The Pragmatic Realspace Raider: Objective Placement

The Pragmatic Realspace Raider: Objective Placement

These guides aim to give bitesize advice on the benefits of being pragmatic when playing 40k. They do not intend to delve into mathematical analysis of whether or not the units used in the example are optimal or cost effective, nor do they intend to cover load outs or configurations. Those will be left for other discussions. It is also worth noting that the examples in these guides are simplified for clarity, of course in practice there will be more units involved.

Clever objective placement can help you win the game. Particularly in Maelstrom Mission where there are always six objectives on the board.

The first thing to consider is whether you want to place objective in terrain/cover or in the open.

Objectives in the open are easier to contest and score with vehicles as they don’t have to take dangerous terrain tests. They force your opponent to move out into the open to score objectives which lets you get the most out our AP5 against light infantry, and AP2 against medium-heavy infantry. Finally it helps alleviate the Dark Eldar armies lack of assault grenades (no initiative 1 for charging through difficult terrain) and makes the units easier to charge (no -2 to charge distance from difficult terrain). Units holding an objective in the open are at a defensive disadvantage to both shooting and assault.

On the flip side objectives in cover offer a defensive advantage to units holding them, by providing cover, and slowing assaulting units with difficult terrain.

Mysterious Objectives (if you play with them) can also be a factor. Again placing objectives in the open will make it harder for your opponent to leverage the benefits of the mysterious objectives. For example the Targeting Relay (allows the controlling unit to re-roll 1s to hit) is not as appealing when it means leaving your unit out in the open. The Dark Eldar army on the other hand is ideally suited for leveraging Mysterious Objectives in the open. By being in the open it means that Ravagers for example don’t have to make a dangerous terrain test in order to benefit from a Skyfire Nexus (allows the controlling unit to skyfire). Our vehicles with their jink saves can also benefit from Scatter Fields (+1 to cover saves, cumulative with stealth), for example a Raider with night shields would have a 2+ cover save when jinking on a Scatter Field Objective.

In my experience I generally try to place objectives in the open, as I tend to score/contest objectives with units that don’t need the cover save offered by terrain (Raiders and Reavers have jink saves). I also like drawing my opponents units into open ground where they are vulnerable to my grenadeless assault units and AP2 shooting.

Objectives can't be placed within 6" of the table edge or within 12" of another objective, use this to prevent your opponent from setting up objectives in cover.

Example 1:



The Dark Eldar player places an objective in the open so that the two of the terrain pieces are within its 12” bubble (red circle) as a result his opponent cannot place an objective either of those terrain pieces.

Another thing to consider when placing objectives is whether you want them grouped closely together or spread out. As a general rule static armies or armies with little mobility prefer to have objectives grouped together as this can compensate for their lack of mobility. On the other hand more mobile armies prefer to have objectives spread out as they can use their mobility to secure objectives that are far apart. More importantly objectives that are spread out force armies to spread themselves thin which allows a more mobile army to isolate and overwhelm small parts of the opposing army. My preference is to spread objectives out as I find Dark Eldar armies with their mobility and speed are ideally suited to capitalize on it.

Example 2:



The Space Marine player has drawn the secure objective 1 and 2 Tactical Objective cards. However since the objectives are so spread out, he would need to split his force to secure a second objective marker in order to score the objective 2 Tactical Objective card. The Space Marine player moves the Razorback flat out to secure objective 2. However, as a result he has weekend his army by spreading it thin. This would allow the Dark Eldar player to use his army's speed to divide and conquer by isolating and overwhelming the weaker element of the Space Marine army.

That being said just because you place your objectives in the open and spread them out, doesn’t mean your opponent will. This is where picking your table half comes into play. In the Maelstrom Missions this always happens after objective placement. As a result if you win the roll off, try to pick the table half that has the objectives in cover and close together. This way your opponent will be stuck with the objectives that are in the open and spread out. This will give you a defensive advantage on your home objectives and your opponent a defensive disadvantage on his home objectives.

If the opposing player gets choose table sides all is not lost as it is possible to glean some information from his choice. Such as how he plans to deploy, and what his overall battle plan might be.

Example 3:



The first objective (1) was placed in the large ruins. The second objective (2) was placed to prevent objectives being placed in the two pieces of terrain on the left. The third objective (3) was placed in cover and close to objective (1).  

By choosing the side with the objectives that are close together and in cover the opposing player will likely be adopting a defensive and static play style. Clustered objectives encourage castling so he will probably deploy most of his army in the green rectangle. This means the Dark Eldar player will, more often than not, be able to choose the terms of engagement.

Example 4:



The red circles represent the 12” bubbles around objectives. The blue circles represent the 18” maximum assault range of the models they surround.

