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We all Know( Well Most) the Famous Tactician Sun Tzu and His Book Art of war I havn't read through it yet, but I know two of the ever so many rules.
1.Don't Spread your forces to thin
2. When conquering enemy citys, start with the weakest citys
not the details, just broad rules.
Im sorry I need to add more but I have school in the morning, if your familer with Sun Tzu please tell me if I make connections to wh40k, if I will get even in the itty bitt-est better
Thanks.

So Sun Tzu's art of war is a broad text, and no system, aside from, perhaps, war, can truly work in all his teachings.

Some things that don't hold true off the top of my head.
1) In 40k, don't give your units no option of retreat. This, in sun tzu, would make the units fight harder (i.e. putting them in a tactical position that is somewhat strong, but with a river behind it, to provide only two options: victory or death). That certainly doesn't hold.
2) Surprise works in 40k, but with lists being common knowledge, it's somewhat hard to surprise your opponent. You can use a surprising tactic, but with point values and rules, its hard to hide true strenth (i.e. hiding your army size, or making it seem bigger than it is)
3) You cannot choose ground that suits you, but must rely on chance for tactical position (whether you go first, where you and the opponent set up terrain, etc.
So yeah...those things are most obvious, I think

Sun Tzu's teachings are more or less guidelines, they are more biblical rather than substantial.

The Art of War applies to everything.

A lot of The Art of War has to do with supply and morale.

Clearly this doesn't have much to do with plastic Space Manz. As far as the tactical stuff though, sure. I don't see why not.

Supply applies to acquiring the minis. Morale applies to painting the minis. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Art of War is about strategy not tactics.

My friend keeps trying to get me to read the Art of War and he would sum it up like this

"Never let the enemy fight the way they want to"

Yuber wrote:Art of War is about strategy not tactics.

Actually art of war is about both. Further in he discusses specific tactics. Generally the topic is strategy but there are exceptions in the book.

Yuber wrote:Art of War is about strategy not tactics.

That's how it is. 40k is about tactics.

Yuber wrote:Sun Tzu's teachings are more or less guidelines, they are more biblical rather than substantial.

Not really sure that biblical is an adequate description. Sun Tzu was writing about real war that he was a commander in. He gave specific advise to how best to moor a ship, how to handle a dug in foe, and reading dust in the sky over a hill to determine the makeup of a force, including its size, and also its rate of march. I would say that if you were charged with prosecuting a land war in Asia in the 6th century BCE the information would be quite substantial.

The psychological aspects of Sun Tzu's teachings are very relevant and substantial today. This is why Sun Tzu is studied at the business schools at Harvard and Brown. (to name a very few, most business programs have at least a brief nod to Sun Tzu). Certainly anyone in a military academy or senior college such as The Citadel will also have a brief but important familiarization with Sun Tzu.

Well, I didn't know that business schools refer to SunTzu. His book makes fully sense in broader terms.

Rabid Ferret wrote:

Yuber wrote:Art of War is about strategy not tactics.

Actually art of war is about both. Further in he discusses specific tactics. Generally the topic is strategy but there are exceptions in the book.

Strategy without tactics is the longest road to victory, tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. Sun Tzu did write about tactics, but he always stressed that strategy was far more important than tactics. Sun Tzu's focus on strategy is why his writings are very relevant to ancient and modern warfare. That being said 40k is a game of tactics, and the only thing you can take from the art of war and apply to 40k is objectives/kill points=victory or defeat.

I did read SunTzu, but it's been a while. I was under the impression that his writings are somewhat relevant to deploying your army in 40k.

Iirc he wrote something on dividing your opponents forces and picking them appart one by one using local superiority. I think this translates into not spreading your army over the entire breath of the table so that your oppenent can focus on either flank whilst ignoring the other flank.

DS heavy armies should also be aware of this by trying to compensate for the eventuality that your forces arrive spread out over 5 turns (as opposed to most forces arriving turn 3 at the latest).

Concentrating your forces leaves them less weak in the face of your opponent. Or, reversed, try to abuse the situation where your opponent spreads/divides his forces over too great an area...

Divide and conquer.

Cilithan

A lot of SunTzu's teachings are based on the psychological aspect of war. Since these are plastic models they aren't verry affected by that stuff.

Though you will be able to find some things that will help you, but if you want tactics i sugjest looking directly for warhammer 40k tactics on the internet/ on dakkadakka

Ranting Fool wrote:My friend keeps trying to get me to read the Art of War and he would sum it up like this

"Never let the enemy fight the way they want to"

This is the key takeaway from Art of War that seems to me to apply to all strategy games.

Figure out what your opponent wants to do, then deny him the ability to do that.

You really need a balanced army to pull it off, though. Your army has to be very mobile, able to concentrate and disperse quickly, and you need some disruption units. If your army is one-dimensional--like a lot of the nearly pure assault armies out there--then you really only have one strategy available.

Sun Tzu also preaches that you need to understand your strengths and weaknesses, mean while emphasizing your strengths and de-emphasizing your weaknesses.

At the same time you are exploiting your opponents weakness, and denying them their strengths.

