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Curious if anyone has a suggestion for books on military strategy that on some level helped improve their game?

I have read many military strategy books and I can't say they have helped improve my game. In fact, military history books have helped me create less than effective lists.

 Smotejob wrote:
Curious if anyone has a suggestion for books on military strategy that on some level helped improve their game?

For 40K.... nothing. Just shoot the right units first with the right weapons, end of lesson.

I read an awesome book from the 80s (it looked like) about the latest tactics in US military to fight the russians should the cold war escalate.

It had infantry tactics in heaps of situations from urban, helicopter and mechanized tactics down to combined arms and so on. Had air to ground tactics and, well everything.

Down to the basics too such as how to shoot from a window (stand back to reveal as little as possible) to where to aim to hit russian tanks of the time and the latest military thought on gunships and so on.

Discovered it in my last week of college, never got the chance to fully read it.

I will try find it if I can...

But whatever the book is, I recommend it.

 Swastakowey wrote:
I read an awesome book from the 80s (it looked like) about the latest tactics in US military to fight the russians should the cold war escalate.

It had infantry tactics in heaps of situations from urban, helicopter and mechanized tactics down to combined arms and so on. Had air to ground tactics and, well everything.

Down to the basics too such as how to shoot from a window (stand back to reveal as little as possible) to where to aim to hit russian tanks of the time and the latest military thought on gunships and so on.

Discovered it in my last week of college, never got the chance to fully read it.

I will try find it if I can...

But whatever the book is, I recommend it.

Sound like a fun read. But, how would that help with playing 40K?

It wont, and nor will any strategy book.

40k is so far from strategy it will hinder you to learn from military strategy and incorporate it into design.

So instead I threw out a suggestion, he may find some use with it.

 Swastakowey wrote:
I read an awesome book from the 80s (it looked like) about the latest tactics in US military to fight the russians should the cold war escalate.

It had infantry tactics in heaps of situations from urban, helicopter and mechanized tactics down to combined arms and so on. Had air to ground tactics and, well everything.

Down to the basics too such as how to shoot from a window (stand back to reveal as little as possible) to where to aim to hit russian tanks of the time and the latest military thought on gunships and so on.

Discovered it in my last week of college, never got the chance to fully read it.

I will try find it if I can...

But whatever the book is, I recommend it.

Sounds cool, but would it help in a game of 40k?
The book of 5 rings can be very inspiring. Also if you are a tread head I recommend 'Tigers in the Mud'. It is awsome, and was recommended reading by the IDF. Will not improve your game. May give you kill team mission ideas.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:
It wont, and nor will any strategy book.

40k is so far from strategy it will hinder you to learn from military strategy and incorporate it into design.

So instead I threw out a suggestion, he may find some use with it.

Exalted!

 Smotejob wrote:
Curious if anyone has a suggestion for books on military strategy that on some level helped improve their game?

There are two that are useful for 40k that I can think of.

The Art of War - Sun Tzu - it teaches that to be successful you must know yourself and know your enemy. It discusses proper selection of battle ground to suit your forces

The Prince - Nicolo Machiavelli - It isn't strictly a war book, but a book on ruling/command. At it's core it teaches that all actions have consequences, and that you must choose based upon what you consider an acceptable outcome. It is useful from a philosophical standpoint, from mix/maxing your list/building cheese to win yielding opponents who may not want to play against you, to building fun to play lists will see victory as more elusive. As an example, I used to play Mechwarrior: Dark Age. When Artillery was 'newish' I used to run grapple infantry, transports, and artillery. I would use the transports to drop infantry into base contact and thus lock up enemy mechs/tanks. Then drop artillery tokens under that unit. I knew this could kill my infantry, but I would drop enough artillery so that it would critically wound/cripple the opposing piece. I considered it acceptable to loose ~20-30pts of infantry to take out a 150-200 point model. Shelling my own men was acceptable, but an outcome of my actions.

There is a book titled "the art of wargaming" by Peter P. Perla which covers the history of wargaming and it's use as training material for the real world. The books mentions many different game companies, including game designers workshop, but not GW because he sticks to historical games. It discusses the reverse process of applying games to real life. Has a big section on the navel war academy if I remember correctly.

40K's ruleset is far too streamlined and simplified for any real-world strategy to be terribly relevant. Movement is too fast, ranges are too short.

You might get some benefit out of the philosophy of Sun Tzu, or Clauswitz. But those books are far more about the concepts of warfare than the particulars.

The problem is that modern warfare is about fire and maneuver. Which you can't really do much of in 40K because of the scale. 40K's ruleset is designed for speed of play. So the things a book on warfighting will teach you aren't really relevant a lot of the time. You're more worried in 40K on how to use your 4-7 turns most efficiently, rather than how to out maneuver and out position your opponent.

