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The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men... often go awry. What happened? You know the feeling. You've prepared for this battle all week. Your army is honed to a fine edge, your plan is brilliant and your trap inescapable. Then everything goes wrong and your army is slaughtered. What happened, and, more importantly, how do you keep it from happening again? What could possibly go wrong? There are many things that can go wrong in 40k. Perhaps the dice deserted you. Possibly you didn't support a unit enough that could have won the game for you. Maybe your opponent didn't do what you expected or took a different army or an unusual unit. Maybe you ended up with a mission objective or special rule that screwed up your army or your plan. I will examine the things that can go wrong in 40k and explain how to prepare for them or prevent them, so you can get on with your conquest of the galaxy. The fickle hand of fate. Sometimes it seems the dice gods hate you. Poor rolling effects everyone, though. If your army only rolls a small number of dice, even a couple of ones will hurt. The more dice you roll, the more average your rolls will be and the less you will be hurt by those ones. This is the reason that The Fabulous Orcboy, of Millennium Gate fame, plays armies with tons of models. Sure the enemy blew away a couple handfuls of your guys this turn, you've still got a couple of bucketfuls left! Even if you are really unlucky and they get three handfuls, you've still got a gob of guys left. Where did everybody go? You sent the squad after the objective, but they got eaten on the way. If something is important to you winning the game, support what ever unit will be doing it. Don't just send a squad of Imperial Guard, send the whole platoon. Reinforce that Tactical squad with a Dreadnaught or give it fire support from your Devastators and a Predator. If a job is worth doing, it's worth concentrating on. Did someone get the number of that truck? This is the stuff that you didn't see coming and it hit you like a Mack Truck out of nowhere. This section covers a lot of ground, so I'll split it up a bit to help you see what you are up against and to help prepare for it. Sometimes the setup changes your whole plan, sometimes the opposing army reacts differently than you expected. Sometimes the army you end up fighting against is different than the army you expected. For that matter, sometimes you end up fighting in a way you did not expect. --Setup. We all hope that we can get the first turn, but if we setup to capitalize on that possibility, we leave ourselves open to the whims of the dice and may end up a broken force. Simply put, plan to have the opponent get the first choice of deployment zones and also get the first turn. That way, if the worst happens, you've planned for it, and any other result is icing on the cake. --Opponent reactions. Just when you've got the opponent maneuvered into your trap, they do something that you didn't plan for that spoils everything. I remember reading some tactical advice that suggested you plan on your opponent being a little smarter than you are. If your cunning plan involves the opponent making a mistake or a poor choice, it's not really a cunning plan. Remember to keep it simple. The more intricate your plan is, the harder it is to get it to work and the more chances it has to go wrong. --The opposing force, or "You brought What??!! Sometimes our opponent will surprise us with a new unit, stealthily bought and painted, and it tears our army to shreds. Other times, you will spend all week tailoring your force for Space Wolves and find that either your friend just started a Tau Army, or that he didn't show, but somebody else is there with their Shooty Eldar. If you didn't expect a Wraithlord (or a tank, or tons of infantry, or daemons, or whatever) it might be a real showstopper. If you look at your army list from the perspective of trying to beat it, you may be able to counter some of these problems. You can try to figure out any weak points it has, and how to deal with them, simply by thinking of different armies or units and how you would deal with them. After you've rounded up the usual suspects (Marines, Shooty armies, Assault armies, Wraithlords, Necrons, Blood Angels, horde armies, etc.) then start looking into the unlikely. Deathwing (can you handle 30 Terminators and several Landraiders?) Armoured Company (you mean you can take tanks as your troop choices?) Plan ahead and then you won't get caught flat-footed. You may not have a great Plan B, but at least you've got one! --Mission. You were going to shoot the heck out of that Tyranid army, but you rolled a Nightfight and you don't have any searchlights. Maybe your plan involved using your forces as a coherent whole to slaughter the enemy in a combined arms blitzkrieg, but the mission put half your stuff into reserve. Read through the missions ahead of time, both to see the objectives and to see the special rules. Take a look at each possible special rule and see what would happen to your army if it was used. Could you survive it, could you even use it to your advantage? Once again, such planning ahead will prevent you from being surprised, meaning you know what to expect. This planning will also save you a bit of game time, since you'll already be familiar with the effects of special rules on your army. Ultimately, it boils down to doing your homework. Remember, the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war! If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know |