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Unless you're playing the right kind of Campaign.

I'd actually be rather interested in seeing (reading, whatever) about 40k rules and models being used in a non-ending campaign, where you can choose to simply move your guys past his, off the opposite table edge, and engage at a later time, in a different location- or that doesn't end with the turns, but keeps going until some tactical objective is complete, with rules for reinforcements and such.

Richard Rahl, who was a fictional general in a science fantasty series I read had a pretty good quote "Cut. Once committed to fight, Cut. Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides this one. Cut"

Anvildude wrote:Unless you're playing the right kind of Campaign.

I'd actually be rather interested in seeing (reading, whatever) about 40k rules and models being used in a non-ending campaign, where you can choose to simply move your guys past his, off the opposite table edge, and engage at a later time, in a different location- or that doesn't end with the turns, but keeps going until some tactical objective is complete, with rules for reinforcements and such.

I was thinking bout this. That and unequal armies (like 1500 vs 2000 to represent actual battles, since as we all know, asymmetrical forces are very much the norm) and that you can choose where to attack or defend.

Like a few players can guard a key city or whatever and the attacking player has the choice to either attack a very strong and very fortified position OR moving past it. Bring a more strategic element to the game.

This thread needs to die so bad. For every quote from Sun Tzu or Clauswitz that might, maybe, have some application to 40k, I could find three that are completely inapplicable. Those books were written as primers on strategy for the time and place in which they were written. They don't have anything to do with 40k, chess, or any other game of strategy.

Here is the only quote I have ever found to be applicable:

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." -George S. Patton

And I tend to play a very aggressive, 'glass cannon' style of Necrons.

GreatGunz wrote:Those books were written as primers on strategy for the time and place in which they were written. They don't have anything to do with 40k, chess, or any other game of strategy.

Which is why The Art of War is still being read by business and political leaders and institutions like the US Army consider it a must read. It's not about doing what Sun Tzu or Clauswitz did or would do, its about the concepts and principles that are behind them.

They read it because Americans have always had a fad for things foreign and exotic. They want to believe that there's some kind of mystical "wisdom of the ancients" that will do their thinking for them. The whole thing is an exercise in laziness.

Clausewitz doesn't have much to say about your 40k game. He was talking about napoleonic-era infantry tactics. Trying to drag him into a 40k game is all kinds of silly. Same thing for Sun Tzu, who was talking about bronze age chariot warfare.

Anyway the concepts are fairly well known. It's the specifics of their application that's tricky. Sorry, you can't get Clausewitz and Sun Tzu to play your 40k game for you. It just doesn't work that way.

GreatGunz wrote:They read it because Americans have always had a fad for things foreign and exotic. They want to believe that there's some kind of mystical "wisdom of the ancients" that will do their thinking for them. The whole thing is an exercise in laziness.

Oh I agree, there is a very American/western concept of mystical eastern/exotic wisdom to be found in things like the Art of War. American's especially like quotes and statements that are bold and tough, such as that Patton quote that's been floating around this thread (Which really when you examine it is a bit of a "Duh" thing, but said in a such a way it has become a piece of military "truth". How amusing.). It's the concepts that can be applied to chariot warfare and napoleonic-era infantry and to modern warfare and to punching on with the bloke at the pub that are valuable. The art of war is a historical document that contains certain truths within it, not a document of certain military truths.

GreatGunz wrote:Anyway the concepts are fairly well known. It's the specifics of their application that's tricky. Sorry, you can't get Clausewitz and Sun Tzu to play your 40k game for you. It just doesn't work that way.

If the concept is well known the person should not have a problem applying it. If the concepts were well known people wouldn't quote Patton essentially saying "the object of war (in his particular framing, fighting to the death) is not to die and make the other bugger die", which to me seems really bloody obvious. And no need to apologize, I wasn't asking for a long dead man to play my game for me.

Although Sun Tzu would probably come up with a plan to slip something in the opponents drink/swarm him with women and other such sneaky distractions, so If I did have to choose who to advise me at the 40k table It would probably be Sun Tzu over Clausewitz who would probably try to get me to line up in pie plate formation

Well, and Sun Tsu can't "play the game" for you. That's not to say that his works are irrelevant or purely mystical.

