'The way of the Iron Spirit'

[Corpse.]

All this talk of Sun Tzu's art of war, element styles and such. I just felt like reviving something and adding new things collected. Motivated by the "Iron Warrior" (both the thread and my old iron warriors) I felt I should revive people's faith in their vehicles. All of them, even the ones they hate using. So with a little copying and new material I'll be dumping vehicle tactics in here.

 

Formulating a strategy with vehicles is a little vague without knowing what they can really do, right?

 

First, clarifications.

 

Tank Shock:

It needs the "Tank" type in order to tank shock.

 

Ramming:

Any vehicle except from walkers can ram, and you can do so to remove the 1" distance rule, from any distance even if its just a 1" ram that does no damage.

(You will see why I added this for later references)

 

Skimmers:

Land speeders to be specific. There will be a section dedicated to these beauties, to shed new life for them in your army.

 

Transports:

I will be sharing lots of banes to transports but don't fret over it. All of ours have 3 disembark points, where many in the game only have one. Making ours harder to surround, detailed later.

 

 

(Pass this part if you prefer not to hear my musings)

Ugh, I just looked at my old general tactics. I really need to reformat the entire thing's vehicle tactics. Suppose it's a good thing I'm doing this. I will have to re-type everything from the ground up. (I am so not looking forward to this, haha) Time for music. As an added side note, I do not take credit for the majority of these tactics, and I do not claim to have done any of them "first" or any such pampering of the ego.

(Ok starting)

 

Part A, clearing the clouded parts.

 

A1.

Vehicle bulk, transports and unit size.

Make a point to yourself how many models of what kind you can hide behind each vehicle on the side, front and rear. To get a good idea of this you will need to physically place the models down on a table and look at them at every angle. I find that 6 25m(1") base models of average marine height hide behind the side of a rhino/razorback very well. Where as a daemon prince and dreadnought can hide behind the side of a land raider. Everyone models things slightly differently, and picks models of varying types. So be sure to know what is what before trying any of the below tactics. What amount of space things can fit through, distance and especially having a good eye for the 1" distance rule.

 

A2.

Vehicle missing points.

Keeping a good eye where to measure from your vehicles. Some prefer to measure from the hull of the vehicle to determine distance, others prefer to measure from the hull to the base of a model for 1" distance rule. This is a slight miss-clarification. Page 3 of the rulebook, it says measure from the base of the model or the hull/body of baseless models such as vehicles. Flying bases are obscure in this clarification, so I assume that a Land Speeder is from its hull and base size. (For the purpose of moving under a land speeder, it has a base, so thus may not be passed under) Where other skimmers with flying bases like tau and eldar tanks use their hull for reference points to measuring distances.

 

A3.

Pivoting and gaining free distance.

No vehicle in the game is a perfect sphere. When you pivot the vehicle even just slightly, you will gain small bits of distance to the actual move. Unless you measure from the center point of the vehicle while moving it, you will gain distance if you pivot even just once before/during and even after the move in a certain direction. Such as sitting a rhino's side against the deployment line of a pitched battle, you pivot to face the enemy zone you will have gained distance before legally count as moving. While people may be against this, remember that this is a tactical decision in case the vehicle dies before getting a chance to move and placing the unit behind the vehicle to let them survive by being out of view. Or even starting outside the vehicle, then entering it in the first movement phase in some cases. Everyone can do this, so I assume its no problem in the long run.

 

A4.

Line of sight to models and deciding what parts of the models can be shot at.

This is a sketchy one. Some say if you can see either the torso, head, legs above the knees, that you have a shot if the bases/hull+base is lined up for line of sight. Others say that if you see anything not mentioned in the codex as a "Non target" then you have a shot. I will assume complete RAW on this issue since there are so many different model body positions that its impossible to take responsibility in giving a clear "this is this and that is that" on the matter.

 

In the book it says the following are targets:

Body: Torso, head, legs (including feet), arms (including hands).

Non-target parts: Weapon, atenna, banner, equipment being carried such as servo arms, wings and tails are also noted (daemon princes I assume benefit from this).

The obscured parts are wrists, how much of the arm seen or leg seen above the ankle. Seeing the helmet only barely.

 

My biggest suggestion for any and all LoS circumstances is to buy a pointing laser. It only costs a few bucks, and can be so small it hangs off your keychain. Be careful not to point it at someone's eye as it does damage retina's. Do not get super powered ones since it does make a prismatic effect off anything it hits and continual use will be like pointing it in your eye.

