Urban Warfare

My second favorite warzone, right behind World War one, is the city fight. See, each one, is as grueling and desperate, and just as personal for the combatants. However, they're very far apart in many aspects. On one hand, you have the trench style warfare, where there is little cover, line of sight is only blocked by going downward, the majority of the battlefield is completely flat and devoid of structures. On the otherhand, we have urban warfare, where you might hold one intersection, and be defending from all sides, as you can't see where anyone is, there is too much junk. The joy for me, is making each one work, and no army is as iconic in either scenario, as the Imperial Guard.

In a city fight, which is the focus of this article, as it is far more common, the key here, is intersections. Where as much line of sight can be afforded as possible, down the roads. Now there are a few ways to do this, one way, is to prior to the battle, when you're settin up the board, put barricades down the road, so your men can take cover, and have long lines of sight, easily the best option, as you can just set up camp in the road. The worst way to go about this, but still works against some opponents, is to just cram your models in the intersection without cover. Rely on numbers to survive, and you might get by against armies like orks or tyrannids, who have a fair lack of shooting. The third and, most flexible option, is to load up in the buildings around the intersection, which works, but LOS can easily be manipulated.

That brings me to another subject, manipulate the balls off of LOS. See, if you move your models right, time your Move Move Move orders, or something like that, your opponent won't see your men, until you are good and ready to attack, and as long as you're the one who decides when the battles happen, make sure they happen in your favor.

A word on army coherency. Keep your men in a few large groups. Don't spread out all over the city. If your opponent is sprawled out, meaning, relatively few units are grouped together, then use the buildings and impassable terrain, to strike with a larger force then they can retaliate with. Don't just slug it out army against army, fight army against smaller army, so you can win. Also, if you find your units underfire and the same trick played on you, go to ground, and hit em with the big guns, barrage units have never been happier to save your boys using their high angled shots, than in a city fight. Don't have basalisks, or mortars? then use what you got, just make sure your lads underfire, don't retaliate, and focus on survival, they can get their revenge once reinforcements arrive, and together they can take down the big boys. Now, if your lads are royally screwed, sometimes just falling back a bit, like through a building is all it takes. Keep in mind, if you are more than 6 inches deep in area terrain, you can't be shot at, so do take advantage of that, and live in the ruins even if necessary.

Lastly, tanks. Always, but always, have a screening unit of infantry. Wherever you can spare them, give a tank a squad to provide it cover. Do this, and your tanks will last infinitely longer. Why? because enemies will come out of every crevice in the city, with powerfists, meltas, and a myriad of nasty tank killing goodness. Pack a squad around them, and suddenly, the tanks have a shot at either a coversave, a retreat, a tankshock, anything at all, and the tank is more likely to make it. I find special weapons teams with flamers or grenade launchers make fantastic screening units for this. Demolishers are king in city fights, where their range doesn't matter as much, and their unbridled killing power can truly shine.