wuestenfux, I knew had to table him to get the win, but it just didn't pan out. He'd engaged all his infantry and the dread into h2h with two wyche units. My third wyche crew was in a downed boat and had to footslog through d-terrain to get to the fight. The SRGs just didn't seem to fail any Cover/Flat Out saves. I didn't get to use the liquifiers and a lot of that went wasted. I eventually brought one SRG down, but each of his termie TH/SS units, and both jumper crews survived, the dread too. The third wyche unit got assaulted and swept.

That was last week.

Today, was the re-match and he was able to change the mission again (League Item) to his advantage away from an objective one back to this KP scenario which I dreaded. These League Items are gained with planets in a map campaign. He won the roll to go first, but decided to deploy his two SRGs (x2 termie units and dread) and have the jumpers/Sanguinaries DoA.

(bit of a batrep, I know):

I almost deployed the ravagers in the corner, but then decided to go all Rerserves.

Turn 2:
His: He moves the 2 SRGs back and gets one set of jumpers.
Mine: I get half my army. 1 Rav, 1 haemwyhce boat, 2 venoms. I did lotsa shooting and killed one jumper. Otherwise the SRGs made saves.

Turn 3:
His: His 2nd set of jumpers came in and the first set were rather far away from me (I'd moved away from them) so they ran and didn't shoot. A mistake on his part, I think, he could have gunned down a set of Trueborn.

Mine: For Reserves, no wyche boats, but two ravs and a Venom. Then I recalled another League Item that I had privilege to. I got one turn to re-roll reserves. So, I do that and gain the other two haemwyche boats and another TruB-venom. This was crucial, as I can shoot & assault (no need to Run!) both jumper units with all 3 hamewyche units, and a termie crew. We're in week 6, so there's a few things to be mixed into the game.


Turn 4 - 5.5
The dice gods were kind to me.

Shooting: Exploded the SRG, putting the dread and termies on the ground. Shooting at the jumpers netted a Sanguinary Priest on the Shattershard, a few liquifier casualties (AP2 and AP1!), some wyche pistols. 4 termies died to shooting. The dread got immobilized (BIG!! ).

Quite a round of shooting.

Assault:
3 wyche crews assaulted the two jumpers (already cut in half) and a lone termie. That took 3 rounds of h2h to finish.

I wrecked the other SRG, and his termies failed pinning. I worked on the dread (both weapons destroyed) and shot up the 2nd, pinned, TH/SS termies.

They made and failed saves, but threw 3 goose-eggs against a venom to be cleared off. I then had one set of wyches change direction and assault the Dread. Yes, I was winning, and didn't need to risk the wyches, but tabling an opponent earned extra campaign points.

I did get 4 grenades to hit (thanks to the Immobilized-walker h2h rules, allowing for a WS comparison and not hitting on 6s. This was in his BA codex). I got the last immobilized result to finish it off.
---------------------

He made mistakes. Continuing to 'Flat Out' the SRGs with only the single melta shot, when he should have started going slow enough to fire the AC *and* MM. That might've doubled his taking down my boats. The two sets of jumpers did well on FNP, until the 2nd Sanguinary-Priest failed morale and fell back ... and did so into Difficult Terrain. The Priest failed a Dangerous T test.

Without FNP, mopping up the remaining 7 or so jumpers was no problem.

I had a lot of luck on this:
Combat Drugs: +1 Attack
Shattersharding the first Sanguinary Priest out. 2nd one Dangerous Terrained on Falling Back (we checked DangerousT rules to be sure).
Horrible saves on his termies.
Immobilizing the dread.
League items helped.
------------------------------------
Which brings us back to the original point. Is there anything to be done for this Annihilation/Reserve tactic, except throw ourselves to the mercy of the Reserve gods?

DE are a low AV, horrible armor save, MSU army. These are the facts. Because they have incredible speed, they do very well in objective missions. Due to their firepower and speed combined, they do very well in KP missions, when they get to go first.

The thing is, smart opponents know this and usually reserve against DE in KP missions, when DE are going first. Everyone knows that Raiders and Venoms are easy to kill, so coming in from reserve and killing a few makes it an uphill game for the DE, right from the start, with very little time to catch up. There isn't much you can do besides A) go flat out and pray for saves, or B) reserve your army as well, and pray to come in after your opponent.

