For 9/10ths of my Warhammer 40,000 gaming life, I have not used transports – only gone against them. This is because, sadly, I played Tyranids and Necrons, and never got to use transports. Transports were often used against me – but for the most part never seemed to get anywhere. I mean, at the end of the day, who WANTS to be closer to a Tyranid army?
So most armies I faced that used transports – not a big deal.
Then I started facing Imperial Guard and Tau, and players who used their transports tactically and aggressively, and I started to fear transports. Suddenly my opponent was blasting away at my bugs much sooner than I anticipated, and when I tried to get close to them, the transports would screen their troops. I probably had to waste a whole extra turn or two just to get at them.
For those who remember my Magic: The Gathering article, I described how a turn in Warhammer 40,000 is just about the most massively useful and powerful thing you can get.
If anything in Warhammer 40,000 allows you to effectively gain an extra turn on your opponent, it’s quite powerful – allowing you more options, and dealing more death, and reducing the impact of your enemy…
So when my opponents were cleverly using their transports to get extra turns on me – often costing me the game – I recognized just how strong a well-used transport can be.
Most of you who face Eldar opponents probably know at least 1 opponent who makes frequent use of transports. Transports are an amazing resource of the Eldar army, and, for the most part, are probably the strongest transports in the game. With the exception of the fact that they hover (thereby not blocking Line of Sight), Eldar transports can do everything that you want from a good transport:
- survivability
- firepower
- maneuverability
- is a tank
In truth, you probably want those things out of ANY vehicle – but the Eldar have access to many such vehicles, and at bargain prices. These 4 points about transports can each be expanded to show why you want them;
Survivability – This one should be dead obvious. If a transport can survive multiple turns, it can continue to have an impact on the game for multiple turns. If both the transport and unit survive, then after having a large impact at one point in the game, they can have a large impact AGAIN later in the game. By itself survivability is a good thing to have, but combine it with ANY other good thing about transports, and you have something great.
Firepower – This one may not be as obvious as it first appears. Any vehicle in Warhammer 40,000 wants firepower, but transports are one of the few vehicles that has to work hard to balance firepower with maneuverability. Too little firepower, and the vehicle has no function other than ferrying troops (so has next to no impact if the troops are killed). Too much firepower, and you will have to make poor decisions in whether to stay put and fire everything, or move to pick-up or drop off cargo when in truth you want to do BOTH.
Maneuverability – This must be balanced with firepower, but is an asset in any case. Fast, maneuverable vehicles with poor armour are often better than slow, pondering vehicles with lots of armour. A maneuverable vehicle can get itself (and its cargo) where you need to be, when you need to be there. It allows you freedom of tactical flexibility without requiring your strategy to force you down one road. If I’m playing an Ork army, and I have a battlewagon designed to get into the thick of things, and its bringing some boyz with it too – I have to choose between assaulting my opponent, or claiming the objective. I can’t do both, because the battlewagon simply isn’t fast enough to get into the enemy, and then get out again.
A Trukk, on the other hand (if it survives), can pick up a squad of boyz and drive them 18” in the blink of an eye.
Is a Tank – This is a yes/no style question. Some transports are tanks, and others are not. Being a tank and a transport is great, because it allows you to use tactical Tank Shock actions, and the vehicle is probably going to get close to your enemy anyways.
With all of these great things about transports, its not a wonder that of all the dirty tactics and actions that one can do in Warhammer 40,000, the dirtiest tactics of all can be accomplished with transports.
Dirty Tactic #1 – The
This tactic is one you probably already know (and if you don’t, shame on you). With the exception of a very few cases, when a vehicle is destroyed, it is not removed from the table but instead becomes a wreck. The wreck, like other terrain, will block line of sight, and provide a 4+ cover save. That’s literally like having a bunker plop down right in front of your troops.
The secret to this dirty tactic is to exploit the transport rules of where you can deploy from a wreck. Being open topped here is a great asset, allowing you to deploy anywhere around the transport. Place as many troops as you can fit within 2” of the wreck on the side opposite of the one facing the enemy. This will provide you with blocked line of sight from many enemy units (constraining your opponent’s options), and give you cover from the one or two that might see you (improving your survivability), and probably force any nearby assault squad to have to make a difficult terrain check to assault you (they may not reach, and you’ll strike first if they do).
This tactic will turn a loss into something quite less. Ork Trukks, and Space Marine Drop-Pods are AMAZING for this role – costing almost nothing, having guns and the ability to get right at your enemy fast, and altogether being worth far more than their standard points cost.
Dirty Tactic #2 – Whip-Around
This tactic effectively requires that you be open-topped and a fast vehicle. If you find yourself in a position where you don’t need to go very far to assault a unit, instead of just jumping out and charging, move to the back of the unit first and THEN charge.
