The simple thing everyone gets wrong with battle tactics.

[Belathor]

I have been on the grind with aos games lately trying to complete 100 games with the same army really trying to develop a new cities list and master it. Right now I’m at 25 games in 2 weeks. If you’re in any of the tts discords you probably have seen me grinding out games.

I’ve began to notice something that about once to twice a game most players including me fail a battle-tactic that they shouldn’t have just because they didn’t understand one simple thing. I don’t want to admit how many games it took for me to realize this. 

The battle tactic is not your plan for the turn.

What do I mean by that? I was in quite a competitive and close game with this great skaven player. We’re on shifting objectives its turn three he gets priority this turn is critical to swing the game.

One objective i completely control. The middle I have 25 ironbreakers left alive on and staring them down with a clean line of fire down that fatal funnel? 6 stotmfriends. And the third a phoenix and 6 freeguild guard. And staring them down 40 beady little eyes of 20 clanrats close enough to move all 20 on without even having to charge the phoenix.

The plan is simple. Kill the ironbreakers swarm objective 3. 

What battle tactic would you choose here?

Conquer ok that was easy.

But in the moment is it so easy to pick objective 3? You’re so focused on what your plan is when you realize you can easily swarm it you put it out of your mind and are lazer focused on the middle.

The middle has a chance of failure. Objective 3 that you can out body does not. So inevitably i rolled hot and only lost 3 ironbreakers against 

It seems so obvious from here but i swear this happens every single game. 

Objectives will be open they’ll have a teleport and conquer available and even use conquer but pick the one they have to kill stuff off of or they’ll pick broken ranks on a 30 man unit of irondrakes or ironbreakers when they don’t even have something in combat with it because that is the plan for the turn.

When thinking about your turn first think “what is the easiest battle tactic to score” it should take almost no effort on your part. In my experience until turn 4-5 theres always one easy one. Then think of your plan. Not plan first battle tactic second. 

A tip on broken ranks:

Be patient. As the game goes on eventually a battleline will be low. Just wait until its your turn and a battle line has 3 models left and then use it not on my 20 block of phoenix guard that are fully buffed up. Even if you can get your entire army with gotrek into them you will bounce. They will live wait until the next turn where they’re severely weakened

Oh one more thing.

Read what they do.

Ferocious advance requires you to be within 3” of everyone who ran. Is it cant be a line of monsters it has to be a triangle of monsters a ^ whatever you call that symbol formation. Today on the team tournament someone screwed that up turn one and lost 3 points.

Also savage spear head requires you to be wholly within their territory at the end of the turn. A shocking amount deepstrike within and charge out Of the territory. I definitely have never done this and totally did not lose a game by this getting called out on it. Nope it was a uh… friend… I swear!

Hope this helps

[swarmofseals]

Great post. Battle tactics are an incredibly important part of the game, and failing one or two can easily be the difference between victory and defeat.

In general terms you should pick the tactic that you can guarantee or near guarantee yourself to accomplish that is also the hardest to accomplish later in the game.

For example, lets say your opponent has a weakened monster and a fragile battleline unit and you are confident you can near guarantee killing either one. Broken Ranks or Bring it Down are both good choices here, but you should consider which you are more likely to get another shot at later. If your opponent only has the one monster but several battleline units you should do Bring it Down. If they have multiple monsters but this is their last surviving battleline then you should do Broken Ranks.

On the other side of the coin, you should also be thinking about your opponents' battle tactics over the course of the game. Think about the battleplan, their list and your list and try to figure out which tactics they are likely to be able to guarantee, which are stretches and which are near impossible. If you have an opportunity to sacrifice some resources in order to deny your opponent an easy battle tactic you should seriously consider doing it. Do you have a monster or last battleline unit that is hanging on by a thread? Unless you can realistically heal the unit you might consider suicide charging it during your turn just to get rid of the unit and deny your opponent the opportunity to use Bring it Down or Broken Ranks.

When you have the opportunity to delete an objective going second in the third battle round, consider not just which objective is most strongly held by your opponent but also think about which objectives your opponent might need access to to complete battle tactics. You won't always want to delete an objective that you hold lightly just to deny your opponent their Conquer, but once in a while it could be the correct play.

A final consideration that will rarely be the best play but sometimes can be useful is the bluff tactic. If you think you are unlikely to be able to complete a tactic, you might consider trying to bait your opponent by calling a tactic to kill a specific enemy unit in order to induce them to use Finest Hour or other resources. For example, you might shoot that unit with a small missile attack to bait out All Out Defense and then direct the rest of your fire at your real target. A bluff tactic will probably only be the right play very rarely, but it's a good trick to have in your pocket.