Movement: Sandwich Testing

March The Motherlands Lament, Konstantin Vasiliev

Sandwyrm here. Caulyndarr and I got together today and pushed some models around a table to see if we could break the movement system. Our results were interesting.

Here we have 2 small Army squads. One is spread out in a line and we'll try to sandwich it.

(CaulynDarr only had his Dust minis with him at the store today, so we used those for our tests. The bases are slightly bigger than 40K's 20mm standard, more like 25mm)

The leader moves up until he's 2" back from the line.

As we measure though, we find that the squad's 6" command radius is just enough to get a model behind the squad. But the 3" coherency requirement with a model that has already moved, combined with the 2" stand-off distance, makes getting there impossible.

So let's try and conga around a more compact squad. The leader is the 2nd model from the right. Six inches from him isn't far enough to form much of a snake around the squad. Especially with the 2" stand-off.

Let's try some Knights. Here's that line of Army guys again. We put the leader down on the right. The other model can be 5" from him, but that's not enough to clear the 2" stand-off from the model between them.

With smaller 20mm bases and a more spread out defensive line though, you can get multiple models across the line from the leader. But is that such a bad thing? These are super-elite troops, and those infantry are pretty spread out. You're also potentially sacrificing the leader, not that Knights will typically care, as they can always select a new one.

Hmmmnnnn... maybe you don't want to kill their leader after all? Otherwise you're just handing them extra movement for a turn.

If you simply reduce the spacing of the infantry, you'll restrict the number of models that can get past the line. Just like in real life.

But one guy is all the Knights need to chain from if they want to shoot up Heavy Weapons Teams with short ranged pistols. Assuming that even makes sense. The leader still has to assault something for there to be close-combat.

So different tactics come into play. Add some depth to the defense and nobody will be getting past you. I'm starting to like how this works.

Now a spread out line of Knights?

Infantry can be all over them. Which you know, makes sense. The knights just can't hold territory the way a large squad can.

Now let's talk about some other things we discovered. Here's a squad that's gaming the system to get it's special weapons closer to the target. Cool.

But all that really does is let another unit come up, put those models in it's standard short range (12" I'm thinking) and force you to allocate hits to those models first.

Hmmnnn... not so good. If we go with the current blast template system (place template, count models, roll to hit/wound, remove models only from under template) that also leaves the leader wide open to being sniped. Not good.

Instead we decided your best bet was a staggered advance where the leader and the special weapons have buddies.

That way none of them could be easily sniped with a blast, as anything less than perfect rolling (all hits, all wounds) would allow you to put a wound on the buddy instead of the thing you care about.

And you know what? That's pretty freaking cool! It's way different than how you move in any other game. CaulynDarr and I were pretty excited by this!

Thoughts?