Dear Transports: Learn your place.

Hey there folks, Xaereth from Delusions of Grandeur here once again, after a slight absence.  Today I want to talk about something related to, but not limited to, Blood Angels:  Transports and their role in assaults.  Or more precisely, the guys in transports, and the manner in which their transports allow them to interact with the assault phase.  Heh, wow, that sounded kind of technical.  Logic and critical thinking classes have apparently paid off :-p

So, I suppose we should start by making a distinction.  There are two types of assaulters in this game:

• Transport-aided- troops that depend on transports to move them around the field, protect them, etc.  Example:  Grey Hunters in a Rhino
• Self-propelled- dudes that can move quickly on their own, and create their own opportunities to assault, unrestricted by any other single unit but themselves.  Example:  Hellions (Dark Eldar)

This is somewhat obvious.  I generally start articles off with the obvious, since sometimes it's not something people have thought of.  Giving step-by-step logical progressions help to give credibility to the later stages in thought.  Or at least, that's what I tell myself ;-)

So, there are two different kinds of assaulters.  Big deal, right?  They both assault.  There isn't really a correlation between transport-aided troops and how potent they are in close combat vs. self-propelled assaulters.  There are plenty of examples of ultra-potent and mediocre assault troops to be found across the game.  So, at first glance, it doesn't seem to be a big deal- both options seem to have equal potential.  This isn't necessarily true, however.

If there is a single thing that is important in playing competitively, most competitive players will tell you that it is this:  dependability/consistency in your units.  This could take multiple forms, including but not limited to:

• getting rerolls
• rolling enough dice that it 'forces' the odds to even out
• forcing opponents to deal with multiple high-toughness/high AV/good save units

Consistency wins games more often than good rolling does- far more often.  A skilled player will be able to understand what exactly is needed at the exact time and place it is needed, and know just how many resources are needed to achieve a goal.  This is less and less possible with inconsistent units.  There is a distinction many people miss:  consistency vs. potential.

• Consistency tells a good player that they can do something 10 times, and know exactly what will happen 9 of those times.  An example of this is Lightning Claw Terminators in a Templar army- rerolls to both hit and to wound, followed by no saves by the opponent makes their results extremely predictable.
• Potential means that something could really do well, if everything goes in it's favor.  An example of this would be a Power Sword on a Space Marine sergeant.  Whereas if he rolls well, he will do quite a bit of damage, he is also required to roll well in order for the sword to be worth it.  Poor or even average rolling will ensure that nothing good happens. 

Ask yourself this:  will my unit do what I want it to almost every time?  If the answer is yes, then it is consistent.  If the answer is no, then it is potential.  Don't get me wrong, potential threat is better than no threat, and can force people to react in a way they would not normally.  The two are certainly worth making a distinction of, however.

So, see how that works?  One more example before we move on:  A power fist on a Wolf Guard in a squad of Grey Hunters w/ the Wolf Standard would be considered consistent rather than potential, because of the ability to reroll 1's for a turn, and get the extra charging attack even when being charged (hoo-ray for counter-charge!).  Being able to hit more times than not, and then wound on 2's, rerolling 1's again, is something you can count on, and is thus consistent.

I'm sure that this also seems obvious to many people.  Still, I see people playing inconsistent units extremely often, and complaining when they don't meet their potential.  How many times have you seen someone defend a terrible unit like so:  Well this one time, my 30-man squad of Death Company multi-charged my opponent's entire army, and killed everything, and then I tabled them, and therefore Death Company are awesome.  Too many times to count, if I were to guess.  I figure it's worth the time to talk about.

Alright, so maybe this makes sense so far, but what does this have to do with transports and assaulting?  I suppose I can say it now:  Transports have less consistency than self-propelled squads.  For example:  Let's say that our army is a rhino-based assaulting army.  We get 2nd turn, and hide our rhinos, but find no way to block line of sight to our transports.  We fail to seize the initiative, and our opponent promptly destroys or immobilizes most of our rhinos.  Will we win the game?  Unlikely. 

Was there a way to play the game so that you could win almost every time, given those sets of conditions?  Not really- the list design itself was fundamentally flawed.

In the same scenario, but replacing the rhino-based squads with self-propelled squads (let's say... assault squads with jump packs), the opponent would certainly have done some damage, but in the next turn, we would have still been able to move the bulk of our army forward, since mobility isn't something that can be shot off of a self-propelled squad (unlike transport-aided squads)

Since in an assaulting army mobility is a must, consistency is favored over potential.  Of course, transports do a few things very well, the main attraction being that they allow good squads that would be normally useless because of how slow they are, to be able to contribute to the battle at all. Those squads are certainly useful, and have great potential.  If their transport doesn't die, they can really do a lot of damage.

So, what conclusion can we make from all of this?  Let's walk through the steps quick:

• There are two types of assaulting units:  Transport-aided and Self-propelled
• Both of these can be potent in assault
• Consistency is needed to win in a competitive setting
• Consistency is different from potential
• Self-propelled squads are more consistent than Transport-aided squads
• Transport-aided squads have good potential, and can still positively contribute to the game

My conclusion is this, then:

In an assault-based army, the 'main attraction' of the army needs to be self-propelled.  Other squads in transports can (and many times should be) used to support the force, but an assault army should not be predicated on only using transports, unless they can be made consistent somehow.

I've seen transport-heavy armies all too often fall to shooty (or even just balanced) armies because their assault capabilities were diminished to nothing by a single round of shooting.  Heh, I should know, I tried for a very long time to make my rhino-borne Berzerker army work, before I finally gave up.  Berzerkers will kill the shite out of anything they charge- if they can get the charge off.

My wolfstar is a good example of how this concept works well.  The wolfstar is my big, main assault unit that doesn't depend on transports, while the grey hunters support the Wolfstar- they aren't the 'main attraction'.

Hopefully this makes sense- let me know what you think.  I need some sleep, I leave for Adepticon in 4 hours.  Look out for big battle reports on my own blog.  Have a good one folks!

The pictures are all things I found when I googled 'consistency', in case anyone is curious, lol.  This last one makes me sad though:

Oscar Wilde obviously never played 40k.  Or maybe he did, and just thinks I'm a moron.

Great post as always Xaereth. Grats on winning The Feast of Blades! JB