To use or not to use GK tactical objectives

[Mushkilla]

Mate, you need to explain this better. How in the hell does Deepstriking 1" away work? By definition, unless you roll a direct hit on the scatter die, you're very often going to Mishap into an enemy unit...

Simple, if half the 12" circle around the deep striking model is full of models you have a 1/3 chance of having a mishap. If a quarter of the 12" circle is full of models you have a 1/6 chance of having a mishap. Mishaps have a 1/2 chance of putting your terminators out of the game and a 1/2 chance of putting your models into ongoing deep strike reserve (it's all explained in the article I linked earlier, it even has diagrams!). In truth, I don't always deep strike 1" away some times I'm wild and go as far as 3" away!

Castling? You are right it's the standard defence against deep strike heavy armies (Dealing with Deepstrikers). However, when your opponent castles he sacrifices his mobility, reduces the space he has to manoeuvre, and more often than not gives you a nice corner that makes it easy to get a 1/6 chance of mishap deep strike. We are a slow army (with great one shot mobility), pinning an opponent in a corner where they can't play the objective game or make the most of their mobility is playing to our strengths. A castles mean your opponent is close to the table edge (as like you said he doesn't want you landing behind him), this limits how far he can fall back and makes every leadership test he takes a threat (and helps us get around no sweeping advance).

I want my opponent to castle, because like you said we don't have the mobility to play maelstrom missions. We win maelstrom by stopping our opponent from playing the mission, forcing your opponent to castle, through a combination of clustering objectives and null deployment does this.

Unlike other armies we can bring our entire deep strike force on turn 1 thanks to rites of teleportation and a comms relay (Hurrah for imperial bunkers!).

Rapid fire? I'm going to take a volley of rapid fire at some point, I would rather it only be once, deep striking in such a way that i'm guaranteed a first turn charge does this. Why land far away? We aren't going to outshoot Tau, so why play their game?

A series of unlikely event? Like I said before I did the combinatorics maths, taking into account the odds of an accurate deep strike, potential scatter, run rolls, the opponent moving back and random charge distances. You have a 9/10 chance of making the charge in the second turn. Not to mention that's if your opponent moves 6" directly away from you, easier said then done when they are in a castle pinned against the table edge. Terminators will die to shooting without a doubt, but the ones that survive will make it into assault.

Ever since I did the maths I changed my deep striking tactics to be more aggressive from my old conservative approach, with a lot of success. As mentioned above if you use the circle segments to minimise your deep strike risk rather than distance you can deep strike aggressively with a minimal risk of mishap.

Will you lose models? Yes. Will you lose entire units? Yes. Will some make it through? Yes. That's all you need. We are a tempo based army that's all about applying pressure. You beat Tau by overwhelming them, not by hanging back and trying to outshoot them.

And that's still not including tricks like Flat Outing Devilfish in front of a unit afters its fired and so on.

I'm well aware of those tactics, I wrote a Tau guide on them in 6th edition (Piranhas & Positional Play). There's even and example against Grey Knights.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

There is, and to be clear I'm not saying BE suicidal. My point is simply that going too conservative can be the same as foot slogging in many cases. We have superior initial placement but poor redeployment options. I think its accepted that we usually don't do ranged attrition very well.

Yeah I agree. If your Deepstrike assault isn't going to get you much closer than deploying normally, then don't bother. But more often than not, it is like a free turn of movement, so even if you do need to back up a little bit with your landing sites, its still better than deploying normally. Depends on matchup though.

Its not always that simple but ya players do make mistakes, and not every army excels at those counter tactics. They may be similarly short ranged, and/or similarly aggressive, or don't have the disposable model count to castle appropriately, or terrain interferes, or the mission conflicts with the strategy, or they have transported units that don't want to be left immobile, or they simply fear your blast and template weaponry. Any of these can make it hard to commit to such an all in strategy. Each opponent will weigh it differently depending on their own strategy and threat assessment.

Maybe they wan't to try to force hard decisions by splitting your forces, or maybe they feel they simply don't have the mobility to recover should the aggressive threat turn out to be a feint.

As an opponent to such aggressive DS strategies I can say all of these have factored in to my games at one point or another depending on which army I'm piloting. Its not just about turn 1 Rites of Teleportation or full on DS strategy either. Even one turn changes things.

