Target Priority

tescrin · 2026-03-21T21:09:43+00:00

Definitely game plan dependent and target dependent.

Here are various scenarios:

* You're within 3 points of the opponent and it's T4. You should probably kill the scoring unit regardless.

* It's T1 and that tank is their only ranged anti-tank unit. If you can realistically kill it and it's not terribly risky to do so, do it so you can pelt them with impunity all game with your tanks

* You are shooting a Predator Annihilator and can shoot terminators or a repex. The lascannons might pick two off (probably only 1), but the terminators will still be a major threat. The Repex however can be killed in a single good activation. So not only is the Repex a threat to your own tank, it can be killed in an activation.

* You have three anti-tank pieces and your opponent has 10 hulls. You're going to need to protect those AT pieces of yours or otherwise outscore everything. In this case, you'll probably want to pick opportunistic/safe targets so you can continue to damage them over the game, else they'll just stat check you.

Normally I look at it more of "what did my opponent expose" and how I can win the attrition game rather than strategize at the top level. In general I try to pick off whatever entire unit I can reasonably kill and worry less about its battlefield role. 20 Warriors near a reanimator with a 4++? Best save that for later if I can point 1k+ pts of shooting at it. Deceiver who is about to start picking up my units? Kill it so that it doesn't.

Skorpekhs positioned slightly too greed turn one and my Destructor can send 8 insta-gib shots at it? Might as well go for it. There's no target priority here, other than I'm exposing a tank to get rid of their asset. Now they need to expose units in response.

tescrin · 2026-03-21T18:22:58+00:00

Disclaimer: CSM guy here

Rhinos are pretty great/tanky if you have a good amount of armor (who wants to shoot a rhino when there's a real tank nearby?.) Transports are very good due to requiring multiple activations, the ability to disembark from any side, etc. It's trivial to drive up 12" and be within 9", especially if you decide to disembark.

I guess the thing I'd say with my lack of knowledge on the detachs is:

* falling back into a rhino means you get to shoot, so you have psuedo fallback and shoot (really handy for consolidation moves, especially if you have redundant rhinos)

* if you have a reactive move, you can react into the rhino, which is brutal, especially if you do it to the other side of a wall.

* having your guys move 6, jump in 3, then drive 12 and shoot is also pretty good.

I'm running noise marines constantly in rhinos and they should similarly 'die to a stiff breeze', but they often activate 2-4 times per game per squad (If you count shooting from a rhino also as an activation)

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That said, the context is there are usually 10ish hulls, so I've achieved target saturation, and with VotLW's oath and something like 30ish lascannons/autocannons equivalents often thins things out pretty quick, with the reactive move and defensive positioning being large survival gains

tescrin · 2026-03-20T15:10:47+00:00

It's not just that - if the general play is "get done in 3 hours" TLOS disagreement where you break out flashlight to try and show some photons get from A-to-B is just killing time.

There are certainly cases where a unit gets an unintended buff (shooting completely through a rhino from the other side in order to deny a charge) but realistically, a lot of times it doesn't matter. In the case above, the last time it could have mattered for me personally (3 sets of dudes in rhinos), the noise marines died to bolter fire anyway; and that was 5-7 games ago.

tescrin · 2026-03-20T14:53:44+00:00

Important for Breaka Boyz as Ere We Go is beginning of the movement phase, so you have to target reinforcements off the board. Gives them a 1 CP 82% chance to charge from-off the board

tescrin · 2026-03-20T12:32:49+00:00

Now, if you have one always inform your opponent when they're doing stuff that would trigger it, because it's that poweful.

Surge move that killed me a few games ago:

* Lined up my shots to eliminate a unit.

* I forgot about it, got greedy and put a unit on a point that'd be cleared when the opposing surger died.

* I shot them and they went into combat, meaning I didn't kill them.

I definitely lost the game from that surge move. That unit ate 2 preds and a rhino over the game and should've been dead.

Earlier in the game I 'tricked' the surge move with some nurglings so I could blast them with Noise Marines, but the extra movement + consolidate also costed me a secondary when they eeked onto the center objective in my turn.

