Killhammer Philosophy: Battles in Your Head

[Warp Angel]

Well, after a long hiatus, and a lot of thinking - due in no small part to inspiration from other members of this forum - I've got another bit of gaming wisdom I've found that helps me, and that I hope the community finds useful.

 

The purpose of this article is not to tell you how to play your army, or what army you should play, but describes the thought processes that can ensure that the army list you have is ready for all-comers, or for a specific opponent. The goal here is to give new and veteran players another tool to become better players and have more fun with the hobby.

 

You most emphatically don't need to know anything about Killhammer to get benefit from this article.

 

Article Contents

Part I: Setting the Stage - reviewing past battles

Part II: Understanding the Battlespace - thinking about table setups

Part III: Know thy Enemy - likely opponents and playstyles

Part IV: Filling in the Gaps - eliminating percieved weaknesses

Part V: Summary - Skip here if you get bored or lose too many hit points from the Wall of Text

 

Part I: Setting the Stage

We've all done it - spent time with our pals talking about the game we've just played. What worked, what didn't, and what we think would have happened if...

 

Sometimes that results in tweaks to an army list, or a minor change in play strategy, but seldom do we go home and spend some hard time thinking about it once we're done with that post battle analysis. I realized recently that when I started becoming a much better player that I DID spend some idle organic cpu cycles thinking about those battles though.

 

Most of us have seen the White Dwarf Battle reports, where you have a top down overview of the battlefield, with little maneuver arrows and explosions to represent the action. This isn't unique to Warhammer, but is in fact a tool that is used by historians to document past battles and by modern generals to plan future ones. And it's a tool that you can use.

 

I do this in my head, but if you're not comfortable with what I'm about to suggest, having a couple sheets of paper handy, you can do the same thing. I suggest spending some time sketching out what you remember each game looking like on a turn by turn basis - or at least as much of it as you need to. You might want to do this while the battle is fresh in your mind, so you remember where you rolled poorly (or where you rolled incredibly well), possibly jotting down notes as to WHY you did the things that you did. For those of you that are high tech, you can do the same thing as the sketch with a digital photo.

 

Then, at your leisure, you can speculate what would have happened with different dice luck, if you had moved a unit in a different direction, or decided not to charge. It won't be some fuzzy memory over beer (or the legal beverage of your choice), it will be something that you can go back and look at. You can review your actual decisions, and speculate in GOOD detail what might have happened with a different loadout.

 

Did going first or second change the outcomes? What works best for you and your playstyle?

 

Doing this you should get a better handle on your PAST battles.

 

Part II: Understanding the Battlespace

Once you've got a handle on your past battles, you should be able to develop a gestalt of the kinds of battlefields that you'll see. Part of it is mission and deployment, but a lot of it is going to rely on terrain.

 

In a standard game of 40k, there's only so many mission/deployment combinations to choose from. Nine to be exact. On a flat table, with no terrain, you should have a pretty good idea of what your army would do - given that it's an "ideal" situation, with absolutely zero variables to consider. The big problem here is that there's no such thing as a "flat table". GW recommends something on the order of 25% terrain, but seldom do most people or places use that much.

 

The amount and kind of terrain, at least to my way of thinking and my experience, is generally far less important than how it gets laid out. There tends to be some commonalites to how it gets set up and used. I generally assume that terrain blocks LOS and/or provides cover and slows movement, and makes units inside of them harder to kill. Doesn't matter if it's ruins, intact buildings, or whatever. It's either a pain or a blessing depending on your needs. (We'll get to those in a minute.)

 

1) Stuff in the corners - for whatever reason, people tend to like nice, clear lanes of fire, often with places to hide in and behind. Sometimes these are hills, often they are woods or buildings. But the middle of the table remains mostly open. In play, it's not a whole lot different than an open table, though it does potentially provide some complications with objectives. Tau players and Marine gunlines love this sort of table setup. Footslogging Berzerkers not so much.