In and of itself this won’t do much – but if the squad breaks and you don’t catch them, you’ll have a model within 6” of them (the transport) after they run, and so they won’t be able to regroup next turn.
If that doesn’t happen, you haven’t cost yourself anything, and may have even blocked shooting to your squad if they wipe out the defending squad just like in Dirty Tactic #1.
Dirty Tactic #3 – Pivoting Power
This one’s bad. You do this Dirty Tactic and people might not be happy with you, but it’s totally okay. When vehicles move, they are allowed to pivot as much as they want during that move. It also means that tanks can do a complete 180 degree turn on the spot at any point during the move… at the beginning, half-way through, or even at the end.
So, if you have troops in a transport, and you want to move them further but ALSO want to shoot with the transport as if you only moved 6”, then move the transport 6”, pivot 180 degrees, and deploy your troops, and move them up to the 2” maximum away from the access point.
Psychologically, when people are acting in Warhammer 40,000, they make shortcuts. One of those shortcuts is to assume that the back of a transport will stay at the back – so they might move things in a way that doesn’t keep the pivot rule in mind. As such, to them, it will seem like your troops have just moved 14” (6” move, 6” for the vehicle’s length, and then 2” from deployment from the access point). In truth, you’ve only moved 2” extra. If your troops – without the transport – were standing where the transport is, on your turn you could move them 6” up. The transport’s deployment from the access point grants an extra 2” for a total of 8”. BUT, your opponent sees the troops as standing at the back of the transport – a full 6” from where you would actually otherwise deploy them.
Effectively, all you’re doing with this tactic is punishing your opponent for making a mistake.
Also remember, you can’t RE-pivot after deploying the troops – but since you only moved 6” you CAN still shoot. That, and your troops may provide your vehicle with a cover save if they’re tall enough (most aren’t though).
Dirty Tactic #4 – An Objective Too Far
A downright obvious ability for any unit is to contest objectives, but a lot of people keep transports in the back of their mind. To most players, transports are part of a unit rather than a distinct and separate unit. For this reason, transports – especially speedy ones – make excellent objective contesters.
Once you’ve delivered your cargo, so long as your transport isn’t too threatening and stays out of reach of most guns, you’ll find that it will live much longer than it is supposed to. This is great for when the end comes, as the transport can fly in and stop an opponent from claiming an objective at a critical moment – even if there’s nothing in the vehicle.
If you DO have units still in the transport and you need to use them for this purpose, take advantage of every infantry unit’s ability to run. Blasting 12 inches, jumping out 2 inches, and then running up to 6 inches for a possible total of 20 is amazing.
DEBATE: Open Topped or Enclosed?
A big question with transports is if you want them open topped or not. Open topped is a big advantage in many ways. These vehicles can have their cargo jump out AND assault, can fire all their weapons from the vehicle (which makes it more like a mobile bunker), and has full 360 degree access and jump-out range. Take the Ork Battlewagon, for example. Normally, to do Dirty Tactic #3 (pivoting) you’d have to spin the Battlewagon around for the boyz to get out. However, since the Battlewagon is open topped, your infantry can disgorge out the front! Sure there are no access ramps there, sure it’s not iconic, but it is allowed. Also, that 360-jump-out means its very difficult to kill a squad that’s being forced to disembark, as they can disembark anywhere.
However, there’s a big risk that you take with open topped as well. You take a MASSIVE +1 penalty to the damage table. That means that, whereas other vehicles have only a 1 in 3 chance of being destroyed by a penetrating hit, you have a 1 in 2 chance. That’s a sizable leap. Also, on penetrating hits you are guaranteed to not be moving or shooting next turn – not just being unable to shoot. Finally, and most importantly, Glancing Hits can kill you! Sure it doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’s a big pain. That means that even a basic Tau Fire Warrior shooting his Pulse Rifle at your Armour 11, or that Chaos World-Eater that’s charging you (hitting your back armour of 10), are all major threats to the guys inside.
At the end of the day, it comes down to what you’re using the transport for. If the transport is there to ferry around a squad that’s there to hold objectives and shoot weapons, an enclosed transport is probably the best way to go. It’ll survive longer for when you need to relocate again, can protect its cargo better on the way there (or after drop-off using Tactic #1), and can tank-shock squads that don’t have an anti-tank weapon without fear.
If, however, you using it for transporting an assault squad, open-topped is by far the better option. The cheaper this transport is, the better, as it’ll save points on the rest of your army. Stay focused and remember that this transport is just a shield for the troops inside.
No comments:
Post a Comment