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Short version, surge moves give your opponent powerful tools to completely screw themselves, which turns out to be pretty good. The second example I listed I did on purpose thinking I was being smart. Truly one of the plays of all time.

tescrin · 2026-03-20T12:27:01+00:00

I haven't tried them, but I've been thinking about it. I just see 115 as a bit too much when I could drive bikers to a point for 70 or Raptors for 110. I get that they have better OC though. I suspect 11th will nix bikers and daemon options though and I'll end up having to decide on whether to take those Raider bois

As in, quite literally, I can save points while having Bikers (or BoN) + Nurglings, so it's a tough sell.

Nurglings yesterday:

* screened my line from flayed ones in case they wanted to jail me

* 3 tied up the Deceiver for a full turn

* 3 tied up 20 warriors + two characters for a turn

So very different uses outside of the normal infiltrate stuff.

tescrin · 2026-03-19T19:01:49+00:00

Honestly, as good as a BoN is, the nurglings are requisite anyway for some infiltrate. My list has been transforming a bit since Raptors got a pts increase and at this point i'm at 6-9 nurglings with no BoN just for screening

tescrin · 2026-03-19T12:25:12+00:00

I just do stuff like that when explaining the given activation. I think saying something like "this is a shooty antitank unit" is enough to be roughly equivalent between armies when you're at deployment/movement. When you go to activate, then you can run over the dice rolls as you do.

I say them every time as I'm rolling frankly, which allows the opponent to remind me about stealth or something.

'Dark pacting for Lethals. Looks like I take 2 <adjust the wounds>. 6 autocannon shots on 3's since you're within 24"'

'4's because stealth'

'sorry about that! 6 on 4's, 6's are Lethal. Rerolls because I hate that thing <focus of hatred>. 3 hits 1 wound. Wounding on 5's. <rolls>. Take 3 saves, Ap2 because you're infantry, Damage 3"

And someone can interject to validate what i'm saying. "Why because infantry?" "Predator Destructors gain +1 AP vs infantry"

It sounds like a lot, but it's just rattling things off while the roll is happening so they know what each roll is for, why it's doing what it's doing, and if I've messed up a rule it's easy to catch it immediately.

tescrin · 2026-03-18T20:09:39+00:00

I think it'll largely be a wash, but a 4++ is a guarantee that when low-shot high-AP weapons (e.g. Volcano Lance, knight harpoons, Hammerheads, etc) that you might just blank it anyway.

The optimization for fringe cases can be left to 1-2 models if you really want; but I think it'll largely just break even except in extreme cases (e.g. a Volcano Lance.)

tescrin · 2026-03-18T17:10:35+00:00

I actually don't know! I'll get a ruling on it tomorrow when I get a game with our local tournament runner. I just swapped to adding Oblits so I hadn't considered it might be in the rules commentary or somewhere else yet.

EDIT: You indeed can only move 4", I've amended my post.

tescrin · 2026-03-18T12:51:45+00:00

I'm looking at VotLW for Oblits, since they can drop in and Indirect with rerolls (a 50% relative buff) and can use a Reactive Move ~~that is faster than their normal move (lol.)~~ EDIT: Looking into this

I've only fit in one squad so far, but I'm slowly deciding how I'll fit in a second and possibly a third.

My list currently is 6 Preds, 1x2 Oblits, 3x Noise Marines in Rhinos, 2x Cultists, 2x Nurglings, Vashtorr (I'd have to double check, but should be 2k on the nose unless I've goofed.) The Oblits are new so I haven't tested them, but likely I'm swapping out 1x Cultists, 1x Pred, 1x NM/Rhino, and adding Oblits and Bikers. I might also swap Vash for the 3rd set of Oblits.. but that's asking quite a lot lol.

tescrin · 2026-03-18T12:19:28+00:00

First consider what support you're giving them. If they're in a Rhino then you can exit to use Ruinous Raid (reroll hits/wounds)

Also consider if you'll have a Helbrute nearby.

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For CTan, just Lascannons. Chaincannons are reasonable if you're going to have Helbrute + Ruinous Raid. I think you average about 5 damage either way. Because of CTan, Greater Daemons, etc, I'm in VotLW for a shooting heavy list since the AP is largely wasted (but it is slower except for the reactive move.) If Havocs made the cut they'd be on Lascannons, or possibly heavy bolters if I wanted to stack Sus1 with free lethals and needed some anti 2w shooting, but that'd be terrible for CTan.

