Hey all,
This is Cute-Hydra here and I'm doing an article on playing 40k efficiently. I do not claim that it is the most exciting or fun way of playing but from a tournament scene it's invaluable for making sure that you do everything you can to avoid bad luck by simply playing the rules of ranges and options.
For example: it doesn't matter if they roll nothing but 6's if they are 24.5 inches away with their bolters, so if you play the game of absolutes you minimise on what your opponent can do!
Some of this may seem obvious but it's aimed for everyone who is new or just hasn't seen it put into perspective.
I won't be updating this much more as I am looking to expand my own blog, if you are interested in following it please find it below:
http://40kwithoutluck.blogspot.co.uk/
Core Rules:
A unit can only shoot one unit a turn... [This is the core principle that MSU {multiple small units} ran by, it doesn't matter that your devastator squad with 4 lascannons can almost definately shoot down a venom. As that significant portion of their anti tank can only kill 1 a turn, meaning you can calculate this and play by redundancy. In simplistic terms, you have 2x 5 man troops squads on an objective they at range can only kill one leaving you the objective and the game. This doesn't work vs. multi assault. More on this later.
Shooting has a range value...
The humble meltagun the golden weapon of 5th ed will undoubtably continue to see much use in 6e and why not it's the most effective weapon at blowing up vehicles... However, it's range 12, now with the ability to premeasure your vehicles should always be X inches away from their meltaguns. X = 12 + 0.1 + the meltaguns movement value. If you stand 18.1 inches away from the model carrying it. This is important as they will have their meltagun near the back or middle of the unit due to new target allocation then they cannot physically shoot you with it next turn.
See below diagram:
The Diagram shows when you want to make sure you are going to be out of range for the melta 2x D6 for the meltagun. In this case the meltagun moving forwards would only allow you to get 1d6 admittedly more than enough to trash a rhino.
Advanced versions of using the same thing:
Bubble wrapping: with deepstriking melta death a popular answer for heavy vehicles be it Monaliths or Land Raiders armour 14 is only vulnerable to melta as missiles and lascannons will mostly just bounce off. However, how does a canny armour 14 player protect his prized LR from deepstriking DOA Bangels or pesky storm troopers.
Well we use another staple rule: A model may not move within 1 inch of an enemy model unless assaulting.
So: as we can now premeasure we create a zone of 5.5 or 6 inches around your landraider/vehicle that you want to protect. Now, when they deepstrike they want to arrive within 6 inches of your vehicle else they won't get 2d6 and with single d6 melta can only glance your vehicle.
See below diagram:
The white represents potential deepstrike spots, now by creating a wall of expendable guardsman or stoic marines you can ensure that your beloved baby won't be meltagunned from the first reservist. Equally, as they have to deepstrike by forcing them to reserve badly they can have a melta unit that is forced to bolter guardsman or equally expendable troops allowing you to abuse their lack of anti armour later. If you have to protect something less than 14 then you can extend the bubble to 12 inches but this gets harder as it requires a lot more men. Though you can use terrain for this purpose.
With drop pods allowing a 6inch move, it allows drop pod players to be considerably more conservative with their deep strikes and ensure melta range so this strategy will become more useful among 6e play.
How to protect objectives: Fish of Fury style
Made famous by the Tau Fish of Fury the principle is based around the inability for a unit to consolidate when it's finished smashing up a vehicle. The principle is you use your vehicle as a wall.
So scenario is, there is an angry horde of orcs running at you.. you know your fire warriors don't have a chance. But they are standing on an objective and it's turn 7 so the games ending next turn! you just need to keep your troops alive for another combat phase... you do the following: stand your troops on the objective, then screen them by creating a wall of devilfi
see below:
As you can see in this position the orks surround the vehicle however, they cannot overun onto the troops inside. Therefore, you can rest assured that the only way the orks can get through is to destroy the vehicle in the shooting phase to clear the way. Against armies like Orks, Demons and Tyranids that have 'limited' anti tank this can be an excellent way of blockading your troops to safety.
The reason fire warriors became famous for it, was their vehicles are skimmers which allows you to shoot underneath. Scenario 3 devilfish fly towards your assault squad, all three jetison 10 fire warriors, the 30 fire warriors rapid fire a squad to death but are protected by the bulk of their vehicles from any retaliation assaults. This can be done with any skimmer, try using fire dragons wave serpant to protect them from the landraiders terminator payload. Scenario: Fire dragons get out of wave serpant, shoot underneath their wave serpant frying the land raider. Terminators get out, however due to the positioning of the wave serpant have to go around it keeping an inch away at all times unless they want to multi assault. This forces them to need a high result on the charge and if you can combine it with terrain can stop a charge completely. Allowing you to then shoot the terminators with the dragons next turn.
