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I was reading up a bit on historical and modern military tactics.

It made me wonder how well WHFB emulates these strategies (and by extension 40k to modern).

I know flanking is important. Do things like weighted centres and denied flanks or boar's head formations work?

Or does the play of WHFB reflect more of 'game' realities?

I play 40k and am still working on getting my WHFB army up so I don't have any experience in the dynamics of the game.


[Did a forum search on this: didn't find anything. My apologies if this has been covered already.]

WHFB can use real world tactics from the appropriate period.

Although the game's typical point value doesn't make that possable.

You would need to have closer to the 10,000 point range for multi-unit formations truly become an effective tactic.

So an Empire army might have 10ish blocks of 50 Halberdiers as the main line. Facing up against maybe 6-7 units of Chaos Warriors.


The best game for real world tactics would actually be the LotR SBG. Each model operates independently and the way they interact with each other can be very realistic. You can make shield walls, phalanxs, etc...

If you do PC gaming... 40k is like Dawn of War/Starcraft. WHFB is more like the Total War Series (Rome, Medieval, Medieval 2, Empires, Shogun, Shogun 2) also Mark of Chaos but there is a mod for Medieval 2 that probably plays better.

As far as the size of military battles GT nailed it however I can't imagine every military battle was like the Battle of Hastings, there were smaller skirmishes all over, even the Battle of Gettysburg had various other smaller skirmishes around it for control of mountains for artillery positions or scouting positions for better intelligence, it wasn't all Pickett's Charge.

Thanks for the replies.

I didn't want to double post in the 40k forums so maybe you can answer this here.

Can you successfully use small unit tactics in 40k? Like one squad advancing while others provide suppressive fire?

True, but at that size of engagement you rarely had troops lining up and forming blocks.

A block of 25 dudes isn't very big. An all out brawl would be just as effective as lining up and running your block into theirs.


The Medievil period was actually mostly fairly small scale conflicts with only a few exceptions untill the late period.

If you want truly massive armies you'll need to look back to the Roman period. There are repeated instances of battles with casuality numbers in the 300,000 range, for one side.

You would commenly find a Roman force of 10-50,000 facing off against enemy armies that could be anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000.


Its quite shocking just how many people were actually living in Europe at the time. The Roman conquests cut the population down by a whole lot.

No 40k is more point and click and knowing what units to take out first. If you are thinking of something like Company of Heroes WW2 PC game from a few years back where you can pin down units with machine gun fire and then have other units come in and mess them up you should look to another game.

Flames of War might fit the bill. Its got alot more realistic tactics in regards to pinning the enemy down.

It takes alot of fire to kill one base in FoW. You might unload 3-4 HMGs into an enemy unit and only cause one casuality, but will likely have pinned them(which is much more important in FoW)

Dug in infantry are almost impossable to remove in FoW quickly without the right equipment. Only super heavy artillery, Flamethrowers, and direct assaults can actually get rid of dug in infantry with any speed.

Games can easily last for 10-15 turns(but usually don't)

Thanks everyone.

Flames of War looks interesting but I wasn't looking so much for a realistic modern war system as just pondering the dynamics of warhammer FB and 40k.

1.) In real history, the use of magic wasn't that decisive
2.) 40k:

 grimgrimly wrote:
Thanks everyone.

Flames of War looks interesting but I wasn't looking so much for a realistic modern war system as just pondering the dynamics of warhammer FB and 40k.

I think if you're looking for more realistic combat, Force on Force or Tomorrow's War(if you're feeling the need for sci-fi) may be more your speed. It also allows the use of any scale and brand of figure, so 40K are a go and there's a good number of people who've done conversions for it already.

As stated, neither GW games are really good at simulating or emulating actual battle and combat styles.

I'm looking at Flames of War myself, the new starter set that is coming looks cool and I'm over 30 now and finding older games play it. If I were to play another sci-fi game it would be Infinity because of I find the ARO system really cool.

Tomorrow's War--nice. I checked it out. I think I'll get it in the next few months. Thanks.

Or you could look at Infinity for sci-fi skirmish level games as well...

 grimgrimly wrote:

Can you successfully use small unit tactics in 40k? Like one squad advancing while others provide suppressive fire?

