Tau and Tyranids and Space Marines, Oh my!

Contingency Plans. Last week, I discussed The Plan. My plan on how to use Kabal Rillishelwe Mor to it's most destructive best, specifically. Now, no plan survives contact with the enemy, but it's good to start with a plan so you at least know what direction you are going.

To make a basic plan, first figure out what your army does best. My Dark Eldar army puts out a pretty good amount of firepower, but it really acts more like an aggressive, mobile assault army.

Then figure out how to make use of this in a battle. It can also be useful to add ideas about how to eliminate or compensate for weaknesses in your army while you are at it. I elucidated my plan last week, but here is the short version of it again: In general, I want to divide my force into roughly two groups. These groups will move forward quickly to engage the enemy, using their speed to gang up on the enemy (local superiority is a Good Thing!) If I divide the force up further, attacking each enemy unit with only one unit of mine, I'll be watering down the effect of my units and exposing them to prolonged combat, which is not where a T3 model with a 5+ Save excels. This is a fragile force that relies on hitting hard and fast, not toughing it out and outlasting the enemy.

Finally, work out the plan against specific types of armies you might encounter. Thinking ahead like this gives you the opportunity to mull over possibilities without immediate worries about slowing a game down.

Opposites Attack. How will you implement this plan against an army that is diametrically opposed to your army? If you are assaulty, how will you handle a seriously shooty army? If you are shooty, how will you handle an Assault based army? Since I'm categorizing my list as assaulty, I'll start with what I need to do against shooting armies. I'll use one of the shootiest armies out there, the Tau, as my example. Against Tau I'll be using sacrifice Raiders to block line of sight to others, and I may use the 24" movement option on the first turn. (a sacrifice Raider moves, usually 24", and turns sideways, blocking a lot of line of sight. This Raider is expected to go down in flames, but, hopefully, block enough LOS that others may live.) I need to remember here that their 4+ save makes Fire Warriors more resilient in close combat. Ganging up will be very important to offset that. Although they have different suits with good armor saves and flying tanks, my Agonizers and blasters leave me less worried about that, so I don't really need a specific plan for those units.

Hey, me too! How will your plan change if you face an army with a similar focus? (Assault versus Assault, shoot versus shoot.) Fighting Fire with Fire can be a dangerous thing, as it tends to leave both armies bloodied. What happens if I run into a Tyranid army? Well, I'll need to focus on the things that can really hurt me. Tyranid Monstrous Creatures are unlikely to be able to do enough damage to make it worth their while. Gaunts, on the other hand, are numerous enough to do real damage to me. In addition, Biovores can seriously damage my Raiders and kill off a lot of my troops. First off, I want to stay inside the Raiders as much as possible and shoot the heck out of them. Second, I want to concentrate my forces in one area, instead of spreading out. You'll notice that I'm intending to shift most of my focus to shooting here, instead of assaulting. That's because it's generally more effective to do something different than your opponent does, fighting fire with water , as I call it. Against non-Kult of Speed Orks, my plan will be similar to the plan against Tyranids, with the advantage that it will be easier for me to concentrate my forces, since walking Orks are slower than most Tyranids.

A little of this, a little of that. What about a balanced army? A mix of shooting and assaulting or counterassault can be hard to fight. Space Marines are the typical army one finds using this strategy. They will typically have several units that sit back and shoot (Devastators, Predators, Whirlwind, maybe some Tac Squads) and several units (Assault Marines, Rhino-carried Tac Squads) that either go out and get the enemy or sit back and smack you when you get too close. This can be a very effective strategy. My plan will still be to concentrate my forces in two groups. My best bet will be to hit the assault elements first, if possible. (I know, I just talked about not assaulting the assault units, but I need to get the charge first here, and I'll still be shooting them first.) By using my whole army against just their assault elements, I'm hoping to achieve a decisive, swift victory over them, then turn and smash their shooting units. The Wyches will be used to blunt the effect of the hardest assault units, or the leaders, since the Wyches have invulnerable saves. Any surviving Raiders will be used to snipe here, probably at shooting vehicles first, to cut down on the incoming firepower more quickly.

Looking in the Mirror. How will it affect things if you face an army almost identical to yours? This is an area people often overlook. Armies are usually best equipped to kill their own types of units. (Low Toughness armies have lots of shots or attacks to shred similar low Toughness types, good Armor Save armies have more weapons that ignore armor, etc.) These can be the bloodiest battles, due to the concept of fighting fire with fire. Against another Dark Eldar Air Force-style army or an Ork Kult of Speed list, my best bet is to go after their mobility first. If I can make them walk while I fly, I've won half the battle already, the rest is just concentrating my power and going to work. I've got 8 Dark Lances and 14 Blasters, so cutting down on their mobility shouldn't be too hard, especially considering that most of their vehicles, like mine, are AV10. When one of my Raiders goes down, I'll probably be best served by clustering other, still mobile, squads nearby to help it achieve local superiority. Again, the Wyches will be there to blunt any nasty assault teams the enemy has, whether they be other Wyches or Incubi or Nobz or Skarboyz. Dark Eldar, Kult of Speed

