|
Fighting
Tigers: Other
Pages: |
|
The Tiger Roars Deployment for Dumbasses (Like Me): Heavy Support (Shooty Units) by Kenton Kilgore Back in the 3rd and 4th Editions of Warhammer 40K, Heavy Support units were almost always required to be deployed first, so we'll start this series by discussing them. And even though you are no longer forced to deploy Heavy Support first, it's not a bad practice, as often, they are the lynchpin of one's army.  A Necron Doom Scythe, just one of many excellent Heavy Support choices the 'Bots enjoy "Shooty" Heavy Support Units: What
Are They? Other foot
units (Space Marine Tactical Squads and Sternguard come to mind) can also
function similarly to Heavy Support, even if they're from different parts of
the Force Organization Chart (Troops and Elites, respectively).  A Chaos Space Marine Forgefiend Alternatively,
these units can be vehicles: Space Marine Predators, Whirlwinds, Land Raiders
and Vindicators; Chaos Space Marines Forgefiends and Defilers; Tau Hammerheads;
Imperial Guard Leman Russ tanks (and variants), as well as Griffons,
Manticores, Basilisks, etc.; Ork Gorkanauts; Dark Eldar Ravagers; Necron Doom
Scythes and Monoliths, and so on. Most shooty
Heavy Support units tend to be either small squads of 3-10 infantry, or a single vehicle.
Because these units tend to use lots of heavy weapons, they usually move
only a little, if at all. Thus, when you
are deploying them, you want to place them where they will spend most, if not
all, of the game. To Reserve, or Not to Reserve? Usually,
you'll want to have your shooty Heavy Support units on the table at the
beginning of the game, so that they can hopefully fire each turn, of which you
only get 5-7 in a standard mission. So
unless the mission makes you keep Heavy Support units off the board, you
probably don't want to put them in Reserve.
You want
consider making an exception if you're Deep Striking: say, for instance, that you're
using a Monolith, whose weapons have a relatively short range. Or if your opponent likes to keep his
Imperial Guard tanks way back in his deployment zone, out of reach of most of
your weaponry; in which case, you could put Space Marine Devastators with
multi-meltas in a Drop Pod and land them right behind the tanks, to attack
their rear armor. Or if you want your Ravagers behind the
enemy lines to befuddle your opponent (does he stop his advance to turn and
deal with them? Does he redirect his heavy
weapon fire? Does he ignore them?). But those
are special cases. Almost always, you'll
want to start your shooty Heavy Support on the board. How to Deploy Shooty Heavy Support Units Let's get down to details. When placing these units, follow the guidelines below:
Place them where they have line of sight. You need to be able to see a target if you
want to kill it. Unless you're playing
with no terrain, there will be some spots that your guns can't get to, but
minimize that number by putting your units where they can see most of the
board. An easy example of this is
putting infantry units up high, atop hills and buildings, so that they can
shoot over intervening units and terrain.
I usually prefer to put my HS units in the
center of my deployment zone, but sometimes, the board will have a lot of
terrain in the middle that blocks line of sight. One workaround is to put Heavy Support units
in off center, or even in corners, so as to be able to shoot past the
terrain. This almost always cuts down on
how much firepower you can through at certain targets, but having a few shots
is better than none at all. Place them where they have range. Most shooty HS units have plenty of range
anyway, because of their weapons, and/or (especially if they are vehicles) can
move fairly swiftly to get in. You want
your unit's guns to have range to most of the board, if not the whole
thing. A few heavy weapons have a relatively short
range (I'm thinking specifically of multi-meltas and their 24" range),
which you'll want to bear in mind. In
that case, you'll want to put them closer up in your deployment zone so that
they can start targeting the enemy in Turn 1 or (at the latest) Turn 2. If your opponent is playing an army (Orks) that
you know will advance towards yours, it's not crucial that your Heavy Support
units be in range at the start of the game, particularly if he has the first
turn and his army will have moved into range when you start yours. But it's still better to be in range from the
get-go. Place them in cover, if you can. Heavy Support units draw quite a bit of enemy
attention, so if you are able to, find them some cover. However, it's more important that your Big
Guns have line of sight and range: they're usually fairly expensive, so they
need to be able to do stuff. If there's no scenery where you want to place a
particular Heavy Support unit, you can always put another, less expensive unit
in front of them to act as cover. So,
your Devastators could be screened by a Tactical Squad, or your Predator could
be shielded by a Rhino (just make sure in the latter case that the Rhino
doesn't block any of the Pred's guns). Place them towards the middle or rear of your
deployment zone, if you can. Unless a unit has
issues with range (such as the aforementioned multi-meltas, or a Vindicator
tank), there's usually little need to place them up front, where they're in
range of enemy heavy- or special weapons, or can be more easily reached by
assault forces. But make sure that they
still have line of sight (most important) and range (second-most
important). Leave room for other units. On the off chance that you have lots of Heavy
Support models (such as, for example, squadrons of Leman Russ tanks) or that
they're very big (Monoliths), make sure you leave space for other units, such
as those screening Troops or Transports that I alluded to, that can back up
your Heavy Support units. Some Pretty (and Some Not-So-Pretty) Pictures Having
read this far, you might be thinking, "This is all well and good, but how
about something I can look at?"