The rules really aren't that conducive for this type of maneuver.

The point of providing suppressing fire while moving a unit forward is to prevent or limit the enemy's ability to direct fire at the squad that is advancing. 40K does have the pinning mechanic, but due to how easy it is for almost every army to either pass by rolling or auto-pass the pinning check, pinning rarely has significant effect during a game. At least, it's effect isn't one that you can rely on. Additionally, the rules do not even provide a modifier for a unit that is on the receiving end of suppressing fire if that unit attempts to move or shoot on its own turn.

So, in a nutshell, you can use units in the manner in which you describe above, but it won't have near the effectiveness on the table top as it does in real life.

 Revenent Reiko wrote:
Or you could look at Infinity for sci-fi skirmish level games as well...

Infinity is great for a small force broken into individual fighters, but that's not really how most military operates. FoF/TW is better for simulating military style squads/fire teams supporting each other in combat.

Don't get me wrong, Infinity is a great game, but it's a true skirmish game and not a military force battles game. Also, IMO, the vehicle rules leave something to be desired if you want something larger than a light battle suit/walker.

 Grey Templar wrote:


The best game for real world tactics would actually be the LotR SBG. Each model operates independently and the way they interact with each other can be very realistic. You can make shield walls, phalanxs, etc...

I disagree because morale is totally stupid. Otherwise it is actually surprisingly realistic - for skirmishes of course.

I think that Fantasy is more realistic than 40k because battles like Fantasy have taken place. Battles like 40k battles have not really taken place.

I'd use probably Medieval tactics in Fantasy.

Morale isn't stupid. its perfect.

Testing morale for each soldier is perfectly realistic, with the leaders keeping the soldiers together.

The idea that the model simply disappears from the battle after half the force is killed seems absurd though. At least it does to me.

O, you don't like the model disappearing.

Its better then the silly situations that came up in the previous edition where you'd spend half your turn moving fleeing models backwards and trying to rally them. Especially with low courage troops like orcs or goblins.

The simplification to the model simply fleeing off the board is simpler.


of course you could always use the old courage rule if you want.

I suppose, but even so . . . they're game designers, they do that kind of junk for a living! Surely they can come up with something?

 Grey Templar wrote:
True, but at that size of engagement you rarely had troops lining up and forming blocks.

A block of 25 dudes isn't very big. An all out brawl would be just as effective as lining up and running your block into theirs.


The Medievil period was actually mostly fairly small scale conflicts with only a few exceptions untill the late period.

If you want truly massive armies you'll need to look back to the Roman period. There are repeated instances of battles with casuality numbers in the 300,000 range, for one side.

You would commenly find a Roman force of 10-50,000 facing off against enemy armies that could be anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000.


Its quite shocking just how many people were actually living in Europe at the time. The Roman conquests cut the population down by a whole lot.

I'd like to see you prove a 300,000 casualty battle from the roman period. That's about as many confederates as died in the 4 year american civil war, and it's close to the casualties of the germans at VERDUN, a battle fought with artillery and machine guns for nine straight months. Battle like Cannae had numbers of 50,000+ but that's a far cry from 300, and Cannae was notoriously bloody.

That's not really the point I don't think. He's saying the battles in the Roman period were absolutely massive.

The Battle of Badger's Mouth - apparently half a million died!

the color purple wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
True, but at that size of engagement you rarely had troops lining up and forming blocks.

A block of 25 dudes isn't very big. An all out brawl would be just as effective as lining up and running your block into theirs.


The Medievil period was actually mostly fairly small scale conflicts with only a few exceptions untill the late period.

If you want truly massive armies you'll need to look back to the Roman period. There are repeated instances of battles with casuality numbers in the 300,000 range, for one side.

You would commenly find a Roman force of 10-50,000 facing off against enemy armies that could be anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000.


Its quite shocking just how many people were actually living in Europe at the time. The Roman conquests cut the population down by a whole lot.

I'd like to see you prove a 300,000 casualty battle from the roman period. That's about as many confederates as died in the 4 year american civil war, and it's close to the casualties of the germans at VERDUN, a battle fought with artillery and machine guns for nine straight months. Battle like Cannae had numbers of 50,000+ but that's a far cry from 300, and Cannae was notoriously bloody.

