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Battleplan Strategies (Take and Hold)


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Objective

There are two objectives deep in each player's territory.  Controlling these requires 5+ models within 6" and no enemy models.  A major victory immediately occurs if someone owns both starting turn 3.  Game concludes at turn 5 with tiebreaker being points for units killed.


Paper, Scissors, Rock (Strong, Stronger, Strongest)

Gunlines, hordes, summons, teleporters.

Gunlines are useful for maintaining control of your objective while delivering pain across the table.  This strategy will almost always result in a minor victory, if at all. Armies that can be in your face (summons/teleports) will put your objective at risk while you lost the ability to control theirs.

Hordes has a significant number of models to make controlling their own and pushing on yours very easy.  A sound strategy is to keep inspiring presence on hand for the defending unit to hold out while they come for yours.  The weakness of hordes will be in their speed, bravery, and flank vulnerability.  Use fast units to get to the side of a horde and charge.  Either they pile in away from your objective or they end up being stuck in position.

Summons are a great way to get to the alternate objective.  A tough summoner that can fly like Arkhan will be really useful here.  Similarly teleporters will get the drop on the opponent without some of the risks of summoning.  Beware, however, that an aggressive opponent can be on your smaller force before you have time to get to theirs forcing the fight closer to home.


Strategy

The objective is area control.  Do not sit on the objective.  Form up around it, but within 6".  You want to block the opponent from charging into that area.  Beware of units appearing in from behind or charging over your unit - cover as much area as possible without jeopardizing your unit's ability to fight back.

Be certain to have at least one large and durable unit who can serve as a defender or that will march to capture.  If no large unit is defending you will need several other units to keep hold of the area.  Remember that if at any time after turn 2 the opponent is able to remove all your models from that area then he wins immediately.  If the enemy is in your zone they only need to focus on killing units in that area.

Determine your best approach based on the opponent's army.  Are they summoning or teleporting? Is your army fast? Move quickly to his zone.  Are you slow? Defend, but set up 2-3 of your faster units to a flank.  Use these units to to threaten his zone if he marches out with too many units.  If all else fails defend with everything you have and try to force  a minor victory.

Ogors and other similar monstrous infantry style armies will have a harder time controlling objectives.  Your goal is to use your weight to throw your opponent around.  A suitably sturdy model like the stonehorn can maintain contention while you work your opponent down.


Risks

There is a distinct possibility that a double turn for your opponent could end the game for you.  Mitigate this by going second, if possible, and by having fewer units to drop at deployment.  Someone with an alpha strike army may want to go second as that could clinch victory very early.  Deny them this if you can.  Problematically having more drops makes it easier to out deploy your opponents and create a refused flank for other scenarios.  

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8 minutes ago, The Jabber Tzeentch said:

This is a great OST write up. I hope you plan on doing the other five battleplans?

Absolutely!  They're mostly done - I just don't want to spam information and give time to process each one and get feedback/ideas.

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I actually think you under estimate the gunline.   YOu need to have 5 or more models in 6" or something like that. So as soon as they drop to 4 you can claim it with any sort of quick 5 model unit. Maybe something like miners or some sort of calavry. You could even just suicide charge to get within 6". 

I think another important thing to realize is you need FIVE models to control that space.  Ogres will be hard pressed to do this. It's gonna be an expensive hold for them. So they'll need units of grots in a tournament to really have a worthy unit to hold there objectives. 20 mdoels at 100 points is the best deal you can get for models per point. 

 

However, look at ironjaws. Imagine doing this mission with iron jaws. your minimum hold back is 180 points. If you have brutes and they take 3 wounds or so you just lost your power to hold that objective. You'll need to win it quick because your holding power will also slip quite quickly. 

Horde armies can hold their own objective and take the enemy objective with the same unit stretched across the board almost.  Like grots from the ogre accept the density of wounds you'll have to remove is immense.  In fact hyou can keep a train with 5 guys around the objective going back, and move the unit up if you need them. If they start picking guys off that unit simple take dude from the front, and not the objective side. These horde units can bully the maps in these model count scenarios. Unlike none horde stuff like ironjaws where your objective unit has to pretty much uselessly stay out fo the fight, and maybe even a second suppore unit as well. Horde armies can use a horde block to hold an objective and be aggressive with it at the same time.

