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What do I need to keep in mind when I deploy. I almost always lose so looking for tips to help out my game. What do you do?

What sort of armies are you playing with/ against?

I play Chaos Space Marines with Land Raiders + a lot of terminator armor, space marines with Rhinos lots of weapon options, and a lot of cultists shooty and assault.. I've had horrible fortune deepstriking. I would lke to be TAC. But I find myself on the opposite side of Tau frequently. They Castle and harass with suits.

Thinking of starting Tyranids, Flying hive tyrant, tervigons, and a hoard of termigaunts.

Also have Some space marines. bunch of tacticals, assault, and devastator squads. Chaplains.. etc.

Its hard to give an end all be all tip for setting up armies at the start of the game. There are a few factors:

1: Army You're Running: Since you're using CSM with Land Raiders and Rhinos (presumably with your squads inside) you can either use the rhinos to screen your Land Raider or vice versa. Although with an AV14 on the LR, it doesn't exactly have to hide.

2: Army They're Running: Obviously changes from game to game. If it's Tau, you might want to use terrain to your advantage to deny them their insane ranges. Since they can pick you off from pretty much anywhere, the typical Tau player is going to wait for you to come to them.

3: Intervening Terrain: How the board is setup is going to vary from game to game. Only tip that I can think of is to think of how the terrain can be used to your advantage and not to his. Cover saves are great for your vehicles until your opponent starts pulling out "Ignores Cover" weapons.

Hope this helps.

When I try using my vehicles to cover each other, I end up taking multiple hits from large blast weapons..

Then spread out. Without seeing your table, army, opponents, really everything, it's hard to give too specific advice without it being wrong.

 6^ wrote:
I play Chaos Space Marines with Land Raiders + a lot of terminator armor, space marines with Rhinos lots of weapon options, and a lot of cultists shooty and assault.. I've had horrible fortune deepstriking. I would lke to be TAC. But I find myself on the opposite side of Tau frequently. They Castle and harass with suits.

Thinking of starting Tyranids, Flying hive tyrant, tervigons, and a hoard of termigaunts.

Also have Some space marines. bunch of tacticals, assault, and devastator squads. Chaplains.. etc.

triple heldrakes = GG for most armies.

This is a really good question.

Before you even start thinking about where you put your models, you need to ask a few important questions:


1) Are you faster, overall, than your opponent, or are they faster than you?

2) Which of you has the better long-range fire?

3) Which of you wants to be in assault more?


Without understanding these things, you cannot deploy well.

Going over them:

1) Who is faster?

Being faster means you get to control more of the flow of the game. It also means you can get to objectives more easily. If you are faster than your opponent, you want to deploy in a way that baits them away from objectives, especially if they're short-ranged or assault oriented. If you can get your opponent's models moving towards yours and away from objectives, then you'll be able to make your move towards them later in the game, and your opponent won't be able to catch up.

Another thing to note about speed is that it allows concentration of force. If you're faster than your opponent, you can spread out more, and move together when you need to concentrate your force. If you're slower, you'll want to start with your force concentrated more, so your opponent cannot defeat you in detail. If you're slow, and they're fast, the last thing you want to do is split your force, because they can focus their whole army on half of yours, and then go for the other half.

2) Range

If you outrange your opponent, you want to maximize the number of turns that you can operate largely unmolested. The longer your range, the further back you can deploy, and force them to play your game. This can include deploying near the corners of the table, rather than centrally, as diagonals are longer than parallels.

If your opponent outranges you, then you need to close that distance as quickly as possible. If you're short-ranged and deploying first, you want to deploy as centrally as possible, because that prevents your opponent from putting too much space between you and them.

3) Who is more assaulty?

If your opponent has few guns and lots of swords, you want to deploy to receive a charge from them, with the ability to shoot down his guys as they close with yours. If he has to run at you anyway, you want to make sure that the objectives are where you want to set up your firebase. You also want to make sure there is a kill zone between your guys and any LOS blocking terrain. If you have to deploy in the middle of a field, but your opponent has to cross that field to get into assault with you, you're better off than being in a forest where your opponent can close without being too shot up. If you've got more guns and he's got more swords, you can abandon your cover if it denies him his.

If you're the assaulty army, the opposite is true. Putting objectives in your own deployment zone means you have to hold something back to get them. You want to concentrate as many objectives (and terrain) where your opponent will be anyway, so that when you've gotten to the fight, you've also gotten to the objectives. You also want to make sure there are as many things that obscure line-of-sight to your guys as they advance up the field. Taking an extra turn to get there is worth it if you take less fire as a result.


Other thoughts:

If deploying first, think about where your opponent is likely to deploy. You don't have to take the best terrain in your deployment zone, if by abandoning it, you force your opponent to avoid the best terrain in their deployment zone.

