Hey everyone, Chandler here with another article in our Basic Tactics series. This series is designed to give newer or less experienced tournament players the fundamentals of playing Warhammer 40k at the competitive level. In our last article I discussed List Design. Today, I am going to be talking about target priority. So, let's dive in.
What is Target Priority Anyway?
What exactly does "target priority" mean? In short, target priority in Warhammer 40k is identifying what units in your opponent's army are the most immediate threat to your own and determining which weapons you need to remove that threat.
Most people think of "target priority" as something restrictive to shooting, but that is not the case at all. If you are playing an assault based army, where your list is delivering it's most devastating damage in the Fight Phase of the game, you still need to understand how to prioritize your targets.
The Two Types of Target Priority in 40k
There are two ways to look at target priority. The first is the Macro view. This is done at the list exchange phase before the game has even begun. You will review your opponent's list at this point and determine what units your opponent has in his army list that will be the most damaging to your army and prioritize how you are going to destroy them. Or, perhaps understand that you don't have the tools capable of destroying the units, and plan strategies on how to mitigate their impact in the game.
Maybe you look over your opponent's list and see they have Knight Castellan and your list is heavily mechanized. Obviously the Castellan is then the most damaging threat in your opponent's list. But he also has 2 Knight Gallants, which are meant to apply pressure "demanding" to be dealt with. How are you going to handle that in your army list? Those are the questions you should be asking yourself and figuring out during deployment. Conversely, you might be running a Chaos horde army and see your opponent is running a Castellan, which does not do great against horde style armies. But he might have 4 Assault Cannon Razorbacks capable of wiping out your hordes quickly. Which has the higher priority in preparation? The Razorbacks, of course.
Micro target priority is where you apply your strategy on how you are going to deal with your targets at the unit by unit level. This is typically done turn by turn as the game begins to develop. You come into the game having an idea on how you will mitigate or destroy your opponent's most threatening units at the macro level. At the micro level you are implementing those tactics and determining what to shoot/assault and when to do it turn by turn.
At it's most basic level, micro target priority is determining which tools are at your disposal to deal with threats, and prioritizing the order to utilize those tools. It is generally where most mistakes are made during the game of 40k.
It's simple really. Shoot what you can kill and use the weapons designed to kill the right targets. Anti-tank/monster weapons (lascannons, meltaguns, volcano lance, etc) at the vehicles and monsters and Anti-infantry (boltguns, mortars, lasguns) at the infantry and swarms.
Deny Target Priority to Your Opponent
On the other hand, understand what in your own list is the target priority for your opponent, and try and take that away from them. Your opponent would love to blast your Custodes Bikes away turn 1 with his Dark Reapers. Maybe you should spend the CP and put them in reserves instead. Try to deny your opponent from using the threats they have against you.
The pic above was taken from my Round 1 game at Warzone: Atlanta 2018. My opponent had a wonderful and deadly Knights army supported by Astra Militarum. In turn 1, I made it so that all he had to choose to target with his Knights was a blob of 40 Chaos Cultists that were fearless, as opposed to my Daemon Princes or Ahriman, which are targets he wants to shoot with them. His macro target priority has been denied for now, so he has to determine at the micro level how he is going to get to the targets he wants before they do devastating damage or manage to earn me more points. Shooting Cultists with Knights is not optimal for his list, but he has no choice as there is nothing else to really shoot at. I have denied him target priority. I will cover this in more detail later on in a Deployment tactics article.
Establishing the Order of Shots
Each turn, before your turn begins, you should be analyzing the battle field and preparing your micro target prioritization for that turn. What is available to you to use? What threats need to die/be severely diminished on that turn? Use the tools in the right order and properly to do the job.
Generally speaking you want to fire off all your anti-vehicle/monster weaponry first. But you need to decide what you need to devote to it. Let's say you have a Hive Tyrant on 1 wound in your face and another on full health behind it. You have a Devastator squad with a heavy bolter and a lascannon within range. You opt to shoot the heavy bolter, popping a Hellfire Rounds stratagem to do a mortal wound and kill the Tyrant on a single wound, then shoot the lascannon at the other on full health. Why? Because you don't want to waste the d6 damage on the Tyrant with only 1 wound left. You have the potential to get more wounds through onto the Tyrant with full health behind it. Use the tools to get the job done in the right order.
Don't shoot weapons at units that require a 5+ to wound. As a general rule, this is a bad idea unless you have absolutely nothing else to shoot at other than that target. You want to ensure that you're wounding what you target. Mortars are great at clearing Chaos Cultists and Infantry Squads of Guard. They are not great at trying to wound Hellhounds or Hemlocks. Shoot what you can kill and kill what you can shoot.
Sometimes this isn't always possible. Obviously if that Cultist squad is out of range of your bolters, and the only target in range is an Imperial Knight, then yes, shoot the knight. But try to position your units so that they actually can shoot at targets they can hurt.
Units that do multi-damage and have a high Armour Penetration value should be fired at those targets that they are designed to kill. A Knight Crusader for example could kill a squad of 10 Infantry perhaps with his Avenger Gatling Cannon, but would those shots be better served into your opponent's 5 man Hellblaster squad? Yes absolutely. Because each unsaved wound deals 2 damage and they have 2 wounds each. Unless necessary, don't waste multi-damage shots on single wound models. Sometimes you might have to, for example, if you need to shoot a unit off an objective to score the point. But prioritize what tools you have to do that job.
Closing Thoughts
Target priority can, of course, get much more complex than the examples in this article. This is just a core fundamental guide to help the newer or less experienced player in understanding how to determine their target priority in the game. It can get much more complex especially as a game develops, but it can be mastered over time. Experience is the best teacher, and you will learn the most about target priority by playing games of 40k. So, get out there, roll some dice and slaughter your buddy's plastic toys.
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