Relying on your opponent to make mistakes or take a bad list isn't a viable strategy. By the same token, if you assume your opponent is reasonably competent at 40k and his list is too, then your tactics and strategy will roll over bad lists and/or players anyway. So, it's better to fine tune your battle plan to a strong opponent, rather than just hope for mistakes or bad positioning on their part. By all means exploit such things (Deepstrike armies are lethal to units out of position), but don't rely on them. Castling has been a thing since 4th edition.

Simple, if half the 12" circle around the deep striking model is full of models you have a 1/3 chance of having a mishap. If a quarter of the 12" circle is full of models you have a 1/6 chance of having a mishap. Mishaps have a 1/2 chance of putting your terminators out of the game and a 1/2 chance of putting your models into ongoing deep strike reserve (it's all explained in the article I linked earlier, it even has diagrams!). In truth, I don't always deep strike 1" away some times I'm wild and go as far as 3" away!

Castling? You are right it's the standard defence against deep strike heavy armies (Dealing with Deepstrikers). However, when your opponent castles he sacrifices his mobility, reduces the space he has to manoeuvre, and more often than not gives you a nice corner that makes it easy to get a 1/6 chance of mishap deep strike. We are a slow army (with great one shot mobility), pinning an opponent in a corner where they can't play the objective game or make the most of their mobility is playing to our strengths. A castles mean your opponent is close to the table edge (as like you said he doesn't want you landing behind him), this limits how far he can fall back and makes every leadership test he takes a threat (and helps us get around no sweeping advance).

I want my opponent to castle, because like you said we don't have the mobility to play maelstrom missions. We win maelstrom by stopping our opponent from playing the mission, forcing your opponent to castle, through a combination of clustering objectives and null deployment does this.

Unlike other armies we can bring our entire deep strike force on turn 1 thanks to rites of teleportation and a comms relay (Hurrah for imperial bunkers!).

Rapid fire? I'm going to take a volley of rapid fire at some point, I would rather it only be once, deep striking in such a way that i'm guaranteed a first turn charge does this. Why land far away? We aren't going to outshoot Tau, so why play their game?

A series of unlikely event? Like I said before I did the combinatorics maths, taking into account the odds of an accurate deep strike, potential scatter, run rolls, the opponent moving back and random charge distances. You have a 9/10 chance of making the charge in the second turn. Not to mention that's if your opponent moves 6" directly away from you, easier said then done when they are in a castle pinned against the table edge. Terminators will die to shooting without a doubt, but the ones that survive will make it into assault.

Ever since I did the maths I changed my deep striking tactics to be more aggressive from my old conservative approach, with a lot of success. As mentioned above if you use the circle segments to minimise your deep strike risk rather than distance you can deep strike aggressively with a minimal risk of mishap.

Will you lose models? Yes. Will you lose entire units? Yes. Will some make it through? Yes. That's all you need. We are a tempo based army that's all about applying pressure. You beat Tau by overwhelming them, not by hanging back and trying to outshoot them.

So your entire plan is 'throw my army on the mercy of the scatter roll, lose on balance probably half my force to Mishaps, hope for the best'.

This is what I mean man. Instead of talking about where to land, how to position yourself so you can focus fire certain units etc, you're advocating insane 'deploy 1" from the enemy so I can guarantee Mishaps'. Unless you're Dante or Belial, that doesn't work. Also, don't forget that you must deploy models in a ring around the initial model. By definition unless you scatter back from the enemy, you will end up having to place one of the unit on top of the enemy, thus triggering Mishap.

Deploying into the teeth of the enemy's firing line is suicide. Instead of half their firepower being in range/firing at half capacity (ie rapid fire and other short range stuff), their entire army can just focus you down at will. Getting into melee is not something to plan or rely upon, it's a bonus if they somehow don't just shoot you off table. That's why the Turn 1 shooting phase is so critical. You need to land in weapon range, and more importantly within range of critical targets (ie plural). That way, as you start resolving each unit, if they crippled or wipe out a target, you can switch later units into other targets. It doesn't always work out that way, but at the very least you should have a target for each unit to start mauling. The Dreadknights can Shunt where their heavy psycannon and secondary of choice are needed.

Dreadknights are the ones you should plan to get into melee combat. Terminators are just too slow, unless you roll high on charge dice you won't make the distance, and Overwatch is a cruel mistress. That's why I'd focus instead of getting as much shooting work done with your army Turn 1, then after the enemy get their next shooting phase in, getting into melee with Dreadknights and advancing with the remaining Terminators to keep up pressure.

