Tactics for Kings of War – Chapter 6
The Art of Deployment
Deployment is a critical aspect of the game. I once played a fairly new player who had a solid Ogres with Goblin allies list. While putting down his forces, he didn’t really consider what each unit was going to do, and then started placing units just to counter where I was placing mine. He ended up blocking line of sight to both of his war engines for a total of 3 turns, rendering them basically useless. After being solidly thrashed, he told me he realized he messed up his deployment and that he just didn’t know how to do it very well. His friend had a similar list to his that wins games quite frequently. I took some time with him and pointed out some of his mistakes, and then helped him to deploy his forces on the same table to a much greater effect. The next time we met, his army was one to be reckoned with, and he nearly beat me. (We teach, but we don’t always teach all, eh?)
Before I get into slapping units down on the table, I’d like to take some time to introduce certain principles to you that haven’t been mentioned elsewhere. They are threat projection and deception. Nick Williams recently wrote an article specifically on projecting threat. The gist of this idea is that you don’t need to destroy a unit to make it combat ineffective. Throughout these articles I mention the gunslinger standoffs. This is a form of threat projection that can be very effective, but can also go south on you in a hurry if you don’t pay attention. The gunslinger is an obvious reference to the iconic gun slingers of the old west, who face off in the street in a duel to the death. For those history and anthropology buffs, I will take this theme back even further to the days of the Celts. Celtic warfare was a game of intimidation. Often, a battle could be decided without a single sword blow or spear thrown. The opposing forces would line up facing each other. The champions of each force would come out. First was the taunting: “Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!” (Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail) The theory was that if one champion could cow the other just through words alone, his side would win the fight. If the 2 were equally matched, the next step was acts of physical prowess, balancing on the edge of a shield while juggling three swords and the like. The Cattle Raid of Cooley speaks of Cuchulain and Ferdiad both standing on the rims of their shields throwing javelins at each other, catching them, and throwing them back. Again if one champion was easily the victor, the other side would admit defeat and go back home. It was only if both champions were equally matched, even if it came to blows, only then would the actual forces get involved, and shed liberal blood.
The point of threat projection is to get your opponent to stay away from your units, while still effectively achieving your goals. Remember, if you will, when I said an opponent who backs up in an Invade scenario is going to lose? This is the point. Risk management is a key aspect of threat projection. A mitigated risk, with some residual is often better than risk aversion. In a recent game, I had 3 units chargeable by a single enemy hero. Two of the 3 units could take the hit from this guy, even in the flank, and still be combat effective, the third could not. I positioned the 3 units by putting the weakest unit facing the enemy, the stronger unit also offered him only a frontal charge, but was also positioned to support a charge against either of the other 2, while the 3rd unit offered a flank charge to him. Mathematically, there was very little risk of this character breaking the unit, even if it hit and wounded with all of his attacks, he would still need an 11 or more, twice, to break the unit (inspiring source close by.) That is what I mean by a mitigated risk. One that is acceptable. Being risk averse means you are not willing to accept any risk at all. Some opponents just accept risk as part of the game. These are the ones you have to watch out for; they’re crazy.
If you have some ranged support involved in your standoff, you can sometimes goad your opponent into blinking first. A character throwing 5 lightning bolts a turn while also waiting to beat you senseless can be an unnerving turn of events. You have to balance how many losses you can sustain from the shooting before you have to commit to the fight. Again, chaff comes into its own in a situation like this, and if you’re lucky enough to have flying chaff with regeneration, then you are ready to accept some mitigated risks.
Deception is the other key aspect in the deployment and early phases of the game. The feint is a common enough practice in warfare, sometimes referred to as a ruse. One or two units move up to draw your attention away from the main effort. Sometimes these units are just bait, trying to lure you into range of a hammer unit. Sometimes, the feint is actually a threat projection. I will use my gargoyles again as an example. No one really fears a troop of gargoyles except other chaff units and war engines. If I can move forward far enough to threaten a chaff unit or war engine such that it has to reform to face me, I have drawn that target away from the main effort. Or, I have forced you to pour fires into that unit that might otherwise cause me some pain. Old Soviet doctrine involved the concept of Maskirova. Soviet commanders would do everything in their power to hide where they were going to mass, sometimes risking entire troop formations to achieve this. I have deliberately placed units where they serve absolutely no purpose, just as a deception ploy. If my opponent takes the bait and places a unit or two away from the main battle line, then I can effectively rule those units out of the main plan, for a bit at least. If your rabbit is fast and nimble, your first move can bring it right back into the main line while the enemy struggles to adjust. With those concepts in mind, let’s get into the discussion on deployment.
