Victory Point Denial
An idea that is often brought up when people talk about making an effective or efficient unit or model is the concept of "getting it's points back." The basic premise is that a 100 point model should be able to do at least 100 points of damage to the enemy during a game or it isn't worth getting. While this can be a useful measure of the value of the unit, it is certainly not the only one. What this idea fails to recognize is that it assumes the unit is going to give up it's 100 points during the game as well. If the unit does not give up it's 100 points, any points it earns at all are bonus points. Even if it doesn't do much, every single point it gives you is more than it cost.

If the unit doesn't give up any of it's points, the opponent has nothing. If your 100 point unit kills a 100 point unit of the enemy, and that is the only damage done all game, you win: 100 Victory Points to Zero.

I had a conversation with a fellow Tyranid player a while back about Victory Point Denial. The basic idea is to make it very hard for the opponent to score Victory Points against your army, but still do some damage back. Even without doing a lot of damage, you can hold on for the win if you can keep the opponent from scoring on you. In a 1500 point game, scoring 350 points isn't very hard. If you can score that 350 and make it so that your opponent doesn't score any, you just won the game.

This concept has also come up recently in a number of discussions online about the so-called "Rubber Band Hawks." Eldar Swooping Hawks have a new ability called Skyleap that allows them to leave the board in the movement phase of the turn, then come in as if they were reserves in subsequent turns. Based on the Rules As Written, (and, it seems to be the intent of the designers as well) this would allow them to arrive via Deepstrike and drop a few grenade packs, then Skyleap back off-board. In this way, they could spend the entire game leaping in and out and they would never be on the board during the enemy shooting or assault phases, so they wouldn't take any damage. While this wouldn't be terribly powerful in terms of the damage they could do (they would be off-board for the shooting phase, so the only damage would be those grenade packs, which really aren't any more terrifying than Imperial Guard mortars.) On the other hand, it would be a fantastic way of denying Victory Points to the enemy. As expensive as the unit of Swooping Hawks would be, it would be almost guaranteed to not give any of those points to the opponent as long as they kept Skyleaping all game. (There are two exceptions to this, however. Losing the unit due to a Deepstrike mishap such as off the board or onto enemy models is one. The other is if the player failed to reserve them onto the board in the last turn of the game. Since they wouldn't be on the board, they would count as destroyed and the opponent would get Victory Points for them.)

While most Victory Point denial isn't quite as nasty as that, it can be done and it can be an effective strategy. While it is possible to use Victory Point denial tactics with whatever units you happen to have, it's even easier if you design them that way from the beginning. Below I will cover some of the different ways to effectively deny your opponent Victory Points, so that you can grab the victory for yourself! (Note: These are not my Swooping Hawks. I don't know the owner of the picture, but I believe they did very well in a Golden Daemon Competition. If you know who they belong to, please let me know so that I can credit them properly.)

Construction

Worthless units.
8 Spinegaunts isn't terribly hard to kill, but you only get 40pts for doing so. It's rarely worthwhile shooting at them with most units. Similarly, a unit consisting of a single Ravener is also about 40pts and it only has 2 T4 Wounds and a poor armor save. Using a whole unit to shoot at that Ravener is definitely going to be wasting some firepower that might be more usefully applied to something else.

Even-numbered units.
A unit of 5 models (for example a 5-Space Marine Lascannon/Plasmagun squad) can take 3 casualties before giving up Victory Points. A unit of 6 models (the same unit, plus one Space Marine with a Bolter) doesn't cost much more (115 points compared to 100) but doesn't give up any Victory Points at all if it loses 3 models. (The unit is still at half-strength.) It takes 4 casualties to make that squad give up Victory Points, so it's a slightly harder to damage unit for very few points.

2-model units.
Whether this is a unit of 2 Crisis Suits or 2 Landspeeders, or something else, the idea is the same. When the enemy kills one of them, the other can run away and hide. Since the unit isn't under half strength, your opponent gets no Victory Points for that shooting.

Hard to kill units.
Units made up of good numbers of very tough or heavily armored models make it very difficult to cause enough damage to get even half Victory Points for them. An example of this might be a unit of 9 Rubric Terminators with 2 Wounds each. 18 T4 2+/5++ save Wounds are hard to get through for anybody, and you have to get at least 10 Wounds on them to score a single point. The old Ulthwe Seer Councils were a great example of this, with rerollable 4+ Invulnerable saves and tons of cheap Warlocks, they were essentially unkillable, which meant that the points locked up in them were always denied to the opponent.

