My new friend , the Hornet

 Heya all and welcome back!

It is tough being a Human Resource Executive, as it feels like you are playing the role of a bard in the corporate world and I have lesser time in playing my 40k. Nonetheless it is this that makes each one of my games that much sweeter now. Unfortunately this also means that I tend to forget to take pictures of my games, and thus I am unable to make any battle reports of some extremely good games that I have during this lull in the blog.

During this time, I have found a particular unit that I am really fond of using these past few weeks, and that is the Forgeworld Hornet. These things are so good thanks to the new rules in the IA Apoc that I can't resist it. Not to mention that they are now 40k legal........

Anyhow let me jump into the things that make them such an excellent unit.

The first point that I must make is the fact that their firepower is utterly insane! Each Hornet can carry two weapons, and dear god their firepower matches the War Walkers, and in some cases surpass that unit. Their weapons are comparatively cheap and you can tailor them to whatever your list lacks, and all of them are good (except that damn missile launcher, which is still a lame duck in my opinion). In my case, I wanted a weapon that can dish out a lot of shots at high strength and thus my eyes are on the pulse lasers. With the cheap-as-chips pulse lasers, each hornet can dish out 4 str 8 ap2 shots at BS4!

The fact that they could be taken in squadrons is utterly insane, and multiply the pulse-laser armed Hornet by three and you can see that this unit is just utterly brutal.

Secondly, the unit are really flexible in their usage. This is because it has two rules going for it; Scout and Skimmer Assault. Now most of you are no stranger to the first rule, as Scouting means that I can actually push my advantage early on using the Scouts or I can reserve them to both protect them from alpha strikes and then harass them later on using Outflanking rules.The second rule Skimmer Assault is also very juicy, as it allows the Hornets to snap fire even if they turboboosted. This helps in keeping the tempo for the offense and increasing their defense as well and having such thorns in my opponent's side is just precious.

Last but not least, maneuverability. These things are fast skimmers which is a godsend. I can never stress how amazing fast skimmers are to some people but for anyone worth their salt seeing such a high firepower, high versatility unit having such speed as well is just utterly godlike. Screw the fact that they have two hull points and AV11 on both their front and side (which is amazing in the eyes of a Dark Eldar player, but not to everyone else), as that speed is the thing that will make those shots count when they need to. Side armour, rear armour, moving around an annoying terrain to prevent cover for the clowns that made the annoying terrain their temporary home.....all is possible.

Last but not least, the point cost for them. Dear god......they are just affordable. 80 points per model for that firepower is too much of a bargain. I will take a squadron please (if I were a true Eldar player, I would take 3 squadrons of 3, and not have any friends).

Now that I have talked about the delicious reasons for taking them, I will now proceed on the synergy it provides to my army.

For one, they complete a portion that my list so desperately need. Sometimes I find it hard to kill transports that are of a certain caliber (AV12, I am looking at you) and the Hornets solves that problem for me. In addition they also aid in the elite infantry killing which my list may or may not struggle against from time to time. Lastly these guys can also act as my anti-flyer defense and are definitely more effective than my ravagers in this capacity.

Secondly, the Scout rules on them makes my personal choice for Traits (Strategic) so much more useful and I do not have to care anymore about 'dud' results in the form of rerolling outflanking results. The scout rules also helps me in better positioning them for the kill or make a feint which throws my opponent's off balanced.

In my case it is more like hide behind metal boxes......

Thirdly, if I am forced to, their AV 11 can act as a temporary shield for my other forces. However this is definitely a waste of their potential, and I would prefer to let them live so that I can shoot. Nonetheless it is important to open my thoughts to any sacrifices for the long-term wining strategy of the game.

Lastly and perhaps more importantly, they fit with my philosophy.

I believe that to win without a fight is the best course of action, but I would not mind a victory that is so thorough that the opponent are unable to retaliate against me. When the opponent is pressured enough, they will do mistakes, and when they do I will exploit it. As this weakness is exploited, I like to plan more attacks to exploit any more weaknesses created by the opponent and keep on doing so until the other side surrendered or I literally ran out of gas. Thus I believe in a multi-layered overwhelminng rushdown offensive to make my opponent blunder or freeze up. For that the Hornets fit into this mindset very well, as they give me options to play around the table to fit said belief.

