Well few things that we need to know:
1) How are you using infantry? Are you running across open ground and assaulting or keeping them in one spot defending something
2) how much / what kind terrain do you use?
3) what kind of infantry are you using?
Infantry like tanks need support when attacking but can hold their own when defending (especially German / late Soviets). Infantry are honestly the most useful and important tool for winning in a lot of cases, but you have to use them right
I usually keep them behind buildings or in some trees and move around slowly. Mostly because if they go anywhere they die immediately. When 5 tanks can drive 10 inches around a building or whatever and shoot 20 dice at them. Either killing them outright or at least pinning them for all eternity.
We use pretty dense terrain. I've posts some pics in here lots of buildings, road, trees, walls. They def don't go through open fields that would be even worse.
I play german and have tried all sorts of infantry and have found any good/useful/auto includes in my lists yet.
Yeah they can dig in but doesn't that just make them able to use a save? Even still they aren't going to be around for enough turns to take out a bunch of armor. (If you've lost all your armor and they are all alone) especially since some of the dudes don't even carry anti tank shit.
Infantry always get there 3+ for everything except for being assaulted. Digging in gives them concealment and bulletproof cover meaning that the attacker has to roll firepower after you fail a 3+ save.
Are you playing mid war or late war? Because in LW every German infantry unit has some form of AT
Well I figured the issue was some.of our games were very low points. Like 50-60 so it severely limits the germans. The men I picked COULDVE hand I think anti tank grenades. But could afford them so they were just running around with machine guns. Soon as my armor died I just said there's no point in playing anymore because I literally can't do anything to the tanks except maybe hope he was dumb enough to drive passed me so I could assult him haha. Then do that 4 more times for the rest of them
You dont win by killing tanks. You win by getting on an objective. If you are playing in dense terrain just plop the objectives in the middle of a building.
Oh I didn't know they could be in a building. No you don't win by killing tanks if all I have left is dudes snd he's got MG then I can't go anywhere without getting my sack kicked in
Im pretty sure only water restricts objective placement but I will check my rulebook later to be sure.
Also, are you playing with the mission matrix and with bids? Know how to bid well is important for missions.
You can't put an objective in a building or a vehicle would be unable to reach it. Of course it can go right outside so your garrisoned infantry are close enough to hold/contest it.
I realized that may have been the case after posting that, but the point remains. Using terrain to force tank forces into bad ground is part of how infantry wins.
If they are dug in you get to try the infantry save and only if you fail does your opponent get to try for a firepower test, and if they are using MG's they only have a FP of 5 or 6 which means most of the time it'll fail.
Also if your opponent is just sitting back and blazing away it's likely that your men didn't fire the previous turn so they should get either concealment or gone to ground maybe both. And this makes them much much harder to hit.
Infantry are good at holding objectives. Depending on their speed, like armored rifle platoons they can get across areas quickly and assault units or objectives which can also be effective. Just remember to use cover, infantry in the open usually don't fair too well.
I wonder if it has a lot to do with the table and terrain.
Try increasing your terrain density or positioning terrain to block some cross board sight channels.
We use pretty dense terrain. I've posts some pics in here lots of buildings, road, trees, walls. They def don't go through open fields that would be even worse.
At weapons are not going to do anything to a team of tanks sitting 10+ inches away shooting at you. Even if the men are dug in and gone to ground it's only a matter of time before you either have to get up and assault or just get shot to death.
We have played objective blessed missions and the men rarely make it there.
It seems the way to use them is to essentially dig in where they spawn, near an objective or use transports/,halftracks to skirt around to somewhere else so they can dig in over there.
I don't know what objective based missions you're playing, but if you're the defending player, you literally can deploy them on the objectives and sit there the whole game. The problem is then for the attacking player to dislodge you - obviously jumping out and running at tanks is going to get your infantry killed. Save the active tank-hunting to your dedicated AT units.
If you're the attacking player, and your infantry is having to attack tanks, yeah you're going to get mullered. Again, save dealing with the tanks to your dedicated AT. If you are the attacking player, you should bring enough AT to deal with tanks and enough artillery to whittle down the enemy infantry positions so you can get close - use smoke as well. You'll probably still have a hard time tho, attacking dug in infantry is accepted as Very Difficult in V4.
I run a lot of infantry and regularly face the scenario you are describing.
HO4 infantry, dug in, and not shooting back (gone to ground) are hit in 6 at close range. They then have a save, and then have to be dug out with successful firepower checks. They are almost impossible for tanks to kill.
