Merry Christmas and some notes (redux)

First, have to post this.
Warning: NSFW

Second, images for your viewing pleasures of the Christmas variety:

Alright, do enjoy your Christmahannukwanzakuh.

Now that being said, there are some things I wish to clarify before moving forward next week (Exciting stuff).

Light Infantry vs Light Infantry:
I will make use of the term Light Infantry in two ways.  One is the Light/Mech method, covered here. The second is the Light/Heavy method, which is a bit harder to explain, and with more grey area.  Light units are overall cheaper and with a lower save, heavy units have a better save.  This may seem easy, but it also goes into purpose on the board.  For example, a Space Marine Scout Squad with a 4+ save I consider Light.  However, a Storm Trooper Squad has the same armor and I consider Heavy.  So, I have devised a little cheat sheet here for future reference.

Light:

1. 4+ save or worse
2. Occupies Troops or Fast Attack slot
3. Equipped primarily against other infantry or low toughness/save targets
4. Cheap choices
5. Focused on amassed firepower vs effective firepower

Heavy:

1. 4+ save or better
2. Occupies Elites or Heavy Support slot
3. Equipped primarily against tanks or high toughness/save targets
4. More expensive
5. Focused on higher percentages of hits vs large number of shots

Now, there is some grey area, and that is where you have to figure it out for yourself.  But this should help clarify when I discuss a weapon or ability being effective against Light or Heavy Infantry.

Next on the agenda is Crowd Control vs Area Denial. I should point out that all anti-infantry weapons can be used for this purpose (and some anti-tank ones as well), but I specifically point out sniper rifles instead.  This is because I believe they are a great tool, and not many early players appreciate how effective they can be.  Most start off trying to take out commanders and such, but while they can do that, their best uses (in my opinion) is right here.

Crowd Control works by eliminating large numbers of troops, slowing down their advance, or softening them up for assault. This is the most generalized usage of anti-infantry heavy weapons in the game.  The following is an example of how it works.

In this example, the dirty yellow box indicates an objective, the dark green boxes represent terrain, the red infantry symbol is an opponent's squad, the dark red line illustrates your area denial lines of fire, and the green/red arrows indicate your opponent's options for movement.  No matter where how the opponent approaches the objective, his troops will always be under heavy fire from your weapons, and must survive that and assault.  You can use sniper rifles in this method as they pin your opponent's troops, and slows them down, preventing them from advancing (which, in turn, gives you more time to shoot at them.  It's a great cycle.).
Area Denial goes a step further by setting up firepower in areas so that your opponent does not want to pass his troops through there.  Allow me to present a case to you:

Now as we can see in this slightly different example, there are two paths.  If your opponent chooses Path A, which is shorter, he will be subjected to your Anti-Infantry squad, as well as your troops squad on the objective.  If he chooses Path B, his unit will be safely out of line of sight from both for quite some time, and only in range of your anti-infantry squad a short time.  You can use sniper rifles in this method because between rending and causing pinning, his units can suffer a lot of damage before reaching the objective. While the idea of making a "safer approach" may seem counter-productive, it's not.  It buys you turns on the objective, as well as time to deal with any other squads on the board, and to reinforce the objective.  His squad may not be annihilated this turn, but you have made him change his plans.  And that is what you want to achieve throughout the game.  If I can get one thing through to you new players out there it is that You want your opponent to have to adjust to everything you do, while not having to adjust any of your plans to what he's doing.

That's all I have for this week.  Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.