Mishaps will completely screw you over 100% of the time. i don't see what the point is in actively courting disaster, on the odd chance you scatter backwards. You're still not getting into melee, and you all but guarantee the enemy can shoot you at maximum efficiency, and maybe even feed you a chaff unit to tarpit you in melee (Tau are quite happy to sacrifice their infantry if it keeps their battlesuits and tanks alive, other armies have similar expendable units they can use to this end).

[Mushkilla]

So your entire plan is 'throw my army on the mercy of the scatter roll, lose on balance probably half my force to Mishaps, hope for the best'.

How can I lose half my force when I can position to minimise risk? Like I said each unit has a 1/6 chance of having a mishap in exchange for having a 90% chance making it into assault the following turn if it doesn't get shot to death (this is mathematically proven, the dice balance each other out).

In addition to the maths I have played 9 games with this strategy and I have lost one unit to mishap, and have had a unit put out of action by my opponent placing them once (around 36 deep strikes). Which is reasonable 36 deep strikes with a 1/12 chance of losing/opponent placing a unit to mishap comes to 3 on average, and taking into account that my estimation tactics assumes the worst case (doesn't take into account gaps in formations, or circle sectors being smaller, and or scatter dice distance), that's about right.

This is what I mean man. Instead of talking about where to land, how to position yourself so you can focus fire certain units etc, you're advocating insane 'deploy 1" from the enemy so I can guarantee Mishaps'. Unless you're Dante or Belial, that doesn't work.

Like I said before there are no guaranteed mishaps, I deploy my units so there is a 1/6 chance of a mishap. On rare occasions this might mean deploying 1.5-3" away, depending on the shape of the opponents castle.

Also, don't forget that you must deploy models in a ring around the initial model. By definition unless you scatter back from the enemy, you will end up having to place one of the unit on top of the enemy, thus triggering Mishap.

A terminator squad consists of 5 models, which when deployed around the initial model forms a semicircle so that doesn't occur unless you scatter into the segment that contains other models. This isn't theory hammer it's tried and tested, I just like backing up my own gut feeling with statistical analysis, so I know how much of a factor good rolls are.

Deploying into the teeth of the enemy's firing line is suicide. Instead of half their firepower being in range/firing at half capacity (ie rapid fire and other short range stuff), their entire army can just focus you down at will. Getting into melee is not something to plan or rely upon, it's a bonus if they somehow don't just shoot you off table.

I don't do it against all opponents, but against Tau (the most popular codex in my area) I do, as trying to out shoot them is futile.

That's why the Turn 1 shooting phase is so critical. You need to land in weapon range, and more importantly within range of critical targets (ie plural). That way, as you start resolving each unit, if they crippled or wipe out a target, you can switch later units into other targets.

I completely agree, aggressive deep strike goes hand in hand with this though. By landing close my units get to be in range of multiple enemy targets allowing me to pick and chose what to take out. I'm practically guaranteed to be able to shoot what I want to shoot and be in range of "critical targets (ie plural)". Aggressive deep strike ensures you will be in range and have overlapping fire in case you get lucky and cripple a target early. In fact with decent bubble wrap from your opponent aggressive deep strike is sometimes the only way to achieve this.

That's why I'd focus instead of getting as much shooting work done with your army Turn 1

Like I said earlier I completely agree on getting as much shooting turn 1, that's why I deep strike aggressively.

Mishaps will completely screw you over 100% of the time. i don't see what the point is in actively courting disaster, on the odd chance you scatter backwards. You're still not getting into melee, and you all but guarantee the enemy can shoot you at maximum efficiency, and maybe even feed you a chaff unit to tarpit you in melee (Tau are quite happy to sacrifice their infantry if it keeps their battlesuits and tanks alive, other armies have similar expendable units they can use to this end).

As explained above mishap don't screw me over 100% of the time, they screw me over 8% of the time (that's less than seize the initiative screws over some armies). Bad scatter gets evened out by high run rolls or high charge rolls and that's only needed if your opponent has space to move back. That's what combinatorics maths does it calculates the chance of a string of events. Here I'll show you.

-First you find a dice probability calculator that does combinatorics.

