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Hi there. I'm looking for any and all tactics to do with psyching out your opponent and playing mind games with them. This may or may not be army-specific.

Such as bringing loads of blast weapons to encourage them to spread out or bringing loads of outflankers to encourage them to avoid the sides etc.

Anyone got any good tactics like that? Thanks

Your examples aren't really mind games, imho.

"Mind games" tend to be passive aggressive in nature. Take Sir Alex Ferguson for example, he would always pile pressure against his opponents by saying things like they were a far superior team to Manchester United, that the game/title is theirs to lose and Man U don't have a chance etc.

I hate this example as I hate Man U and Ferguson, but there is no denying he was a master at mental manipulation!

So you could start the game with fawning over your opponents army, saying that you may as well just pack up now! What's the point even being here?! Put pressure on them to win, and watch them crumble.

Or not.

YMMV!

***edit***

Mind games and passive aggressive behavior in general are traits of controlling and manipulative people, so be wary employing these skills jyst to win a game of 40k!

Thank you for your response, but I'm looking for ways to throw the opponent's gameplan using units in game, not behavior outside of the game.

Basically units that change the way an enemy will play or force him to adapt etc. Anything to throw a spanner in the works.

Ah well, having only ever won two games of 40k, I really can't help there!

Good luck!

wear sunglasses or a hat so your opponent cannot tell where you are looking. formulate your actions on your opponent's turn, and don't hesitate in your movements on yours. Stay Polite. be familiar with the rules interactions, and have a cheat sheet printed up so you can show why your tactics work. Be Humble. and don't point out an error you see your opponent making (my biggest failing).

Take units that have a reputation, even if it isn't necessarily justified. For instance, if I take a Bloodthirster, it often gets focused down by turn 2. The Daemon Princes he brings with him however..

Reserves, especially outflanking and deep striking, will hugely influence your opponents play.

Everything else I could suggest is outside of the game itself, one of my favourites was simply having a reputation for being good at the game, then even if you made a mistake, your opponent simply assumed you were up to something nefarious and would tie themselves in knots. That's a long time ago though, and my reputation has long since departed!

Lots o' Guardsmen...

Indeed. Swarms/Hordes are very good at psyching an opponent out. I have a wall of 90 termagants in front of my army that only gets thicker.

A lot of opponents see it, think "I can't kill all that!" and go into "Starship Troopers Mode" - firing into the closest part of the wall without any real thought of concentrating fire or much in the way of tactics...

Stuff that will reach the opponent by turn 2 (hormagaunts, raveners, etc) are also good for drawing fire. Theoretically, winged monsters and deep strikers will arrive just as quickly but a lot of people haven't got enough skyfire firepower to engage them effectively so don't bother to try.

Essentially, the trick tends to be providing people with something they can kill a lot of, quickly, that doesn't actually affect the outcome of the battle....

My GUO (Mama Graul) tends to be a fire magnet for this reason.

There's nothing like a T 10 creature (when she gets Iron Arm) on the field to encourage the opponent to utterly freak out and try to kill her with everything they have/just give up...

And most times she is not the center of the action, being slower than molasses in January. She really isn't that much of a threat, but she has taken the firepower of a whole army off my other stuff long enough for them to get into action on many occasions.

Of course when the opponent DOES finally manage to down her, it's a huge morale booster for them

Every once in a while this thread passes through here.

-Someone trolls everyone on fake tactics.
-Someone recommends the conversation moves to general discussion.
-Someone offers actual and well thought out tactics.
-The majority thinks that they're too good to be fooled/tricked/persuaded/goaded/forcibly manuevered around.

Feints.

Keep one unit off to one side, and don't use them.
At all.
Then, on turn 5, dash for an objective.

Or, reserve something, just because you can. Keep referring to it as you mumble during their turn.

Bait your opponent into making poor tactical decisions.

Hey. Have Marbo charge my Warboss. It'll be a great fight. Come on, don't be a coward! Marbo can totally kill him, the boss only gots one wound left. His Nobs are gone.

Wait you actually DECLARED THE CHARGE? HAHAH KOMBI SKORCHAAAA

 Dilt wrote:
Bait your opponent into making poor tactical decisions.

Hey. Have Marbo charge my Warboss. It'll be a great fight. Come on, don't be a coward! Marbo can totally kill him, the boss only gots one wound left. His Nobs are gone.

