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Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2005 3:06 pm
Posts: 9684
Location: Montréal, QC, Canada
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(nealhunt @ Jun. 01 2007,19:48)
QUOTE Chroma: I have tons of questions about your plans on this one. Let me apologize in advance for this post. I know what it's like to be second-guessed on your tactics and I don't intend to be combative about it. I'm just trying to understand your views on the strategy.
No need to apologize at all! I wish there was more "asking about personal tactics" around here. *laugh* In playtest games, I've recently taken to asking "So, why'd you do that?" I want to understand the thought processes that go into the decisions on the battlefield, so, ask away!
Army selection: Why so many swarms? I think the army would have worked better with 3 major swarms and the points to Assault Swarm 3 spread out over 1, 2, and Nexus (and maybe a couple more Genestealers). Those swarms larger in roughly the same deployment (more on that below) would have cut the board in half from the start of the game. Forcing the SMs on half the board highly restricts their advantage in maneuver.
I like having a lot of activations; comes from being an Eldar player, I suppose. I hate sitting idly by while an opponent can take action after action, so that's part of it. As well, with fewer swarms/formations, it's hard to grab all the areas of the battlefield you need, especially when only the Synapse/Independent creatures can do it.
I believe I will try taking "bulkier" swarms for the next couple of games to see how that works.
Deployment: Why put Assault 3 in the back? Tyranids basically lose nothing by being intermingled (you'd have to hack down more than one entire swarm before there is any negative for the Nids). If they had been placed by Assault 2, all the swarms would have been in close proximity for mutual support. More importantly, a single aggressive move would have completely cut off half the board, forcing the marines to play in a 3x4 area where their mobility and teleport/air assault wouldn't have been nearly as useful.
Assault 3 was deployed as a "Blitz guard"; I realize I could do the Lesser Node thing for that, but I've always found them so fragile I don't like relying on them.
The mutual support thing is a good plan for the future; I'll have to keep it in mind. I've just gotten the "don't intermingle!" thing to heavily ingrained from other armies that it blinded me to the possibilities of potential "free moves"? my opponents are gonna be surprised! *laugh*
Why put the shooty Nexus swarm out flapping in the breeze? Swiching the Genestealer and Nexus position would have put all the swarms in line of fire from the Nexus. No matter what the SMs went after you could have fired on the threatening units.
I think my reasoning for placing the Nexus Swarm there was as a "speed bump" to force the Marines to go the "long way" around, but placing them to cover all the other swarms would probably have been a good idea.
Why wasn't Assault 1 in cover (or did part of that count as cover?)? No barrage templates means you could have piled into relatively small areas. You're all infantry or walkers so you have little chance of failing terrain checks.
Some were in cover, at least the Warriors, not sure why I didn't clump them up.
Turn 1: The Assault 3 engage on the Termies... Why was it necessary? The placement was terrible and they got 2 BMs. You could have just moved away. The Terminators would have had to double move to chase, likely shoot a formation that was in cover, with only 3/4 of their fire. 6 shots needing a 7 to hit don't do much. They would have spent the entire game chasing you around the board doing next to nothing.
Terminators on my Blitz, gotta get them off! *laugh*
The only reason the Terminators won was because of the tie. In the first round they had counter-charged closer, but not based anything, and then killed two Raveners and lost a Terminator so it was +3 for the Tyranids. With the tie, they were able to continue the counter-charge and get in base, and that's when the shredding began.
Once you lost, why did you retreat the direction you did? Moving the Warriors off by themselves is asking for them to be picked off. Moving towards the body of the army would have been a better position. Even if the Warriors didn't make it to within support range against an assault, the SMs would have had to come closer to the other swarms to attack them. That would have allowed much stronger retaliation.
Running the surviving Tyranids where I did got them to cover, if they had moved towards the main Tyranid strength they would've been out in the open.
Once you did that, why did you pull back to go after the Heavy Tacs? Like the Termies, they were no longer a threat. They couldn't load up for air assault. They weren't in the LRs. If you had left them alone and moved away, they would have no LoS and probably couldn't get LoS without a double move. No Engage or Advance and certainly no Sustain. On a Double with most troops in cover, they would have done very little damage.
Again I felt it was about protecting the Blitz and trying to take out the Transporters, I probably put too much emphasis on them, thinking of them as "regular" Thunderhawks. I wanted to eliminate the Crusaders of the Heavy Tacticals, because I've found them to be a real pain in the butt; I was also hoping one Genestealer would survive to allow support fire on the Tacs, but they failed me again. *laugh*
I don't know whether to abandon using 'Stealers or just make big swarms of them? they just die so easy.
Why take Assault 1 after the Warhounds, especially if it meant being in the open? You've already committed to taking on the SMs in the backfield. He's split his forces and is ripe for destruction. Why split up your forces when you could consolidate your position and crush a portion while the rest of the SMs have to chase to catch up? Another swarm back there to assault or support the assault against the Tacs/Termies would have made a big difference.
A double probably still couldn't get Assault Swarm 1 in a good position; I suppose I could have marched some where. I fired on the Warhound merely for the Blast marker and because there was nothing else in range, as well, I'd momentarily forgotten that the Zoanthropes were straight AP fire now, so I thought I had the firepower to strip a shield or two.
The broken Predators were far off in the Marine corner and couldn't be reached.
Basically, I just don't get it. It seems like there were at least 3 chances before the end of turn 1 for the Nids to isolate part of the SM army. That could have set up a turn 2 bloodbath pitting a portion of the SM army against basically all the Nids that were left.
One last thing, I hadn't fielded Nids in a while and not with some of the changes of 7.4. I'll see if I can be much more nasty next game.
And a question for you Neal: How do the players in your group effectively use those three member Lictor swarms? They seem to die really easy when surrounded by the enemy.
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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer
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