Holy shit, Mordy I think you cracked the code. I'm a beginner Guard player who keeps losing games and this video was practically a (very helpful and constructive) roast of my deployment method. I've been just spreading my guys out to rush all three objectives, and this explains why i dont have the firepower/staying power to hold them longer than a turn or two. Thank you for this legitimately, I think this was the piece I was missing to understanding the game.
Started my Guard army back in 7th, never actually played any games with them, decided now to finally get a force finished and play some games with them, been going through your Guard videos recently to learn as much as I can while I get my Army ready to fight, I’ve really enjoyed watching them and hearing your opinions on how to run them
@@tomsonlarrson3318Congrats Guardsman! I’m in the same spot, huge collection of plastic. I watch BatReps, get excited about a unit, buy another for the pile, never really assembling. Been pushing through my Cadia Stands and a Start Collecting finally! Every little step is closer to making BatReps of our own to show off a beautiful army! Do you have any pictures of your paint scheme? I’m thinking of joining the Mobile Infantry and going with the Starship Troopers style paint job!
@@shawnflorence1545 Before December, I had a unit of 40 infantry, 8 heavy weapons teams, and a leman russ painted a pile of shame of boxes stacked up from 3 years of collecting but not assembling or painting. Ive pretty much religiously been assembling time permitted and I now have 190 infatry with the Cadia Stands and several misc boxes being finished up soon. Been a fun time but dang do Rough Riders have a lot of parts. Ogryns on the other hand are easy to set up cuz they are big and simple. Perfect companion for a preacher leading a blob to stick with Strakken's blob.
That is absolutely on point, my friends and me are beginners while i have a bit more expirience... I normaly keep my units on one side if the battlefield, while my friends often spread out over the whole board... What kinda always happens is i take 2-3 objectives and hold them, while my friends try to contest them and have a few units absolutely useless on the other side of the game holding 1 object for ~1/4 worth of army I always wondered why i mostly win, now i know why and its so obvious xD
The one exception here? Thousand Sons. We concentrate firepower with Cabal Points instead of units. I consistently win against armies with more units & more board control because I just call in two Doombolts wherever I need heavy firepower, or spread it out.
Overall great video, one thing to add: Actually many armies have given up on screening at least partly. Mostly because you do not have to screen 9 inches nowadays, you need to screen 3, and in some cases 6. And that for more elite armies isn't exactly a value proposition you can really compete with. If you have 12 inch DS denial, thats a different story. But there is a reason a custodes list without any SoS (or equivalent) won a big tournament recently. The tradeoff isn't even the screening anymore, it is the fact that it could put you in awkward spot if bad secondaries come up.
I'm personally not a fan of completely neglecting any objective. If you only choose two and ignore the 3rd middle ground objective, you let the opponent take that 3rd with a token force. I think you're right to concentrate force on the minimum required to score optimal points, but throwing 10% of your army at that 3rd objective can force your opponent to commit 15-20% of their army to beat you off it, leaving less to contend with on the two objectives you actually care about. Bonus points if you send something durable but not punchy. Keep the enemy from just clearing you and reinforcing the center for as long as possible. I personally use a Russ Erradicator (Nova Cannon). Cheapest Russ, doesn't take penalty for getting tied up, durable, and plenty enough firepower to clear chaffe, so they need to send something that can actually deal with it, and that thing likely costs more than what i paid to bait you out there.
Shit man, I'm not gonna lie, I'm a shitty player 'cause everything I do in my games is this "go feekin cinematic fella" approach, where I just think "advance with your glorious 20 men fixing bayonets into that abomination over there because why not, we are the Guard, goddammit, FOR THE EMPEROR". And it's feekin fun, don't get me wrong, but I have this sensation that my opponent just get a little bit bored of my stupidity so now I want to make the games not only cinematic, but more challenging for my gaming friends. Videos like this, where you explain the whole deal of playing as a "proper Guard's General should" are immensenly valuable for dummies like me. TL;DR: Please man, I haven't read my Tactica Imperium yet, help this ignorant rookie with more strategic hololithics!
As a knights, space wolf and guard player I can agree with everything said here. I leveraged this last night against chaos knights with my mech guard for a 90-20 win. I will add if you have access to a redeploy you can use that to overcommit’ to a flank to force your opponent to do the same then redeploy everything away.
