Where is Warhammer Won and Lost?

[Jadawin]

In everyones experience when would you say the majority of your games are won and lost? To put it another way when you have played a game what area do you most often look back on and think, "damn shouldn't/ should have done x,y,z.

I know the choices are a bit simplistic but, in general what does everyone think?

My own opinion is that Deployment is key, even with the increased movement/reduced effect of terrain I believe that if you make a serious mistake in deployment you will be up against it straight away.

[danny-d-b]

depends on the army

A quick army (brets) might not be as dammaged by a bad deployement as it would by bad movement phase or a bad combat phase
A lizard man army or HE with a load of points tied up in magic might be dammaged by a poor magic phase turn 2 or 3
A gunline Dwarf army or empire army isn't going to be dammaged bad movement phase, as it is a bad shooting phase

[Oogie boogie boss]

I agree that for different armies and list different phases can be more important, but in my experience the game is won or lost in combat about 90% of the time.

[Malorian]

Absolutely it's close combat.

Other aspects like deployment and magic can effect combat, but in the end combat is the part of the game where the majority of the points are gained and lost. Make a list that dominates in combat and you will dominate most of your games.

[IcedCrow]

IMO - list building. Distil a list down to its numbers, and a stronger list will have huge advantages over a weaker list. (It's not a guarantee but most often if two lists are not near each other in power level you can tell who is going to win).

As such I say list building is the predominant area where the game is won and lost. After that, given two fairly even lists, it comes down to the combat phase. The magic phase is great but not a given, and the combat phase has more predictable outcomes as opposed to the magic phase which depends on you getting the spell off.

[MOMUS]

Althougth I agree with Malorian in theory, for me its still deployment. Deployment for me changes how the battle will flow, it will dictate whether your units will actually play a part in the game, be crushed mercilessly or isolated and peppered with shooting.

[Ratarsed]

I find deployment, Movement and close combat to be the areas I most associate with victories or defeats. However it must be noted that magic can be a big influence on close combat so can not be ignored and shooting can take out/weaken threats before close combat so that cannot be ignored either! I had to vote for "It's the dice damnit!" because I often find victories and defeats creep up on me without me noticing until that moment of "Wow! That's worked out better/worse than I expected!"

[Djekar]

I said movement, I find movement the lynch-pin that everything else orbits. Only slightly less important in my mind are list building and deployment.

[Jind_Singh]

After playing so many tournament events were I see COUNTLESS players bring on their 'A' game list I can say that's all in the...


Deployment and Movement!


List's mean diddly squat - if you can move better and deploy better than the opponent your laughing all the way to Turn 6.


Now some may argue that combat is were it's all at - but I disagree as combat is dictated by match-up - and if you're letting that 40 Bloodletter horde hit your main units then you deserve to lose! Forcing the combats you want, stacking the odds in your favor - these are the true traits of beating your opponent.



List building/army selection

As stated while list building is important it's no were near being the 'be all and end all' as a good list on it's own means P-Diddy squat!! I've seen people take solid lists and still not do well in their games, and then they move on to a new army list chasing the elusive dream! If the hobby was down to just list building no one would be playing!!!

It's like a sharp sword - having a sharp sword won't mean your going to win the duel - doesn't matter how shiny or sharp it is - if the other duelist is better than you, you got no chance!

Deployment

Deployment used to be CRUCIAL just due to the fact it took so long to redeploy your forces once the game was underway - march blocking, terrain - all this would slow the game down to a crawl. But now with swift reforms and leadership tests to get round this...

Not to mention 2 of the 6 games force random deployments!! Meeting engagement - on a 1 the unit won't even deploy on the board, and dawn attack - yet you can still, easily, win those 2 games so deployment is no longer the 'be all and end all' that it was!!!

Movement Phase

THIS is the new King of the 8th ed! With random charges, terrain effects, swift reforms, new unit formations such as hording, the movement phase dictates the game - it allows you to set up the fights you want to fight, bring over whelming force to a part of the field, it's were you leave your opponent second guessing your intentions!

Point in case - got my Giant and Squig Hoppers poise to flank a unit of Chaos warriors - he reformed to face me thinking I was fully intent on charging him but I just ran my 2 units down the side and hid BESIDE him!!! Running circles around the enemy is were it's at! Depending on how you move your units also dictates how the game will treat you - as the more dice rolls you either force your opponent to make, or you have to make, the more chance they will fail those dice rolls sooner or later - but movement - it's a mechanical action you have full control over!

Magic phase

Magic is, and always has been, a VERY important phase of the game - and if anything is even better now with crazy spells! I've won games from the magic phase, that's for sure - like one time my butt was being handed to me by Thorek, his Anvil, and a static dwarf gunline with about a million warmachines - only for my level 4 Shaman throwing Curse of the Bad Moon DOWN the dwarf line - and wiped out 2/3 of each of his units!!

