Quick Tip: Trapped in a Transport
Simply moving to surround an immobilized transport can sometimes be more effective than charging it.
Hey guys, Son of Adam here with a Quick Tip. These tips are all going to be under the Micro-Gameplay heading. Quick Tips are going to be short, very particular, ways to fight on the battlefield. Today’s Quick Tip is called Trapped in a Transport.
If you are holding, or trying to deny the enemy from holding, an objective and a unit that has the strength to take it from you just got immobilized in a transport right on top of that objective, what should you do? The first and most obvious thing people want to do is charge it, but I want to suggest to you a different approach.
For our example let’s take the mission I just recently play against Steve. Near the end of the game his Rhino full of Grey Hunters came running down on top of my home objective. Then in response I tried to come and take it back with my own, combat squad, of purifiers in a rhino (4 halberds, 1 hammer).
I was able to take out his rhino but his troops took the objective from me. I believe it was at the top of turn four that his grey hunters then made a counter assault to stop my purifiers. He charged my rhino and destroyed it. This however ended up giving me the advantage. At the bottom of five I was then able to move the purifiers into position to contest the objective, and then get a full volley off before charging.
Being outmatched, Steve could have employed this tactic to trap me in my transport. (To be fair, in our particular game my rhino was not immobilized or stunned, but we will continue to talk about it as if it were for the sake of the example). If his unit had simply moved into position to surround the rhino, my purifiers would have been stuck inside the transport and only been able to shoot out of it. Even if I killed most of the squad I would still have been trapped in my transport.
This is far more relevant in 6th edition when we consider a change to the rules. Look in your rule book with me at page 123. It shows you that units that remain fully in a transport can neither score nor deny objectives. Furthermore, neither can any tanks (with the exception of “Big Guns Never Tire” and “The Scouring” missions where they can become scoring –but still cannot deny, take a look at that part closely). With this in mind we can see the tactic come to life.
If the Grey Hunters were to have trapped the Purifiers in the rhino I would have only been able to shoot him, but not score/deny his objective. In this instance we can see the very heart of the Golden Rules of the Art of War(hammer). It would be more wise, and potentially game winning, to simply sit in front of the rhino’s doors and not attack anything than to charge the rhino and kill it.
Remember this little tactic whenever you are facing an immobilized transport with some very nasty units inside. Trap them in their transport and win the game.
Cheers
Again let us know your feedback. Has this ever worked for you? Have you seen this done against you? Were their games you could have won if you had trapped that deadly unit in their transport instead of freeing them? Let us know. And while you are at it check out our other stuff and like/follow/subscribe to our sites. Thanks guys, we are always looking to improve.
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Posted on July 27, 2012, in Game Strategy, Gameplay, Micro and tagged 6th Ed., micro, micro strategy, quick tip, Strategy, tips, transport, trapped in transport. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
MasterCraft Gaming 
Hi – I’m not sure how legitimate this is or how easy to pull off in light of the “Emergency Disembarkation” rule from page 79 of the 6th edition rules:
“Emergency Disembarkation – If any models cannot disembark,
because of enemies or because they would end up in impassable terrain,
the unit can perform an emergency disembarkation. In this case, a
model can be placed anywhere in contact with the vehicle’s hull and can
then move as for a normal disembarkation. The unit cannot then
perform any voluntary actions for the rest of the turn. If
even this disembarkation is impossible, because it is impossible
to place one or more models, then the unit can’t disembark.”
They even show a picture of a situation very similar to the one you describe, with a line of enemy troops blocking the main hatch. If the game is possibly about to end and they emergency disembark according to the rule to within 3″ of the objective I would guess they are still considered to be holding/contesting it as these are not “voluntary actions”. If a model is within 3″ and not falling back/fleeing etc it’s considered to be automatically holding/contesting. If the game continues, it’s still worth noting that the procedure left them vulnerable because of having missed a turn’s worth of shooting/assaulting and now being in a position to be attacked, so there are probably many situations where it’s worth blocking passengers in their vehicle and forcing them to stay there and shoot or emergency disembark, rather than taking it out.
If you can manage to bubble wrap the hull of the vehicle so that the passengers can’t be placed in base contact with it they would be unable to pull this off, but as I understand it RAW, it would have to be a very tight bubble, and not one relying on the 1″ exclusion from enemy models at the disembarkation point rule, which is only specified in the section on normal disembarkation.
Thanks for the post Once Upon a Space. You are right, due to the rules of emergency disembarkation the unit disembarking has the ability to be placed in base contact with the hull and move as with a normal disembarkation. However, in order to be placed they must still be 1” away from enemy models. As long as your troops are positioned in such a way to deny the placement of bases in contact with the hull and 1” away from you they will still be trapped. If you are limited by model count the only alternative is to try and push back where on the transport they can get out from, and hope that it is far enough away that they won’t make it close enough to the objective with their subsequent movement.