Winning games of 40K: Terrain and Deployment.

 Left we forget what 10E was like...

I want to blog about how to play 10E here as we leave 10E behind. What I will endeavor to do is encapsulate the tactics of 10E in the next few blogs.  I do this in retrospect, after hundreds of literal games played, and dozens of tournaments attended and organized but it is just one man's take on a very big subject.

Consider this a guide, in memorium ,of what I learned about being a tournament player.  All of this assumes you were using "Matched Play" (competitive 40K) rules.

Terrain:

In 10E there are eight terrain setups in the ITC.  They were far and away the most frequently adopted.

Unlike in previous editions where terrain setups for Matched Play werent' strictly speaking codified, 10E competitive play ASSUMED all you were using was ruins, and that you were adopting those maps to play on, with the additional conceit that walls are entirely opaque on the first floor specifically.

The ITC never actually forced any TO to use that convention, but TO's just...did to the detriment of the game.  It allowed generals to essentially not have to adjust to terrain at all and create set piece defense or offensive plans.  Simply put you could practice all eight maps on your free time using great tools like TableTop Simulator (an excellent program) or on a home board.  The lack of variables made folks able to literally "game" the boards for advantage and need not plan for literally anything else.  In practice only about 6 of the maps are frequently used.

This feels far too clinical compared to most other true war games that attempt simulation.  That said, I personally recommend that people pop their armies onto Tabletop Simulator to get the right idea about deploying on those boards, because though clinical and fairly uninspiring, Situation is King.  This blog is about winning, not about my opinion on terrain.  So practice deploying on the maps.  You will start to see some of the reasons why I tell you some of the things I'm about to expand on.

A Note about the math of Secondary Objective Cards

This should get some mention for players who want ot be competitive.  You can spend a Command Point to get rid of a Secondary Objective Card you don't like and choose another.  This is useful but people may not have considered the math here and sometimes use up their precious Command Points to do this when they should not.  

It's absolutely true that you only have five rounds to score and MUST take that seriously.  

BUT...  

You can actually only score 40 points on secondaries.  That means you can score ZERO in an entire round and still maximize your secondary points.   Turn one is probably the worst time you can get desperate and give up a Command Point to see what else the deck has to offer.  Don't reach.  If the T1 objectives aren't great, score what you can but remember that you can still maximize secondaries.  Spare yourself unnecessary expenditure and see where you're at after Turn 1.  It's a race to 40 but it's not a sprint.

Conversely...  pay attention in round 5.  If you have ALREADY scored 40 by the time round 5 comes, or if there is practically no benefit to pursuing secondaries in round 5 (such as you've scored 39 and it's your turn on the top of T5), really think about whether it's worth it to even pursue them, and if it might not be better to simply deny him his.  This can happen without you registering it because you're busy looking at totals instead of the scoring breakout, but there are times when you are trying to score a secondary for no reason.

These two decision points happen in Round 1 and Round 5 of every game.  Play it like a pro.  Don't panic early.  If you've followed all the other advice here, then there is a very high likelihood that you're winning, and that in retrospect you will see that a zero on an objective card isn't the end of the world.

Deployment:

In order of considerations:

1.  Attacker/Defender:  

This is decided with a roll off in 10E, winner deciding who will deploy first (Defender) and who will not (Attacker). 

Your default answer is to force the enemy to be the Defender because they must then deploy their first unit before you do, revealing their plans sooner and the less units they have, the more pronounced this advantage will be.  This should not be an agonizing decision.  It comes with a proviso though.  The best question to ask here is:  "when do I not make the enemy the defender?"

IF you have infiltrators, always ask:  "Do you have any units with the infiltrate rule".  If you BOTH have infiltrators, then you will want to be Defender so that you can place your infiltrators FIRST, which stops the opponents infiltrators from being able to block yours; and from the enemy cutting off your Scout units!  If you both have infiltrators, then you want to be Defender.

2.  Order of Deployment.  

Until you know your specific list very well (notice that I didn't say Codex), you should have your units on a piece of colored paper, written in the order in which you want to deploy them.  Handwritten or typed, no one cares, but have it this way with any notations you find useful.

Why do it?  The order matters.  This is a skillset you need in order to be good at Warhammer 40,000.  Since it isn't going to be listed in the correct order by any list builders (usually), and competitions are timed, the time you take making decisions is salient.  Every minute you can save during the early part of the match will help you at the very end not to be stressed for time and to avoid mistakes.

The OVERRIDING considerations for order of deployment are 1) deploy the least important units first, trumped only when 2) you know both players can infiltrate as I described above and finally 3) deceit.  Put simply, you may simply wish to get an enemy thinking the wrong way about their own deployment or "scare" them from deploying in a certain place by bullying a forward objective with a nasty jaclk-in-the-box.

