Post by stryph on Oct 29, 2012 17:04:11 GMT
One of the guys I play (and beat) regularly asked me the other day how he could beat me. Being the rather strange fellow that I am I decided to write out a step by step guide for him in general terms.
Not sure how much use this will be to people (it's pretty general) but I thought as I've written it and I lurk around this forum a lot I'd post it on here - enjoy!
Disclaimer: I in no way claim to be a tactical genius and all of this is largely my opinion and how I approach things in order to win so feel free to disagree, but taff asked me to write something on how to beat me so here goes...
Okay apologies if I start off basic but if I’m going to do this I’m going to do it properly and by properly I essentially mean long...
Know Yourself
Anyone seen my Tyranid codex recently? It is a filthy dog eared tea stained piece of (please do not swear). Yes this is largely because I’m incapable of taking care of my own things, but also because I have been through that codex so many times – I virtually know it backwards. I have previously given an opponent my unopened codex and told him the page number he needs to look at to check the rule he was questioning.
That’s not to say that you need to memorize every page of your own codex as well but know the units in there. Know what they are for – shooting, assault etc – their strengths and weaknesses, what weapons can hurt them, what can they hurt themselves, how many wounds can you expect. Yes math hammer is generally a load of old pish posh as your never gonna roll average. But having that idea of what level of wounds the unit is going to put out and what punishment it can take means you know exactly how best to utilise your forces, resulting is less overkill or underkill both of which can result in heavy losses for you.
Know your enemy
Now I don’t mean this in the same manner as above, you don’t need to have the same level of knowledge about your enemy as you do you – just the basics. If you know what your opponent is going to be trying to do it’s a lot easier to counter. It’s worth skimming over other peoples codexes so you get a feel for the armies and more importantly how to beat them. Are they all T3, rely on feel no pain, have a lot of tanks, have an uber psycher guy, lots of T6, lots of 2+ armour saves... It sounds obvious but it’s no use looking at your enemy if you’re not at the same time looking at your own army working out the hard counters you have available to you.
Okay that’s fine, so how do I actually win?
Play the missions!! Seriously. How many times have I heard the words “Oh yeah, I forgot about the objectives”. I never do, the mission is all that matters, killing the other guy is just a means to an end.
The majority of the missions in the book now are objectives, and for me you need to have a minimum of 4 scoring units, if you don’t have enough guys alive and sitting on objectives at the end of the game you lose. It doesn’t matter how many of the enemy you killed if he only has 3 models alive at the end of the game they all happen to be troops, which are sitting on objectives – you lose.
Deployment
More than once I have lined up against opponents seen their deployment and known exactly how the battle is going to proceed – I’ve already won.
First off in your head you need to have a base deployment strategy for the list your running. You win the roll for first turn ceteris paribus how you going to deploy? This can be tweaked once you know things such as the location of terrain, objectives, you opponent. Depending on how you set up it might not be a good idea to adjust it too much anyway – you start spreading 3 devastator squads right across the board for example, they are going to be forced to split their fire – when it might have been better to focus fire things down....
Movement
By far the most important phase in the game. Everything else relies on probabilities movement is all you. It’s hard to write a blanket advice for the movement phase as it’s reliant on so many factors. Essentially though the core is what I have said previously – know what you’re doing and how you’re going to do it, don’t blindly move shooting units towards assault troops and don’t leave assault units standing in front of rapid firing death rays from outer space. Think of the movement phase like chess – don’t think about your movement just this turn think about what your movement is going to be turn 2 and turn 3 etc. Think ahead.
Shooting
Decided very much by what happened in the movement phase – moved your plasma guns behind a giant rock – whoops.....
Target priority – What in the other guys army needs to die first? This is case by case and I can’t tell you what is going to be, it fluctuates. If you playing objectives – he can’t win if all his scoring units are dead, the same applies to you though. Establish the immediate threat and neutralise it, I take great pleasure in screwing with peoples target priority – sending in distractions that force themselves to be dealt with while the rest of the army quietly takes care of business elsewhere, don’t be fooled! Know what’s going on around you and *remember the mission!!!*
Assault
Well random charge lengths, and disordered charge took the fun out of this for me, but I digress...
Pick your fights – just because you can assault doesn’t mean you should, sometimes it’s better to step back/ stand your ground and let the other guy come to you, eat your over watch and potentially fail the random charge.
Movement – Assault can potentially give you another 12” movement, someone leave an empty transport in midfield – that’s a nice catapult forward with no danger to yourself – you can even use it as cover, how kind of them!
