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So I've noticed a piece of advice get repeated again and again on these boards, and I always wonder about it. Whenever people come to the boards asking for help on how to take down a heavy hitter, whether it's a wraith knight, a riptide, or a daemon prince, there is always a poster who recommends just ignoring the heavy hitter, and focus on killing his troops. My question is, does this actually work?

Yes, absolutely.
Single <insert bad guy here> aren't really a threat in objective games. Troops are. Kill the troops.

Multiple can be scary, but it also means that there's fewer troops.

But that's sort of the problem. No one brings one riptide any more, they bring 3 or 4. Also, you can bring 3 riptides or daemon princes and still have plenty of troops.

if yopu bring 3-4 riptides, but still have allot of troops, then your list isnt compettive. You wound thave enough points for any thing else, like battlesuits.

in reality, to have a competitve list using 3-4 heavyhitters, you rely on a few troops survivng, and then allot of stuff to put on the pressure.

focuss those troops that are supoosed to survive, keep your own alive, and you win.

 NinjaStars wrote:
But that's sort of the problem. No one brings one riptide any more, they bring 3 or 4. Also, you can bring 3 riptides or daemon princes and still have plenty of troops.

No, there isn't a list out there that has 3-4 big threats like that and "plenty" of troops. If you do you're lacking in other areas.

It's a basic question of what the mission actually is asking you to DO to win.

The idea here is thast if the enemy has four troops choices and you exert every bullet in killing them, it forces the game to secondary objectives. First Blood is easier to get from Troops than super units like a Riptide etc.... So the advice has two values.

1. making First blood be a Troops choice is a 2fer.
2. At the point where their troops are dead, you need only linebreak to ensure a tie and possible win.

So killing the troops and treating yours like gold is an essential strategy to keep in mind when someone pulls the absurdities out like 4 riptides.

The game is no longer strictly about how much you can kill, its WHAT AND WHEN you kill it. Truly skilled generals know this, BELEIVE in it and act upon that information.

Nice example: At the Bay Area open, at the final table, the two finalists talk strategy between rounds and that is one of the main strategies that one of them was hoping to use since so much of her force could DS.

Does this work all the time? No. Why? Because it's a dice game and because 4 Riptides really DO put a foot print on peoples necks when they get a little lucky. It's possible to lose with the best strategy in the world. But I can tell you that without the best strategy in the world, you're playing with fire and likely to get burned. So keep the idea in mind for when you are outclassed. being outclassed is okay as long as you dont let the enemy's strengths express themselves meaningfully.

I've regularly gone up against Draigo Paladin lists with my biker Orks, half of my opponents points were tied up in a single unit. The entire game my opponents egg me on saying I'm a wimp and I should fight them head on. In the end their thousand point beat stick didn't kill a single unit of mine simply because I choose to ignore them. They were essentially taking me on with a 50% handicap. Ignoring your opponents heavy hitters is a very viable strategy if your army doesn't have the tools to efficiently take it down.

 ninjafiredragon wrote:
if yopu bring 3-4 riptides, but still have allot of troops, then your list isnt compettive.

No, it's not like that exact list won NOVA Open or anything, and a variation of it (with less troops) was the runner up in the NOVA Invitational.

Clearly not a competitive list.



@OP: "Just focus on the Troops" is one of those internet truisms that probably started as a very specific piece of advice for a very specific context, and now gets thrown around by all the little mini-Sun Tzus whenever a death star build is brought up. Like all poorly thought-out internet "advice" it relies on your opponent being an idiot and not knowing how to utilize a death star. A well constructed and well played death star list won't give you the opportunity to "just take out its scoring units." Your opponent's death star will focus on your threats that can a) deal with the death star itself, and b) take out squishy scoring units. And the target priority will be based on the specific situation. For instance, if I am running a Seer Council of Doom and I have minimum Jetbike units for scoring, and I got Scryer's Gaze, I can be pretty sure my Jetbikes won't come on until turn 4. Thus, I'll deal with your threats to my Seer Council first, and then move on to your threats to my objective scoring capabilities (which includes your ability to take objectives). If you have nothing that really threatens my Council, I'll head straight for your scoring units and those units that can deal damage to Jetbikes (e.g., barrage etc).