*Scratches head*

Hmmm. The Shattershard bagged his librarian, not the Sanguinary Priest, who I singled out with the hekagonizer. Minor detail.

To win against DOA I normally make them go first when possible so that you can react to their arrival.

I'd probably castle in a corner in KP if forced to go first.

I'm not sure I fully understand the problem as you outline it.

1. Your full army is on the board with 3+ cover saves.
2. Less than his full army shows up.
3. He kills so much stuff in one turn it blunts your ability to hurt him enough that you never catch up in KPs.

There's *something* off in that tale, because as stands it sounds like if he got first turn he probably should have tabled you or something.

Sight unseen - I question the placement of your Skimmers. Were you too close to his board edge and allowed him extra firepower?

In a perfect world you should easily be sitting back 36" or so, maybe a touch closer with Trueblasters if you really want to stick it to him, but 36" is fairly optimal. That should drastically affect how much firepower he can generate on the first turn and allow you to get tempo advantage on him.

Looking at his list and what he got in he should have been able to manage...what, 4 dead skimmers in a perfect world? Yeah, that stinks, but you should have still easily had enough stuff to gun down the Stormravens - and with that firepower blunted your army should have been in good position to finish carving him up and eating him in small bites.

I seem to recall reviewing your list once before. I still stand by trimming Trueblasters to 3 each and getting blasters and a Venom on those Warrior squads.

Thor665 wrote:1. Your full army is on the board with 3+ cover saves.

Am I missing something here, Thor? Page 71's 'Shooting at Skimmers' Flat Out giving a 4+ Save (obscured).

Thor665 wrote:2. Less than his full army shows up.

No, more like 80%. 2 SRGs, fulla 5 termies each & a librarian dread and one set of jumpers. All on the bottom of Turn 3.

Thor665 wrote:3. He kills so much stuff in one turn it blunts your ability to hurt him enough that you never catch up in KPs.

There's *something* off in that tale, because as stands it sounds like if he got first turn he probably should have tabled you or something.

Not quite.

Thor665 wrote:I'm not sure I fully understand the problem as you outline it.

It isn't that he did so much damage to me. He only destroyed two raiders. It was more like I only had Turn 4 and 5 to get in any offense. By Turn 6, I couldn't catch up in KPs. Game over at the end of 6.

Thor, to simplify:
I flat out for 3 turns, because Turn 2, he got no Reserves in.
He gets 3 units in on *his* Turn 3. He cooks two raiders, one set of wyches fails pinning. His jumpers Run.

I spend Turn 4 with 22 lances managing to kill one SRG (putting the Dread and 5 terminators on the ground). All the venoms roll less than great and I put a minor dent in the jumpers. One set of wyches rolls dismal Diff Terrain and will not be able to go after the jumpers or terminators. My memory is getting foggy now, but I know that they were stuck in the crater of their raider, and didn't get to assault.

His Turn 4, another boat down due to the SRG. My KP liability walking warriors got killed by his other jumpers who'd just arrived. His terms and Dread assault two sets of wyches. Combat goes badly, one set of wyches Falls Back, the other stays in.

My Turn 4, Fall Back girls get some pistol shots off to little avail. More lance failure in general against the SRG. With the dread in h2h, he's not an available target. Wyche #3 asssautls the termies. H2h goes bad and wyche #2 are finished turn the dread loose.

DE kills: 1 SRG
BA kills: 6 raider, raider, wyche, rav, haem, warriors

His Turn 4: Finishes Fall Back Girls. Assault continues with the one wyche unit holding on to two term units. His dread joins that h2h. But small bit of satisfaction? The shardnet girl is in b2b with two termies and the dread. Eh.
My Turn 5: SRG #2 goes down (IIRC). A haem's liquifier and my venoms and the spare lances can shoot the one jumper crew. A sgt with Storm Shield defies many lance shots, but is finally cooked. I have earned a another KP. I think it was 8 to 3 at this point.

Turn 6 it got worse and then ended.

Thor665 wrote:Sight unseen - I question the placement of your Skimmers. Were you too close to his board edge and allowed him extra firepower?

