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Hey all,

It seems that CPs are more valuable spent in the pre and early game where there are more units and force multipliers on the table to take advantage of this editions lethality. Is it ever wise to save any for the mid and late game? If so, how many or what dictates your decision?

Thanks!

 Jimbotron wrote:
Hey all,

It seems that CPs are more valuable spent in the pre and early game where there are more units and force multipliers on the table to take advantage of this editions lethality. Is it ever wise to save any for the mid and late game? If so, how many or what dictates your decision?

Thanks!

Absolutely depends on the army.

Tide of Traitors, before it was nerfed, had me using no CPs the first 2 turns. I would spend them to suddenly bring back 60+ Cultists 9" away from my opponent. That was always a good use of CPs.

Endless Cacophony, it feels like if you're not using it first turn, you are wasting time. The moment you lose a model, you are losing efficiency. So using it early made a big difference.

I play Black Legion, the World Killers Stratagem denies objectives to my opponent. I usually have 3 CP saved for it until the 4th or 5th round because it's that good.

It largely depends on army and strategy.

You should spend CP to win games. If that means front loading CP in the first couple of turns or with pregame strats, go ham.

If that means saving a bunch for the latter half of the game, great.

That being said, budgeting so you have 2-4 CP for the end of the game is always good, as it gives you the THREAT of using it, which can be enough to make your opponent not do something. Like if you had 0 CP, you can't counter charge; having 2 means you always have the option to interrupt the fight phase, which might make them second guess about charging that unit / multiple units in.

 Jimbotron wrote:
Hey all,

It seems that CPs are more valuable spent in the pre and early game where there are more units and force multipliers on the table to take advantage of this editions lethality. Is it ever wise to save any for the mid and late game? If so, how many or what dictates your decision?

Thanks!

Do you want to save them to when game is already decided on win/lose and it's just margin in question?

Games of 40k are typically won or lost in one or two key turns. The best return on your CP is generally when used in your "push" turn or turns. It can vary based on the army, but as a general rule, the higher skill level of the players involved, the more these "push" turns tend to come later in the game rather than earlier.

New players typically just do the "charge up the table and start fighting" or "try to table your opponent T1" and in both cases that makes T1 and T2 the "push" turns, but more competitive players are good enough at screening and using terrain that the "push" turns usually end up being T3 and T4 instead (largely because deep strikers must arrive T3 or count as destroyed). This is why you see competitive players generally not blowing their CP in early turns unless it will get them a huge play.

Turn 1 you would normally kill 400 pts worth of models, you can spend 5CP to kill another 300 pts of models to kill a total of 700 pts of models.

In one scenario your opponent has 300 pts less for the next 4 turns of the game. In the other scenario, you save those 5 CP to use T5 and 6. So you'd need those 5 CP to help you kill another 1200 pts of models or get an equivalent amount of VP as you would have gotten by outnumbering your foe throughout the game.

Once you get up to 8+CP you start getting to a scenario where you can afford to spend 6CP and then keeping the rest for a rainy day where each CP could potentially turn the tide of battle on its own. This is why Battalions are super powerful in 40k, they're relatively easy to fulfil and give you a tonne of CP for your trouble. Once you start getting above 12 you can really let loose with using Stratagems throughout the game and you don't need to be as sparing and you won't feel like an idiot when your vehicle blows up and kill 12 dudes because you didn't save a CP for turn 4, in that way having a lot of CP makes the game easier and less stressful.

If you're just bringing a single Outrider Detachment you've got a re-roll for a single charge roll and a fight-twice and then you're out, failed charge rolls are failed, damage 1 on D6 is damage 1. On the other hand having too much CP is entirely useless, if you have CP left at the end of the game you are doing something wrong.

Try watching the art of war battle reports, I don't have the patience for bat-reps myself anymore but I'm sure you can learn a lot from watching how much CP those players save for the end of the game.

Guard player here -- I generally try to spend 2/3 of my CP's before the end of turn 2, at the very latest.

By turn 3, 4, etc, gaurd armies usually don't have enough units left to benefit from many of their strategems, and its too late to matter anyway.

This is a somewhat related question, or maybe the same question from another point of view: If you got a solid plan for how to spend all your CP in 2 or 3 turns, would you downgrade elite/fast attack/heavy support units to more troop choices/hq units to squeeze out some reserve CP?

Don't know about the tournament scene, but I watched some youtube battle reports with armies, that started the game with surprisingly few CP, for my taste, and still seemed to perform quite well on the table.

It made me question my tendency to almost always go for at least double battalion in list building.

 AuntHerbert wrote:
This is a somewhat related question, or maybe the same question from another point of view: If you got a solid plan for how to spend all your CP in 2 or 3 turns, would you downgrade elite/fast attack/heavy support units to more troop choices/hq units to squeeze out some reserve CP?

Don't know about the tournament scene, but I watched some youtube battle reports with armies, that started the game with surprisingly few CP, for my taste, and still seemed to perform quite well on the table.

It made me question my tendency to almost always go for at least double battalion in list building.

Depends on the list and the strategums, also what your pregame spend is, I know for some lists I find they run fine with 1 battalion worth of CP others benifit more from the CP than the units, it also depends on the relics and warlord traits etc available, I have played games where all bar 2 CP was spent pre game and one but the list just didn't have strategums worthwhile, relics etc were more benifit than a command reroll.

It all depends on what you have to spend CP on, what the opponents have, and how quickly your army is disappearing.

As an ork player, I try to reserve 2CP to make my SSAG mek fire twice every turn, wherever possible. I also like to keep at least 2CP handy for the later game, where preventing a unit from fleeing will become very effective - much more useful for Orks than Marines, who already have ATSKNF to make themselves more effective. I've won games by the opponent counting on my boys fleeing (losing 25 of 30 in one turn will do that, they had just arrived back from endless green tide too...) only for me to pop my last CP and make them pass automatically. They were on an objective. He had spent all his CP early to maximise his damage output.

So whether you blow it all early or mete it out throughout the game depends entirely on what you're using it on!

My armies (Necrons, Custodes, Marines) are all CP-starved, and I am generally out of CP by end of turn 3 in all cases.

I find I use them to make sure my strategy turn 1 and 2 works as intended.