Re: [Epic] Re: Small Detatchments

From: Tyler Provick <bprovick_at_...>
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 19:27:27 -0400

At 02:30 PM 9/10/97 -0500, you wrote:
>A lot of people have been discussing the benefits of small detatchments
>lately. I've enjoyed reading this thread, as I have generally taken
>the opposite view when building my armies. I can immediately spot
>the flexibility benefit from having numerous, small detatchments. (Especially
>with the IG, whose command-hosing makes numerous small detatchments no more
>expensive than a few big ones.)
>
>There are two points I wonder about, though. Small detatchments were
>presented as the best way to play the "morale game." I've a question
>about survivability, however. I've found casualties to be horrendous
>in the firing phase. It seems to me that a small detatchment built
>to grant 5-7 firepower is simply going to cease to exist in the
>firing phase, and thus give you an immediate hit to morale with no
>chance to remove any blast markers.
>
True, you do lose detachments like crazy, but if you are going up against
large detachments, that roll say, 13 dice and score 9 hits, would wipe out a
tiny 6 unit detachment (Say, 2 Devs, and 2 Whirlwinds) but you lose the 6
hits you could have scored on a larger detachment, so basically overkilling
wastes the overkillers FP.

Of course, if you split the firepower, then they don't waste FP's, but it
also reduces their chances of using all their shots on a detachment that is
totally in the open.

I use detachments of 2-300 for 1000pt battles (What I play until I get more
mini's)

Reserves are different. If you have two detachments, then you have half your
army starting, and you only need one 4+ to get the other half on. Against a
army with small detachments, you can really do a number on them.

My conclusion is, make use of detachment cards to have the ability to field
large or small detachments (Given) Learn what units work best en-mass. Vary
size, don't make all your detachments the same size. Have really small
flankers, maybe a big block of assaults, so that when they get near the
enemy, there are more then 2 Marine Assault units, and one Vindicator left.

Tyler
Well, your no Sun Tzu
Received on Thu Sep 11 1997 - 23:27:27 UTC