Below is an example.  This is my current T'au Empire list, written out in the order I would deploy it.  For this to be informative, I noted my thinking next to the units.  This extra exposition will be something individual to your list.  Over time the order may change as you experiment and stress test it.  Changing this order to be more optimal changes your win percentages, because you're no longer winging it, and you're making consciously superior decisions faster.

1.  Kroot Carnivores (deploy 4th if the enemy has infiltrators because if they have infiltrators, we need to cut them off with the GhostKeels to stop them from reducing or eliminating my own Kroot and/or Piranha Scout Moves.  Carnivores are my least important unit, the most unlikely to affect what my opponent does, it has sticky objective, so it is really just the back-end objective babysitter until it can move to do better things).

2.  Piranhas (or deploy 5th if they have infiltrators, as far forward as possible, preferably with enough space to hide with a 9" scout if you go second, making sure you have room.)

3.  Piranhas (or deploy 6th if they have infiltrators, as far forward as possible, preferably with enough space to hide with a 9" scout if you go second, making sure you have room)

4.  Piranhas (or deploy 7th if they have infiltrators as far forward as possible, preferably with enough space to hide with a 9" scout if you go second, making sure you have room)

5.  Cyclic GhostKeel (Put it within reach of the natural expansion objective, far from enemies, because: better range than Fusion'Keel)

6.  Cyclic GhostKeel (put it within reach of the center objective, as far from enemies as possible)

7.  StealthSuits (because you want to force them to place another unit and this one has a proscribed role that will be better to carry out once you have seen a few enemy deployments.)

8.  Riptide (determines where you will want Shadowsun, so that the Riptide is within the radius of her re-roll 1's; and also because his base takes a lot of real estate so you'll need to home him first to ensure you don't underestimate the room it will take to properly save him from T1 harm)

9.  Shadowsun (place her where she can future buff the Riptide and Broadsides.  She's a Lone operative)

10.  Broadsides (hidden but within the 5" move, to move from hidden to killing something)

11.  Broadsides (hidden but within the 5" move, to move from hidden to killing something)

12.  Twin Lance (in most cases Deep Striking BUT can also put them within the Shadowsun radius to start if the enemy is quite fast and aggressive just like this list is).

13.  Fusion Ghostkeel (Try to place it 19" from the best armored enemy target, and deploying it last gives you the maximum amount of time to force the enemy to deploy that armor.  This would preferably be near the enemy expansion objective if that happily is where the armor is.  Going first will mean you are within the juicy melta range for his gun Turn 1 followed by a quick Tank Shock perhaps?)

This example should open your eyes as to the depth of thought that practiced players put into the order of deployment, the purpose of their units, and how that affects it.

3.  Where to Deploy

Have a cheaper, preferably Objective Secured type of unit for the backwards home objective (or if necessary use a Stratagem that allows you to "sticky" an objective, as some players refer to Objective Secured types of rules).  It also will serve to block off reserves.

Cut off the enemy infiltrate AND scout moves whenever you can.  Currently a Scout move cannot be done that brings a scouting unit within 9" of the enemy.   When going first with the force I listed above, it's a full 18.2% higher win percentage (as of the time I posted this) when going first rather than second.  This is largely due to the Scout moves it can do.  Highly significant if you can stop it, yeah?

If the enemy has the capability to bring in reserves, Find the corners of your backfield, measure 9" diagonally from that and place a miniature there.  Spread the rest as much as you can, preferably 9" FROM the board edge, carefully measuring to maximize the coherency distances for maximum coverage.  Do it on both ends of your backfield, which of course requires two trash units whose whole world is this for a couple of turns.  This cuts off a huge globe of space from being invaded by reserving units.

Be able to get to the enemy zone Turn 1, and no later than turn 2.  This can be done with infiltrating units that can charge into the zone, units that have the "uppy downy" ability, stratagems, Scout+ Moving in turn 1... or just being Votann Jetbijes, Vespid Stingwings or even Wierdboyz (you get the idea).  Deploy so that you can do this.  Secondary Objectives often are worth more when you do Actions in the enemy zone, and some cannot be done outside the enemy zone!.  So simply put, you need to deploy in a way that will allow access early.

Value your 'Natural Expansion" objective.  On every map there is typically a No Mans Land objective that is closest to your Deployment Zone, which is commonly called the Natural Expansion Objective.  Figure out which one that is when deploying, and be certain to employ enough units to hold it successfully as the game progresses.  That and the center are your most important objectives.  Deploy like they matter to you.  Have speed enough to get there and put Objective Control onto it Turn 1 witrh some form of fast trash units.  The third and far objective, while aspirational, is more to be denied to the enemy where possible than actually chased.  It just takes more effort to do something about that one.  When you deploy, stilt your deployment thusly.  Secondaries rarely require you to take all three per se, and the "A Tempting Target" Secondary card, while annoying, really doesn't change that enough in my opinion.