Submitted then, are visual examples of good and poor deployment of
shooty Heavy Support units.
Let's
start with the bad: here's a deployment photo from a battle I played in last year's King of the Hill campaign. At the top of the photo, you see a Predator, a
Vindicator, and a Stalker, all Space Marine tanks. So what's wrong with this picture?
The three tanks do not have line of sight. Because I deployed first, my opponent simply
set up his forces in one corner of his deployment zone, completely out of
sight. On my turn, my tanks had to
advance and turn to have any targets. The Vindicator does not have range. Its demolisher cannon is only 24", and even
after I moved up, I still had no targets until Turn 2. I lost a turn of firing with a S10 Large Blast
weapon because of poor deployment. Cover? What cover? I thought I was protecting my tanks by setting up in the ruins, and by using the Predator and the Vindicator to screen the more vulnerable Stalker. But seeing as how I had to move out of the area terrain just to have line of sight to any targets, I lost cover saves for my two orange lead tanks.  Predator ("Tyger Tyger") and Vindicator moving out of cover just to get line of sight on something...ANYthing The tanks are on a flank. Given its short range, the Vindicator at the
least should be in the middle of the board, where it could cover much more
territory, and give my opponent second thoughts about marching his large
infantry units towards my side of the table. The others would have also
benefitted by being in the center, as they would be able to engage more worthwhile
targets. The tanks are unsupported. My opponent Deep Struck a Raptor squad with two melta guns behind my tanks, and they nuked two of three from behind—and the only reason why they didn't get the Predator was because the game ended before they had the chance. Because my tanks were so far away from the rest of my army, there was nothing I could do about it. Now let's
look at an example of better deployment.
This photo is from the next
battle of the same campaign. What
you’re looking at is a Land Raider (in the foreground) and two Whirlwinds (one
of them a proxied model) in the background.
Why is this set-up good?
The tanks have line of sight. No terrain blocks any of the vehicles. I could have set up the Whirlwinds behind
that bunker in the center, totally out of sight, but doing so would have made
their Barrage fire inaccurate. Better, I
reasoned, to be able to hit the horde of Tyranids arrayed against my Space
Marines. The tanks have range. The shortest-ranged weapon that any of these
vehicles has are the twin-linked heavy bolters of the Land Raider, with a
*mere* 36". What's not to like? The tanks are in cover. Oh, hell yes they are. The walls (which are merely terrain pieces,
not purchased Aegis Defense Lines) provide cover for the Marines, who screen
the Razorbacks, who screen the Land Raider.
On the other side, the Marines screen the Whirlwinds. Combined with the Night Fighting at the beginning of the game, my tanks had a 2+
cover save on Turn 1 (that didn't stop a lucky shot from taking out the big gun
on one Whirlwind, but when you roll a "1," it's meant to happen). The tanks are not in the middle, but it doesn't
matter. The middle was taken up
with a central bunker that was providing a 3+ cover save to my units up there
(strictly speaking, only one unit should be up, according to the rules, and it
should NOT be the Dreadnought—but that's not important right now). The tanks are on the flanks, but are close to
the center, and in this battle, it wasn't an issue because we were playing
diagonally across the table, and because my opponent had a lot of infantry
figures. It was, as we like to say, a
"target-rich environment." The tanks are towards the back of the deployment
zone. There's no such thing as a Tyranid army
that doesn't move towards its enemy, if only to give its short-ranged guns (of
which most of them are) a chance. All of my guns, however, had fairly long
range, so there was no point in positioning myself close to the oncoming Bugs. The tanks have left room for other units, and
are supported. The very-expensive Land Raider has not one,
not two, but SEVEN units supporting it: two Tactical Squads, two Razorbacks,
and three squadrons of Attack Bikes. On
the other side, the much less-expensive Whirlwinds are supported by a large
Tactical Squad. Nids, as they are want
to do, charged my lines, but none of them assaulted any of my vehicles. All three HS tanks survived the battle
(albeit, one lost its main weapon in Turn 1 before it had a chance to fire).
Conclusion So there you have it: the first—but certainly not the last!—installment of Deployment for Dumbasses (Like Me). I hope it's been valuable, and that you've learned something: at the very least, you should know what NOT to do. Next time out, we'll discuss non-shooty Heavy Support Units. More Deployment For Dumbasses (Like Me)
First posted April 2015 |
|
Fighting
Tigers: Other
Pages: |