Help Me Improve my Target Prioritization

Ok so after quite a number of games with DE with as many armies that I've could fight against, I was beginning to wonder how I can improve my game. So far I've won more than I've lost but I admit most of my battles were draws. I'm beginning to doubt my ability to prioritize my targets though being shy of 2 months into 40K. I know your priority always changes depending on the game, on the terrain and placement but I was wondering if people could give me a few pointers on how I can improve my target prioritization. I feel that if I can improve on that, I can elevate my gaming from draws to wins constantly. I'll use Space Marines as my first template as they are the most common army I face(I guess so does everyone). I'm looking for the logic behind the order or example, a common set-up here is...

2-3 Rhinos with the usual 5 man tact squads
1-2 Razorbacks with Autocannon
1-2 Predators with Lascanons or Autcanons
Vindicator
1-2 Land Speeders
1-2 Land Raiders with Hammernators and an IC

Now I know that Dark Eldar are good at getting objectives but terrible on keeping them so my goal is always to kill as much as I can earlier to receive less damage but with our paper airplanes being, well, paper it seems it doesn't really matter what shoots at me. Now my hypothetical question is, provided I can move vehicles to areas where my opponent can't get cover, what would be a good shooting order and why? I plan to master SM first and then move on to Xenos later as we have less of that in our area. I've tried going for the Landraiders first as I can move or be out of range of the Autocanons and Vindicators but sometimes since the Landraider can still shoot 1 weapon though stunned and shaken, I still lose a vehicle meaning by the time i want to go for his transports, I don't have as much anti tank as I want/need. If I go for transports first so my Venoms can have some juicy marine targets, the Landraiders and Predators/Razorbacks assaultcanon and Lascanon me to death.I move around a lot (being a Dark Elf player by heart) so I' mostly safe from Bolter shots but what to do against guns I can move away from. I want to learn DE faster as we do have a lot of tournaments in our are more than when I play my Dark Elves.

Just so you guys know where I am coming from.
My all-comers lists has
4 Raiders, 3 Wyches, 1 Warrior
4 Venoms 3 Trueborn w/ Blasters, 1 Warrior
3 Ravagers
All with FF, Wych Haywire Grenades and 1 Blaster per Warrior squad.

Thank you in advance Veteran tips and tricks.

Your first targets should probably be the Land Raiders, Predators and Razorbacks, followed up by the Land Speeders and Rhinos if you have any AT left over. The goal here is to de-mech your opponent so that his troops will have to walk in order to get into position, although you don't have to kill anything that doesn't have Power of the Machine Spirit; shaking or stunning should suffice, so long as they aren't shooting at you.

Once he's been de-meched, you'll want to take out his Tactical Squads; without them he can't take objectives, and they'll end up doing more damage to you than his Assault Terminators will, since you'll be doing whatever you can to stay out of close combat with them. I advise that you use your Wyches to take down his Tac squads and unload everything else into his remaining tanks and Terminators, since the only way to take down Assault Terminators with Storm Shields is by forcing him to take as many saves as possible; statistically, he'll fail enough of them to start losing guys, and Terminators don't like losing guys, since each one is about as expensive as your Venoms.

The important thing is to isolate one element of his force at a time and annihilate it with overwhelming firepower, then proceed to the next one starting with the units that are best able to shoot down your skimmers.

I'd say that the first target is a toss-up between the autocannons and the LR. The autocannons are honestly more dangerous than a lascannon for us, and are very good at messing up our day. However, stranding some termies so as to rip them apart with large amounts of splinter weapons is also useful, and a LR can be a major threat without them.

I'd probably put a ravager and/or blasterborn squad on each predator and LR, with the Razorbacks as a secondary target and the Rhinos and Landspeeders as tertiary targets.

I was thinking maybe I spend to much time killing Terminators with lances, perhaps its better to pop the Land Raider then leave them be... most of the time when I pop the LR I spend a few a turn or two shooting lances at them so they become manageable for my Wyches to finish off. Should I ignore the Terminators with with the stupid Librarian Null Zone?

