Here on Start Competing we produce plenty of guides to specific factions (go take a look at our guide to the Adepta Sororitas from last week for the most recent) but sometimes we like to take a step back and talk more generally about an aspect of strategy.

This week, we’re picking up a concept that’s central to 40k strategy, screening, and putting out a two part series it, specifically some of the tricks and traps to be aware of when moving or placing models around the board, starting today with a discussion about screening. We’ve been kicking around since reader George F contacted us in November, and while it may not sound super flashy, smart unit positioning can make a massive difference to the outcome of a game. As you go to more events and get a chance to play against top players you’ll realise that part of the reason they manage to so consistently put up big wins is that they’re always on the lookout for places they can squeeze a tiny bit more value out of a unit or stack the odds in their favour, and the movement phase is where a lot of this happens. Conversely, a big mistake in moving a unit or not spotting a trap your opponent is laying for you can flip a game winning position to a losing one, and while everyone makes these errors (almost everything I’m going to talk about is something I’ve messed up on a tournament table at least once), cutting down on them is vital if you want to put up big finishes of your own.

Obviously this is one of those subjects with a near infinite amount of depth to it, and I’m sure plenty of people will get to the end of this and think we’ve missed out on a big one – and if that sounds like you then do let us know on contact@goonhammer.com or in the comments, because we’d be only too happy to include them in a mailbag article or a future update.

There will also be a little bit of overlap in some of this with the last general tactics article I put out, which covered deployment. While the article needs some re-writes for the new ITC season, deployment is obviously a kind of positioning, and if you haven’t read that one it’s worth a look – some of the principles discussed there apply here too, and some of the tricks we’ll talk about with ruins and casualties can be applied to deployment too. With that final bit of preamble out of the way let’s discuss our first big topic – screening.

What is Screening?

Screening is a term you’ve almost certainly heard, but it’s a good one to start with, because getting the basics of it down is absolutely critical to not just getting swept off the board in some matchups. In simple terms, screening is using the positioning of some of your units to control your opponent’s ability to attack others. It’s most commonly talked about in reference to deep strike screening, but other common places it comes up are screening against charges and screening characters. You’ll also often see people referring to “screening units” when discussing army lists. This usually, bluntly, refers either to units that are cheap, can fill a decent amount of space and are expendable – because that makes them ideal for the purposes here. Alternatively, some units have special abilities that make them particularly good at one or more of the types, making them attractive to army lists that have a particular need to screen against a certain type of threat, even if they’re a bit pricier.

While similar units are often useful for multiple types, there’s a fair bit of difference in how to achieve each type, so in the rest of the article we’re going to talk about the various kinds of screening separately. There is one general thing you want to think about for all of them though – effective screening with multi-model units often requires you thinking more carefully about how far apart you’re placing models than new players often do. For our purposes today, it’s very often going to be the case that you want your models in one of three configurations:

As far apart (i.e. 2″ between each) as possible, to cover more space.

As close together as possible, to minimise attack surface.

Slightly closer together than the size of your opponent’s models’ bases.

It’s easy to fall into a habit of just placing your models about an inch apart and leaving them at that, and that can be fine when you’re not using your models for any particular purpose, but once they’re part of a screen this matters – so think about it (and read our Ruleshammer article about this)!

Screening Against Deep Strike

Lots of units in 40K have the ability to start the game in reserve and then on turns 2 and 3 appear anywhere on the board that’s more than a certain distance (usually 9″) away from the opponent. The abilities that grant this have a huge variety of names, but are generally referred to as deep strike abilities. Corrode: I really hope they give this a keyword or USR in 9th ed, because it’s really annoying not to have a general term for what is basically the same thing. In addition to these, some armies have abilities that let them remove a unit from the board and set them up again, either immediately or on a later turn. The ones of these that work immediately are particularly important, because unlike deep strike deployment they can be used on turn 1, but the ones that “stagger” to the next turn also let a player carry out a deep-strike style setup later than turn 3, meaning that there are more turns where you have to be mindful of it when your opponent has access to them. This latter set of abilities are sometimes referred to as redeploy abilities, but often just lumped in with deep strike as well. I’ve put a quick list of some of the most common of these and who they can affect in the drop-down below.