A day spent learning lessons is a day well spent, so I thought I'd share a few things I learnt from the games I had at Double Take 2011. Some are obvious, but I'm still learning so I'll share them anyway.

1. Rollin lots of dice makes each one matter less. When I found myself rolling over 60 lasgun shots I found they generally averaged out and did what was expected. When we relied on fewer dice rolls to be successful, plans unravelled somewhat.

2. Every unit should have a purpose, and tht purpose should be remembered. Shooting troops should shoot and assault troops should assault. Sounds simple enough, but we found ourselves holding the assault troops back as a counterpunch unit but then allowed our opponents to dictate where and how hard they would not us.

3. Behold with movement. If you are going to attack, then attack. Dithering only leaves you in the open with your pants down.

4. Remember the mission. If its kill points, then concentrate on wiping out every single model in every squad, rather than paving a few left to deal with later.

5. In a tournament, play to the time rather than the turn. If in a normal game you would start an objective rush on turn five or six, in a tournament game you may not even get to those turns. You need to start your end game as the time limit rather than turn limit approaches.

There are probably probably loads more tactical lessons I learnt, as my mind processes them I'll continue to share them.

And a couple of army specific lessons too:

Hydras look scary and are brilliant against some armies, but against power armour they are nowhere near as effective.

Blob squads of guard using 'first rank fire, second rank fire' can kick out truly horrendous numbers of shots at close range.

Ork Lootas are better than they are given credit for.

Basilisks are awesome and brilliant at killing marines.

Ratlings are not as useful in small numbers as I thought they would be; perhaps bigger squads might do some damage?

Blob squads of guard hit by any assault squad will disappear in a single turn. All 41 of them.

Power armour saves are made. A lot.

Terminators can die, if they are hit with enough shots.

Land raiders aren't just assault platforms, they are fearsome fire platforms as well and can kick out a lot of damage.
Veteran guard need something added to make them useful; a ten man unit with no upgrades adds very little.8

Seeing this has made me reflect back on my games too and I can see the lessons I should learn:

1. A 'hammer-unit' is not just an attacking threat, but also a psychological and defensive one too. My Land Raider with Terminators and HQ attracted soooo much opposing fire, it took away other units being hit, but also a big scary tank with these guys in were sometimes left alone so that the real meat of our armies (the troops) could be chewed up, which meant the hammer was left to hit any/everything it chose.

2. A negative mood of a partner can affect me. I tried my best to be positive and reactive to a situation, but if your partners motivation wanes, then the game can be lost easily. Positive mental attitudes can be sooo much more of a tactic then just models.

3. Character makes an army: what I mean by this is a players army should reflect his personality: deepstrikers should be played by risk-takers, hordes by optimists (and those with shovel sized hands for the ton of dice rolled), etc. Someone who's attitude differs from the character needed for a specific army can cause rash and sometimes bad decisions.

I learnt to really think though your moves. what may seem like a great idea at the time (in my case) usually isn't!
Thunderfire cannons really don't get used enough by marine players. I'm looking for a second one!
Feel no pain on terminators is just plain wrong! Like rolling a one isn't hard enough they then get a bloody 4 plus! (not really bitter lol)
Don't drop drop pods if there is even the slightest chance of it going off the board. It will!

And many many more that will of forgot about by the time i play again.

I learn't that I really don't like outflanking Stormravens!! Especially ones with Mephiston and A Furioso Dreadnought inside it...

(Mind you this dislike might be something to do with the poor rolling that resulted in it taking 4 Melta Shots, 6 Plasma shots, 8 Autocannon shots, 9 Multilaser shots all in 1 shooting phase without us getting a single Glancing or Penetrating hit!!)

I also learn't that if you are playing a complete Shooting army with no Assualt units in it you do really well with Average or good dice but when the dice are bad the whole game falls apart and you have no backup plan. Since I don't like assault units that is a bit of a problem!!

I just glad I was not the only one to loose a drop pod off the table edge yesterday. Fortune favours the brave? My arse. lol


Michael

there's brave and then there's mental!

I personally never work on the average 8" corridor rule (leaving an 8" gap from board edges) I tend to play the 10-12" gap, as scattering will stop it falling off and if the target is in that gap between you and board edge, you should be in range, if they are more towards the centre, its a gamble where the scatter will land. Fortune favours the careful sometimes lol

life on the edge. Thats me. Or should that be life over the edge?

@Wizard: You may have been had by those outflanking Stormravens. Stormravens can't outflank. Ever.

@Glenoxo: Were you packing a Commissar with that unit? Because they should at least last a couple of turns!

Nope - the idea was that the marines I was teamed up with would act as a skirmish shield or counterpunch unit and intercept (and hopefully destroy) anything which looked like getting into hand to hand with me. Unfortunately this didn't work out quite as planned...

I think in a larger points game I would, but it was a choice between a commissar and more guns and the pie plates won the argument.