Back to Basics: Infantry Positioning Versus Other Melee Infantry

Back to Basics

Infantry Positioning Versus Other Melee Infantry

"Hey, I have an idea, why don't we stab those other guys"

It occurred to me that a new player coming to this blog may not have all the context of basic play. Since I always need content, I decided to start doing some of the basic strategies of this game, especially in relation to the Skorne faction.

We are primarily a melee faction. We do have some ranged troops, but none of them are incredibly stellar. Reivers have a relatively low RAT in an army that provides very little buffs, and Slingers have some interesting interactions, but I will get to them later.

Bottom line, if we are fielding infantry our best options are melee ones. Because of this, it can be a frustration of a new Skorne player when they face off against melee infantry hating abilities, like covering fire, pHaley, eLich clouds, created forests, you name it, or other melee infantry that might even have a better threat range then our own.

Unlike other factions, we don't have stealth and very little denial game ourselves. We have our slightly above average base defense and the occasional tough.

When forced into these frustrating situations, here is a simple trick to still feel like you are contributing to the game.

If you are taking a charge, limit your opponent's options:

A common mistake, especially for players coming from other games, is that sometime people forget how restrictive the charge rules are.

Charging basics:

1. You must declare your charge target.
2. You must have LOS to the charge target.
3. You must end in melee range.
4. You must move in a straight line.

So say you are in a situation where a unit of Bane Thralls behind eLich clouds are now about to get the drop on your Nihilators. In this situation I try and keep my Nihilators spaced out like this:

Basically, as you can see, the Bane Thralls have to worry about the front three Nihilators. If they try and charge past any of their melee ranges, they suffer a free strike, which will mean a dead Thrall. The Green Bane Thrall cannot risk charging to the green Nihilator because even if it has the range, the free strikes will kill it.

After charging, it usually looks like this:

At worst you lost 3 models. The above scenario is likely, because the Cryx player doesn't want to over expose their own infantry unit, but they want to get at least two Thralls on your one Nihilator to ensure the casualty. But even if they want to do the one for one trade, you can continue to use positioning and the small fact that you have berserk and reach to hopefully grind out the extended combat.

Of course this doesn't work on other melee units that have Ghostly, or some other form of free strike immunity. At that point you can do a bunker set up:

As you can see a Knight literally cannot advance though those models, meaning when they charge they will only be able to hit the front 5.

Unfortunately, this does clump you up together for premium Bile Purges, breath of corruption, etc. So I usually wouldn't recommend it. However, if your opponent doesn't have these abilities, the bunker set up would work just fine.

Another option, which is more effective, is to mess with charge angles. Say a Bane Knight needs to charge the green Nihilator.

Now, if you examine it, the Thrall really has only two charge lanes. The red and blue lines in the following picture shows this.

As you can see, taking the red path, to be able to move in a straight line without conflicting with the base in its way will result in a failed charge because it will not be able to get within melee range before conflicting with the other Nihilator in it's way. Going along the Blue path will also result in a failed charge because the angle will take it right outside of melee range as well. To actually be able to get the charge, the Bane Thrall would either have to be on the outside of the unit or here.

But guess what? You are the one that decided where the Bane Knight is in relation to your infantry.

Keep your opponent honest, on those critical charges, make sure they follow the rules, and it just might save your bacon. Obviously the game is a little more complex then this and there is no hard answers. Shooting could open up charge lanes on your back lanes, purges or spells can do so as well. Part of the game is recognizing what would be the best move on your opponents part and planing for where that might leave them. Positioning is what makes this an extremely tactical game.