By choosing the side with the spread out objectives, depending on the opposing players army, he will probably have an aggressive advance (such as assault armies and drop pod armies). He will want you to deploy the bulk of your army around the clustered objectives so that he can pin your army in the green circle (a tactics I use often with my grey knights). The idea being that this will limit your mobility and allow him to surround you whilst getting the most out of his assault units.

Of course there are exceptions to the examples mentioned above, you can never be 100% sure of what your opponents intentions are. However, don't parse up on the opportunity to get early information that can help you work out what his plan might be. This will help avoid nasty surprises, and can help you throw him off balance during the deployment phase.

Hope you enjoyed this guide and found it useful! More guides to come.

For more guides checkout #ThePragmaticRealspaceRaider

This is brilliant, keep em coming please!
I'd like to know what kind of contingency plan you employ when the edge-choosing stage goes against you, leaving you with the spread out objectives in the open and your opponent with their grouped, covered objectives.
Obviously your objectives are still fine for you, but your opponent's are going to be hard to get at.
How does it affect your choice of going first or second?* I know you usually prefer to take second turn. How do you deal with it if your opponent wins that roll and makes you go first?**

*, **
In this massively generalised scenario, anyway.

Nice! This was very helpful. I've never thought about using the 12" no mans land to keep enemy objectives out of cover before.

Great stuff Mush!

I have always found posts that focus on how to win the game are more interesting and useful than those debating and mathhammering which units and/or loadouts are most effective in a given situation.

More please!

Really appreciate you taking your time to share your experience! This is really helpful!

Btw hope you can add some batreps soon again. They really helped my game a lot!

Love it!

Nice, simple and helpful in a realistic way. I believe the title is really appropriate.

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'm glad you found the guide helpful.

I updated the guide with another two examples, and a paragraph on mysterious objectives.

thesaltedwound wrote:

This is brilliant, keep em coming please!
I'd like to know what kind of contingency plan you employ when the edge-choosing stage goes against you, leaving you with the spread out objectives in the open and your opponent with their grouped, covered objectives.

The two new examples I have added should give you some insights.

thesaltedwound wrote:

Obviously your objectives are still fine for you, but your opponent's are going to be hard to get at.
How does it affect your choice of going first or second?* I know you usually prefer to take second turn. How do you deal with it if your opponent wins that roll and makes you go first?**

I'll probably cover going first/second in another guide. There are quite a few things you can do, for example deploying first (and going first) in such a way that if your opponent were to deploy on those clustered objectives he would be in range of your entire army and as a result at the mercy of your alpha strike.

What I would like to see is a discussion of baiting your opponent - this is a tactic that I use in almost all my games. It is a way of dividing an opponents resources and units and it allows you to somewhat dictate the flow of the game when successful.

In most of my lists I will field at ;least one potent threat that my opponent feels needs to be prioritized. This can allow MSU units to siuvive a FB attack. This can lure opponents away from objectives. This can set up productive counter attacks.

Now the question is how do we deploy, what units do we use and is DE able to do this as well as other armies ... ?

egorey wrote:

What I would like to see is a discussion of baiting your opponent...Now the question is how do we deploy, what units do we use and is DE able to do this as well as other armies ... ?

That's a whole other topic, that merits it's own guide. This one primarily focuses on objective placement. But, baiting is on the list of future guides, it's quite far down though, so no idea when I will get round to it.

Here's something Mush wished me to write in this topic:

Vasara wrote:

T5-7 unit positioning starts when you place objectives. Now that I play Coven units I'm quite certain that I have those units left when game ends. But they are slow so I need to have a bunch of objectives in the middle of the board so I can play for them in the end. And having Cronos even highlights this objective placement as it's superFNP is a 12" bubble.

This is from my Batrep where I placed my objectives to the middle against Necrons. It was Maelstrom with Big guns. The point was that depending on your list you need to think what (and when) is your force going to do about the objectives. I had both Grotesquerie and Dark Artisan so I had a lot of durable unit on the table (with 3 ravagers and 5 venoms) I also needed the necrons to bunch up in hte middle so that I could assault them more easlily with slow Coven units (that will lose their mobility in the first turns on arrival)

@Vasara That's a good point if you are relying on slow but durable coven units to score. I try and group objectives as much as I can with my grey knight terminator army (slow and durable). Any tips for getting objectives in a tight grouping like that?

I tend to aim for a mixture of in-cover and in-open. Having an objective in cover provides a useful anchor to fall back on - if anything gets de-meched or would otherwise be useless, it tends to make its move towards that objective so it actually has something to do. Having things in the open denies cover to the enemy, and allows us to bring guns to bear.