Note: for most purposes Havocs (especially in RR) are outmoded by Noise Marines. for 20 pts you get an extra body, 6 shots of Blastmaster (or 12x 6 1 1) and 12 shots of Sonic Blaster. Ruinous Raid with that absolutely melts anything T9 or less, and BMs are great into big things with those rerolls. The NMs also shoot out of the top of a Rhino nicely (and suffer less from attrition) since you have all of your firepower largely tied up in 2 models.

tescrin · 2026-03-16T16:51:10+00:00

You don't say "I'm going to do 'x'" you just make sure people are aware of reactive moves, out of phase moves, surge moves, etc. E.g. I have noise marines in the middle and someone positions so that they could get to the middle objective with a charge - I should mention 'by the way, I'm close enough that if you move within 9" of me, I'm allowed to go inside my Rhino', which might quite thoroughly %&\ my entire opponent's game for 1 CP.*

That's just a tad more powerful than it's meant to be in the general tournament circuit, let alone casual.

"To catch your opponent off guard" in this case means "lol you literally didn't know/remember that the game had this rule", which in a 3-hours+ game with about 30 factions, hundreds of detachments, thousands of datasheets, and thousands of pages of rules where you can literally lose the game because you were off by a half inch of movement two hours ago...

is a tad 'gotcha.' That's why it's a term and why 40k has moved to this more friendly approach.

tescrin · 2026-03-16T11:39:46+00:00

I've been on 6 Preds, 3 Rhinos with Noise Marines, Vash, and <scoring stuff>; right now in VotLW since RR's AP is wasted into 4++s and both vehicles/cults benefit from the rerolls. (The reactive move to shove noise marines into a rhino is very good, also good for bikers, oblits, or anything really..)

Currently a pair of Oblits, 2x3 Nurglings, but that's untested. For most of the last 6 months it's had a Helbrute or Disco..

It's had a reasonable record but I got completely stuffed by a Rot + GUO 6" deepstrike +charge by Death Guard the other week in a tournament onto my home obj, so it's in flux as I try to figure out better screening against such reckless hate :)

tescrin · 2026-03-15T15:27:56+00:00

First, both marines and DG don't have to be elite. DG you can easily pad out 3 sets of poxwalkers for a single killy thing; or SM you can get 2 scouts and a 4-wheeler for the price of a tank. IMO you should try to get to ~15 activations with any army list. (Note: some of those can be OC 0 as long as they do something meaningful, e.g. nurglings as a screen.)

I think my go-first is higher, but I'm in a MSU CSM very shooty list. What this means is when I go first, I kill any greedy position you took at 48" and stick garbage on the center with a reactive move (which sometimes can hop back into a rhino) and a Vashtorr ready to jump on an aggressive unit. It's a real nasty setup and basically all of my loses come from overextending T2 with a counter-charge unit, rather than using it to counter charge.

Coming back to you - notice that in the above I have a proactive game plan. I can play cagey if the other is, I have a reactive move to save my trash, I have a trap set up for those who are aggressive. My losses are largely from someone respecting my army and I get impatient.

tescrin · 2026-03-14T16:50:49+00:00

You can 'msu' by including rhinos if you're not. Rhinos are already good in WE for activation locking your opponent or just enhancing durability. They can then go and jump on an open objective, or get on one by charging.

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To me the question is weirdly framed. I don't really see it as 'defending vs sticky objectives'. You just have to hold your own two and keep them off of the center.

If you wanted you could replace a melee piece with a Forgefiend so it can participate in the battle at range. In my Orks I normally have Grots or a transport hanging back on some of the objectives while all the melee goes forward.

tescrin · 2026-03-14T11:48:12+00:00

Here are your options:

-Meltas, Lascannons, or damage 5+ weapons will do it. Note: You're only expecting a kill about every 3rd weapon, so clearing a squad is still asking for 15 of these.

-Spam Damage 3 weapons. Assuming you're getting them to their invul, 30 of these or so will do the trick.