40K really isn't supposed to be an accurate depiction of combat. Heck, it's not even supposed to be an accurate depiction of combat int he 40K universe, lol. It's just an excuse to buy a bunch of Games Workshop's plastic toy soldiers.




Oh, and get together with your friends and have fun. Really, that's it. Buy a bunch of toys, roll dice with friends. They're not aiming at the actual wargamers. If you look up battle reports from games like Battlegroup Kursk, or the like, these guys play one battle, all day. Because at 28mm scale, the effective range of an AK-47 is over 12 feet. Some of those games may not even bother to have ranges for a lot of weapons, and you just shoot at what you can see. Potentially with maybe a decreased chance to hit past a certain range.

Art of war is pretty general but mainly devoted to campaign, propped choice of terrain, the right way to handle troops and wrong. Also things like how to use spies, leadership, country leaderships and how seige warfare is his pet hate.

Might glean somthing from it though like the 9 grounds and which terrain to fight on, avoid and avoid unless you have to and how best to use them.

As said by others, not much is applicable to 40k, but if you can familiarise yourself with principles of strategy such as force concentration, denied flanks, target priority and the like they are transferable.

 Maniac_nmt wrote:

 Smotejob wrote:
Curious if anyone has a suggestion for books on military strategy that on some level helped improve their game?

There are two that are useful for 40k that I can think of.

The Art of War - Sun Tzu - it teaches that to be successful you must know yourself and know your enemy. It discusses proper selection of battle ground to suit your forces

The Prince - Nicolo Machiavelli - It isn't strictly a war book, but a book on ruling/command. At it's core it teaches that all actions have consequences, and that you must choose based upon what you consider an acceptable outcome. It is useful from a philosophical standpoint, from mix/maxing your list/building cheese to win yielding opponents who may not want to play against you, to building fun to play lists will see victory as more elusive. As an example, I used to play Mechwarrior: Dark Age. When Artillery was 'newish' I used to run grapple infantry, transports, and artillery. I would use the transports to drop infantry into base contact and thus lock up enemy mechs/tanks. Then drop artillery tokens under that unit. I knew this could kill my infantry, but I would drop enough artillery so that it would critically wound/cripple the opposing piece. I considered it acceptable to loose ~20-30pts of infantry to take out a 150-200 point model. Shelling my own men was acceptable, but an outcome of my actions.

Both Art of War and The Prince are good reads for military history and strategy. As mentioned, they're not really applicable to 40k since they deal mostly with the 98% of warfare that takes place off the battlefield: alliances, spies, choosing the battlefield, avoiding sieges, logistics, politics, etc.

Over a decade ago the Art of War was pretty applicable at the broadest strokes. I had actually written an article for a now-defunct forum that talked about applying it.

I long since lost what I wrote but I do recall two important points that I'll paraphrase:

1) Sun Tzu said: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Self-explanatory really but this doesn't necessarily mean to go and know your opponent's Codex; know how your own forces play out and in general how your opponent plays, in particular things like how units interact with each other and how to deal with potential counters that your opponent utilizes. This is applicable in all games, not just 40k, and is probably the most important (if not the most generic) advice.

2) Sun Tzu said: "If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected."

In 40k terms I translated this to psychology warfare with your opponent e.g. if you know they like a particular unit or character, go out of your way to put that unit/character in danger and your opponent might carelessly as well as applying basic tactics e.g. if a unit is isolated it will be easier to destroy, but if it's stronger try to goad your opponent into giving you an opening.

BONUS 3) Sun Tzu said: "For should the enemy strengthen his van, he will weaken his rear; should he strengthen his rear, he will weaken his van; should he strengthen his left, he will weaken his right; should he strengthen his right, he will weaken his left. If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak.

Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible attacks; numerical strength, from compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us."

I interpret this as meaning that, as with the above, if you can dictate to your opponent where battle is to be met, you can dictate the conditions of the fight. So for example if you can draw your opponent's unit too far from his main force, you can isolate and destroy it. If you can make your opponent assault a heavily defended area they can commit extra resources to take that area while you push your forces to their lesser defended areas.

In general though, overall strategy might be applicable but not tactics.

Most effective would be to run math hammer for your various units against different targets before hand. Put on an index card so you can quickly figure the likelihood of assaults and shooting. Develop your own target priority against different lists, put that on another notecard. Develop your own doctrine of things to avoid and exploit and put it on another card.and review your own army list after every subphase to make sure you're not forgetting a unit.

Like Eisenhower said: plans are useless, but planning is invaluable.