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How do!

So despite an extensive and ever growing collection? I’m yet to actually get a game of LI under my belt. Which of course I am looking to change in the nearish future.

This means with no practical experience of the game, and only distant, hazy memories of its great great grandfather, 2nd Ed Space Marine to rely on? I don’t know if big, middling or large units are desirable.

Looking at the general structure of the game, Large Units are of course naturally more resilient. More bods = harder to kill. And you get a small points break when reinforcing a detachment beyond its starting number. But, if you’ve lots of smaller units? It’s much harder to completely botch your Orders, and the enemy can only destroy so many of them in a given turn. And if you seriously outnumber the foe in Unit Count (not the same as traditional outnumbering) then Alternating Activations kinda goes in your favour.

So I come cap in hand to Dakka. With pros and cons whichever way we butter it, what’s your preference, and why.

I haven't played a single game of LI, but I could totally see how it wouldnt be a good idea to go too big with the detachments.

AFAIK, a detachment cannot split its fire. This means that if you have a massive unit, you are pretty much guaranteed to be wiping out whatever it is you're shooting, but are potentially also going to waste a bunch of firepower if the target unit is too small, or too easily destroyed.

Also, it is my understanding that being able to out-activate the opponent is an effective tactic on the tabletop. At least with Kill Team, this is very powerful, even if in that game, the opponent can now also counteract with a single 1AP action for every model you activate after they have activated theirs.. Not sure anything similar exists in LI, if it doesn't, then out-activating your opponent in LI can be hella powerful.

I'd probably start with medium sized detachments, and adjust from there depending on in-game performance and experience. YMMV

Yeah, I think trying middling sized detachments is probably the best start . Say, four or so Tanks in a Detachment, six or so bases for Marine Infantry (except Terminators, as I’d want to avoid them being swamped in HTH, negating their main strength).

Have played a fair few games now and would say it totally depends upon context!
Generally infantry you want in bigger units, cavalry and armour in mid sized ones (depending upon type) and aircraft in minimal.
But it varies massively upon what you are taking, Kratos with BC for example you will probably want to have 3, Vindicators intended to demolish a building? 6-8.


Activation count can be a massive thing in the game as you say so that also plays a part, if you are spamming tons of small detachments then your turns will take forever... Most events put a cap in place, 16/2000pts seems to be standard.

Wondering if infantry intended to camp out in a building should be maximum size?

Depends upon what they are and if they are expected to do anything, tech thralls? Nah. Tacs? Add some missiles and sure. Be aware though that if the building gets destroyed the contents are likely to die too.

If you really want to, you can break the game fairly easily by spamming MSU infantry squads to out activate the opponent and never concede objectives. Will you finish a game? Nope! Will your opponent like you? Probably not.

The game benefits from a mix depending on the unit and unit type. Generally though, you don't want to be taking morale, so that unit of 2 or 4 needs to be bumped up to 3 or 5, or reduced to 1 or 3 to prevent you running away from taking one casualty. Obviously not always possible!