Using Terrain in DBM
ONE
The thing to remember about terrain is, usually it doesn't confer an advantage, but imposes a disadvantage (barring H(G) that is). So, usually the side that is weaker in terrain troops will stay well clear of the terrain. This gives you some useful things, if you control the terrain, namely
a secure flank
a bastion/salient
a haven
Using a secure flank goes more or less without saying - you rest your flank on it, and drive forward or pivot on it.
Using the terrain as a bastion, requires that you are able to stay on the defensive on one or both sides of it: either your opponent attacks past it & nearby, in which you can use it to launch flanking attacks on him, or he attacks past it but well away from it, which allows you overlaps, and to attack the exposed flank with troops in the open ...or of course, he sits back as well. This technique works best against impetuous armies, who generally attack anyway, and will be forced to attack "eventually".
When doing this BTW, you can use unexpected troops to great effect - having a couple of LH(F) loitering in/behind some RGo is particularly nice, as they still get a decent move, even through the RGo, so can 'whip out' quite a long distance... as people tend to think that mounted wont ever go into terrain, this can really catch ppl on the hop.
Using terrain as a haven is an even more defensive technique - essentially hiding some troops that are at a terrible disadvantage in a potential match-up (e.g. Ax(I) in a Samurai army). Pretty much speaks for itself, again.
TWO
There are of course other ways of using terrain. Often, it will not be clear-cut as to who has got a superior ability to control the terrain. This allows you to use the terrain as bait, on occasion - lure the enemy into trying to take/hold a piece of terrain that's out of their grasp, then cut it off from the rest of his army with mobile troops, for instance. Also, you can use the threat of terrain almost as effectively as if you had troops in it, against primarily mounted armies at least - putting down 3 forests, with one group of Ax threatening to move into any/all of them, will force your opponent to either try contesting all three, or to screen them off.
The other (& my favourite) use of terrain, is for aggressive ambushes. Again, this is somewhere that using unorthodox troop types can pay huge dividends, at some risk I'll admit. My personal preference here is for gullies, as they will conceal any troop type at all - however, you have to make sure the enemy doesn't reach the lip of the gully first! BTW on the subject of gullies, Ax/Ps ambushes in the gullies should be place in the "rear" half of the gully, so they are upslope of opponents who enter the gully. Another (and possibly safer) ambush site is the rear of a gentle hill (safer because the enemy has to halt 100p from you, so being just behind the crest will always allow you the downslope advantage in combat.
For ambushes like this, you should ideally be right near the centreline, and near one edge of the table. The objectives are twofold - either to quickly take advantage of a good match-up, or to slip around a flank/through a gap before your opponent can respond. They only really work if you're going to be attacking vigorously - otherwise tend to leave the ambushers hung out to dry.
Phil Malthus - Firefall.
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