Shifting Objectives Analysis

 Introduction

Let's apply some of the analytic techniques we've examined thus far to one of the new battleplans for AoS 4.0! Here's the situation: we'll create a scheme of maneuver and plan for a possible opening turn that allows us to maintain tactical flexibility without overexposing ourselves with a Sylvaneth list I'm using for an example. If there's any interest, I can create some downloads for the images/assets I'm using so you can create your own templates and plans. Let's dive into it.

Background

We are going to take a look first at the operational environment: The "Shifting Objectives" battleplan from AoS 4.0. This plan first appeared in 2020 and features a simple twist: At the start of each battle round after determining the active player, the active player will roll a D3 to determine which objective (OBJ) will be the primary. The primary OBJ scores you two points while secondary OBJs (the other two) net you one point and controlling more objectives than your opponent gains you another 2 points. Additionally the Underdog (player with the fewest victory points) can force the active player to reroll the dice when determining the primary OBJ. Successful battle tactics are each worth four points. 

Because the maximum points a person can score in a game is now limited to 50, this means the perfect turn would be complete a battle tactic (4) and control all of the OBJs (2 for primary, 1 each for the two other secondaries, and 2 for controlling more than your opponent). Scoring 10 points in a turn is quite likely to spread you quite thin and leave you vulnerable to attack. With only three OBJs to control, this rather thin and elite list will focus on delaying the enemy from seizing key terrain while you occupy two objectives.

The rationale here is that spreading across all three OBJs with this list would not allow for it to remain durable. Further, it is leaning into probability, that the primary OBJ will end up being an OBJ we control 66% of the time. In the event that it isn't, we will focus on holding the two secondary OBJs and therefore more than our opponent. 

Deployment

Remembering that deployment is our first movement phase, let's consider how to initially array our forces. Because we won't know who will be taking the first turn and as a means of concealing our intentions, our forces will generally be arrayed in a symmetric and centered fashion. Some notes to consider from initial impressions of the released battlepacks: units with the ability to shoot guarded heroes can be very powerful. Using obscuring terrain or in this case a well-placed Awakened Wyldwoods can make or break us. Another trend is the ubiquity of endless spells now that they do not have a points cost. To combat this, we will be putting out Warsong Revenant (who has a bonus to unbinding and banishing rolls) in a position that they can influence the battlefield and be within unbind range of the enemy casters. 

Next, we need to consider our options for Battle Tactics. This formation allows us to readily achieve two universal ones: Seize the Center (potentially quite powerful if we are able to cast the Lady of Vines' warscroll spell granting a 5+ ward) or Take the Flanks. Belthanos is positioned in such a way that he can quickly fly into position and still maneuver back to influence OBJ 1 in subsequent turns. If we deploy him too far from the short edge of the battlefield, we'll set ourselves up for a situation that this is not possible. 

Turn 1

An endstate we can seek to achieve by the end of Turn 1 might look something like this. In this scenario we have achieved the Take the Flanks battle tactic without sacrificing combat power or the ability for follow-on operations. In the event that we are the first to take a turn, we are setting up for the Dryads to occupy the key terrain between OBJs 1 and 2. The Gossamids use their shoot and movement tricks to Disrupt the enemy as they maneuver toward the area we are seeing to influence. If the enemy is going second, the Gossamids can disrupt them even further with the Countershoot and Redeploy commands. The Lady of Vines serves the purpose of providing the 5+ ward roll if her spell is successful as well as conferring the associated allegiance abilities she grants by proximity. Our Tree Revenants have teleported far from danger outside of our territory to gain our battle tactic and serves as a tactical reserve to snag objectives or terrain later in the game. 

Our Kurnoth Hunters with bows are supporting by fire in order to destroy key enemy heroes with their special rule or destroying/degrading other high value targets with harassing fire. The Warsong Revenant and Lady of Vines have an additional supporting operation by generating additional Awakened Wyldwoods to proc healing and provide maneuver options. Finally we have the decisive operation, Belthanos and the Kurnoth Hunters with swords attack by fire any enemy units that move onto OBJ 1 or OBJ 2. Depending on how the enemy concentrates their forces, we are positioned in such a way that both of these units can run and charge in order to complete their tactical task in subsequent turns. 

Turn 2

Based on our previous turn, the enemy will likely be maneuvering to seize their own key terrain. We have given them the option to attempt the Seize the Center or even Attack on Two Fronts. We can attempt to deny these battle tactics with redeploys and correct positioning with the Gossamids. It will all depend on the enemy's capabilities, though. We want to be in a position where we can expose the smallest echelon of our army to the enemy at any given time, minimizing their ability to charge into position and seize the terrain. And if they do, we want to be in a position to counter charge and make them pay for it. All while reducing their control scores by 3 when we are in combat because of the Battle Formation we chose, The Terror in the Eaves.

We are similarly poised to complete either of these battle tactics if the shoe is on the other foot. We have our most damaging units in position to destroy any units that are within charge or counter charge range. If our opponent plays more cagey and makes our charges difficult, we can also elect to use our tree revenants to complete the Take Their Lands battle tactic by teleporting close to terrain in territory that the enemy has ceded to us. 

Turn 3+

Here is where things get pretty murky and likely have too many moving parts to reliably predict what will happen. The point is this though: If our plan looks anything like this, we have set ourselves up to a point that we will have likely defeated the enemy; if they do not commit their forces to seize the key terrain in the center, we will have effectively scored battle tactics and primary points to create a sufficient point deficit. If they do attempt to seize the center, we can rapidly bring our most damaging units to bear and inflict as many casualties as possible. 

The truth is that if the enemy is going to survive the Kurnoth Hunters with swords and Belthanos attacking them, it is likely a matchup we would not have won either way. This plan at least puts us in a position to continue to score battle tactics and capture as many objectives as we can. Subsequent battle tactics would likely include Seize the Center (if we have not done this already), Reclaim the Realms, and Attack on Two Fronts. 