If you are protecting objectives don't be afraid to use your 35pt rhino's as living moving walls!
Just remember if protecting objectives that they can stay within an inch of your vehicle so make sure the vehicle is outside of the 3inch contest zone for the objective.
40k Is a game of options, as discussed already about the strength of MSU if you have eight units you can shoot 8 different units.
For example you drop pod a 10 man marine squad with a sergeant with a combi melta and a meltagun marine, near a parking lot. If you combat squad you can give yourself the option of damaging two vehicles one with each but you lose the redundancy. However, the real strength is you get the choice WHEN you come in.. so you don't have to plan ahead you can make that decision as the drop pod rockets through the atmosphere! So you can look at the board position and think... do I want to shoot at two units and does it outweigh the disadvantages of doing so.
The ultimate way of winning on options is you kill their stuff, if they don't have that unit that unit has 0 options. I am not suggesting that everyone runs missile launchers at the cost of anything else due to the multiple roles however I am explaining how I play.
For this reason: target priority in my games usually is transports above nearly all else...
Scenario: it's my turn 1 and they have a predator and a rhino in their deployment zone, I have a missile launcher/lascannon/autocannon etc. I would nearly always shoot at the rhino first, whilst obviously the advantage of the super range on my anti tank weapons like autocannons etc is I can choose what to shoot at.
I destroy the rhino- the 10 man marine squad probably with a meltagun, that unit is moving 6 inches for the rest of the game meaning they have minimal options basically reduced to hug cover or run screaming forwards. The lovely thing about marines is they are predictable, with a range of 30 inches at long range... if you suffer long range bolters you can probably take 9 bolter shots... but it means it will take them 2-3 turns to get near enough to you that they can start rapidfiring or assaulting.
Equally, it means they are in open ground moving forwards asking to be gunned down with ap3 weapons. But it works for guardsman as well, destroy that chimera and that squad of guardsman have to break cover and are asking to be boltered down in their prime.
I can't emphasise it enough SHOOT TRANSPORTS.
Today, I'm looking at how to blockade peoples units with zooming flyers.
Now, the rules state that you cannot go within an inch of an enemy model, it even states in the flyer rules that you can park your men underneath your flyers as long as they are zooming however an enemy unit may not go within an inch of the base even if it is zooming. It expressly say's this in the flying rules.
See above, the friendly unit of assault terminators or other unit of close combat specialists that don't fly... You blockade them in like so and they are trapped or atleast reduced to walking all the way around.
Whilst this is tricky to pull off due to the limited turning potential, if you can plan for it it allows you the powerful option of trapping one of their best units for a turn allowing you to piece meal their army.
So a limited tactic but a potentially devastating one.
Also, there's nothing to stop you parking your flyer ontop of a relic or an objective to deny them the ability to take it!
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Hey hey, I am now looking at how to deal with that annoying transport...
Scenario: there is that landraider full of angry assault terminators led by Lysander etc.
What to do! You move your unit to fully surround the vehicle, I am sure some of you vets have seen this before! The principle is simple, if the vehicle is destroyed then the people inside disembark if they cannot they emergency disembark (meaning they are placed anywhere within contact with the vehicle) if they still can't then they are destroyed.
So you surround the vehicle completely so even with emergency disembark they cannot be placed.
See diagram:
I have used imperial guard veterans with meltabombs from the demolitions upgrade in this example, though another prime choice are wyches with EMP grenades or hell tau pathfinders with EMP grenades.
I have distinguished between the two squads as it will normally take 2 units to blockade a landraider.
Ideally you are looking to get a wrecked not an explodes result, as with an explodes result they are placed where the wreckage is. This means that they can probably place one or two models in the middle of the vehicle. Unlikely with a rhino equivalent but a land raider will harbor Lysander at least. This is wjhy emp rocks as it almost guarantee's a bitter hull point death which is just what you want.
10 man assault marines with a fist can also do this to a rhino relying on the s5 BA attacks on rear armour to hull point kill it and using the 12 inches to surround it.
