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My weakness is focussing too much on the 150 boys running towards me and not enough on my objectives during maelstrom.

I play a Grey Knight Nemesis Strike Force, with a heavy emphasis on the Alpha Strike. So shunt forward with NDK(s) and interceptors, deep strike/gate with libby and terminator friends, etc.
As far as issues, it's a rare game in which I'm not outnumbered, but that's nothing new to GK. The biggest problem is eliminating certain high priority targets turn one. Grav-Centurions, Riptides, and Wraith Knights can pretty much look at something in my list and kill it, with little say on my part. With psycannons as our only widely available source of high strength, armor ignoring shooting, getting rid of certain 2+ save units efficiently is an issue. I have gotten much better at playing the objective game, saving shunt moves and what not. My allocation of WC though can use some work. often I'll forget to allocate dice to Sanctuary or Force or some such in exchange for more offensive powers. While they often do the work, the group that is set up for a charge has no dice left to buff themselves.
For compensating? Using Gate gets around interceptor fire given that interceptor takes place at the end of the movement phase, which helps against EWO Riptides, and I'm becoming more of a fan of a Grand Master with Psycannon. Roll on divination and put him with another group with psycannons. 12, TL, S7, rending shots can put the hurt on just about anything.
As for WC allocation, I've been trying to throw dice at my buff and utility powers first. After the essential powers there, and only after, will I look at my remaining dice for more offensive powers.

I need to learn when to run away from certain strong enemy units. Recently I had a game in a tournament that was my Ravenwing against my opponent's Dark Eldar. He had two squads of Reavers, 3 Ravagers, and a bunch of Venoms with Kabalites in them, and another Venom with 2 Lhameans as his HQ. I just foolishly left myself in charge range from the Reavers and just got splatted by them thanks to those Cluster Caltrops on those bikes. I should have turbo-boosted over to one side of the table for the jink bonus on turn 1, then started eating Venoms. Instead, I tried to force all his units to Jink on the first turn, and I didn't kill much other than a couple of jetbikes due to Night Fighting (and DE don't have to worry about night fighting). Only thing that went right was that I did force all of the Ravagers to jink, which negated their shooting, as they would have immediately started popping my Land Speeders.

If you're wondering how that game went, by turn 3 it was going so bad and I was getting so disgusted that I surrendered. My command squad got mulched on the first turn, and it just got worse from there.

My love of impressive models, Elite armies, and making tactically unsound design choices.

My lists have dangerously low body counts (21-24) to maximize the amount of big Tanks on my field.

I am the great and powerful Tinkrr, I am without flaws for I am powerful, great, and uh-mazing.

That being said, I think my biggest flaw is getting too comfortable, as in a lot of games I'll establish an early lead, or pick up how to play quickly, but I won't necessarily continue my growth, making me a great early adapter and learner but also someone who falls off and stagnates more.

I just need to always push myself so I don't get complacent.

the_scotsman wrote:
What's the big flaw in your playstyle that costs you games? How do you compensate? Why do you see it as your biggest struggle?

I still focus to much on tactics and not enough strategy.
I find myself grabbing quick point and point, and don't think more than 2 turns ahead.

This lets me win a lot of games, but against extremely skilled players, I lose. I just need to read more chess strategy books.

My Achilles' heel from a strategic viewpoint is that I focus too much on the grand strategy that I've laid out, and not how to modify it to deal with that unexpected failure. Like the surprise flayed ones. It gets me every time.

As I found out to my cost in a game last night, charging things. From T1 I had a pretty much gaurunteed victory on my hands; objectives in the four corners of the map and infiltrating units in a position to take them; to dislodge one, the enemy would have to apply enough force that the others would go pretty much unmolested (we were only playing 1000 points, I had 3 pretty tough units in opposite board corners)... Could have gone as planned, but on T3 I threw my CCW Tactical Squad, Apothecary and Centurion (my primary objective cappers) into 10 Necron immortals and a Cryptek...

They were still there at turn 5, leaving me with only 1 objective. Had I stayed back, shot and gone for the far objective with the Tacs, they could easily have held it and won me the game.

So basically, when I make a plan, I need the patience and attention span to stick to it, no matter how cool no guts, no glory charge might be...

2 major failings from reading this thread (went kind of fast, I may have skipped a couple pages ):
1. I rarely bring the same list twice.
2. I am unable to let my opponent make a mistake. The saying, 'Never interrupt an enemy making a mistake.' doesn't apply when I play. If I see them making what I believe to be a mistake, I must say something about it. And let me say, it is less appreciated in tournaments.