Conclusion

Speaking more broadly and without supporting diagrams, the scheme of maneuver for these last turns would be follow and assume or support (situation depending) in order to seize key terrain and continue scoring primary points. We are essentially taking this faction's most damaging units and using some of the army's best strengths to achieve the desired effects. Some armies have a myriad of tools at their disposal and will be strictly better at the game than others. Those who are seeking primarily to win the game should seek out those armies and apply these principles in order to reach their goals. A perhaps greater majority of players, however, have a sub-optimal army that they play for one reason or another.

This analysis today sought to show you how to apply the principles we've discussed to any army in the game to give yourself the best chance to win. Or at the very least, the best chance to have fun! I'll be looking to write and illustrate additional battleplans and army analyses in subsequent articles. Let me know what you think and stay sparkly, my friends. 

War(hammer) a Human (or Aelf, Duardin, Orruk) Endeavor

Introduction

As a brief departure from the normal strategic analysis of wargaming, I'd like to review another very important aspect of command and warfighting I learned in the military that I believe is applicable to Warhammer: the impact of attitude and ethos on one's ability to fight and win in combat. Thankfully the gravity of wargaming is much, much less dire than actual war, but that does not mean we cannot glean valuable insights from studying the psychology of war to better prepare ourselves when we run into adversity. I cannot count how many times I have seen an opponent or experienced firsthand the deflating sensation of defeat, only to realize that a path to victory was still there. This concept is called the "will to fight" in military doctrine and will be the focal point of our article today.

Background

We will refer to a couple of key documents in today's analysis. First is the Rand Corporation's Will to Fight: Returning to the Human Fundamentals of War. The thesis of this writing is that the will to fight is the single most important factor in war, defining the concept as "the disposition and decision to fight, to keep fighting, and to win," (Will to Fight, p.3). Written through the lens of the American military, enjoying a technological overmatch relative to the enemy is inconsequential if those who wield it are unwilling to continue fighting as "casualties mount and unexpected calamities arise." Then we will examine the philosophy of training to learn how we can develop better skills to account for the horrible calamities our enemies bring to bear in Warhammer. 

War is a Human Endeavor

War always has been (but perhaps not always will be with the advent of AI and robotics being integrated into warfare) a human endeavor. The US Army explains in ADP 3-0, "War is a human endeavor - a fundamentally human clash of wills often fought among populations. It is not a mechanical process that can be controlled precisely, or even mostly, by machines, statistics, or laws that cover operations in carefully controlled and predictable environments. Fundamentally, all war is about changing human behavior." This parallels to a much simpler extent the unpredictable and behavior-driven nature of wargaming. We can do all the theory-crafting and math-hammer we want, but at the end of the day the dice and your opponent's will also get a vote. The good news is so do you.

A very common response to unexpected or undesirable outcomes in this game is to lose the will to continue and find a way to win. The decision to not pursue victory is just that, a decision. You are in control of how you respond to a situation, do not discount yourself. You very well might be correct, there may be no way to come back but you are doing yourself and your opponent a disservice by losing the will to fight. This is the behavior we should strive to change, focusing on remaining adaptable and resilient amongst adversity. I'll be the first to admit it sounds like lip service and self-help nonsense, but there is certainly a historical precedence to numerically and technologically superior forces underestimating the enemy's will to fight and paying a high price (refer to Rand's table below).

The study proceeds to classify the "disposition to fight" into different levels of analysis ranging from the individual all the way up to society. What I'd like to draw a parallel to here is the individual and unit levels. As an individual, your will to fight is generally a combination of your motivations and your capabilities to do so. In other words, it's a combination of how bad you want victory and your skills you've developed to achieve those ends. Both of these are in your control. Further, in the unit level of analysis, we have more factors in your control. While there isn't really any influence on your unit's will to fight, there are mechanisms for control scores and enemy capabilities to affect the conceptual will to fight of your forces. You can also examine what capabilities your army has to counteract those potential threats to your control and cohesion of forces. 

A common technique US military forces have used during training to simulate calamity and condition warfighters to respond is to notionally "kill off" key decision makers or leaders, forcing more junior troops to make decisions and find a way to survive and win. We can do similar things in our practice games to condition ourselves to find a way when things look the most grim.

Train as you Fight

"Train as you fight" is a very common adage in the US Army. A classmate of mine shared an interesting insight on the philosophy he used to train his Soldiers: "I don't train my guys until they get it right, I train them until they can't get it wrong." We can adapt these concepts for our list-crafting and practice games as well. Do not just consider and plan for what it looks like when your list has everything go right. Plan for when everything goes wrong. What if you don't get that key spell or ability off? What if you don't have as many command points remaining due to unforeseen circumstances? What if that high-probability attack profile whiffs? The best players can find ways to mitigate the inevitable variance of a dice game and find ways to right the ship when things go wrong.

I've referenced exercises you can perform when you don't have enough time for a full game such as performing Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (IPOE) or mock deployments with a buddy, and I'd like to add another. Try taking turns with a partner in a situation that they believe they have you in an unfavorable position. Now work to get out of it. Take multiple reps with different approaches, finding any wrinkle you can to at least mitigate your opponent's impact. As you do this, you'll become more comfortable with how this situation affects you as well as conditioning you to how impactful it truly is. Master Sergeant (MSG) Larry A. Millner Jr. wrote in the NCO Journal about this concept in an article entitled "Choosing Hardship Today for an Easier Tomorrow."

A very important aspect of this conditioning that MSG Millner writes about is that "the Army routinely conducts challenging and realistic training allowing Soldiers to challenge themselves and even fail in controlled environments," (Millner, 2023). It is perfectly fine to fail in this game, especially in practice. It gives you a tremendous experiential lesson of what to expect in the myriad of possible scenarios that can unfold. Put yourself in those situations of adversity, cultivate that positivity, and you'll find that you're able to rise above it more often.

Lists Change, Attitudes Don't

A final related point I'd like to discuss is your choice as a player to respond to changes in the game. With a recent significant set of changes in the Warhammer 40,000 Dataslate and the epoch of 4th Edition for Age of Sigmar, we as a community are going through some pretty adverse changes. It is during these times that the skill of resilience and the will to fight become all the more important. Try to view changes in points, stratagems, or even entire armies' identities is an inevitable part of the game. Try to develop a perspective that is more self-aware and realize that these changes are at least intended to address the quality of the game experience for everyone. It is a cooperative gaming experience even if it is competitive. It is not just about you and your army's strength at the end of the day. You can lament the changes or you can find a new way to adapt to the situation and find a way to win. The choice is yours.