Above with buildings: whilst the above is great against vehicles it is also applicable against buildings or immobilised vehicles as it means they cannot physically get out.
Here you see a bastion with a troops choice, it's your turn 5 and the enemy will be getting out of the bastion and claiming the objective ready for the imminent end of game. WAIT! I place one model by the door. they cannot disembark without being an inch of your model meaning they are trapped in the building.
For those of you who face a fortress list, there's only one door on one bunker and three trapdoors one on each bunker and one at the top of the tower. By blockading all but the tower (which is easy to do relatively, you trap the occupants in the building with their only option to come out of the top of the tower and jump.
Obviously, you can do the above tactic of blowing up the building whilst surrounding it for wiping out the squad if the million strength 6 hits don't do it for you!
You can emergency disembark from a building, unceremoniously jumping out of the windows, but they cannot move, so with careful placement you can easily prevent them from getting near the objective for atleast a turn.
The above tactics do work for shooting as well, however due to the inability to go within an inch of the model, they have a lot more space to operate, meaning an explodes result they will be fine (relatively) Whilst a wrecked result if you have the vehicle surrounded would still result in a bitter fiery death as guardsman push the terminators back into the fiery explosion ;).
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Because I haven't stopped enjoying finding more way's of abusing land raiders I bring you this next one:
The rule in question is simply: a vehicle that tank shocks cannot disembark in that turn.
Scenario: Land Raider full of Lysander and his cronies are about... BUT you don't have combat troops or firepower to drop it and you know your going to have termies spewed next turn.
This is going to be sporadic as if you are close enough to do this then surely he is close enough to have gotten out and eaten you... so it is a tactic for when it goes flat out or you are disembarking from vehicles yourself and thus can't assault etc. Either way!
Now the key thing here is that all access points are blocked. Now he/she has a choice, tank shock your puny gaunts out of the way... fine with you as it means he cannot disembark.
Option B: he emergency disembarks, probably not viable either but if he can manage it then he can't assault either as the unit is stuck doing nothing for a turn. Either way your safe(ish).
KEY: make sure you have a model within an inch of each access port, and one behind the tank as well to mean that he can't just drive backwards and then spew it's occupants. I don't know how many men it takes to do this if I am honest as I don't have my land raider at hand to measure, I'd doubt it can be done with 10 men, but 10 men at the front with a random helper standing on the back would work well.
Equally, if you are standing around a tank, say a rhino this time and he tank shocks you - he risks a lethal death and glory as not only will you kill the tank but you also wipe the squad inside as the death and glory happens while he is still trapped in the middle... An autohitting meltagun vs. a rhino is almost a guaranteed pen meaning he's looking at a 1/2 chance of loosing his squad for tankshocking. A 10 man infantry squad with a meltagun for 60pts can lock down a rhino full of grey hunters for a turn! until he turns fire onto them... But casualties will be had...
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The tank blockade version
Right, I am sure you are all wondering when the land raider hate will finish! I hope I haven't put anyone off them! I am not making them out as a poor option I run one myself and the reason I am using them in these examples as the same strategies by and large can be used on any transport.
The rule now is tank shock: Tank shock is formulated as Str X hit where X is (armour value -10 + every 3 inches moved + 1 for being a tank) so the trick is to not let it move. The good news is that
when a tank rams as long as it doesn't explode the target it auto stops! You see where this is going :D
I have used the venom as it's so fast and relatively small but again any vehicles of choice will work... in this scenario the land raider cannot move without ramming one of them, in this case a str 5 hit, needing a 6 to pen against armour 11 rhino's they can't physically break free and of course lighter vehicles such as rhino's are prey to entrapment with only +2 to ram and less guns to shoot themselves out.
Blood angel rhino's seem good for this being fast to best get into position.
Remember that it is key that you can block the access points as well as stopping the vehicle move - the diagram is a little misleading in proportions. This ensures the Terminators don't storm out and trash your happy company!
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Heya, today is another way of abusing your footprint!
In the Relic mission, scenario is simple, your several VP points up from First blood and or Warlord and you don't really have a secure troop choice around to lug around the relic!
You can simply park a unit of your choice! Ideally a flyer as for that turn they can't do much about it, but literally anything is fair, I have parked a Land Raider over one and dared them to try and get underneath the raider to get it...
Diagram provided:
Until next time as ever if these tactics work for you let me know on the comments page! And please don't think the worst of me.. I do play for fun as well...
The real cute hydra!