Tactically I am very guilty of enjoying removing models more than playing to the mission objectives. I am sure I have lost many games due to taking bait, and having too much fun killing things. :-p

Hobby-wise, I am horrific about army ADD in any game I play. I always need to have two or three armies/lists going for any game or I get bored.

Honestly with only having a few games under my belt I have quite a few weaknesses that I've noticed.

First and foremost I blob every damned unit I pick (GH mostly) which I tend to try and combat squad but my rhinos almost never survive the first round of shooting and routinely explode dashing their use before they do anything.

Second I rarely regard objectives as things to pay attention to and just aim to kill everything at random to little or no effect.

Lastly I keep forgetting about the damned psychic phase exists when I field my Rune Priests

 labmouse42 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
What's the big flaw in your playstyle that costs you games? How do you compensate? Why do you see it as your biggest struggle?

I still focus to much on tactics and not enough strategy.
I find myself grabbing quick point and point, and don't think more than 2 turns ahead.

This lets me win a lot of games, but against extremely skilled players, I lose. I just need to read more chess strategy books.

I don't want to nitpick, and we could all do with looking a few extra turns ahead, but that is still tactics. Tactics vs strategy is long discussion, but suffice to say there are only tactics in a game like chess or 40k. Strategy is a larger concern and would really only come into most tabletop games in a campaign setting where you had to divide your forces between differing playing fields.

Redleg wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
What's the big flaw in your playstyle that costs you games? How do you compensate? Why do you see it as your biggest struggle?

I still focus to much on tactics and not enough strategy.
I find myself grabbing quick point and point, and don't think more than 2 turns ahead.

This lets me win a lot of games, but against extremely skilled players, I lose. I just need to read more chess strategy books.

I don't want to nitpick, and we could all do with looking a few extra turns ahead, but that is still tactics. Tactics vs strategy is long discussion, but suffice to say there are only tactics in a game like chess or 40k. Strategy is a larger concern and would really only come into most tabletop games in a campaign setting where you had to divide your forces between differing playing fields.

To be fair, I think in the context of 40k the term strategy can be applied to things like pre-game plans, deployment, makeup of your army and the general intentions you have for each of your units. For example, deploying an assault-based army with a surrendered flank and terrain covering on one side, then placing an objective mid-field or deeper (ie. where you expect to be on T5) could be considered a strategy, not in the military sense of course but more generally, I think it's a fair application of the term. What's not strategy is flanking a single unit, or choosing when to charge and other, single decisions.

40k is a simulation of combat at the tactical level, but as a game I think there is room for strategic thinking.

carldooley wrote:2 major failings from reading this thread (went kind of fast, I may have skipped a couple pages ):
1. I rarely bring the same list twice.

That's not a failing, that's great! I've played the same guy with the same list about 3 times in a row, now, and it's getting really quite dull! Even though he's saying his next list will be more powerful, I still don't care, anything but the same half a dozen units again!

I honestly can't ever remember running with exactly the same list twice in 6 years of 40k.

 carldooley wrote:
1. I rarely bring the same list twice.

It's not that you need to bring the same exact list, you need to bring enough of the same elements so learn how they work together and what they can work against.
In other words, it's OK to try "What if I use a combi-weapon on this leader" or "How will this wargear effect my game?"
What I try and avoid doing is radically changing my list from game to game. A good rule of thumb is to keep your list 10%-20% the same every game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Redleg wrote:
I don't want to nitpick, and we could all do with looking a few extra turns ahead, but that is still tactics. Tactics vs strategy is long discussion, but suffice to say there are only tactics in a game like chess or 40k. Strategy is a larger concern and would really only come into most tabletop games in a campaign setting where you had to divide your forces between differing playing fields.

Larry Evans says tactics is attacking the chess set, and strategy is attacking the chess board.

You can group them all discussion into the same category, but I describe them as two different functions.

I disagree with people that say that there is no strategy in 40k. Frankly, I agree with Paradigm - predeployment is strategy. what you do on the table is tactics. A proper utilization of strategy is the essence of what Take All Comer lists are for. Anyone who disagrees, they are welcome to field an AM infantry list of just infantry platoons with no upgrades against a 5 Knight list.