Target priority is a hard skill to master and to answer your question there is no correct order that is set in stone. Target Priority is not static or set in stone but a fluid thing that changes from game to game and turn to turn even one unit shooting to the next. The important thing is always target the thing that threatens you most at that time as soon as you have nullified it (stunning/shaking/immobilise(for transports)/weapon destroy (vindis etc)/wreck) move on to the next target. Use the movement phase to set up shots from multiple vehicles (trying to make sure each vehicle has a secondary and even tertiary target) whilst minimising his ability to return fire.

Wrote this on the subject https://thedarkcity.forummotion.com/t774-targeting-and-shooting-priority

With that marine list I would leave the rhinos and vindicator to the end. They are short ranged and you should be able to keep out of their range relatively easily.

I would guess that the LR is going to be moving as fast as possible to bring those terminators towards you as quickly as possible, so with that proviso I would place it just above the transports and vindicators.

That leaves the landspeeders, preds and R/backs as what I would rate as the 3 biggest threats to your list. All of these are carrying weapons that will easily damage or destroy our paper planes so my priority would be to eliminate as much as possible as quickly as possible. My first targets would be the landspeeders for a couple of reasons. They have the mobility to harrass us and limit "safe" areas on the board, secondly they are only armour 10 which makes a good result for us much more likely. I see them as relatively easy kills that bring big benefits by taking them down.

The preds and R/backs are in comparison fairly limited in their movement meaning they are easier to avoid and get cover saves from. So based on the above thinking I would be tempted to take out the R/backs next as they are AV 11 rather than AV 13. I know once we hit 12 it all becomes immaterial but still a 66% chance to glance is better than a 50% one. This would change however if the preds were packing guns say 3 lascannons or autocannon twin las and were relatively isolated, and I may be tempted to go for them.

In summary I would say removing the volume of return fire coming at you can be more beneficial then removing higher strength single targets, and removing fast vehicles that can restrict and limit our safe areas is also a worthwhile consideration.

@kenny: Bravo!

Don't fool yourself into thinking the Landraiders are your biggest problem.

kenny3760 wrote:

With that marine list I would leave the rhinos and vindicator to the end. They are short ranged and you should be able to keep out of their range relatively easily.

I would guess that the LR is going to be moving as fast as possible to bring those terminators towards you as quickly as possible, so with that proviso I would place it just above the transports and vindicators.

That leaves the landspeeders, preds and R/backs as what I would rate as the 3 biggest threats to your list. All of these are carrying weapons that will easily damage or destroy our paper planes so my priority would be to eliminate as much as possible as quickly as possible. My first targets would be the landspeeders for a couple of reasons. They have the mobility to harrass us and limit "safe" areas on the board, secondly they are only armour 10 which makes a good result for us much more likely. I see them as relatively easy kills that bring big benefits by taking them down.

The preds and R/backs are in comparison fairly limited in their movement meaning they are easier to avoid and get cover saves from. So based on the above thinking I would be tempted to take out the R/backs next as they are AV 11 rather than AV 13. I know once we hit 12 it all becomes immaterial but still a 66% chance to glance is better than a 50% one. This would change however if the preds were packing guns say 3 lascannons or autocannon twin las and were relatively isolated, and I may be tempted to go for them.

In summary I would say removing the volume of return fire coming at you can be more beneficial then removing higher strength single targets, and removing fast vehicles that can restrict and limit our safe areas is also a worthwhile consideration.

Good points, yeah based on experience it seems Autocanons hurt more than Lascanons due to the amount of shots it can put out. It seems to me that after facing GK I tend to over exert myself by trying to kill Termies when I should just probably dance circles around them.

regardless of the enemy you face target priority should always be flexible and likely to change from turn to turn depending on the scenario your playing or the terrain your using and what type of enemy your facing.

personnally i play a very mobile army, all on raiders or venoms or otherwise on jetbikes or wings playing more of a shooty game than combat orientated. for me my first targets are always going to be armour because at the range i'll be on turn 1 its almost always just going to be my heavy weapons in range and the obvious choice is to pop any armour i can draw LOS to. failing that monsterous creatures, powerful elites etc etc. take away as much heavy weapon fire as possible as fast as possible and you limit the amount of your own transports getting fragged. also enemy tanks are usually expensive and well worth targeting anyway, landraiders especially are just begging for dark lance treatment.

