Tactical Concepts

So currently I'm playing my Alpha Legion army for a 40k campaign, though I plan on taking it to tournaments as well. The cornerstone of my army is the special character Huron Blackheart, though I'm personally re-visualizing him as Alpharius, the leader of my warband rather than using the background supplied in the book. But that's not really relevant here.

A lot of people frown on using special characters, and for the most part I would agree. Much of what they do can be done just as well and cheaper by a regular HQ choice. Huron really isn't that great in combat and could be replaced on that score by a Khorne Lord and be cheaper and better. And while some may look at his familiar and the ability to get access to the Divination school of psychic powers as a boon, it's far too random to be useful. Instead, there is a single ability that makes me take him every time.

He comes with the Master of Deception warlord trait standard rather than rolling for it.

Now, there are some really rather decent warlord traits available to Chaos generals, but for my money this has got to be one of the best. At the beginning of each game, I get to designate d3 infantry units as Infiltrators. Now, for an infantry heavy army, d3 may not sound like much, but it's the fact that I get to pick them at the start of the game rather than during listbuilding that makes this so incredible. I offer a quote:

"To know the enemy but not yourself is only halfway to victory. To know yourself but not the enemy is only halfway to victory. To know the enemy and yourself but not the terrain is only halfway to victory. One who knows these things shall not be endangered in a thousand engagements."

By letting me designate my infiltrators after I've seen the enemy and the terrain, I give myself a tactical advantage. Is he bringing heavy tanks? I can designate my Obliterators and site them appropriately. Infantry hordes? I can bring my flamers to bear quickly. Is he running Ravenwing and looking to shove his bikes in my face turn 1? I can put a sacrificial unit forward to buy time to respond.

And then, of course, there are the implications of infiltrate itself, just letting me deploy those units after my opponent finishes his deployment, even if I went first. Did he deploy a major threat in my weak side? I can deploy to strengthen that side and stop his ambitions. Did he deploy forward, hoping to capitalize on a mistake I made? I can try and correct that.

When most people look at infiltrate, they see the rules for how far forward they can place their men. And to be honest, I did too at first, and lost a couple games because of it. Now, while I'm far from being able to really embody the quote above from Sun Tzu, I think that using Huron like this will definitely give me an edge against most opponents, and should make my games a lot closer than they used to be.

Though what I'm going to do against a Necron Air Force I still have no clue.