Discussion on Aewyn Machiara's tactical article: Part V.

Excellent tactics article as always, Mach. A few things came to mind while reading it.

One tactic I like to use, especially when I have a number of 10-model units of Glade Guard (say 3-4) and my deployment zone is getting crowded is to deploy them in 2 ranks of 5 and place them next to my other ranked units, taking the frontage of only 5 models. Turn 1 I move them forward 2.5" past the rest of my units, then use the remaining 1/2 of my move to add 5 models to the front rank, effectively "reforming" into a single rank of 10, moving forward to pick off those enemy units who were clever and set up 6.5" back from their deployment edge (30.5" away) and all for no penalty to my shooting. (I'll use the same tactic with my Khemri archers - no penalties whatsoever to shooting)

Likewise, when it is time for the assault troops to move forward, the archers can again move 5 models to the 2nd rank to make room for the units behind the archers to move past.

In regards to deployment, whether to deploy archers first or not, especially when there is a hill in your deployment zone, one thing I often will do is to play "Psych out" with my opponent. Since "Everyone Knows" that the archers will be deployed on the hill... don't. Hold your archers for later. I'll even go so far as to go through the motions of "visualizing" where my units will be going, hand to mouth stroking the beard, mumbling under my breath looking at the (still empty) deployment zone and maybe making subtle pointing movements "Hmmm... Ok archers on the hill... Waywatchers can go THERE... Dryads over THERE to support... Hmmmm.... OK I place the Eternal Guard here in the center. Your turn."

Since "Everyone Knows" that they will be there eventually, often my opponent will deploy his troops in anticipation of archers being on the hill. Then you deploy them somewhere else and your opponent has deployed units to deal with a threat which doesn't materialize, and if you're lucky they will have to spend at least their first move re-adjusting their battle plan.

Padraig:

Re: deployment. Very sneaky! I like it!

Of course, with the caveat that being sneaky is not an end in itself, and the archers should still go on the hill if you are not gaining a concrete tactical advantage by putting them elsewhere. I'm sure this is something you take into account, but wanted to clarify as I have seen people royally mess themselves up in deployment by trying to be sneaky.

Excellent article!
Shooting is really one of the keys to victory. I always take 2 units of galde guard, and something to back it up (glade riders, hail of doom, waywatchers).

The spliting of the table to 3 sections will probably work well I will try it in my next game today.

Well of course they should go on the hill if that's the best place for them. My point is that the hill is not always the best place, and often I find that by not placing them there I can screw with the other players battle plan more than if they were up there shooting. You still want to maximize the shooting potential of your units where ever you put them of course. One shouldn't automatically fall into the trap of assuming that shooty units must always go on the hill all the time to be effective. This is the mindset that I am using against my opponent if he sets up his army with that assumption. It's really just a variant of your "Surprise your opponent by 'withdrawing' from one or more of the areas through the woods to create an overwhelming advantage in another area" except I am doing it durin deployment instead of during the movement phase.

Besides, with 7th ed where everyone can see units on the hill and all ranks can shoot at it, Units which deploy on a hill seem to have a short life expectancy - at least amongst the players I play with around here. Hills tend to get scrubbed clean fairly quickly around here

Of course the solution to that is to deploy behind the hill (so that if you lose first move the archers are under cover and not standing up there with targets painted on their tunics) then move to the top of the hill on your turn and take your shots. Assuming the hill is placed nicely at the edge of your deplyment zone of course - the players around here tend to arrange terrain so that hills are usually stuck either in the middle of the table of way off in the corner where they're darn near useless 2 ranks of 5 deployed behind the hill can stay protected until my turn when they can pop up and take their shots against whatever enemy has bumbled too close during the enemys turn with no penalty (and with S4 shots too if the other player moved his fast cav too close during his turn).

As an addition to the deployment section, not only can you weigh one flank with archers, but when you have lots of archers (40+), you can try sneaking the combat troops behind terrain, like aforementioned woods, as there's no shooting area there, and deploy the archers to the sides of the combat units.

Fast cav and skirmishers can move through very tight holes between your archer lines, and archers can be deployed diognally to increase the number of archers you can fire with. This gives you room for a full 90 archers in the 3-lane terrain setup... Too bad that costs 1080 pts right off the bat.

Frecus
The glade wanderer
Madwarrior

Hi,

When I click on this link, the correct title comes up, but the article is for Part VI - Creating a tournament army.

Cheers,


Nestyr

Indeed. It should be fixed now.

Thanks for the update.

Liked the article.

One other unit I look for is the US 5 unit that can easily be wiped out. Example a unit of 5 chaos hounds. Doesn't look like much, but taking him out at the front of a chaos line can cause a panic test on all units within 6" of that 5"x2" size unit. So basically a rectangle that is 17" long and 14" deep.

It is easy to hit and kill. Pile in as many shots as it takes to wipe it out and watch all the bigger units or well armored units panic from that little guy going.

Otherwise, there was nothing I could add. Looks good.