Move move move

[bugsy]

To you more experienced players this is probably a given, but I recently realised that most tactics happen in the movement phase. What are your best tips or stories about wins or fails in the movement phase. For example, when the opponent has melee deep strikers, I try to screen them out and sometimed miss a few inches somewhere resulting in them coming in and kicking me in the nuts. What about you?

[tylertt]

My quick advice from my own experience:

- Screening out deepstrikes requires a lot of measuring and precise placement. If you're not playing a tournament game, ask your opponent if they mind you taking more time to practice this. Also state your intent to block out space for deep striking to your opponent when moving and if needed, ask them to look and confirm their unit wouldn't fit in spots. This can help prevent the "gotcha my unit actually CAN fit here" type moments too

- In the movement phase, think several phases ahead of what you're going to do. Not just your own but your opponents as well. I Find newer players (not saying you were inexperienced or anything! Just observing players in my own area learning more on movement) tend to plan ahead just for their shooting and charging without think as much on how their units movement can impact their opponents choices. I know this one seems a given, but in the heat of the match it is often overlooked easily IMO.

- Play with intent in how you move/measure. Communicate with your opponent when you premeasure so there are no arguments or debates. Getting into this practice for competitive is important in my opinion. It also helps keep the gears working in your head as well. This was HUGE for me in a recent tournament. In my third round match it was turn 3 and I had Morgun Vahl (sp?) and another big Sister character charge into a 9 man warrior unit of mine. I asked the damage profiles and Valh insta-killed warriors with 3d, so I decided against using my -1D strat and to let valh just attack. She gets to fight twice BUT if she killed 3 warriors, I could pull them enough that she couldn't pile in enough to get into engagement and make a second wave of attacks. I premeasured this as it was so tight on spacing, communicated it to my opponent and had them agree (albeit casually agreeing) and proceeded to attack and kill 3 warriors. I pulled them and then he hand moves his unit into my warriors to fight again... well I brought up my premeasuring and my intent as the reason I didn't use my strat as well. He was said look she is in engagement range...thankfully it was a live streamed match and the commentators caught the premeasuring and communication of intent and all was good. My opponent was cool with it as it was indeed communicated and checked and we moved on. Not saying he tried to cheat at all as it was a very well played and enjoyable game, but again like I mentioned above the heat of the moment for moving models can cause the big movement/precise measuring of the game to go out the window at times.

[bugsy]

Aug 12, 2022 10:44:09 GMT tylertt said:

My quick advice from my own experience:

- Screening out deepstrikes requires a lot of measuring and precise placement. If you're not playing a tournament game, ask your opponent if they mind you taking more time to practice this. Also state your intent to block out space for deep striking to your opponent when moving and if needed, ask them to look and confirm their unit wouldn't fit in spots. This can help prevent the "gotcha my unit actually CAN fit here" type moments too

- In the movement phase, think several phases ahead of what you're going to do. Not just your own but your opponents as well. I Find newer players (not saying you were inexperienced or anything! Just observing players in my own area learning more on movement) tend to plan ahead just for their shooting and charging without think as much on how their units movement can impact their opponents choices. I know this one seems a given, but in the heat of the match it is often overlooked easily IMO.

- Play with intent in how you move/measure. Communicate with your opponent when you premeasure so there are no arguments or debates. Getting into this practice for competitive is important in my opinion. It also helps keep the gears working in your head as well. This was HUGE for me in a recent tournament. In my third round match it was turn 3 and I had Morgun Vahl (sp?) and another big Sister character charge into a 9 man warrior unit of mine. I asked the damage profiles and Valh insta-killed warriors with 3d, so I decided against using my -1D strat and to let valh just attack. She gets to fight twice BUT if she killed 3 warriors, I could pull them enough that she couldn't pile in enough to get into engagement and make a second wave of attacks. I premeasured this as it was so tight on spacing, communicated it to my opponent and had them agree (albeit casually agreeing) and proceeded to attack and kill 3 warriors. I pulled them and then he hand moves his unit into my warriors to fight again... well I brought up my premeasuring and my intent as the reason I didn't use my strat as well. He was said look she is in engagement range...thankfully it was a live streamed match and the commentators caught the premeasuring and communication of intent and all was good. My opponent was cool with it as it was indeed communicated and checked and we moved on. Not saying he tried to cheat at all as it was a very well played and enjoyable game, but again like I mentioned above the heat of the moment for moving models can cause the big movement/precise measuring of the game to go out the window at times.

Those are super tips, thanks. Another thing that is hard for me to consider my opponent’s threat ranges. I tend to move too far just because I can.

[nidzy]

Aug 12, 2022 5:12:47 GMT bugsy said:

To you more experienced players this is probably a given, but I recently realised that most tactics happen in the movement phase. What are your best tips or stories about wins or fails in the movement phase. For example, when the opponent has melee deep strikers, I try to screen them out and sometimed miss a few inches somewhere resulting in them coming in and kicking me in the nuts. What about you?

Oh man I set out to trounce a space wolf Player in a hammer and anvil type deployment at a gt to go 4-1 and I let him deepstrike 5 blood claws in a literally 5” wide minimum space to fit 5 bases window I left between my backmost unit and my midfield that side unit. Let him charge my home objective in a something like 15 primary point swing.

Anyway I try to measure every time now rather than eye it 😳

[princeyg]

Had a small crusade game with my GSC about 2 weeks ago vs grey knights. Turn two, my kelermorph pops up, kills nothing then runs behind some ruins. Turns out where I had placed him (accidentally) was exactly where he needed to be to prevent the GK player from teleporting in anything in an entire quarter of the board and keeping my objective safe Sometimes blind luck sees you through, but that was a sharp lesson in how important thinking about where your models are is. I learnt...never forget about teleporting, opponent learnt about how teleporting can be prevented. I would like to claim this as tremendous skill on my part, but it really was just sheer luck.

[Master Chief]

You win and you lose games by moving your models, not by rolling dices.