Strategies, Tactics, and What They Mean.

"Seeing the forest from the trees," "getting the big picture," and "sensing the flow of the game," are all ways that we describe the concept of prioritizing strategy and tactics. However, many players don't see or understand this concept, and many fail to even understand the differences between them

I once saw an article on the internet for Warhammer 40,000 titled “Why tactics are useless in Warhammer,” and I was really stunned that someone would say this. I think what the person was meaning to say is that strategy is useless, since the game requires a strong use of tactics. But even then, I believe that the person was wrong, as there are many strategic components to the game – but most of these decisions are made before the game even begins.

Sun Tzu wrote in the Art of War:

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."

This is especially true for Warhammer, although the structure is somewhat reversed. It is possible to win a game of Warhammer with tactics alone, but without strategy you’re only half-way to victory. Conversely, having a strategy in Warhammer is great, but without tactics to back you up, you’re doomed to fail.

The reason behind this is simple. In Warhammer, you win any match so long as you wipe your opponent out (a Massacre result) before the game ends. Regardless of any other objective, a wiped-out opponent loses, and you win. I recently won a game this way – a special scenario where only HQ units could score killpoints. At the end, with my HQ that had scored kill-points dead, I had 0 points. However, I had wiped my opponent out. If he had even 1 unit of grots left (who couldn’t even score points), we’d have tied – but since he was wiped out, I won.

So what do I mean by strategy, and what do I mean by tactics?

In marketing, the terms are very rigidly defined. Quickly put, tactics are things you do to improve your business that are short-term (within the span of 1 year). These are things like hiring/firing, discounting old merchandise, and picking out the right Christmas merchandise before the season hits.

Strategies, on the other hand, are things that you do to improve your business that are long-term (span of greater than 1 year). These are things like trying to change customer’s perceptions of your store/brand, modifying the customer experience, or creating an online sales department.

The same concept of strategy and tactics apply in Warhammer, but we’re not dealing with massive time-frames. Tactics are still short-term decisions, and strategies are still long-term.

How short-term, and how long-term though?

Tactics:

Tactics in 40k are the small decisions that you make throughout the game. They are your unit by unit, turn by turn, choices. How far will you move? What will you shoot? Will you assault or not? How will you disembark from your transport? Do you risk immobilizing your vehicle going through the difficult terrain, or risk losing your cover save when the enemy comes into a firing position next turn? These are all examples of tactics.

Tactics are extremely important in Warhammer. If you make the incorrect small decisions, you can’t hope to fulfill your strategy (the basics of which likely are; "win games"). If you’re assaulting Wraithlords with your woefully under-equipped HQ, you’re likely making the wrong tactical decision. But some tactical decisions are more difficult than this. A classic question is when you have to choose to either assault one, two, three, or no units!

This problem occurs more for horde armies than for elite ones (Tyranids, Orks), but can also apply to a mostly unmolested squad of Blood Angels, Howling Banshees, Kroot, or other 8+ model assault squads. The problem that tends to come up is this; you’re close to the enemy’s big bad assault character/unit (Killa Kanz, Wraithlord, Dreadnaught, Demon Prince, etc.). If you stay where you are, you’re likely going to die, if not from the enemy’s firepower, from the inevitable assault. If you assault, though, there’s another assault unit close by, and they can counter-charge you. If you assault, you may even kill off the unit that you’re assault, and then the enemy guns and other assault unit will definitely destroy you. Finally, there’s a third squad close by that you can double-charge and, while not an assault squad, stands to do some major damage to other parts of your army if it gets away.

This is a complicated tactical scenario. No answer seems to be the right one. Assaulting nothing is bad, assaulting one is also bad, and assaulting two enemies means that you’re basically sacrificing your squad. The correct answer will depend a lot on both the rest of you’re army’s position, and on your strategy. It’s one turn, one choice, but that tactical decision could have far-reaching implications.

Strategies:

Then there’s your strategy, which are the long-term decisions that you make, and which can influence your chances at winning not just one game, but in all your games with that army. A strategy can be as small as “In this game I need to capture the objective and then just survive,” to “I’ve collected my army based on the concept of dealing significant ordnance damage to the enemy, and then finishing them off with assault and flamer squads". Strategies are not individual choices, but is a philosophy that helps to direct or view future tactical decisions. You may want to charge the nearest enemy, and that may give you the best damage/loss ratio, but if you know the game's going to end soon you may need to charge that unit that you have no hope of defeating simply to stop them from getting to the objective.

It is nearly impossible not to have a strategy. A strategy can be as simple as “win this game”.

Strategies are merely philosophies that guide the rest of your decisions. It is possible not to play to win. GW employees learn to give intro-games, which are played with the strategy of presenting the game in the most favourable light to that player (players may like the models, the story, the rules, the competition, etc.). If I encounter a new player, I play to teach them the rules – so I might make decisions that, although not correct for the “win this game” strategy, do help the “teach the rules” strategy.

However, having a better defined strategy, or multiple levels of strategy, can greatly benefit you. Some levels are; army choice, army collection, tournament army lists, single-game army lists, size of game, play style, and placing terrain.

The most common time that players decide on strategies is when putting together an army list. Since I see Warhammer as a strategy game, a game that I try to win, I like to collect larger armies. A larger army allows me more strategic decisions when constructing an army list, since I can change my army list from game to game. One game I may use a strategy of lots of models, and another game I may use a strategy of fast vehicles. Making the strategic decision to collect a large army allows me choices for what strategies I will be able to execute later.

Remember these differences, because your understanding of Warhammer 40,000 and how to win it require that you know the difference!