I prefer placing objectives far apart, as it benefits DE mobility and forces opponents to spread out. However, I think there's something to be said for taking different approaches to Eternal War and Maelstrom of War missions. With Maelstrom, you want to be able to have as many units as possible capable of reaching as many objectives as possible to maximise opportunities. Otherwise you might find yourself forced into a situation where you really need your ravager to take some tankbusting duties, but it's the only thing capable of reaching Objective 3 this turn, and you have to make a choice between denting your opponent and scoring a point. In Maelstrom, I prefer spreading out still, but I'd rather keep them -slightly- closer together than in EW games.

We usually use lots of ruins where I play, so I tend to place them as high as possible, as I can jump/skim there with pretty much every unit in my army, whereas most of my opponents have to struggle through several floors of difficult terrain to get there.

Sigmaril wrote:

We usually use lots of ruins where I play, so I tend to place them as high as possible, as I can jump/skim there with pretty much every unit in my army, whereas most of my opponents have to struggle through several floors of difficult terrain to get there.

That's a tactic worth mentioning. It's a shame bikes and cavalry can now go up flours in multi story ruins (in 6th they couldn't making the above strategy very potent against bike armies).

Mushkilla wrote:

Sigmaril wrote:

We usually use lots of ruins where I play, so I tend to place them as high as possible, as I can jump/skim there with pretty much every unit in my army, whereas most of my opponents have to struggle through several floors of difficult terrain to get there.

That's a tactic worth mentioning. It's a shame bikes and cavalry can now go up flours in multi story ruins (in 6th they couldn't making the above strategy very potent against bike armies).

I remember watching someone's max-cheese, tournament build Nob Biker list tie a game where they'd been kicking their opponent's teeth in because they couldn't get at the other guy's objective that was up some stairs, and every single model he had was on a bike. He was furious.

I'd just like to say thanks for this article Mushkilla, I used the concept last night in my game, placing my objectives in the open between terrain pieces, and I'm pleased to say my opponent never managed to threaten holding any of them with his guard army, the tanks in the open got lanced and none of his infantry squads moved out of cover.

It even meant my ravager could claim the objective that lets you re-roll '1's to hit, which helped!

I only play Maelstrom, so my opinion is coloured by that.

I have used a successful placement technique for a couple of games now: I place a large LOS blocker on my side, ideally central to my zone; I place two of my objectives 12" apart, either side of it.

My 5 Wyches can secure either objective every turn, with the enemy usually unable to see them at all, along with being in their own deployment zone.

In order for my opponent to get either of those objectives, he has to come right into my near centre, under heavy fire and assault range from the bulk of my army.

commandersasha wrote:

I only play Maelstrom, so my opinion is coloured by that.

It's almost unused at our club due to the extremely random nature of drawing the cards.

My own personal view is that calling them 'tactical' objectives is missing the mark by a long way (in footballing terms the penalty has left the stadium). Tactical objectives would be better served by each player choosing one (possibly two) objective(s) (such as assassinating the enemy HQ or destroying all Heavy Support choices) at the start of the game that aren't revealed to their opponent until after the last turn.

Maelstroms are nomore random that hitting with melta. You need to be prepared that one shot misses (or you don't get the good cards from the beginning). There are several ways to draw deeper in to maelstrom deck. And it makes games so much better that stand on own deployment and shoot away.

Vasara wrote:

Maelstroms are nomore random that hitting with melta. You need to be prepared that one shot misses (or you don't get the good cards from the beginning). There are several ways to draw deeper in to maelstrom deck. And it makes games so much better that stand on own deployment and shoot away.

I disagree, yes hitting with a melta is random, but working with that metaphor, a maelstrom mission is like rolling a d3 to see which weapon you have each turn. I honestly wouldn't say I've ever played an eternal war mission where I just stood still and blasted away, but then I play aggressive and rarely put more than one objective in my deployment zone.

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

I'd just like to say thanks for this article Mushkilla, I used the concept last night in my game, placing my objectives in the open between terrain pieces, and I'm pleased to say my opponent never managed to threaten holding any of them with his guard army, the tanks in the open got lanced and none of his infantry squads moved out of cover.

It even meant my ravager could claim the objective that lets you re-roll '1's to hit, which helped!

Thanks for sharing your success with us. It's always good to hear when someone manages to put a tactical concept to good use in practice (and reassures me that I'm not communicating my ideas too badly).

Vasara wrote:

Maelstroms are nomore random that hitting with melta. You need to be prepared that one shot misses (or you don't get the good cards from the beginning). There are several ways to draw deeper in to maelstrom deck. And it makes games so much better that stand on own deployment and shoot away.

I agree very strongly with this.

I wasn't initially a fan of maelstrom, or drunken command as some call it. However, after a few games it really started to grow on me, it makes the games a lot more challenging both at the list building stage and tactically. It really helps capture the chaos of the fog of war, with high command constantly changing what it wants you to do. No plan can survive contact with the enemy, and in maelstrom it's adapt or die. I find it no more random than having to hold the most objectives at the end of turn 5, 6 or 7 in eternal war.