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Hi all, I just had a thought about a tactic and am interested to see people's thoughts on its merrits or failures and to see if it's even allowed.

The basic idea is to protect my grots through a sneaky deployment, as they will be in a line protecting my boyz and I have say 2 units I plan to do so like this:

X. Y. X. Y. X. Y

Y. X. Y. X. Y. X

*Units spread out as much as possible if blasts are a worry, if not base to base.

It may be better in an arc but the basic thought is as they get mowed down and say unit X takes 10 AP5 wounds at least after 3 models max you start getting some cover due unit Y having intervening models.

In rows of 30 this could be great. It also spreads blasts between units so less chance of taking a ld test (though more models will be covered as they are 2' away at the diagonal instead of the horizontal and vertical in the diagram).

Not really a new tactic. People have been doing this for a while. It's never looked on very favourably.

You *can* do it. However, it's pretty annoying, and not really effective now that focus fire / individual saves are in.
Opponents can simply target the no-cover models in unit X with their first round of shooting - then all of unit Y - then the remainder of X. Similarly, you must lose the front rank before you start getting saves.

Another way that opponents stop you from using this effectively is to ensure that you move correctly, which can take 2" or so off your unit.

Additionally, torrent and blast weapons decimate these kinds of formations. Kinda funny to watch really.

Missed that one about selecting targets but that can it also assist? If you are spread right out then less grots are in range of a unit that can kill them. E.g. Guardians 6' away can no longer hit the back row and substantially less grots. (I misread your reply that kinda covered it but I think it may be situational depending on the enemy's range on smaller arms)

As for the torrents and blasts I don't know if I'd shoot the grots due to ordanence and ignores cover. Wouldn't the wall of boyz be a bigger threat and more likely target? For frag missile equivalent you are still spread pretty thin.

I thought this may be frowned upon but in the right case it beats having your tide wiped before reaching cc.

I have no idea what you said your second post is very hard to read.

But Trasvi basically said all you need to know. The tactic doesn't work because of focus fire and still does nothing against anything that ignores cover (which is very prominent)

Yeah, that didn't seem as I meant. Ammended.

As for it not working on ignores cover, this is aimed at small arms like boltguns, lasguns and the like.

Sorry, nothing can help footsloggas in edition dakka. Get wagonz or don't waste time on tactics that can be plain ignored within current ruleset.

Also since you move 1 unit at a time, you can't just have the entire combined blob move straight up 6", not to mention run distance. You would have to start juking models left and right through the crowd of the other unit during movement, which would be a pain to do, a pain to measure, and a pain to watch. Follow suit with the other unit, and you've probably moved maybe 4" while having to keep the back guys in coherency.

I'm always a fan of green tide though. Always fun games to watch.