Also, think defensively, so that if the initiative is stolen from you, you're not screwed. Anything that can move&fire is better deployed hidden, or in cover, because it can move out for shots on your turn.


If deploying second, evaluate your opponent's deployment and look for things you can exploit. If you can take a unit (or more) out of the game by positioning yourself where that unit isn't, you've got an advantage. If they have an assault unit in one corner, odds are that it won't assault anything if you deploy in the furthest corner from it.

Likewise, if they have some really long range guns (48"+), realize that you're unlike to avoid them entirely, so you might as well deploy closer to them, where you'll be able to destroy them sooner.

Most of this comes down to having a plan. Have a plan on how you're going to win the mission, and a plan on how you're going to handle different enemy units. Deployment then becomes an exercise in putting your pieces where they need to go to accomplish those plans.

As a tau player a HATE blast weapons and I really find it hard beating nids so I would get tons of AP2 blasts

That was a great synopsis Redbeard...I would also argue that you need to pay attention to disruption units in both your and his list.

Tyranids are all over disruption, spores, lictors, ymgarls, pods

I am unfamiliar with chaos...just dont let your land raiders get trapped by drop pods...I often see Land raiders being delayed from delivering their payload for 1-2 turns because the tried to drive down a narrow passage and a pod ended up in the way.

#0 on Redbeard's list should be the mission.

The basic way I choose to deploy before a game is asking myself this question. "How am I going to win?"

Losing sight of the mission is often the #1 reason for mistakes in choices in 40k. People forget about the mission and shoot at the big scary gribbly instead of the troop unit on an objective. Or assault a unit when they should be running towards an objective.

All of Redbeard's list is great, but each of them needs to be considered in light of the objectives (and in fact, the placement of objectives depends on his list as well).

If you're faster than your opponent, you should be placing objectives as far apart as possible. If you're slower, you want to place the objectives close together.

How many troops do you have? how many does the opponent have (including, of course, the special mission troops in Big Guns Never Tire).

Overall, make a decision based on information. Don't "just do" something, which is what a lot of people do. Deploy with intent.

To go along with how is your opponent going to deploy you will want to think about what your opponent is going to try to do.

If you want to go another level past that you can think about what your opponent thinks you are going to try to do.

Adjust accordingly.

Gwyidion brings up a great point that people really do need to remember more often than they do. When helping some of our friends and people at the local shop that are new to the game and struggling to win this is about 90% of their problems. They lose focus of the mission objectives, get what we lovingly call "ooooo shiney disease" and lose the game. Decide what objectives you are going to focus on, what you are going to bring to bear to take that objective with, and what sort of reinforcements you could bring to bear if you opponent is throwing a monkey wrench in your plans.

Ask yourself this. If I was playing Necron and deployed the majority of my forces in the left/center side of my deployment zone, and set a monolith out along the right hand board edge and started running it up the side would you be tempted to send a unit or 2 over that way? Or would you recognize it as nothing more than a diversion and ignore it? Monoliths are big and scary (and mine has a blue crystal that I fire a high powered blue LED up into from underneath so that it literally glows), a LOT of people want to go for it. Avoid traps like this.

Set up with according to YOUR plans, (but do not fall into the trap of being someone that sets up the same way every time, that is NOT what I am advocating) while keeping your opponents in mind. Don't let your opponent dictate how you set up and how you play to win the game. If you let him dictate your plans to win, then you've already lost.

Sidenote: I find that the less shooty you are...the more you want to control the middle.

I think a large part of how you deploy depends on the size of your army.

For low model-count armies, I think the key is to concentrate your forces. This is easier to implement if you are deploying second. That way, you can pick the most threatening parts of the opponent's army and focus on either destroying them or avoiding them.

For example, if I deploy my elite-heavy Grey Knights against an Imperial Guard player using a Demolisher, which would destroy my Paladin deathstar in a couple of shots, I will try and leave an empty area in the areas the short-ranged tank is able to threaten. This is easier to do if it is deployed on a flank, but if it is central, then I find it better to simply choose one flank rather than to split your forces.

As well as avoiding the major threats if possible, it is also worth thinking about a more offensive setup. Pick the weakest part of the enemy army, and deploy as much force as possible to counter it. This will minimise damage to your army, and also allow you to use the early part of the game to tip the overall balance in your favour, as you can often force the more dangerous enemy units to redeploy to reach you, wasting the time they could be doing damage. This is best done by surrendering a flank, leaving half the board empty and bringing all of your force against half of the enemy's.

For larger armies, such as orks, guard and tyranids, I find the opposite is true, and the most effective strategy is to apply force as widely as possible along the board. Again, this is more effective deploying second, so your opponent cannot react before the game begins. By flooding the enemy with threats along the entire board, you can quickly get them on the back foot, and on the whole, the losses that would cripple a smaller army taking on the entire enemy force are more tolerable for horde armies.

