Cogitating the Strategies the Tactics and the Jedi Mind Tricks!!
Welcome Brothers and Sisters, I’m James, an average closet Warhammer Nerd who has been drawn back into the Warhammer Universe by a Slaaneshi Fiend (friend) I thought I had left the Grim Dark Future behind me in the late 90’s….but it looks like I am back. Join me on my journey back to social and tournament 40K gaming.
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…calculating….calculating….calculating
As I will be unashamedly diving into the more competitive tournament side of the Warhammer 40K hobby, I have been putting my feeble fleshy brain matter to work. I’ve always thought that to be the best, you learn from the best but you don’t just copy the best, you’ve got to be your own person and put your own spin on things.
List building is clearly important and to some extent so is the “META”
The meta for sure is more important in localised area’s, tournaments where you know there will be a regular number of people playing certain factions. If you know there will always be lots of imperial knights players, you’d be silly not to factor that into your army construction. But with larger tournaments, this is going to be much less of a concern as there will be a huge variety of factions and you need to be ready for all comers, unless you take a calculated gamble and accept that if you come up against a certain type of army then you are going to get crushed. I wouldn’t class just picking the most OP broken rules army as META chasing, I’d say that’s more being… a dick?
For those who don’t believe me, look at the lists of the final four players in LGT last year.
I’ve been picking up a few of the basic trick and tactics which seem common to a lot of the most successful players.
Number one pick the most Meta OP army you can lol lol. Zach Point we’re looking at you!
Seriously though, start scoring secondaries from turn one. You can’t have a turn being stagnant, don’t be afraid to spend a CP to get a better card draw. What is 1 CP compare to 5 more victory points?
Be patient, don’t full send like a wild beserker unless you are sure its the right time for your go turn, this is highly highly unlikely to be turn 1. Resist the urge to just send out one of your key units to be a sitting duck, wait for your opponent to crack or quack first.
If you decide you must start sending forward units, consider sending more than one so your enemy can’t focus all their attacks at one unit and nuke it.
This links in with having some skirmishing and chaff units in your list, so that you can get out of deployment, score secondaries and at least try to dictate how your opponent plays, without the need to give up your better units. If you have access to some fast moving troops in your army, then even better as you can establish good board control. You may even be able to pin your enemy back in their deployment zone, meaning they dont even get going until turn 3 and by then you are in a nice controlled position. You have control of all the good firing lanes and you’ve set up some kill zones for those hapless fools across the battlefield and you can already hear the lamentation of their women. (Conan the Barbarian reference for anyone under 40 lol )
The final thing I have noted are the Jedi Mind Tricks!!!!
Yes yes brothers and sisters, perfected as a weapon by some and a sign of great weakness by others.
You’ll notice players luring the weak minded into traps. Begging an opponent to make a play, saying, “ that’s just what I want you to do” “oh please charge my best unit, who have strength 8 attacks”. When in reality, they actually are a little nervous and know it will mess up their plans if you made that play.
Or the opposite they realise you are about to finish off one of their units and they hit you with, oh dont forget they have a 5 up feel no pain or don’t forget they have stealth. Trying to cast some last minute doubt on you as if you are some weak minded fool, when in reality you should reply, “I KNOW THEY WON’T FEEL ANYMORE PAIN WHERE THEY’RE GOING, HERE COME’S THE EMPERORS PEACE……FAREWELL BROTHER!!!!”