 

2) No man's land - Another common setup is similar to table quarters, but places most of the terrain in deployment zones. This also leaves the middle of the table open and makes it difficult for the aggressor army to close the distance.

 

3) Opposite corners - Some people decide not to do all the corners, or a whole deployment zone with terrain, but instead just put terrain in opposite corners. It leaves a lot of room to maneuver, but little place to hide. It can also seriously complicate life in a table quarters battle.

 

4) Clog the middle - This is the opposite of No man's land. Most of the terrain is in the middle of the table, allowing assaulty armies the ability to advance, and mobile armies with the ability to outflank. Line of sight is generally terrible and gunline armies suffer badly. This can be accomplished like in City Fight where it's on purpose, but still allows movement, or it could be with a giant, impassible, LOS blocking piece of terrain (I've seen pyramids often used like this). This is a battlefield that definitely favors the footslogger and makes deep striking very dangerous.

 

5) Split the table - This is where terrain is placed in such a manner as to break one large battlefield into smaller ones by creating lots of open space divided by solid blocks of cover. It tends to seriously favor maneuver based armies that can take advantage of the open spaces and the cover at the same time. Gun lines have issues, and footsloggers are outmaneuvered and face defeat in detail.

 

6) Random mess - Probably the least seen, there's no rhyme or reason to the placement of terrain and each battle needs to be figured individually.

 

So why such detail on terrain? It's because it's the battlespace. It's where your army needs to play. Like a playbook in football, you should have a general idea of which table setups are strong for your army, and which ones are weak. By using your past battle evaluations and thinking about it from a terrain perspective, you should have an idea which pages from your playbook need to be used. You should be able to make assessments that take into account each of the different mission/deployment options.

 

I'm fortunate in that I've got a table and terrain at home that I can play with and can physically play with different terrain setups and evaluate them in three dimensions, and with terrain that's typical of my play environment both inside and outside my home. There's nothing that says you can't do the same thing at the local GW or FLGS when there's open tables.

 

This should give you a general idea of how you and your army are going to deploy and attempt to evolve against a generic opponent.

 

But there's no such thing as a generic opponent, now is there?

 

Part III: Know thy Enemy

Warhammer 40,000 is a multiplayer game, and it has more than a dozen different base armies and a lot of variation in those builds. Only the most experienced players are likely to have played multiple games with or against all the individual codeci, and fewer still have seen all the major variations on the lists.

 

You do, however, have some tools available to you to get the big picture and be able to set expectations.

 

1) Online forums and tactica - like this site, Bell of Lost Souls, Warseer, Heresyonline, DakkaDakka, and the rest. There are plenty of armies that people talk about here that most of us have only seen here. Rules questions get clarified, people talk about their opponents and their own armies, and it's generally a good place for generalities and assessing trends.

 

2) Army codex and rulebook - If you haven't at least skimmed the available codexes, you're doing yourself a disservice. At a minimum, there's a fairly recent stat line and weapons summary in the back of the rulebook that you should know very well.

 

3) Your friends - you do know what they play and how they like to play it, right? Since these are the chaps you're most likely to face, you should know them best.

 

4) Local gamers - whenever you're someplace where the game is played, you probably take some time to watch the games and how they develop. This can also help you get an understanding of what you're likely to see.

 

From there, it should be fairly easy to come up with a "short list" of the armies that you need to plan for. And because you've seen them played and/or have read the codex, you should have a fairly good idea of how YOU would play them on any given battlefield.

 

That exercise you did with your own army, where you had a battleplan for mission/deployment/terrain, you should be able to ballpark it for your likely enemies.

 

Because there are so many combinations that you're probably going to have to consider at this point (and some of you are probably saying "it's too much work to do this, at this point"), I'd like to recommend a shortcut. Generalize.

 

Mech armies play either mobility or gunline, and in either case, you need to account for AV instead of T early, and plan for some absolutely devastating move, disembark, shoot you to pieces action.