 

Non target parts of a vehicle: Weapon (that means the turret, missile, but not its container like a hunter killer missile container, might want to model those outside the box holder), atennas, equipment(This means the non-weapon upgrades such as dozer blades that are not considered part of the hull), I will assume dreadnought close combat weapons are arms in terms of being shot at since they operate similarly.

 

A5.

Moving parts.

Defiler legs, swivel torsos, spinning turrets, repositioning side sponsons, opening bay doors/hatches and the entire array of other repositioning parts in the game. I say this. Models inherently are immobile without an action moving that part. In LoS/Aiming at a target is the only rule that accounts for repositioning something on the model. So this is the RAW clearing all of this up. The way the model starts the game is the way the model is expected to be the rest of the game. If you start a land raider with its mouth open, it stays open the entire game and you deploy it as part of the hull and also measure from it when disembarking from it. My only exception is with aesthetic reasons drop pods must open their doors when they can, and assume line of sight through the pods. The parts repositioned *during* the game do not count for anything more then standing on top of it and is not considered part of the hull. You measure disembarking from the model with its doors closed when using a drop pod.

(I have had a case where two predators stopped a model from moving past with them twisting their side sponson lascannons conveniently to close the "doors" on me, so be wary why I stress this unspoken ruling.)

 

 

Now with all that clarified in terms of targeting and what you can hide, lets get to the tactics. I apologize for the lengthly clearing section, there are parts of the game that need such crackdowns when jumping into tactics that can get sophisticated by the natural rules being vague or unclear.

 

 

Part B, deployment and rough ideas.

 

B1.

Line of sight and terrain.

You will need to survey the table, and perhaps planned ahead of time accounting the fact table sides that have been taken, or terrain you have no control in placing may hinder your plans. Plan your line of sight for vehicles, and what you can block with vehicles during the game. Keep in mind what to make room for and how you need to position everything with the objective of the game in mind at all times. A hill can be a godsend or a curse if you do not plan things accordingly.

 

B2.

How many turns will it take.

You may have a transport or several holding invaluable troops or specialists to get the duty done. Having to take an extra turn getting into melee could cost you the game. Having a unit survive a turn longer sitting on an objective can win you the game. This is all very detrimental to victory. Be sure if you want results, act fast and deploy with terrain in mind. Remember terrain is a hinderance if you want to get close. Not only in causing you dangerous terrain checks for your transports and difficult terrain for your walkers. It also tempts you to waste inches getting to the enemy.

 

B3.

Placement with an idea in mind.

Having a transport ready to pivot and roll forward 12", then rushing a speeder in front of it is a great idea. A rhino is 4" length average(modeling may change it), and the land speeder can rush 18" while starting behind the rhino. Keeping the speeder alive if you don't get the first turn, and not having to use smoke launchers until later in the game. There are many combinations as I will share later, and will sorely depend on your unit placement.

 

 

So now with all the generic stuff and perhaps the well known stuff put fresh in your mind lets get to the main course.

 

 

Part C, being pushy and getting your way.

 

C1.

Tank shock nuisance.

You can force a leadership check every tank shock. You can tank shock in a way that you can force multiple tank shocks by funneling the enemy models toward other vehicles ready to tank shock. If your keen on them not doing a death or glory attack, you can use multiple tanks to force entire units and models back. Keeping the 1" distance rule in mind at all times, tank shock one side of a unit with one tank. Then push in the middle with another tank. Then push with perhaps a third or forth tank and force them back even further. If they survive all the LD checks (or perhaps fearless) they will be forced back with no way to regain the lost distance. Very popular against orks and specialist anti infantry units the rely on being close to you.

 

C2.

Turn sequence abuse.

Movement phase comes before the other two phases. You can abuse this by moving in the way of your enemy and sitting a non-WS vehicle to prevent them from moving within 1" of it before assault phase. Giving you access to a type of tarpit in a different sense. This is bit of a suicidal tactic however, as it will get lots of attention. In return, you can stop a unit from getting a single inch closer, or forcing a vehicle to move a full 6" sideways to get another 6" closer with a single rhino in its way.

 

C3.

Blast Abuse.