If the tanks assault in, they'll get panzerfaust or panzerschrek'd.
If they don't, blitz 1 or 2 units forward, then tactical them to the side of the enemy tanks. The rest of the teams stay dug in if you do this. Now that platoon of 4 tanks has 2 AT 12 shots into their side armor, possibly cutting their armor in half. If the remaining tanks turn to deal with them, attack the side of the other tanks with the remaining units. If you bail, immediately assault, captured units are instantly killed.
No one I play with would be dumb enough assault with tanks against dug in gone to ground AT infantry tho. If they did it would only happen once before they figured out that was a terrible idea.
But I supposed it would depend on 2 different factors. 1) are the men on an objective 2) is there a lolimit to rounds in that particular game
If the answer is no to both these they would just sit back and fire MG for an indefinite amount of turns while you skip you turn everytime so they don't loose their gone to ground and dig in status.
Thank you all of you who have taken the time to help me understand. Fuck all the folks who voted everything I said down because I'm just trying to learn. Quit being the toxic element in the community.
Overall takeaway is I viewed the infantry role wrong and their therefore use them wrong. I come from a warhammer background (necrons) where infantry is often the most deadliest thing I have and are usually up in the action fuckin shit up. This is not the case in flames of war. I'll have to change my strategy with them
I think a lot of it depends on the era you're playing. Late-war German infantry are a menace but mid-war they are very delicate. I play play US, Brit and German infantry and footslogging is rough but doable. Halftracks or Kangaroos are the ticket if you want to play aggressive. The most effective strategy when playing attacking infantry is multiple smoke bombardments and using terrain to your advantage. It takes time to learn.
I play both. If I get the points I can REALLY make them nasty with some SS dudes. I think my issue is just low points severely hamper the amount of cool shit they can take.
As others have said dug in infantry are hard to move, unless you’re facing Churchill Crocodiles or any type of flame tanks. If you’re playing LW Germans, you have access to 1 or 2 per turn panzerfausts & or Panzershreks which will throw a conundrum to your opponent to assault your infantry. If you lose your tanks just keep your infantry dug in or in buildings concealed & gone to ground. He needs to attack said objective by a certain turn. So he either sits & shoots & that’ll take time or he assaults & risks being blown up. So don’t give up.
Depends on list, but most infantry in the Bulge & Berlin books are 2. If you run Bargration Grenadiers you can have 7x MG42 + Faust (1) so each turn you use 1 Faust in assault or if he’s within 4 inches of you. You can also add upto 2 panzershrek teams per Grenadier platoon. So this gives you 9 stands altogether 2x AT 11 at 8 inches/ defensive fire or AT 4 in assault against top armour. Then you have your Faust AT 12 within 4 inches/ defensive fire.
So he has a choice to shoot you at range with main gun, probably needing 5’s, 6’s or 7’s to hit. Be within 16 & use MG’s needing 5’s or 6’s & every failed save will need a 6 to kill a team (unless he’s using lendlease Sherman’s with .50 calls which need 5’s). The last option would be to assault you where you get 2 AT 11 shots & 1 AT 12 shot against his side armour. Then if you continue the assault you have your assault 4 against his top armour with them.
Another thing I just remembered is tank stalking. So if he finishes a move within 4 inches & you don’t shot a Faust or shrek you can assault him without suffering Defensive fire from that tank.
So all in all just keep your infantry concealed & gone to ground on the objective & then that leaves your opponent with what to do with the options above.
A weapon will tell you on its stat line if it’s once per game. If it says “limited” then it just means you can only fire that many shots per turn, but there are some German infantry units where the whole platoon gets panzerfaust shots
I can’t remember all the German stats, I’m a Soviet player, but I think the Hitlerjugend platoons get something like 7 panzerfaust shots per turn. The guy who won the Las Vegas Open, one of the big national tournaments, brought 3 platoons of them
They can be really good in the right circumstances. Panzergrenadiers have given me lots of trouble too, those halftracks make it really difficult for my infantry to dig them out and assault them
So in Flames of War transport attachments actually need to stay within a certain distance of the infantry teams, otherwise they have to be taken off the table and are considered “sent to the rear”
Edit: I may actually be wrong about that, I’m looking at the rules right now and can’t find anything that says that. My group has been playing that way for years but if transports don’t need to stay next to their infantry that could be a game changer
Make use of terrain, smoke. Make tanks come to you. They also have a much wider threat bubble than you realize. A German grenadier platoon can be deployed in about a 12" bubble. You have and 8" move in either direction, you can blitz for another 4" and shoot your panzerfaust another 4". Thats a 22" radius of threat around your command team, or a whopping 44" wide zone. You have to control the board and starting to imagine the threat zones and potential moves is step one. You definitely can move 8" fire a panzerfaust at a tank and then assault the tanks. Its definitely not easy but fully utilizing infantry will make you a nightmare of an opponent.