as the game progresses you get a feel for how the enemy is playing, how hes using his units and you can usually see or guess his plan on how to win (ie which unit hes gonna take objectives with etc) now these are your priority units. remove his ability to control objectives and you have a major advantage and are more likely to pull of a win or draw. it also forces an opponant to play defensively contesting objectives by sitting units on them and trying to outlast you.

then you have the power units that have to be dealt with. the likes of TH/SS termies, vanguard vets, nobs etc. the stuff you dont want rampaging through your army. some of these units can be dodged around if you play a fast enough army some cant its upto you to decide how to deal with them. for example TH/SS termies are nasty as hell in combat but slow as hell, why waste a unit or two trying to take them out or several units shooting at them when you can simple stay 13" away from them and concentrate on other easier targets. if you have to speedbump them with a wych unit or something but theres no excuse for ever letting a unit like this cross swords with the likes of your incubi. this kind of tactic also works on a pyschological level i find opponants are bothered far more by neutering this type of unit than destroying it. frustrated players make mistakes.

another thing i always try and maintain is always take the easier kill unless you absolutely need to. you shouldnt be wasting shots on slim chances where an easier target even if less desirable is available. a kill is a kill and it wont be shooting back at you, your first choice targets time will come, were very fast and if its not in LOS this turn theres no excuse for it not to be next turn.

the question you should be asking yourself every turn of the game is "which units NEED to die for me to win the game" you dont need to kill the whole army, you dont need to kill half of it even but you need to kill the units that can win the game for your opponant and you need to kill the units than will prevent you from winning.

Thank you for the reply Bork but I am actually asking for concrete examples on why I should target a particular unit above the other. It's a given that DE will be mobile and as I have stated all my units are on transports and I never stay in one place often giving up cover for clear shots. I understand that the best way to play DE is to reduce your opponent's ability to hurt you, I am asking which units hurts DE more than the other.

Heya, I just bumped into this thread and I find that this thread is a very good question posed by a beginner. Other beginners I met never think this far 2 months into the game (including myself at some time. ), so I would like to help out a little.

Alright let's see your list and your hypothetical list.

Quote :

4 Raiders, 3 Wyches, 1 Warrior
4 Venoms 3 Trueborn w/ Blasters, 1 Warrior
3 Ravagers
All with FF, Wych Haywire Grenades and 1 Blaster per Warrior squad.

You have quite a number of anti-tank, which is good. A good amount of anti-infantry as well. In fact your list looks similar to mine, but I play with less wyches and more warriors.

The general idea when it comes to shooting is to see which one is the biggest threat to your list, but generally try to use the longer range weaponry first to 'pre-measure' the range of your other weaponry. It is a subtle trick, but one that could help you gauge your blaster's range and also your charge range for your wyches.

Quote :

2-3 Rhinos with the usual 5 man tact squads
1-2 Razorbacks with Autocannon
1-2 Predators with Lascanons or Autcanons
Vindicator
1-2 Land Speeders
1-2 Land Raiders with Hammernators and an IC

Alright, so this is the list we are facing against. My priorities will be listed below if there are no factors such as hiding behind cover, reserves, etc;

1) Anything that can shoot a lot of shots at long range and is mobile (Landspeeders)
2) Anything that shoots a lot at long range (Razorback, Predator)
3) Anything that is mobile and carries something nasty (Land Raiders)
3) Anything that is mobile in general (Rhinos)
4) Anything that would impend you from doing your thing up close (Vindis)
4) Everything else

Generally we hate those Landspeeders, razorbacks and the predators, but you do not truly have to kill them, so a shaken is always a good thing against those vehicles as the dogma of them not shooting all the time equals to us having more time closing in and shutting down everything else.

Our wyches are not suited to kill speeders as most of the time they would be moving 12", which makes the haywire grenades horrible against them, and the blasters need to be close to do anything, which tends to open ourselves to other nonsense. Besides, they wyches have other things to do that suit their role better (parking lots and Terminators, we are looking at you).