Winning a war (or in this case, a game of 40k) isn't a science, no matter how much certain writers of old wished it would be. It's more like art or engineering. That said, there is good art, and there is bad art. Likewise, there are certain engineering principles that you have to follow regardless of how much creative control you have over a project. Likewise, there are good generals and bad generals, and good 40k players and bad 40k players.

What art, engineering, and 40k have in common is that, among other things, they are also a skill. Skills can be learned a variety of ways, but one of the ways you can learn something is by being taught it. Clausewitz can't tell you whether to move the unit with a heavy weapon or stay still and shoot at a less-optimal target. What reading other people's work will do, though, is impress a certain aesthetic on your psyche - an aesthetic conducive to success.

Of course, you still have to work out this aesthetic on your own through several trials of your own experience. After all, your brain is the connection between abstract ideas and actual actions. That said, training your brain to think about abstract ideas in certain ways - to think like a strategist - actually does help, as it gives you a stronger position from which to make concrete decisions.

In a way, military writers and art historians and the like are sort of like the Bible. The point isn't what exactly it says explicitly, the point is how it affects the person who hears the message, and how that effects the way they think about things and the way they behave in the future. Yeah, it's mystical, in the proper sense of the word, but it's still true.

The Prussian may not tell me what to do, but thinking about the way he thinks about offense and defense is probably going to make me better at both than someone who hasn't read his works.

Ailaros wrote:In a way, military writers and art historians and the like are sort of like the Bible. The point isn't what exactly it says explicitly, the point is how it affects the person who hears the message, and how that effects the way they think about things and the way they behave in the future. Yeah, it's mystical, in the proper sense of the word, but it's still true.

please tell me you didn't. Your argument was good up until that point ><

It's still good- unless you're considering it from the point of view of a fundamentalist who believes each and every word literally (which is a baaaad idea- as it's been translated, and re-translated so much that simple things like 'poisoner' get switched around to 'witch')

But if using religious icons as similes makes you uncomfortable, consider it then as an art class.

You aren't going to become a world famous artist by making paper-mache baloons (usually), but that's what you do in very basic art classes. The point is to get you thinking about the concepts as things that can be changed and manipulated and used as tools- the human can easily look at a stick and see how it can be used as a physical tool- a lever, but it takes a certain kind of thinking to realize that same stick could be carved into a totem that would sway the thoughts of your compatriots.

Jihallah wrote:

Ailaros wrote:In a way, military writers and art historians and the like are sort of like the Bible. The point isn't what exactly it says explicitly, the point is how it affects the person who hears the message, and how that effects the way they think about things and the way they behave in the future. Yeah, it's mystical, in the proper sense of the word, but it's still true.

please tell me you didn't. Your argument was good up until that point ><

As Simon Barak said, "It doesn't matter if it was exactly a hundred thousand Israelites in the desert - it doesn't matter if there were ten thousand or one hundred, or ZERO. The point of the Exodus story is how people should relate to God."

The same is true of sun tsu and von clausewitz and the like. The point isn't to do exactly what they say that you should do (as that would make them largely irrelevant), but rather the point is what those authors get you to think about.

We're all armchair generals. Congrats.

It's a Sean Connery, but I think it applies to me:

"If you sit by a river long enough, you'll see the body of your enemy float by."

Well, it applies to me because my movement phase is entirely lacking: There is none.

Okay, that's not true either; my movement phase just doesn't take long; it's like 'move Land raider, position Vulkan and squad for assault.'

Of course, the next level is my GK codex, where I think the motto

"Burn baby burn, disco inferno" will apply.

Ailaros wrote:

Jihallah wrote:

Ailaros wrote:In a way, military writers and art historians and the like are sort of like the Bible. The point isn't what exactly it says explicitly, the point is how it affects the person who hears the message, and how that effects the way they think about things and the way they behave in the future. Yeah, it's mystical, in the proper sense of the word, but it's still true.

please tell me you didn't. Your argument was good up until that point ><

As Simon Barak said, "It doesn't matter if it was exactly a hundred thousand Israelites in the desert - it doesn't matter if there were ten thousand or one hundred, or ZERO. The point of the Exodus story is how people should relate to God."

A nuanced view on the bible? On the internet?

