Guest Post on Momentum and the Pace of the Game

Hello there DFG followers and guests. This is a guest posting from Seven, a local Eldar player of Evolution Games.

Momentum and What it Means to the Flow of the Game.

I recently decided to pick up Dark Eldar and the first thing I have seen and heard about the army, is that the army is very dependant on momentum. I wanted to pick apart momentum a little bit more and hear some other voices on the subject.

Momentum, I will loosely define as the encroaching force towards your mission. Every army makes use of momentum, some armies thrive on it, some armies can recover from losing momentum briefly, but what does this mean to your play style?

In games with the dark eldar, they initially push forward HARD. Then, once they have done some damage, the army becomes stronger and then they ride the advantage they have just secured (in a perfect world that is). The advantage they gain varies from board control, to pain tokens, to crippling their enemies, and even the psychological damage to confidence of the opposing player.

If the initial push can be diverted, slowed, or nullified, the dark eldar immediately suffer for the remaining of the game. I.E. If they fail to cause enough damage to the Imperial guard player, he then opens with his excessive amount of firepower and puts the frail army through a meat grinder.

But the effects of momentum apply to each army in its own right. Even armies who bring many units that only bring limited strength and do not impact the army should they die, such as the Guard will corrode because the flow of battle is against them. I got a chance to speak with Cvinton on the subject and got some great feedback. With the style that he runs, if his opponent is able to keep momentum on board control, the fields of fire for the guard restricts the strength of his retaliation severely.  Some other imput I received was from OST, when he brings trygons into play from deepstrike, he is creating momentum and the entire army is able to make use of the push granted from the TMC's. If the trygons are able to distract, suppress, or destroy enemy forces, it is quite obvious that there is a powerful pressure that threatens the foe. OST jumping in here - deepstriking in Monstrous Creatures (or anything really nasty for that matter) works to counter enemy momentum by forcing them to redirect their efforts in one or more directions. If they cannot break that, then the tyranids can pick up the initiative and dictate the flow of the game, hopefully setting up the rest of the army for success before they expend themselves - somtimes this doesn't work out though!

Which brings me to my next point, there are certain models in each army that create momentum on their own, that work together to create momentum, and that kill momentum.

In every list there are units that can dictate the game's momentum single-handedly (death Stars) or through cooperation. A death star unit, such as the well known thunder hammer/storm shield terminators, are an obvious sample. The entire army can follow in the wake of destruction and support the unit. The case in point for cooperative momentum I'd like to point out, would be las/plas razorback spam. While none of the five razorbacks are insanely potent killing machines on their own, when they operate in concert, they have devastating force. The last but not least of my classifications would be the momentum killers, such as the plague marines who offer close range fire support but not as much momentum. Just being so durable allows them to diminishes the pressure and halt the momentum of the foe. Many units are able to adapt to the situation to fulfill any of the purposes.

The presence of multiple high momentum generators, sometimes does not mean you will create more pressure on your opponent. I know when I am writing a list, I never bring just the most dangerous units I am capable of because as a current eldar player I cannot afford to bring such specialized models en masse. Two seer councils and three harlequin units does sound like pain to me though.

- OST jumping in again - Dictating the pace of the game and the opponent's turn is often what makes or breaks a game and certainly is a hallmark of a good 40k player. Often times and especially the case above with Dark Eldar, if you can shut down their pace and reverse the initiative, you can take back control of the game. Sometimes this happens in close combat and sometimes through shooting (depends on the army).

Should I post again, I shall go over how reserves affect the momentum generated by units.

These are the thoughts I had been playing with all day. Now I ask you, what does momentum do to your army play style and your list creation? What phase of the game do you use to dominate the pace of the and initiative?