Assault & Shooting units in your army

[minigun762]

I've noticed something about my armies. In almost every single one I create, regardless of whether its Marines, Guard or some filthy Xeno, I find myself creating "teams" of units with a shooting element and a stabby element.

 

In the simplest example, its 2 units that look like this:

10 Chaos Marines, Flamer, Melta, Power Fist (stabby) supported by 10 Chaos Marines, 2 Plasma (shooty).

 

I wonder if this is a hold over from video games or what, but it just makes sense to me.

 

Anyone else find themelves making teams like this, or do you typically focus your army around one end of the spectrum?

[thade]

All the more experienced players I've talked to have very often suggested "theming" each of your units...that is, each unit has a specific battlefield role and should be equipped specifically to handle that role.

[waaanial00]

Its a term that Brother Taul referrs to as "Internal Detachments", essentially creating armies within your main army which are capable of pooling resources and achieving something that neither could do alone. In its simplist for you have the shooting and assaulting element covering each other, other examples are fast and fragile elements working with slow and tough ones both working together to achieve something more together than they would be able to achieve naturally.

 

Its a good idea and one I use regularly.

 

Wan

 

@thade - This is good advice however only half the story. Whilst a dedicated unit is better than a general one, combining a dedicated shooting and dedicated assaulting unit to go achieve a mutually beneficial goal is better than simply having and using a dedicated unit alone. Nothing operates in a vaccuum, having that Tactical squad tooled up to open that Rhino and having that Vanguard unit close by to kill the contents is the natural endgame to unit specialisation.

[HERO]

75% of my army normally focuses on shooting, but 25% eventually ends up in assault.

 

So with MEQ, I tend to take Fists with every Tac squad.

[minigun762]

75% of my army normally focuses on shooting, but 25% eventually ends up in assault.

 

So with MEQ, I tend to take Fists with every Tac squad.

 

And thats another way to handle it, using a variety of multi-purpose units who can operate on their own.

 

Of course then we start debating whether 2 multi-purpose units working together are as effective as 2 specialists, but thats a hard thing to determine really.

[HERO]

75% of my army normally focuses on shooting, but 25% eventually ends up in assault.

 

So with MEQ, I tend to take Fists with every Tac squad.

 

And thats another way to handle it, using a variety of multi-purpose units who can operate on their own.

 

Of course then we start debating whether 2 multi-purpose units working together are as effective as 2 specialists, but thats a hard thing to determine really.

 

I can Sternguard in every single one of my lists.. so they act as specialists for the job. Their wide array of cheap combi-weapons really help.

 

Sternguard, like I said many times before, are the best units in our entire book. They can do anything, anywhere.

[ShinyRhino]

I've started to live by the Internal Detachments idea. The tricky part is figuring out what to do once the enemy throws a wrench in your gears by deploying oddly, or eliminating an element of the detachment. Or in my case, remembering to actually deploy the detachments together, lol.

[minigun762]

I've started to live by the Internal Detachments idea. The tricky part is figuring out what to do once the enemy throws a wrench in your gears by deploying oddly, or eliminating an element of the detachment. Or in my case, remembering to actually deploy the detachments together, lol.

 

I read up a bit on Brother Tual's idea and it makes alot of sense to me.

Its something I find myself doing naturally with most of my armies.

 

As for the tricky part you mentioned, I always remember that Marines (of any sort) are by their very nature generalist units.

 

While we may focus a particular squad or unit towards a specific goal, we can't specialize them in the same way that Eldar can.

 

So its usually easy for us to give our units a bit of flexibility. If you're squad is 75% anti-tank and 25% anti-infantry, you have some backup plan if you lose the anti-infantry portion of your detachment/team.

 

The trick here is not to water down all the squads to the point that they can't do anything well or they're so expensive because they try to do everything.

[OIF Knight]

I believe ShinyRhino's quote explains it all, i.e. the mission of the Infantry...to destroy the enemy by fire and manuever (shooty marines), and repel the enemy attack by fire and CLOSE COMBAT...(stabby marines)

 

As already stated, 1 unit should provide some fire support, and therefore destroy or distract enemy units that would otherwise focus your much more effective CC units, ergo allowing your hard hitting CC units (as they should be tooled to the max for CC wounds) the ability to inflict max damage. We all know a shooty unit, be it termies or tac marines, can't destroy a unit of say, plague marines, possibly one of the toughest infantry classes in the game (up for debate, but you see my point...) BUT, if you can soften them up prior to an assault by a tooled out assault unit, or at least create enough of a threat that they 'shield' your much more expensive CC unit...mission accomplished. Again, as already eloquently stated above, this creates mini armies within your army, which is the equivolent to 'AP' or 'honors' grade 40k playing :(

 

This is how I designed my CC/fast attack/reserve army. Have seen great success with it so far.