The same is true of sun tsu and von clausewitz and the like. The point isn't to do exactly what they say that you should do (as that would make them largely irrelevant), but rather the point is what those authors get you to think about.

Fair enough. It's good to think about strategy. But it's crazy to play your game one way and not another because you read something in Sun Tzu. Every once in a while there's a passage that might be illuminating. "All warfare is based on deception." Ok great. But for every one of those I can find three more that are totally inapplicable. For instance "On dispersive ground, therefore, fight not. On facile ground, halt not. On contentious ground, attack not." Reading through the thread it just seems silly to put all this stock in the Art of War. You're better off reading one of Space Curve's tactics articles on BOLS.

Although Clausewitz dealt with 19th century civil warfare based on musketry, cavalry and cannons and Sun Tsus armies fought with spear, sword and bow on foot and on horse or chariot, they still talk about the same subject.

The only problem with those guys is, that they are guides for winning wars. 40k is a game with the goal to win a small battle.

So we have to break it down into our scale. Sun Tsu advises you to pretend weakness per se to hide your strengths, this can be done easily. Sun Tsu means it on a great scale of warfare. Pretended weakness results in a hasty attack, which will be crushed by a better organised opponent in a battle. 40k has a different scale, we have a battlefield with several units on it instead of a big country with several armies. Now breaking it down to our scale we take in example a very deceptive unit: The guard infantry blob. It has hidden strength and hidden weaknesses and is a perfect example to apply this idea.

We tell the opponent about the unit emphasizing the following way: "This unit of 21 models has only 3 models with only S3-powerweapons and 18 weak guardsmen with lasguns. Though they will not break from shooting most likely because the commissar improves their ld value by 1 and gives them stubborn, they will most likely lose an assault against any opponent."

As an opponent, what would you think would be the best option? My first approach would be attempting to charge headon into this unit even with the worst unit, I have. Which is the worst thing I could do. But thats the same picture that Sun Tsu has on a larger scale. A hasty attack with a force too weak to deal with the offer.

BTW: Would you consider such attempts to deceive the opponent bad sports?

On dispersive ground, therefore, fight not. On facile ground, halt not. On contentious ground, attack not.

Of course this can be applied.

dispersive ground: own territory -> homebase
facile ground: almost enemy territory -> if you have got past the middle line and stand i.e. in front of the enemys deployment zone.
contentious ground: strategic point on the battlefield in reach of both armies -> middle marker

OK let me transfer to 40k:

1. Don't get the fight to your homebase (the marker you consider yours).
2. If you attack the enemy, dont halt the attack halfway or you will lose impact.
3. If you bum rush right into the most precious position, you will be crushed immediately.

Of course this can be applied.

dispersive ground: own territory -> homebase
facile ground: almost enemy territory -> if you have got past the middle line and stand i.e. in front of the enemys deployment zone.
contentious ground: strategic point on the battlefield in reach of both armies -> middle marker

OK let me transfer to 40k:

1. Don't get the fight to your homebase (the marker you consider yours).
2. If you attack the enemy, dont halt the attack halfway or you will lose impact.
3. If you bum rush right into the most precious position, you will be crushed immediately.

Sun Tzu didn't say "home base." He said "dispersive ground." He's not talking about objective markers at all. You have to read and understand the text on its own terms, otherwise you're just making it say what you want it to say. Saying that Sun Tzu was giving advice about 40k is unbelievably silly.

Sun Tzu didn't say "home base." He said "dispersive ground." He's not talking about objective markers at all. You have to read and understand the text on its own terms, otherwise you're just making it say what you want it to say. Saying that Sun Tzu was giving advice about 40k is unbelievably silly.

Unbelievably silly is how you read my post...

Sun Tsu said "dispersive ground" and explained it before as:

Where the rulers do battle in their own ground, this is called dispersive ground.

. Own ground cannot be translated to home base? No?

I did not say that Sun Tsu was advising me on how I play 40k. He couldn't do that because he didnt know 40k and I assume it didnt exist when he lived.

I did say that I can use his very general advice on warfare and adapt it to think about my strategies on the 40k table. So I make it say what I want it to say in a certain way, yes. But if I get some knowledge out of it that I can use, it is in fact part of the text, because without the text maybe I wouldnt have that knowledge.

