The Power-Agility Dichotomy

[Christoph]

Greetings, Druchii.net. Though only recently returning to Malekith's fold, I've been involved with the hobby for a good fourteen years. While I'm not expert and I'm a few years behind the times on Dark Elves and Fantasy in general, I have come up with some useful concepts over the years that I feel deserve through and discussion. In this thread, I would like to spark discussion of the titular Power-Agility dichotomy, especially how it relates to the Dark Elves. I will begin by defining terms.

Power: In this context, "Power" refers to the direct on-paper might or potency of an army compared to points cost. This includes both the army's offensive (the strength, accuracy, and quantity of attacks available) and defensive (armor, toughness, wounds, etc) values. In other words, this is the total amount of damage an army can dish out and endure.

Obviously, Power isn't everything. Otherwise, we could skip playing a game and just do math at each other for an hour. This leads to the second term:

Agility: Simpler than Power to define but somewhat more difficult to quantify, Agility is a function of Power. It is an army's ability to apply or project its Power effectively while preventing its foe from doing the same. Agility comes from high Movement, shooting, small or flexible units, abilities that ignore obstacles (like flying), and so forth. Naturally, we Dark Elves lean notably more towards Agility than Power. Compare us to, say, Orcs and Goblins who (in my estimation) lean much more toward Power.

When I used to talk with potential new players, I would apply these concepts to entire army books to help them select an army that best fit their personal styles. We would determine which end of the Power-Agility spectrum they preferred, before deciding their preferred sources of Power and Agility (offense vs. defense, shooting vs. combat, etc, etc).

These ideas are also useful when building an army or analyzing specific units. When building a competitive list, we strike to maximize our Power + Agility. Being the cunning creatures we are, we often try to find clever synergies that increase one without sacrificing the other (force multipliers). In battle, we (should) first seek to identify our foe's main sources of Power, both offensive (high S and/or A infantry, heavy cavalry, powerful war machines and monsters, etc...) and defensive (tough and/or heavily armored troops, large steadfast blocks, stubborn or unbreakable units, and so forth). Then we plot to minimize their ability to apply their Power against us while maximizing our Power by exploiting weaknesses in their Agility (slow units, too few large units, lack of reliable shooting, etc).

I'm not exactly breaking new ground here, but I find that thinking with these concepts offers a new level of clarity and efficiency to tactical and strategic discussions.

I've spoken in broad, general terms this far, partially because simple foundations are often the strongest. I've also been out of the game too long and have much to catch up on. Hopefully this sparks a more in-depth discussion, where these ideas can be applied to the Dark Elves' armies and tactics.

I'll conclude with some discussion questions:

0.) Did you find this post helpful in any way, or otherwise worth discussion?

1.) Do you prefer to learn more toward Power or Agility? (By Dark Elf standards, that is.)

2.) Which Dark Elf units offer the most Agility to an army as defined earlier, and why? Likewise with Power. Are these extreme units viable, and why or why not?

3.) Which DE units offer the most of the two elements combined, and what allows them to do so? Are these units viable?

4.) What are some of your favorite and most successful army building tricks that maximize Power + Agility?

5.) What are some of your favorite and most successful battlefield tricks that maximize Power + Agility?

*

Thanks for reading! I look forward to the discussion.

[Calisson]

Good principles!
My usual catalog of agile troops include DR, shades, harpies, warlocks and peggymasters who can all dance around the enemies.
To have control on both sides of agility, there is shooting and magic missiles, which eradicate the opponent's agile troops.
With both, you gain control over maneuvre and get free to hit where you wish with the power troops.

Power troops are traditionally divided in hammers (monsters, COK, COC, execs, BG, WE) and anvils (spear/sword, Sisters).
Additionally, you take consideration for enhancers (Ld brought by general/BSB, magic, COB/BwS, frenzy brought by DH, magic objects...).

They are a few units which combine several aspects (dragonlord), but it becomes difficult to use all of its potential.

[Heartsbane]

Hmm, interesting.

To my way of thinking, it's more of a triangle made up of power, agility, and resilience. What I think of as power is the offensive part of your definition, with resilience being the defensive part together with weight of numbers.

My MSU fast cav based dark elf army almost completely sacrifices resilience in favour of the other two. Dwarves traditionally dump agility. Most armies are a mix of the 3, but in varying quantities.

And of course, as you said, there are nuances of each type to further consider. And when building an army, there's always the debate of specialisation or generalisation; do you try to balance the three, or to do two really well?

[Christoph]

Calisson: I think Dragon Lords and heavy cavalry contain a lot of power, but their power to points cost ratio isn't terribly high, so I'd posit that they lean more toward Agility. Their concentration of power combined with mobility makes them great at delivering a lot of Power effectively, though as you said, particularly with Dragon Lords, it becomes challenging to get the most out of them. Great reply, all said!

Heartsbane: You can actually sub-divide Agility as well, into Shooting and Maneuverability. With that in mind, one can build a Dwarf army that has decent (though not amazing) Agility because shooting allows them to project force against their opponents despite their low movement stats. I start out with Power-Agility because I've found that most people unconsciously or intuitively start there when choosing and later creating an army. Afterwards, they'll sub-divide the two categories to figure out the sources of their Power and/or Agility.

[Red...]

Isn't this a bit of a convoluted articulation of the concentration of force? Use speed and good positioning to apply overwhelming force against a weak point in your enemy's army, while avoiding its strong points. It has been used throughout history, but probably reached its zenith in German Blitzkrieg during WW2 (In fact, many of the tanks owned by France and Britain during 1940 were more thickly armoured and sported better weaponry than their German counterparts, but the Germans applied massive amounts of force against weak portions of the Allied lines (in the Ardennes), while avoiding their strong portions (the Maginot line). It is, as you say, a quintessentially useful strategy for dark elves.

It's worth noting that there are some times when you want to meet enemy strength with strength, as long as you can either a) ultimately come out on top or b) can stall him until help can arrive. There are some days when using a big witch horde to mill through an opponent's block of black orcs will win me the game, as it removes the enemy's main hitting force and allows me to dominate the game.

[Christoph]

Yes and no. While we can use these concepts to describe the concentration of force as a strategy, I never sought to imply that Agility was more important than Power or vise versa. (Of course, Dark Elves are more agile than most armies, at least in terms of mobility/maneuverability.) This method of thinking helps in understanding how the two interact in a way that is, in my estimation, less convoluted. Or at least simpler.

Neutralizing or minimizing your opponent's main source of Power doesn't always mean avoiding it or shooting it to death. As you pointed out, you can accomplish this by effectively out-powering them and/or battling their Power-intensive units with strong units of your own that might have an advantage. Or stalling. Of course, Agility helps us achieve these favorable engagements.

I think this topic will benefit newer players more than veterans such as yourself. Still, we can all get some use out of it. If nothing else, it's a neat thought exercise.