Shaping the Battlefield Conditions

Introduction

From armies that attempt to conduct an alpha-strike to armies that win through clever maneuver, each general is shaping the battlefield. We'll separate this into some subtopics: factors we control before the game, during set-up/deployment, and as the game runs its course. The goal of this article is to give you a framework to develop some "battle-drills," a sort of general approach you can apply with your units to put the game back into your control when you opponent takes action. In this battle of wits its important to constantly try and improve your situation by setting favorable conditions on the battlefield. That being said, let's discuss what efforts we can make to do so.

Background

As we've discussed previously, there is so much you can do outside of a game or tournament to give yourself a massive advantage before you even arrive at the table. The articles leading up to this have focused largely on analyzing your opponents but today we will discuss the process of analyzing your own army to develop a plan. This process is called Mission Analysis in the Army and it is typically a very protracted and arduous process. We won't be doing that. Instead we'll develop an arbitrary amount of "battle drills" for our armies (I'll use Sylvaneth in this example) that gives us some strategic flexibility to shape the battlefield depending on who we have across the table. Then we will discuss what information we can glean from the General's Handbook reveals to further refine our pre-game plans.

Sylvaneth Battle Drills

Before we develop any plans, we need to first understand what our army's strengths and weaknesses are. In this case, Sylvaneth have supreme maneuverability through their battle traits and can deliver very precise damage to units that would typically be denied to other armies. This also lends to them being able to shape the battlefield through maneuver by quickly massing and dispersing forces in order to create gaps and vulnerabilities in the enemy formations. Finally as a strength, they can quickly capitalize on vital terrain by teleporting to deny/delay maneuver as well as score primary objective points when the enemy vacates parts of the battlefield.

As for weaknesses, Sylvaneth is unable to stay in protracted engagements with opponents due to being an elite army and fewer built-in defensive abilities. They have access to quality screens in the form of Dryads (per 3rd edition anyways), but as soon as they get tied up in combat or can be effectively screened out with board presence, they can struggle. As an army they are also susceptible to mortal wounds (we will see with 4.0 how they fare to mortal damage) with limited access to wards. Finally, anti-magic or magic supremacy armies can easily deny the Spiteswarm Hive endless spell, greatly diminishing their ability to reliably Strike and Fade. 

Sylvaneth Battle Drill 1: Howl's Moving Castle

Turn your Warsong Revenant into a gorgeous blonde wizard bubble-wrapped with a host of Dryads as you repeatedly pick apart your opponent with a Strike and Fade unit (think Durthu or Kurnoth Hunters) as you march up the board and keep the invaders out of your center of gravity. Factors to consider here is reliable access to Strike and Fade, selecting appropriate Overgrown terrain, and not giving the opponent the opportunity to tie down your hammer pieces. 

This battle drill will perform best against armies that are not able to interact with your ability to Strike and Fade. This is a slower-tempo army. It is a common misconception that it is used to alpha-strike the enemy but this opportunity rarely presents itself. Rather, the idea here is to weather the storm of your opponent crashing against the tree-bodied walls of your castle as you launch Durthu cruise missiles at their army until they have lost enough meaningful combat power and you can overwhelm them. 

That being said, armies with the ability to easily unbind or dispel Spiteswarm Hive make this task very difficult (or even in the season of Primal Dice, most armies). Additionally, armies with good recursion are able to weather the Strike and Fade and outlast the trees. 

Sylvaneth Battle Drill 2: Deny Flank

Sylvaneth is an army that cannot hope to attempt to branch out from its central identity. It is not a horde army so it cannot hope to be successful by spreading out its combat width. Rather, it must rely on force concentration to approach the enemy in a piecemeal fashion. That does not mean, however, you should telegraph your punches by lining your hammer up on a train track to where you intend to apply it. Sylvaneth's superior mobility allows you to keep you opponent guessing by being able to rapidly flip the table as if you had the ability to redeploy units. 

Consider a scenario: you deploy your forces as Sylvaneth spread as far out as possible in your deployment zone. The opponent can try to match your combat width or they can remain concentrated and not try to match you. This in turn puts the initiative back into your hands by granting you agency to respond. If they try to match your combat width, it allows you to use your teleport abilities to reconsolidate your forces to a weaker flank and defeat the enemy in detail. Alternatively, they can turtle up themselves which leaves you the ability to expand your board presence and rack up some primary objective points while the opponent foot slogs across the board.

Where this approach struggle is armies that can match or mitigate the tree's movement. Its important to consider things like summoning (which seems to be going away in 4.0), teleporting, or even redeploying as a part of your calculus in the enemy's movement capabilities. If your opponent can match your speed, you are unlikely able to match their local combat power when they arrive to you. A speedy army or armies with the ability to spread out their units over large footprints are also able to limit your options for maneuverability. 

Sylvaneth Battle Drill 3: For whom the Belthanos Tolls

Belthanos brought about a very interesting wrinkle to the Sylvaneth approach to the game. It allows models to run and charge with certain criteria, circumventing the shortcomings and limitations of Spiteswarm Hive by enabling you to cover great distances with a run and charge coupled with more maneuverable units (such as Alarielle or Durthu with the Warsinger Command Trait). 

This army finds success because it removes a major factor that inhibited the previous two builds: the ability to counter Spiteswarm Hive. When Belthanos allows you to run and charge while also creating more Overgrown Terrain throughout the game, you are not relying on casting a spell, having that spell unbound or later dispelled, or rolling the dreaded 1 on the Spiteswarm Hive dice. Additionally, it diversifies your threats by having Belthanos paired with one or two additional very high output models such as Alarielle and Durthu. 

Where this battle drill can struggle is the lack of available screens and board control. It is not uncommon for you to finish games with just a few models left on the battlefield when all is said and done. Your opponent will not have to work nearly as hard to eliminate your threats when you cannot afford to take screens because you invested so heavily on maneuverable, damaging hammers. 