-Input the following:

output 3d6+7-2d6-7 >= 0

(3d6 is your charge and run move, 7 is your 6" move and the 1.5" terminator base by completing the circle closest to the enemy, 2d6 is your scatter and 7 is the 1" away from your opponent and his 6" move away from you, 0 is the distance of base to base contact)

-The output is 0.848 thats your chance of making the charge if you scatter (84.8%).

-The you input the following:

output 3d6+7-7 >= 0

(3d6 is your run and charge move, , 7 is your 6" move and the 1.5" terminator base by completing the circle closest to the enemy and 7 is the 1" away from your opponent and his 6" move away from you, 0 is the distance of base to base contact)

-The output is 1 that's your chance of making the charge if you don't scatter (100%).

-We then multiply these probabilities by their chance of a direct hit and a scatter and add them together:

1/3*1+2/3*0.848 = 0.89866...

-The output gives us a 0.89666 chance of making a charge the following turn, which rounds to a 90% chance or a 9/10 chance however you prefer to look at it.

So as long as my terminators survive my opponents shooting phase they will have a 9/10 chance of making assault turn 2, even if my opponent finds a way to move back 6" into his tightly packed castle. Like I said those terminators are either going to get shot to pieces or make combat, so that dreadknight behind them? Its going to get ignored... That's pressure.

Hope that helps explain my point.

[Brom MKIV]

Relying on your opponent to make mistakes or take a bad list isn't a viable strategy. By the same token, if you assume your opponent is reasonably competent at 40k and his list is too, then your tactics and strategy will roll over bad lists and/or players anyway. So, it's better to fine tune your battle plan to a strong opponent, rather than just hope for mistakes or bad positioning on their part. By all means exploit such things (Deepstrike armies are lethal to units out of position), but don't rely on them. Castling has been a thing since 4th edition. 

 

I agree on not assuming my opponent is poor at this game. I don't rely on my opponent to make mistakes but there are always ways to make it so there's 'no good decision'.

 

I would like to think I'm the better player but honestly the majority of my games are won (or lost) on mistakes.

 

Edit- and the best games IMO, the super tight ones, are usually lost on a single dice roll. 

[Quozzo]

-First you find a dice probability calculator that does combinatorics.

-Input the following:

output 3d6+7-2d6-7 >= 0

(3d6 is your charge and run move, 7 is your 6" move and the 1.5" terminator base by completing the circle closest to the enemy, 2d6 is your scatter and 7 is the 1" away from your opponent and his 6" move away from you, 0 is the distance of base to base contact)

-The output is 0.848 thats your chance of making the charge if you scatter (84.8%).

-The you input the following:

output 3d6+7-7 >= 0

(3d6 is your run and charge move, , 7 is your 6" move and the 1.5" terminator base by completing the circle closest to the enemy and 7 is the 1" away from your opponent and his 6" move away from you, 0 is the distance of base to base contact)

-The output is 1 that's your chance of making the charge if you don't scatter (100%).

-We then multiply these probabilities by their chance of a direct hit and a scatter and add them together:

1/3*1+2/3*0.848 = 0.89866...

-The output gives us a 0.89666 chance of making a charge the following turn, which rounds to a 90% chance or a 9/10 chance however you prefer to look at it.

So as long as my terminators survive my opponents shooting phase they will have a 9/10 chance of making assault turn 2, even if my opponent finds a way to move back 6" into his tightly packed castle. Like I said those terminators are either going to get shot to pieces or make combat, so that dreadknight behind them? Its going to get ignored... That's pressure.

Hope that helps explain my point.

That's assuming you don't scatter, you don't get the unit wiped off the table, you don't suffer reduced range due to overwatch killing the few models that can reach the rolled charge range and you don't deepstrike next to jump infantry. I suppose the last one can be avoided though. Not sure how much all that reduces your probability as there are way too many variables to factors in, needless to say; it is less than 90%.

I usually deepstrike roughly 7" minimum from the opponent. If i scatter too far to charge I can always run for cover, or out of range of the nasties.

[Mushkilla]

That's assuming you don't scatter, you don't get the unit wiped off the table, you don't suffer reduced range due to overwatch killing the few models that can reach the rolled charge range and you don't deepstrike next to jump infantry. I suppose the last one can be avoided though. Not sure how much all that reduces your probability as there are way too many variables to factors in, needless to say; it is less than 90%.