 

Knight

[minigun762]

I'd like to see Warp Angel voice his opinion on this idea.

 

In my mind it plays right into Killhammer and maintaining that kill gap, but instead of looking at the kill gap across the entire board, you're localizing it for individual teams or battles that are going on.

 

You might be ahead in the kill gap with 2 of your detachments, but the other is faltering. This means you could either sacrifice the 1 to insure you come out ahead, or maybe direct resources to the faltering one to bolter its chances.

[Warp Angel]

I'd like to see Warp Angel voice his opinion on this idea.

 

In my mind it plays right into Killhammer and maintaining that kill gap, but instead of looking at the kill gap across the entire board, you're localizing it for individual teams or battles that are going on.

 

You might be ahead in the kill gap with 2 of your detachments, but the other is faltering. This means you could either sacrifice the 1 to insure you come out ahead, or maybe direct resources to the faltering one to bolter its chances.

 

In my mind, at least, kill gap is something you evaluate against the entire board over the course of the entire game. If the two detachments winning and one getting wiped off the board are what you need to create and maintain a kill gap, then that's what you should be doing to win. It's likely that by spreading yourself too thin and bolstering another unit that's probably lost or significantly degraded anyway, you're just degrading your ability to provide support where it will be more effective.

 

This is the GrimDark - EVERYTHING dies. Never forget that.

 

This whole "mutually supporting units" and Tual's "internal detatchments" is accounted for indirectly by the Killhammer roles (Killer, Defender, Hunter, Cleaner) and capabilities (anti tank, hand to hand, etc). My personal point of view is not to get too wrapped up in making sure you have groups of units that are mutually supporting, but rather your entire army is mutually supporting in response to the enemy. It actually takes the "internal detatchments" a step further by saying that I have the capability to create as many or as few mutually supporting detachments as I need to, and I'm not stuck with any particular pairing. I'm always an advocate against making artificial and fixed decisions about deployment. The Way of the Water Warrior and Killhammer shouldn't have you making inflexible decisions, especially where army building is concerned.

[Giga]

I never really make those sorts of detachments, or teams of units.

 

Most opponents require a different approach, and I'm not a fan of spreading my army too far - I like to keep everything within the reach of the few big-killers (such as my land raider with terminators inside, the land speeders, etc.), hence the whole army can support itself wherever needed.

 

Being a codex marine, most of my units are generalists by default, but whenever I can I like to specialize them in a certain role. For example, I always take one defender tac squad (with plasmagun, plasmacannon, and razorback), and one attacker tac squad (flamer, missile launcher, power fist, rhino). I don't like combining different types of wargear in my squads; if one sternguard has a meltagun, I'll likely give another sternguard a meltagun, too. I'll never go with one sternguard with a heavy flamer, and another with a plasmagun.

[minigun762]

My personal point of view is not to get too wrapped up in making sure you have groups of units that are mutually supporting, but rather your entire army is mutually supporting in response to the enemy. It actually takes the "internal detatchments" a step further by saying that I have the capability to create as many or as few mutually supporting detachments as I need to, and I'm not stuck with any particular pairing. I'm always an advocate against making artificial and fixed decisions about deployment. The Way of the Water Warrior and Killhammer shouldn't have you making inflexible decisions, especially where army building is concerned.

 

I would agree that you don't want to get hung up on useless or limiting groupings, but I think the idea of grouping units into teams or detachments is quite useful.

 

My thinking is that its usually easier for someone to consider 2-4 parts of an army instead of every unit individually. By grouping them, you're allowing yourself to think less like the commander on the ground and more like the commander at the HQ.

 

The teams you create should be flexible and may change game to game or even turn to turn.

Players who like specialized squads will probably group similar units together (use these Multi-Melta Attack Bikes and this IronClad Dread together as tank hunters) whereas players who like multi-purpose units might group dissimilar units into teams (a Vindicator backed up by an Assault squad).

 

Maybe my point is that I feel its easier to come up with a plan for a team, then an individual unit.

[Iron_Chaos_Brute]

I agree with you.

Assault team: 2x10 zerks.

Mop-up team/speedbump: 2x10 CSM.

Works for me :cuss

[waaanial00]

One of the reasons I like to mix speed capability within my internal detachments is that they can combine better if needed. Say one detachment is faltering but has still got a chance of success whilst another close by is dominating and will destroy the unit this or next turn. I like to reassign units which are faster and capable of making the difference from strong to weak.

 

In this way throught the game I build and destroy, bolster and weaken my original detachments. It is still something that I am working on but I still see the idea of internal detachments as a key strategy and tool that I use. If you dont allow yourself to solidify your detachments but view them as team mates for the moment it works quite well, cetainly since I have been practicing it my successes have been more impressive.

 

You have to be able to see what is happening and predict what the enemy will do though. Which is not always easy.

 

Wan