Some people say that Allies are lame, but for me they actually kept the hobby alive for me. Not to mention that Forgeworld is always a cool bastard. As of this moment I am currently profiting from this particular build;

Duke Sliscus
10 Kabalite Warriors in a Raider with Splinter Racks and Nightshields
9 Kabalite Warriors in a Raider with Splinter Racks and Nightshields

5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venom with second Splinter Cannon and Nightshields

5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venom with second Splinter Cannon and Nightshields

5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venom with second Splinter Cannon and Nightshields

Ravager with three Dark Lances and Nightshields

Ravager with three Dark Lances and Nightshields

Voidraven Bomber with 2 Void Lances, 2 Shatterfield Missiles, 1 Void Bomb and Flickerfield

Eldar Allied Detachment

Farseer with Mantle of the Laughing God on Jetbike
3 Guardian Jetbikers
1 squadron of 3 Hornets with 2 Pulse Lasers

This list works very well against all sorts of opponents and I honestly am liking the synergy of this list a lot. It sure hit like a ton of bricks when it needs to, and it is very versatile.  So far, I am unable to test this out against IG as a result of the resident IG player being a mechanical engineer whose expertise is in high demand.

Only sad panda part as of this moment is that I do not have the real models for the Hornets. Nonetheless, I believe that I will be making some of my own hornets so that it will fit with the Dark Eldar theme.

See all of you next time!

A Little Bit Of This, A Little Bit OF That - Experimental 1750 pts Dark Eldar - Eldar list.

Heya all and welcome back!

I will be honest here and say that life can be tough when for some reason you are stuck in making your list improve. For some reason, life is not giving me results with some of my current builds as a result of not having the right tools for some armies. Here are the issues I find very vexing;

1) 5-men Kabalites with Blasters are becoming more and more like that ugly crutch that limits my options and also offering very little in return. The passengers are not pulling their weight, and I also need a more reliable unit to take objectives aggressively.

2) My Ravagers, despite their 3 lances, are not the most reliable of anti-tanks and they need to be improved. I will not deny that they are good, but in my case they need to be better.

3) Flyers, Flyers everywhere. Everyone's throwing a flyer or two into their list, and personally despite not being affected too adversely by it due to me being a proponent of using flyers, I find that I also need to take those bastards out ASAP. This is related to #2.

4) Shooting is good, but it is not the end-all for assault in this edition. If anything, it means that you have to choose the right targets to charge and kill, preferably with very little resistance.

5) Venoms are good, but I generally find my Venoms getting the lion's share of the shooting alongside the Ravagers. I find it odd that my Raiders tend to be surviving longer than the other nonsense in my list.

As always, the internet horde generally believes that spamming a certain unit and ignoring assault means profit, but like the American Shutdown, spending points on a build that will shut you down in a long time sucks balls. In other words it is my way of saying that the majority of the internet does not know or wants to think outside their comfort zone.

As I did some soul-searching, I realized that I need to scrap all my thoughts and went the opposite direction with my army and designed it without any love for any units that I once used. In addition, I will have to play around with some of the new mechanics of 6th edition a little more to exploit the weaknesses of the current nonsense. In other words, I am literally singing 'Highway to the Danger Zone' to my listbuilding idea and went on said highway.

Based upon these questions I realized that my problems are quite simple;

1) I need twin-linked weapons

2) I need more options for anti-tanks, especially of the more brutal kind.

3) I need to maximize the usability of squads that I want them to last, while having the 'Fuck it' ethos to those that need not survive that long.

I laboured for a while before I came up with this list, which is almost odd as it is ingenious.

Dark Eldar Main Detachment
Archon with Venom Blade, Haywire Grenade, Combat Drugs, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, and Shadowfield
Haemonculus with Liquifier gun
5 Incubi with Klaivex upgrade in a Raider with Nightshields
10 Kabalite Warriors in a Raider with Splinter Racks and Nightshields
10 Kabalite Warriors in a Raider with Splinter Racks and Nightshields

5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venom with second Splinter Cannon and Nightshields

5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venom with second Splinter Cannon and Nightshields

5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venom with second Splinter Cannon and Nightshields

Ravager with three Dark Lances and Nightshields

Ravager with three Dark Lances and Nightshields

Voidraven Bomber with 2 Void Lances, 2 Shatterfield Missiles, 1 Void Bomb and Flickerfield

Eldar Allied Detachment

Farseer with Mantle of the Laughing God on Jetbike

3 x Windrider Jetbike Squadron

As you can see, this list is an utter scrappy list but one with hidden secrets. 