Tying it together

With these battle drills in mind, we can craft a list and come to the table with an approach that we are comfortable with. Even with great units and theory behind it, without a practiced approach and a strong comfortability with the list we are likely to fail This is what makes this preparation phase so important. You could take a combination of approaches or change up which battle drill you use as the situation develops, but if you don't have a playbook to fall back on you will likely make it up as you go which exposes you to unnecessary risk. 

Shaping Operations During Setup and Deployment

Depending on the tournament rules, you will also have some interaction with shaping the battlefield before you deploy your forces. Player-placed terrain is not uncommon in some tournament formats and can allow you to set favorable conditions or at the very least give you options. If you have the opportunity to place terrain, make sure you understand if and how your opponent can interact with them. Can these be selected as points for returning models to the battlefield (i.e. Soulblight Gravelords previewed for 4th edition). Can you or your opponent create choke-points with the terrain that will allow you to deny or delay them? 

Then comes the matter of deployment. Your first movement phase isn't in the first battle round, it is in deployment. Set those conditions before you even start so you can actually execute your plan. In our Sylvaneth example, you cannot perform a deny flank maneuver and quickly flip the board if you don't meet the distance requirements to teleport around. Set yourself up for success and control every factor you can to give yourself an advantage. Practice these deployments across various maps, too. If you're short on time for a game, go through a few mock deployments with a buddy. Take a look at the Warhammer Community article on optional terrain maps to understand how you can use Obscuring and Impassible terrain to your advantage. 

Shaping Operations During the Game

This falls back into the discussion of proactive and reactive play. Keep your Battle Drills in you pocket as you form and adapt them to the existing conditions. Then, work backwards from the endstate you want to achieve. In terms of phasing your operations, it could look something like: "by the end of battle round 1, my two squads of Dryads have secured the key terrain spanning the impassible terrain in the enemy's territory and the western flank of the center objective in order to delay the enemy and allow the main body (your castle) to secure the center objective and score the 'Seize the Center' Battle Tactic." This will help you shape the subsequent turns for you to perform follow-on actions, whatever those may be.

For instance, you could anticipate that the enemy collapses on the center and makes their decisive operation be to take the center objective from you. If this is the case, you can develop the branches and sequels to the first battle round and develop a proactive solution to whatever course of action the enemy takes. There isn't one right answer besides this: make adaptable plans that constantly put the pressure on your opponent to have to make bad decisions. No two games will be alike and you will need to adjust your plan. Just do yourself the favor of having that framework to fall back on. 

Conclusion

I hope you'll consider this approach when you are theory crafting your next list and considering how to improve your play. Again I must stress that this isn't THE way to approach it, it is merely A way. Much like the reasoning for training and doctrine in the military, we can develop something to fall back on when the proverbial Stonehorn feces hit the fan. I hope you've enjoyed this read and if you have please share with a friend, subscribe, or drop us a line to let us know what you did or did not enjoy. Stay Sparkly my friends. 

Phasing Operations

Introduction 

The ability to score battle tactics (or secondary objectives in Warhammer 40K) for factions varies considerably across the board. Some armies enjoy tremendous mobility or killing power or otherwise have a veritable toolbox to consistently achieve their battle tactics. While it is unclear what will happen to "book" battle tactics in AoS 4.0, we do know a fair amount of what is to come for universal battle tactics and grand alliance battle tactics. Today we will discuss how to develop a strategy to achieve these more methodically through the military concept of phasing to develop a scheme of maneuver. 

Some members of the Sparkle Motion team will be unveiling an exciting new forum to discuss strategy and several other wargaming topics on a new podcast, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, let's don our tin foil hats to speculate about the new edition, and then conceal that tin foil hat under our Field Marshal's campaign hats so we can retain the initiative with the new edition. Follow us, share, or just talk with your gaming group about what you learned today about phasing and planning a scheme of maneuver.

Background

The US Army operates by issuing lawful and/or direct orders, that is probably not a surprise. But what you may not have heard of are Operation Orders, or OPORDs. These regimented documents are universal throughout all formations of the Army and give consistent guidance on the commander's vision to accomplish the mission. These OPORDs are also nested within echelons so that they are all working to a common goal and enabling one another for success. 

There are five paragraphs that appear in every OPORD, in the same order each time. They are situation, mission, execution, sustainment, and command and control. Each of these provide a detailed but concise format to disseminate information throughout an organization in a very rapid fashion. Today we will focus solely on paragraph three: execution. 

Execution

The third OPORD paragraph begins with the commander's intent, a simple statement that summarizes how the commander wants the battlefield to look when the dust settles. Our commander's intent will vary somewhat on our opponent's capabilities, but generally it will be oriented on scoring as many points as you can while denying points to your opponent. Your intent needs to adjust from matchup to matchup. For armies that are particularly durable, it is generally not worthwhile to destroy them. The only path to victory may instead to not become decisively engaged, retain key terrain to score primary objective points, and achieve battle tactics while you set conditions to make it impossible or at least difficult for your opponent to achieve theirs. Essential to all of this is deploying in a fashion that makes some of the battle tactics easier for you and understanding what is feasible and achievable as the situation develops.

Let's take a look at what we know for sure is coming in terms of battle tactics for 4th edition:

These are three of the promised six universal battle tactics to be released at launch in the upcoming General's Handbook. We see two tactics, Seize the Center and Take the Flanks are spatial in nature but also diametrically opposed. Some armies will have a predilection to one or the other, which is the sort of analysis you need to do when you're developing your commander's intent. Are you an Ossiarch Bonereapers general that has access to (at the time of writing) some of the highest durability and melee debuffing in the game? Spreading out to achieve the Take the Flanks battle tactic would likely not be conducive to your overarching intent of maintaining a tight formation and dominating a concentrated part of the board with your resources. Alternatively, a Tzeentch general may happily pursue both Seize the Centre and take the flanks almost simultaneously because of their ability to rap
idly summon durable (or rather, gibbering and splitting wound sinks) units. 