The boats were in mid-table when his 2 SRGs and set of jumpers arrived on Turn 3. Spread enough to deny a Deep Strike spot for a 10 man Jump-Pack (sporting two meltaguns) unit to land. So, they picked a landing site outside my wagons. With the SRGs' range, Flat Out and a Multi-melta, I did not think that hugging my board edge would have any more impact there or mid-table.

Taking your concern in mind, I suppose, I should have remained much closer to my board edge, denying the MMelta's double pen dice ... not truly a big difference with DE AV, but a small factor none-the-less.

Thor665 wrote:In a perfect world you should easily be sitting back 36" or so, maybe a touch closer with Trueblasters if you really want to stick it to him, but 36" is fairly optimal. That should drastically affect how much firepower he can generate on the first turn and allow you to get tempo advantage on him.

I'll try to make the world more perfect.

Thor665 wrote:Looking at his list and what he got in he should have been able to manage...what, 4 dead skimmers in a perfect world? Yeah, that stinks, but you should have still easily had enough stuff to gun down the Stormravens - and with that firepower blunted your army should have been in good position to finish carving him up and eating him in small bites.

Oh, a pinned wyche crew here, a failed morale check there, all 3 Raiders downed Turn 3 and 4. Lance shots in taking too long to kill his SRGs (he kept making saves). Instead of a few of them killing the transport, and then me being able to use the rest to cook down the dread or terms.

Overall, it may have been an anomalously bad-dice game for me, but the Reserve tactic had implications (at least I thought so), of being insidiously bad for DE.

Thor665 wrote:I seem to recall reviewing your list once before. I still stand by trimming Trueblasters to 3 each and getting blasters and a Venom on those Warrior squads.

Yes, you had. Still, I kept the two warrior units as I'm a mediocre general (that is, not as good as DoP who can table an opponent most games) and I sometimes need that extra scoring unit in Reserve, while the wyches go brutalize the enemy.

Now, though, I'm finally going with your advice on changing 'em. I posted my army up on the list forum right now for those exact changes, if you care to paruse. Oof, 4 blaster to 3, though.

Sorry bro, the first battle sounds like a real pain in the neck. I tabled that army&player with Necrons last week, so I know that BA build.

I would not reserve as DE in such situations at all. I would not advance either. I would just turbo-castle in one of my corners and let him sweat. He does not have the guns to alpha strike you the way you can can strike him, so castling works much better for you than it would have for him.

The following things can happen then:
1) if he comes piecemeal, pounce on whatever shows up and destroy it. You have the full weight of your entire army, speed, and range to do it.
2) If he does not show up at all, then turbo-castle again, and everybody just loses a turn. Then see the other cases.
3) If he shows up in full force, he has to commit and show his hand. If he turbos, ignore the birds and destroy the jumpers. If he does not turbo, it may be better to down the birds first.

Other things help as well against this BA:
1) you can guess where the jumpers will come, because he does not want to scatter into terrain and he wants to deploy forward. They cannot assault immediately, so they are sitting ducks for shooting, liquefying, and gang-up CC.

2) if the birds turbo, I would ignore them completely. Use the dark lances to pump more kills on his jumpers. Sounds insane, but think about it - each wound is ID kill with no armor save and no FNP. This hits him where it hurts - he has very very few models. I'd say trying to punch through 3+ cover on AV12 is a bigger waste of dark lances. The jumpers are a far bigger threat than the termies, because they have comparable protection (3+ and FNP), but are cheaper, faster, more numerous, and have a lot of attacks.

3) The best scenario is to pump one squad of jumpers full of every shot you have, to reduce their numbers before assaulting them with 2-3 wych squads. That will guarantee you win the CC by a large margin and possibly wipe them out. If they fall back, your superior initiative will probably sweep them, which will cause extra wounds because they are marines, instead of wiping them out. But, with reduced numbers, that will likely wipe them out anyway, and besides the priest may already have died in the initial assault, so they will not get FNP for these extra wounds.

4) I don't think the SRG is an assault transport, so they need to land before they assault. In that critical skipped turn you can use your insane speed to move away. Let the termies chase you around the board while the venoms kill them. That is why the jumpers should be your primary target. The SRGs are only there to mess with your mind. You already have crap armor, so what do you care about the melta?

Frankly, I do not think his list is that much of a killer. He would be far more dangerous if he took more jumpers and left the termies at home. SRGs are far more dangerous in GK ranks, because what they transport is much nastier. With BA, I do not fear them.