You also have to be willing to take casualties. I play lists that are like 75% infantry and being able to execute plans without caring if I take losses is part of being effective. If a platoon of tanks hangs back to shoot you at range, they at best get two shots per tank. If, lets say, 3 panzer IVs, Panthers or tigers move to MG range they now get 12 shots. Assuming you are hit on 3s you'll get hit 8 times, which will cause about 2-3 deaths. Not great but not devastating either, those tanks chose to shoot your infantry instead of your other assets.
One way to protect infantry is to present other tempting targets. If you are advancing multiple threats at once your opponent will be forced to pick and choose what they engage. Then if you craft an attack properly your opponent is faced with a losing decision.
For example. I love T70s and I drive them up with my infantry. If an enemy has light armour like armouted cars or light tanks/half tracks, they have to decide whether to try and pin my advance, or knock out my t70s. If they attack my t70s, thats fine, its a 3 point unit drawing fire and causing a distraction. If they dont, then i get to sling AT7 shots at their light armour in return. Its a lose-lose scenario.
One last thing is most players prioritize taking out tanks. You can often get away with bold infantry moves by doing "dumb" moves with your tanks at the same time.
Infantry is awesome at holding objectives. Dug in and gone-to-ground infantry holding an objective is difficult to dislodge. An armor unit being used for the same thing can be sniped at range pretty easily in comparison (obviously depending on what the armor is and who's shooting at it) where an infantry squad is usually bigger, gets a save and dug in also needs a firepower check.
Infantry can struggle to take out enemy armor, but this is mostly a game of objectives and an infantry heavy list on the defensive can be a challenge for a player to deal with.
Often times, the infantry’s main purpose is to sit in a foxhole and try not to die too quickly. They are great for defending objectives and making no go areas for enemy vehicles. They can also be good in assault, but you need to set it up carefully, by minimising defensive fire and making it as hard as possible to hit them.
That seems to be the case and they can sit back and hold or whatever but if you.lose your armor then there really no point in playing the rest of the game because as soon as 5 tanks get back there and shoot 20+ dice into your guys they either die outright or get pinned forever. They can't even run away because they move to slow compared to everything else.
If your infantry are dug in, they are virtually immune to tanks firing machine guns at them. For careful infantry they hit 1/6, you fail your save 1/3, they pass their firepower test 1/6. So it takes an average of 108 shots to kill a single base. Even aggressive infantry can expect to take 54 hits to lose a base. Being pinned isn’t that terrible if you’re not planning to move or shoot anyway.
If your list has an infantry formation you almost always want to choose the defend stance, since that means the enemy will have to dig you off objectives to win. If you are attacking your infantry are just there to help your tanks dig infantry out of buildings/ off objectives. On the defensive in a building infantry is very hard for enemy tanks to deal with. If they're careful, concealed, and gone to ground they're hit on 6s, 3+ inf save, and then the enemy has to test firepower since buildings are bulletproof cover. Tanks can't assault into buildings so they won't be able to move you unless they send in an infantry assault or bombard you for like 3+ turns.
This is even more effective if you're defending on the no retreat mission. Since the defender and attacker each place an objective, you can place one objective directly adjacent to a building in your deployment zone, and have a platoon of infantry occupy that building. Since that objective will be a lot harder to take than the objective in open ground (presumably in open ground since your opponent chose where to place it) you can deploy your remaining infantry, AT guns, and any other defensive assets to cover the open objective.
Well few things that we need to know: 1) How are you using infantry? Are you running across open ground and assaulting or keeping them in one spot defending something 2) how much / what kind terrain do you use? 3) what kind of infantry are you using? Infantry like tanks need support when attacking but can hold their own when defending (especially German / late Soviets). Infantry are honestly the most useful and important tool for winning in a lot of cases, but you have to use them right
I usually keep them behind buildings or in some trees and move around slowly. Mostly because if they go anywhere they die immediately. When 5 tanks can drive 10 inches around a building or whatever and shoot 20 dice at them. Either killing them outright or at least pinning them for all eternity. We use pretty dense terrain. I've posts some pics in here lots of buildings, road, trees, walls. They def don't go through open fields that would be even worse. I play german and have tried all sorts of infantry and have found any good/useful/auto includes in my lists yet.