 

Horde armies tend to be weak individually, require a lot of shooting to bring down, and come in the ranged or close combat variety. You should have a general plan for both.

 

Zilla armies focus on big, hard to hurt units that like getting up close and personal. They're slow and have few models, but require concentrated effort to beat.

 

I could go on and on here, but because you've utilized items 1-4 in this section, you already know what to look for. How you categorize and make generalizations is going to depend on your play environment.

 

Now, you should be able to fine tune your strategy for each opponent type. The simplest scenario is that the only army you ever play against is your best friend's mech Eldar. You only need to plan for one opponent at that point.

 

But as you fine tune your army, you're going to see weaknesses.

 

Part IV: Filling in the Gaps

At this point, you know how to use terrain to your advantage, and have a reasonable guess as to what your opponents are and how they're going to use it. You know how your army performs in many situations, and chances are you're going to see some weak spots.

 

Maybe you rely too much on static gunlines where certain terrain setups have you moving more often than you'd like to set up good shots. Maybe you've got a weakness to close combat and anyone that can close the distance behind cover is going to eat you for breakfast. Maybe your overreliance on bikes and armored transports, or deep strike (I'm looking at you daemon players) leaves you weak in tight terrain.

 

Whatever it is, this process should expose it.

 

Addressing it may mean tweaks to your army list, or change how you make sure terrain is set up in "any mutually agreeable fashion".

 

In my experience, and because I truly like to play an "all comers" list on any table at any time, I think about my deployment options. I've found that a lot of my needs can be addressed by the skillful (and it is a skill, despite the random element) use of reserves.

 

Regardless of how or if you choose to address your weaknesses, your understanding of the game will only change (and hopefully improve) over time. This is a never-ending process that should help you become a better player. Eventually, it should become something that you can do almost unconsciously. I'm sure if you ask some of the best players that you know some specific questions about how and why they do the things that they do (in specific situations), you'll find that they're already doing a lot of this sort of thing without thinking about it.

 

Summary

 

I. You need to know your army well, and how it performs in a given game, and over a number of games. You do this by analyzing your past battles.

II. You need to understand how terrain affects your army's performance, and how to utilize it. You do this by using your analysis of past battles and applying to to terrain, mission, and deployment possibilities.

III. You need to have a good handle on your opponents, how they are likely to play on any given table and mission. This should alter the detail and execution of your games.

IV. By constantly thinking and re-evaluating the theoretical strengths and weaknesses of your army in any given situation, you can only impove.

V. Have fun!

[OIF Knight]

Warp-

 

You may or may not have had some experience with the following, but I believe it sums up your fantastic posting in an easier-to-remember fashion. It is as follows (I hate shortening a great post but perhaps you will agree that its brevity is essential when making quick deicisions in all things 40k, i.e. tournament play, when you don't know your enemy or mission beforehand and may be forced to design strategies in only a few minutes, as our tourneys are usually run...)

 

Pronounced 'METT-T'

 

M: Mission

 

E: Enemy

 

T: Time

 

T: Troops Available

 

T: Terrain

 

Briefly:

 

Mission- What missions are you playing? Are Kill Points the main goal (in which case you want to focus less of manuevering to an objective and more on dropping units) or are you playing Objectives, where killing units localized near or approaching your Objectives are the key to victory.

 

Enemy- Who or What are you fighting? Is your opponent new or experienced? Is your opponent mech? Footslogging? Swarm? Elite CC? Analyze the army you are fighting, to include the general theme of the codex and the specific build. This should provide obvious weaknesses very quickly.

 

Time- Similar to Warp Angel's idea of how going first or second benefits or hurts you, or how it benefits and hurts your opponent? Do you have a plan for the game going 7 turns? Or do you rely on a quick 5 turn, '2 turn glorious charge' battle?

