Five Precepts of 40K Any approach to a broad set of tactical guidelines is necessarily either incompl ete or terrifyingly long

and tedious (and also incomplete). So here are a few th oughts from military history translated into 40K for you. 1) Do nothing which is of no use. - Musashi When you build your army, have a purpose in mind for every unit (even if the pur pose is just looking good, admit that). If you don t have a purpose in mind, don t i nclude the model in your army. When you deploy your forces, if you don t know what you expect to do with a unit, don t deploy it. Maybe you ll figure out a use for th e unit before it comes in from Reserve. When moving units, move towards a goal o r don t move. I ve won games by ignoring one of my units until the crucial moment an d having my opponent do the same until it was too late. 2) Generals who save troops for the next day are always beaten. Napoleon Every unit must be deployed to be used up in the pursuit of the objectives. For example, a tactical combat squad deployed in the middle of the board in Dawn of War against Tyranids is going to die. It also keeps the Tyranids from putting a Tyrant and 50 Gaunts halfway across the board. Likely suicide in pursuit of obje ctives is far superior to preserving your forces in pursuit of nothing but prese rvation. 3) The best armor is to be out of range. Italian Proverb Just because you deploy your forces to be used up to achieve your goals doesn t me an you waste them. For example, if your opponent has meltaguns arriving in drop pods, deploy your tanks with infantry to keep the pods more than 6 from your tank s. Another example is deploying your long-range shooting to knock out enemy fast transports. Always deploy looking towards the order you have to kill the enemy forces in to keep them from being effective. Always move to minimize the enemy s o ptions to hurt your key units. 4) Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him. Sun Tzu If you can get your enemy to commit to a course of action you have prepared for, you stand a better chance of winning. A good example is a Chimera placed so tha t an Ork Mob can assault them. No matter what happens to the Chimera, the Mob is now piled up to get burned by Hellhounds. Another good example is a Seer Counci l. The Council can t win a game, but it can cause your opponent to lose by drawing all the fire onto it instead of important targets. Even the best opponent can b e enticed if the bait is good enough. 5) Plans are nothing, planning is everything. Eisenhower Unless you re very lucky, you won t be able to do what you expected to do with every unit when the game started. However, if you didn t make plans before you placed a model on the board, you ve conceded the initiative to your opponent. Always appro ach the table with a plan. Then make a new one after you know what you re facing. And then spend every turn during your opponent s moves making a new one. Planning effects every single aspect of the game, from army construction on up.