The point is that without some semblance of a plan, there is a good chance your approach to the game will be disjointed and you'll find that you deployed your forces in such a way that you'll be hard pressed to accomplish what you intend to. Having an idea in mind of which tactics you can aim for each turn as well as alternative branches your plan can take when the situation changes. This plan is called your Scheme of Movement and Maneuver.

Scheme of Movement and Maneuver

We'll refer to this as your scheme. Your scheme is how you plan to array then move your forces throughout the battlefield to achieve battle tactics, control the board, and defeat your opponent's forces. Sometimes defeating your opponent means destroying their units. Other times it is simply a matter of isolating or containing them. Whatever the case is, we take what we learned from our IPOE steps to understand how the environment will impact our operations as well as the enemy.

Let's create an example scenario. We will play as the Ogor Mawtribes army from our previous discussions and walk through how we analyze the battlefield and make a scheme that has tactical flexibility. In the early game, we do not want our forces to be arrayed with a wide breadth because that makes it more difficult to capitalize on our greatest strength: the ability to inflict large amounts of out-of-combat phase damage that gives our opponent even less agency in dictating the fight. We need to be in a position that we can reliably close with and engage with the enemy in melee. That being said, take the flanks in the early rounds is not advisable. Your units would be maybe 50 inches apart or so. That means they are not getting into the fight or are being taken away from valuable screening or attack by fire roles (e.g. your Gnoblars and Ironblaster, respectively).

You also lack information on what the enemy course of action (COA) will be. You have hopefully narrowed it down to a couple of COAs but you likely won't have perfect information. A good rule of thumb is to have one battle tactic in mind for the upcoming turn based on the current board state and at least one other alternative if your opponent takes a more unexpected route. This is why armies such as Kruelboyz (at time of writing) have had some recent success. Their battle tactics are very achievable, flexible, and leave little room for the opponent to interact with them. 

This leads into our next point. It is not enough to be pursuing your needs in the scheme of maneuver, you need to simultaneously be disrupting your opponent at every opportunity. It is easy to fall into the mindtrap of solely focusing on what your battle tactics (BTs) will be. Consider the raw points differential of denying battle tactics. If you can achieve a battle tactics while your opponent scores an additional point for primaries, you can start to make up some ground.

Round	Battle Tactic	Primary	You	Battle Tactic	Primary	Opponent
1	2	2	4	2	3	5
2	2	2	8	0	3	8
3	2	2	12	2	3	13
4	2	3	17	2	2	17
5	2	3	22	2	2	21
Grand Strat			25			24

In this example, even though your opponent controlled more objectives for 3 out of the 5 rounds, denying just one battle tactic of theirs made it possible for you to win by 1 point. This may not appear to be much at first glance, but let's consider the benefits of going down on primaries for part of the game. Spreading out and controlling fewer objectives allows you to concentrate and mass your forces more while your opponent has spread thin to gain at least one more objective than you. It also allows you to have a specific point in time that you know is your "go turn," where you need to aggressively engage with the enemy to turn the tide. This is our decisive operation, and in this instance it occurs at round 4. 

Conclusion

This is what we have been talking about, controlling the tempo, phasing your operations to achieve exactly what you need, no more. This sacrifice of points, trading that space on the battlefield, has given you more time and tactical flexibility to choose your engagements on your terms and ensure that you can set up for battle tactics without making yourself vulnerable. Many times before I have lost sight of the bigger picture in pursuing a battle tactic, not realizing that I did so at the expense of the game. Getting those two points is not worth getting yourself into a bad position. This is why giving away the double turn is so powerful. It keeps putting the onus onto your opponent to get out of position and spread themselves too thin. When you can be in a position that you are indifferent to the double turn and recognize when it is time to capitalize on it to deal a decisive blow, you'll realize that you're doing it right.

Thank you for joining team Sparkle Motion on this part of the journey today. Hopefully you'll leave after reading this article with a better understanding of how to phase your operations, select BTs that allow tactical flexibility, and how to control the tempo of the game. We'd love if you gave us a follow, shared this article with a friend, or gave us any feedback on how to get better information to you. Until next time, stay sparkly.

Tactical Tasks: Words Have Meaning

 Introduction

While there are many instances of good leadership throughout the military (or any profession for that matter), there are just as many examples of poor leadership. We can, however, still learn quite a bit from bad leaders, so it is important to not always write people off. I had one such experience in my career from a military instructor, let's call him Major Flowers. He'd always say, "Words mean things," which upon first glance sounds pretty... stupid. But after I was exposed to more challenges and experienced some pitfalls of inadequate language, I appreciated what he meant all the more. 

I do not recommend listening to most of what Major Flowers said, but he was onto something there. With this in mind, we will examine the US Army's use of a particular vocabulary: Tactical Mission Tasks. As always, I don't think you should be drafting mission analysis slides during your games of Warhammer. Quite the contrary, this guide is a continued attempt to help develop a framework to expedite how you analyze the battlefield and, as the kids say, "git gud." I'll be trying to make these a bit less formal and more to-the-point after some recent and valid criticism. That being said, if you enjoy this content, I'd really appreciate a follow and/or share. If you didn't enjoy it, I would love to know how I can make it better. Let's begin today's discussion.

Background (the "so what?")

In real-world operations, one of the greatest challenges is overcoming the hurdle that is variance in how people interpret information. Something may be crystal clear to you as you explain it, but may incomprehensible to your audience. To combat this, the Army has adopted a very specific vocabulary do describe their operations. One set of this vocabulary is known as "Tactical Mission Tasks." This creates a universal and explicit set of words that don't have room for interpretation. 

Age of Sigmar 4.0 (and Warhammer 40K before it) is also seeming to try and achieve a similar end state by incorporating more explicitly defined keywords and language in our rules. This makes for a more functional and, in the case of wargaming, enjoyable experience. The reason we are going to review tactical mission tasks in the context of Warhammer is so we can better understand how we are committing our resources and ensuring we are pairing the right tool for the job. Any efficiencies we can create to take up fewer brain-bytes enables us to make better decisions and win more games.

