We’ve all seen it. You look across the board and see an array of massive weapons, or dozens and dozens of rifle barrels focused on you. The thought of weathering that massive barrage is daunting, but with the right knowledge, it can be done. I have focused primarily on giving tips for an assault army here, but these can also be used in a shootout between two shooty armies. This is not usually a good idea, but you can keep it from becoming a war of attrition by using some of these tips.
Bodies:Got Bullets? If you have a lot of numbers on your side, they’ll have a hard time killing enough of you before you do your damage. You can also use screens. If you have some units that are either unimportant in this battle or take little damage from your opponent’s shooting, use them to block Line of Sight. Example: a grot screen for Orks, or a screen of Wraithguard for Eldar. The first is many and cheap, the second is few, but tough as nails.
Hard as Nails: If their weapons can’t hurt you, or rarely hurt you, you’re home free. If you don’t have many units like this, you can use a few as a screen for the rest of your army, as listed above. These would be models that have heavy armor, high Toughness, or a special ability that lets them ignore some damage, such as for Grotesques or Thousand Sons. Alternately, some armies are made up of these, such as Iyanden Eldar (Wraithguard) or, to a lesser extent, Space Marines.
Time
to kill: If they can only
get in one turn of shooting at you, they won’t be able to do much
damage. You can shorten their killing time
by using
things to block Line of Sight, or by moving very quickly. Remember,
vehicles, close combats and
terrain can block LOS. If you are
willing to sacrifice some vehicles, your army may get through nearly
unscathed. Even better would be to
block some LOS to the vehicles with terrain and use your firepower to
take out
the biggest remaining threats to the vehicles. That would leave the
enemy only able to fire at the vehicles,
but
without good armor piercing weapons.
Methods. Shooting armies generally work by using mutually supporting long range weapons to take down the enemy. If you can block LOS or range from some of their units, they will have less to damage you with. Use terrain to block LOS, or surge toward one end of their lines, increasing the range the other side needs to hit you. If you can tie up front line units in close combat, the ones behind them won’t be able to shoot through the combat, meaning the rest of your army can walk up and bash them, as long as you can use the combat to block LOS. Using either range or LOS blocking can keep them from targeting you with their best weapons, meaning you’ll have fewer casualties.
Diversions. You can also use perceived threats to help you out. If the opponent feels that a Talos is a threat, they will divert a lot of firepower to it that might otherwise have gone to your Raiders. Some units are perceived threats due to modeling. If it is modeled well and looks scary, or is heavily converted, it will get more attention than normal. Other units are perceived threats due to their statistics. The WS6, I6 of Genestealers gets them a lot of attention, and the secret deployment does the same for the Lictor. In addition, if a player has been on the receiving end of a model going to town, they will pay more attention to it, even if the original situation was a lucky circumstance. In general, including these units in your army means that other units will likely get less incoming fire until the perceived threat is wiped out.
Don’t compromise, prioritize: Shooting armies generally have some weapons that are good at killing vehicles and others that are good at killing troops. If you are using a vehicle to block his LOS to your troops, concentrate on taking out his vehicle killers and let him shoot troop killing weapons at the vehicle. Take out those Lascannons and let him fire Heavy Bolters at your vehicles. Alternately, if your troops are surging forward, leaving your vehicles back, ignore those Lascannons and wipe out the Heavy Bolters. Generally, figure out what would hurt your overall plan the most, and smack it down first.
Final Word: No matter what kind of army you field, this should help you use it more effectively against shooting armies. If you have a shooting army, this can also give you insight into ways your opponent can circumvent your power, so you can adjust your army list or your plan accordingly.