The three most common approaches to deployment I see are: just follow your own plan; follow your own plan, but adapt to the other guy’s deployment as necessary; and react to your opponent’s deployment with a unit of your own. Each of these methods has merit, but can depend significantly on terrain and mission. Way back in chapter 1, I mentioned that you never place a unit on the table without having a purpose for it, even if that purpose is to just die for the greater good. We call this Objective. There may be some of you out there who have heard of the Legend of the L-Gops. This stands for little groups of paratroops. The story is set on June 6, 1944, yep, D-Day, and is centered around the almost disastrous paratrooper drop into Normandy. Rangers, 82nd Airborne, and 101st Airborne units parachuted (or glidered) into Normandy in the early morning hours of D-Day, and they were scattered far and wide over the countryside. What this left was a whole lot of heavily armed 18 year-olds with almost no adult supervision, who had some concept of what they were supposed to do. They formed up into make-shift units, and remembered the Commander’s intent: “Move towards the sound of the guns, and kill anyone not dressed like you.” Or something like that. Without the intent in their minds, the L-Gops would have been destroyed, or left scattered and ineffective. Always have a purpose when you place a unit.
So the first method for deploying your force is just to stick to your plan. There are some positive aspects to going this route. If your opponent has that damnable scrying gem, you will have to drop 2-4 units on your first drop. For me, that equates to about a third of my army. What do I have to drop that won’t completely give away the entire plan? Why chaff of course. You already expect for them to die, so why not set them out as targets. Just because they’re expendable doesn’t mean they’re useless though. Still have a reason for them to go where they are. If you have 1 or 2 key units that are essential to the plan, hold them off for your last deployables, so even in the event of being out numbered, you get some element of surprise going. The chaff deployments can also be deception. If your first 2 drops are chaff units one on each edge of the deployment zone, where is your next drop going to go? What if the third drop, also a chaff unit goes right in the center? Now where are you going? Some players have extensive tells when it comes to deploying their chaff. A rather well known orc player will drop his orcling regiments first, and invariably, his morax regiments will go right behind them. A certain goblin player of my acquaintance will drop his rabble horde, which is always the screener for his 3 trombones. If I see the rabble horde go down, I know where I need to focus my ranged support. Try to achieve a level of deception in the early goings of deployment if you have a specific plan you’re going to follow.
The next common deployment option is to go basically with your plan, but allowing some flexibility to counter your enemy’s plan. Remember that important phrase: “The enemy always gets a vote?” I have seen invade games where both players had a specific plan and deployed to support that plan based upon terrain and other factors. In essence both forces were lined up to just walk by each other as they crossed the center line. I can’t fault either one for their choices, since METT-T was taken into account, but at some point one of them was going to have to shift over and engage, or the game would be a very boring draw. It is the mark of a solid commander who can recognize when things may have to shift a bit. Sometimes, a response to an enemy drop may make him think his plan is working, and he’ll fail to realize that yours is working better. There is a difference between being proactive and reactive. A proactive shift in your plan can save you from being reactive when the battle is joined. “Always maintain the initiative.”
A well timed and placed drop can throw your opponent into a tizzy fit. Everyone who plays me knows my first 3 drops are going to be the 2 gargoyle troops and either the harbinger or hell hounds. What if I screw them up and deploy the Lord of Lies as my second drop? The LoL is a threat projection platform being a combat capable, flying hero that just happens to have lightning (7). If I drop a gargoyle troop and the LoL on the far left flank, what formation would you be expecting at that point? Some of you are guessing the echelon from that flank, while others are guessing double envelopment. What if the LoL was put there as a diversion, and my plan is actually to go an echelon from the other side? Can a flying hero with lightning shift back to the center easily? It absolutely can. Now taking the above as in game, you must consider 3 possibilities, what are you going to do? Are you going to stick with your current plan, or are you going to make adjustments? If you do change your plan, what are the odds that I won’t? It’s a gamble. By doing something unexpected, I have gotten into my opponent’s decision making cycle, and now he has to either decide to ignore a zappy combat character, or commit resources to counter it. Either could be the right option, but either could also be the wrong option. Deception in this case has been a success.