The calculations are simple;

1) 5-men Kabalites with Blasters = Move aside, Wyches with Haywire are a much more stable investment. They either die or once they see a target they will be hunting it down with haywire grenades. For scoring purposes, 10-men squads help a lot more.

2) My Ravagers' need to be better/ Flyer defennse: Farseer with Guide and Prescience helps in making sure things be more reliable. Also the Voidraven helps.

4) Assault elements to hunt down pesky units : Wyches and Incubi are fine for their jobs here, only one hunts down vehicles like wave serpents while the other kills 2+ stuff, with an addition of glancing most vehicles to death.

5) Venom attrition; Put in more Raiders to become LOS Blockers, Roadblocks and extra lances. Add that with the 10 men kabalites, they prove to be a way I build redundancy in the list without weakening my scoring options.

In many ways, this list is meant to work in a more Eldar-like manner than my other lists which are more Dark Eldar in nature. All the elements have their role to play, but at the same time I blanket all my glaring weaknesses with their similar roles. Of course as with every list I must put it under fire to truly appreciate what it does, and to see if all this wishlisting is practical.

So far my first game with marines proved to be very successful, as all the units worked wonderfully. Of course a single game means nothing, and thus this will go under the knife against other builds to see its true viability. The build is growing on me, as it fits with my rather aggressive wave playstyle.

I will try to post a battle report with this list as soon as I could, win or lose to at least show what is going on in my mind when I play this list.

Adapting for the Foreseeable Future for my Dark Eldar

Heya all and welcome back!

Crisis_Vyper return an International player of 40k!!!!

Being back in Malaysia and having to adapt to the meta at home is always a toughie, especially when one have developed their army in the US to near perfection. It is not to say that it is a bad thing, in fact I really enjoy myself as I get to use the lessons learned from the US to increase my fundamentals in 40k which is based upon a Malaysian school of thought (lol). With that, I must say that combining both my 6th edition experiences in both nations I found that there are some things that would affect my finetuning towards the Malaysian meta;

1) Blasterborn in Venoms are not as amazing as they used to be. I am sad about this, but at the same time, things must change. Personally they have not been performing for a while now, and my use of Reavers and Incubi sparingly as fun elements proved to be superior choices to the Trueborns in most of the games they are in. Each edition brings its own nuances, and with that I must adapt to the only constant; change.

2) Eldar allies are important to increase consistency of the entire Dark Eldar army (or otherwise known as 'Dat Farseer!') as they help in being a force multiplier for the Dark Eldar, especially in the twin-linking department.

3) Assault is still alive, just that it is more of a high-risk/high-reward thing. Suits the Dark Eldar just fine to be honest, and an assault element needs to be tough, fast and able to hit hard enough.

I pity the Marine player here.......

4) Mech or some elements of Mech are also alive, especially with the Xenos factions. The prevalence of Wave Serpents among Eldar players is such that Samuel. L. Jackson would be cursing "I am sick of these motherfuckin' Serpents on this motherfuckin' table!' while the existence of Hammmerheads and Skyrays (mostly the latter), Annnihilation Barges and Land Raiders proved to show that everyone is breaking through the inherent meta of having footlists and Str 7 weapons.

Due to this, I am also seeing more meltaguns returning as well to counter the new wave of nonsense. This also means a more Hybrid approach to most lists. I rarely see a full foot-army here as everyone and their mothers are all armed to the teeth with anti-infantry guns to the point that cover is beneficial only when they go to ground to take the hits.