So, what to do against these units? First, you need to realize that what you're really looking to do is to neutralize the death star. Killing it is only one of the ways to do that. Against a Screamerstar, for instance, you can charge it with a Wraithknight/Necron Wraiths and keep it busy for a long time. Or, you can go the MSU route, spread out and lead it around killing insignificant units. Of course, this all goes to hell when the death star in question has hit and run with a high initiative and/or can target multiple units per turn with long ranged devastating shooting attacks.

I'd like to give you a longer list, or some super snappy one-liner on how to find the vulnerable exhaust ports, but death stars are really, really good in 6th.

Thud wrote:

 ninjafiredragon wrote:
if yopu bring 3-4 riptides, but still have allot of troops, then your list isnt compettive.

No, it's not like that exact list won NOVA Open or anything, and a variation of it (with less troops) was the runner up in the NOVA Invitational.

Clearly not a competitive list.



@OP: "Just focus on the Troops" is one of those internet truisms that probably started as a very specific piece of advice for a very specific context, and now gets thrown around by all the little mini-Sun Tzus whenever a death star build is brought up. Like all poorly thought-out internet "advice" it relies on your opponent being an idiot and not knowing how to utilize a death star. A well constructed and well played death star list won't give you the opportunity to "just take out its scoring units." Your opponent's death star will focus on your threats that can a) deal with the death star itself, and b) take out squishy scoring units. And the target priority will be based on the specific situation. For instance, if I am running a Seer Council of Doom and I have minimum Jetbike units for scoring, and I got Scryer's Gaze, I can be pretty sure my Jetbikes won't come on until turn 4. Thus, I'll deal with your threats to my Seer Council first, and then move on to your threats to my objective scoring capabilities (which includes your ability to take objectives). If you have nothing that really threatens my Council, I'll head straight for your scoring units and those units that can deal damage to Jetbikes (e.g., barrage etc).

So, what to do against these units? First, you need to realize that what you're really looking to do is to neutralize the death star. Killing it is only one of the ways to do that. Against a Screamerstar, for instance, you can charge it with a Wraithknight/Necron Wraiths and keep it busy for a long time. Or, you can go the MSU route, spread out and lead it around killing insignificant units. Of course, this all goes to hell when the death star in question has hit and run with a high initiative and/or can target multiple units per turn with long ranged devastating shooting attacks.

I'd like to give you a longer list, or some super snappy one-liner on how to find the vulnerable exhaust ports, but death stars are really, really good in 6th.

Thank you! This is exactly what I've experienced. Here's the list that made me write this post.

Fateweaver
Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, ML 3, Armor, Wings, 2 Great Rewards

10 Daemonettes
10 Daemonettes
10 Daemonettes
10 Horrors
10 Horrors

13 Flesh Hounds

Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, ML 3, Armor, Wings, Exalted Reward, Greater Reward
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, ML 3, Armor, Wings, Exalted Reward, Greater Reward

He reserved all his troops, and got lucky on reserve rolls so they didn't come in. Then he just swooped around casting flickering fire and lash of slaneesh and just blowing me to hell. How am I supposed to ignore that?

I did do what you recommended. I focused on grounding each prince with weak shots and then using heavy shots and mss (I was necrons) to take them out. But he got iron arm and some lucky leadership checks, so it didn't work. Afterwards he was like. You should have focused on my troops, and it just didn't seem like that would go any better.

Thud wrote:

 ninjafiredragon wrote:
if yopu bring 3-4 riptides, but still have allot of troops, then your list isnt compettive.

No, it's not like that exact list won NOVA Open or anything, and a variation of it (with less troops) was the runner up in the NOVA Invitational.

Clearly not a competitive list.



