|
Divide and Conquer! We've all seen it happen. The heavily shooting-based army is attacked by a heavy assaulting-based army. Sometimes, in spite of the superior firepower being brought to bear, the assaulters win through and demolish the shooters. How do you stop the onslaught of ravening Tyranids, Frothing Berzerkers or Orks just looking for a good fight? One way is to fight fire with fire and build another assault army. I wouldn't recommend this, for two reasons. The first is that you've chosen a shooty army already, trying to go against the grain, either of your army or of your preferences, will only be frustrating. The second reason is that the opponent, in owning an assault-based army already, will likely be more familiar with it, and thus get better use out of the units available, meaning that you'll be beaten with their experience. Don't join them, beat them! I offer for your consideration, the two-pronged defense. The two-pronged defense works very well against enemy assault armies. The basic idea is to split your army into two parts. Each part should have some long range shooting options. This will allow one side to support the other, whittling down the enemy through superior firepower. Even more importantly, some of that firepower should be anti-vehicle, to help shut down their transports. Deploy each section of your army as far away from the other as possible, but still in range to support each other with the long-range weaponry. Having about 24" between the sides is just about perfect here. You want to use Side A to add it's fire in support of Side B. The distance between the two sides is to add an extra turn or two to the enemy's total travel time, meaning that they'll have 2-4 less assault phases to take you out, and they'll be shot at during the whole process. Sound good? It can even get better. If it's a transport-based army, you'll have a little more time to take out the transports, and the whole army will be much, much slower once you do, possibly doubling the time it takes to cross between Side A and Side B. The two-pronged defense works by giving the assaulting army a Hobson's choice (there are only two options, and neither one is good.) The first option is to use the whole army to wipe out one side of your force at a time. If they mount up the entire army on one side and charge full bore to overwhelm that side, fine, they'll kill that side pretty easily. On the way, however, they will be taking damage from the fire of both sides, primarily targeting transports, if they have them. Once the assaulting army has spent a couple of turns moving forward and engaging the first side, taking damage along the way, they will then take a couple of turns to wipe out that side. They must then cross the firelanes to get to the other side. This will take them another couple of turns. In a standard six turn game, they will be out of time just as their lead elements reach your second side, assuming that you let them get that far. While they were charging toward the first side, you were targeting them, with transports as a priority. Once they reach the enemy lines, any transports left are likely to be sitting ducks for the fire of your second side, and with an extra couple of turns to shoot at them, they should die easily. If that has been accomplished and the assaulters are still occupied with beating down your first side, then target assaulters that are making sweeping advances or assaulters that have been left outside of combat. As the assaulters begin wiping out the first side and moving toward your second side, you will see the advantage of having taken out the transports, as a once-fast army now crawls forward under your fire. Having been weakened by your combined fire initially, then grinding through your first half while you shot transports and stragglers, the assault army may collapse right there. Even if enough of them somehow make it to your lines to be a credible threat, they are unlikely to have enough time to do real damage to your second side, due to the time it took to travel to the first side, deal with it, then travel to your second side. On the other hand, if they decide to split their forces, they may end up in worse shape. This means that half of their army is facing half of your army. At this point, you pick a side to save. That side will be shooting at the enemy in front of it, while the other side is supporting it with long range fire as well. Your combined fire concentrated on half of their army should be enough to almost completely wipe it out. The sacrifice side will still have most of the enemy intact, however, so they will be in trouble. At this point, the game is the same as before, but since there was a smaller force attacking your sacrifice side, it will likely take them longer to wade through that side, leaving even fewer of them to struggle across to your second side. All together now, "Let's split up, we'll cover more ground!" If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know |