This allowed my shattered remains of the Goblin army to overcome the hated stunty - in the end of the game he had just 11 models alive!!!

BUT then there are the games were I miscast 1st spell of the game and DIE! Or fail to cast - or just poison myself with mushrooms!


Last week there was the game I took just a single Warrior Priest and had no magic phase so to speak.

So while magic is powerful, and while it does take a really skilled magic user to effectively make the most of each and every magic phase games are not solely determined by the magic phase. It reminds me of the phase...

"Money isn't everything - but it sure does help!"

Same goes for the Magic Phase....

Shooting

Been there, done that - can anyone even remember a gun line army dominating the game? It's wasted - with the speed in which we see combat now the shooting phase along is not were this game is won and lost - as there LOTS of armies out there that don't even HAVE a shooting phase - yet they do well.

Granted armies with strong shooting, Dark Elves for e.g. can make your game turn a living hell - but it's not really why you lose those games - OR WIN THEM!

Close combat

Well of COURSE CC is were it's at - the game's called WARHAMMER for Petes Sake!! But to say games are won or lost on close combat is over simplifying the facts - WHY did you lose that combat? Didn't you know that the horde of bloodletters was going to mash through your unit of Gnoblars?

Pick the fights that you want, and grit your teeth for the ones that are forced upon you. And then hope you roll well....

At the very fundamental level Warhammer is won on close combat, each and every game, but the events that lead up to the close combat are MORE CRUCIAL:

- Did you flank the enemy to prevent them from hitting back as effectively?
- Was you able to catch the enemy unit in a place were you could bring on an extra advantage? (For e.g. when I was able to squeeze by 2 Hydras to flank charge a unit of Dark Elf Spearmen with their unkillable level 4 INSIDE a forest! Because I won the combat and they were not steadfast I was able to run them down!!
- Are you going to be able to hold the line for one round of combat so you can then bring in the big hitters NEXT turn?
- Are you fining favorable match-ups for your blocks?

All of the above come from the movement phase!


Its the dice dammit!!!

Well of course it's the dice dammit! Dice based game means you need the right numbers to pop on the D6 to win - otherwise we'd all play paintball instead!!

But you rarely lose to bad luck - bad luck is just saying that you HAD to get a certain result to win - which means you only had one option to make that win - but really you should be trying to position your units in a way were you can force the other person to roll more dice than you - because the more dice you roll the more chances you have of failing!!

I lost a game the other day as I had stupidly ignored the threat of my flank collapsing by failing 2 leadership 8 tests! As a result as the game drew on I was unable to stop my opponent from moving down the flank and throwing my units around - Even with re-rolls you're going to fail leadership sooner or later.

So make the enemy player roll more dice than you have to and sooner or later things will even out and come back your way.



Of course all of the above is a personal view and represents MY own experience of playing Warhammer!

[Pavisel]

^ this, totally agree. movement is where it's at for current HE list. a block of spears to give the enemy something to chew on, with Phoenix guard to back 'em up. archers chill in back, raining shots as they please. But the action comes from my dragon princes and their carnosaur (we use bound monster rules ) running around you flank, while my ellyrion reavers run down the other flank, bypass it, and hit you in the rear! hooray movement! my enemies neve seem ready for it, tho I've been playing this way for the last few months.

as awesome as all that is, I tend to lose due to my own forgetfulness - oops, totally skipped the magic phase, forgot about a special rule that would have saved half my unit, didn't think ahead for my opponent's move that could counter mine... But when I play right, it's great!

[TheDungen]

I agree, combat is just a couple of random rolls that can to some extent be predicted. Chosing which combats to fight and how to fight them is movement and thus movement is the important part. Deployment is what you have to work with movementwise so again important.

Listbuilding? Is unfortunatly not entirly unimportant, but it should be.

[fransotto]

...and I voted for movement; A bad deployment can be "fixed" with the movement phase. Magic can be avoid or used thanks to good tactical movement (same with shooting). Combat phase is according to me the result of the tactical decisions (and random) that have been done before and if I dont like to have a combat, my only way to avoid bad odds is in the movement phase.

and I also believe that too many dices are thrown i warhammer to blame bad luck. Sooner and later the statistcs shines through -and a good general do not believe in luck

[Malorian]

I don't think it's movement at all. I can make a list full of awesome combat hordes and march on up to your face. Sure can bait and tarpit all you want but in the end your units are going to need to beat my units in combat.

The movements, shooting, and magic phase are all just aspects in the game that give you an advantage in the combat phase, the phase where the winner of the game will be decided.


Oh you flanked my trolls with harpies? Good for you, they're dead now.

Oh your handgunners shot my savage orcs? Good for you, they're dead now.