@OP: "Just focus on the Troops" is one of those internet truisms that probably started as a very specific piece of advice for a very specific context, and now gets thrown around by all the little mini-Sun Tzus whenever a death star build is brought up. Like all poorly thought-out internet "advice" it relies on your opponent being an idiot and not knowing how to utilize a death star. A well constructed and well played death star list won't give you the opportunity to "just take out its scoring units." Your opponent's death star will focus on your threats that can a) deal with the death star itself, and b) take out squishy scoring units. And the target priority will be based on the specific situation. For instance, if I am running a Seer Council of Doom and I have minimum Jetbike units for scoring, and I got Scryer's Gaze, I can be pretty sure my Jetbikes won't come on until turn 4. Thus, I'll deal with your threats to my Seer Council first, and then move on to your threats to my objective scoring capabilities (which includes your ability to take objectives). If you have nothing that really threatens my Council, I'll head straight for your scoring units and those units that can deal damage to Jetbikes (e.g., barrage etc).

So, what to do against these units? First, you need to realize that what you're really looking to do is to neutralize the death star. Killing it is only one of the ways to do that. Against a Screamerstar, for instance, you can charge it with a Wraithknight/Necron Wraiths and keep it busy for a long time. Or, you can go the MSU route, spread out and lead it around killing insignificant units. Of course, this all goes to hell when the death star in question has hit and run with a high initiative and/or can target multiple units per turn with long ranged devastating shooting attacks.

I'd like to give you a longer list, or some super snappy one-liner on how to find the vulnerable exhaust ports, but death stars are really, really good in 6th.

Than you very much, it needs to be said. "Just focus on the troops" is a tactic thrown around by people who never actually place models on the tabletop.

I don't think the correct answer is ever simply ignore the heavy hitter, instead it is put your bullets in the place where they will be doing the most damage. On a model like a riptide, many of those bullets are not going to do much. It takes 270 bolter shots to kill a riptide, so obviously a riptide is not where you want to put your bolter bullets. In comparison it takes 54 bolter shots to kill 12 firewarriors, not counting the fact that you can kill 4 and they will likely run off the board. So if your army has bolters and you are facing tau, you should ignore the riptide and shoot the firewarriors, with the bolters. But what if your army had something other than bolters, like melta-guns. It takes 13.5 melta gun shots to kill a riptide, while those same 13.5 melta gun shots only kills 5 firewarriors in cover. In this case if you have melta-guns and are facing tau, you should ignore the firewarriors and shoot the riptides with the melta guns.

The point is, you should be firing not at the most threatening target but rather at the place where you will be doing the most damage. Troops are essential for scoring missions and almost universally easier to kill than say riptides, wraithknights, deamon princes etc. So if you can't reliably kill it, don't bother with the heavy hitters and go for the troops.

@OP: "Just focus on the Troops" is one of those internet truisms that probably started as a very specific piece of advice for a very specific context, and now gets thrown around by all the little mini-Sun Tzus whenever a death star build is brought up. Like all poorly thought-out internet "advice" it relies on your opponent being an idiot and not knowing how to utilize a death star. A well constructed and well played death star list won't give you the opportunity to "just take out its scoring units." Your opponent's death star will focus on your threats that can a) deal with the death star itself, and b) take out squishy scoring units. And the target priority will be based on the specific situation. For instance, if I am running a Seer Council of Doom and I have minimum Jetbike units for scoring, and I got Scryer's Gaze, I can be pretty sure my Jetbikes won't come on until turn 4. Thus, I'll deal with your threats to my Seer Council first, and then move on to your threats to my objective scoring capabilities (which includes your ability to take objectives). If you have nothing that really threatens my Council, I'll head straight for your scoring units and those units that can deal damage to Jetbikes (e.g., barrage etc).

Sure, it is an overused saying. However, the reason why people are quick to say "just focus on the troops" is because it is near impossible to actually talk tactics online. What was the board like? What was the mission? How did the opponent deploy? How did you deploy? What happened in the battle, leaving out no detail?

