Lets Talk Tactics: The Gun-line

Welcome everyone to Let's Talk Tactics,
I'm your host this evening Ace.

Today's topic is the Gun-line. The lets make rows of men with guns, a hell of a lot of guns, face off against another army.

When you say Gun-line to someone the first thought in their mind is Civil war gun lines firing off into one another. Take that concept and mix it with some heavy weapons and you have a good gun line. When you do a gun line, make sure you know your ranges, and take guns that will complement one another. Like say start with a Melta gun in the front line, so you can check 12" and vice versa, with a Lascannon in the rear, to check 48". Use those ranges to get a better glimpse of what can shoot that turn. Last thing you need to do is have your lascannon be out of range by a foot and try to call a heavy bolter to the same target, then kick yourself because you should have known that. The next advantage is using it in a bait and tackle system, but your expendable men up in the front (conscripts, kroot, scouts, guardians, hormogaunts ect..) then pray that they can make their points back, by killing a couple of men at least before they are expended. If done correctly then when they are done assaulting, or shooting that squad you light them up with the wrath of the rest of your army. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Also another good way to set up is a symmetrical pattern, if you place a squad of anti-tank on one side of the board, place another about in the same position on the opposite side of the board! That way you break tanks into a flank, other wise they are going to be pummelled by a volley of anti-tank weapons. This works well with any other type of unit, and it could be done to force them into a cross fire or even ambush, its all based on how you play and how your opponent thinks! How you deploy your forces is a pretty big factor in how you will do in the battle. Try to control where your opponent will move their forces, if they move it around the big weapons then it must be important, if they go straight for it then they probably dint need that piece or is trying to make it easier for the next turns.

When playing an assault strong army, gun-line will do good when they hit. Just draw a line in your head at the beginning of the game and say if they get past that line then they will be hit by this, and so on and so forth. So me being a guard player I would put regular infantry up front with lasguns, and shoot at the upcoming orks, after they get done with that squad they would be lit up by bolters and such.

When playing a shooting army, gun-lines can lead to a very boring battle, or a very epic battle, it all depends on how the dice roll. But this would be done good with the symetric gun-line.

When playing mechanized list, try to make a spear head to force them into a flank, or an ambush, do not attempt to move into firing range or any such rash movements, take out the tanks, then move onto the men, 6" a turn is better than 12-24" a turn.

But thats the basic tactic of the day, I will get more into this list as I further break it down.

Until the next time!

Ace