Finally, a note on objectives. When placing objectives, bear in mind 2 things:

Firstly, objectives count for nothing until turn 5 at the earliest, so if possible, ignoring them until then is perfectly valid, and will allow you to focus more on applying killing power to the enemy. This is doubly true for fast armies who can quickly withdraw to claim objectives.

Secondly, poor objective placement can leave a unit useless. Unless the objective-sitter is something with a lot of long-ranged firepower, like HWTs or Fire Warriors, you do not want to place objectives too far back. In most games, I tend to place them in the midfield, where they can easily be withdrawn to in the closing turns, but also where I can comfortably place a unit on them without detracting from my army's offensive power. A tactical squad is useless at over 30", but placed near the centre of the board, can hold an objective whilst still being in range to threaten enemies.

Lastly, if there is an odd number of objectives and you are free to place the last one, it is sometimes worth it to place the objective in a far corner, forcing the opponent to either waste a unit holding it, or to ignore it and even the numer of objectives. This is useful if you are confident you can hold half the objectives, and win on secondaries.

This really isn't a question that can be answered accurately, as there are way too many variables to be considered. The armies and terrain are just a part of it, your strategy, night fighting, enemy reserves, whether you are going first or second, how big or little do you need to win by, can you win; these are all questions to take into consideration when deploying. You really can't pre-plan deployment and should really only be making these calls when it is your turn to place.

This questions has so many variables it is impossible to answer solidly.

But I will give some advice with a specific example you eluded to.

This assumes you are running 2 landraiders with terms, rhinos with CSM, and cultists vs. Standard tau gunline on Dawn of war deployment

Honestly you want to go second if you win the roll, this may seem counter intuitive Vs. shooty tau, but you do. You really just want to deploy second, and try and seize the initiative.

Let them deploy first hopefully spread along their deployment zone. Choose a flank to attack(the weakest, the strongest, the one with more objectives, etc)..

Let the cultist come in on reserves to grab you home field objectives. Run the 2 landraiders side by side screening(or better yet blocking LOS) your rhinos.

Your plan would be to get all of you units in a position to fire upon the gun line in turn 2. If this means moving 12" do it, maybe even moving 18" with flat out is what you'll need to do. Other than EMP grenades, Rail gun hammer heads, and fusion blasters Tau have a hard time with AV 14, however they will melt you rhinos and marines with ease. If you lose a land raider to get into a position to bring all your guns to bear vs. a tau gunline it is worth the 250 pts. If deployed right they won't be able to fire upon much of the rest of the army.

Try and tie up missile broad sides and firewarriors with your termies, the over watch may hurt them but even if you get 2 or 3 terms in combat at the very least you will tarpit them but you will more likely break them in combat to run off the board( or if you have a Warlord in power armor with them, he can catch them in sweeping advance and wipe them out.

Once you are at their lines and in rapid fire range you should be able to out shoot them because while tau have great fire power they still die quick under heavy fire.

If you must deploy first you must be a little more cagey. If you can deploy out of line of sight do it. Don't feel like you have to run up on them ASAP, Hide you stuff behind terrain and your land raiders. But the basic strategy should be the same. Use your superior mobility to bring you whole force to bear on half of his force. If it isn't until the start of turn 3 its ok as long as you are playing safe and not losing rhinos/raiders.

This would be advice for a very specific situation, and may change depending on countless variables. Hope you can pull something positive out of what I said or reconsider they way you may have been doing things.

 6^ wrote:
I play Chaos Space Marines with Land Raiders + a lot of terminator armor, space marines with Rhinos lots of weapon options, and a lot of cultists shooty and assault.. I've had horrible fortune deepstriking. I would lke to be TAC. But I find myself on the opposite side of Tau frequently. They Castle and harass with suits.

Thinking of starting Tyranids, Flying hive tyrant, tervigons, and a hoard of termigaunts.

Also have Some space marines. bunch of tacticals, assault, and devastator squads. Chaplains.. etc.

I've faced tau a couple of times with my chaos and find something you truly have on your side is board control.
Tau do have excessive range but when on the move they are more on par with you, suits are obviously not included in this.

But as Tau are squishy compared to your strong marines he needs to deal with your advance.
This means he MUST keep about 11" away from most all your army to avoid being assaulted, most Tau players will stay further away than that. If you close to within his "safe zone" you will feel a lot of firepower and you can play the target priority game.

I would consider using rhinos to screen the land raiders, Madness I know, But if you can get an assault off vs a tau gunline you will cause mayhem,
super mega awesome bonus points if you can tank shock it to minimize overwatch and "redeploy" his fire lanes.
Destroyer Blades and Dirge casters are all I stick on my rhinos for this exact reason, if it works its great, if it doesnt its like 10 points or something.