He also said to plan your stratergies to win, don't plan them to not lose.

a guy at our flg talks alot about how he has read "the art of war" and says "I understands strategy better than any" ..

he loses alot

I read the art of war, thinking I would gain some Tactical Knowledge.

I learned nothing about how to play 40k that I didn't already know (IE, don't let the Enemy do what they want to do).

The Art of War is a profound text. Anybody with even passing interest in warfare or business or psychology should read it. While some passages have less relevance to the modern world, many do.

Takehome lessons for wh40k include:

1) tactical flexibility (balanced lists, multiple threats, change plans quickly if needed)
2) study the opponent (e.g. read codexes and rules, know the player weaknesses, know the lists)
3) positioning can win the battle before a shot is fired (deployment and use of terrain)
4) misdirection (use unexpected tricks and tactics, hide true intent)
5) always attack with local superiority (hit and run using superior mobility, concentrate and disperse)
6) be willing to sacrifice towards the final goal (blockers, baits, cannonfodder)

Things that do not apply very well to 40k:

1) valley of death (morale is not implemented well)
2) covert ops, spying, and deceptions (due to player's godlike knowledge of list and terrain in most cases)
3) resource tricks (point level is even)
4) fatigue (mechanic not implemented)
5) combat weariness (not implemented)
6) effects of loot and riches (not present)
7) effects of personal leadership (not relevant to the game)

As has been stated fairly well here...the art of war is filled with insight, but much of it does not scale down to 40k's level. I fully support all the deductions Necrontyr40k and others have drawn from the Art of War, but they mostly deal with the broad strokes of the game (list building, deployment). These are the strategic elements of the game, but the fact that you know deployment is important does not actually help you unless you know how to deploy to your advantage, and to maintain the advantage. Remember war is about seizing and maintaining the initiative. So i offer something i picked up along the way.

Look at thinks like what I have been taught as the Detailed Map Estimate
-this applies to deployment and to deciding how/where to move your units
1 Cover (what provides cover (obscures/obstructs line of sight), how does this benefit me? how does this benefit the enemy?)
2 Obstacles (what slows/limits/prevents/canalizes my movement (difficult/impassable terrain) how does it limit the enemy)
3 Positions of Observation and Fire for Me (keeping in mind 1 and 2 where is the best place for me to go to see likely En locations and engage them)
4 Positions of Observation and Fire for the Enemy (where will the enemy likely go to engage me, 3 and 4 in 40k is where you think turns ahead in a game of who will go where)
5 Enemy Location/Strength/Capabilities (know your enemy, what he can do, what he cant do, and how it affects you)
6 Distance (how far are they away from being effectively hurt by you or from effectively hurting you, what will you do about it)

Drop the debate on whether The Art of War is strategy or tactics, that is not what the OP asked of us.

I think we're missing a few important points of The Art of War, some of the psychological ones can be useful. While psychology doesn't apply to the plastic models on the table, it does apply to your opponent himself, he is very human and therefore affected by psychology like all of us. Here are a few quotes:

"All warfare is based on deception."

"Hold out bait to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him."

"If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant."

"Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."

So how does this apply to 40k? Let that dude at your FLGS who has been playing for 20+ years believe you're a huge n00b who has no idea how to play the game so that he gets arrogant and makes silly mistakes. Never boast or brag, and if you can act like you're not paying much attention. Don't speak out when he laughs at your tactics or makes note of you being a less experienced player or whatever (for me this is tough, it means swallowing my pride ). As for the irritating quote, you could always try to irritate him by attacking him some way in game such as using scarab swarms to tie some expensive unit of his up or something, I do not condone irritating him in any way outside of playing the game.

the Art of War applies better to Fantesy then to 40k(where lists are usually closed and only examined after the battle or if there is a suspected problem)


Fantesy also tends to be slightly larger then 40k, this allows deception(you can use junk deployment to mask where you are actually deploying) because you can have more units to play with.

Sun Tzu's book is no doubt absolutely brilliant if you want to lead a peasant army in 5th century China. However, since we're playing a simplistic dice game with mandollies, it's much easier to get useful information from tactica and discussions between players.

I agree with Da Boss, and though I'm not here to discuss the merit of Sun Tzu here, I do firmly believe that the book doesn't translate well to 40k/Fantasy.

Da Boss wrote:Sun Tzu's book is no doubt absolutely brilliant if you want to lead a peasant army in 5th century China. However, since we're playing a simplistic dice game with mandollies, it's much easier to get useful information from tactica and discussions between players.

Well sure, the specific tactics don't translate well and majority of it can be discounted as irrelevant to tabletop gaming, and while I doubt the average gamer is playing seriously enough to consider the psychology going on, it could certainly be applied to higher level play such as a tournament.

The Art of War was meh.

Read Machiavelli's The Prince instead. It's about 1000 years more relevant.

Thatguyoverthere wrote:The Art of War was meh.
Read Machiavelli's The Prince instead. It's about 1000 years more relevant.

Machiavelli is great, but it is mostly relevant to politics and the management of a state. So, it is even less relevant to a tabletop wargame, IMO.

"Whoever builds on people, builds on mud" is closest to relevance to wh40k, in the sense that you should be prepared for non-fearless units to break and run. Other than that, not much that I can see.