I tend to work from the American Principles of War, primarily because they come with a little more explanation than the British ones (even if it does read like it was put together by committee). Of course, I also have my Clauswitz phases, as well as Musashi (and I'm kind of surprised the Book of Five Rings hasn't been mentioned in this discussion yet). But every 40K engegement is a strategic failure, since you have arrived on the field with a force roughly equivalent to that of ther enemy.

The United States Armed Forces use the following nine principles of war:

Objective – Direct every military operation toward a clearly defined, decisive and attainable objective. The ultimate military purpose of war is the destruction of the enemy's ability to fight and will to fight.

Offensive – Seize, retain, and exploit the initiative. Offensive action is the most effective and decisive way to attain a clearly defined common objective. Offensive operations are the means by which a military force seizes and holds the initiative while maintaining freedom of action and achieving decisive results. This is fundamentally true across all levels of war.

Mass – Mass the effects of overwhelming combat power at the decisive place and time. Synchronizing all the elements of combat power where they will have decisive effect on an enemy force in a short period of time is to achieve mass. Massing effects, rather than concentrating forces, can enable numerically inferior forces to achieve decisive results, while limiting exposure to enemy fire.

Economy of Force – Employ all combat power available in the most effective way possible; allocate minimum essential combat power to secondary efforts. Economy of force is the judicious employment and distribution of forces. No part of the force should ever be left without purpose. The allocation of available combat power to such tasks as limited attacks, defense, delays, deception, or even retrograde operations is measured in order to achieve mass elsewhere at the decisive point and time on the battlefield. ...

Maneuver – Place the enemy in a position of disadvantage through the flexible application of combat power. Maneuver is the movement of forces in relation to the enemy to gain positional advantage. Effective maneuver keeps the enemy off balance and protects the force. It is used to exploit successes, to preserve freedom of action, and to reduce vulnerability. It continually poses new problems for the enemy by rendering his actions ineffective, eventually leading to defeat. ...

Unity of Command – For every objective, seek unity of command and unity of effort. At all levels of war, employment of military forces in a manner that masses combat power toward a common objective requires unity of command and unity of effort. Unity of command means that all the forces are under one responsible commander. It requires a single commander with the requisite authority to direct all forces in pursuit of a unified purpose.

Security – Never permit the enemy to acquire unexpected advantage. Security enhances freedom of action by reducing vulnerability to hostile acts, influence, or surprise. Security results from the measures taken by a commander to protect his forces. Knowledge and understanding of enemy strategy, tactics, doctrine, and staff planning improve the detailed planning of adequate security measures.

Surprise – Strike the enemy at a time or place or in a manner for which he is unprepared. Surprise can decisively shift the balance of combat power. By seeking surprise, forces can achieve success well out of proportion to the effort expended. Surprise can be in tempo, size of force, direction or location of main effort, and timing. Deception can aid the probability of achieving surprise. ...

Simplicity – Prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and concise orders to ensure thorough understanding. Everything in war is very simple, but the simple thing is difficult. To the uninitiated, military operations are not difficult. Simplicity contributes to successful operations. Simple plans and clear, concise orders minimize misunderstanding and confusion. Other factors being equal, parsimony is to be preferred.

@Mordiggian

Yes of course a 40k game would be a strategic failure. It is also assumed that both armies did very bad recon jobs because list tailoring is unfair...

So we need to take Sun Tsu or Clausewitz or someone similar with a grain of salt. But saying, it is worthless sounds a bit premature to me.

-Nazdreg- wrote:

Sun Tzu didn't say "home base." He said "dispersive ground." He's not talking about objective markers at all. You have to read and understand the text on its own terms, otherwise you're just making it say what you want it to say. Saying that Sun Tzu was giving advice about 40k is unbelievably silly.

Unbelievably silly is how you read my post...

Sun Tsu said "dispersive ground" and explained it before as:

Where the rulers do battle in their own ground, this is called dispersive ground.

. Own ground cannot be translated to home base? No?

Perhaps, but fighting on your home ground in actual warfare confers advantages which fighting near an objective does not confer in 40k.
So.... still invalid.

I did not say that Sun Tsu was advising me on how I play 40k. He couldn't do that because he didnt know 40k and I assume it didnt exist when he lived.