Opponent was a BA list with 2 StormRGunships & 2 units of jumpers (priest with FNP). 2 sets of TH/SS termies and a libby Dread.

The fire power of this army is really limited. SRGs can target 2 units each thanks to machine spirit. They move onto the board 12" and shoot 24" (assault cannon). So they must get rather close to your 'castled-up' army.
Jump packers can deep strike with 2 meltas each. However, it can be dangerous to show up close to a 'castled-up' DE force since Assault Marines are not the best assault troops.
Generally, I think you should have a chance vs. a reserve BA army even when you deploy normally.

Necrontyr40k wrote:3) I don't think the SRG is an assault transport, so they need to land before they assault.

They are assault vehicles.

Necrontyr40k wrote:In that critical skipped turn you can use your insane speed to move away. Let the termies chase you around the board while the venoms kill them.

The thing is, that would disallow the Trublasters from firing at the SRG or other target. I moved the venoms Combat Speed and opened up with the lances and SplinterCannons. Dice were cold though.

Necrontyr40k wrote:Frankly, I do not think his list is that much of a killer. He would be far more dangerous if he took more jumpers and left the termies at home. SRGs are far more dangerous in GK ranks, because what they transport is much nastier. With BA, I do not fear them.

Keep in mind, I did table him in a rematch yesterday, detailed in my second post (I'll change the text color to olive).

Another idea that might work is if you do want to go for the SRGs, you can try to instant kill the cargo by failure to disembark.

On the first turn an SRG arrives, it will likely turbo to the middle of the map, and so cannot unload even if an assault vehicle. So, surround it with a couple of skiffs and the unloaded wyches. Shoot it down by concentrated fire. If it goes down, it will most likely wreck, so the models have to come out, but outside the 1 inch distance from enemy models. If the SRG is surrounded, they will not be able to disembark and thus die instantly. If the SRG explodes, , the wyches may get hurt but have cover saves from the skiffs and FNP, so should not lose much. Take casualties from behind the skiffs, to maintain the ring. Now the termies are 5 and have large bases, so they cannot fit in the model base crater and still be outside 1 inch of enemy models. Still dead. If shooting does not do the trick, the wyches can use their haywire grenades as well.

I still think the jumpers are the better target if the SRG turbo, but the above scenario is attractive for its killing potential.

Let's mathhammer the DL performance: 2/3 hit, 1/3 get through cover save, so 2/9 will get to roll against the armor. In a glance (roll 4) only a subsequent 6 would matter, degraded to immobilized, which wrecks. Weapons destroyed and stunned/shaken are essentially unimportant for a flying transport (and he may have extra armor as well - I don't remember). So, we have expectation of 2/9 times 1/6 times 1/6 = 1/162 per shot.

To that, we must add the pen rolls (5+, or 1/3) followed by 4+ (to immobilize, therefore wreck, or wreck, or blow up). So, 2/9 times 1/3 times 1/2 = 1/27 per shot.

Adding these independent expectations, we get 1/162 + 1/27 = 7/162 or roughly 1/23. So, with all DL firing, we have 22/23 or roughly one bird dead per turn.

In comparison, 2/3 hitting and 5/6 wounding jumpers with no armor and no FNP means 5/9 dead jumpers per shot. With 22 DL, we should expect 12 dead. I think DLing the jumpers looks better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Brothererekose wrote:Keep in mind, I did table him in a rematch yesterday, detailed in my second post (I'll change the text color to olive).

Oh, I see now. Good job!

That game actually shows what can be done with not going in reserves, turbo-castling, and pouncing on whatever shows up with your whole army. Way to go! It essentially worked out close to as if you did not go in reserve, because everything showed up at the same time as a result of the rerolls from league rules.

Brothererekose wrote:

Thor665 wrote:1. Your full army is on the board with 3+ cover saves.

Am I missing something here, Thor? Page 71's 'Shooting at Skimmers' Flat Out giving a 4+ Save (obscured).

Mistyped, thinking turboboosters.

Brothererekose wrote:I spend Turn 4 with 22 lances managing to kill one SRG

That's why you had problems.

1. This is incredibly unlucky.
2. You really should have shot up both Stormravens - the goal being to get them not shooting/moving much which would give you the prime advantage with them. Blowing them up is a nice bonus, but not the main goal.

