Castling??

[Wolf Brother Hellstrom]

Maybe I am just old but can someone explain what castling means. It is a new term to me. I probably know what it means just under another context

[Whoop!]

Not an expert, but castling is originally a chess move where one moves the king to a more protected position. By folding back into a corner in a 40K game and become a nut that must be cracked is 'castling'.

Am I on base with that description?

[DarkLink]

Castling means you bunch up your whole army in a little corner of the board, like it were a fortress. It lets you sit and shoot, preferably from behind a wall of Rhinos or Chimeras, while maximizing the amount of time it takes for the opponent to get to you. It also prevents your opponent from deepstriking or outflanking behind your lines, though they can still come in right in front of your guns.

It works well against certain armies, and poorly against others.

[lowdog]

This is why I like the old school (2nd edition 40k, 4th edition Warhammer) set up rules, where not only did you have a forward line on your deployment zone, you also had to be a certain number of inches (8", 12") away from the side edges of the board. Yeah it was a pain for horde armies with less space, but I using the table edge like that definitely takes the "realism" out of the game.

yeah yeah, realism in a world with 8 foot giants riding giant wolves and shooting laser guns yadda yadda it is still ridiculous to be up against the edge of the board like the universe ceases to exist if your soldier takes one step to the right.

[Whoop!]

That's what wolf scouts are for! How's that wolf priest working for ya?

[BlindGunn]

Castling is more often seen in a Fantasy or older "real" world settings where it was (and still is) a good tactic for armies with lots of shooting.

Ideal deployment is to pick a hill and put ALL the cannon, bolt throwers, catapults, etc. on top. You then defended these priceless warmachines with the rest of the Army. Your foe had to come to you while you picked them off with long-range fire with the warmachines. By the time they got close enough to your lines, they would already be greatly weakened and then easily overwhelmed by the front-line troops (who hopefully were in defendable cover).

If you were in an era like medieval times (or Warhammer Fantasy) where not everyone had shooting weapons, the outer ring was the Hand-to-hand troops, protecting the shooters and (hoping) the shooters would thin down the charging foe to something more managable.

Pickett's Charge at Gettysberg is a good example of Castling in action. Feds shot cannon with infantry hidding behind the wall until the Confederate charge up the hill was in range for aimed musket fire. Only a few Confederates made it to the wall.

If you read a book or see a movie where they talk about "Good Ground", it's usually because it is very easily defended and has excellent lines of fire (and sight so you could see where the foe was coming from and what he was doing).

The problem is it is a Static tactic. It required the foe to come to you. In a more modern or 40k environment, castling is harder to pull off. More maneuverable armies can move faster and move around it or avoid it. Most armies have weapons with the range and power to stand back and blow apart a static position. Usually, you'll see a squad of Marines on foot defending a Predator for a turn or two. That would be castling. They would then all have to move before they got blown away by concentrated fire.

The defensive wall of Rhinos and Chimeras is not really Castling unless everyone from inside wall of vehicles can shoot out as well. Chimeras defending Manticores and other indirect artillery would be Castling.

[DarkLink]

How can an army move around a castle when the castle is jammed in the corner of the board?


This is why I like the old school (2nd edition 40k, 4th edition Warhammer) set up rules, where not only did you have a forward line on your deployment zone, you also had to be a certain number of inches (8", 12") away from the side edges of the board. Yeah it was a pain for horde armies with less space, but I using the table edge like that definitely takes the "realism" out of the game.


That makes no sense. You think in the real world you line up facing your opponent with preset deployment zones, then start fighting? They haven't done that since WWI.

Why should Tau be required to deploy as close as possible to a Dark Eldar list?

The board is tiny no matter how you look at it. Forcing both players to deploy as close to the center as possible is stupid.

[Wolf Brother Hellstrom]

thanks for the info. i have been playing awhile but some of the lingo i have trouble with. In response to you Whoop! havent used wolf priest yet but played a Njal and 2 runepriest list against a kson army and and i won like 9 to 5, but the best part was denying all the tzeentz bolts was awesome. i think he only got 2 off the whole game. considring i won, i rolled super crappy.

[lowdog]

That makes no sense. You think in the real world you line up facing your opponent with preset deployment zones, then start fighting? They haven't done that since WWI.

Why should Tau be required to deploy as close as possible to a Dark Eldar list?

The board is tiny no matter how you look at it. Forcing both players to deploy as close to the center as possible is stupid.

The book already has pre-set deployment rules, I'm not inventing that. I didn't say Tau had to set up as close as possible, and the version I was citing didn't require you to set up as close to the center as possible, it merely prevented you from setting up your models a centimeter away from the edge. Try reading what I wrote and don't put words into my mouth.

My point is that if you are constantly setting up against a table edge, fast troops like bikers, units with transports, tanks, etc, can't move around to your flank without a specific outflanking rule. The fact that wolf scouts might be able to come off that table edge on foot but jump packers can't access that terrain strikes me as a bit arbitrary. In the actual world where that battle is taking place, there is something there, not just a void. If that table edge represented some kind of impassable cliff it would be one thing, but I just find that kind of explanation trite after a certain number of battles.

I am not saying it isn't a legitimate tactic under the rules of the game being played as a game, and yes, table size is always an issue, I'm just saying that if you are playing within any context of envisioning a real battle, if your opponent had everything of his bottled up on a single hill, you would have the option of adjusting your own deployment space to encircle it, you wouldn't be limited to leaving it on one side of your own deployment "zone".