Oh you cast wildform on those skinks my black orcs are fighting? Good for you, they're dead now.


There is no phase in the game that grants more victory points on average than the combat phase, and it's victory points that win games. (Unless you're playing watchtower in which case it's all about the combat phase again...)

[Enigmatik1]

I gotta co-sign what Mal's saying here. My original thought was deployment/movement, but the more I think about my own personal experience, it boils down to: Can my units make it across the table in good enough shape have a chance of winning close combat (keeping in mind what army I run)? Sure, I'll dance around some to try and keep my constructs from getting shot/magicked off the table and shoot at what I can when I can, but it ultimately boils down to can my Chariots, Tomb Guard and/or assorted constructs win in CC.

My army is not going to out maneuver you, I run the slowest army in the game. If I do out maneuver you, you're probably going to lose and/or you're so "White Girl Wasted" you won't know any better anyway.
My army is not going to erase your army off the table via magic unless you are running LM or Dwarfs with only I1 models and I happen to roll PS on my L2 and actually get the spell off. Magic exists to make me more likely to win in CC via augments and hexes.
My army is not going to shoot your army off the table because I don't run enough shooting to do so. Shooting exists, such that it is, to thin you ranks to once again give my units an edge in CC.

So yeah, games are won and lost in the close combat phase. Everything else is just there to (hopefully) make it easier for me to win. YMMV, of course.

[fransotto]

I don't think it's movement at all. I can make a list full of awesome combat hordes and march on up to your face. Sure can bait and tarpit all you want but in the end your units are going to need to beat my units in combat.

The movements, shooting, and magic phase are all just aspects in the game that give you an advantage in the combat phase, the phase where the winner of the game will be decided.

Oh you flanked my trolls with harpies? Good for you, they're dead now.

Oh your handgunners shot my savage orcs? Good for you, they're dead now.

Oh you cast wildform on those skinks my black orcs are fighting? Good for you, they're dead now.


There is no phase in the game that grants more victory points on average than the combat phase, and it's victory points that win games. (Unless you're playing watchtower in which case it's all about the combat phase again...)

...I highlighted the part I believe those who votet "movement" was thinking about. Successful close combat needs a good movement phase. A "good" movement phase is not dependend of the close combat, or maybe put it in this way; Movement can stop the combat phase (fleeing units for example and redirectors) but close combat can not stop the movement (moving into victory zones and watch towers for example).

I have played couple of games there my opponents "super-duper-death-unit" have not been in combat at all due to magic, terrain, fleeing troops, redirectors and therefor lost -Not with much but still...

[Malorian]

Unless we are talking about a wood elve list that runs circles around the enemy and picks off support units for the win, movement is not going to win the game.

A good movement phase might not depend on combat, but it didn't get you any points either. You can tarpit that deathstar all you want, but in the end unless you scored points somewhere else those throw away units you tossed in front of the deathstar actually lost you the game.

And just so this doesn't focus on deathstars, I've had games where my skill in deployment, my superior list, or my movement phase had lead me to winning the game, but it was done by focusing on the major combats. Everything is done to win those key combats that broken the enemy line, killed the key characters, and scored you the points for the win.

Wood elves when done right can get around this rule, but in the vast , majority of games everything (be it army list, deployment, movement, magic, or shooting) is focused on winning that one critical round of combat (or series of combats) to win the game.

[JellyPie]

When someone goes 6 dice dwellers.....hurr

[Duke Danse Macabre]

Personally I see it as how you fight combats, do you challenge in that combat, have you reformed into a better formation to fight that foe, what position is you're army in to support, have you got counters lined up, are you fighting on you're terms, are you magically buffed and is you're foe?.....

Its hard to pick just 1, however I decided on magic as it can win a game in its own right and to be honest, I'm a Vamps player, for me it is magic.

[DrMooreFlava]

All of the above

[ftayl5]

Combat is the most important part of the game. Thanks to hordes and super-monsters and monstrous cavalry the amount of damage you can do in combat is so much more than can be done with shooting or magic.
As to the other phases:
The deployment phase is very important as it (in most cases) decides whether or not you'll get the match-ups that benefit you in the combat phase.
Movement is very important too, for getting your units into the combat phase.
Shooting helps to whittle units down so that you can finish them off in the combat phase.
Magic is similar, allowing you to make units more manageable or make your own units better, in the combat phase.

Truly, everything we do revolves around combat. While flanking units of skirmishers and fast cavalry are very pretty, they're just going to die. Shooting is important but rarely does it actually destroy units. Magic is mostly comprised of spells that make your units better or your opponent's worse: at combat.
Go and watch 10 battle reports with different armies and different scenarios and you will see that almost everything happens in combat. You do the most damage in combat and get the most points from combat.

tl;dr
The other phases basically all exist simply to give you the biggest advantages possible in combat.