Using Reserve

Occasionally I will see a friend of mine use reserve, but for the most part, no one else I play does. Now why is that? Well to put it simply, from a straightforward point of view reserve is dumb, it means you have less guys on the field at one time, and there is nothing special that comes with it, especially for slow moving armies like infantry based Imperial Guard armies.

So why do it? well, it gives you a lot of neat tricks, but ones that aren't necessarily obvious game changers. First trick we will talk about is, shifting your army. Basically your opponent will look at what you have on the table, which most likely, as Guard, looks like your whole army, and he will deploy accordingly. Then when your platoon or two comes in from reserve, or any tanks or vendettas, you can totally shift everything out of what he perceived, and ruin his plan. Also you can morph your army, what started out as a tank army can easily become a massed infantry army. Or a static gunline can quickly become a sweep of vendetta squadrons. Both of these strategies are based on throwing your opponent off balance.

Lastly reserves are great because it allows you to be more flexible, if a part of table edge seems particularly pressed, then you can simply put more guys there.

In the end reserve is a handy tool with which you can craft your strategy, and therefore your victory. I encourage everyone to use it.