Resilient rules.
Units with rules that make them immune to certain weapons or some damage are much harder to kill and can therefore be very effective at Victory Point Denial. One example would be a Tau Hammerhead, since it can move fast to avoid glancing hits (due to it's Skimmer status) and it has good armor. Even better would be an Eldar Falcon. In addition to it's decent armor and skimmer status, it also has a number of vehicle upgrades that can be taken to reduce damage. This makes it highly unlikely to kill a Falcon, which makes the points invested in it easy to deny the opponent. Another example of this might be a Carnifex with the Regeneration upgrade. When it gets below half, move it behind cover to let it recover it's Wounds. Bingo, no more Victory Points for your opponent! (Note: the Carnifex below belongs to Marco Schultze, you can find more of his work at hivefleetmoloch.com)

Movement

Assault Movement.
There are some units in the game that can move in the assault phase even if they are not assaulting. Tau Crisis Suits and Eldar Jetbikes come to mind here. This is a great opportunity to move out and hit something, then jump back into hiding before you can be shot in return. The easiest version of this is the standard Jump Shoot Jump of the Tau Crisis suit. Start _behind_ (not inside) cover and jump over it to get a clear shot. Then jump back behind the cover again to avoid being shot or assaulted in return. Lather, rinse, repeat. They can't kill what they can't see (mostly!) which means you get to keep those hard-spent Victory Points.

Fast movement.
Even without swanky assault phase movement, fast units have a big advantage in the Victory Point denial game. Being able to move from cover to cover without being exposed is golden for an assault unit. Units like Raveners and Flying Daemon Princes can suddenly zip out of terrain straight into combat without ever being exposed to shooting. Shooting units can use that movement to limit line of sight to themselves, hopefully killing whatever it is that _can_ see them before it gets the chance to return the favor.

Simple mobility.
Even units that aren't fast can have some useful mobility if they can move and fire their weapons. If they can move and fire, they can start behind cover, then move out to hit a single target. If that target can be damaged such that it can't effectively fight back, you are making it more difficult for the opponent to take out your unit, denying those Victory Points.

Shooting

Superior Firepower.
Being able to completely blast a unit out of existence in one volley is a great way to achieve Victory Point denial. It keeps that unit safe from at least one target that turn, and if you can adjust your Line of Sight so that that's the only threat to you, you can do it again and again without giving up your Victory Points in return.

Indirect Firepower
Even without having superior firepower, a unit can be very effective if it simply has firepower that the opponent cannot respond to. An excellent example of this might be an Imperial Guard Mortar. Even though it won't do a whole lot of damage, it can be hidden behind a hill all game and just keep plinking away. If it lives through the game because the enemy can't hit it, it's kept all of it's Victory Points and any points that it earned are pure gravy!

Playing the Game

Status Check
Pay attention to the status of your units throughout the game. I was very proud of myself in a tournament a while ago. I had a brood of 6 Genestealers that was reduced to a single Genestealer. With my old mindset, I would have simply thrown him in with the rest of the chargers to help kill off the enemy. However, I had been working on improving my "status awareness" and realized that the single Genestealer was worth about 60pts and would be an easy kill for those points. Although 60pts isn't a huge amount in a 1500 point game, every little bit adds up. That's about 20% of the margin between a draw and a win. Repeat that with a few other units and you can turn a loss into a draw or a draw into a win. That gives you a huge advantage in close games!

Change their priorities.
If a unit is getting close to the half-strength or destroyed mark, move another one in front of it. Make the enemy take a Target Priority test if they want to shoot at it. Even better is if you can also make it harder for them to make that test (such as with Warp Amps or Psychic Scream or a Culexus Assassin) or make it harder for them to choose. (Such as making sure the new target is doing more damage to them, so they get focussed on getting rid of it first.)

Just because you have troops doesn't mean you have to use them.
Sometimes it can be more worthwhile to hide your units rather than have them shoot it out or rush to the assault. Think about playing conservatively. Decide what would give you the best return for each unit. Maybe you should have a unit rush out to assault something, or maybe it should stay inside cover and shoot things, or maybe it should run and hide to keep it's Victory Points. Different units and different situations will have different best answers. The same unit and situation may have a different answer depending on how much time is left in the game as well. Take a minute to analyze the situation and see what serves you best.

End Game focus and analysis.
Around about turn 4 or so, start looking at the end game. What's the objective of the game and how you can achieve it. This is also the time to really consider the status of your units and weigh their survival and points versus any objectives they might achieve. Like my Genestealer example, above, I weighed what it might do compared to what it might cost me and decided I didn't need a couple of extra Rending Attacks. For another example, let's say you've got a full-strength squad of 10 Firewarriors sitting in a building. If you run them behind the building, you are pretty much guaranteed to keep their full Victory Points. If you leave them in the building, the cover save and armor save should keep them from dropping below half unless they are facing most of an IG gunline. If you leave them there, they might also score you some Victory Points by damaging an enemy unit. They might also be able to move out and seize an objective, but that would probably expose them to fire. Depending on your estimate of the point difference between you and your opponent and on the value of the objective, you might choose to go for the objective, or just conserve your points. If the objective is only worth 100 Victory Points, it's probably not worth it unless you think they can achieve it without much risk of going below half. (If they go below half, you'll lose 50 Victory Points and they won't be able to achieve the objective. If they don't, you'll gain 100 Victory Points.) Obviously, larger objectives are worth more risk, but that doesn't mean they are always worthwhile. Try to decide how close you are to a Win, Draw or a Loss. If you think you are close to a win, and the objective might put you over the edge, it's probably worth it. On the other hand, if you are on the other end of the Draw spectrum, achieving the objective might not be enough to give you a win, but the loss of the Firewarriors might be enough to drop you into a Loss instead of the Draw you could have had.

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