Hi guys following on from my previous tactica on army building i thought id procrastinate some more and write some thoughts down about deployment.
Deployment is a crucial part of the game helping you win but also handing you your ass (potentially) if you get it wrong. You need to know the rules of all your army units to make sure you can place them in the most efficient position before kicking off. After youve decided what army you are playing (shooty, magic heavy etc) you need to think how it will coalesce on the battlefield. It would be counter intuitive to place all your shooty stuff in one corner and all your combat stuff in the opposite (unless you got some sneaky tactics or special rules to exploit) as a canny opponant will deploy counter to this and shoot your combat stuff whilst running down your shooty stuff.
As mentioned in a previous thread try and place your units in a way as to let them help each other out. Where one unit can cover the weakness of another unit and vice versa. For example, frenzied troops can be drawn all over the place by a tricksy adversary so to counter this screen your frenzied mob with another unit meaning the opponant cant draw out your frenzied troops. If deploying this tactic however make sure the screening unit is as fast if not faster than the screened unit or you will be holding these shock troops up too much. Another type of screen is the meat shield screen. Need to protect a big unit of expensive not so tough black guard? Throw a unit of inexpensive harpies in front of them. They skirmish too so will be harder to hit and they can outpace the elves.
If possible try and stagger your units so that one failed panic check wont ruin the army plan before its had a chance to kick off. In a lot of armies panic can be a real pain and danger so place your units wisely. If you have units that are immune to panic or have rerolls etc make sure they are the ones facing the big shooting threat, this can make it harder for the shooters to either be in range of better targets/ignore this unit.
Movement is a game winner in fantasy and the best way to employ this is to get flank and rear bonus'. So from the off try and look for ways to turn a flank or scoot round to the rear of units. One way of doing this is to pin an enemy unit in place with a hard, scary unit both literally (in combat) and non literally (by keeping the pressure of a flank or rear charge from this strike unit on if the enemy turn towards other threats) this way a large block of black orcs can face down a unit of empire spears making them face the bigger of two evils whilst your unit of 6 goblin wolf riders zip round the flank to present both a flank charge and frontal charge. The best way to achieve this type of match up from deployment is to have your faster mobile units unobstructed and sitting on a flank (both flanks is better) screened by faster units even better!! Also keep an eye out for any army or unit special rules that allow for special movement through terrain that the enemy thought would help them. A very good example of this is wood elf cavalry (fast movement) and black knights. Both these units can deploy in a forest or behind any impassable terrain in the case of BK's and can quickly threaten enemy lines by not being slowed down. They also have the benefit of starting in or behind cover making shooting them harder.
So how do you deploy those game winner units but dont want to give their position away too early?
Simple take small units of low cost troops (harpies, hounds, dire wolves) and place them down in either relevent or irrelevent positions. Hopefully your opponant won't have as many "drops" (units) as you and so you can dictate where he puts his bigger more expensive stuff so you can deploy to counter it.
An example:
the enemy has 1 uber killy unit that you want to stay away from. This unit costs half his army so he has very few other drops say 3/4. You have 4 very cheap support units say 4 units of chaos hounds costing 30pts a unit. You deploy one to the left he deploys one of his units. You deploy one to the right, he deploys again, you deploy another in the middle, again he drops. You do the same again wherever. Now you are evenly spread across your deployment with equal units so the enemy has no idea where your meaty stuff is going however he is now going to have to reveal where his mega unit is going to go without you dropping anything important. So he drops his uber troops on your left. You are then at liberty to drop your troops on your right meaning the uber unit has a long way to travel before it gets to see combat. All the while you are peppering it with shooting and magic and if able your march blocking it too. This can effectivly (and has on numerous occasions) kept half the enemies points out of the entire game without them hitting once, while being whittled down to nothing. All the while all your points are killing off his other half. And what about those hounds? Well they can move 9" a turn so can redeploy rapidly to your right or go on a march block /redirect his monster block. For the sake of 30/60pts you have stopped an opponant 'owning' you.
Anti scouting deployment
If you have lots of terrain in your deployment zone both ends but you want to deploy on the right hand side for instance, its worth putting a unit on the left to deny scouts (most of em anyway- watch out for waywatchers) a deployment in your zone as they have to be at least 12" away from any unit.
Character deployment
Most characters are designed to sit in units taken to hold them, ie a mounted empire grand master will (most probably) have a uit of knights to sit in or a master engineer will sit in with a war machine.
There are some characters however that employing this tactic might not be the best idea. Im talking of course of the very important scroll caddy. This guy is usually no good in a scrap so ideally dont want him in a fighting unit. So what to do with them. A lot of people field them on their own in or behind scenery which is great just make sure he wont be suprised by any fast flying units or such like. Putting him in a unit along a gunline is another common tactic but the problem here is that usually gunline units are small (10-12) weak and lightly (if at all) armoured. So if an enemy dedicates a decent amount of shooting at this unit turn 1, they could do enough damage quite easily to cause a panic check which you could fail and then have your valuable magical asset fleeing or even fled. Of course when fleeing he dosnt generate power or dispel dice, cant use magic and certainly cant use those yummy scrolls he's carrying. My advice is hold him either alone out of site if he dosnt have any useful spells u need, or if he does put him in a big unit at the start but move him out when the unit nears engagement or you could be providing the enemy with combat resolution and lots of points.
(you can ignore this if your wizard is a tooled chaos sorcerer or vampire) they are pretty mean!
If you have 2 or more big units ie stegadons, it would be my advice to split them up so they can both pose a threat at different areas of the board. This way they are harder to contain and tend to get your opponant to split his own resources to deal with them. If they are all together then your opponant has to do less work to contain them. There are some exceptions to this (as with all other advice) depending on what your army can do and who you are fighting against, but in a general tactica it is something to bear in mind.
ok well there are a few tips on how to place your troops on the ground to get maximum benefit from them. I will let you find out if they work or not but to be fair i use this advice in every game i play and it usually does me ok.
Please feel free to chip in with your own deployment ideas and experiences and ill leave you with a few example of good and dodgy deployments that i have heard of, seen or used myself.
Cheers.
Real examples of good deployment:
1. Anvil behind a hill with stubborn troops on the hill, 2 organ guns to the side of the anvil and 2 units of counter charging warriors either side. Come get it!
2. 2 stegs on either flanks with billions of skinks in the middle, enemy packed tight so some had to go forward. Charged skinks in front, skinks fled, failed charge, double flank charge by stegs OUCHA!!!!
3.Dwarf crossbows with big unit of longbeards w/GW behind. Enemy charge, crossbows flee through (immune to panic) longbeards, failed charge longbeards smash into unit!
Dodgy deployment
1. Vs wood elves 2 level 2's hidden in a WOOD! 1st turn NO level 2's in a wood.
2. Huge combat unit of black orcs sat behind a smaller unit of night gobbos. For 3 turns the night gobbos squabbled leaving the big combat ready orcs stucke behind them and out of the game completly for 5 turns, ahem BEN cough cough.
3. 2 stegs on one flank (before engine came out) against a shooty empire force. 2 stegs moved down flank in tandem. Flank shot cannon hit both in 1st turn killing one and panicking the other off the board.
Im sure there are plenty more but im knackered
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Subject: Deployment tactica 
Fri Mar 12, 2010 2:12 pm