That is the kind of information required to really give a person "tactical" advice. Most of the time, posters are forced to either boil tactical advice down to a pithy statement or simply focus on listbuilding for that reason.

So, what to do against these units? First, you need to realize that what you're really looking to do is to neutralize the death star. Killing it is only one of the ways to do that. Against a Screamerstar, for instance, you can charge it with a Wraithknight/Necron Wraiths and keep it busy for a long time. Or, you can go the MSU route, spread out and lead it around killing insignificant units. Of course, this all goes to hell when the death star in question has hit and run with a high initiative and/or can target multiple units per turn with long ranged devastating shooting attacks.

This is good advice. As you mention, totally ignoring most deathstars isn't a valid option. What is important is realizing their limitations. Most deathstars cannot engage multiple units via shooting. They will only be able to assault multiple units if you let them. The game goes 5-7 turns--make them work to kill 3-6 units maximum.

I'd like to give you a longer list, or some super snappy one-liner on how to find the vulnerable exhaust ports, but death stars are really, really good in 6th.

Some of them are. Seer Councils and Screamerstars are annoying, to say the least. Draigowing can still be useful, but it has major limitations. Obviously, the O'vesa star has alot of buzz right now, but time will tell whether or not it is something that will last, or merely a very clever (and well played) meta buster that took NOVA.

 JGrand wrote:

Sure, it is an overused saying. However, the reason why people are quick to say "just focus on the troops" is because it is near impossible to actually talk tactics online. What was the board like? What was the mission? How did the opponent deploy? How did you deploy? What happened in the battle, leaving out no detail?

That is the kind of information required to really give a person "tactical" advice. Most of the time, posters are forced to either boil tactical advice down to a pithy statement or simply focus on listbuilding for that reason.

I agree with that, but I still think that just throwing out useless one-liners is worse than saying nothing at all. One could at least try to explain different concepts and when and how to utilize them, so the person asking at least has a starting point from which to learn more while playing in the future.

Some of them are. Seer Councils and Screamerstars are annoying, to say the least. Draigowing can still be useful, but it has major limitations. Obviously, the O'vesa star has alot of buzz right now, but time will tell whether or not it is something that will last, or merely a very clever (and well played) meta buster that took NOVA.

A big problem is the rock/paper/scissors solutions that exist. Loading up on gravs work wonders against Riptides, but not so much against Seer Councils and Screamerstars. The Wraithknight assault works great against Screamerstars, but not at all against Seer Councils and Riptides. Low-ap, high-S that ignores cover works against Seer Councils, but not against Screamerstars or Riptides (talking about the O'Vesa super unit here). And you'll end up with a pretty messed up army if you try to squeeze it in all at once, if that's even possible.

Another one hard to ignore if you don't have the ability to take it quickly is a Dias of Destruction with blasters on the. Troop in it.

the "focus on troops" mantra was first thrown around as a direct counter to the old necrons.

if you ignored the wraiths, monoliths, ctan and so on, and shot up enough 'necrons' wich were genrally his troops, he would phase out giving you the win. (on top of other possible objectives)

that mantra translated again when fighting tyranids. lots of big scary monsters, but their troops lacked. shooting up the troops and small gaunts left his bigger bugs with no support, and in theroy you could then handle whatever they put out, and focus one at a time untill they all died.

however: in todays game, taking out troops while a viable idea in principal can be impossible, if not impracticle.

- if he is bunkering up, using invisibility, stealth, or has other crazy amounts of saves, you're better served going after something else
- in killpoints games... troops don't matter - kill the weakest thing on the board, and move to the next. rack up those KP.
- if a riptide or 2, or a WK or something else is just KICKING you around, better deal with it. left unchecked it could take down or incapacitate a good portion of your army, take it out first, and mitigate its damage, THEN worry about his other stuff.

in general you need to do a threat assesment at each turn.
- whats going to hurt me the most?
- whats going to win him the game?
- whats his most vulnerable unit?
- whats MY most vulnerable unit?