Relevant Tactical Tasks

Let's look at which tasks are most relevant to our endeavors in Warhammer:

Defeat, Destroy, and Neutralize

Each of these sound quite similar, no? Well, they each have a specific definition as tactical tasks. This is because sometimes you do not have the resources to destroy (physically rendering a force combat ineffective, to damage a combat system so badly that it cannot perform any function) a unit, you may opt to neutralize (rendering enemy incapable of interfering) it. Defeating and element occurs when an enemy force has temporarily or permanently lost the physical means or will to fight, this is a broader and more abstract term that can be accomplished a number of ways. 

Your aim is to defeat your opponent by creating dilemmas and giving them no recourse to outscore you. You destroy their units by inflicting casualties and making them combat ineffective so they cannot perform their intended function. And finally, you could neutralize a shooting unit by engaging in melee with them so they cannot interfere with you by shooting at targets of the enemy's choosing. 

Breach

We've discussed screening as an essential task to maintain security of our own formations. The enemy will certainly be making the same efforts. A breach is a tactical task that seeks to break through or secure a passage through that screen. 

Contain

"To stop, hold, or surround forces of the enemy to center activity on a given front," (ADRP 1-02 p.1-9). The unit archetype of "tar pit," such a Horrors of Tzeentch or Dryads close enough to overgrown terrain are effective performing this tactical task. Essentially it is a way of move-blocking your opponent to keep them off objectives or otherwise containing their ability to influence your scheme of maneuver.

Canalize

The tactical task of restricting enemy movement "to a narrow zone by exploiting terrain coupled with the use of obstacles, fires, or friendly maneuver." We will get into a "fun" concept called Engagement Area Development (EA DEV) some day, a concept that capitalizes on effective canalizing of the enemy. For now, let's use an example: You can canalize the enemy into unfavorable position by arraying your forces (friendly maneuver) in conjunction with terrain and resources like endless spells (obstacles). This puts them at risk for counterattack and juicy, overlapping engagement ranges for shooting units (fires). 

Disrupt

The use of your resources to "upset an enemy's formation or tempo, interrupt [their] timetable, or cause [their] forces to commit prematurely or attack in piecemeal fashion," (ADRP 1-02 p.1-13). Armies that want to get into your face quickly to concentrate and mass their forces depend on tempo and creating conditions for their plans to be effective. You disrupt them by giving them a problem, or at least a speed-bump, to deal with. 

Fix

"A tactical mission task where a commander prevents the enemy from moving any part of [their] force from a specific location for a specified period of time," (ADRP 1-02 p.1-17). This is particularly useful to set up follow-on operations, or to simply stall your opponent so you can pull ahead on primary objective points and create the necessary deficit. 

Demonstration

A form of attack designed to deceive the enemy as to the location or time of the decisive operation by a display of force. You may commit some forces to become decisively engaged in a demonstration, but it is merely a ruse for you to perform your decisive operation. 

Feint

A form of attack used to deceive the enemy as to the location or time of the actual decisive operation without becoming decisively engaged. This is particularly effective with high-mobility armies. Being able to "flip the board" by massing your forces asymmetrically, then rapidly redeploying or maneuvering them to the opposite end can keep your opponent out of position so you can create more favorable conditions.

Exploitation

An exploitation force follows a successful attack to take advantage of the opportunity you just created. This task limits your opponent's ability to reconstitute their forces and ability to respond in a meaningful capacity.

Frontal Attack

The most unga and bunga of all forms of attack, the frontal attack does exactly what it says on the tin. You push your dollies toward your opponent's and let the fates decide. Generally this is only recommended if you are trying to accomplish another tactical task, or if you enjoy numerical superiority or overmatch.

Envelopment

A form of maneuver in which an attacking forces seeks to avoid the principal enemy defenses by seizing objectives to the enemy rear in order to destroy the enemy in their current position. In short, this is what is generally considered "flanking." This is generally regarded as superior to a frontal attack because you suffer fewer casualties and maintain a better tempo for your operations.

Conclusion

Hopefully with this you can build a vocabulary in your mind to have a more clear and defined approach to your plans. In a game of dice and variability, having a means to control the chaos can be extremely valuable. Part of that is having a framework to work within. Furthermore, if you can build on this lexicon amongst your play group or friends, you can have a better foundation to build a shared understanding. These are the key components of what you use to build a mission statement. "My leftmost unit of 10 Dryads will move to the northern portion of the leftmost objective to fix the enemy Horrors of Tzeentch in order to enable the decisive operation." The decisive operation in your mind might then be, "The unit of 6 Kurnoth Hunters will conduct an envelopment in order to destroy the enemy Lord of Change." 

You need not go to these extremes, but if you are having trouble decided what to do, this can help you formulate more definitive plans. Not having intentions for how you commit your forces is going to leave it up to the dice to decide. Or worse, it will allow your opponent to pick you apart at their discretion. Hopefully this is something you can use to build up your playbook of possible operations you can employ successfully. Perhaps I am just like Major Flowers and this has been a complete waste of your time. If that's the case, then let me know so I can get better. Thanks again for joining us at Sparkle Strategy. Don't forget to sign up for email notifications, follow, or to give us any feedback you might have. Stay sparkly, my friends.

AoS Homework: IPOE Step 4

 

Introduction

If you've made it this far, then you are pretty much ready to be an intelligence officer in the US military. Joking aside, thank you for continuing to learn with us using military doctrine as a framework for becoming a better wargaming general. If you haven't already, give us a follow, leave a comment, and now you can sign up for email updates for when articles are published. Today we will finish up with the last step of the IPOE process and discuss how we can perform all 4 steps in a pretty expedited fashion. Pull a seat up to the table, warmaster, and we will discuss some tactics.

Step 4: Determine Threat Courses of Action

All of the previous steps we performed culminates to this: what is the enemy going to do? Or at the very least, we aim to determine what they are very likely to do. But allow me to drive this home yet again, in each of our actions, the best possible maneuver we can perform is one that places the initiative firmly in our hands. If we can position ourselves in such a way that we limit the options available to the enemy commander, we are retaining the initiative. In the US Army, a commander has a staff they utilize to game out what they think will happen based on all of the factors we have reviewed thus far. When executed properly, the staff can help the commander choose an approach that will allow for tactical flexibility and "accept all comers" when it comes to the enemy's choices. 

