06-30-2009, 07:15 AM
Sun Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher wrote a book commonly known as the Art of War. It's an amazing book that I urge you all to read at least once in your lives. Is it relevant to Warhammer? Of course it is. Here’s and example where (paraphrased) he talked about the fundamentals of winning battles;
"In war you should evaluate 5 things before a battle; a)the way, b) the weather, c) the terrain, d) leadership skills and finally e) morale/Psychology".
A) The Way is your battle plan. What is your plan for your army. What is the role of each unit in that plan. Without a plan each of your units is effectively fighting individual battles that occasionally involve other units. Make a battle plan and position units so that they can help make that plan a reality.
B) The weather doesn’t effect Warhammer so much unless you are playing with weather rules, in which case pay close attention to what the weather does to your troops. Those of you who have played the Albion setting campaign will know how much rain effects shooting.
C) Terrain is one of the most important aspects to Warhammer. Hills for shooting blocking LOS, woods, water, difficult terrain, buildings, etc. Books could be written on the use of terrain alone. If you haven’t already done so read the rules on terrain then read them again.
D) Leadership skills are on 3 levels in the Warhammer game. 1)What are the skills of the players like? What is the leadership of army characters like and finally what is the leadership of individual units like? For example is you opponent a novice, experienced player or master tactician? What are your skills like? If your opponent is a novice use the game to try new tactics. Against a master play cautiously rather than risk mistakes that such an opponent will use to destroy you.
2)The leadership of the characters in the army must be examined as well. For example Undead and daemons don’t break, humans however are much more likely to survive leadership rolls with a Lord than a Wizard Lord because the leadership is generally higher with the Lord. Will a BSB help or in the case of a paymaster when he’s killed, hinder the armies leadership?
3)Then there is the individual unit leaderships. Humans cheap but are an easily modifiable 7, Maneaters are stubborn on 8, Dwarves are Ld9 and Slayers are unbreakable so which is better? Well it depends on what each unit does. I use human fast cav to lure out frenzied troops and bait enemy elites by either march blocking them or fleeing charges, something that can’t be done with an unbreakable Slayer Pirate unit.
E) Finally there is psychology. This has proven to be the single most powerful component in the game. Psychology can win you a game without you causing a single wound. Again there are 2 levels to psychology to consider, the psychology that occurs between players and the psychology that occurs in the game.
Whilst psyching out your opponent is arguably very useful, the mechanics of Warhammer mean that the psychology that occurs in the game is more important. Fear, Terror, Panic, Hatred, Unbreakable, Frenzy, Stubborn, Immune to psychology are the most common types of psychology faced by Dogs of War players. Each has bonuses and problems, in direct reference to Dogs of War I’ll briefly address each one;
Terror: The big killer of human troops in particular. Nothing sucks more than troops breaking purely because a terror causer in nearby. The good thing is they are usually singular, unfortunately they usually fly or move very fast. By far the most common solution involves shooting them at a considerable distance.
Fear: Nothing sucks more than autobreaking due to being outnumbered by fear causing opponents. Usually in greater numbers than terror causers they tend to be weaker and/or in fewer numbers than non-fear causing opponents. Once again shooting, magic and ogres tend to be the answer. If you can strip their ranks somehow, fear causes tend to die VERY quickly.
Stubborn: Can be a life saver, especially when coupled with a nearby BSB/paymaster. The majority of Stubborn troops are stubborn on 8’s giving you a 2/3 chance of passing a break test, sadly that still means you fail 1/3 of the time.
Hatred: Good if your first round of combat must be a winner. Re-rolling failed to hits particularly with very strong troops like troops armed with great weapons is awesome, however it is not so awesome to be on the receiving side of Hatred and sadly there are few Dogs of War troops that ever get to use Hatred even if they have it.
Panic: The Paymaster has long been our Achilles heel as his (usually poorly timed) death causes army wide panic. You can minimize the damage two ways, first by taking troops immune to panic, and secondly spreading out those troops that are vulnerable to panic as panic tends to be contagious. Unbreakable, Immune to Psychology and Frenzied troops are all immuned and high Ld troops are less likely to panic. Musicians are also great post panic as they increase your chances by 1 of rallying your troops.
Frenzy: The greatest double edged sword in the game. Frenzy means if you get into combat you get 1 extra attack per model. Frenzy means you don’t roll panic tests for fleeing friends with 4”, a dead paymaster or 25% shooting casualties. Frenzy also means that you can still be broken and that you must charge an opponent within charge range and with light cavalry being so cheap, fast and manouvreable frenzied troops are almost always a liability.
Immune to Psychology: Probably the greatest blessing in the game. When fear and terror causes show up, your troops say “Meh!” Sadly you can still be broken
Unbreakable: No Break or panic tests, No Fear or Terror tests, Immune to everything. Except death. These troops tend to be unarmoured and tend to die very easily especially when faced by armoured opponents or when missile troops shoot the crap out of them. They tend to be expensive and good but not great in combat. Excellent for pinning an opponent’s elites whilst a hard hitting unit smashes into their flank or rear. Sadly they can’t flee and once flanked tend to get bogged down themselves.