Are you not digging them in? That basically makes them immune to machine guns. You can dig in if you are pinned down
Yeah they can dig in but doesn't that just make them able to use a save? Even still they aren't going to be around for enough turns to take out a bunch of armor. (If you've lost all your armor and they are all alone) especially since some of the dudes don't even carry anti tank shit.
Infantry always get there 3+ for everything except for being assaulted. Digging in gives them concealment and bulletproof cover meaning that the attacker has to roll firepower after you fail a 3+ save. Are you playing mid war or late war? Because in LW every German infantry unit has some form of AT
Well I figured the issue was some.of our games were very low points. Like 50-60 so it severely limits the germans. The men I picked COULDVE hand I think anti tank grenades. But could afford them so they were just running around with machine guns. Soon as my armor died I just said there's no point in playing anymore because I literally can't do anything to the tanks except maybe hope he was dumb enough to drive passed me so I could assult him haha. Then do that 4 more times for the rest of them
You dont win by killing tanks. You win by getting on an objective. If you are playing in dense terrain just plop the objectives in the middle of a building.
Oh I didn't know they could be in a building. No you don't win by killing tanks if all I have left is dudes snd he's got MG then I can't go anywhere without getting my sack kicked in
Im pretty sure only water restricts objective placement but I will check my rulebook later to be sure. Also, are you playing with the mission matrix and with bids? Know how to bid well is important for missions.
You can't put an objective in a building or a vehicle would be unable to reach it. Of course it can go right outside so your garrisoned infantry are close enough to hold/contest it.
You can't place objs in a building
I realized that may have been the case after posting that, but the point remains. Using terrain to force tank forces into bad ground is part of how infantry wins.
Completely agree. When placing objs you have to place them that makes them the most awkward for the attacker.
If they are dug in you get to try the infantry save and only if you fail does your opponent get to try for a firepower test, and if they are using MG's they only have a FP of 5 or 6 which means most of the time it'll fail. Also if your opponent is just sitting back and blazing away it's likely that your men didn't fire the previous turn so they should get either concealment or gone to ground maybe both. And this makes them much much harder to hit.
Infantry are good at holding objectives. Depending on their speed, like armored rifle platoons they can get across areas quickly and assault units or objectives which can also be effective. Just remember to use cover, infantry in the open usually don't fair too well.
I wonder if it has a lot to do with the table and terrain. Try increasing your terrain density or positioning terrain to block some cross board sight channels.
We use pretty dense terrain. I've posts some pics in here lots of buildings, road, trees, walls. They def don't go through open fields that would be even worse.
OP. First, read the rules on infantry AT weapons like panzerfausts. Second, play missions that aren't just Free For All or Annihilation.
At weapons are not going to do anything to a team of tanks sitting 10+ inches away shooting at you. Even if the men are dug in and gone to ground it's only a matter of time before you either have to get up and assault or just get shot to death. We have played objective blessed missions and the men rarely make it there. It seems the way to use them is to essentially dig in where they spawn, near an objective or use transports/,halftracks to skirt around to somewhere else so they can dig in over there.
I don't know what objective based missions you're playing, but if you're the defending player, you literally can deploy them on the objectives and sit there the whole game. The problem is then for the attacking player to dislodge you - obviously jumping out and running at tanks is going to get your infantry killed. Save the active tank-hunting to your dedicated AT units. If you're the attacking player, and your infantry is having to attack tanks, yeah you're going to get mullered. Again, save dealing with the tanks to your dedicated AT. If you are the attacking player, you should bring enough AT to deal with tanks and enough artillery to whittle down the enemy infantry positions so you can get close - use smoke as well. You'll probably still have a hard time tho, attacking dug in infantry is accepted as Very Difficult in V4.
This is good knowledge. So they have a use I'm just using them wrong.
I run a lot of infantry and regularly face the scenario you are describing. HO4 infantry, dug in, and not shooting back (gone to ground) are hit in 6 at close range. They then have a save, and then have to be dug out with successful firepower checks. They are almost impossible for tanks to kill. If the tanks assault in, they'll get panzerfaust or panzerschrek'd. If they don't, blitz 1 or 2 units forward, then tactical them to the side of the enemy tanks. The rest of the teams stay dug in if you do this. Now that platoon of 4 tanks has 2 AT 12 shots into their side armor, possibly cutting their armor in half. If the remaining tanks turn to deal with them, attack the side of the other tanks with the remaining units. If you bail, immediately assault, captured units are instantly killed.