I play quite a few 2v1. Usually with a newer player partnering up with my friend. 1250 + 1250 vs 2500. It is common for them to spread their 1250 thin. Each 1250 will try to play the whole board with little to no thought into working with the other 1250
As Necrons, I've had success making a quasi-box formation of ranged units and marching them in formation wherever yields the best combination of cover and field of fire in the midfield with my melee units protecting the box corners. That way I have lots of flexibility to react once I know where my opponent is trying to go and can focus fire, close in, or disperse depending on the situation. Not a catch-all solution by any means but can be super effective if executed well and used appropriately.
Thanks for the vid! And yes, generalised tactical advise is better for me as I do not play the new editions, I went back to the 3rd. But this sort of advise still applies. Well done mr. Glory 👍
Just wanted to say I bloomin love your videos brother, you have such an engaging personality and presence, great sense of humour and passion for our beloved hobby, keep them coming and know that you are appreciated and provide our community with knowledge, entertainment and inspiration. Also guess what my partner bought me for Crimbo, the one, the only THE BAAAAANEBLADE!!!
This is useful stuff but I feel like you skipped part of the explanation. Why is it that an elite army cannot match a horde army point-for-point? If the horde's units are cheaper, they should generally be weaker, right? So why can't an elite army spread out it's fewer, more powerful units and expect an even fight? I think part of the answer is that hordes can screen, right? They can absorb hits with cheap units and then deal damage to very valuable units, who might be overkill for chaff-clearing, wasting damage output.
I guess horde armies absorb damage better, and can counter punch harder since even though you inflict losses, probably those are low value as you said, screening and stuff. You could also look at it at the inverse. Elite armies can concentrate their power better than horde armies. You can have more points on lesser space. Overall I suppose that what Mordian is saying is to play into your strengths, not your opponents.
If one side focuses on 1 part of the battle with 50% of their forces and the 2 other fronts with 25% each, and the other side has 33%, 33% and 34%. Won’t that leave the spread out player with local superiority in 2 of the fronts?
Only for as long as the 34% hold against the 50%, which has a much higher advantage than 25% vs 33% At which point the remnants of that can swing around and reinforce. This can work if you have some exceptionally tough units and good luck, but not most times.
@@MordianGlory what are those plants? I’ve been looking for something very similar for my boards but most of the stuff available near me are just tufts or static grass. Can you provide a link?
Wow, it seems so obvious now that you've said it and I feel like slapping my forehead and saying doh! I'm fairly new to actually trying to play 40k properly and now I know at least one big reason why my Son has been absolutely kerb stomping my Space Marines, with his Tyranids. I've been trying to play too spread out and it seems obvious now, but I even said to him on our last game, "I just don't know how I'm ever going to be able to beat you when you've got so many hordes that just keep overwhelming my small units." If I had even half a brain cell, I should have realised that concentrating those units together, instead of spreading them out as far as possible, would be far more effective. I'm looking forward to trying this out again on Christmas eve. I'll probably get kerb-stomped again, but at least I'll do it with more concentration, lol. 😂 edit: actually too many uses of "actually" in one actual sentence.
Mordian, huge fan of your channel and the Astra Militarum. Could you do a short video talking about meme or dream lists? I was thinking about an 18 Sentinel (2k strikeforce) list. Any thoughts of how that actually do?
How helpful is it to think in M:TG terms of control vs aggro vs combo, in order to know what your initial starting position and strategy is? As in this sort of thinking: “Normally my army is a heavy armor control where I like to sit back and fire, winning on turns 4&5, but his army is [SOMETHING], so he’ll out-control me… I need to score my points on 2&3.”
So so so many games are lost in deployment. I don’t really have anything more of value to add, it’s just something you learn over time how to not commit the wrong units to the wrong side of the board, especially in regards to what your opponent deploys. But horde players: You have more units, wait with the most important stuff till your opponent has run out of units to deploy so you have the full picture
Oh, I freely admit all of my losses in 9th were because I picked Salamanders about half way through the edition. But also, my dice were just absolute trash. I couldn't give them away after we actually did tests on them. They were rolling 1's and 2's consistently above average. I'm talking about 80% 1's and 2's from a cheap set of dice. The dice I have now are actually behaving more like dice, where all of the pips come up about average. I still get more 1's than I'd like, but that's just the luck of the roll.
I hope people dont notice but i had been inmotalize as the person that wrote bad jezzails Also theres a reason why in real battles they always kept a fresh reserve, hope it would saw more relevance on the table
So this was Alexander and the refused flank - force concentration spess mahrins. I think the next is Hannibal at Cannae - containing your opponent in their deployment zone like goff pressure did and thunderwolf cav spam is trying to do?