 

Troops- This applies to both armies- What are your troops and your opponents troops abilities? AT or and AP? Both? How much CC or ranged fire can you or him dish out or with stand? Again, designs of your army will be based on who/how you expect to play.

 

Terrain- Fairly clear- Do you favor Open or Dense terrain? Woods or ruins? If you use snipers, where/how will the terrain effect placement? What will your opponent be looking for in terrain? What is the current terrain situation in the game, or how does or will it change as the game progresses?

 

I am sure each is fairly self explanatory, and together they offer me (personally) a breakdown of the entire game before I play, tanking into account every facet of 40k. This slogan is brief and easy to remember, and as I mentioned, takes into account everything you mentioned that combines into a solid victory. Again, this is a post offering a brief and simplistic way of taking into account the excellent points made above.

 

Great post and very helpful, keep the nuggets of wisdom coming!

[Paulochromis]

Great post and very helpful, keep the nuggets of wisdom coming!

 

Nuggets!?!

 

I think you mean motherlode!

 

Cheers, Paul.

[Warp Angel]

I am sure each is fairly self explanatory, and together they offer me (personally) a breakdown of the entire game before I play, tanking into account every facet of 40k. This slogan is brief and easy to remember, and as I mentioned, takes into account everything you mentioned that combines into a solid victory. Again, this is a post offering a brief and simplistic way of taking into account the excellent points made above.

 

You're right, it is a great way of going about it. I wasn't trying to do the 'pregame' breakdown, though. To be honest, your quick and dirty method described above is probably far better suited for that than my lengthy analysis method for the pregame though.

 

What I'm specifically trying to share is the 'downtime' though processes you can use to "practice" as it were, before you ever take the table.

 

Thanks for the great contribution!

[Deathwing]

Reflection is a key thing in just about any practice. Applying it to wargaming to make yourself a better wargamer is no different.

 

I don't think many people seriously sit down and reflect on their past battles as it might be a waste of time to them, or just a way to make the game too serious when it doesn't need to be. But from a competitive point of view reflection is very important (in any competition, not just Warhammer).

 

Though what you present here isn't just about reflection, it's also about scouting and reviewing what your opponents do before you even play them (or if you have played them, what you can use from past battles). Again it seems to make the game more serious than it needs to be, but people who want to compete should be doing this if they want to be better. It definately pushes the idea that the army list isn't the end-all be-all of warhammer and I whole heartedly agree with that.

[Warp Angel]

I'm not advocating active scouting, or even a WAAC (win at all costs) mentality here. I certainly am not that kind of player, though I do like to win. And if I can't win, I don't want to get slaughtered. I spent waaaaay too many years having that happen to me before I figured stuff out. And I'd like to make sure that others don't have to suffer for as long, and with as much pain, as I have.

 

I'm just advocating expanding upon what most people do already. Most players already watch other people play games, discuss them with friends, and talk/think about what went right and what went wrong.

 

All I'm suggesting is formalizing the process so that it provides a bit more benefit than it would otherwise.

 

I'm definitely with you... the list isn't the be-all end all. One of the recent demonstrations of this was the very large Bell of Lost Souls Con. Several days of gaming, thousands of dollars in prize support, and the top performers were what a lot of people would call "suboptimal" lists that nobody would have picked out of a lineup to win at first glance.

[Commander Sasha]

At a much simpler level, I have taught my four 10yr olds to ask themselves how a battle went afterwards, exactly as I do to myself.

 

What went well? What got mashed? What performed as expected? What surprised you?

 

All of these questions I then follow up with questioning whether it was just dice luck, and whether changes need to be made, or just trying again.

 

Finally, note ideas and comments down on the back of your army list sheet, then enjoy the rest of the bus ride home.

 

This personally feels like a nice balance between not power-gaming, and not failing to learn from mistakes.