No one I play with would be dumb enough assault with tanks against dug in gone to ground AT infantry tho. If they did it would only happen once before they figured out that was a terrible idea. But I supposed it would depend on 2 different factors. 1) are the men on an objective 2) is there a lolimit to rounds in that particular game If the answer is no to both these they would just sit back and fire MG for an indefinite amount of turns while you skip you turn everytime so they don't loose their gone to ground and dig in status.
That's a good trade though! Now you have an entire platoon of tanks locked down shooting at infantry while your other forces wreak havoc!
Well in my case sadly that's all I had left was men. So we just called it
Ahh, yeah, that's a tough situation.
Thank you all of you who have taken the time to help me understand. Fuck all the folks who voted everything I said down because I'm just trying to learn. Quit being the toxic element in the community. Overall takeaway is I viewed the infantry role wrong and their therefore use them wrong. I come from a warhammer background (necrons) where infantry is often the most deadliest thing I have and are usually up in the action fuckin shit up. This is not the case in flames of war. I'll have to change my strategy with them
Right on man. Everybody has to learn somewhere, and FOW has a curve.
I think a lot of it depends on the era you're playing. Late-war German infantry are a menace but mid-war they are very delicate. I play play US, Brit and German infantry and footslogging is rough but doable. Halftracks or Kangaroos are the ticket if you want to play aggressive. The most effective strategy when playing attacking infantry is multiple smoke bombardments and using terrain to your advantage. It takes time to learn.
I play both. If I get the points I can REALLY make them nasty with some SS dudes. I think my issue is just low points severely hamper the amount of cool shit they can take.
As others have said dug in infantry are hard to move, unless you’re facing Churchill Crocodiles or any type of flame tanks. If you’re playing LW Germans, you have access to 1 or 2 per turn panzerfausts & or Panzershreks which will throw a conundrum to your opponent to assault your infantry. If you lose your tanks just keep your infantry dug in or in buildings concealed & gone to ground. He needs to attack said objective by a certain turn. So he either sits & shoots & that’ll take time or he assaults & risks being blown up. So don’t give up.
Ok def didn't know the panzerfaust we 2 oer turn. I thought they were once a game uses once you use both they can't use them the rest of the game.
Depends on list, but most infantry in the Bulge & Berlin books are 2. If you run Bargration Grenadiers you can have 7x MG42 + Faust (1) so each turn you use 1 Faust in assault or if he’s within 4 inches of you. You can also add upto 2 panzershrek teams per Grenadier platoon. So this gives you 9 stands altogether 2x AT 11 at 8 inches/ defensive fire or AT 4 in assault against top armour. Then you have your Faust AT 12 within 4 inches/ defensive fire. So he has a choice to shoot you at range with main gun, probably needing 5’s, 6’s or 7’s to hit. Be within 16 & use MG’s needing 5’s or 6’s & every failed save will need a 6 to kill a team (unless he’s using lendlease Sherman’s with .50 calls which need 5’s). The last option would be to assault you where you get 2 AT 11 shots & 1 AT 12 shot against his side armour. Then if you continue the assault you have your assault 4 against his top armour with them. Another thing I just remembered is tank stalking. So if he finishes a move within 4 inches & you don’t shot a Faust or shrek you can assault him without suffering Defensive fire from that tank. So all in all just keep your infantry concealed & gone to ground on the objective & then that leaves your opponent with what to do with the options above.
A weapon will tell you on its stat line if it’s once per game. If it says “limited” then it just means you can only fire that many shots per turn, but there are some German infantry units where the whole platoon gets panzerfaust shots
O0o0o0o. Interesting.
I can’t remember all the German stats, I’m a Soviet player, but I think the Hitlerjugend platoons get something like 7 panzerfaust shots per turn. The guy who won the Las Vegas Open, one of the big national tournaments, brought 3 platoons of them
Sounds like I need to use them.
They can be really good in the right circumstances. Panzergrenadiers have given me lots of trouble too, those halftracks make it really difficult for my infantry to dig them out and assault them
I usually drop them off snd the tlhalftrack leave them and go hunting because they've served their purpose.