To be fair, at this point custodes get rolled regardless, just a matter of how quickly. Great video though and points well taken to give us the best shot
Watching this video, stealing your oomie tactix. Gunna teach my blooded axes then hit youse wiv a proppa sneaky krumpin (we ain't going to yell wahhhg until after the battle has started)
Way to lose before you even start! Thinking you have lost before you even play. Aka "oh its eldar/chaos guess i have lost already" and then not bothering to play 100% effort.
I thought the common beginner mistake is not loading your crossbow before the match......
Those things are relatively fast to load, don’t worry
Or not bring tissues for your opponent
@@aoofmg6684 or yourself
Rofl
Holy shit, Mordy I think you cracked the code. I'm a beginner Guard player who keeps losing games and this video was practically a (very helpful and constructive) roast of my deployment method. I've been just spreading my guys out to rush all three objectives, and this explains why i dont have the firepower/staying power to hold them longer than a turn or two. Thank you for this legitimately, I think this was the piece I was missing to understanding the game.
I wish I could upvote this comment twice.
@@redspec01 you can make a 2nd account
Good idea.
@@redspec01 No worries, ill give it an extra one for you.
Thank you everyone!
Great vid, love this for beginners or people getting back into the game. 👍
Thanks mate! Love your channel BTW :)
Started my Guard army back in 7th, never actually played any games with them, decided now to finally get a force finished and play some games with them, been going through your Guard videos recently to learn as much as I can while I get my Army ready to fight, I’ve really enjoyed watching them and hearing your opinions on how to run them
Started my guard at the beginning of 8th, 3 years later I’m finally assembling my sprue buildup of 160 infantry and got 40 of them painted so far
@@tomsonlarrson3318Congrats Guardsman! I’m in the same spot, huge collection of plastic. I watch BatReps, get excited about a unit, buy another for the pile, never really assembling. Been pushing through my Cadia Stands and a Start Collecting finally!
Every little step is closer to making BatReps of our own to show off a beautiful army!
Do you have any pictures of your paint scheme? I’m thinking of joining the Mobile Infantry and going with the Starship Troopers style paint job!
@@shawnflorence1545 Before December, I had a unit of 40 infantry, 8 heavy weapons teams, and a leman russ painted a pile of shame of boxes stacked up from 3 years of collecting but not assembling or painting. Ive pretty much religiously been assembling time permitted and I now have 190 infatry with the Cadia Stands and several misc boxes being finished up soon. Been a fun time but dang do Rough Riders have a lot of parts. Ogryns on the other hand are easy to set up cuz they are big and simple. Perfect companion for a preacher leading a blob to stick with Strakken's blob.
As someone who’s only been playing 40k for 6months…this strategic principle video is gold!
Best tactical advice video I've ever seen.
Yes this was helpful as I am a new play who will be starting this Christmas so to understand the game better it is very helpful
That is absolutely on point, my friends and me are beginners while i have a bit more expirience...
I normaly keep my units on one side if the battlefield, while my friends often spread out over the whole board... What kinda always happens is i take 2-3 objectives and hold them, while my friends try to contest them and have a few units absolutely useless on the other side of the game holding 1 object for ~1/4 worth of army
I always wondered why i mostly win, now i know why and its so obvious xD
I like to say 20% OC, 40% heavy hitters, 30% secondary damage dealers/OC, and 10% rule of cool
The one exception here? Thousand Sons. We concentrate firepower with Cabal Points instead of units. I consistently win against armies with more units & more board control because I just call in two Doombolts wherever I need heavy firepower, or spread it out.
Lovely looking table!
Overall great video, one thing to add:
Actually many armies have given up on screening at least partly. Mostly because you do not have to screen 9 inches nowadays, you need to screen 3, and in some cases 6. And that for more elite armies isn't exactly a value proposition you can really compete with.
If you have 12 inch DS denial, thats a different story.
But there is a reason a custodes list without any SoS (or equivalent) won a big tournament recently. The tradeoff isn't even the screening anymore, it is the fact that it could put you in awkward spot if bad secondaries come up.
