Reaching Your Killzone Part II: Minimizing Distance

Minimizing Distance:

Sometimes it pays to be bold...

Minimizing distance is the idea of getting close with short range fire support specialists to eliminate a target. The units that get close like this usually are not looking for an assault so their Movement becomes more complicated. Meltaguns are the first weapons to come to mind when I talk about short range fire support that wants to Minimize distance. Their Killzones have a small radius, but any tank that finds itself in there will soon be molten slag. Besides meltaguns, rapid fire weapons double their offensive output when they Minimize distance. As you deploy each unit, be aware of which units will operate best at short range against the target priorities. No matter what short range weapon your unit is using, Minimizing distance will be key to reaching the Killzone. Two things are crucial to short range fire support units: speed and timing

Giving the short range fire support units speed is rather simple. As you build your list, immediately allot points for transports, jet packs, or bikes. When you deploy before the game starts, give the short range units the areas of your deployment zone that are closest to the enemy or closest to cover that is closest to the enemy. Of course if you have assault units, you will need to weigh the importance of your target priorities and your units' abilities to eliminate those threats. Then you'll usually be better off just letting the most effective unit have the prime deployment spots.

...other times, you should wait for backup.

While long range specialists can enjoy Maximizing their distance to reduce return fire, short range specialists need to utterly destroy or cripple their targets to reduce return fire, and you need to know when to get aggressive to close in on those targets. Minimizing distance may require the most practice of the three movement options to reach a Killzone because it forces you to place your units within range of a myriad of threats. If you end up not destroying your targets and end up in a dubious position, you could be watching your units get torn apart in your opponent's turn. You need to practice timing the attack of your units to cause as much damage as possible to inflict maximum damage while reducing the damage taken on your aggressive units in the following turn. I don't particularly care for "sacrifice" units that only manage to kill one unit then die because they were thrown in the fire with no support. If you have to take down a high priority target and need to risk your short range unit to do so, say with Fire Dragons, then do so if it's tactically advantageous. However, with some careful maneuvering and bringing enough firepower to bear in a single turn, that sacrificial unit may live to see another round of shooting.

Don't Minimize distance without a clear plan of attack. First find target priorities, know which targets can be dealt with by your short range fire support units, decide how many units you should commit to destroying a target, then move your units to their appropriate threat range to destroy/utterly cripple the target(s) while keeping your opponent's reaction to a minimum. And make use of terrain to provide cover to your units. It's OK to hide behind a building for a turn while you move into a better position. In other words, don't come out of cover to fire one meltagun at one of two Vindicators when you can wait for your other two squads with meltaguns to join in and back you up a turn or two later.

Part III to come soon.