It does take into account scatter. As I said, if I don't mishap (my chances of having a mishap are 1/6 assuming a quarter of the 12" circle is full of models), I have a 90% chance of charging. Taking into account overwatch and shooting and assuming they remove enough models to remove your first row (the second row can only be entirely removed if the unit is wiped out). The odds are 85% rather than 90% in that case.

 

I usually deepstrike roughly 7" minimum from the opponent. If i scatter too far to charge I can always run for cover, or out of range of the nasties.

Though safer that does dramatically reduce your odds of making assault the following turn. Without taking into account overwatch/shooting casualties your odds are only 52%. With overwatch and shooting casualties its even less 45%.

[Quozzo]

Though safer that does dramatically reduce your odds of making assault the following turn. Without taking into account overwatch/shooting casualties your odds are only 52%. With overwatch and shooting casualties it's even less 45%.

With an almost 0% chance to mishap.

Mishaps are a part of scattering though. You can't claim its successful 90% of the time, if you don't count this and that and...

Otherwise, deepstriking works 100% of the time

I dont know what it is, but I just can't wrap my head around that 90% figure. Even 2" away from the target has a 1/36 (2.7%) chance of failure. 3" away has 3/36 (8.7%) You're claiming there is an 1.3% chance of scattering 3" away from the target. scattering 7" occurs most often at 1/6 (16.6%)

[Mushkilla]

With an almost 0% chance to mishap.

Mishaps are a part of scattering though. You can't claim its successful 90% of the time, if you don't count this and that and...

Otherwise, deepstriking works 100% of the time

I don't take into account mishaps, because that's the variable I change depending on how the game is going. Like I said before you can vary the risk by controlling the size of the sector of a 12" circle that contains models. That's the point of this article, vary deep strike risk with circle sectors rather than distance from target. If you vary distance from target you increase uncertainty of where you will be the following turn.

It's all about abstracting deep strike into simple concepts that you can apply in game, and variables you can control. By keeping distance constant I know what my chances of charging are if I land. Instead of having uncertainty, and multiple outcomes which could radically change my plan (unit lands out of position, out of range, too close, too far, behind terrain piece). I simplify the problem into two outcomes:

1) I land and have a 90% chance of being in combat the following turn <-constant

2) I mishap. <-variable

That means there's only two situation I need to worry about, and only one variable that I need to control. If I'm already in control of the game I minimise the risk of mishap by being conservative. However, If I'm on the back foot and am going to lose unless I can strike with precision I am prepare to accept a greater risk.

For example:

The game has reached the tipping point, I need to take out a key component of my opponents army that is vital to his battle plan and current position of strength. To do this my deep striking unit will need to assault said component next turn. If I can't the game is lost. At this point I would much rather accept a 1/3 chance of having a mishap if the 2/3 chance of not having a mishap means I have a 90% chance of engaging that component. If I deep strike conservatively in this scenario my chance of winning are unlikely.

I dont know what it is, but I just can't wrap my head around that 90% figure. Even 2" away from the target has a 1/36 (2.7%) chance of failure. 3" away has 3/36 (8.7%) You're claiming there is an 1.3% chance of scattering 3" away from the target. scattering 7" occurs most often at 1/6 (16.6%)

You're probably forgetting the 1d6 run move the nemesis strike formation gets before/after shooting on the turn a unit deep strikes and the potential for gaining 1.5" (which I round to 1") from the placement of the ring of models around the first deep striking model to be closer to the target (all the above is assuming you are deep striking units of 5 terminators). As my method of calculating deep strike risk makes distance irrelevant. Any scatter into a segment containing enemy models is a mishap therefore all landings that are not in that segment are safe. Basically you succeed (don't mishap) or fail (do mishap) based on the direction of the scatter dice arrow rather than on what is rolled on the 2d6.

Hopefully that makes things a little clearer. Again feel free to poke holes in the maths as there may well be some.

EDIT: Having gone over your maths you are forgetting the 1d6 run move the nemesis strike formation gets before/after shooting on the turn a unit deep strikes and the potential for gaining 1.5" from model placement.

The result of output 2d6 <= 3 is 8.33% (chance of being 3” or less away from your original deepstrike point). Like you said it was (without run or the 1" from model placement).

The result of output 2d6 - 1d6 -1 <= 3 is 62.5% (chance of being 3” or less away from your original deepstrike point after a 1d6 run move and a 1” model placement).

Does that make more sense?