cover and fire technique

[wizard12]

now, before I begin, may I not that I have not tried this technique and, at the moment, working on it's theory.

 

This technique probably has been metioned before or is just so obviously simple that no one has ever talked about it. But I am going to adress those who are new to this game and combat squads.

 

the basic idea is that you have two combat squads (or two squads if you can spare that many points.) While one move up, the other stays still and fires full range at the nearet oppenent, in theory wittling them down so they are (in theory) less of a theat. But, as you may have noticed, the ofrward squad has lower numbers if it is assaulted or goes into assault so it's sort of a balancing act.

 

Now this may seem not such a good idea for tacticals as only a maximum of 5 has access to dedicated transport unless podded. Ah, yes this theory is designed for drop podding into a close urban enviroment so this will only really work about once every 5/6 games or even more. To be honist I have to confess that this tactic is really designed for sternguard (or deathwatch if those are the rules you're using) Example: 10man sternguard squad comes down in drop pod. (already quite devestating) They land in a close urban enviroment with little space and LoS but they forge onward. Because they combat squad and have 2 heavy weapons, a heavy weapon can always fire using this tactic, Due to the fact their veterans the threat of assault is greatly diminished and, should an assault last longer that a turn, the second squad can charge in thus gaining the upper hand in combat.

 

I realize this is compleatly obvious to those who use combat squad regually butfor those who don't (like me) I find that having a basic tactic written out could help.

 

I hope that those reading this didn't die of a (bad) warhammer tactic induced heart attack

[JamesI]

I've seen people do this with pairs of tac squads. 1 squad sits and shoots, the other moves up, perhaps firing bolt pistols and assaulting.

 

Combat squads may be to small to make it work, though having two tacticals squads split into combat squads would allow two heavy weapons to fire and have two specials (meltas or flamers) close to fire and two sergeants with fists get in.

[Ming]

Better to do this walking action with 2 sternguard units with 2 GOI librarians. One unit fires, the other gates forward and also fires...heck if you had 2 sternguard units, might as well gate them together...and rapid fire the same enemy unit each turn. 40+ total vengreance rounds is enought to take down a full SME squad every turn...

 

The "overwatch tactic" you muse about (a 80's US Army Mech Tactic) won't work well in a 40K game, the game is too short and the ranges too short. There are some units (like devs) that always sit and fire, while the tactical or assault elements move forward. If there was a special rule for overwatch, it would possibly become viable.

[ShinyRhino]

I used an "overwatch" setup in two of the three games in last month's tournament. I had two tactical squads in Rhinos, so I combat squadded both, parked the heavy weapon trooper with some bolters, and drove the special and sergeants forward. It kinda works, in that it frees one squad to be mobile with their short-range special weapon, and allows the heavy to fire every turn.

In my case, I parked both heavies on my objectives, and fired out at armor threats or bigger mad guys (Necron Destroyers) with my missile launchers.

As for the "fire and maneuver" setup, it doesn't really work. It's too easy to multi-assault nowadays, and the fact that your own troops will provide cover saves when you shoot through them kinda unhinges the whole plan. The whole purpose of real-life fire and maneuver tactics is to pour continual fire into a defender to keep the return fire at a minimum while you advance. Problem with that in 40K is that your enemy doesn't have to put his head down. There are no real lives at stake, so everyone just moves forward. You might get it to work with a Pinning weapon (sniper rifle), but so many units are Fearless or immune to morale checks nowadays, it's silly. it's really only reliable against Tau and IG, and even then only in certain circumstances.

[wizard12]

I never mentioned over watch in my post

 

I mentioned deathwatch kill-teams using sternguard veterans rules though

[ShinyRhino]

Overwatchis a natural extrapolation of the tactic.

Anyhow, with two heavy weapons in a "close urban environment", it might be useful, but the only units that can do it are the Sternguard and Devastators. Both are expenive units.

Sternguard have the benefit of better bolters, but buying a ten-man unit will cost you some big points, and they aren't any more survivable than regular Marines to incoming fire or assaults. The lack of space on an urban board is going to see them assaulted, and the one firing heavy weapon isn't going to make enough of a dent in the aggressor force to save the bounding unit.

If you use some clever formations, thoukh, it might be cool to see. The tough part is getting much distance out of your bounding. Each squad only moves 6" without running. At some point those two squads have to pull even with one another, and that's when I'd strike at them with an assault unit, so I could tie up both squads with just one of my own. If you bound only 3" a turn, you eliminate some of the risk of drawing level with your squads, but as Ming said, there's not enough turns in the game to get across the table only moving 3" a turn. You could rely on your Run moves to keep the squads in bounding formation, but then you're losing all of the Rapid Fire potential of the Sternguard bolters, effectively wasting their points. You want Sternguard firing damn near every turn to make them worth their points cost.