A:
- move away from/get cover from/ or kill that enemy unit thats going to hurt. make it hurt as little as possible.
- if its turn 4 and he has the relic... getting him OFF that relic should be a priority. even killing enough to force a check, or whittle down some numbers to set up a turn 5 kill, is better then ignoring it to shoot the riptide on the other side of the table
- if he has a unit of firewarriors with only 3 men, or a crisis suit with 1 wound left, etc, - finishing that off will do 2 things: it scores VP if it comes to that, KP, and it eliminates that unit. no more shooting. i have seen in many games that almost dead unit get a critical unsaved wound or 2 through, wich allowed other units to wipe it out and win the game. dont leave scraps! no more half measures...
- if you have a unit that is going to get SMOKED by the enemy....get them out of trouble. however you can. move them away, into cover, or try to kill the threat. loosing units will loose the game, so keep an eye on your weak spots, and make sure that if that unit dies, it wont cost you the win or allow your opponent an easier time of getting that win

 NinjaStars wrote:

He reserved all his troops, and got lucky on reserve rolls so they didn't come in. Then he just swooped around casting flickering fire and lash of slaneesh and just blowing me to hell. How am I supposed to ignore that?

Yeah, you're totally just supposed to stand there and do nothing waiting for his troops. He got lucky. Luck happens - it's possible there was literally no way for you to win (not knowing your list, terrain, etc) without killing his troops and when you take away 3 turns of chances to do so it's really hard.

That doesn't mean it's bad advice. But what do I know - I obviously never put models on the table.

the only way you have 3-4 riptides and enough troops to not worry about them being sniped off, is if you are playing a HUGE game (2500+) or you have nothing but troops and those riptides. Proper support for the riptides costs another ~300 usually, depending on what you want, and filling the gaps the riptide sucks at (high AV, AA, or hordes with a player that knows how to space properly) will take another ~600 usually.

Every list i have put together with 3 riptides i felt safe bringing, i had 2 min troops....so i didnt feel that safe after all lol. If he snipes those troops im forced to table him and thats unlikely and i never expect to do that.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
the only way you have 3-4 riptides and enough troops to not worry about them being sniped off, is if you are playing a HUGE game (2500+) or you have nothing but troops and those riptides. Proper support for the riptides costs another ~300 usually, depending on what you want, and filling the gaps the riptide sucks at (high AV, AA, or hordes with a player that knows how to space properly) will take another ~600 usually.

Every list i have put together with 3 riptides i felt safe bringing, i had 2 min troops....so i didnt feel that safe after all lol. If he snipes those troops im forced to table him and thats unlikely and i never expect to do that.

Except that's not entirely true. Had a regional tournament with a tau only winner, here is what his list looked like.

ethereal

ethereal

18x kroot, snipers

18x kroot

17x kroot, snipers

17x kroot

5x pathfinders

5x pathfinders

skyray

skyray

skyray

riptide ion

riptide ion

riptide burst cannon

easily fit into 2k and at the time had answers for everything. And the etherials giving so many bonuses to cheap kroot shooting really put hurt across the board.

Orock wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
the only way you have 3-4 riptides and enough troops to not worry about them being sniped off, is if you are playing a HUGE game (2500+) or you have nothing but troops and those riptides. Proper support for the riptides costs another ~300 usually, depending on what you want, and filling the gaps the riptide sucks at (high AV, AA, or hordes with a player that knows how to space properly) will take another ~600 usually.

Every list i have put together with 3 riptides i felt safe bringing, i had 2 min troops....so i didnt feel that safe after all lol. If he snipes those troops im forced to table him and thats unlikely and i never expect to do that.

