Timing is ... (wait for it)... Everything!

General Nathan Bedford Forrest (American Civil War) said the objective in war was to get there firstest with the mostest. The idea is to take the initiative and and bring more of your army to bear than the enemy can. This is generally how I have played 40k. My assault armies have always been about getting over there fast and piling into assault as quickly as possible with as many units as possible. This was as true for my Dark Eldar as it was for my Deathwing or my Tyranids. It isn't necessarily the best way, however. There are some cases where you want to wait and see what the enemy does or let the enemy commit to one tactic and then counter them.

A few weeks ago, I learned a valuable lesson about this when I played against Jake's Word Bearers with my Constrictor Swarm. I charged my Gaunts forward, like I usually do. They got into assaults and started doing their usual stuff. Then the Daemons came in. Jake had a lot of Daemons, and they were particularly well-suited to killing my Gaunts. (They would have been much less effective against power-armored Space Marines than against things with Toughness 3 and a 6+ Armor save!) But what really sealed it was that it guaranteed his units the charge. My Gaunts were already in combat near his deployment zone, so the Daemons were able to charge instead of being charged, making them even more effective. The Furies and Daemonettes, in particular were so effective that their charges saw them completely clearing their kill zones, so my poor Gaunts didn't even get to attack back. Initially I was amazed that they did so much damage. Then I pointed out to myself that they were ideally suited to taking on my Gaunts. (I know Jake didn't do this intentionally, this is more or less his tournament army.) After I gave it a lot of thought, I realized that it was the charges that did it. Furies and Daemonettes are roughly 50% more effective on the charge than being charged. (That extra attack really helps.) My Gaunts are TWICE as effective on the charge as they are when being charged. (It makes a bigger difference when you only have one attack to start with.) With that realization, I discovered what I probably should have done in the game. If I had held my Gaunts back for a couple of turns, I would have taken some damage from shooting. I would also have gotten more Synapse Support out on the field and I would have been able to wait for the Daemons to show up. The Furies, being flyers, would almost certainly have still gotten the charge. The others, only moving 6" each turn, would have gotten charged by me and would have been much the worse for it! It was at this point that I "discovered" the important tactical concept of Timing! (Well, okay, it was discovered a long, long time ago, but I finally actually understood it!)

Ah, what a difference getting the charge makes! See how much red there is in the above picture, and how much there isn't in the picture below?

A Target Rich Environment
As an example, let's say that you fill out your Force Organization Chart in a battle (2 HQ, 3 Elites, 6 Troops, 3 FA, 3 Heavy Support) and your opponent only has 6 separate units. You still (presumably) have the same point value of army, but you have more tactical flexibility since you have more units. Even more, you have extra flexibility since you can see where your opponent's whole army is set up by the time you've only set up half of yours. Let's say that you both place 2 units in the center and 2 on each flank. That's all 6 of his units. You still have 11 units to place, and you now know where his whole army is. You could place all of those units on one flank and crush the opposite flank, then roll him up from that side with overwhelming force. You could simply go for favorable matchups for your troops. For example, if I'm using Genestealers, I know they can take on just about anything. I also know that they are fairly expensive and fragile, meaning I won't have huge numbers of them and they die fairly easily. Knowing that, I want to make sure they don't take much shooting on the way to the target, and I know I want them to get the charge, rather than letting the enemy get the charge. Basically, I want them across from a unit that doesn't move as fast as they do and won't get to shoot them much. A potential further restriction is that I'd like them to reduce the unit to less than one half or one third of it's size on the charge. (That way they don't take too many attacks in return.) If I can find something that fits all three of those criteria, I've nearly guaranteed those Genestealers success.

Be Vewy Vewy Quiet
Okay, so one way to get an advantage over your opponent is to fill up your Force Org. Chart. Grand, but a lot of good players have already figured that out, and you can only get a maximum of 17 units in your Chart. If your opponent does the same, you don't get that advantage. Now what? Well, the next step is Infiltrators. Infiltrators are deployed after everything else is on the table, so you get to see where every last unit the enemy has is located before you place them in the best position to counter. There are two caveats here. The first is that Alpha Missions don't allow Infiltration, meaning that roughly 33% of the time, you won't be able to use it. The other is that the other guy may know this as well. If your opponent is a good player (and it's always best to assume that your opponent will be at least as smart and wily as you are, there's not much point in gearing up to fight an idiot!) he or she will know about this, too. There are a number of armies around that bank on it so heavily that every single unit has Infiltrate. These armies will have the above-listed advantage over armies that only Infiltrate a few units, for the same reasons. So how can we get an advantage over one of those Infiltrating armies?

