Death by a Thousand Cuts

Over the last few weeks while getting in practise games of 1,750 points I have manage to (inadvertently) convert my friends to 1,750 over our regular 1,500pts.

We are starting tomorrow (Wednesday) a Kill point based campaign - prizes are for most wins, most Kill points earned and the Lemming Award - most Kill points given away. A wipe out victory will always give you 1 more kill point than what you lost in that game for balance and to stop people "hiding".

With this focus on Kill Points everyone is bringing out their Death Stars while I'm locked in to my 1,750 Space Wolf Tournament army which has 19kp. During a practise game last week vs my friends Tau, and a Commander Farsight Death Star which only had 9 KP I won 7 - 3 (could of been 4) despite having Farsight and 9 Battle Suits shoved in my face from turn 1 onwards

What some people don't understand is how sometimes a Death Star won't work vs a player who knows what they are doing.

Going with the Farsight example which was around 800pts or around 45% of his army - all it killed in my army was 1 Land Speeder which was 70pts or 4% of my army. But with 4% of my army dead I responded with 96% of my army vs 45% of his, which over 2 turns I killed to no further loss.

So by turn 3 I had roughly 85% of my Army left vs my opponents 40% over a 2-1 advantage - the rest of the game they say was history. My only further losses where my 2 Wolf Scout units who took out Broadsides and a unit of Fire Warriors before being pulse rifled into Valhalla.

More so in kill point games if you can bring your army (or most of it) to bear on a small part or even 1 unit of your enemy's force at a time you *should* annihilate it quickly and the more on to the next target. Being able to suppress part of your enemy's force (shaking/stunning tanks or pinning/ forcing LD tests on infantry) while most of your force is killing another part works really well. Sure potentially killing a unit or tank in 1 shot *could* happen but more than likely won't - but being able to stack the odds in your favour in any given situation will always give you an edge.


So this brings us MSU's or Multiple Small Units, which basically means using as many small units as possible, but all have/use the maximum killing potential available to them. The idea works that armies with larger (and thus fewer units) can only target 1 unit at a time so the enemy's larger units is only killing small units who's los is only a a small pin prick in your over all force, and you can concentrate all you units onto one/two/part of the enemy's force - so death by a thousand cuts.

This works even with a balanced army vs a Death Star.




Oh while I'm here and it's my blog I would like to point you towards real hero. This Gurkha took on 40 train robbers and sent them packing!

Bishnu Shrestha, sir you are a true Hero.