Assault Army Tactica
You've got big, pointy objects, whirring chainsaws or even very large teeth. You are good once you get in close. It's the getting in close part that can cause problems, however.

Get on the bus, Gus
Assault armies need a method of getting in close without losing their whole army. Some use speed to give the enemy less time to shoot them. Some use resilience (in the form of toughness, armor or vehicles) to reduce the damage from enemy shooting, and some use a horde of troops, so that they can shrug off the damage done and still have enough left to tear up the enemy when they arrive. Often, an army will use two or even three of these methods. For example, most Space Marine armies that focus on Assault will bring units mounted in Rhinos and LandRaiders to protect them from enemy shooting on the way in. They may also make use of Assault Marines with jump packs or even Space Marine Bikes to get into the fray faster and disrupt the enemy plan.

Stick Together and Split Up, we'll cover more ground!
Because most of an assault army's power lies in the assault (funny, that) you will mostly want to have your units stay fairly close together. If a unit gets more than a turn's movement away from your other units, it can be easily picked off by an enemy without you being able to do anything in return. (If you have a unit nearby, any enemy that hits your first unit will then get charged by your second and any other units.) On the other hand, a few units in your force will be designed to operate without support. These are the disruptions. They are designed, one way or another, to disrupt enemy plans. Generally, these units are sacrifices, meaning that once they've done their job, it doesn't matter if they survive. These will usually be small, fast-moving units that may even come in from a different direction than the rest of your army. They can perform hit-and-run attacks on enemy tanks or artillery or backline shooting squads that the rest of your army can't reach right now. If you can blow up the tank, stop the artillery from shooting or simply tie up that backline shooting squad, you will have disrupted the enemy plan and you will have saved a good chunk of your army from hot, shooty death.

Tips and Tactics for Assault Armies
Start outside your transports. Unless you are absolutely certain that you'll have first turn, start your units just outside of their transports. They can always mount up before the transport moves, and this keeps them from being damaged or entangled if the enemy army manages to blast their transport.

If you can't reach an enemy unit, except for a vehicle that you cannot hurt, charge the vehicle anyway. Even though you can do no damage to it, the extra charge unit will often let you get a charge in on the next turn, getting you in faster than usual.

If you have a powerful assault unit (particularly one that has good resilience, such as a solid armor save) try to charge more than one unit at a time. Even though you'll take more damage from their return attacks, it gives you the opportunity to break and run down two units at a time. (Note: Do not attempt this if you won't be winning the combat easily.)

Pick on the little guys. If you are fighting multiple units, put as many attacks as possible against the easiest group to kill. Assault results are based on how many unsaved wounds you caused. It doesn't matter where those wounds came from, so do as much killing as you can.

Combination Special
If you are up against an army with mixed elements of shooting and assault, you need to adjust your lead elements. If you hit their lead units with your elite assault units, they will countercharge with their own elite assault units. This will trap your elite assault units and allow theirs to get the charging bonus to kill yours faster. Instead, let your mediocre or poor assault units lead the charge. While they will likely be wiped out by the enemy assault elements, you will have the jump on their counterchargers. Once these are gone, you should have no trouble mopping up the rest.

Meatgrinder
Sometimes you will come up against someone that also has an assault army. Generally, when two assault armies meet, the slower army has the advantage. (Assuming you have equal points, if one guy spent more on speed and the other guy spent more on big knives, which one do you think will win?) In general, you want to try to disrupt their plan, but in this case, you'll be trying to slow down some of their units so that their army cannot attack all at once. If you can take on half of their army with your whole army, you should end up with about 75% of your army left to take on their other half. If you are the faster army, try to use that speed to isolate part of the enemy army and shred that part first, possibly using your mobility to keep away from the bulk of the enemy army until you can whittle them down, either with shooting or with flanking attacks.

If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know

Return to Warpstorm!