Wait you actually DECLARED THE CHARGE? HAHAH KOMBI SKORCHAAAA

This. It's amazing how often people will let you basically move their pieces for them. I was playing a necron army with a huge blob of wraiths + destroyer lord. I put a unit of RANGERS, 60 points worth of eldar RANGERS within his charge radius and said, "Oh man, they're dead. You're going to just massacre them." And he did. Completely ignoring the fact that he was swatting a 60 point fly with like, 400 points of models, while staring down the barrels of the entire rest of my army.

When I played orks, I'd always put 3 stripped down deffkoptas in front of my army and scout move with them. I'd move as far forward as I could. It was funny how much fire power they would take when they really weren't that dangerous.

One of my gaming buddies always advocated finding out what model was your opponent's favorite and killing it ASAP.

Got to use manufactorum genestealers the other day. They have a special ability which allows them to deploy by infiltrate within 6" of an enemy. Placing one brood 1.5" behind the command squad on the first floor of a ruin, so that each guardsman had a stealer essentialy reaching its arms over his shoulders freaked the guard player out something rotten....

One I always like if the opponent plays mid/short range is to put an objective right in they back corner if you get to place more than them it forces them into either wasting a unit to score it, or leaves an even number of objectives to fight over, mean that if you can get first blood or warlord points they come into play a lot more.

It doesn't always work, but can be very handy.

 Otto Weston wrote:
Hi there. I'm looking for any and all tactics to do with psyching out your opponent and playing mind games with them. This may or may not be army-specific.

Such as bringing loads of blast weapons to encourage them to spread out or bringing loads of outflankers to encourage them to avoid the sides etc.

Anyone got any good tactics like that? Thanks

Several spare 10-man IG squads with a meltabomb sgt.

Paint them pink, blue and yellow in any combination.

I gak you not, *Titans* will unload their entire arsenal to remove them.

I use sling shot methods of Daemons and Reserves to make my opponents O_O"

Last attempt I did was actually golden. Ran a squad of 9 Plague Drones up the field turn 1 then come turn 2 I ended up deepstriking off my Banner, a squad of 10 Plague Bearers whom also had a banner, then a Squad of 20 Plague Bearers one being a Plague Ridden. From there I deep struck my 2 Soul Grinders of Nurgle with Baleful Torrent and obliterated some weenie Tau hiding in some ruins. From there my GUO was magically manifested near 2 riptides who were encroaching upon my dwindling Plague Drones and hilariously murdered one of them outright (Gotta love those Baleswords)

Basically, things showing up in your opponents face when you're trying to play an objectives game, scares the living gak out of them when you play to Table them. And most of the time you (As a Daemons player) will have methods of spawning more of yourself. Which also makes your opponent hate his life, in the moment. lol

it depends on what you play , I like cc armies ( orks ,csm) . So here is some basic tricks I learned here and there . Make a distraction put out some fast scary unit to draw attention for first turns. I often start to place objektives in enemy deployment so he is forced to place his more to middle of table usualy yo can denie 2 of his with one yours. Deepstrike is also wery intresting thing , dont deepstrike death stars who will die instead 2-3 cheap units that will soak atention for turn 2-3 ! Leave some squishes back to take mid field objektives I remember wining one game with 7 ork boyz left for me and like 4-5 unit's of enemy coming at me to table me (I killed all of he's scoring unit's) . That sayed your opponent will find him self dominating wholl game by stomping you're forces and lose in the end. Of course some times youl get stomped but this was my main taktics last edition for orks and csm, also your opponent will always enjoy that kind of game

You really need to know your opponent. That said, Rangers have been hilarious for me. I have had a group of Rangers go to ground every turn on a hill, and my opponent poured fire into them because they wound on a 4+. Rangers are bad in math hammer, but always seem to draw inordinate fire.

I have two armies - Eldar and Nids.
I bring all my models to the store. First thing I do is either pull out every single one of my Tanks and set them aside or pull out all of my MCs and set them aside. I then leave them sitting there like they are either going to deploy with the rest of my army, or if I deploy first, as if they are going to be coming in from reserves. My opponent now thinks he is dealing with Serpent spam or Nidzilla and deploys accordingly. Meanwhile my real army is sitting on the table ready to swarm the enemy in bodies.

I most of the time play to table and it infuriates my opponents.

If your army is painted, leave one troops choice primed black, put it into an unobtrusive spot and leave it there. You may be surprised how many times people 'forget' about black models.

Give your opponent lots of chances to make bad decisions. Generally I find that if I portray a total lack of interest in the game, my opponent will make some huge mistakes. I'll bring a model or two to build/paint during my opponents turn.
Drives them nuts.

-Matt