Well I hope at least some of this is helpful. SunTzu was a brilliant man who understood the mechanics of warfare like few others ever do. Hopefully this little translation will improve your Warhammer, and in particular your Dogs of War game.
Jase
"In war you should evaluate 5 things before a battle; a)the way, b) the weather, c) the terrain, d) leadership skills and finally e) morale/Psychology".
A) The Way is your battle plan. What is your plan for your army. What is the role of each unit in that plan. Without a plan each of your units is effectively fighting individual battles that occasionally involve other units. Make a battle plan and position units so that they can help make that plan a reality.
B) The weather doesn’t effect Warhammer so much unless you are playing with weather rules, in which case pay close attention to what the weather does to your troops. Those of you who have played the Albion setting campaign will know how much rain effects shooting.
C) Terrain is one of the most important aspects to Warhammer. Hills for shooting blocking LOS, woods, water, difficult terrain, buildings, etc. Books could be written on the use of terrain alone. If you haven’t already done so read the rules on terrain then read them again.
D) Leadership skills are on 3 levels in the Warhammer game. 1)What are the skills of the players like? What is the leadership of army characters like and finally what is the leadership of individual units like? For example is you opponent a novice, experienced player or master tactician? What are your skills like? If your opponent is a novice use the game to try new tactics. Against a master play cautiously rather than risk mistakes that such an opponent will use to destroy you.
2)The leadership of the characters in the army must be examined as well. For example Undead and daemons don’t break, humans however are much more likely to survive leadership rolls with a Lord than a Wizard Lord because the leadership is generally higher with the Lord. Will a BSB help or in the case of a paymaster when he’s killed, hinder the armies leadership?
3)Then there is the individual unit leaderships. Humans cheap but are an easily modifiable 7, Maneaters are stubborn on 8, Dwarves are Ld9 and Slayers are unbreakable so which is better? Well it depends on what each unit does. I use human fast cav to lure out frenzied troops and bait enemy elites by either march blocking them or fleeing charges, something that can’t be done with an unbreakable Slayer Pirate unit.
E) Finally there is psychology. This has proven to be the single most powerful component in the game. Psychology can win you a game without you causing a single wound. Again there are 2 levels to psychology to consider, the psychology that occurs between players and the psychology that occurs in the game.
Whilst psyching out your opponent is arguably very useful, the mechanics of Warhammer mean that the psychology that occurs in the game is more important. Fear, Terror, Panic, Hatred, Unbreakable, Frenzy, Stubborn, Immune to psychology are the most common types of psychology faced by Dogs of War players. Each has bonuses and problems, in direct reference to Dogs of War I’ll briefly address each one;
Terror: The big killer of human troops in particular. Nothing sucks more than troops breaking purely because a terror causer in nearby. The good thing is they are usually singular, unfortunately they usually fly or move very fast. By far the most common solution involves shooting them at a considerable distance.
Fear: Nothing sucks more than autobreaking due to being outnumbered by fear causing opponents. Usually in greater numbers than terror causers they tend to be weaker and/or in fewer numbers than non-fear causing opponents. Once again shooting, magic and ogres tend to be the answer. If you can strip their ranks somehow, fear causes tend to die VERY quickly.
Stubborn: Can be a life saver, especially when coupled with a nearby BSB/paymaster. The majority of Stubborn troops are stubborn on 8’s giving you a 2/3 chance of passing a break test, sadly that still means you fail 1/3 of the time.
Hatred: Good if your first round of combat must be a winner. Re-rolling failed to hits particularly with very strong troops like troops armed with great weapons is awesome, however it is not so awesome to be on the receiving side of Hatred and sadly there are few Dogs of War troops that ever get to use Hatred even if they have it.
Panic: The Paymaster has long been our Achilles heel as his (usually poorly timed) death causes army wide panic. You can minimize the damage two ways, first by taking troops immune to panic, and secondly spreading out those troops that are vulnerable to panic as panic tends to be contagious. Unbreakable, Immune to Psychology and Frenzied troops are all immuned and high Ld troops are less likely to panic. Musicians are also great post panic as they increase your chances by 1 of rallying your troops.
Frenzy: The greatest double edged sword in the game. Frenzy means if you get into combat you get 1 extra attack per model. Frenzy means you don’t roll panic tests for fleeing friends with 4”, a dead paymaster or 25% shooting casualties. Frenzy also means that you can still be broken and that you must charge an opponent within charge range and with light cavalry being so cheap, fast and manouvreable frenzied troops are almost always a liability.
Immune to Psychology: Probably the greatest blessing in the game. When fear and terror causes show up, your troops say “Meh!” Sadly you can still be broken
Unbreakable: No Break or panic tests, No Fear or Terror tests, Immune to everything. Except death. These troops tend to be unarmoured and tend to die very easily especially when faced by armoured opponents or when missile troops shoot the crap out of them. They tend to be expensive and good but not great in combat. Excellent for pinning an opponent’s elites whilst a hard hitting unit smashes into their flank or rear. Sadly they can’t flee and once flanked tend to get bogged down themselves.
Well I hope at least some of this is helpful. SunTzu was a brilliant man who understood the mechanics of warfare like few others ever do. Hopefully this little translation will improve your Warhammer, and in particular your Dogs of War game.
Jase
