Spacecurves’ Tactics Class : Death by Association

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Spacecurves’ tactics class, where you learn about practical tactics you can apply in your games of Warhammer 40k.  Today we will be discussion an assault tactic that allows you to defeat otherwise very durable enemies.

Death by Association revolves around what happens to fearless units when they lose combat. If a fearless unit loses a round of assault they take wounds (with saves allowed) equal to the amount they lost by.  

In the situation below we see my trusty Salamanders approaching an enemy battle line.  On their right, is a squishy, numerous enemy unit.  In this picture I am using dark eldar warriors, but they could be termagaunts, guardians, guardsmen, grots, etc.  On the left, we see a terrible construction of the haemonculi flesh pits, a beast with high toughness good invulnerable save, and lots of wounds. As mentioned above this could be a hive tyrant, greater daemon, anything big and scary.

So I have a choice, I can move all my terminators and characters into contact with the rabbit (giant scary enemy unit) and try to overwhelm him with thunder hammer wounds, or I can do something else…

In the picture above I have charged my terminators into both the rabbit and the warriors, to link the units together into one combat. Everyone else piles into the warriors as well.  The idea is to kill as many warriors as possible to rack up a huge combat resolution score.  The rabbit is sure to drop a few terminators (and in fact he did, thank goodness for super glue) but then he will have to take a dozen or so “fearless wounds”.  This is Death by Association.  It is most commonly used against Tyranids, and daemons. When properly executed, it turns sacrificial screening units into liabilities. I once forced a Swarm Lord to take 26 saves after wiping out two nearby gaunt squads, needless to say, he did not survive.

Homework Question: I call the unit used to link combats together my “anchor unit”.  For anchor units, durability is more important than damage output, as their job is often to hold a big creature in place while my army beats down everything else.  What other units besides the terminators pictured above could fulfill this role? (doesn’t have to be a space marine unit)

Class Dismissed!