Local Superiority and Concentration of Force are subjects that I've written about before. In fact, they are generally the key point behind any tactical treatise. The concept of having more of your guys at one place than the enemy has of theirs is a pretty basic concept, but not everybody understands how to apply it or why it is so effective.

First, the why. The larger your advantage is, the greater the difference in casualties. Thus, if you have 5 units and I only have 3, your side will win so quickly that my units won't be able to do their full amount of damage. In my last discussion of Local Superiority, I gave a clear, but long example that you may want to check out. Here is a different look at the same idea: There are 2 really big guys (Terminators, maybe?) and 4 little guys (Space Marines?) The 2 really big guys automatically have local superiority, since each one is worth 2 of the little guys. If they attack 2 of the little guys and wipe them out, that leaves them more or less unhurt against only 2 little guys (half the enemy force, the little guys are in trouble now!) On the other hand, if the little guys get the jump on the really big guys and all four of them attack one RBG (really big guy, it's a technical term!) They'll be able to take him down pretty quick and not take much damage, so the other RBG will be in a lot of trouble now!

Dynamite!
Napoleon's Tactic of the Lesser Force involves using some of your force as a speed bump while the rest gangs up on a smaller part of the enemy. His classic example was to have 3 units lined up against 3 enemy units. He would advance one unit to either attack the central enemy unit, or at least position themselves in between that unit and one on the end. The other two units would gang up on the enemy unit at the end of the line. If you line up two sets of three units or three models or three rocks or whatever you have to hand, you'll see what I'm getting at. From your perspective, left to right, the three things on your side are A, B and C (imaginative, no?) and from your left to right, the enemy three things are 1, 2 and 3 (where do I come up with these things?) If your A moves to engage the enemy 2, while B and C engage the enemy 3, you'll see that you have a one on one situation in the middle and a two on one situation on your right flank. That 2:1 advantage gives you the local superiority you are looking for and will let you turn the enemy flank. Hey, it seemed to work pretty well for the little guy, maybe we can use it too.

The tricky part, however, is how to achieve that local superiority. There are several ways that are typically available. They revolve around using differences in mobility and initiative (not the statistic.)

Mobility
This may simply mean moving faster than your opponent. Cavalry and beasts have a big advantage here, as do Jump Packs and Bikes and some vehicles. A bunch of Hormogaunts will get the charge against a bunch of Space Marines almost every time, because the Marines can only move+charge 12 inches, while the Hormogaunts can move+fleet+charge 19-24 inches. That means that the Hormogaunts will be able to put their attack in motion before the Space Marines can hope to start theirs. This higher movement can also be used to suddenly change the direction of the attack. If you and I line up our deployments across from each other, using most of our sides of the board, but you put mobile stuff on one end and then use that movement on turn 1 to scoot to the other side of the board, I'll be stuck with some slow units being out of the fight for at least a couple of turns, which means you are fighting at an advantage! You can also have a mobility advantage by simply not being slowed down as much as the enemy. This might mean having better movement through terrain, for example. Tyranids and Kroot have no trouble zipping through terrain that would slow the afore-mentioned Space Marines to a crawl. On the other hand, Assault Marines would be able to zip over most terrain without missing a beat, so they'd also have a mobility advantage, depending on their opponent. This brings us to our second point, Mobility Denial.

Mobility Denial
Again, a fairly simple concept, keep the enemy from moving, or at least from moving as fast as you. There are a number of ways of achieving this. You can bog them down with cheap troops, like Tyranids using Spinegaunts or Termagants. Send 100 cheap guys over there and charge anything that moves. The enemy army will be essentially stuck in a tarpit and won't be able to counter anything you do, since each unit will be bogged down in close combat for several turns. You can then cluster your Assault Specialists and achieve massive local superiority over one enemy unit at a time. As long as those cheap guys keep them in combat, the enemy units won't be able to support each other, they just get to stand and watch as their neighbors get the stuffing pounded out of them. You can theoretically do the same with a smaller number of rock hard troops (Wraithguard and Plague Marines come to mind.)

You can also deny the enemy mobility by concentrating on the units that have it. Vehicles can be immobilized, limited the fire of their weapons or forcing their squads to slog across the board, rather than zipping along at the rate they are accustomed to. Even units of Bikes or Cavalry or Beasts or Jump Packs can be shot so that they are too small to be a threat (or simply wiped out.) They can also be charged by units intended to tie them up, so that they can not play a decisive role in the battle.

