Hey guys! First time posting in here, and it's to ask the community for help. We don't have a very large pool of players in my town, so I don't get to play very often, and whenever I do, it feels like I'm always on my back heel and always losing. I originally played Waiqar, though I've picked up Uthuk Y'llan because I really like the look and design of the faction.

I'm not really looking for specific counters to specific scenarios; yes, I've run into the problem of facing a Death Star and I know the specific card configuration to potentially counter it, but I'm feeling like I'm missing something in general tactics. Maybe it's because I'm not getting to play as often as I could and, thus, not learning as much as I could. Are there any general tips and advice that you guys could give in order to help me out? Or are there resources that I'm unaware of that I can use to help learn while I'm unable to play?

Having played a good amount of deathstar blocks, they have two main weaknesses:

1. The size reduces the total number of units you can take
2. A big unit gets less actions than multiple smaller units

Capitalizing on these weaknesses is the way to overcome them. There are a couple of ways to use each.

First, fewer total units. This will mostly play into objectives. Certain objectives will allow you to easily control the objective points because you just have more units than them. In rotation right now is Supply Raid and Demoralize Their Forces , both of which having more units can allow you to get a big advantage.

It also gives you the advantage in positioning. You have more units to move and take positions, where they mostly have to blunder around their deathstar.

Secondly, fewer actions is a downside to a big unit. If I'm playing a 100 point deathstar, that's 100 points that gets 8 actions, max, a game. Denying those actions value can severely neuter a unit. Forcing them to go around terrain, making them miss a charge, canceling their dials, or feeding them cheap and disposable units, etc. If a 100 point unit of spearmen spend eight turns and kills two solo Spined Threshers the whole game, you're doing well.

Moral of the story, spending 80+ points on a single unit can make them extremely dangerous. But if they're forced to do anything besides charging and attacking, they're not going to be worthwhile.

Also, due to the way scoring works, killing one tray can be worth nearly 20 points. Killing a tray then running away for the rest of the game can be fun too.

Are you familiar with the dials of your opponent's units? The following threads contain dial reference sheets made by members of the community. You can either study them and commit them to memory, or print them out to reference during a game. Knowing your enemy is as important as knowing yourself.

Deathstars?

If it's a big unit run a single carrion lancer as a flanker, hit it, then each round go extra armor. 3 rounds of doing nothing will screw him up.

Blight is your friend, Hit with 2 or more and he'll be burning inspiration or rallying to get rid it.

Archers with Ardus is a 2x1 with rank discipline, wind rune, with Maru a 2x2 with wind rune are dancing and shooting fools and hard to pin down.

Note about Ardus, don't charge forward with him, use him to hit units that are engaged or flanked.

If you're always feeling like you're on your back heel, it could be that you are playing too much of a reactionary game. Perhaps you are so focused on maximizing your actions in the immediate round that you fail to prepare for what's to come. Perhaps you aren't thinking about what each unit needs to accomplish and where/when they need to be in order to accomplish it.

For example, I had a game where my Oathsworn were in a bad position. They were about to be engaged by Death Knights and flanked by a 6-tray Reanimates unit. The immediate reaction is to try to charge first and hope to weather the attacks. Instead, I realized that if I could get out of there, it would catch my opponent off guard because he would be expecting to get attacks but would basically have a dead round. So I did a speed-1 march with the march modifier just to get away from the pincer maneuver. Next turn I was able to reform and the following turn I charged. That did take up a lot of my actions for the game, but in the long run, it was the better play.

As @playnwin and others have said, each unit only gets 8 actions in a game, assuming they don't die too fast. Use that knowledge to plan your commands and anticipate your opponent instead of just reacting. Reviewing each command tool like @Parakitor suggested will help with that.

Lots of great advice here; thanks guys! I'll look over the command dials and work on thinking ahead in the game.