Core Concept: Target Priority

I know my posts have been getting less and less regular, but this month is kinda a crazy one for me, things should settle down once summer starts.

This time around, I'd like to throw some stuff out there for the people just getting into the hobby. This won't be specifically about Necrons or any other one army, but rather I'd like to talk about a core concept of 40k: Target Priority.

Target Priority is the understanding of what is worthy of your attention (and actions!) on the battlefield. This covers everything from what you shoot at, what you're moving towards, what you try to assault, to what your overall goal is for this game.

We'll start with the small scale stuff. When it comes right down to it, your army consists of several units and vehicles while your opponent has a different set of units and vehicles. Think honestly about the last few games you've played. Think about which targets you chose to shoot at, which ones you avoided. Why did you make those decisions? The truth is, we all have a sort of "list" that we mentally go through to determine what each of our units need to do for the turn. For example, I tend to move my Necron Warriors (troops choices) towards objectives around turn 4, often choosing to run rather than shoot. Why? Because I've determined that, for my Warriors, it's extremely important for them to be near objectives at the end of the game rather than just blindly shooting at targets.

This may sound really obvious when put like that, but consider another example: It's turn 4, and I've only got one Warrior squad left. They're about 12" away from an objective, but there's also an enemy unit (non-scoring) there, and the objective is in difficult terrain, so I may not get my full 6" in the movement phase. So here's the question: do I run my Warriors to the objective, trusting my other units to bring down the contester in case the game ends on turn 5? Or do I choose to let the Warriors shoot, even though they might fall just short of the objective when the game ends?

The answer depends on much more context than I care to come up with at the moment, including the positioning of my units, other objectives, etc. However, this is what Target Priority is all about: trying to determine the best "target" for your unit to go after.

For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to talk about kill point games from here on: Objectives tend to make Target Priority very murky, and I don't want to get into that just yet. When the only goal is to kill more enemy units than your opponent kills of yours, my priority tends to shift mostly towards survival. I guess it's part of being a Necron player, but I always would rather keep one of my squads alive than kill an enemy squad. So when I'm thinking about what my units should do, it's not only that unit's survival I'm concerned about, but also any squad that could be protected by them. Necron Immortals make an excellent example of this. For the most part, I'm not really concerned about the survival of Immortals, but they can put out a lot of firepower, and that can help considerably in keeping a Warrior squad, which is much more fragile, from being knocked off the table.

So with that in mind, you'd probably assume that my first target would be an assault marine squad bearing down on me headlong from across the table. It's clear that they're gonna get to my lines before anything else, so I should shoot at them to keep them away and protect myself, right?

Not necessarily. I try to look beyond immediate threats, and also look at the ones that are slower coming, but far more dangerous. For example, what if, behind those Assault Marines, there was a Furioso Dreadnought hoofing it across the table? It's significantly slower than the Marines, but far more dangerous. In this scenario, I'd probably focus on at least disabling the dreadnought first. Then, if that danger is neutralized, I'll pay attention to the Assault troopers.

Another thing to consider here is what units I have available. Obviously, some of my models are better suited to certain tasks than others: Heavy destroyers are more likely to eliminate the Dreadnought threat than the Marine threat, for example. However, for the Necrons, everything in my army can, to some extent, affect either unit. This is where order of shooting can really come into play. Because I see the Dreadnought as the bigger threat, and my Heavy Destroyers are the best way to deal with it, I'll use them against it first. If they succeed in eliminating the threat, then it leaves the rest of my army available to deal with the next target on the list. If they fail, then I need to proceed down the line of units that can damage it realistically.

Next time you play a game of 40k, analyze what you're doing. Try to figure out what your target priority is, and how you can improve it. After you've figured yourself out, a different tactic is trying to figure out what your opponent's priority is. If you can figure this out even half-way through the game, you'll be able to effectively predict his movements, allowing you to counter him before he even acts. Try it!