When deploying the heavy hitters, you need to remember that if they take a lot of space, you need to premeasure that space somehow so as not to force them into a position the enemy can kill them from.  You really do not want to be visible with any significant units turn one, either by reserving or by deploying them on the board.  Here I encourage you to think about 1) if they can even be in range Turn 1?  2) How far must it move to attack Turn 1 (called its threat range), if forced to, from where it sits? and 3) what is its truly preferred target type and is that target type even present or likely to be present Turn 1.  One of the reasons you deploy these near the end of deployment is this last point.  You kind of want to see where the enemy is putting its preferred target type, so you can matchup with it.  But the first two things I said kind of determine if that's going to be a viable plan.  Once you have determined it is, it's time to lay them down.  But premeasuring their girth and making sure you leave room is important since you will be deploying these later rather than earlier.

Now for the controversial bit:  Anything that cannot affect the game in Turn 1 meaningfully needs to be a very serious candidate for Strategic Reserve.  You who have read this blog know how big of a fan I  am of that.  I use Strategic Reserves a lot, I preach it and I teach it.  It seems like so many enemy forces will put their best units out and for what?  So they can slog across the entire field and get killed for no gain?  Consider the risk:  in HALF your matches, you will not go first...  So in half your matches, you are taking the chance (in my case) of giving me that 18.2% advantage I mentioned, by lining up your bowling pins to be hit.  If I cave the skull in of Angron Turn one, which I recently did, the only person who will be happy about it is Khorne.  So really consider this.

What decides whether it goes from a strong candidate for Reserves to a weak one?  Simple rule I use is that if the enemy is extremely fast and aggressive and will absolutely make the trip across the board on turn one, then you need to prepare your counter stroke, and so you place trash units in front and the counter stroke units behind (7" behind is good for all kinds of reasons).  If a unit on the other hand is not a good answer as a counter stroke or is meant for scoring objectives later in the enemy zone, then definitely reserve them anyways because that's their role.  The sentence that encapsulates all of this is simply "reserve anything you cannot meaningfully use in turn one".  Once you get used to using reserves more, you will find a lot of games will go much better for you.  I'd rather wait to deploy a big boy, in cae i don't go first, and then definitively get the jump on my foe, than risk losing it for no gain.

Okay we got some things done.  We identified our Natural Expansion Objective and where that is; We have now reserved all things that cannot help us turn 1; we have infiltrated to cut off Scout moves or to gain an early lead on objectives; placed our backfield objective trash unit; deployed to both the corners to cut off reserves if necessary (with more trash units), placed our body shields up front (trash) if called for and our objective Control is ready to start taking Secondaries and Primaries as called upon; placed our counterattack units if anticipating highly quick and deadly enemies; finally, we have protected our heavy hitters behind terrain so that they can step out and immediately end threats they must end.  Until then, they are hidden.

A couple other notes on deployment:

Assault armies need to recognize that they are assault armies and not hang back in their zones any more than humanly possible when deployed.  Hide them but do so at the FRONT to the extent possible.  In a recent game an IG player took some Armigers which was unusual; but then placed them to the rear and got them blocked because he was not thinking about it until too many Guardsman were scattered everywhere.  He was worried about me deploying to kill them, so he waited a long time to place them and didn't account for the rest of his army spatially.  They had to spend an entire additional turn wasted in moving into proper position.  That proved fatal to his chances.  Assault units need to be able to assault.  They cannot go behind everyone else.  It's a waste of their potential unless as in the case of the Kroot in my list, they are backyard babysitters and just happen to ALSO be okay at melee.

Likewise, shooting armies got to' shoot, and a certain modicum of common sense must be used when deploying these armies.  Ask your opponent if they have any advance and charge abilities that will affect you or if they have a stratagem that does this and premeasure before you deploy so that you're not caught in their probable threat range Turn one.  It isn't impossible to come back from a turn one charge, but it's a bummer to have to.  I also would suggest that if you play a shooty army, that you provide yourself some speed bump units to keep the wolves at bay and keep them in front of your guns.  KNow your limitations if you're a shooty army and make sure you can maintain some space at whatever cost your codex enforces.

As an exercise I will put another list in the comments below and I encourage you to tell me what you would reserve against an ultra-aggressive enemy with speed (say World Eaters with 8Bound shenanigans) vs a less aggressive list (Astra Militarum).  The list above is an interesting case because everything in that list has a job to do turn one, and so it has no reserves.  It is a rare thing indeed for me to even field an army like it.  The army I list below in comments will not be like that.  I'd love to hear your opinions on how you would deploy it given all of what I will say here in this blog.