Xafilah wrote:
My Achilles' heel from a strategic viewpoint is that I focus too much on the grand strategy that I've laid out, and not how to modify it to deal with that unexpected failure

I see this happen more than anything else. On Friday night I played another Eldar player who stuffed a wraithknight down my face, and was shocked to see it destroyed in one turn when my dire avengers, warp spiders, and dark reapers lit it up.

He never recovered mentally and beat himself. From that point on it was just cleanup on my part, even though he had the tools to still beat me.

 carldooley wrote:
A proper utilization of strategy is the essence of what Take All Comer lists are for

List building I think could be considered strategic, especially if one will be playing in an environment of unknowns. A new exploit of unintended rules combinations, or a theory regarding unused or uncommon units could at its core be strategic. Lictor Shame was, at the first few tournaments it was dropped at, a strategic development. If someone fielded Ogryn to great effect because they had worked out some new use or ventured a new maneuver with them, then that would be strategic.
If, however, the list building involves primarily the balancing of known counters to known threats it is tactical. The choice to bring LR vanquishers to a tournament or FLGS where people will be bringing Knights is not strategic. It is known what each unit does. However if you have sussed out a way to make your humble Ogryn modular with different buffs or characters such that they can deploy to collapse the knight or brake tarpits or threaten scatbikes then that would be strategy (and darn brilliant at that).

I suppose that my position was a bit hardline, and I have no intent on hijacking the thread (or offering offense), but now I am intrigued. Are there maneuvers you have considered or tried that are somewhere between flying rodent gak crazy and possibly brilliant. I like this type of play-style, but my group largely wont go for it.
I know it all sounds nit picky, but it is important to regard tactical brilliance as different and no less important than strategy. A great plan is easily tossed out the window when SHTF, but a tactically proficient leader can turn even the biggest SNAFUs into a victory.

My weakness is in deployment. I've gotten a lot better about not splitting my forces up too much (and recognizing which units can be split off), but I still fail to read the terrain and my opponent's army well during the deployment step. This is especially so with CC armies, as I'm not used to melee myself and so underestimate enemy threat ranges.

On the positive side, I can recognize my mistakes, which means that I can improve upon them.

I had thought up several events that would make the game more strategic, but there seemed little interest in it.
For example a tournament where you played 4 to 6 games and had greater control over late game reserves, but models and units lost in earlier games did not follow your list to the later games. Death is final for your minis and so you must consider the balance of conservation to overpowering your opponent.


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 TheNewBlood wrote:
I've gotten a lot better about not splitting my forces up too much (and recognizing which units can be split off)

I joke about playing nids, but it definitely teaches you to organize your army into smaller Cells. Cells that should always be used in conjunction, and when and where to reorganize those into different cells.

 Redleg wrote:
Are there maneuvers you have considered or tried that are somewhere between flying rodent gak crazy and possibly brilliant. I like this type of play-style, but my group largely wont go for it.

"The Crazy Ivan" maneuver.

It is done by doing the following. Deep strike a unit or MC on a specific spot. Lets say that spot is marked by X below.
X

Now, deep strike your next MC or unit right next to it. The idea is that the chance of devating on your own model and mishaping is incredibly small, given that there is a 2d6 range. So your next deep strike looks like this, with your first model at X, and second at Y.
XY

Continue deep striking in a line until you get to about 6" from the first unit to the last. At that point the chances of deviating on your own unit is high enough to where it's not advisable.

The advantage of "The Crazy Ivan" is that it centers a lot of your power in a very small area though deep strike. It utilizes the 2d6 probabilities to greatly reduce the chance of a mishap.

I've used this tactic successfully multiple times during various tournaments. I've used it primary to deep strike greater daemons and daemon princes, but it works with anything.

I tend to just want to get to the fub stuff where things die so tend to bullrush the first turn and spend the rest of the game making up for my initial cock up

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Redleg wrote:
Are there maneuvers you have considered or tried that are somewhere between flying rodent gak crazy and possibly brilliant. I like this type of play-style, but my group largely wont go for it.

"The Crazy Ivan" maneuver.

Especially for nids or other units with AOE buffs this sounds useful. I had been wondering a best way to apply Venomthrope drops, this would be it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I had been considering running a CC flyrant and droping tyrant guard appx where I will want to land for next round's combat. I think that would mitigate the worst of the CC flyrant's risks.
Of course at 225 pts I am not sure if it is a better option than just running another flyrant. It would be cinematic as all get out though.