Yeah that's kind of my point. So no need to drag him into our game, is there?

So I make it say what I want it to say in a certain way, yes. But if I get some knowledge out of it that I can use, it is in fact part of the text, because without the text maybe I wouldnt have that knowledge.

No it's just part of your own knowledge. The text says one thing, you read something else into it, and then you say "aha! Sun Tzu says such and such, so that's what I'm going to do." Sun Tzu didn't say it at all. You said it. It's all you. Sun Tzu doesn't have anything to do with it.

but fighting on your home ground in actual warfare confers advantages which fighting near an objective does not confer in 40k.

Well when S.T. states that you shouldnt fight on home ground, why do you think it is advantageous then? Of course, Sun Tzu means that the enemy can destroy your resources when they get the fight to your ground. In 40k we have no resources, but resources are extremely important strategically. So they can be main targets of a battle. The 40k abstraction to that is the marker.

-Nazdreg- wrote:

but fighting on your home ground in actual warfare confers advantages which fighting near an objective does not confer in 40k.

Well when S.T. states that you shouldnt fight on home ground, why do you think it is advantageous then? Of course, Sun Tzu means that the enemy can destroy your resources when they get the fight to your ground. In 40k we have no resources, but resources are extremely important strategically. So they can be main targets of a battle. The 40k abstraction to that is the marker.

Well I'm not a scholar on bronze aged china, so I don't know precisely. None of us do. That's what I'm getting at. We'd have to read a history book about Sun Tzu's life and times to have any kind of informed opinion on the matter. Dragging Sun Tzu into a game of 40k is both odd and silly. He wasn't talking about 40k, so how you can you try to apply what he's saying to 40k? It's a game. It isn't war at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://sun.thefreelibrary.com/Art-of-War/1-11
here's a link to the entire passage.

If someone really wants to learn about 40k strategy, they're better off reading battle reports and tactical articles than a manual for bronze age chariot warfare. That's what I'm getting at. Sure, every once in a while there will be something relevant. But for the most part..... I'm just not seeing it.

Well reducing Sun Tsus work to a manual for chariot warfare is a bit awkward though.

Of course 40k tactical articles are useful sometimes, but I have seen few tactical articles based on general principles. They rather talk about particular units or lists or situations.

Sun Tsu imho is a text that can be applied on any situation of a conflict with some transferring effort.

Sun Tzu wrote for total war. We're skirmishing. That's the problem I see with using it as a guide.

If anything, Code of the Samurai and The Prince should be used, to inflict damage to vital enemy units and to feth with the mind of the opponent, respectively.

I think it's clear from looking at the whole passage that Sun Tzu is talking about how entire armies move back and forth over terrain - not detachments of a couple dozen soldiers on each side.

Here's another that has no possible application to 40k:
By persistently hanging on the enemy's flank, we shall succeed in the long run in killing the commander-in-chief.

Why "hanging on the enemy's flank" would necessarily result in the death of the enemy commander, I don't know. Presumably he had a reason for saying that. Back then killing the enemy general was a big deal. The whole army could break and run. In 40k it doesn't confer any particular advantage. The enemy HQ is just another unit except in a very few cases.

I could go on but the point is that this passage, if you just read it on its own terms, isn't talking about anything even close to 40k. It's talking about how to conduct strategic operations in bronze age china. Any of the bits that are applicable are things that you shouldn't have to read Sun Tzu to learn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

-Nazdreg- wrote:

If someone really wants to learn about 40k strategy, they're better off reading battle reports and tactical articles than a manual for bronze age chariot warfare. That's what I'm getting at. Sure, every once in a while there will be something relevant. But for the most part..... I'm just not seeing it.

Well reducing Sun Tsus work to a manual for chariot warfare is a bit awkward though.

No, that's exactly what it is.

Of course 40k tactical articles are useful sometimes, but I have seen few tactical articles based on general principles. They rather talk about particular units or lists or situations.

Because that's what 40k is.

By persistently hanging on the enemy's flank, we shall succeed in the long run in killing the commander-in-chief.

Hm this is indeed strange. I don't know why a flank attack should have resulted in a killing of the commander-in-chief...
No idea what he means here, so I can't transfer it.

