Throwing some Shapes in the Church of War.

[Mr Mystery]

Slight mangling of a quote from the very excellent Spaced. Not bad for a title, eh?

So, it seems that despite early accusations (from people who had already decided they didn't like the game), AoS does in fact offer up quite a lot of tactical opportunity. And I'd like to discuss what people have experimented with - mostly to see if there's owt I can pinch for my own nefarious deeds.

Fog up? One which is remarkably simple. The supporting unit.

We all know how combat works in AoS. You charge one unit, but anyone in range is free to have a swing, whether they're locked in combat or not.

The supporting unit is just that - a second unit behind your front line. For this to work, I'm making two broad assumptions. And here they are.

1. Your choice of supporting unit has at least a 2" range on their close combat weapons
2. Your opponents unit has only a 1" range.

If either of these isn't what it should be - this just plain old ain't gonna work so well.

If both are there? Deploy your frontline unit - it can be any unit you like, but for best results consider something with reasonable armour, or special rules to help them avoid damage (shields, buffs etc). Keep them tightly packed (with no templates, there's little downside to this), and have the unit numerically superior to the supporting unit - just how many more will depend on the base sizes in play. In essence, you're looking for enough dudes (or ladies) to form a either a straight line with flanks (think Oldhammer, but with the filling removed from a unit) or a broad, sweeping curve.

That done? It's time to deploy your Supporting Unit. Again, this can be any unit as long as they have that all important 2" range or greater - but it really, really works if you're lucky enough to have access to a 'ranged' unit that does multiple damage for each unsaved wound. Made your choice? Good stuff. Deploying them is going to take some precision measurement....you need them to be 1" behind the frontline unit. No more. No less. Numbers wise, don't go too crazy. They need to sit behind that frontline unit, and at all times remain at least 1" behind them, including any flanks. And to prevent sneaky charges engaging the supporting unit directly, keep them small enough that there's a decent amount of Frontline unit on the flanks, ready to move in to penclose the supporting unit.

Now for the tricky part - this is easiest to wield as a static set up, only moving the Frontline units flanking models to enclose. The whole formation absolutely can move about freely, but if you want to maintain the formation, unless you're the creative sort and have made yourself a movement tray, you'll need to keep that 1" gap nice and precise - and this may slow down the pace of the game (nothing wrong there, but not everyone's cup of tea).

Anyways. Static or shifty - once they're in position, you just let the enemy come to you. With no way to easily engage the supporting unit directly, your opponent will have to go through the frontline - whilst being duffed over by both of your units. If your opponent has over extended his charges, there's every chance both of your units will be able to swing before his one.

With the extra damage inflicted by the supporting unit, and their immunity to immediate reprisals, your opponent is likely to have a really hard time from Battleshock - all the more so if your support unit has multiple damage weapons (oh, hai, Ironguts...)

Right, that's one broadly laid out.

Now....how to take it apart.

Oh yes. No tactic is perfect. Every fortress built can be taken down. Here? It's actually quite beautifully simple. Go for the mainline units flanks. USe a sacrificial prawn unit to engage them off centre. Depending on the relative sizes of the Frontline and Supporting unit, you stand a decent chance of drawing the frontline unit off enough to expose the support unit (which is less likely, but not guaranteed so) to have received magical buffing, leaving it about as vulnerable as it will ever be. Of course this requires having a few units in place to charge, but hey - we all need to plan, no?

K. Over to you guys. Let us know what you've come up with, what you've seen, and whether you've spotted a way round it

Oh yeah - I'd totes attach a diagram, but the copy of MS Paint on my machine doesn't have the shape stamps, so that's me well beyond the limits of artistic ability.

I may be able to knock summat up on the iPad though.