I'm wondering if you had enough vehicles and enough time to maneuver that he would be stuck flying OVER your Skimmer Wall 13+" so that he couldn't disembark when he came in.

As for Storm Ravens, under the FAQ'd rules, they must disembark from the base when the vehicle is wrecked so it's feasible to instakill all of the passengers with Haywire Wyches. Just space out as much as you can with your Wyche units to cover max table, then fly up 12", run and assault them. If you have to, disembark with another unit just to cover the base fully, then hope you hit it. If it moved flat out, by the way, Immobilized > Wrecked so it isn't as hard as it seems: either a 6 on a glance, or a 4+ on a pen will wipe it.

Wait.. Since the guy didn't get any of his reserves in turn 2 doesn't that mean he loses automatically as he has no units on the field?

Riddick40k wrote:Wait.. Since the guy didn't get any of his reserves in turn 2 doesn't that mean he loses automatically as he has no units on the field?

Why would it mean that?

Brothererekose wrote:I spenT Turn 4 with 22 lances managing to kill one SRG

Thor665 wrote:That's why you had problems.
1. This is incredibly unlucky.
2. You really should have shot up both Stormravens - the goal being to get them not shooting/moving much which would give you the prime advantage with them. Blowing them up is a nice bonus, but not the main goal.

I totally agree. Not even Stuns or Shakens, simply missed hits, failed pens, or he made saves when one would finally make AV12.

Cold shooting dice and hot Cover Saves for the opponent. I don't think I had a volley that didn't have a miss. Mostly, I'd roll a Ravager or the Trublasters and get only one hit. That's a 66 to 75% failure rate. Then we go into lesser and lesser odds of stopping his SRGs as Pens failed and his Cover Saves succeeded.

And I did just buy these dice in the beginning of June. They were hot for a while ....

NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Riddick40k wrote:Wait.. Since the guy didn't get any of his reserves in turn 2 doesn't that mean he loses automatically as he has no units on the field?

Why would it mean that?

No, Riddick40k, that's just silly. You won't find a rule to support that.

If you go in all Reserve on Turn 1, and not lose the game, why would it matter Turn 2? or Even Turn 3? The only way I could see this line kick in, was if an army's Deep Striking reserved units scattered back into Reserve, and then the game ended, with nothing of that army on the table. Then I'd call it a loss, even if the other army had lost on KPs. (SM with a libby using GoI?).

well i've seen a few games before when the guy only had like a few units on the table and they all got destroyed and when he did his reserve rolls he failed all of them. whenever i see that happen they automatically lose as a wipeout as he has no models on the table. I just thought that maybe the same rule applied if you failed all your reserve rolls and had nothing on the table

Riddick40k wrote:well i've seen a few games before when the guy only had like a few units on the table and they all got destroyed and when he did his reserve rolls he failed all of them. whenever i see that happen they automatically lose as a wipeout as he has no models on the table. I just thought that maybe the same rule applied if you failed all your reserve rolls and had nothing on the table

That's not the rule at all....totally wrong.
You only auto lose if you have no units left on the table at the end of the game, not the end of any one turn.

I am currently running Vect as I always want first. My opponent going full reserves plays into my hand. It's hard for my opponent to decide between my Raider with Vect & Wyches, 3 Trueborn Venoms, and 3 Ravagers. Typically, they don't have enough long-range shooting. In my turn, I then destroy whatever just arrived.

If they aren't on the table, they're just making it even easier for your Trueborn to get where they need to be.

Wolf 11x wrote:I am currently running Vect as I always want first. My opponent going full reserves plays into my hand. It's hard for my opponent to decide between my Raider with Vect & Wyches, 3 Trueborn Venoms, and 3 Ravagers. Typically, they don't have enough long-range shooting. In my turn, I then destroy whatever just arrived.

Unless they are IG with Hydras, Vendettas, etc + Astropath....then he wipes 1/2 your vehicles on turn 2 when1/2 or more of his army shows up

Guys, I think we're missing an important point here.

I think we're all agreed that in a KP shootout between two mechanized armies, the player who gets the first shot off has the advantage. Even if you just glance and shake some of your opponent's vehicles, you've gained an advantage by reducing his counterfire. But in a best-case scenario, you score a couple of KPs and get ahead by a few points. Then all you have to do is play KP denial or stay even with him while he tries to play catch-up until the game ends, and you win. That much seems clear.