I'm personally not a fan of completely neglecting any objective. If you only choose two and ignore the 3rd middle ground objective, you let the opponent take that 3rd with a token force. I think you're right to concentrate force on the minimum required to score optimal points, but throwing 10% of your army at that 3rd objective can force your opponent to commit 15-20% of their army to beat you off it, leaving less to contend with on the two objectives you actually care about.
Bonus points if you send something durable but not punchy. Keep the enemy from just clearing you and reinforcing the center for as long as possible. I personally use a Russ Erradicator (Nova Cannon). Cheapest Russ, doesn't take penalty for getting tied up, durable, and plenty enough firepower to clear chaffe, so they need to send something that can actually deal with it, and that thing likely costs more than what i paid to bait you out there.
Shit man, I'm not gonna lie, I'm a shitty player 'cause everything I do in my games is this "go feekin cinematic fella" approach, where I just think "advance with your glorious 20 men fixing bayonets into that abomination over there because why not, we are the Guard, goddammit, FOR THE EMPEROR". And it's feekin fun, don't get me wrong, but I have this sensation that my opponent just get a little bit bored of my stupidity so now I want to make the games not only cinematic, but more challenging for my gaming friends. Videos like this, where you explain the whole deal of playing as a "proper Guard's General should" are immensenly valuable for dummies like me.
TL;DR: Please man, I haven't read my Tactica Imperium yet, help this ignorant rookie with more strategic hololithics!
"i see the enemies, i advance"
Is that your style sir?
Blood For The Blood God!
He has friends in Horse Guard sir
As a knights, space wolf and guard player I can agree with everything said here. I leveraged this last night against chaos knights with my mech guard for a 90-20 win. I will add if you have access to a redeploy you can use that to overcommit’ to a flank to force your opponent to do the same then redeploy everything away.
Thanks for the tips in a short and to the point vid
I play quite a few 2v1. Usually with a newer player partnering up with my friend. 1250 + 1250 vs 2500. It is common for them to spread their 1250 thin. Each 1250 will try to play the whole board with little to no thought into working with the other 1250
This is exactly what I needed to see for my Custodes. More videos like this please 🙏
Fax! Mg speaking the truth as always. May have to try the cheeky cyclops deepstrike
As Necrons, I've had success making a quasi-box formation of ranged units and marching them in formation wherever yields the best combination of cover and field of fire in the midfield with my melee units protecting the box corners. That way I have lots of flexibility to react once I know where my opponent is trying to go and can focus fire, close in, or disperse depending on the situation. Not a catch-all solution by any means but can be super effective if executed well and used appropriately.
These videos are really helpful. Keep em coming.
Thanks for the vid! And yes, generalised tactical advise is better for me as I do not play the new editions, I went back to the 3rd. But this sort of advise still applies. Well done mr. Glory 👍
Just wanted to say I bloomin love your videos brother, you have such an engaging personality and presence, great sense of humour and passion for our beloved hobby, keep them coming and know that you are appreciated and provide our community with knowledge, entertainment and inspiration.
Also guess what my partner bought me for Crimbo, the one, the only
THE BAAAAANEBLADE!!!
Thanks! Deployment is something I have been struggeling with.
Remember we fight for the man next to us motivated by the man behind us... the commisar.
This is a great video. Im not even a beginner and found it useful. What about setting up a horde army? Nids etc do you still try this or go different?
Thx a lot...we need more vid like that
This is useful stuff but I feel like you skipped part of the explanation. Why is it that an elite army cannot match a horde army point-for-point? If the horde's units are cheaper, they should generally be weaker, right? So why can't an elite army spread out it's fewer, more powerful units and expect an even fight? I think part of the answer is that hordes can screen, right? They can absorb hits with cheap units and then deal damage to very valuable units, who might be overkill for chaff-clearing, wasting damage output.
I guess horde armies absorb damage better, and can counter punch harder since even though you inflict losses, probably those are low value as you said, screening and stuff. You could also look at it at the inverse. Elite armies can concentrate their power better than horde armies. You can have more points on lesser space. Overall I suppose that what Mordian is saying is to play into your strengths, not your opponents.
If one side focuses on 1 part of the battle with 50% of their forces and the 2 other fronts with 25% each, and the other side has 33%, 33% and 34%. Won’t that leave the spread out player with local superiority in 2 of the fronts?
Only for as long as the 34% hold against the 50%, which has a much higher advantage than 25% vs 33% At which point the remnants of that can swing around and reinforce. This can work if you have some exceptionally tough units and good luck, but not most times.