This can go both ways. First I'll go with the offensive side. You tank shock at a point of an enemy unit where it moves the minimum distance out of your way, naturally tank shock only a few models of many to push them into their own unit. (Remember lash+oblit tactics? This has been around since 3rd edition and available to almost everyone.) You push the target as you best fit, keeping 1" distance rule in mind as always. May be from the top hatch of a rhino a few flamers say hello (or a flamer+combi-flamer). Or enjoy the minimal risk of a few frag blasts being sent down there. The defensive nature of blast abuse is depending on a tank surviving. The enemy cannot place a blast weapon where it touches their own model in any way shape or form unless its a flamer weapon. (Re-read template rules, you'll be shocked what it says). Charge a vehicle that may be stunned with your unit if you do not kill it with shooting and pick the less damaging strength value of your marines instead of krak grenades that could kill it. You may not destroy the vehicle, but you will stop any leman russ battle cannons from vapourizing your men.

 

C4.

Defensive line of sight.

The unit can see past itself no matter what models are in it. You can line them up to all shoot one direction, keeping a vehicle in the way of most oncoming fire. You can set up even in a way where more then 50% of your unit see's just one enemy. This can flow two ways, low AP weapons with many shots shooting tough armor targets that get a useless cover save, or using high strength guns to shoot vehicles where only the firers line of sight counts when shooting at an armor value vehicle and gets no obscurity. This works for all models if you can block enough LoS to offer obscurity/cover saves.

 

 

Now for formations. Trust me you'll like this part.

 

 

Part E, formations and how to stay together.

 

E1.

Obscurity by default.

It is a given that the model in front moves first. You can place a rhino in front of a land raider, and give the raider obscurity at most angles firing at the front. A land speeder on a low base can cover an angle of a rhino with obscurity, while moving fast enough to give itself obscurity. A predator can enjoy a AoBR dreadnought's obscurity while firing all of its weapons around that dreadnought. (I say AoBR since its the smallest legal GW model dreadnought) That same dreadnought could be obscured by enough marines in front of it. This formation relies on similar speed models if it must remain mobile with the front model always able to move or be moved around when compromised. I have seen a land speeder storm (since its big) obscure a land raider. There are many combo's to run with, and maybe the vehicles you normally take can be combined this way. Just be careful of blast weapons, they don't just miss these days they scatter and can hit other things.

 

E2.

The wall.

Either a vehicle is a tank, fast, unwilling to get into melee with it or be stuck or otherwise able to get to a location where the enemy doesn't want them to be. You can tank shock, push past and try to split the enemy army in sections that you can deal with. Most notably a melee army that would be counter charged will focus on one half of the enemy while your vehicles push back the other half. There are many ways to do this, but I will cover the idea that you push in and make a line of vehicles to prevent them from getting through easily. A shooty style army benefits from having their vehicles block a large portion of fire when the majority of your army can fire on the enemy. It works differently for both styles and can be combined if done well.

 

E3.

Vehicle pinning. (you heard me right)

You must pin a vehicle in three spots or on both sides to prevent it from moving. It must pivot or move forwards/backwards in order to move, and obviously does not work against walkers. You can do this to a rhino by getting in front and behind it with a vehicle, ram no matter how many inches to make model contact. (this prevents pivoting, three land speeders can do this in a single squadron!) Or you can pin a land raider by putting one rhino in front of it, and a rhino behind one of its side sponsons preventing it from going anywhere. Abusing the side sponsons to keep it in place for a turn or more. Since you can declare a side sponson to be removed if you happen to get a weapon destroyed results.

 

E4.

Disembark dillema.

If you cover all the disembark points of a transport full of something and destroy the vehicle, the odds are in your favor you will kill many of the models if not all of them. If its a destroyed results, they disembark normally and die. If the vehicle explodes, they start from inside the wreck, and will need you in base/hull contact to enforce them to die by the 1" distance rule. Best done with speedy models like bikes and land speeders or surrounding with men in melee contact. (This is a warning to those who do not disembark when you should.) You can lose men if you only have one point to disembark from and limited space from that hatch to place all 10 models. In a way you can also force models to disembark on a side if you cannot surround the transport, to ensure you can perform further tactics.

 

E5.

Defensive wagon train.

You can hold back the enemy and fire between your vehicles abusing the 1" distance rule with two vehicles allowing 2" of space for all your models to fire past without fear of being assaulted. Just keep in mind the multiple-charge rule where if your close enough to your blocking vehicles allowing space for models to pass between when charging that you need to be 3" or more from your wagon train. Also keep in mind that skimmers like Land Speeders can forgo this and have all models shoot past them by shooting underneath them. Tanks can tank shock things away, Land Speeders can rush to get in the way for the surprise at the last moment.