The enemy will be trying to do the same exact thing (or at least you should be anticipating that they will be doing so). The following steps will reduce the chances of you being surprised by their actions and help you maintain control of the game. The substeps for determining threat courses of action are to develop threat courses of action (COAs) and to develop an event template and matrix. The former is merely a process of molding the Threat Template from the previous article into the context of the terrain and other operational environmental factors. 

Develop threat COAs

This is simply a process of putting yourself in your opponent's shoes and considering what they are likely to do. Consider the exact some factors when you are formulating your plan: how will I score primary objective points? What battle tactics are available to me? What part of the board do I want to control? The list goes on, but let us focus on what is most likely to happen (MLCOA) and the most dangerous course of action (MDCOA). This is a useful, expedient way to prepare for what might happen next. Let's say you are matched up against the Ogor player from the previous article. It is the bottom of turn one after your opponent moved up the board, took some objectives, and did some chip damage with shooting their ironblaster.

Now consider what you think are the MLCOA and MDCOA. The MLCOA would probably be to put themselves in a position that they can continue to score battle tactics and that they will commit part of their force to melee combat in order to do so (many of the current battle tactics would require this). If you are considering the characteristics of the defense effectively, they likely won't see an opportunity to exploit the following turn, and you can maintain the initiative, or at least trade it back and forth as the rounds progress. The most dangerous course of action could result from you taking a calculated risk by overextending, banking on the double turn to mitigate their ability to charge and therefore inflict maximum damage. If you do not get the double turn, the tables have turned and now you have provided the Ogor player with exactly what they have been trying to create: an opportunity to exploit. This is your MDCOA. 

Right now we are just trying to generate these contextualized COAs with all the information we have and visualizing second and third orders of effect that might take place. Take the threat template we have generated previously and let's massage it into the operational environment. If the player can utilize some impassible terrain near where they've deployed, that will likely give them the ability to screen out an ever larger portion of the board because they need not fear being flanked from that side. Is there key terrain or an objective they can move block you from? Their defense will likely gravitate around that area. These are the sorts of "branches and sequels," what the opponent will do based on their current postures and actions for subsequent plans, we can envision and interact with when we go through this process. A common trend during our opponent's turn is to focus on what they are doing, but it is just as important, if not more so, to think think about what we are going to do in response during their turn.

Develop the Event Template and Matrix

These steps focus largely on information collection and reconnaissance efforts for military commanders, so we are going to distill it to the most basic and necessary information. Usually you would use the Event Template and Matrix to lay out when throughout time and space you expect things to happen. You then use this information to direct collection assets to these "named areas of interest" (NAIs) so you can observe indicators that a particular enemy COA is happening. In the example below, indicators for each of the threat COAs may be the emplacement of obstacles, multiple linear defensive positions perpendicular to obstacles, and setting up near intervisibility lines, respectively, clue us in as to what the enemy's intentions are while we rule out other COAs. 

What's the significance of this? If we have a better idea of what the enemy can do, we have more opportunities to affect their operations. Namely, it helps us understand where their key components will be in space and time, and helps us develop strategies to create opportunities so we can neutralize or destroy those components. The key here is tactical flexibility. Try to find your own courses of action that can account for different enemy decisions. Taking it back to our Ogor scenario, you could theoretically set yourself to tie or even go down on points in order to put your opponent in a position that they have to abandon the defense to continue to get battle tactics and disallow you from pulling ahead as the tempo shifts. This can be a viable path to victory, depending on your army capabilities. 

Conclusion

There is not a panacea that I can tell you, "in this scenario do this," because it does not exist. Rather, I aim to help you reconsider how you view and process information as the game progresses. This process can be clunky and protracted, but luckily the vast majority of it you can do outside of the game. You need not ask your opponent to wait while you furiously mark up a sheet of acetate with NATO symbols. I'm just asking you to consider how you go about accounting for what your enemy may do and what you plan to do in response. The more prepared you are, the less likely you are to make poor decisions and you reduce the amount of mental fatigue you incur. This is just a way to do it in a procedural manner. Thanks again for joining Sparkle Strategy once again on this journey. Remember to leave some feedback, subscribe for updates, and most importantly, stay sparkly.

AoS Homework: Intel

Introduction

Hello again and thanks again for joining Team Sparkle on another installment of the AoS Operations series. Previously we examined the first two steps of the Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (IPOE) and how they apply to your calculus as a commander in AoS. Today we'll continue discussing another part of the process and build a quick example of what it might look like from beginning to end. I do not recommend you actually perform IPOE on every single Army in the game (because I probably will later). You already do this in your head and after reading this, you will see that it is merely a process to ensure you are accounting for every facet of info you can. Rather, I want to walk you through this framework so you can have a new perspective to understand your opponent and their list. We'd love to hear your feedback and have you give us a follow so you can stay plugged into our analytic adventure and to share with your gaming buddies so we can all become better commanders. Now, without any further delay, let's get to the matter.

IPOE Step 3: Evaluate the Threat

Having completed steps to define the operational environment and how the battlefield effects will impact our operations, we narrow our focus on the enemy. Doctrinally this is the process that "determines threat forces capabilities and the doctrinal principles and TTP (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) threat forces prefer to employ," ATP 2-01.3, p.5-1. For our use, evaluating the threat is understanding the rules that govern how it can operate and understanding how those capabilities can be used to shape the battlefield. The Army categorizes the types of threats further into regular, irregular, and hybrid threats. This is a useful device to understand in the broadest terms how an army in AoS operates. Regular forces are the "honest" approaches to combat, not relying a complex mechanics or tricks. Irregular forces do not tend to fight their opponents face to face, they degrade their abilities, use unconventional engagement tactics, and tend to fight in a more asymmetric fashion. Hybrid forces are simply armies that can do a bit of both. 

With the most basic categorization completed, we get to the "How to do it" portion of the doctrine and we have our first diagram:

Identify Threat Characteristics

In figure 5-1 we can see several factors to consider. We'll focus on the ones most relevant to our discussion with some in-game examples.

