Static Armies

They set up on the other side of the board with their big guns and heavy weapons and dare you to come to them. That will mean slogging across the field under a hail of fire, losing big chunks of your army left and right. No wonder trench warfare didn’t work out. Here are some ways to try to avoid putting your hand in the meatgrinder.

Objectives

Use the mission selection chart, or just choose one. Always play with a mission of some sort, never just agree to a “We’ll set up and blast each other, the last man standing wins” sort of game. That sort of game very heavily favors the static army, since they never have to move. Objectives often require movement to achieve, which means that the enemy has to get out of their deployment zone, and thus, closer to you.

Free Movement

Think of charging as extra movement. Even if you can’t hurt that vehicle, charge it anyway, since it’ll get you that much closer to the stuff you can hurt. Under the current assault rules, you can get extra movement if you win a combat as well. (not against vehicles, however, but at least you get the assault move.) In the 4^th edition assault rules, sweeping advances do not give you that extra movement, but they work better for holding the front lines in place for your slower troops, see below for more details.

Faster Movement

Use transports, wings or jumppacks, or any other movement upgrade you can find. If you get across the board more quickly, you’ll give the enemy fewer turns to blast you to pieces. Even if your fast units are less effective in combat, more of them will make it there in one piece than your more effective slow units. You can also use your speedy troops to engage the front lines of the enemy, both blocking line of sight to the rest of your army and keeping those enemy units from running away before your slower units can catch up to them.

Numbers or Strength

If all else fails, you’ll have to tough it out. That means you should have either the numbers to suck up casualties, or the toughness/armor save to shrug off most of the enemy’s weapons. If your whole army cannot be tough or armored, you may be able to cover your advance, see below.

Cover Your Advance

Use a vehicle or extremely tough unit to screen your other units as they move up. A tank or transport moving up, with infantry walking behind it makes a great shield, as there are fewer weapons that can hurt the tank than the infantry. Heavily armored or high Toughness (or both!) units can be used in the same fashion. Although they will take damage from heavy weapons, the regular weapons in the squads firing on them will be almost wasted, instead of mowing down your lighter troops.

Give them a Wedgie

Use a wedge formation. Set up all your units on one flank, using depth to keep your lines from spreading too wide. Not only will you have local superiority over the opponent’s flank, his further units won’t have the range to hurt you. Pay close attention to your opponent’s setup, however. If enemy units are primarily placed away from your flank, you’ll have to adjust your deployment. In addition, an opponent may try to pull a fast one on you. If everything across from your wedge is a vehicle or other mobile unit, they may be bait for you to charge, but they’ll just run away toward the enemy firebase, leaving you to trek across the board under fire.

Get Up Close and Personal

Go fast, be tough, use missions and deployment and charge anything possible. Get up in your enemy’s face and let them know what assault is all about. While you are at it, tell them I said hi.