Honest reaction to Space Marines

5) Less Marines, more Xenos. In the US, I see so many bloody Marines (almost 80%) to the point where I often say to myself that any Marine matchup is a 8-2 in my favour, while Xenos are arguably the minority. Over here in Malaysia, there is a greater spread of armies to face, with Marines consisting only 30-50% of the armies here. In fact I like the variety, and thus nnow I am able to get my thinking hat on to make more balanced lists (not that I did not make them to be anti-Marine to begin with, but it is quite a Marine killer).

6) Interestingly enough, there is not a lot of flyer spam. I do not know why, but everyone uses around 0-2 flyers. I blame this on the Tau and Eldar to be honest, and I am fine with this.

American Table......

And the Malaysian table.

7) It is comfortable to see that the terrain here is a lot more than those in the US, especially when 25-40% of the table is covered in terrain, with a balanced mix of area terrain, Ruins, and other terrains. In the US, I often expect to see around 15-25% terrain. A true relief and a greater test of skill rather than pure dice rolling

With these observations in mind, I have also started to go about designing a list that best reflects the current mutation of the meta.

My list is somewhat spartan, but it does offer me a whole load of flexibility in terms of deployment, firepower and tactics. I am assuming that I will always get the worst possible situation for a Dark Eldar player; Being forced to be on Planet Bowling Alley without Nightfight and going second. My US experience opened my eyes about how important every little scrap of terrain is, even if you have to make one yourself using the corpses of your vehicles.

My 1750 pts list is meant to answer all the observations and field experiences I have seen in Malaysia (as stated above), and also throwing in my wisdom from my time in the US.

Baron Sathonyx
Farseer on Jetbike on Jetbike
1 squad of 6 Incubi with a Klaivex in a Raider
1 squads of 5 Warriors with 1 blaster in a Raider
4 squads of 5 Warriors with 1 blaster in Venoms with second splinter cannons
1 squad of 3 Windrider Guardian Jetbikes with one Shuriken Catapult
1 Squad of 9 Reaver Jetbikers with 3 Heatlances and an Arena Champion with a Venom Blade
2 Ravagers with Flickerfields
1 Voidraven bomber with Flickerfield and 2 Shatterfield missiles

The Baron is there sadly for one reason and one reason only; Getting me the option in deployment. Not the best use of HQ I know, but he is pure gold in the pre-game setup. However once he is on the table, he will be hanging out with the Windriders until the last possible turn where they will split up and the Windriders contest objectives. For 105 pts, I do not mind it too much.

However if the situation calls for it, he will also be flying forward to join up with the Incubi and charge together as one.

Farseer......this dude is utterly amazing. He is one of the main elements that can make the entire army ever consistent, with the Runes of Fate, Divination and/or Telepathy. Twin-linking is utterly brutal on Ravagers, Venoms and Reavers, and if I can get Doom, I am an utterly happy person. In other words, he's the handyman.

The Incubi provides me with an avenue for close combat, and also I realize that they help balance the army overall with their AP2 Klaives. There are times where I am forced to charge to stall or kill things, and they are the best unit for the job. They are also meant to be used in tandem with the Reavers whenever possible to provide an uneven fight for my opponents. They also play the role as distractions when the need comes for it. For obvious reasons, no one likes a bunch of Incubi with an Archon marching down their alley.

Warriors with blasters are solid dudes, and they only ever get out if the area is cleared. The blasters also provide additional anti-tank for the army and mop-ups if they have to do it.

The Bikers in my army are there for their mobility and also being excellent contesters. Guardian jetbikes are a requisite choice for me to take in an allied list while the Reavers are there to provide three things;

1) Backups for the Ravagers

2) Assault elements

3) Infantry firebase killers

If they are forced to, they could also become a distraction element (and they do excel in this department as well). They can also become anti-air if I need them to be, and with the Farseer around, this makes it a viable choice.

The raiders are there to become meatshields if the situation is such that I am forced to hide behind something. It also doubles up as extra dark lances platforms just in case my Ravagers and Reavers are shot down (which is quite often).

Venoms and Ravagers are just solid choices for anything, and the reason for their inclusion should not need any more explaining to do. The Voidraven is anti-flyer and also anti-tank while the bomb and the missiles it carried acts as both anti-parking lots and anti-horde for my list.

