An interesting idea struck me today while browsing the internet. One word: Zebra.
What is a zebra though? Well sure it's an animal. It's also tangentially related to the horse. It can be ridden like a horse. They taste pretty good too or so I'm told. But that's not what a zebra is.
A zebra... is a walking camo suit. Zoologists on animal planet suggest that the construction and positioning of the lines on a zebra make it hard to determine the orientation of the animal for predators. In the same way that conventional camoflague for humans uses irregular shapes in no particular pattern to break up the outline of the object/soldier, zebras developed this trick naturally over millions of years. Not knowing exactly where to shoot a camo soldier is a potent trick in jungle warfare. Not so good against bombs, but alright for use against troops. Also, just how many camo soldiers are identified may be an issue too. You see one soldier moving but noone else. You can guarantee he's got friends.. but what if he doesn't? What if he's carrying a message/package from one officer to the next? What if he's a distraction? What if he's a vanguard of the main force?
As far as 40k is concerned it theoretically won't be an issue. The whole battlefield is visible at all times, camo makes no difference to your plastic men unless there's a special rule in effect. You can paint your CSM bright pink or pitch black and it makes no difference from a gameplay perspective.
From a gameplay perspective. But let me tell you something about 40k. You're not actually playing a game of dice. Not really. It's involved but there's a whole macro-strategy that must be determined before you even begin the game. Camo on your plastic helps, and here's why.
Camo paint on your troops, breaks up their outline. A casual glance at the unit might produce mental affirmation of 6 models when the real number is 9. A more scrupulous player might know already, but miss their exact location because from 4 feet back, out of the corner of his eye, their exact location isn't simple to determine. Camo can force your opponent to mentally count each model every turn, mentally log their location every turn. Added benefit to you? He's wasting time and diverting valuable attention away from his core strategy. WAAC players will suffer the most from this, as they misinterpret the threat over and over again, and feel pressured by time constraints to act more quickly.. thus generating more mistakes and oversights for him.
Camo is to most people a 'tryhard' thing to paint on your guys. It's not thematically compatable with 40k (which for the record is bright&gaudy with few exclusions) and may help you as your opponent views you as being more amateurish. You know those popular stories about xyz marine player seeing abc opponent and thus playing a totally gimped list in sarcastic retaliation and then losing horribly? It's the same thing, but without the requirement of turning up with GK to a 2500pt tournament.
The most efficient form of attack is one that uses as many vectors as possible simultaneously. Attacking your opponent himself at the mental level is a valuable +1 over what you would otherwise be doing purely on the tabletop. And the best part about camo is? You get all those subtle benefits without any trashtalking, joking around or pokerface. It's implicit to your army, meaning you still have all those other tricks to dispense at leisure in addition to him psychologically being unable to take your plastic army seriously.
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