For the land raiders , you can always shut it down using the ravager or the raiders as generally you do not have to kill it as much as the speeder or the predator but you will need to neutralize it somehow at range. The blasters are better off against the razorbacks as you will need the other lances

The vindicator is an unique unit in terms of threat priority, for this thing could make your wyches blasted to pieces within seconds and limit your ability to destroy parking lots. So if you are getting closer to the parking lot, these need to go. Otherwise, always ignore this until everything that shoots a lot at range is dead.

The Rhinos and whatever else would generally be last, as you could outrun them any time of the day and shoot them at range. Special mention must be made for the Terminators, for they are slow but they hit like a ton of bricks. Use the wyches against them or just use the venoms until they fail their saves.


But of course, if your opponent is a smart one he would shut down these units in your list first

1) Ravagers and Raiders with wyches
2) Raiders with Warriors
3) Blasterborn
4) Everything else.

Your opponent would realize that anything that can shoot a lot of shots or shut down his parking lot fast at range would be first to taste the fury of his autocannons, missile launchers and lascannons. The Wyches are also a huge threat as they are parking lost destroyers, as well as CC units.

The trick right now that you would also need to be proficient in would be trying to hide behind terrain while also denying him cover. This trick unfortunately is something that comes with experience and knowledge of deployment.

I hope this helps a little as to target priority with the units that you have and what you must kill in the most efficient way possible.

@Crysis Viper

Thanks man! That was what I was actually looking for. I just wanted input from more seasoned players so I can compare my own observations when I play then come up with my own conclusion. I play competitively in WHFB as Dark Elves that's why haha. I just made the jump recently and played 40K. So based on my initial theory I think I do spend too much time and effort killing Hammernators when I should de-mech them then let them footslog while I go after my opponent's remaining vehicles. I tend to refuse flank to be out of range of his Vindicators, Razorbacks then use my Lances on Termies. I think I may need to avoid doing that in the future. Thank you for the post, really informative as I can compare my own notes!

refuse flank is still a good way to play though, in that we only have so much board to back up on What you should do is this

First off pick which side is the weakest, that will be your escape route/ route to his objective.

First thing is those Preds, Shake or Stun them, then move on.

Second is the landspeeder, its definately a doozy if left alone, easy to blow up, but a Shake or Stun and move on.

Next is those LR, Strand those Terms and watch them M.C. across the board on foot.

Next is whatever is blocking you from your target route. You can normally wait a Turn or Two to start opening up a hole into their deployment zone, but if your done with your major targets, this is a good way to spend the rest of your AT. Remember to stun, and move on.

Stun and move on is our most important ability. We can do so much to tanks, and while we are looking for a wreck or explosion, a stun in the first few turns is just as effective.

With those venoms, pick any priority targets (longfangs or devs to start) then follow up into any troop choice that has rolled out of their tin can. Those Terms can wait, as the most they are moving is 12" a turn (that is fast considering, but its rare)

That being said, once your path is opened, start moving along side it, making sure to stay out of range of that vindicator (its a threat as you move up, so make sure to watch it. Especially if its a BA fast Vindi) and continue to roll down your priority list, and remember it updates with every opponent move, if you dont stay fluid with your priority, you will get snuck up on.

I normally would just ignore the Termis but last 2 games I had with them my opponent was packing a Librarian with Null Zone so it hurts my FF saves and my Wyches so I had to deal with them somewhat. The 24" bubble is quite irritating specially if he deploys them in the middle of the field.

Ichiyo1821 wrote:

I normally would just ignore the Termis but last 2 games I had with them my opponent was packing a Librarian with Null Zone so it hurts my FF saves and my Wyches so I had to deal with them somewhat. The 24" bubble is quite irritating specially if he deploys them in the middle of the field.

I would not worry so much about that Null-zone Librarian to be honest. It needs to get into range for its Null-zone and it would be useless if you just back away and shoot. The priorities should be for the units that shoots like crazy. The Wyches should never go out unless they can win the battle or at least stall them. If you have the Nullzone librarian then the latter option is not available to you and thus you should whittle him down little by little until he is severely weakened. Send in the wyches after that is done, and make sure you send them in tag-teams.

Another thing; flickerfield is nice, but never rely on them too much. They are just there to piss your opponent off.