Team Fighting
The Importance of Coordination Within an Army
by Interrogator Chaplain Ignacio

 Team Fighting

                           Hi everyone  Remember reading WD Battle Reports where a loser (or even a winner) might say something like: "I took this unit along, hoping that it'll do something, but it turned out otherwise..."?  So did I, lots of times. I've noticed one trend when that happens, and that is players tend to send their units in unsupported.

                            However powerful you might think your unit to be (it may be either a Landraider or a tooled-up Honour Guard), it is not invulnerable. With enough dice, the enemy can still direct sufficient firepower to stop it, either by shooting or close combat. You might remember Adrian "Grand Warlord" Wood talking about using his Boyz in large mobs 'cause "Everything counts in Large Amounts!". So why is it that us Space Marine players remain so deluded in our sense of invulnerability and keep insisting on taking either small
                            squads or individual "killer" units?

                            When designing an effective army list, apart from choosing what we like to have in our army, we need to understand how that particular unit can be supported. Take, for instance, the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Death Company. True, they've got the Ignore Injury ability and hidden Power Weapons, don't fall back and all... but unless the situation needs such a unit to hold up the enemy in a suicidal rush, wouldn't it be better served by pairing it up with another unit?

                            Tactical Squads can be equipped such that they support another Tactical Squad, or another Rhino / Razorback transported Squad. Why? Simple... movement. These vehicles would be able to keep pace with each other, and even when they come a copper, the squads in them could still provide covering fire for one another. Imagine you have a shooty Tactical Squad (8 Bolters, 1 Missile Launcher and 1 Plasma Gun), accompanying your Rhino-transported Honour Guard. The former can provide effective covering fire or act as a back-up assault unit for the latter. On the other hand, the Honour Guard can act as a counter-charge unit for the Tactical Squad. The enemy would also have to re-direct more resources towards tackling this threat as compared to you sending only the Tactical or Honour Guard squad forward by itself.

                            Other pairing possibilities include an Assault Squad with a Bike / Attack Bike Squadron. The Assault  Squad is known for its ability in Close Combat, but suffers from poor ranged capabilities. The Bike / Attack Bike squadron is just the opposite. Both have the same movement capacity, and thus are ideally suited to support one another in operations. A 10-man Assault Squad and a Squadron of 3 Multi-melta equipped Attack Bikes would be able to cover an entire flank better than a single unit. This is also the same reason I don't pair Bikes with Landspeeders. The Speeders are secure when dashing across the board at high speeds, tagging them to Bikes would slow them down and they cannot directly influence close combats if the Bikes get into one anyway. Landspeeders should ultilize their forte of speed to get behind cover as fast as possible (sacrificing shooting to move 24" into cover for a turn is a good idea - you can slow down to shoot later).

                            Back to teaming, then, and fire support in particular. Singular Devastator Squads can have their uses, but Black Rage and LOS can sometimes disrupt its effectiveness. Enter the Dreadnought (equipped with Missile Launcher and some other shooty weapon). The Dreadnought can effectively move and fire, and can provide good covering fire to the Devastators if they Rage or have to reposition for better field of fire. With the potential firepower that these two units generate, you wouldn't have to worry too much about return fire short of indirect Ordnance.

                            But you get the idea. This article is not meant to be exhaustive, but to give players new and old an idea  that Space Marines work very well if supported effectively.

                            To the Lion and Sanguinius!  

"What is the terror of Death? That we die, our work incomplete." "What is the joy of Life? To die, knowing our task is done."

                            Edited by: Interrogator Chaplain Ignacio at: 4/25/02 1:28:20 pm