What I can transfer is that hanging on an enemys flank has merits. He must choose between ignoring the threat or wheeling around to deal with the new force and therefore give up his initial attack.
Second bonus is a quite devastating crossfire effect.

But this has nothing to do with the commander-in-chief. I don't even know which function it had at that time, so I cant find an equivalent on the 40k table.

No, that's exactly what it is.

Because that's what 40k is.

No offence: I think this is a quite limited view on both things then ;(

-Nazdreg- wrote:No offence: I think this is a quite limited view on both things then ;(

Fair enough.

GreatGunz wrote:

-Nazdreg- wrote:

but fighting on your home ground in actual warfare confers advantages which fighting near an objective does not confer in 40k.

Well when S.T. states that you shouldnt fight on home ground, why do you think it is advantageous then? Of course, Sun Tzu means that the enemy can destroy your resources when they get the fight to your ground. In 40k we have no resources, but resources are extremely important strategically. So they can be main targets of a battle. The 40k abstraction to that is the marker.

Well I'm not a scholar on bronze aged china, so I don't know precisely. None of us do. That's what I'm getting at. We'd have to read a history book about Sun Tzu's life and times to have any kind of informed opinion on the matter. Dragging Sun Tzu into a game of 40k is both odd and silly. He wasn't talking about 40k, so how you can you try to apply what he's saying to 40k? It's a game. It isn't war at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://sun.thefreelibrary.com/Art-of-War/1-11
here's a link to the entire passage.

Well shoot, since you put it that way, i suppose there is no value what so ever by reading about war. Yep. It seems that flanking attacks, utilizing cover, manuver, covering fire, attacking the opponant's weak points, strategic withdrawals, and other hallmarks of warfare new and ANCIENT have absolutely no place on the table top.

Since it's only a game.

About war.

Some truths are universal. It doesn't matter if you are fighting with arrows or las cannons, swords or powerklaws. We do not study Michaelangelo, Raphael, or Botticelli so that we can paint like them. The styles of the Archaic Period in Greece are super out of style, but we still study them. Why? Because they make us think critically about art and it's evolution, to explore the primal ideas about beauty and truth that humanity has dealt with for millenia. A poor artist imitates. A true artist interprets.

A fool accepts the teachings of generals and philosophers of the past without question. A wise man looks at those teachings and wonders "How can that be applied to what I am doing now? Is it still relevant?" These teachings then lead us to think. Any fool can parrot Sun Tsu, but a true general knows when the old man is wrong. The thing that many fail to realize is that many of Sun Tzu's teachings come from a time when such ideas were radical. Alexander the Great created the military much as we know it today. He had a system of ranks and delegated portions of an over all plan of attack. That idea was lost for a long time and for much of the dark ages, battles were fought by men charging at each other as fast as they could, screaming. It was bravery (or foolishness) that won or lost a battle more than skill with a sword, and such battles were almost NEVER fought by leaders who studied the land or their enemies.

This whole thread (which you insist must die) is actually, per the OP, meant to be an examination of when sources of war wisdom are actually applicable to the table top. IMO there is as much to learn about wargaming by learning about war as there is to learn about war by war gaming. It prepares the mind for that mode of thinking by making you ask questions to understand what is being said.

Nagashek wrote:Well shoot, since you put it that way, i suppose there is no value what so ever by reading about war. Yep. It seems that flanking attacks, utilizing cover, manuver, covering fire, attacking the opponant's weak points, strategic withdrawals, and other hallmarks of warfare new and ANCIENT have absolutely no place on the table top.

Reading about war is great, but it isn't going to tell you much about 40k. To go down your list:

Flanking attacks were important in napoleonic and american civil war-era battles because regiments fought in a rectangular formation, so if one regiment faced its broad end towards another units short end, the second unit couldn't fight back without reordering itself, and in any case because the bodies would be bunched together so much closer from the first unit's perspective, their fire would be more effective. This was called the enfilade. There's no equivalent in 40k. It doesn't matter from what angle you shoot or assault an opponent, the rules are the same. So that's a good example of how taking clausewitz or Jackson or the advice of some other 19th century general, and trying to make it work in 40k, is counterproductive.