Ok, I found out my 300,000 number was taken from a series of battles fought in close succession.


But I did find 2 battles that had casualties in the 100,000 range. Battle of Aquae Sextiae and the Battle of Vercellae

Aquae Saxetiae had the Tuetons suffer 110,000 casualties(of which 20,000 were captured) out of a fighting force of 120,000

in the Battle of Vercellae, the Cimbri suffered 200,000 casualties(of which 60,000 were captured)


These casualties happened in the span of a single day. Verdun on a deaths per day was slightly over a thousand.

Modern wars simply don't compete with the carnage of ancient battles.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:


The Battle of Badger's Mouth - apparently half a million died!

On one side!

The Mongolian casualties arn't even given a number, only the Jin dynasty's casualties.

I know, it's absolutely fething ridiculous. If you also think about it, most of those casualties would have been killed at relatively close range.

 Grey Templar wrote:
But I did find 2 battles that had casualties in the 100,000 range. Battle of Aquae Sextiae and the Battle of Vercellae

Aquae Saxetiae had the Tuetons suffer 110,000 casualties(of which 20,000 were captured) out of a fighting force of 120,000

in the Battle of Vercellae, the Cimbri suffered 200,000 casualties(of which 60,000 were captured)

Meh, the notable feature there is that the attacking armies were completely wiped, the scale of the armies wasn't actually that remarkable, historically.

You also overstated your claim on the depopulation of Europe earlier (there was at most a slight decline), and made a mistake in thinking that decline was due to combat. The major causes of depopulation were the plagues of the Late Antiquity.

These casualties happened in the span of a single day. Verdun on a deaths per day was slightly over a thousand.

Modern wars simply don't compete with the carnage of ancient battles.

?!

That modern war will grind out over months or years, doesn't make them a smaller scale than battle which took a single day.

 Grey Templar wrote:


Ok, I found out my 300,000 number was taken from a series of battles fought in close succession.


But I did find 2 battles that had casualties in the 100,000 range. Battle of Aquae Sextiae and the Battle of Vercellae

Aquae Saxetiae had the Tuetons suffer 110,000 casualties(of which 20,000 were captured) out of a fighting force of 120,000

in the Battle of Vercellae, the Cimbri suffered 200,000 casualties(of which 60,000 were captured)


These casualties happened in the span of a single day. Verdun on a deaths per day was slightly over a thousand.

Modern wars simply don't compete with the carnage of ancient battles.

I'm sorry but the conclusion to this post is just wrong. A modern war, like say WW2 (~50 - 60 million dead) doesn't compare to an ancient battle?

Verdun claimed around 1 million lives in total, the entire population of Rome at it's zenith. This was a 9-month seige that took place in the context of a much larger war that continued unabated while Verdun raged, the equally bloody battle of the Somme was a direct result of the carnage at Verdun (the Frenchies begged the British to take some of the pressure off).

You've linked a handful of isolated battles that may have occurred on that scale around once a century. The 20th Century alone held 2 wars which dwarfed all other previous wars combined. The logistics in the ancient world (or relative lack thereof) means armies of a large scale wouldn't stay together long, as they quickly exhausted local food supplies. Romans went some way into combating this problem with efficient supply and disciplined soldiers. Even so, a Roman Legion only had around 6000 Legionnaires plus Auxilia, and at it's height Rome commanded 33 Legions covering Britain to the Holy Land. So not more than around 200,000 Legionnaires for the entire Empire.

On topic: WH40k has little to no real-world tactical value other than "shoot them now and they won't be able to bayonet you later". WHFB is probably more closely real-world accurate. Even games set in the real world like FoW are an abstract at best.

Verdun took 9 months to cause those casualities.

Ancient battles caused more casualities in less time.


There is a major difference. Only 1000ish casualities a day for Verdun, compared to ancient wars where tens if not hundreds of thousands of men would be killed in the span of a few hours. Like the aforementioned Battle of the Badger Mouth. 500,000 casualities for the Jin dynasty alone.

If you can't see the difference then you are truly blind.

Not only that, but that carnage was not done with bombs or guns - a lot of that carnage would have been done by men killing other men they could see right in front of them.