40K: 3 Strategies

What I love about strategic war games like 40K, Warhammer and Axis and Allies, is the strategy of attack. What the first two offer that Axis doesn’t (unless you modify the rules), is the ability to design your own army. By doing this you are opening the door to challenges, hopefully interesting and fun ones. There are two main reasons for the challenge: 1) There are many possibilities in army development and 2) there are many strategies to be considered. It is the development of the former that is instructed by the latter. First the strategy, then the army.

As I peruse the internet, I have come across 3 main strategy types and they all have 3 parts to them.

1) Attack/Support/Defense – I have spoken of this type of strategy beforehttp://ryanstactictalk.com/2010/02/14/6/ and you can read about it at Fritz’s blog but to summarize: draw their attention with something scary (attack), while they are not looking grab mission objectives (support) and hold them (defense)

2) Defence in Depth/Mobility/Mutual Support – This concept is covered in greater depth at http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=49335 but it is essentially, the further you can shoot the less contact you will make with the enemy. For those that cannot shoot far they need to be mobile and the whole army needs to be supported by flexible units that can do different jobs, i.e. missile launchers NOT lascannons.

3) Anti-tank/anti-infantry/anti-monstrous creature – I don’t remember where I read about this, maybe BOLS, the idea is that you try and balance out units in your army that can tackle at least one of the three types of enemy units they may encounter. Be prepared, as those green shirt wearing boys say.

All three are fine strategies for building a list. I find that number works well because the attack aspect of the army definitely distracts the opponent. However, it tends to be extremely points intensive and the idea is that you have to essentially EXPECT this to die. I have used terminators in a land raider as my Attack unit and both times I played with them in the game, I won. However, this thing costs one third my points value. I wonder if in a more objective-based game, how successful this strategy would be.

The second strategy, I think creates a more balanced army that is a little more flexible and can deal with more situations and targets.

No matter WHAT strategy you use, if it is your own homegrown variety or not, I DEFINITELY think bullet number three above needs consideration. All armies must have multiple means of bringing down the three unit types of tank/infantry and monstrous creature. If not, you could be screwed. It’s also important that these elements be available to support anywhere on the table. I remember playing a game against Tyranids (check out the battlereport here) where a Hive Tyrant and its guard were bearing down on my Chaos Space Marines. All they had was a flamer and some bolt guns. There was no support unit to take down that monster. When I make a list I make a little chart that looks like this:

Anti-Tank
Anti-Armour
Anti-Monster

I then go over each unit and ask myself which one(s) they can handle. Troops, blast, templates – they are all good anti-infantry. Champions, multiple moderate strength (At least Strength 6) shooting from tanks or troops are good anti-armor. The single shot high strength guns are good anti-tank. Then I check off beside each of the rows above. If I see a deficiency in any one area, I try to fill in that gap in my army.