 

E6.

A note on moving and melee.

For all such formations there are ways to keep things moving 7" and more to prevent any easy melee from getting you down. Keep in mind the vehicles also make difficult terrain for those who want to pass their wrecks. Do also keep in mind that putting all your eggs in one basket is not a good idea to begin with, and should not always be your main tactics but rather be tactics to consider from game to game. The wall has worked well for me some games, and and lost me games. Sometimes the opponent will be wise and shoot your lead vehicle down, or be so well prepared that its of no use to make a formation. I can say this, there has to be room for a unit of terrain ignoring non-tank models to get past your walls in the middle of your models. Walkers can hamper anything if placed at both ends, especially jump packs. They also can use the run rule if you really need them to get back in the way. (More on that later)

 

 

I've been ignoring walkers mostly up until now, here's a bit on them.

 

Part D, Walkers and their unconventional uses.

 

D1.

The run rule.

This is a bit awkward, but if you choose to use the run rule its most likely getting to the enemy, getting away from the enemy or getting in the way of the enemy. To get to the enemy, the run rule dos not get hampered by difficult terrain. The best use of this is to use the movement phase getting right to the terrain if possible going forward as much as possible, then use the run rule to get inside the terrain as to avoid rolling low on 2D6 after starting your move phase 5" from the terrain. To get away from the enemy, this will seem strange at first until practiced. Move directly away as normal, but run at an angle that is both away, and towards the nearest table edge (away from the middle of the table). This keeps you moving in a spread pattern with your dread+other things that are moving away. If they pick to go after something that is not the dread, you will be able to fire and not run at that point. Getting in the way of the enemy, move out of the way of your shooty models and then run back in the way to give them obscurity/cover saves. Dreadnoughts have a base, and thus the base is shot past like any other unit, so he covers the unit in terms of area terrain.

 

D2.

Assault and the perks of being prepared. (personal note, I HATE THIS TACTIC)

Vindacre Assassin, Telion, Jaws of the World Wolf, Gift of Chaos, Boon of Mutation, any way to remove that single powerfist of an enemy unit (or similar model) is a very powerful "no" to having your walker perish and enjoy a free munching. (Mind War, and so on for other armies this also can be done, its a very potent tactic used here) If you do this, be prepared to have the player be a little ticked at you for a while. This is getting up there in disliked tactics as deep as the lash tactics.

 

D3.

Gunfighting and corners.

Using a fellow vehicle, another dreadnought or otherwise be able to see around terrain with obscurity you can use half the model to fire with the other half hidden. Almost all walkers these days have their gun on the left, or right side, or stand so tall that they can have their lower body hidden behind a rhino (Defiler). Remember with vehicles you don't get LoS with the head, you aim with the gun. And a dreadnought can easily peek its right arm around a raider to get obscurity. This bodes well with very long range defiler battle cannons, and venerable dreadnoughts with a Techmarine/MoTF nearby to fix him. (making the only options you force rerolls are vehicle destroyed/explodes results, somewhere near survivable as a falcon in 4th edition)

 

D4.

Buddy system.

Most big hitters can only direct all their attacks to one unit at a time. Use two dreadnoughts and that single powerfist will only strike at one of them in melee. If you have two dreadnoughts and one unit intends on melting one, and they do they cannot charge the other one because they killed what they shot. Two dreadnoughts are often better then one and do best near each other. If you pick two to cover two sides of the table, hide them if you split them. Or place them near each other near the center of your deployment area so they can pick to go either way. Remember they have the run rule to make up for speed now, so don't be shy placing them a little behind the deployment line to stay out of view.

 

 

Ok I'm pooped and dizzy from trying to remember everything without referring to my sources. If I missed anything then by all means post here what I missed or faltered in putting correctly. I think I covered land speeders in the posts, I may add a different section on them later. But for now this should suffice. Add your own take on the "Metal Element" of the game since it may be nice to add to the other four elements in the term of uses.

[Giga]

You make some nice points, here, although some are highly situational.

 

E3 and E4, for example, means a vehicle is close enough to the rest of your army, without support from its own army, to enable you to safely surround it on all sides. At this point, one must wonder; why is that vehicle even alive? It's basically standing in the middle of your army, why not just pop it with melta instead?