The only thing that does change with the angle of attack is intervening cover. There is a rules mechanic in that for 40k, so that holds pretty well. But there is no equivalent for covering or "suppressive" fire, which is something that was developed around the second world war as a part of rifle team tactics. The purpose of covering fire is not to kill the other guy, but to get him to keep his head down while your team mates move up closer and closer. The goal is to get one or two men so close to the other guys that you can just spray them all down with submachine gun fire and it's adios muchachos. There's no equivalent to that in 40k, so again, out.

The closest thing to a strategic withdrawel in 40k is hit and run. There are really only two uses for this in 40k, both of them fairly obvious. 1. You're getting wiped in close combat, try to run away. 2. You're winning in close combat and you want to set up a second charge. They're both fairly strait forward so I'm not sure what Sun Tzu or Clausewitz is going to tell you about those that you can't figure out for yourself. "Attacking weak points" is similarly obvious.

GreatGunz wrote:

Nagashek wrote:Well shoot, since you put it that way, i suppose there is no value what so ever by reading about war. Yep. It seems that flanking attacks, utilizing cover, manuver, covering fire, attacking the opponant's weak points, strategic withdrawals, and other hallmarks of warfare new and ANCIENT have absolutely no place on the table top.

Reading about war is great, but it isn't going to tell you much about 40k. To go down your list:

Flanking attacks were important in napoleonic and american civil war-era battles because regiments fought in a rectangular formation, so if one regiment faced its broad end towards another units short end, the second unit couldn't fight back without reordering itself, and in any case because the bodies would be bunched together so much closer from the first unit's perspective, their fire would be more effective. This was called the enfilade. There's no equivalent in 40k. It doesn't matter from what angle you shoot or assault an opponent, the rules are the same. So that's a good example of how taking clausewitz or Jackson or the advice of some other 19th century general, and trying to make it work in 40k, is counterproductive.

Hitting from a flank is still a valid military tactic in use today. It does not merely refer to hitting a regimented ranked enemy at the vulnerable parts of their formation. Even armies who fight rather amorphously have a flank or rear to be hit. By hitting from multiple angles, the enemy must divide the focus of his fire, and therefore his attention. IRL, you can just pump all rounds down range and expect to hit something. The more rounds in one direction fired, the greater likelyhood that you will hit something. In 40k, that doesn't EXACTLY hold true, but still you must divert resources in a direction OTHER than your opponant's battle lines to deal with the threat. You will not run the enemy off the board (as you will in fantasy) by hitting the flank, but you will cause your opponant to reorder his attack to deal with you. Thus: hitting the flank has value in 40k. Just because it has a DIFFERENT value, does not mean it lacks one.

The only thing that does change with the angle of attack is intervening cover. There is a rules mechanic in that for 40k, so that holds pretty well. But there is no equivalent for covering or "suppressive" fire, which is something that was developed around the second world war as a part of rifle team tactics. The purpose of covering fire is not to kill the other guy, but to get him to keep his head down while your team mates move up closer and closer. The goal is to get one or two men so close to the other guys that you can just spray them all down with submachine gun fire and it's adios muchachos. There's no equivalent to that in 40k, so again, out.

If I am manuvering my forces along your flank (see above) and I want them to get there safely, or, if I want to get my CC elements into play, I will destroy/soften/pin (still a rule in the game, and it DOES keep people's heads down, despite its less reliable status) the units that will interfere with my manuver or deployment of forces relative to their position. IE I will destroy the enemy's counter assault units in reach or ranged units with line of sight on the units I intend to move.

The closest thing to a strategic withdrawel in 40k is hit and run. There are really only two uses for this in 40k, both of them fairly obvious. 1. You're getting wiped in close combat, try to run away. 2. You're winning in close combat and you want to set up a second charge. They're both fairly strait forward so I'm not sure what Sun Tzu or Clausewitz is going to tell you about those that you can't figure out for yourself. "Attacking weak points" is similarly obvious.

There are more ways to withdraw than to use "Hit and Run." Simply pulling away from an objective or a point that the enemy is moving towards by physically moving your models away, or placing them out of line of sight is a withdrawal. Does your enemy want to shoot you? Get behind LOS blocking terrain. Make them come to you. Then when they do, manuver your forces in such a way that you destroy them. You have dictated the terms of their manuver, and in drawing them in, you might even hit them on the flank.