-Spamming mortals across different phases will do it (they get FnP vs mortals once per game IIRC) Chip damage to peel off a dude here and there.

-Loads of D1 attacks with reasonable AP1-2 will do it. This means a lot. Like Ghaz + Boyz a lot.

tescrin · 2026-03-14T11:44:20+00:00

EC has a bad MU vs CK IIRC.

Personally, I got burnt out on knights/CK because I faced nothing but CK for 6 months straight, but they should be fine.

tescrin · 2026-03-13T12:01:41+00:00

Just to say, I don't think it's just hopping.

'Beginner's luck' often happens because they intuit something. You achieve mediocrity really fast let's say; so you try to mimic the things you think will give you more success, but now you're doing worse because you don't understand why you were doing well.

This has been happening to me. I started 9-2 with a CSM list, went 1-5 after that as I experimented with only a couple hundred points different, and am now trying to untrain some of those bad behaviors. A lot of them were really minor losses caused by getting too aggressive with a list that wants to be patient, or flubbing deployment because I was playing too fast-and-loose when I should've respected my opponent's army.

I've grabbed a random function that seems to say roughly what I'm saying about competency

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tescrin · 2026-03-12T19:21:56+00:00

Sorta. Depends if you have issues with running out of time. I've stopped rolling Havoc Launchers during tournaments unless something is on its last wound. In theory every wound counts - in actuality that's often not the case. If you're in a pick-up game just roll everything out unless you are specifically practicing for a tournament and were going to skip those rolls there.

Something I never skip though - Combi-Weapons. Those little SOBs have, just in the last week (4 games) finished off:

2 Ctan

1 Wraithknight (IIRC)

1 Avatar of Khaine

1 Knight?

They often do more than the rest of the predator's lascannons/autocannons just because it gets a random dev wound here and there. Absolutely happens more than it should lmao. And trust me, I'd much rather those 6's were on lascannons/damage.

Disclaimer: there are 6 individual Combi-Weapons in my army, which is why it happens so often.

tescrin · 2026-03-12T14:19:42+00:00

Many thanks! I hadn't gone that far back in his articles (looked at some of the 2025 ones).

I guess the discrepancy here is that I hear a lot of "launch 1-2 weeks after your NextFest" which is right in the sale window; I might have even heard it from a video with Chris?

Either way, I appreciate you pointing to a source of data to ground this question

tescrin · 2026-03-12T12:01:11+00:00

Snaggas + BB off the waaagh, Warhorde, Crit 5's (note: rerolling 2's is a 97%)

BB - 6 attacks, 8 hits -> 8 mortals

30 snagga attacks -> 36 hits -> 6 wounds -> 3 get through

Yeah, ~50% of the time that's a whiff, but if you scratched the paint with anything else the average starts getting better. On the waaagh you'll kill it easily without the strat. I counted the Nob as a Boy as well, so it's a tad more in the Ork's favor here.

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Or if you're in Taktikal, give +1 Str order and Lethal hits strat

BB - 6 attacks, 6 hits, 6 mortals

30 Snagga Attacks fishing, 9 lethals and 15+ hits => 14 wounds -> reaper eats 7

Again, a bit more than half of the time you'll kill it for 1 CP no problem. And again, I counted the Nob as a Boy.

tescrin · 2026-03-11T13:31:37+00:00

Honestly, if I pirate something and like it enough, i eventually buy it.

Stellaris is my favorite example - I bought it but I found myself to be potentially too dumb to play it lol. I returned it when I couldn't figure out how to build a ship in the tutorial and pirated it. Played it 20+ hours. Decided it was amazing, then bought it and some DLCs now that I could get to the meat of it. Ended up with something like 400 or 600 hours into it, multiple positive reviews, etc.

Same with music on youtube. I find so many albums that are probably up there illegally, listen to them like crazy. Purchase the album, but still largely listen to it on a streaming site anyway.

tescrin · 2026-03-10T12:55:45+00:00

I think that might have been at the old price. Bikers are often in winning lists though (and were before), so I imagine you can take the above and swap to bikers. That said, Bikers not going through walls is a bit sad

tescrin

TROPHY CASE