Random compliment, but that table is really nice. Simple terrain with simple garnishes that creates a very pleasant result.
Thank you very much!
@@MordianGlory what are those plants? I’ve been looking for something very similar for my boards but most of the stuff available near me are just tufts or static grass. Can you provide a link?
Hi Mordian i a fan of your channel even i dont play the tabletop.I love the guard and i wonder is it possible to a guard army that is decent in melee?
Wow, it seems so obvious now that you've said it and I feel like slapping my forehead and saying doh! I'm fairly new to actually trying to play 40k properly and now I know at least one big reason why my Son has been absolutely kerb stomping my Space Marines, with his Tyranids. I've been trying to play too spread out and it seems obvious now, but I even said to him on our last game, "I just don't know how I'm ever going to be able to beat you when you've got so many hordes that just keep overwhelming my small units." If I had even half a brain cell, I should have realised that concentrating those units together, instead of spreading them out as far as possible, would be far more effective. I'm looking forward to trying this out again on Christmas eve. I'll probably get kerb-stomped again, but at least I'll do it with more concentration, lol. 😂
edit: actually too many uses of "actually" in one actual sentence.
Mordian, huge fan of your channel and the Astra Militarum. Could you do a short video talking about meme or dream lists?
I was thinking about an 18 Sentinel (2k strikeforce) list. Any thoughts of how that actually do?
How helpful is it to think in M:TG terms of control vs aggro vs combo, in order to know what your initial starting position and strategy is?
As in this sort of thinking:
“Normally my army is a heavy armor control where I like to sit back and fire, winning on turns 4&5, but his army is [SOMETHING], so he’ll out-control me… I need to score my points on 2&3.”
Or,
“He’s a combo army… I just need to throw everything at [ENEMY UNIT], and his strat falls apart.”
So so so many games are lost in deployment. I don’t really have anything more of value to add, it’s just something you learn over time how to not commit the wrong units to the wrong side of the board, especially in regards to what your opponent deploys. But horde players: You have more units, wait with the most important stuff till your opponent has run out of units to deploy so you have the full picture
Oh, I freely admit all of my losses in 9th were because I picked Salamanders about half way through the edition.
But also, my dice were just absolute trash. I couldn't give them away after we actually did tests on them. They were rolling 1's and 2's consistently above average. I'm talking about 80% 1's and 2's from a cheap set of dice.
The dice I have now are actually behaving more like dice, where all of the pips come up about average. I still get more 1's than I'd like, but that's just the luck of the roll.
5:06 "A heretic in the hand is worth two in the bush."
Needed this video Mord. Need to break that losing streak
How bad is your streak
@@art-games6230 2 games tbf. Won the one before that. But lost like 4 or 5 before that game. I'd nearly rage quit the game.
@@Spearstormwargames rage quit at this point and your wallet will look at your storaged units and think “that was a waste of cash”
@@art-games6230 yeah plus I'm gonna be running my own gaming venue soon so I have to play to know my shit. I'll keep losing til I win
@@Spearstormwargames your own venue! I hope it succeeds! Have fun and know that with infinite time, you will win an infinite amount of games
I hope people dont notice but i had been inmotalize as the person that wrote bad jezzails
Also theres a reason why in real battles they always kept a fresh reserve, hope it would saw more relevance on the table
Would you have any tips on creating a beginner list that focuses on including catachan units?
Besides that, another great video :D
I like that terrain set. Any direction towards where it came from?
So this was Alexander and the refused flank - force concentration spess mahrins. I think the next is Hannibal at Cannae - containing your opponent in their deployment zone like goff pressure did and thunderwolf cav spam is trying to do?
Wolf jail! Funniest concept I've seen this edition.
To be fair, at this point custodes get rolled regardless, just a matter of how quickly. Great video though and points well taken to give us the best shot
Watching this video, stealing your oomie tactix. Gunna teach my blooded axes then hit youse wiv a proppa sneaky krumpin (we ain't going to yell wahhhg until after the battle has started)
Way to lose before you even start!
Thinking you have lost before you even play.
Aka "oh its eldar/chaos guess i have lost already" and then not bothering to play 100% effort.
Every time I play eldar vs eldar matchup I lose in movement :) Unfortunately two of the best players in my LGS play eldar.
And what about horde army perspective?
That will be a future video :)
@@MordianGlory splendid
I stop people from saying first
Thank you, I could have, but I didn’t for obvious reasons
First!
Well shit
I second this 😅