I find that this list has a lot of answers to a lot of things, but in return I sacrifice raw list power. Nonetheless, with the new edition running around and new supplements and codices being thrown into the mix, I find that it is almost impossible to just try and spam things due to the likelihood of pulling out a hard counter or the spam list being obsolete within seconds. The IG blobs are gone and the Cronair are tamer due to the combination of Tau and Eldar shenanigans, while the supplements only creates a meta where anything and everything goes.

In addition with the majority of the missions rewarding a fluid commander, I find that being able to adapt on the fly while also fulfilling the main strategy of the list to be the upmost importance these days. Hard counters are hard to use when some armies do not even have the solution to the problem, and thus having soft counters are more effective in the long-run. This edition is not even through its first year and the constant state of flux now is just amazing for the meta.

I will be testing this list out to see if the theory side of things will be proven in the tabletop. Wish me luck and happy gaming to all of you.

Holistic Mumbo: A Guide for Mobile Warfare for the new guys

Heya all, with all the new guys entering into the hobby and such and some Dark Eldar players to boot, I decided to revamp my old article about mobile warfare that I once wrote for Tau Online Forums (writted around the early days of 5th edition, where I correctly predicted that Mech list will kick ass for the rest of the edition while the rest of the world say that Nob Bikers will kick ass) for 6th edition. To be honest nothing much changed, save that of flyers and thus the guide is still very much relevant in our 40k games today.

With 6th edition we can see that they are taking 5th edition's essence and putting it up a notch for 5 out of the 6 missions are objective missions. If you stick around, you will not be able to take those objectives to win and there's even a secondary objective where if you have a scoring or contesting (denial) unit inside the opponent's deployment zone you will get a bonus Victory Point. Mech may be hampered by the new edition of the rules, but the general rule of the game still applies. So come along and and explore the interesting world of Mobile warfare.

Background

Since time memorable, methods of warfare revolves around two principles; Maneuver warfare and attrition warfare which are the focus when it comes to achieving victory upon the battlefield either by killing or capturing an objective. Maneuver warfare understands that both attrition and also maneuver are both important elements of warfare and this principle is pushed forward by militaries which are smaller, more cohesive, better trained, or more technically able than attrition warfare counterparts.

Mobile in 40k
Now in 40k there are several types of mobile armies, and they are

1) Vehicle – eg: Flyer Necrons, Mech Dark Eldar
2) Infantry – eg: Jump Pack Blood Angels, Biker Armies
3) Hybrid - eg: Mech Tau

And their abilities can be broadly categorized into;

1)Shooting
2)Assault
3)Hybrid

Now I would like to explain how I categorized them and their strengths and weaknesses so here goes.

Major subtypes
In a Mobile Vehicle army, This means that everything is either vehicles or are in vehicles. Mech Dark Eldar belongs here, and so do other kinds of vehicle heavy mech armies. The advantages of a Vehicle Moblie army is that with their armour value, they are able to negate most anti-infantry weapons and also negate any close combat elements, but in return, they will often lack in numbers and if the vehicle is down, their effectiveness are cut down rather drastically.

In a Mobile Infantry (Not to be mistaken with Starship Troopers), this means that there are a lot of very mobile infantry units coupled with very little or no vehicles at all. Pure Biker armies are perhaps the best example for this.The advantages that one can get from a Mobile Infantry list is that they are able to utilize cover and terrain better, have numbers on their side and they in effect negate anti-tank capabilities of an opposing army. However their main weakness are often anti-infantry weapon and also they are exposed to the elements like any infantry does, which in this case close combat weaponry and the likes.

In a Hybrid Mobile, this means that there are fast infantry alongside many vehicles. Mech Tau belongs here. The hybrid mobile army is like any other hybrid army, takes the best of both worlds of the mobile list and be a more balanced mobile list.

Abilities
Now, as with all Mech armies they optimized upon controlling the movement phase. Some of you might wonder what is the point of controlling the movement phase as the killing are all in the other phases? This is because the movement phase is the only phase where it does not rely upon chance, or in our case dice rolls and thus can be considered the most reliable phase that we can depend on. Now that we covered the basic fundamentals as to why Mech armies dominate the movement phase, now we have to understand that movement alone is not enough. I mean you want to kill and or capture objectives, and for that we need the other two phases; the Shooting phase and Assault Phase. Now the question is what phase should the Mech army dominate in?

