Tactical Mobility

I was considering my game against Neil last weekend, and I started musing about how one-sided the game seemed, particularly when I looked at the numbers and how little damage my force took. I initially thought I'd do sort of an "armchair general" take on it and pick it apart tactically. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that it wasn't a standard tactical problem, the issue was that it was a battle between a 3rd edition army and a 4th edition army. When we were changing editions, it didn't seem like a huge change to me, but looking at it from this perspective, I can easily see it. 4th edition is a very different game from 3rd.

It's definitely much more mobility oriented now. As an example, take my game vs. Neil's Imperial Guard. He had 3 Autocannon, a Battle Cannon, 2 Meltas and 2 Plasmas, a flamer and a bunch of lasguns. That's pretty respectable firepower for the size of game we were playing and yet it didn't do him any good. The Autocannon squad fired what, twice, maybe three times? The Battle Cannon did about the same, and the Plasmas and Meltas didn't even fire once.

Against another army list built under 3rd edition rules and suppositions, it would have probably done pretty well. Against other shooty armies, it would have a pretty good edge in firepower and would have some good targets to choose from. Against assaulty armies, it could expect a fair number of the enemy units to be exposed to it's guns and to cause pretty serious casualties on the way in. I'm not saying it was an ideal army, but the amount of firepower it could kick out was pretty impressive. The problem was the fact that it didn't get to actually use that firepower much, because I was able to move in ways to minimize that shooting.

You can't see me! (Well, except for the Piranha.)

Admittedly, I was doing my Tau best to Jump, Shoot, Jump and thus deprive him of targets. The thing is, it worked _extremely_ well, better than I had really expected it to. I tried for a while to write up a Guard list at that scale that could have done better against my Tau. I'm pretty good at list-building, and I have a decent knowledge of how Guard can work, but I had a hard time coming up with anything useful. The problem was that I was still trying to apply 3rd edition solutions to the problem (has it really been that long since I wrote my Imperial Guard Tactica?), and they don't always work in 4th edition. Wait, let me back up and show you what I mean. One of the problems with Imperial Guard at low point values is that you have to have so many things just to cover your minimums. Not only do you have to take a Platoon of infantry (minimum of 2 squads) for every Troop choice (if you don't take an Armoured Fist squad) but each Platoon has to have a Command Section, plus another Command Section for your HQ, generally. That means that unless you take an Armoured Fist squad, you have at least 3 5-man squads running around, plus 4 10-man squads. This doesn't leave much in a 500pt game for anything else and sometimes it's hard to figure out what to do with those Command Sections.

My favorite way of dealing with these Command Sections (and dealing with enemy heavy infantry as well!) is the Burn Unit. It consists of a Junior Officer and 3 Guardsmen with Plasma Guns, plus a Medic to keep them from Getting Hot. For 81pts, it's not a bad investment, though it is rather fragile. It's got pretty good firepower and pretty good range, and it smokes through Space Marine armor like nobody's business. What's not to like, right? Well, what's not to like is that it's a 3rd edition unit in a 4th edition game. I know that doesn't immediately make sense, but I'll try to explain it a little better.

In 3rd edition, screening was highly effective. If there were two units, one in front of the other, you couldn't shoot at the second unit until you had created a gap in the first one so you could see and shoot through to the second one. It was child's play to park these guys (the Burn Unit) behind a squad or two of cheap infantry (Does the Guard have any other kind?) and let them hose down the Power Armored clowns with Plasma while the enemy had to shoot the cheap infantry. Now 4th edition has effectively removed the screen. (Sure, sometimes they'll fail a target priority test, but most armies have access to Leadership that will let them pass it reliably, or they can simply use vehicle-mounted weaponry that will automatically pass such tests.)

Without that screen, units like the Burn unit or other small, firepower-intensive units are endangered species. It's rather simple to reduce such squads to ash because you can focus more firepower on them and they typically don't have the numbers to withstand casualties. If you have 5 bodies and 3 Plasmas, you start losing firepower after the 2nd casualty. If the unit is only equipped with Flak vests and Toughness 3, it won't take very long to lose more than 2 casualties.

Small units are quickly overwhelmed.

In addition, 4th edition is much more about mobility than 3rd was. With Rapid-Fire units able to move and still double-tap, plus some limitations on vehicles getting to move and shoot and some powerups for some fast stuff, in this edition, if you are slow, you are dead. Let's take another look at my proposed idea for the Burn Units for the Guard army against my Tau. Okay, so say we've got 3 of these units. That's 9 plasmas ready to burn the Xenos back to where they came from. Great. That's 15 fragile guys that can't move more than 6" in a turn, have no transport and if they do move that 6" will have very little range to speak of.