What else is there? Now that I've pondered the 4 main possibilities, I could just consider it a job well done and move on. That sort of lazy thinking gets people killed, however. While I don't need to plan out every possibility, I should look at other possible armies I might face that will play a little differently than those listed above, particularly the ones that I have seen around this area. These may be ones that do not necessarily fit into the other categories. (Eldar can be really shooty, but most lists are not the archetype of a Shooty Army From Hell, whereas many Tau lists are more likely to be.) On the other hand, perhaps they do something that fits into a category, but they do it a little bit differently. (A Chaos balanced force with both shooting and assaulting plays a little differently than a Space Marine balanced force, and a Chaos assault force plays very little like a Tyranid assault force.)

A Balanced Chaos list. The balanced Chaos list has a few things that make it very distinct from a Loyal Space Marine balanced list. For example, in a Loyalist list, I'm not likely to face a T6 monster that can fly and rip up troops, or summoned units. If I face a Daemon Prince, that'll be the first target for my Wyches. With high Initiative Agonizers and those pesky invulnerable saves, they are a good match for a nasty DP. In the meantime, my Reavers will go for any indirect firing weaponry, like a Defiler or an Iron Warrior Basilisk. In addition, with the popularity of Furious Charge as a Veteran Skill, it's even more important that my units get the charge against their assault units. These changes aside, however, the plan will be much the same as against a Loyalist balanced list.

A Chaos Assault List. This may be World Eaters or Emperors Children or Black Legion or whatever, but Chaos assaults are definitely popular and are distinctly different from Tyranid or Ork assaults. Although they have fewer troops, each one is much tougher and stronger. That is okay, however, as I built my force to take on heavily armored individuals, and I've got enough troops to take some casualties. Once again, I need to get the charge on these guys, but I'll probably flit around in my Raiders a bit to whittle them down first, then I'll concentrate and kill them.

Eldar-Biel Tan. Eldar have many possibilities and their core list can be very effective. However, most people seem to prefer the various Craftworlds, and one of the most popular is Biel Tan. The Swordwind allows you to take Aspect Warriors as Troops, which means I can expect to see several units of highly effective warriors here. Fortunately, they are also expensive and generally not tough. Here again, my Wyches will be used to blunt the assault squads, of which I expect several. I also expect that I'll be needing all my Blasters and Dark Lances to cope with a couple of grav tanks and a Vyper or two. (They are always more resilient than you think.) Since they'll have fewer bodies on the board, I think I should do well here. I just need to make sure that I'm getting the charge and concentrating my forces in as small an area as possible.

Eldar-Ulthwe. The other popular Craftworld. The seer council here can be incredibly effective, and incredibly expensive. I recall seeing an army at a Rogue Trader Tournament last year that spent almost 850pts on the Seer Council. (in a 1500pt game, mind you, that concentrates a lot of power, but it also cuts down on your other options, plus it usually annoys opponents.) With 3 or so MindWars being Augmented, this squad becomes a nasty character-killer. On the other hand, it isn't any great shakes in close combat, so that is what I'll want to do. My basic squads should be best against the Seer council, so I'll plow 3 or 4 of them into it if possible and drown them in basic attacks. My Wyches will take on any Aspect Warriors present, then take on Wraithlords, while my Reavers and other squads will hit the Black Guardians.

Necrons. Necrons field a very shooty army, but they are different from the standard heavily shooty army in a number of ways. The two biggest ways are the shorter range than most armies and the resilience granted by the We'll Be Back roll. I'm unlikely to be able to outshoot them, with only 8 Dark Lances, so I'll have to go into short-range firefight and assault mode here. My goal will be to kill as many Necrons as quickly as I can, going for phase-out. If they bring a Monolith, fine, if they bring a C'tan, great, that's a lot fewer Necrons I'll have to kill to make them disappear. (A Monolith equals about 13 fewer Necrons on the board, meaning about 8 less I need to kill.) Perhaps more than with any other army, I'll need to concentrate my forces in this battle. If I kill off every Necron in an area, those that could have gotten back up, won't.

Similar Ideas and Rare examples. There are other armies out there. Imperial Guard, DeathWing, Ravenwing, Armored Company, Sisters of Battle, to name a few. However, they either will play much like one of the other armies I've already listed (Imperial Guard and Tau, for example will have similar effects and require similar strategies) or they are pretty rare and I don't expect to play against them.

Plan your work and work your plan. So, here are my plans of attack. I plan on taking this plan with me to help me focus at the tournament. Even if I forget to bring it, however, the fact that I sat down and thought about it ahead of time puts me one step closer to victory. Now, what are your plans?

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