Warhammer 40K Shooting Tactics - BIGGEST Mistakes and Rules of Thumb!

Let's talk through the Warhammer 40K shooting phase and how to mximise gunnery command for your army!

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0:00 Intro
0:54 The Grand Plan
3:02 Fire Limited Units FIRST
4:31 Match Damage with Ideal Target
7:45 Shoot Optimal Gun First
8:53 Take Easy Wins
10:31 Give Big Guns Chance to Shine
12:00 Casualty Removal
13:21 Command Point Re-rolls
17:13 Underkill and Overkill
20:09 Closing Thoughts
21:18 Outro

[hyrumcastaneda]

I have an ork army. Generally speaking, my shooting is not to be relied on, but it is funny whenever the stars align and something dies

[alexisauld]

How to shooting phase:
Line up your guns at the appropriate targets, that you need to get rid of to score objectives, deny them to your opponent, etc.
Roll a lot of 1s.
Shelve the shooting plan, and...

[Spartan]

I feel like using Eradicators to roast Gretchin is mentioned somewhere on the Geneva to-do-list

[Cannonhead]

A lesson I've learned myself, fire the blast weapons first.

[siberiankarl]

The Grenade stratagem is not to be slept upon, as it's often a great way to mop up low hp targets

[NornQueenKya]

If you have enough bullets, you cant screw it up
- the guardsman manual

[Kantohammer]

The one huge thing to add to order of shots is always shoot blast weapons first. I’ve seen people lose bonus attacks from blast weapons because they dropped a unit below a multiple of 5 with a different weapon first.

[DeathInTheSnow]

A couple of other considerations:-

1) Wound brackets - many units get worse as they get injured. Sometimes that nullifies how useful they are, and may be a preferable alternative to outright killing something, if you desperately need something else gone.

2) Healing units - some units can also recover wounds. So consider how much more firepower you'll need if a unit survives a round of shooting. This includes units that can fully revive whole models, such as Grey Knights Terminators, Chaos Skin Shift (Mark of Tzeentch), and especially Necrons. Where will it leave you if a unit heals? This includes considering bracketed units mentioned above. A wounded unit that has gotten worse and can't heal next turn might be a better outcome over a unit of Obliterators that could restore a whole 5w model with immense firepower.

3) Trick guns - some weapons have unusual or special rules that benefit from certain conditions being met. This includes "anti(x)" weapons. An example is where destroying a transport vehicle could gift you a better unit to target next with "anti-infantry". Chaos have a few like this, partly affected due to their current Dark Pacts rule (which could be gone in a few months with their new codex, but still). Because CSM can apply either Lethal Hits or Sustained Hits to anything, they get access to some rare moments allowing their guns to punch up compared to other armies. They also have another example with the Venomcrawler; it gains +1 attacks to each weapon when it kills a unit, and it has two guns. That means it usually likes to fire into a weakened infantry unit on its first turn, kill them to trigger its ability, then get 14 shots afterwards with Sustained Hits 1, usually on a 5+. There isn't a cap on this either, and it also works _and overlaps_ with melee attacks and kills. Your armies benefit from you creating scenarios where your guns benefit!

- - - - -

As a bonus fact about the Venomcrawler; because it has two guns and a melee profile, it can technically kill two units every shooting phase and one every melee phase, gaining 3 attacks per weapon. This obviously requires extraordinary luck, and splitting fire. However, the rule states "At the end of any phase". This means you can include Overwatch and defending melee too, for a bonus 2 attacks in your _opponent's_ turn (you can only pick one unit for Overwatch). If by some strange fortune that your Venomcrawler survives to the final turn of the game, you'll have gained 25 extra attacks at the very end of the game on each weapon, providing perfect conditions and rolling happened. If you went second, and were in melee, you'd have 30 attacks to play with (going to 31 if you kill that unit). But in that shooting phase beforehand, each Excruciator Cannon would have 28 shots apiece, for a total of 56 shots at Strength 6, D2, and with Sustained Hits 1, potentially on a 5+ if that's how your Dark Pact is set up. Very silly, and practically impossible to set up without forcing the conditions. But imagine rolling all of those dice...

[emax-]

As a Tau player, who started with Tau, I am always so painfully aware of shooting.

[VgnTeupo]

Just started World Eaters, will have all ur Tipp in mind next game

[The-Despoiler-XVI]

*Get 3 forgefiends make them
Mark Of Nurgle
*Get 3 Warpsmiths keep them 3" close to forgefiends
*get 2 hellbrutes keep them in between forgefiends
*put abaddon in the mix
*laugh as your opponent takes ridiculous damage
*Use cultists and dark commune to take objectives
*nurglings if you're soulless
Forgefiends restoring d3 lost wounds at the beginning of every turn, hitting on 2+, lethal and sustained hits on 5+ and reroll your misses...

Just kidding that's toxic, awesome video!

[itsmefil]

another thing to keep in mind is to not forget to shoot the pistols in melee range, can save you from being attacked later on even if youre lucky

[thesurvivor]

Knights really have to prioritize what they shoot at.

[shinkiro]

Regarding underkilling a target:

In the case of that Predator (or any other unit with powerful guns but with few shot each or even just one), ALWAYS check if there are comparably vulnerable targets in range: if your only alternatives are a hordy unit like hormagants or even something more elite like space marines, you don't want to risk not downing the big game target just for barely putting a dent on the opponent's numbers. So, in those cases just focus fire and light up the huge mf on death's door

[Peter_Wendt]

A good rule of thumb for Imperial Guard shooting: for lasguns, if you're firing at something as strong as a marine, assume 10 shots to deal 1 Wound. Half of the shots will typically miss, two will typically wound, and with a little luck one of those will be a failed save. So seriously, against marines, 10 shots for each casualty. You will be surprised at how often this math holds up.

[demigurlxd]

I needed this video thank you, you made me realize why I lost my last match and what I could have done better.

[jcmsaucey]

My personal take on CP rerolling: unless you have little to no good stratagems (something like Hypercrypt Necrons without a Monolith), the only time it's ever really worth using CP reroll at all is if you NEED that roll to win. Something like rerolling wound/damage against your opponent's centerpiece, a charge to take an objective near the end of the game, or a saving throw on a crucial unit. Otherwise your CP will almost always have a better place to be, especially if you have good 2cp strats or a stratagem you want to use multiple times a turn like Chaos Knights.

The same goes for 4+ invuln stratagems like Rotate Ion Shields. On paper you're making 50% more saves than if you had a 5+ (or failing 25% less), but in actuality the math rarely works out like that and it either does absolutely nothing or is complete overkill. CP is an extremely important resource for 90% of lists, and even if you stockpile your CP for the first few turns you may find you need to use 5 or more in one turn just to survive or make sure you kill a a unit.

Another small bit of advice that's not directly touched on here is if your squad has different weapons, shoot the ones that will one shot a model first. If you're shooting into a squad of intercessors, you'll want to shoot your overcharged plasmas or Lascannons first to avoid knocking a model down to 1 wound and wasting your damage.

[zeroxexe]

Great content! Thanks again for elaborating the SHOOTING PHASE!❤ May your week be EPIC!

[ancientmariner]

Generally everything you've said, everything is situational and you need to constantly use your brain. BUT never underestimate AP 0 shots, even against 2+ save.

[tyhar]

One thing to consider is with things like a Nightbringer that halves damage and has a lot of saves, it is better to use ALOT of small arms fire to saturate the targets rather than using heavy weapons. For instance my 10 man Sternguard unit (with lieutenant and lethal hits) has a good chance of taking it out in one turn with a round of shooting and a charge than shooting all of my lascannons at it.