The Crisis Suits on the other hand, have guns that can reach similar ranges, but they can jump out from behind cover, shoot the Burn Unit and jump back again, leaving the remaining Burn Units without a target. If he _had_ taken 3 Burn units, the outcome of the game would have been much the same. Those Plasmas probably wouldn't have fired once during the entire game, but I can guarantee that all 15 men from those squads would have died, mostly to the Crisis Suits. I'd have no reason to expose myself to that firepower, so I simply wouldn't have. I'd simply move out and shoot, then hop back out of sight. Lather, rinse, repeat. Something would have to convince me to move out of that cover and into Line of Sight of the enemy if they were to have any hope of shooting at me.

The only time the Autocannon Fire Support squad got a shot at my Crisis Suits was when I was maneuvering them to avoid the Armoured Fist squad, trying to keep them from getting trapped in an assault. If there hadn't been something pressuring my Crisis Suits to move out from where they were, they could have happily stayed there until they ran out of targets. Against a list without mobile threats or useful indirect fire, there would be nothing to make me move out from my protective cover. Close Combat threats or decent mobile shooting would be much more effective. In fact, I'm pretty sure it would have been much more effective to add a Chimera transport for the General's Command section. Two Chimeras would have been a much bigger threat and much harder to deal with for my Tau army.

It would then be possible to force me to move and have a much better chance at inflicting damage on me. For that matter, a Burn Unit or a Slag Unit (similar idea, but 3-4 Melta Guns) would probably be even more effective than the General's power sword was. They'd be able to drive up, jump out and nuke something pretty quickly. Even if they got shredded by firepower next turn, the Armoured Fist squad would probably be in position to either shoot or assault, thus probably getting at least two of my Crisis Suits, maybe more depending on positioning. Not only would that have put Neil's army in a better position, point-wise, the simple threat that 2 mobile units would have posed would have changed the game greatly.

The business end of Commissar Wood's Obsidian Brigade.

Admittedly, not every army is as tactically mobile as Tau, though there are a number of units that can pull off something similar. The most obvious would be Eldar Jetbikes and (sort of) Swooping Hawks. Many units, however, can zip up and shoot something, then get stuck into the safety of Close Combat during their opponent's turn. (I know, safety and Close Combat look strange in a sentence next to each other, but considering all the nasty weapons that can be levelled at you on the 40k Battlefield, sometimes it makes sense. Especially if you've got good armor against the enemy close combat weapons. (For example, see the Broadside in my game against Neil, or see what most Winged Hive Tyrants do in Tyranid armies. Get stuck in, kill some stuff, weather the attacks back and polish off the squad next turn, then do it again.)

Finally, some units are capable of moving and then causing a fair amount of damage. This might be a large squad of Space Marines jumping out of a Rhino and double-tapping their Bolters, it might be a Dark Eldar Ravager nuking the only vehicle that has Line of Sight to it, or it might be a Tau Piranha getting close enough to slag something with it's Fusion Blaster, then hiding behind the wreckage. All of these units have a combination of mobility and firepower, and they can all heavily damage a target in a single volley. If they can maneuver so that only their target has Line of Sight to them, then cripple the target, they are likely to be able to do it again next turn. Even better, if they have good mobility, they can combine with other units nearby to get a more overwhelming advantage and wipe out everything in the area, leaving themselves safe and ready to do it again on the next turn.

So what does all this mean? It means that you either need to move or you need some way of making your opponent move. Static gunlines really only work against frontal assaults and other static gunlines anymore. Fast Assaulters or highly mobile troops will just get inside or around them and either start rolling them up or take them apart piece by piece.

A Static Gunline Being Flanked

If you are playing an army that is mostly a static gunline, all is not lost. There are several ways to combat this. The first is to introduce mobility into your army. Make your units more mobile, or at least some of them. (Very important, though, don't just make one unit mobile and send it off on it's own. A single mobile unit in an otherwise immobile army is just going to be isolated and wiped out, probably without much effect on the enemy army.) A few units in transports can make a big difference, giving them some protection as they maneuver around the side of an enemy force. Fast units with Jump Pack or Bike or Cavalry movement are highly effective as well. Even though they don't have the protection of a transport, they have more raw speed and can generally assault after they have traveled a good distance. Failing either of those movement options, Fleet of Foot units can get places surprisingly fast, as can rules that allow the unit to ignore or partially ignore terrain. Even a unit that can only move 6" a turn, as long as it has good-ranged Assault weapons, can be effective. Simply start moving them forward on one flank, trying to deprive the enemy of hiding spots. The first turn won't yield much, but after that, your opponent will start feeling the pressure as the safe spots on his side of the board start to shrink. You can also move units that don't have as much Heavy Weapon-style firepower forward, so that you have at least an element of mobility and your opponent is forced to choose between the (presumably less heavily armed) mobile elements and the static elements when it comes to target selection.