 

I use a sort of this, though. I like to assault the front of immobilized land raiders, and then use my units to surround the front hatch + the two doors on the sides. This prevents whatever is inside from disembarking, and if I manage to wreck the said land raider in the following turns, its passengers will be forced to do the Emergency Disembark, which causes them to go to ground.

 

D2, for example, is also not all that mandatory. Sure, it's useful to take out the power fist, but a power fist really doesn't stand much chance of really harming an ironclad or a venerable, anyway.

 

I also don't understand the D1. Do you mean that if you run away you spread out your army, and that's why you run diagonally, to keep the dread running away from the rest of your army? In that case I'd simply move the dread 6" and shoot at the opponent. In that way the dread becomes a sacrifice unit, intended to lure the opponent.

 

 

 

Nice tactica, on the whole. ;)

 

EDIT: would be also quite great if you could add some battlereports (with pics!) depicting these particular things being done in-game.

[Corpse.]

I use a laptop and no cam, computers arent much my thing other then emails~typing out stuff. Sorry I don't think I'll have batreps/example pictures.

 

To the dreadnought D1, to charge something splitting from the main body is to engage something further from assault on the other side. If a vehicle goes after the main body ignoring the dread, you may get a chance at the side/rear arc like a chimera full of meltagunners, the side is a bad spot, even a valk could be hit on the rear=bad.

 

 

Your right on the very situational tactics, they are very narrow margin of error/success depending on what your up against. A rhino wall can really put down an ork footslogger army if you keep the wall moving. Like for example, you run 4 rhinos up empty and spin them to their sides all facing left or right. Then the front rhino spins to face the enemy, goes 3" forward, spins the opposite direction and moves its max distance. The rhino more to the opposite side does the same in a pincer move, then the two un-moved rhinos cover the rears of the now front-middle rhinos that already moved.

 

XYYX

now goes

YXXY

Continuing a pincer in tank shock chain, wall, and moving more then 6" per vehicle. Though this formation is so very easily dismantled and thrown into disarray I felt it needed no real mention. But say if you did it with skimmer tanks like some other armies are capable of doing, you could easily create a situation where you cut off one unit at a time for units behind them to mop it all up. Marine armies lack such vehicles, and land raiders are too costly to do it with and ignore their guns which would be more sane.

 

But, if you have a spare 140 pts in rhinos doing nothing and an enemy that cant kill them with shooting. Perhaps maybe a necron player with bad luck and you took extra armor by chance on everything, or a tyranid melee force full of gaunts and the like.

 

D2, you would be surprised. Some people run with 6 dreadnoughts, or 3 dreads+3 defilers with this tactic in mind. I'm quite serious people intend on locking your troops and overpowering your specialists with everything they've got.

 

E4 is more of a jump pack and bike tactic that can be performed by other models if you overwhelm them. Say, like surrounding a land raider. I have pinned all three disembarking hatches with rhinos to prevent the monsters inside from getting out before I killed it. You would be surprised, taking 5 squads of twin meltagun powerfist champ squads in rhinos that a fair number of rhinos may survive, or become mobile later because of their special rule.

 

Its more so a rough guideline to help people remember that their vehicles are more then what they seem and they can do things without having guns to perform their uses.

 

There are also times I have won games purely by being aggressive with the vehicles and pushing the enemy off the table. Average LD8, tank shock it 4 times (or rather roll 2d6 four times) and you will see something interesting. Keep your vehicle within 6" of that unit before their turn starts each turn and you're in the green. (2 Rhinos tank shocking full speed past 140 guardsmen, you will be shocked at how many that run, then continue to run because your still within 6")

 

 

Very nasty even in the most basic tactic against the right army.

[Giga]

Hehe, I know about the tankshocking stuff off the table. I often do that to IG players in my LGS. :o

 

As for the D1, again, you can do the exact same thing with anything, not just dreads. I like to do that with my bike captain armies, where I split the army in two and create interlocking lines of fire so my LR and tacticals can usually get shots at enemy's side armor. It's not walker-exclusive.

[Corpse.]

D1, yeah, but to create an opening where you can lock them in combat for possibly more then one turn if they have to melee your dread down. Or get that extra inch or two away from your army if he wants to melt the dread. It all adds up, I wouldn't be saying it if I had not experienced it myself. I can recall a Lord of Change stomping my dread, then be 2" from assault in the final turn to contest an objective. He would have killed it sooner and been there a turn ahead of time if I had not diverted away a bit.

 

Either way its a little risky, situational. I couldn't find too much to add on dreadnoughts so that bit is in there regardless.