For some armies, the shooting phase is a more powerful phase as more often than not the assault phase is their bane. Necrons and tau fall into the shooting mobile armies due to their low initiative, and their shooting are prodigious to say the least. As for others, the close combat phase is a more powerful option due to the fact that their shooting is not very good and/or their close combat weaponry are way superior. Nob Biker armies are perhaps the main army that utilizes this mechanic.

For some, they are so balanced with their close combat and their shooting that they can do both at once, thus able to be very balanced in almost all phases of combat. Mech Dark Eldar belongs here as the army is able to hit hard in all phases of combat.

Now that we know what kinds of mobile armies are there in 40k, now we will go to the fundamental elements of mobile warfare.

Application of mobile warfare.
I bet by now you are quite overwhelmed by all the different types of mobile that I have brought forth right? Do not need to worry, for they all have a similar framework that they work with.

Now contrary to attrition warfare, which is defined by Webster as "the act of weakening or exhausting by constant harassment, abuse, or attack", the basic premise of maneuver warfare is basically to keep an enemy off-balanced by gaining an advantageous position relative to the enemy.

In Maneuver warfare, there are several important elements to keep in mind when one is to understand the whole idea of maneuver warfare. War theorist Martin VanCreveld identifies six main elements of maneuver warfare:

* Decentralized command
* Flexibility 
* Combined arms
* Surprise
* Schwerpunkt
* Tempo 

And thus with these points, I will explain the certain aspects of maneuver warfare, and I will start first with Decentralized command, followed up by the rest.

1.Decentralized command

In the simplest term, this means that all elements of an army must know the overall intent of the entire battle plan, as the constant changing battlefield will often out pace communications. With this maneuver warfare seeks that one must be fast enough to adapt to the ever changing conditions of a battlefield and thus able to act independently while achieving the main goal.

2. Flexibility

According to VanCreveld , flexibility means a military must be well rounded, self contained and redundant. Flexibility in warfare is of paramount importance as this enables a fighting unit to adapt to the ever changing battlefield ans is able to fight against any adversary without the need of slowing down the entire efforts of the entire army. However, this is not to say that the unit will be standing up against the opponent alone, for they need the support of other units to achieve perfect synergy, which will be explained further in combined arms.

3. Combined arms

Combined arms is defined as an approach to warfare which seeks to integrate different arms of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects. Though the lower-echelon units of a combined arms team may be of homogeneous types, a balanced mixture of such units are combined into an effective higher-echelon unit, whether formally in a table of organization or informally in an ad hoc solution to a battlefield problem.

Here every unit is not alone in their struggle, as infantry protecting the tanks, the tanks protecting the infantry since they would need one another to fight effectively and ultimately, survive the day.

This is due to a principle called the Lanchester Square Law (which holds true for all types of warfare), which states that the combat power of a combat unit relative to the relative combat power of an enemy of a given size, all other factors being equal, is the square of the number of members of that unit.From this it is derived that twice as many tanks will quadruple the relative firepower — relative that is, to the amount of firepower the enemy has per member of the friendly unit; one could also express this by saying that their relative punishment from enemy action is reduced four times, which is the same thing — as not only their own absolute number is doubled, but the number of enemies relative to each of their own, is thereby halved also. Thus, concentrating two divisions into one point and attacking generates a far greater force than is achieved by spreading two divisions into a line and pushing forward on a broad front.

In simple proper English,  it goes like this and I will use the tank example for it is easier and more in line with the topic;

A single tank is as combat effective as another tank of the same type, but two tanks are not twice as effective, but instead it is 4 times as effective. The reason being that a single tank will not only outgunned an opponent by twice, but also will be able to kill twice the number of enemies, hence it being squared. In addition, the enemy's ability to counter the threat is reduced by 4 times, hence their anti-tank ability square rooted.

In even simpler internetz speak: Spam is good. This is why most armies have duplicates of two or more units.

However, even though the units are all working together, if they are faced by a force that are equal or superior to them in anyway, they will have a hard time fighting as well. Thus in order to defeat a force that are equal or superior to them they need to have something up their sleeves that will enable them to bolster their considerable combat strength and that is when surprise comes into play.