Another way to do this is to stop them with threats. Sure, they can charge your unit, but then they'll be charged by Genestealers, not good. Or, you may be able to position your trap unit between them and the squad they want to support, so that, if they do manage to fight through your trap unit, it'll be too late to rescue the squad they were trying to save. Your trap unit doesn't have to be a big, nasty assault squad to stop them. It might be as simple as a unit of 20 grots. Even an Assault squad or a Daemon Prince will take several turns to chew through all of them, by which point it will be too late to help the original squad. The trap unit doesn't even have to be nearby to trap them. If they'll have to spend a turn out in the open in front of a big fire lane for your Fire Support units, they may decide to take another route, or even leave the unit to it's own devices, rather than have their rescue unit be shot full of holes. You can compound this by letting the terrain help you out. Start with board edges. If you are near a board edge, you can pretty much guarantee that the enemy won't be able to come through the board edge to get at you. If you have a forest or a big stand of rocks between you and the enemy unit, you can expect that they will be slowed down on their way to attack you. If you have two enemy units, one behind the other, in a small area between the edge of the board and a rock formation or forest, and you attack the front one, you basically force the other unit to go around, or to wait for you to finish off the front unit!

InitiativeDo unto others before they do unto you! Basically, if you get started first, you'll be a bit ahead of the game, even if the opponent is trying to do the same thing to you. Assuming that you don't have superior mobility and you haven't been able to deny the enemy their mobility, then you enter a new phase of tactical maneuvering. Basically, you are trying to get the enemy to accept a feint to draw them out, or to commit to an attack while you can still respond. If your opponent is similarly skilled, you may enter The Dance, which is somewhat like an old west showdown where the one that blinks first loses. Units in the Dance will tend to move around just out of range of the enemy, trying to get them to move into range and get the charge or the more effective shot. Guard players often do this against assaulty armies, putting out a sacrifice squad that will get shredded during the opponent's turn, leaving enemy assault units out in the open for the next Guard turn. Assault armies do this against shooty armies, too. They can put a sacrifice unit out in front of their army and try to entice them into shooting at it as opposed to more valuable units, either due to it being the closest target, or due to it being particularly scary and drawing attention away from the rest of the army. (I have sometimes used a Dracon that way in my Dark Eldar army. A drugged out combat monster in the middle of an enemy army on turn 1 or 2 really panics people for some reason. That panic keeps their attention away from the 50 Warriors in Raiders about to descend upon them.) Assault armies can do this against each other as well. If you put your cheaper troops out front to be assaulted by the enemy Assault Specialists, then they are held in place for your Assault Specialists to charge them, getting the charge advantage against the best units in their army, where you took the damage to your worst units. Sacrificing 200pts to get 400+pts is easily worth it.

Let's assume that you and I each have 3 units, just like the Lesser Force example, above. If you start your movement first, you will have the advantage, even if I counter properly. Units A, B, C vs 1, 2, 3. We'll run it 2 different ways. Let's say that your unit A charges my unit 2, while B and C charge my unit 3. A and 2 will do some damage to each other and probably stay locked in combat. Units B and C will wipe out unit 3 pretty quickly for little return damage. On my turn, I charge unit 1 in to help unit 2. They will wipe out A pretty quickly, but 2 has already taken some damage and this leaves B and C in better shape AND able to get the charge. The advantage is clearly to you.

On the other hand, let's assume that A doesn't charge 2, but simply moves such that 1 and 2 have to go through it to get to 3. Units B and C still charge unit 3 and slap it down. Now it's my turn and I have 2 fresh units against 3 nearly fresh units of yours. Even though units 1 and 2 can charge unit A and wipe it out, your units B and C will still have the charge advantage. The advantage is again clearly yours.

Keep on Rolling
If you do this at one end of the enemy army, you have "turned the flank." If you can keep this up, you have the enemy on the ropes. In this position, the enemy army is getting in the way of itself, as the far units are out of range to support the near ones, and they can't charge you because their other units are in the way. Once you have this advantage, throw everything into keeping it. Use sacrifice units to slow the rest of the enemy army, shoot their mobile units, especially vehicles that will then create difficult terrain in their way. Once you start with this advantage, it will become easier and easier to fight the enemy army, as you will have an increasing superiority. This is known as "Rolling up the flank," and can result in a rather lopsided game.

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