[Deathwing]

I'm not advocating active scouting, or even a WAAC (win at all costs) mentality here. I certainly am not that kind of player, though I do like to win. And if I can't win, I don't want to get slaughtered. I spent waaaaay too many years having that happen to me before I figured stuff out. And I'd like to make sure that others don't have to suffer for as long, and with as much pain, as I have.

 

I'm just advocating expanding upon what most people do already. Most players already watch other people play games, discuss them with friends, and talk/think about what went right and what went wrong.

 

You're right, you're not advocating active scouting or a WAAC mentality. Although I think those are (extreme?) extensions of this philosophy. Mind you it's no different from pro sports or other competitive events (like any CCG).

 

Discussing battles is something that doesn't happen too often where I play (for us I think it's a courtesy thing during the game, but we rarely have post-game discussions) and this article gives me reason to try and encourage it a bit more.

 

EDIT: I just did a quick look through of the winning 40k lists at BoLScon and wow, I would never have picked those to win such a competitive(?) event. Both armies can make lists that are so much scarier (to the general population at least).

[Grey Mage]

See... as the son of a Hippy-biker-chick I was taught to meditate and contemplate at an early age. So Ive been doing a similar, though less structured in some ways, analysis of my lists for years. Its IMHO the best way to stress test your list and really saves countless hours of play-testing or trying to find the deviations in mathhammer.

 

Only when a totally new concept comes along- like Drop Pod Assault for example, do you need to go out and gather information in large quantities... and even then, you can predict some things from the use of DSing units before.

 

Its a beautiful system realy.

[ShinyRhino]

This is a skill I seriously need to master. I can't post an accurate batrep to save my life. I get so wrapped up in the playing iof the game that by the time it's over, I only have a very general sense of what happened. I can do a "beginning, middle, end, highlight moments" recap, but ask me for a turn-by-turn and I'm worthless.

 

I actually drew up general battleplans for each round of the 'Ard Boyz Prelims, based on each scenario. It did help me out a lot. I used notecards and jotted down little reminders to myself about how I should organize and fight each battle. I set up basic "combat groupings" for my units, and some suggested deployment ideas.

 

Unfortunately, I spend more time thinking about the game (and posting here, lol) than playing it. As a result, the only exposure I get to battles is often in our three-round monthly tourney at the game shop. When playing under a clock and striving to win, it's tough to take the time to snap turn-by-turn photos, and jot notes. Don't want to be accused of stalling :lol:

[Warp Angel]

Unfortunately, I spend more time thinking about the game (and posting here, lol) than playing it. As a result, the only exposure I get to battles is often in our three-round monthly tourney at the game shop. When playing under a clock and striving to win, it's tough to take the time to snap turn-by-turn photos, and jot notes. Don't want to be accused of stalling :P

 

Your opponent's movement phase is probably the easiest and safest (from a paying attention to the game standpoint) way to do it if you're under the clock. You don't need a step by step set of photos, just enough to remind you of what was going on so you can assess it later. And like everything else, you'll get better and faster at it with practice.

[ShinyRhino]

Your opponent's movement phase is probably the easiest and safest (from a paying attention to the game standpoint) way to do it if you're under the clock. You don't need a step by step set of photos, just enough to remind you of what was going on so you can assess it later. And like everything else, you'll get better and faster at it with practice.

 

Good point. Maybe setting up a tripod to speed things up might be a good plan, as well. Just walk over, hit the button with a 2 second timer, and hey presto, pic snapped.

[Mr_I_am_Hungry]

What's really cool with this is that is effectively summing up Sun Tzu's whole Art of War for wargaming. He spent chapters and chapters about the most important thing in warfare is "Know Thy Enemy" and "Know the Terrain" and talking about their variations. That's what this is on the 40k scale.

[Warp Angel]

It's not THAT close to Sun Tzu, but most of my Killhammer articles have something to do with distilled wisdom of the ancients that's still in use today by our current military.

[OIF Knight]

^^ Warp Angel speaks the truth