Similarly, against an assaulty opponent, your mobile units can move back and still shoot, leaving the enemy more dead ground to cross to catch you, or fading back on one side while pouring most of your firepower into the other side of the enemy formation, hopefully giving you a safe place to fall back into. If you have a mix of mobile units and stationary units, use the stationary ones as your firebase. Have the mobile ones fall back toward them, and combine the firepower of all your units against the faster enemy units, then against the enemy units moving on your firebase. Once you have eliminated those threats, you can concentrate on the section of the enemy force that has been attempting to close with your mobile units. Depending on what is left, you may be able to simply hose them into oblivion, or you may choose to start falling further back with your stationary units, covering them with the firepower available from the mobile units.

The second way to combat this problem is to do something to induce your opponent to move. This might be mobile teams with good firepower or assault capabilities that will put fear into your opponent and force them to move in reaction to your moves. Again, these will tend to do best on the flanks against most armies. Even against assault armies, having a mobile unit on their flank can cause trouble. If they assault the mobile unit, that's one or more units that are no longer running toward your lines. If they don't assault the mobile unit, it may assault them to slow some of them down, or (if it's got very good firepower or assault) it may even cripple choice targets that your main line would have a hard time dealing with.

Most armies have certain units that are more effective or more vulnerable than others. They typically hide such things so that you cannot easily strike at them from the front (which is where we typically expect the enemy army to be.) However, from the vantage point of the flank of their army, you will have a much better shot at such units, since now they have to have cover both from the frontal arc and at least one flank. Finding such targets can easily swing things in your favor if your opponent doesn't recognize the threat. If the opponent _does_ recognize the threat, he will have to change his game plan to deal with your mobile unit or units, which is good for you. Every point spent on dealing with your mobile unit means less of a threat to your main line, and every turn spent on dealing with your mobile units is a turn your main line has to deal with less of the opponent's army.

Firing without needing Line of Sight is just mean!

You can also induce your opponent to move by including Indirect Fire options. Basilisks and other such things strike fear into the heart of the enemy because there is no safe place to hide when they are on the board. (Well, except for the minimum range, I suppose.) If the enemy huddles behind a rock, you can simply lob a shell over the top and take them out anyway. In addition, it can be hard to deal with these weapons since they can hide behind a rock themselves and still lob those shells over the top at you. Even if they don't do very much damage (which most of them don't as long as you keep spread out) they are still very effective. It's actually a combination of two things. Point Denial and Psychlogy.

Point Denial is, as you know, the art of damaging your opponent's army without taking damage to your own. Indirect Fire weapons work very well for this since they can be hidden behind terrain and still damage the enemy army. Even if they only do 100pts of damage over the course of the entire game, that's still 100pts more than the enemy army gets. Considering that 100pts is the difference in Victory points that covers a draw in a 1000pt game, that's pretty significant. Damaging the enemy is good, keeping the enemy from damaging you is good. Doing both at the same time is much better!

Psychology in this sense is a bit of a meta-game idea. (Meta-game would be the things outside the game that still effect the game.) In the case of Indirect Fire weaponry, people tend to react out of proportion to the damage caused. The reason is that it can damage you, but you can't damage it in return. Even if it doesn't do much damage at all, it's still damage that the enemy can't respond to, and no one likes that. Many players will go to great lengths to try to deal with Indirect Fire weapons. You can use that knowledge to plan for where they will move to deal with your threat and place your other weaponry for when they do. By luring them out with the bait of the Indirect Fire weapons, you will have induced them to move into your guns, which is exactly where you want them.

So, to put it all together, the take-away here is that in the 4th edition of Warhammer 40k, you need mobility. If you can move and the enemy can't, he's as good as dead. So start using those transports and movement upgrades, or simply the boots that your models come equipped with. Start safely behind cover, move into position and blast them away. (Then if you have swanky assault phase movement, move back behind cover!) The more you can move, the easier it is to do. Outflank the enemy, concentrate suddenly to achieve local superiority and then fade away to do it again later. It worked for Napoleon, Forrest, Rommel and Schwartzkopf, among many others, and it will work for you, too.

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