Composition

Figure 5-2 illustrates the composition, aka the list your opponent takes to the match. This is an organizational chart for a Mechanized Infantry Brigade, a common maneuver element. It has several capabilities from direct fire (shooting an enemy you can see), indirect fire (shooting an enemy you can't see with artillery), and support roles (Air Defense, Engineering, Maintenance, Transportation, and Chemical Warfare). Let's not get too into the weeds of this Mechanized Infantry Brigade, just suffice to say that this tells the commander how many of what resources the enemy has and the associated capabilities of those weapons and support systems. Instead, let's see how we can translate this to an AoS list so we can understand the capabilities and limitations.

Here we've repurposed the organizational chart to understand an Ogor Mawtribes Meatfist list. This provides the framework for the composition so we can build on it later.

Disposition

As we examined in the previous installment, how the threat forces are arrayed can give you many indications. Doctrinally, we use this as a means of identifying what tactic or maneuver the enemy may execute based on where specific elements of their forces are. In the previous organizational chart, we can identify a common power-pair in the infantry screen Gnoblars and the self propelled artillery, the Ironblaster. For your opponent in this scenario to use this significant points investment properly, they need to have an effective firing lane. If they deploy in such a way that they have a clear line of sight and range to a unit (even better yet if they measure to one of your units that tells you their intentions exactly), it gives you a hint on what their target priority looks like. If they set it up more defensively so they can punish you from contesting an objective, that tells you another course of action they may be taking. The point is, the enemy's disposition in conjunction with their composition tells a story. The homework you can do is understanding how those elements piece together so you can understand the significance of that story and give it a not-so-happy conclusion.

Strength

Assessing a unit's strength is a matter of understanding what it is most effective at. There is a significant incentive in Warhammer to take the most efficient lists as is possible. In this way, your opponent is telling you their intentions. If you stare across the board at two units of Ironguts and a Frostlord, they probably intend to smash you Dryads to splinters and stick Durthu's Greenwood Gladius up his own trunk. Further, what is the unit's loadout? Are there any potential aspects you can exploit such as rend or damage reduction? Pile these considerations onto the previous two while we continue.

Combat Effectiveness

A threat's Combat Effectiveness is a characteristic you should frequently re-analyze. As you inflict casualties, the enemy will logically become a less effective fighting force. Fewer models making attacks means less damage and fewer models to stand on objectives. On the other hand, untouched units that have combat power remaining are clearly more valuable to your opponent. This dynamic characteristics helps you keep spinning the plates that matter and let the less important ones fall to the ground. Don't try to address every single problem. Exterminate the most important problems with extreme prejudice.  

Doctrine and Tactics

Because of our glorious and beloved friend HeyWoah (easily the best AoS content creator in this author's humble opinion), we know that Ogors want one thing and it's disgusting. Always be charging. Let's put this into context of our list example. We can see this Meatfist list (say that 8 times fast) has several minimum strength units (MSU) instead of reinforcing. This in conjunction with what we know about the Ogor tactics tells us that the enemy commander wants to create many opportunities to inflict mortal wounds on the charge. If this player can charge in all of their Ogor infantry and the Stonehorn, they will inflict roughly 17 mortal wounds on average. That damage potential is massive and a wise Ogor commander will exploit it at every opportunity. 

Create or Refine Threat Models

With these characteristics in mind, we can begin to create our threat models. A good way to imagine this to place the army in the previous example in a giant parking lot. We'll call it an additional realm, uhh, Lotqshy. There are no terrain features in this realm, just pure flat. We have two outputs to make:

Threat Template

The Threat Template is what we might consider the "playbook" of what an army does. We'll construct a specific example below, but this is the set of techniques that a commander uses to win the game. They can employ different strategies, each which would serve a different purpose. As a parallel, we'll use a mobile defense threat template with the Ogor list to see what this looks like.

This is a very rough example of a threat template that you can use to quickly visualize what this list wants to do. It wants you to move toward the unit of Gnoblars (performing the guard tactical task, preventing direct fire with the ironblaster and main body of the army, i.e. charging) so the main source of damage, the charging MSUs can be committed to the decisive operation. Several of the Ogor book battle tactics depend on being able to charge and get into combat, so this commander wants to set up situations to accomplish those battle tactics and get points. The Firebelly, depicted with the Air Defense Artillery icon, exists in this list to provide ther wholly within 12" bubble to hand out -1 to hit penalties, making the army more survivable. The Slaughtermaster exists to issue commands and hand out buffs to troops, so it is going to be in a position where it can be within range to do so. Finally, we have the armor, the big thicc boi. The Frostlord on Stonehorn exists as a counterattack element to commit to the fight when the commander sees a gap they can exploit. The model's great mobility, durability, and monstrous rampage makes it a terrific piece to capitalize on gaps the opponent leaves open. 

The subsequent steps of IPOE results in the output of the High-Value Target List (HVTL). This is typically broken down yet further (are you seeing a trend here?) to be evaluated by phase. In some parts of the battle, a commanders assets are more valuable than others. This illustrates how at different points of the battle, the most important piece to a player can change. Let's say you're about to take your turn and you are considering what to do. Is your opponent's only remaining battle tactic Surround and Destroy (GHB 23-24)? If you can remove one of the three units they will have the chance to select the next turn they have

to choose from, you can deny them a battle tactic. These sorts of insights are hard to keep in mind at times when you are hyper-focused on destroying the most damaging unit your opponent has. Sometimes that unit is merely a distraction. Remove yourself from the immediate, tactical level, focus on the broader, strategic level. The game is won with points, not by killing models (even though sometimes this gives you points). 

In our next installment, we will perform the last step of the IPOE process, which mostly is a matter of molding the "parking lot" scenario that was the Threat Template to the area of operations (how does the terrain influence maneuver, disposition of troops, etc.). We hope that you've enjoyed the installment today and that you're starting to see the house start to form together around the framework we've been building. Remember, we won't be painstakingly drawing these plans on sheets of acetate while our opponent impatiently taps their foot. We will have this in the back of our minds as a means of systematically assessing the ever-changing battlefield so we can make the best decisions and retain the initiative. Thanks again for the read. If you've enjoyed this, we'd love if you give this blog a follow, a share, or just tell someone you know something you've learned. Stay Sparkly.