Except that's not entirely true. Had a regional tournament with a tau only winner, here is what his list looked like.

ethereal

ethereal

18x kroot, snipers

18x kroot

17x kroot, snipers

17x kroot

5x pathfinders

5x pathfinders

skyray

skyray

skyray

riptide ion

riptide ion

riptide burst cannon

easily fit into 2k and at the time had answers for everything. And the etherials giving so many bonuses to cheap kroot shooting really put hurt across the board.

I like that list, quite a bit actually. It also demonstrates why AV14 has a place as a meta breaker. Unless those Riptides were all sporting TLFB which is no guarantee with the TLSMS trend its be hard pressed to kill anything remotely resembling armor. Land Raiders, Lemon Russ, would really put a damper on a list like that.





To the question at hand.

Yes, ignoring the big nasties and focusing on troops can be an effective strategy, one that has proven successful for me and many people(even my opponents) in the past. But, it is all relative and dependant on the situation at hand.

For instance, my Farsight Enclave vs a dual GUO, dual Nurgle SoulGriner, dual minimum plaguebearers list at 1000pts. T1 I tried to disable the SoulGrinders unsuccessfully. Then T2/3 I killed his Troops as they DSe and started to focus on the GUO. T4-6 I killed both GUOs and won with objectives. This is a more extreme example as I had the mobility to hugely mitigate his GUOs, but the principle stands.

If you can minimize through smart play, tarpitting, mobility his big nasties and can effectively neutralize his troops it is an effective strategy. Its all dependent on the myriad of variables that could be present.

Ignoring anything on the battlefield isn't a great idea. You're setting yourself up for some nasty surprised later if choose to disregard an enemy unit. However it is quite possible, depending on the circumstances, to counter an enemy unit without engaging it. If the enemy has a deathstar/massive shooty unit/etc. that is the keystone of the army's killing power then one should always be mindful of it and react to everything the enemy is trying to do with it. Even if you resolve to not committing the forces required to destroy the offending scary unit your focus needs to be ensuring that those expensive, killy units are being as inefficient as they can be. Even if you focus on killing all the enemy's Troops it's not going to matter if the unmolested riptides/daemons/etc. are able to nuke the rest of your army off the table. If you're not going to attack those units then you have to focus on hiding from their guns and/or running from their scary CC weapons, fighting the rest of the enemy army while you're doing this. And you're still very liable to getting eradicated by the enemy units, anyways. Some armies are better at doing this than others--and a few probably can't really pull it off anyways. Ultimately, it's usually better to killing scary enemy units ASAP rather than avoiding confrontation with them.

I also feel like it should be said that non-flying CC deathstars are usually much easier to avoid than big killy-shooty units. One can kite or speedbump and mob of Paladins, but it's very hard to get away scot-free for massive guns of death that can shoot across the board, even if there's intervening cover.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
the only way you have 3-4 riptides and enough troops to not worry about them being sniped off, is if you are playing a HUGE game (2500+) or you have nothing but troops and those riptides. Proper support for the riptides costs another ~300 usually, depending on what you want, and filling the gaps the riptide sucks at (high AV, AA, or hordes with a player that knows how to space properly) will take another ~600 usually.

Every list i have put together with 3 riptides i felt safe bringing, i had 2 min troops....so i didnt feel that safe after all lol. If he snipes those troops im forced to table him and thats unlikely and i never expect to do that.

Are you saying that lists with four Riptides at, say, 1850 points are bad?

Thud wrote:




So, what to do against these units? First, you need to realize that what you're really looking to do is to neutralize the death star.

I think you nailed it here. Saying ignore the Deathstar, or just focus on the troops is a poorly worded catch all way of saying that. I think neutralizing the Death Star is a much more effective way of putting it. Some times you can't simply ignore a Death Star that has very good movement or long enough range and enough fire power to take out one of your units a turn. I remember I played a game against my buddies eldar, and he had a unit of wraith guard in a wave serpent(?) which was the only thing in his list I was truly going to have trouble with, so I dropped a 5 man combi Melta stern guard unit on it and made them foot slog. And being slow like that in a blood angel vs eldar game, makes you kind of pointless.

Threat Neutralized.