Warhammer 40K: Tactics – Understanding Trades, Baits, & Bricks
Goatboy here with some 40k tactics to hone your game. Let’s talk how to win with Trades, Baits, and Bricks
Goatboy here with some 40k thoughts for this fine Monday. I hope everyone survived Thanksgiving. The turkey I made didn’t look the greatest but thankfully it tasted good. We had a big get together at my house and I ate a lot and had fun. With the bird nonsense out of the way let’s talk about some common 40K tactics terms you can use in 40k when describing how armies work and get their business done.
40K Tactics: Trading
The first term will talk about is Trading. Trading is when you are able to utilize a unit to “trade” with your opponent’s army. This usually means your unit either kills enough to cover its cost or in some terms can “trade up” and kill more than what you paid for. The idea of trading your unit for theirs is one of the cornerstones of a game where one of the goals is to remove your opponents assets and abilities to score – on your terms.
Let’s look at it further in how some units can effectively “trade up”. Take for example the Aeldari Fire Dragons and how they are just able to easily remove just about any single target. They are able to do this with very little interaction from the opponent as they can easily turn off Overwatch, move out from a vehicle/wall, and then fire and fade back. Their ability to trade up, no matter what, can be a big problem for the enemy. This is why it is almost impossible to really define how much their “trade” truly is because it’s rarely an even trade.
You can also see this tactics concept in how some armies just have too much to trade you. Look at armies that just feel too cheap currently and have too many toys to deal with. These undercosted armies can easily sacrifice or give you a good trade because when you are engaging to removing the initial gift you are then left to get out traded in return. Ad Mech is a good example of this in the current meta, as their faction just seem to have too many models on the table.
40K Tactics: Baits
Next up we can talk about Baits and how they are effectively used to push the opponent into what would normally be a bad decision. I like to use the example of the World Eaters Chaos Spawn. They are a pretty effective unit in they move fast, can hit you ok, and specifically take a lot more to get rid of then most of the other WE options. This ability to move up and bait your opponent into a response is why these poor chaos gift rejects are so good for the army.
Any kind of Bait can get your opponent to burn some movement getting closer and let you as a player set up some devastating charges or force them into a firing lane. A lot of the time you will utilize a Bait unit that is not too close to an objective they can move back to or in a spot that has very little cover. Leaving your opponent the choice of either not moving closer after dealing with your bait or accidentally putting themselves into range of something like a heroic intervention or some assault nonsense that can bounce thru the unit and into the army.
40K Tactics: Bricks
The final 40k tactics concept I like to use is the Brick idea with building a unit that is just too hard to deal with effectively. It is a giant brick that sits in the way and causes an opponent to “rethink” how their army needs to deal with it. A lot of the time it is almost like a Bait unit but instead of forcing your opponent to move towards it deal with it – it instead forces your opponent to move away from the Brick unit.
A real easy example of this is the Chaos Daemons Great Unclean One from the Demonic Incursion detachment that gets the Endless Gift Enhancement. It gives the model a 4+ feel no pain while in the Shadows of Chaos which means this giant gross jerk is rocking a 4+/4+. I have spent many games sitting on an objective in the middle as Ork Meganobz and other nonsense punch me all game. While my damage back isn’t nearly as exciting it is a unit you just don’t want to deal with. The player basically gives up that objective/zone which can make for a very interesting game when they only have 5 objectives or the other options are also in bad areas.
Putting It All Together
These 3 tactics concepts are ideas you can utilize in your game to help bring you to the next level. Think about these as you build your army, as you deploy, and as you examine the opposing army. Get in the habit of thinking baout these concepts at the start of every turn as you are planning your moves. These also let you recognize game plans by your opponent and helps you decipher how they plan on winning the game – and how to stop it. It also let’s you figure out how much effort you need to solve or ignore the problem at hand.
Happy gaming, and always roll 6’s!