Join the Reserves
Units in reserve can theoretically come in wherever they are needed the most. Unfortunately, they can only come in on your side of the board, so if you're running an assault army they won't be terribly useful. For that matter, shooting armies generally need to be doing as much damage as possible from turn 1, so traditional reserves aren't terribly useful. On the other hand, other types of reserves can be very handy. Deepstriking units, Summoned Daemons, Drop Pods and Webway Portals all let your Reserve units come onto the board somewhere other than your board edge. This makes them much more effective, since they can go roughly where they will do the most good. (Assuming that they actually arrive in time to help and don't come in one unit at a time. The dice gods are fickle at times!) Even when only a unit or two are held back this way, they can be very effective, since you can see what the enemy is doing and where they will do the most good when they arrive. Some armies, such as Daemon Bomb chaos armies do this very effectively with a lot of units. They have a few fast or resilient units to start on the board and summon the Daemons, then they have a lot of Daemons to rush out from a forward location and kill stuff. Space Marine Drop Pod armies follow this same principle, with the added advantage that they don't have to have ANYTHING down on the table when the game starts, so the opponent has no idea where you are going to go or how to counter it. In addition, you effectively get first turn, whether you won the roll or not. The opponent has nothing to shoot or move at. Then you get to show up more or less where you want and shoot first! The only disadvantage here is that you might show up piecemeal, with only one or two units coming out each turn, then withering under the attention of the whole enemy army. Generally the best way to deal with this possibility is to have as many units as possible (decreasing the amount that luck factors in) and to drop them near enough to support each other. Depending on the composition of your army, you may also be able to drop them farther away from the enemy to keep your units safe until more support shows up. Just beware that some missions don't allow Deep Striking units. If that's the case, you won't be able to do it unless you've got special rules that say otherwise, such as loyal Terminator units, Summoned Daemons and Drop Pod armies. Okay, so what if your opponent has one of those armies? How do you get the advantage over that?

Fashionably Late!
There are two counters to Reserves. The first is to have even later reserves. If your opponent drops most of his army on turn 2 and you drop most of your army on turn 3, you'll have a chance to see where the bulk of his units are before you "deploy." This is easier if you give your opponent first turn. That way they'll have to roll for reserves and drop them in before you do. The other way to do it is to be lucky with the dice, or have a way of rerolling your reserves or refusing to let them in. Some armies have wargear or models (such as Lictors for Tyranids or Improved Comms for Imperial Guard) that let them reroll reserve rolls, which can turn a bad drop into a good one or an early drop into a later one. Other armies have ways of keeping their Reserves from showing up at certain times. Chaos armies with all their squads in rhinos are one example. The daemons have nowhere to come in, so they have to wait until the player is ready for them. Dark Eldar Webway Portals act similarly, in that units that would normally show up, can't come out until the Portal is open, so they wait inside and rush out when it does.

Self-Control
If you don't have these options or your opponent has as many of them as you do, you've got one last possibility: Self-control. There's nothing in the rules that says your units are obligated to rush across the board straight-away. You can hold your units back in your Deployment zone. It's much easier to do this if you aren't up against a powerful shooting army and you have good mobility. If you are up against a powerful shooting army, you might take too much damage if you sit and wait. (On the other hand, if it's a powerful shooting army, you shouldn't have to worry much about their reserves, so charge in while they don't have as much stuff on the board.) If you have good mobility, you can sit farther away and be behind good cover to protect yourself, yet still be able to react quickly. If they have the same mobility that you do, you have to be very good at guessing the distance. You want to keep your units dancing on the edge of the opposing units' charge ranges. If they step an inch too close, you'll be able to get them, just make sure you're not the one stepping too close, however.

Bait and Switch!
As a final note, you can also get the jump on your opponent by feeding his army one of your units as bait, then countercharging with one of yours. Elite assault units can certainly dish out a lot of damage, but they can't take a lot of damage in return. Even a unit as sturdy as Assault Terminators can't take a lot of damage. They seem pretty tough, but each model is very expensive, so there won't be very many of them, which means that every loss hurts. A lot. You don't want those guys getting charged by Genestealers, they'll be hacked in two pretty quick. They'll stand a much better chance if you give the Genestealers a large squad of regular Tactical Space Marines to charge. Assuming they don't wipe out the unit on the charge, they'll probably still take some damage in return, so there will be fewer of them. Then, next turn when your Assault Terminators charge, YOU get the charge bonus instead of the Genestealers, and there are fewer of them around so you'll take less damage. Alternately, the Tyranid player might offer up a unit of Gaunts as bait for the Assault Terminators, then charge in with the Genestealers on the next turn. Although a bunch of Gaunts would die, with a large number of Genestealers and them all getting the charge bonus, there probably won't be too many Assault Terminators around to strike back. Mmmm. Crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy in the center.

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