# Tactica The Refused Flank



## Ancient Tiel' a fier

Well its time to share another approach to fantasy, the "refused flank". Basically this involves placing one unit "the sacrifice" on one flank and the majority of you armys power on the other. The idea being to hit the enemy flank and force him to waste a lot of time trying to bring his units to bear while you are breaking through his lines. This can be very effective because when done right the main power of you army fights a small portion of the enemy breaking each unit in turn.









Here is a basic view of the deployment. The Sacrifice unit needs to hold for a few turns once the combat starts so either a couple of cheap units like goblins or solid units that wont break like fanatics, but dont forget this unit is called a sacrifice for a reason, it will DIE. 
Next along firepower. All your shooting should be aimed towards the flank your main push is aiming for, look out for thining units down. Think about enemy rank bonuses and outnumbering, the more damage you do to there combat resolution the quicker they will break and the more devastating the attack will be. Watch out for the sacrifice breaking to quickly if they do your firepower will pay the price. Small unbreakable units deployed to stop the enemy charging the firepower base can be useful, but watch your points you need a lot for the main push.
The main push. This should consist of 2/3rds of your army. Heavy cavalry on the extreme flank ready to run down the enemy flank and solid infintary units (or more cavalry if you like - bretonians) to support from the front. Overwhelming power is the key here comabat resolution and the ability to kill are very important. Thing about banners or items that can improve your combat resolution.

Fast cavalry doesnt really come in as useful in this approach. Flyers can be useful as march blockers to slow the enemy response but again think about points.

I hope you enjoy this tactica and any questions? Feel free to ask.

Here are the links to some other tactical approaches:

The pierce and pincer http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=12354

The hammer and anvil http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=11855

The legion (roman tactics by Son of Horus) http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=11599


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## Druchii

I myself love the anvil and hammer.. I'm a huge Alexander the great fan. Nice work.


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## Gen. Confusion

Another great post by Ancient. I love reading about this kind of stuff. I get tired of just looking at army list after army list. The refused flank is excellent. Just a few thoughts. It seems like fast cavalry would be good as a sacrifice unit. For example. One or two units of pistolliers can march block and divert quite a few emeny units until the main push can break through. What do you guys think?


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## Snorri O'dubhda

I use this tactic quite a lot with both my dwarfs and skaven. I find the best sacrifice unit for dwarfs is slayers. their unbreakable ability means that when the enemy tries to swing around the flank the slayers can be a very nice orange haired road block thats not going anywhere.

For skaven I use swarms again for their unbreakable ability but I follow these up with a large unit of poison wind globes. the globes then shoot in to the combat the swarm is embroiled in killing enemy knights and infantry with impunity. 
Just remember that although the sacrifice unit is put their to die it doesn't mean it cant bite back.

Really is a good tactic. Well done ancient.


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

The only problem with fast cavalry as a sacrifice unit is lack of staying power, you really need the sacrifice to move upto mid field and stay there as long as possible. As Snorri's points out dwarf slayers are perfect for the job.


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## Gen. Confusion

Ok so pretty much any unbreakable unit would work. For empire I should use the flagelents. (not sure on the spelling, no book at hand) I would amagine this unit does not need to be very large. Perhaps 10 to 15 unit size. These guys are kind of expensive for larger units. :grin:


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## Ancient Tiel' a fier

yeah spot on there. Keep them cheap but unbreakable is perfect, if you dont have unbreakable units then high LD and or armour can work.


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## Green Knight

ace work again ancient, nice one


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## Gharof von Carstein

excellent work! i liked the pincer tactic beter do 

like i posted in the other tactic thread by horus i think that we should look at how to counter this strategy when used against us. 

from deployment you could make out that your opponent is going for a refused flank pretty easily. how than is it broken? i think that ignoring the sacrifice unit is pretty obvious. put your faster units on the flank with the sacrifice and try to swing around for a sort of pincer tactic. this way he is locked in tight with (hopefully) the tables edge at his back. this way the main force breaks on a unbreakable unit or a unit with high LD which i would put on the opposite flank of the sacrifice unit. the rest swings in for the kill ignoring the sacrifice for the bait that it is. the threat here however is getting stuck between the main force and the sacrifice unit getting squished yourself. a sacrifice unit or bait unit of your own might be a handy tactic here. just lure the sacrifice unit away. another plus to this approach would be that should your army break from the main force it has the rest of the table to move on. your opponent wont be so lucky. 

at least thats the way i look at it. correct me when im wrong please. this is just to open up discussion a bit more


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## Gromrir Silverblade

Awesome idea! I have never thought of this one, I have a match against HE tomorrow and I am definitely going to try this one. The only problem I can forsee is that the HE player uses a lot of individual units and by diverting 2/3 of my army into a flank I leave the front unprotected whilst also risk not tying up enough of his army with my flank attack. Being Dwarfs will also mean that I will then have to chase his units back to my front lines if it fails. Snorri, you seem to have used this one, how do you get around this potential problem.


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## Durzod

To counter faster armies dwarves have to deploy a unit or two to link the two wings of the army. Thunderers/quarrelers work well here. You don't want all your shooters in the way of the assault wing, and with the 1" rule, it doesn't take much to fill in the gap. Also including a BSB with Strolla's Rune in the assault wing is almost a must. This'll allow the assault wing to close the gap quicker, which dwarves desperately need due to their slower march rate.

On a different note, the OP reinforces an observation I've had about all the opponents I've had. It seems 99% will try to turn their right flank. Doesn't matter if they're right or left handed. Knowing this can give you an advantage, albeit a small one.


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## the-graven

Awesome tactics, I've heard the names of this tactics a lot, but never truly knew what they did. well done ancient


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## the-graven

By the way, how would you do this with Lizardmen, I want a slann, and that's a bit of a problem in this tactic, also lizards don't have good sacrifice units, skinks are the cheapest, but not worth it, they won't hold out for more then 10 seconds.
So what is your approach if you would use Lizards?


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## Arli

Here is a thought for you, use a skink cohort unit with kroxigors as your sacrifice unit. Skinks alone will break almost instantly. If you put 30 skinks with 3 Kroxigors in there, that will last at least a couple of rounds of combat. The Krox cannot be targeted now, so you are basically using your skinks as a meat shield Kroxigor delivery system. Because they are 30 strong (plus the 9 more unit str from the krox) you have a horde unit that is stubborn. The down side is that this unit is kind of expensive.

With a slann and Lore of light, you could have WS10 I10, ASF skinks and Krox too.


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