 

As you said teleporting is pretty strong,. mainly because you start 3" away with most teleporting effects.  summoning has a 9" bubble you need to worry about, but the 3" bubble of summoning can let you steal the objective when ever it's free. This makes get double turns insane.  If you can clear them on your turn going second on the second battle round, and then take first turn in the third you can potentially sweep the game. 

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I edited the OP to address ogors and hordes.  

Gunlines that have a spare unit or two that can drop in are not of a huge concern.  You should be putting pressure on their end of the table rather quickly.  If they have something to bring in that should be easily dispatched as it will be unsupported.

If your opponent is coming in you should make sure no charge move ever puts them in objective range unless they have some funky pile-in like skin wolves.

 

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28 minutes ago, daedalus81 said:

 

Gunlines that have a spare unit or two that can drop in are not of a huge concern.  You should be putting pressure on their end of the table rather quickly.  If they have something to bring in that should be easily dispatched as it will be unsupported.

 

See that's the thing. Well see that something doesn't really need support if you spend a turn drilling the control unit down, and then get the first turn, and summon your unit to claim the objective. You just win right there on the spot. Summoning can't do this as odds are you opponent will having something within 9" of the target.

Now as for charging. Mind you some units can fly. Hex wraiths could charge in and fly over the heads of other units to claim objectives. They can squeeze between models and such to get to an objective with out that 3" enemy unit bubble as the charge fress you of such restrictions. Heck they can even fly pile in so any gaps are dangerous here. 

So units on the objective will want to be  tightly packed 6" deep. 

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I had considered flying units, but they're often not very strong and don't usually come in large enough numbers.  Hex wraiths are excellent, but will not be supported by ranged units.  On their own they'll be a considerable objective grabber.

I'll reword my statement about covering the objective.  I don't mean to say make a single line deep, but rather make sure you're deploying starting at the outer edge of that 6" to keep most charges from contesting.

If I have to worry about gunlines I will be marching on them while keeping mystic shield on my control unit.  All the better if they want to put shots into something that isn't coming to kill them.

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I have played this game with my gunline Freeguild army vs Ironjawz and I found it very difficult to play for the objective. I kept a unit of Outriders out of harms way ready to race up the board, but even with heavy shooting, totally clearing the back objective of defending models from shooting is a very hard task.

In my opinion the armies most suited for this scenario are super choppy fast close combat armies. Take something like Nagash the Morghast Archai, Arhkan and a few other big nasties. Take the first turn, summon up your Archai and score a turn one charge (with the 3D6 charge they have). The enemy has to react to them - turn 2 charge everything else and try and punch a giant hole in the centre of the army.

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Very interesting indeed. My horde army was a big fan of that scenario. My big zombie units stretched across the battle field. Part of them stayed behind wrapped around the objective. 

 

The other half went forward and wrecked shop. 

 

I'd figure gun lines wouldn't struggle to much as effectively your whole army could remove an objective camping unit, but I guess you lacked the appropriate objective capturing unit to follow up?? I would assume demigriph would do well here. 

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6 hours ago, daedalus81 said:

There is an upper limit to the number of shots you can get to reach over 5 turns depending on the size of your bases and the formation of the opponent. Not everything can shoot at one target.

I think this depends on the army and who goes first.  I think one of the most powerful shooting armies right now is wonders.  They have a great unit that does nothing but hold the line, and does it really well. Eternal guard and glade guard can all move up 6 and run behind it to get into range early on. They also have sisters of the thorn or wild riders to try to get in and steal that objective. With a few cheeky retreats they can very likely get in there. A -3 rend alpha strike from multiple glade guard units can easily leave the objective purged of enemy models. 

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When I played it, only the Warmachines had range to hit he back unit - 2 cannons and a Steamtank but I also had to react to Goddrak, a Megaboss, 10 Goregruntas etc etc charging my lines (and because of the Destruction allegiance ability the whole army moves an extra D6" in the Hero phase making turn 2 charges a norm.) on the flip side my Outriders needed to get across without losing a single model, because if they dropped below 5 they would longer be scoring.

Still, this was only from my first experience. When I play it again I will try to win through the objective again and see how it goes.

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31 minutes ago, bottle said:

and because of the Destruction allegiance ability the whole army moves an extra D6" in the Hero phase making turn 2 charges a norm

When I first encountered this it took a lot of readjustment.  Orcs can move fast.

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