Psychological Warfare

Hi all!

I remember reading a while back how someone described how he used his Talos and some umm for better lack of words "psychological warfare" to draw his opponents attention away from his more vulnerable units.

All he did was snigger madly whenever he moved his Talos in the direction of enemy units, or feign delight whenever enemy units moved close to it. He also applied a liberal coat of Blood for the Blood God to the model, underscoring it's frightful lethality.

Now regardless of it's usefulness, this little story made me wonder what other psychological tactics you use when playing against an opponent, or if you apply anything like that at all.

I'm also not sure how sportsman-like this is, I guess it can border on deliberately confusing your opponent in a negative way, and making the game very un-fun. It is, after all, a game we play to enjoy.

This subject is very broad - when thinking about it I would say even simple things like target over-saturation  fall under it.

Or throwing a unit into the face/deployment zone of an enemy, particularly a monstrous creature or yeah, any large model really.

People make mistakes. Dark Eldar use that fact.

I've stated once that in our gaming group the great resiliance of talos made them a valid "pivot point" around which build the table management.
My usually opponents know well how de are glass-made, so feel very unconfortable when units of 1-3 talos randomly walk in the centre of the table.

Against drop pod army, I try to use the warlord bait strategy:

When placing the objectives, I try to have a large zone without objectives. I deploy a Dark artisan with my warlord in it far offset, in cover, with almost everything else in reserve. If he try to drop on my dark artisan to get the juicy "slay the warlord" point, a decent portion of his army will be out of the fight, because they will be too far. And, if he just ignore it, I successfully anchored my null deployment.

I do a handful of things in a competitive setting.

I like to get to the table early and position myself and things on the side of the table that I want, that will tend to make my opponent take up the opposite side. Then, if he wins side selection, there is sort of a laziness/habit to just choose the side you are already on.

I also tend to emphasize what I am shooting at something if I want it to jink, and de-emphasize if I don't.

I try to talk up the threat of things I want my opponent to shoot, and not do so for other things.

I tend to ask questions like 'are you sure?' with an eager inflection or to kind of grin happily when I think the opponent is making a good move that will harm me.

I like to stick out bait units to draw assault elements into open ground where I can dismantle them easier...unless I don't have shooting that will hurt them extra hard if they're out of cover, then I try to just talk up my shooting capability and hope they hug cover and get slowed down doing so.

I do a lot of this, actually. Didn't really think about it before.

Thor665 wrote:

I do a handful of things in a competitive setting.

I like to get to the table early and position myself and things on the side of the table that I want, that will tend to make my opponent take up the opposite side. Then, if he wins side selection, there is sort of a laziness/habit to just choose the side you are already on.

I also tend to emphasize what I am shooting at something if I want it to jink, and de-emphasize if I don't.

I try to talk up the threat of things I want my opponent to shoot, and not do so for other things.

I tend to ask questions like 'are you sure?' with an eager inflection or to kind of grin happily when I think the opponent is making a good move that will harm me.

I like to stick out bait units to draw assault elements into open ground where I can dismantle them easier...unless I don't have shooting that will hurt them extra hard if they're out of cover, then I try to just talk up my shooting capability and hope they hug cover and get slowed down doing so.

I do a lot of this, actually. Didn't really think about it before.

All these things.

I like painting units I want shot in bright colors, with drabber selections for more fragile units.

I haven't played a ton of games to really see, but I think my opponents have a hard time deciphering which of my units need to be killed asap. I use my scourge for anti infantry, and most games, they move slow, and don't get great firepower out, but once they are fixed in a location and firing the extra salvo sometimes takes my opponents back, mostly just at how I'm rolling nearly 30 dice from a squad of 5 units.

The Raider-Ravager similarities took a player back too, as I had used a Raider previously, then ordered a part to turn into a Ravager, and once I did, in later games, he was shocked when what appeared to be a Paper Mache' transport decimated his Dreadnought in a single attack.

Spreading out Darklight weapons amongst different squads and units can make people really nervous on what to fire at as well.

All that being said, I'm the only DE player at my store that plays regularly, a DE Player came in once a different time, so the shock may be just from lack of encounters with DE, but still.

My group shares lists via battlescribe the day before a game. I'm always careful to give scarier names to the ones I want my opponent to think they should be afraid of!

Multiple webway portals in a list scare people into spreading out all over the place, making them easier to target one by one.

Also some of them are quite unreasonably terrified of Rending (I get that it's good but they've a real phobia) so I can place my Reavers according to where I want their TEQ to be.

I'm sure some of this stuff works on me, too.