4. Surprise

Whoops wrong surprise!

The element of surprise is always an important part of warfare, whether it is just introducing a new unit or doing something very unconventional. This is because something that the opponent did not expect will always give you the advantage straight on, as they will have a hard time countering your ‘surprise’. This can do alot of things as it enables you to gain the advantage.

However surprise alone will not win you the day, for once the surprise is sprung, it will be very hard to surprise the opponent again and if the; a) The force used in the surprise is unable to do lasting damage and/or b) Doing it at the place where the surprise element will be severely negated, you can be rest assured that it is another way of saying that your plan backfired.

5. Schwerpunkt

Schwerpunkt, translated as focal point is an aspect of warfare first explored in the Blitzkrieg where the basic premise is to focus everything at a single point and well, break it with superior force. Remember the physics law by Newton (guy who revolutionized physics due to a damn apple dropping on his head?)? Well, for those who have not remembered their high school physics, they are;

1.A physical body will remain at rest, or continue to move at a constant velocity, unless an unbalanced net force acts upon it.

2.The net force on a body is equal to its mass multiplied by its acceleration

3.For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

A schwerpunkt works in a similar manner. With an objective in mind, once you started moving it, you can never stop in warfare, for any moment of hesitation will kill you. And with that momentum gaining up, it will achieve a greater penetration force as a result of Newton law #2. Thus a Schwerpunkt is akin to the first two laws of Netwon’s, for a Sckwerpunkt is a point where you focus the strongest force to break it down.

The goals of this were the deepest possible penetration and minimal engagement, while avoiding an enemy counterattack. This often means that the focal point is often the decisive movement of all maneuver-based armies, as it means that you throw in whatever you have into the point and never give in, because if you break through, the enemy will crumble while if you fail, you will be dead within seconds. It is a much more elegant way of saying ‘get rich or die trying”.

However, most people who achieve this breakthrough tend to forget Newton’s third law; For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Most often than not, everyone have a back-up plan for this kind of things, and they can counter the momentum of the blitz with a beautifully executed counterattack. 'GODAMIT!!!!!!!' would be what some of you will be saying right now once you heard about this downer ending.

Wait a second everyone! This is when we go back and look at the element of surprise. Why let him countercharge when you can counter-countercharge? This will give him another surprise and thus bring the whole pace of warfare back to you.

This finally leads up the final part of the 6 elements of maneuver warfare, which is tempo.

6. Tempo

Tick tock.....play to the beat

Tempo in this case refers to the similar to the idea of tempo as it is used in trading card games, as well as to the chess concept of initiative where a player can gain the advantage by setting the pace of the game. With mech, it is important that you get this and earn this pace. You ca do it by mainly two ways;

1)You force your opponent into following your pace

2)You break the opponent’s pace of battle

For the first one, maneuver warfare gives you this advantage as you can choose where and when you want to fight. Compared with a static army,who often have to rely upon the actions of an opponent, a maneuver army have to be a little more decisive and aggressive from the head-start, even when they are on the defensive. If a fast and mobile army is negated from its speed, it will often have a fight that ultimately it will lose. If you are stuck into a corner, you have to break out and gain back the momentum of your speed as speed and maneuver is your forte. Besides who does not like controlling their opponent?

Yeah, I tend to make any armies that oppose me my bitch.... :-P

As for the second point, most adversary whether they like it or not, often have their own pace that they adhere to. With that they expect that any type of warfare would be waged at their level where they feel most comfortable. However, when you are playing mech, you can not slow down, and for that you need to break the adversary’s pace and thus force the adversary to follow your pace of battle. Most often than not, most people will not be able to adapt that fast and thus will often be at a disadvantage.

However, this can also be used against you as well, as they will try to maximize upon their strengths while minimize upon their weaknesses. So with these this is the basic concepts that you have to remember for any type of mobile warfare.

Conclusion

Well, I hoped that you enjoyed this guide to mobile warfare. For the new ones into the hobby, I hope I have shown the fundamentals of using a mobile army, and for the vets I hope I have widen your knowledge upon the matter.

No matter what kind of mobile platform you want to be, the fundamentals of a mobile army is the same; speed is power.