Battleplan Strategies (Escalation)

[daedalus81]

I finally got to get a few games in on this one over the weekend and it is so far my favorite.  GW covered all the things that would be huge concerns in 8th within the rules.  A really, really big kudos for addressing the potential abuses.

 

Objective

The board is cut diagonally with three objectives.  One is dead center of the board.  The other two are quite close to the corners.  Control is more models within 6" than the enemy.  You score a point per controlled objective at the end of your turn.  This allows you the opportunity to act to regain and control and barring heavy losses recover from your opponent getting a double turn.


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

Hordes, more drops,  fast stuff (especially battle line)

Your army is divided into thirds rounding up.  This makes more drops advantageous, because you can dictate the initial flow of the battle.  It also makes any number of units not divisible by 3 without remainder a better choice (11,13,14,16,etc).  If the average number of units for 2,000 points is 12 then 13 units would be your aim (as an example) - providing 5 drops instead of 4.  Having this edge may not always work in your favor as it could give your opponent choice of turn.

Another great feature is that you must place all battle line units first!  This means to get any support for your units you must have at least 10 drops (in 2,000 points).  So either have battle line that can operate well independently or hordes.  An army with many more drops will have individually weaker units, but the option for more support. Choices, choices, choices!  

The final key to this scenario is deployment control, which takes me to the final great feature - units that come on in turns 2 and 3 must have all models within the unit be 3" from an edge in your zone and 12" from an enemy - no conga-line abuse!  So, if you have fast moving battle line and your opponent decided not to try and defend their tight corner a quick push into their zone will drastically reduce their deployment area.  A cheap set of hounds can delay reinforcements to an objective by another turn (or more).

As an honorable mention I think artillery could do well here if you have enough drops to get them on the table to start.  They can sit relatively safely in the deep pocket of your deployment and hold off enemies from the objectives.  If you can't get them on turn 1 you risk being forced to drop other units first if the battle gets out of control.

Strategy

This is really hard to talk about, because you can make so many good choices and so many bad ones.  

If you opt not to defend all three you risk losing area to deploy in.  If you have fewer drops you risk being out deployed.  If you defend all three you may risk being spread too thin.  Also, bear in mind that control of objectives requires constant presence.  If you commit to controlling an objective you can't move your unit to support other fights.  So don't commit strong units to an area unless you think your opponent will do the same.

I almost feel like defending the two near your largest deployment area is the best choice, but you give your opponent free points for the third and if you fail to control the other two is spells certain failure.

[Andreas]

How does this battleplan work if you have ambushing/teleporting units. For example skyborne slayers or wildstalker brayherd or tunneling fyreslayers.

Skyborne slayers: set up all units within 12" of a points.

Wildstalker: Set up all ambushing units on table edges on the first movement phase.

Tunneling fyreslayers: Set up a unit and the Runesmiter any turn.

No to the first two and yes to the last one if you can deploy both the unit and the runemiter in the same turn?

[daedalus81]

You divide your units before setup.  

The scenario says:

"The result is the number of units they must set up, and the number of units they will receive in their second turn. Any remaining units from their army arrive in their third turn."

Skyborne Slayers says (same as Wildstalker):

"Instead of setting up a unit from Skyborne Slayers"

So the units you can set up are the ones created by the division.  In this case you wouldn't put the liberators and judicators on the table normally, but just teleport them in for their move.

 

That's my reading of it in any case and likely the most equitable.

[Shane]

This is going to be the first one out of the book that we play. Really like the staggered deployment approach.

[Lysandestolpe]

I played this mission Wednesday last week. It is the first and only I have played so far and it proved to be very fun. I played orruk with Stone horn (second wave) , 2x 10 boy squads (third wave), 10x boar boyz, boss, and rock lobber. My opponent fielded x3 5 seraphon knights, x2 scar veterans on Crones, and a flying skink priest.

I won basically due to locking his small units in combat and taking the objectives my number of models.

[Nico]

I read an FAQ answer that indicated that deploy off the table units completely circumvent the deployment rules in this Battleplan, which makes them strong!

[daedalus81]

1 hour ago, Nico said:

I read an FAQ answer that indicated that deploy off the table units completely circumvent the deployment rules in this Battleplan, which makes them strong!

I see what you're looking at, but that is talking about something different.  This is the one you'd want to look at:

[daedalus81]

I presume you mean this one, which when I read it means that those units can't set up in the celestial realm.   You could put your battle line in the realm and teleport them in, but that would be all.  Obviously this will still be a topic of debate.

[Nico]

No - it was on the Facebook page I think - it's a specific query on this very battleplan.

It's fair enough really, as since there's no sideboard by default (so you cannot swap in for something else), you would be losing the entire value of the formation etc.. if they could not deepstrike etc.. Sylvaneth in particular would suffer.

[cranect]

I would be interested in the answer to this since I am building up the wildstalker brayherd.

[Andreas]

I agree that you maybe could set up eligible units first turn in ambush or teleport them but if you could deploy your whole army first turn it feels that you are playing a different battleplan compared to your opponent. That isn't what you mean Nico or is it?

I have a wildstalker brayherd and I could see myself covering the opponent deployment zoon first turn and play a game against 1/3 of his army which seems quite boring.

[daedalus81]

I'd rather diminish the power of a battalion for a scenario that hand people auto-wins.

[Marc Wilson]

Great battleplan and thanks for the write up. Allowing the specific deployment rules of it to be overridden by faction deployment rules really slants it too heavily - and I play Stormcast. I see some packs are moving to a 'take 2 or 3 separate 2000 point lists and pick one' methodology rather than a sideboard. This would obviously offset the  loss of formation points in a single list, no sideboard comp.

Be interesting to see how Chris rules this if it's one of the 3 scenarios this weekend at Rain of Stars!

 

 

[Nico]

To be fair it wouldn't be the end of the world if you just put your chaff down and the Skyborne Slayers are pressured to drop in and take those out, then you could counterpunch with your big hitters, or go somewhere the "Captain Slow" Paladins cannot reach. We'll see. There were a few SCGT battleplans that were lethal to certain lists (the realm of fire one with blocked line of sight for gunlines for example).

[Andreas]

I would be more afraid of horde armies that ambush the whole army and makes it impossible for you to deploy anything else other than your chaff. The skyborne slayers could maybe be dealt with.

But the conclusion is probably that armies that can get around the deployment rule are very strong if TOs does not rule it in a different way.

[mmimzie]

This one is all kinds of weird. One thing is you must deploy all battle line first turn. If your army is all battle line you can deploy all battle line on the first turn. Then bring your leader(s) on second turn. 

[mmimzie]

How does this mission work with deploying war scroll batalions??? I'd assume you kind of can't in most cases??? unless the number of units fits within your allotment for that deployment??? like if you have more battle line that you could normally deploy or something.

[daedalus81]

Battalions can be set up together as one drop or individually according to FAQ.  Since a battalion would break the rule about battleline first you'd have to do it individually.

[mmimzie]

Yeah that's what i thought. Now all battle line does indeed have to be deployed in the first round. So lets say i have 6 battle line units, but i can only deploy 3 a turn because my army is made up of 9 units?? 

[daedalus81]

Correct - until GW says otherwise I suppose.