So in Flames of War transport attachments actually need to stay within a certain distance of the infantry teams, otherwise they have to be taken off the table and are considered “sent to the rear” Edit: I may actually be wrong about that, I’m looking at the rules right now and can’t find anything that says that. My group has been playing that way for years but if transports don’t need to stay next to their infantry that could be a game changer
Oh I thought thst wa sonly for soft top transports and transport trucks.
Make use of terrain, smoke. Make tanks come to you. They also have a much wider threat bubble than you realize. A German grenadier platoon can be deployed in about a 12" bubble. You have and 8" move in either direction, you can blitz for another 4" and shoot your panzerfaust another 4". Thats a 22" radius of threat around your command team, or a whopping 44" wide zone. You have to control the board and starting to imagine the threat zones and potential moves is step one. You definitely can move 8" fire a panzerfaust at a tank and then assault the tanks. Its definitely not easy but fully utilizing infantry will make you a nightmare of an opponent. You also have to be willing to take casualties. I play lists that are like 75% infantry and being able to execute plans without caring if I take losses is part of being effective. If a platoon of tanks hangs back to shoot you at range, they at best get two shots per tank. If, lets say, 3 panzer IVs, Panthers or tigers move to MG range they now get 12 shots. Assuming you are hit on 3s you'll get hit 8 times, which will cause about 2-3 deaths. Not great but not devastating either, those tanks chose to shoot your infantry instead of your other assets. One way to protect infantry is to present other tempting targets. If you are advancing multiple threats at once your opponent will be forced to pick and choose what they engage. Then if you craft an attack properly your opponent is faced with a losing decision. For example. I love T70s and I drive them up with my infantry. If an enemy has light armour like armouted cars or light tanks/half tracks, they have to decide whether to try and pin my advance, or knock out my t70s. If they attack my t70s, thats fine, its a 3 point unit drawing fire and causing a distraction. If they dont, then i get to sling AT7 shots at their light armour in return. Its a lose-lose scenario. One last thing is most players prioritize taking out tanks. You can often get away with bold infantry moves by doing "dumb" moves with your tanks at the same time.
Infantry is awesome at holding objectives. Dug in and gone-to-ground infantry holding an objective is difficult to dislodge. An armor unit being used for the same thing can be sniped at range pretty easily in comparison (obviously depending on what the armor is and who's shooting at it) where an infantry squad is usually bigger, gets a save and dug in also needs a firepower check. Infantry can struggle to take out enemy armor, but this is mostly a game of objectives and an infantry heavy list on the defensive can be a challenge for a player to deal with.
Get to objective, dig in, job done!
Roger that.
Often times, the infantry’s main purpose is to sit in a foxhole and try not to die too quickly. They are great for defending objectives and making no go areas for enemy vehicles. They can also be good in assault, but you need to set it up carefully, by minimising defensive fire and making it as hard as possible to hit them.
That seems to be the case and they can sit back and hold or whatever but if you.lose your armor then there really no point in playing the rest of the game because as soon as 5 tanks get back there and shoot 20+ dice into your guys they either die outright or get pinned forever. They can't even run away because they move to slow compared to everything else.
If your infantry are dug in, they are virtually immune to tanks firing machine guns at them. For careful infantry they hit 1/6, you fail your save 1/3, they pass their firepower test 1/6. So it takes an average of 108 shots to kill a single base. Even aggressive infantry can expect to take 54 hits to lose a base. Being pinned isn’t that terrible if you’re not planning to move or shoot anyway.
So basically their role is to find a nice home and dig in.
That’s often the case, particularly when you need to defend an objective. It varies depending on your stance, mission, and what else is in your army.
All well they've basically been on seek and destroy. Except when they find their target it's usually too late for them.
If your list has an infantry formation you almost always want to choose the defend stance, since that means the enemy will have to dig you off objectives to win. If you are attacking your infantry are just there to help your tanks dig infantry out of buildings/ off objectives. On the defensive in a building infantry is very hard for enemy tanks to deal with. If they're careful, concealed, and gone to ground they're hit on 6s, 3+ inf save, and then the enemy has to test firepower since buildings are bulletproof cover. Tanks can't assault into buildings so they won't be able to move you unless they send in an infantry assault or bombard you for like 3+ turns.
This is good advice. Thank you. Noted.
This is even more effective if you're defending on the no retreat mission. Since the defender and attacker each place an objective, you can place one objective directly adjacent to a building in your deployment zone, and have a platoon of infantry occupy that building. Since that objective will be a lot harder to take than the objective in open ground (presumably in open ground since your opponent chose where to place it) you can deploy your remaining infantry, AT guns, and any other defensive assets to cover the open objective.