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.