AoS Operations

 

In a game where the litany of nuanced abilities, rules, and interactions cloud your mind, it is hard to bear in mind the “big picture.” Time and again, though, you will see that the best Warhammer players exhibit the same or similar characteristics: a strong command of the macro game. Movement, playing the primary, and playing to the battleplan. While it is important to understand the insane amount of information to be a successful player, it is all for not if you cannot perform the fundamentals.

This guide will attempt to do just that within the framework of an organization that is well-established in the science and art of destroying the enemy (though you will not actually be killing your opponent and you don’t really have to listen to the Geneva Convention. Namely, I will be using the US Army’s Unified Action model to illustrate how you can manage your macro game. It is not possible to go through every “what if,” you need to develop your mind to analyze the board state (Operational Environment), make a plan, and execute it.

This preposterous alphabet soup and list of jargon is how the US Army fights and wins land wars. We’ll examine the aspects that are applicable to Age of Sigmar only, and I can guarantee you a Drill Sergeant will not be yelling at you. Let’s begin with the Tenets and Principles of Operations through the lens of wargaming. First up: Principles. These are concepts that aren’t universally applicable to every operation but something you should strive to use when you can.

Objective: don’t get it twisted, your aim if you’re reading this article is to win the game. Your army(ies) has multiple paths to achieve this but when the fifth round has concluded, you need to have more points than your opponent.

Offensive: this is the mindset to be proactive as opposed to a reactive player. You need to be dictating the flow of the battle and creating problems for your opponent instead of just responding. This does vary from player to player, but this guide will recommend you to have a proactive mindset.

Maneuver: this game is won and lost in the movement phase. You and your opponent have access to all the same warscrolls and movement characteristics. What they don’t have access to is your means to plan and shape the battlefield by maneuvering your resources. Funneling your opponent, screening off objectives, setting up a counter-charge, these are maneuvers.

Economy of force: imagine this- you send your big hammer in to clear a unit of skeletons and they do it in one go! Wow great job! Except not really. You just expended valuable resources to overkill something that wasn’t that valuable to your opponent. If you cannot accomplish what you need to given the board state, then do not commit that resource to the fight.

Unit of command: this is not really applicable in singles but could come into play in team or doubles environments.

Security: a very common mistake with novice players is insufficient or incorrect screening. You need the right amount and just as importantly they need to be sufficiently spaced. More on this later.

Simplicity: a common phrase in military operations-”No plan survives first contact.” Your path to victory is more likely to fail if it hinges on multiple, cascading series of events unfolding in perfect Tzeentchian fashion. Know what your army does, invest in amplifying those strengths, and develop a linear plan that has branches. The enemy always gets a vote.

Restraint: No. But seriously, when you’ve got a less-glorious way to get a battle tactic and sit on an objective vs. a flashy, killy means to take a turn, go with the former. This may seem extremely obvious to the more “Spike” minded players, but less so to others. 

These are really broad concepts for you to try and incorporate from list building through your execution of the game. When you and your list can follow these principles, you will find that you are more in control and your opponent is on their back foot. 

Next, let’s discuss elements of decisive action through the lens of Offensive and Defensive operations. Remember, we are wanting to remain in a proactive mindset, which you can still accomplish while on the defensive. 

Let’s focus primarily on the “Purposes” portions of these sections. 

Dislocate, isolate, disrupt, and destroy enemy forces: very often units in AoS depend on buffs within auras or command bubbles. Forcing your enemy to separate their forces in order to isolate or dislocate them allows you to disrupt their economy of forces and deprive them of their vital resources.

Exploitation: this is when you see a gap in your opponents positioning and you seize the initiative. Here is where being a proactive player is so effective. If you just wait for your opponent to eventually make a mistake, the opportunity may never arrive. This is how you are rewarded for being on the offensive, you are shaping the operational environment to create opportunities to exploit. Your job is to present problems for your opponent in which there isn’t a “good” choice. 

Seize key terrain: in military doctrine terms, key terrain is a feature that whoever controls it will possess a decisive advantage. This is very common in AoS. This is why impassible terrain and effective screening is so important. You may not be an active (or at the least a less active) player during your opponent's turn, but effective movement is your means of shaping the battlefield and constraining their capabilities. And don’t forget, your first movement phase isn’t in the first battle round, it is in deployment. It is your first and often most important chance to influence the game. 

Now, let’s talk about the Tenets of operations. These differ from the principles in that tenets are more fundamental and “should be built into all plans and operations.” They are: 

Simultaneity: the intent of this tenet is to bring your resources to bear in a way that overwhelms your opponent and create a dilemma. You want any options they have to be a bad one, or at least to have a downside. While this is a turn based game with sequenced activations, you do have control in using the rules to order activations in your favor. You can stay outside of activation range of targets you do not have resources to deal with and pile in creative ways to force your opponent into multiple units’ activation range, even in your opponent’s turn. 

Depth: this is how your forces effects are layered in time, space, and purpose to achieve results. For example, it is how you array your screens, hammers, and supporting units. You have to constantly bear in mind not just the range of your abilities, but how they will change throughout your turn. Do not over-extend your forces so you lose out on your ability to protect your forces. Let’s say your opponent makes a charge that allows you to make a pile in. Will this take you out of range for any abilities that you need? Keep the template in your mind of this disposition and how you can maintain it while scoring battle tactics and objectives.

Synchronization: this is very easy to conflate with simultaneity. This is more focusing on unit pairings that complement one another in time and space, such as body guard units, a cavalry hero that allows another unit to activate with it, etc. 

Flexibility: “The employment of a versatile mix of capabilities, formations, and equipment for conducting operations,” or in our terms, don’t be a one-trick-pony. In the matched play format, you have no control of what army you’re going to be paired into. You have some ability to recognize what is prevalent in the meta and taking a variety of means to deal with what you’re expecting to match into. At the time of writing, for example, Blades of Khorne is difficult for many matchups because it is a proverbial toolbox of flexibility. The Blood Tithe mechanic allows for multiple pieces of tech to ensure tactical flexibility. Part of this is in your control with your faction selection, list building, and your planning. It’s great to have a plan that allows you to get all five battle tactics and your grand strategy. But have you considered how your opponent can influence it? Are some of your tactics dependent on certain unit types? Are they dependent on casting, and if so, do you have a means to ensure that happens? Minimizing the variance in your planning portions of the game is one of the most vital practices. 

The goal here was to use some well-established, institutional framework for combat to learn some lessons about how to think. If you’re going to take one thing from this guide it is this: use this framework as a way to constantly analyze the boardstate. The myriad of different situations that could arise against opponent a or b and their use of command trait x or y is immaterial if you do not first consider the factors YOU are in control of. These concepts allow you to identify these factors and hone them in a more intentional and productive way. If you are interested in more content like this, drop me a line or leave a comment. Keep it Sparkle, keep it in Motion.