Largely speaking though this was meant to be about beating me, and this isn’t the phase to do it in (I could go on and on about assault but it would be wasted). Although it’s possible it’s not exactly best case. Fight the fights you can win.
Not sure how much use this will be to people (it's pretty general) but I thought as I've written it and I lurk around this forum a lot I'd post it on here - enjoy!
Disclaimer: I in no way claim to be a tactical genius and all of this is largely my opinion and how I approach things in order to win so feel free to disagree, but taff asked me to write something on how to beat me so here goes...
Okay apologies if I start off basic but if I’m going to do this I’m going to do it properly and by properly I essentially mean long...
Know Yourself
Anyone seen my Tyranid codex recently? It is a filthy dog eared tea stained piece of (please do not swear). Yes this is largely because I’m incapable of taking care of my own things, but also because I have been through that codex so many times – I virtually know it backwards. I have previously given an opponent my unopened codex and told him the page number he needs to look at to check the rule he was questioning.
That’s not to say that you need to memorize every page of your own codex as well but know the units in there. Know what they are for – shooting, assault etc – their strengths and weaknesses, what weapons can hurt them, what can they hurt themselves, how many wounds can you expect. Yes math hammer is generally a load of old pish posh as your never gonna roll average. But having that idea of what level of wounds the unit is going to put out and what punishment it can take means you know exactly how best to utilise your forces, resulting is less overkill or underkill both of which can result in heavy losses for you.
Know your enemy
Now I don’t mean this in the same manner as above, you don’t need to have the same level of knowledge about your enemy as you do you – just the basics. If you know what your opponent is going to be trying to do it’s a lot easier to counter. It’s worth skimming over other peoples codexes so you get a feel for the armies and more importantly how to beat them. Are they all T3, rely on feel no pain, have a lot of tanks, have an uber psycher guy, lots of T6, lots of 2+ armour saves... It sounds obvious but it’s no use looking at your enemy if you’re not at the same time looking at your own army working out the hard counters you have available to you.
Okay that’s fine, so how do I actually win?
Play the missions!! Seriously. How many times have I heard the words “Oh yeah, I forgot about the objectives”. I never do, the mission is all that matters, killing the other guy is just a means to an end.
The majority of the missions in the book now are objectives, and for me you need to have a minimum of 4 scoring units, if you don’t have enough guys alive and sitting on objectives at the end of the game you lose. It doesn’t matter how many of the enemy you killed if he only has 3 models alive at the end of the game they all happen to be troops, which are sitting on objectives – you lose.
Deployment
More than once I have lined up against opponents seen their deployment and known exactly how the battle is going to proceed – I’ve already won.
First off in your head you need to have a base deployment strategy for the list your running. You win the roll for first turn ceteris paribus how you going to deploy? This can be tweaked once you know things such as the location of terrain, objectives, you opponent. Depending on how you set up it might not be a good idea to adjust it too much anyway – you start spreading 3 devastator squads right across the board for example, they are going to be forced to split their fire – when it might have been better to focus fire things down....
Movement
By far the most important phase in the game. Everything else relies on probabilities movement is all you. It’s hard to write a blanket advice for the movement phase as it’s reliant on so many factors. Essentially though the core is what I have said previously – know what you’re doing and how you’re going to do it, don’t blindly move shooting units towards assault troops and don’t leave assault units standing in front of rapid firing death rays from outer space. Think of the movement phase like chess – don’t think about your movement just this turn think about what your movement is going to be turn 2 and turn 3 etc. Think ahead.
Shooting
Decided very much by what happened in the movement phase – moved your plasma guns behind a giant rock – whoops.....
Target priority – What in the other guys army needs to die first? This is case by case and I can’t tell you what is going to be, it fluctuates. If you playing objectives – he can’t win if all his scoring units are dead, the same applies to you though. Establish the immediate threat and neutralise it, I take great pleasure in screwing with peoples target priority – sending in distractions that force themselves to be dealt with while the rest of the army quietly takes care of business elsewhere, don’t be fooled! Know what’s going on around you and *remember the mission!!!*
Assault
Well random charge lengths, and disordered charge took the fun out of this for me, but I digress...
Pick your fights – just because you can assault doesn’t mean you should, sometimes it’s better to step back/ stand your ground and let the other guy come to you, eat your over watch and potentially fail the random charge.
Movement – Assault can potentially give you another 12” movement, someone leave an empty transport in midfield – that’s a nice catapult forward with no danger to yourself – you can even use it as cover, how kind of them!
Largely speaking though this was meant to be about beating me, and this isn’t the phase to do it in (I could go on and on about assault but it would be wasted). Although it’s possible it’s not exactly best case. Fight the fights you can win.
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