The thing I think a lot of posters here are missing is that, in a KP match between two mechanized armies, the player who goes second and starts in reserve always gets the first shot. Therefore, the player who goes second and reserves everything has the advantage.

This idea that "you only have half your army on turn 2 if you start in reserve" is not how it works in actual gameplay. If you understand even the basics of how to concentrate the forces that you get on turn 2 to achieve localized superiority and use maneuvering to minimize return fire, you can easily gain the key advantage in turn 2 that carries you over to turn 3 when the rest of your army arrives.

This is how mech Eldar armies have been winning KP missions since the release of 5th edition (when you could first choose to stay in reserve). I don't know why DE players don't do it more often.

But don't take my word for it. Notice that in the two games here, with competent players with mobile forces, the player who went second and started from reserve won.

Flav's point is solid, and is the strategy that has taken my army to countless wins with only a single defeat (mostly due to luck at that).

Another point to consider when going second and reserving everything is the number of shooting and assault phases where you can actually do damage. You actually gain an entire turn over your opponent - if you have nothing on the board on their first and second turns, they have missed 2 turns of shooting/assaulting. You only miss the first turn, so you actually gain an entire turn.

The number of times I win the roll to go first, and having seen the opponent's army list I turn to them and tell them to deploy and take the first turn is much greater than actually taking first turn. Then, when they tell me to roll to seize the initiative and I tell them I'm not trying to they are shocked. They don't see that I'm trying to go second.

The biggest problem is fighting a reserve army and losing the roll to go first, and being forced to take the first turn. That's and uphill battle.

As for how to counter it, I don't play DE, but this is how it works as Eldar:

If you win the rolloff for picking first turn, evaluate whether or not your opponent will go all in reserve if you take first turn. If you think he's likely to start all in reserve--and if his army can viably do that--then take second turn yourself to prevent him doing it.

If you get stuck with first turn, there's absolutely no advantage in also going in reserve. Deploy, then predict where your opponent is likely to want to enter the table from reserve. If you're fighting against a ground force, you can use your skimmers to block off parts of his table edge and force him to come in where you want him to. If your opponent also has a skimmer force then it's a little harder to block the table edge, but you can at least drive him into terrain or force him to move far enough that he can't shoot on the turn he enters.

Most importantly, don't spread out (I don't know why people always do this). He's going to want to try to concentrate part of his force on destroying part of yours, and spreading out just makes that easier for him. Keep your units positioned so that they can all draw a line of sight to the places where you're trying to force him to enter and where they can give each other supporting fire. That's the only way to negate his advantage.

Flavius Infernus wrote:Most importantly, don't spread out (I don't know why people always do this).

With DE, spreading out, a bit, helps.

That was one of the causes of wyche failure. One got a bad Diff Terrain to live its Exploded! raider, followed by a crap Run. '2'. Another wyche group had an additional crater to get through. I had a clog of my own wrecked terrain miring my wyches, keeping them from getting into h2h when I needed them to be.

If it was spess muhreens, then I would not care so much, but wyches need to get to h2h *immediately*.


Hmm. How are you defining 'spread out'? My units were all within 4 to 6 inches of each other. Did you mean a larger spread?

The term "spread out" is actually a really limited way of describing what I mean, so let me try again.

When I, as the Eldar player, start in reserve, my opponent often reacts by dispersing his units in such a way as to be near all possible places where I might enter the table. It's sort of intuitive to do that.

Either that, or they "spread out" and try to grab cover for everything at the expense of their own positioning.

But of course it's exactly what I want, since that dispersal creates a couple of spots where I can come in (like a corner) where I'm out of range of part of his army, LoS blocked by terrain from another part of his army, and can focus my whole arriving force on a portion of his army, so that even if I whiff or only shake some things, his retaliation will be blunted.

If you're the player going first against the reserved opponent, it's better to predict or force your opponent's arrival point, by playing aggressively on part of his table edge (or at the center of the table if you're space marines). You'll lose some units to his alpha strike, but as long as you have your second string units positioned to retaliate against the units in the place where he enters, you'll have a decent chance to catch up.