When I speak about the “Decision Cycle,” and I believe this is the first time I will really address it. The OODA Loop, yes I know, it sounds like a creature from Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. The observable during deployment is seeing the unit actually going onto the table. You must then orient to that observable, which means assessing its purpose, and the terrain. You now have to make a decision: is this a significant threat, a feint, and should I continue with my original plan? Obviously, a significant threat may warrant an alteration to the plan, and that has to be considered before taking the action. If the original plan is to set an echelon from left to right, and his heaviest hitter just dropped down on your left, how certain are you that you can break through it. Remember, with an echelon, the idea is to punch through, and turn in. If your punch force gets delayed in a prolonged combat, your main body is going to be hard pressed to hold without the flanking force moving in. The action itself is a cycle that you have to consider during the decision step.
An action cycle is action, reaction, and counter-action. Injecting yourself into your opponent’s decision cycle is how you get a vote in his plan. A normal early deployment cycle for me: I drop a chaff unit on my far left flank, he will drop a chaff unit on the same side of the table, and I drop a shooter to counter his chaff. I am anticipating his next move, and preparing to deal with it. His original plan was to drop something elsewhere, but now that I’ve dropped a shooting unit, he has to now drop a counter to that shooter (possibly a fast attack unit like a flyer or cavalry unit.) Thus I drop a combat unit to counter his counter. If I am dropping my units exactly where I planned on putting them, but not dropping them in an expected sequence, my decision cycle is still intact, but my opponent now has to interrupt his cycle to adapt to mine. I am already gaining the initiative, and we haven’t yet moved a single unit.
This leads us into the third option for deployment: reacting to the enemy’s deployment. I would consider this the worst possible option, but I have seen it many times in the past so I do have to address it. If your opponent is reacting to your deployment, and trust me, it will be obvious that this is what he is doing, start changing up the order of your drops to really throw him for a loop. Don’t change your intended position, just when they go down. Why I say it is obvious your opponent is doing this is the battle line will not appear to have any synergy. Go back to the 3 basic formations, and look at them again. If your opponent is deploying in the lazy W formation, you are already well into his decision cycle. (If you’re not sure what the lazy W is, don’t worry. It is one of my descriptions for an enemy who has units all over the place. Fast unit on a flank, fast unit in the center, fast unit on the other flank, with slower units interspersed between them. In essence, this is a “formation” used by someone who believes certain units will win the game for him even if unsupported. Never send your units out unsupported; never attack in a piece meal fashion. If you send one unsupported unit at a time against my battle line, I will eat your army for breakfast. Part of the maneuver is to break up your enemy’s line, and catch unsupported units. If you are willingly breaking up your lines and providing the unsupported units, my job is already done.
Many times in my own batreps, I don’t include the sequence of deployment other than the first drop or two. Obviously, the teacher doesn’t teach everything, but some prolific writers do. Swordmaster’s battle reports actually take the time to show the deployments in sequence, and watching them you can start to see how the game should play out, dice notwithstanding. If watching the deployment is enough to help you envision how the game will go, congratulations, you are well on your way to being a successful commander. Knowledge of your opponent is also key. The group of us that play on Universal Battles can often be found all hanging out watching other games when not playing. Yes, there is an on line camaraderie involved, but there is also something more sinister happening. We are sizing up our opponents. Looking at lists, seeing the tactics being used, and learning our opponents’ tells. As I mentioned, With some players, certain units are dead giveaways to the plan. If the goblins deploy the rabble horde in the center, the rabble legion will be right next to it, and the war trombones will be behind it. The orclings will always screen the morax regiment. These are the things a good commander looks for, and uses to enhance his own art of deployment.
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