Scouting maneaters

My opponents keep countering my scouting maneaters by covering their entire deployment zone. It's starting to make me think scout is a wasted ability as deploying a bit further up is not all that effective.... Where do you put them if you can't get to a flank?

Thanks for the help I'm starting to get annoyed that my maneaters are underperforming

I expect them to do two things:
- put everything in the whole deployment zone, so you can't put the maneaters there.
- corner everything, so you never can have a flank.

What I normally do (8 maneaters, 3xGW, 2xAHW, 3xNothing) is put pressure on his weaker flank.
Charge when you can and put a dent/ hole in their line.
Reform when you have won combat and now you have two advantages:
- his plan failed
- you are where you want to be in turn 2.

The main focus is, that even when they can charge you would win combat.
Just make sure that you are already pointing to the direction you want to go, so when they charge, you can pursue the way you want to.

It is still a huge advantage to place the maneaters last and almost anywhere on the board. You can stil place them in front of or near a unit they can handle. And after the maneaters finished up that unit they can go for a next one in my experience, and mostly in their flank or rear. In my experience, maneaters are fast, mostly because of overrun moves, bringing them in positions that completly disrupt your opponents line and strategy. Placing maneaters 12 inch away is like saying: deal with this or it will deal with you. Combine it with swiftstride and some wits and they will win you battles.

If your opponent spreads his army out over his whole deployment zone, you can counter by deploying in a concentrated fashion, then racing across the board and taking his army bit by bit. Bottom line - anything that affects how your opponent deploys is useful, as you can use it to push him into bad decisions and exploit everything.

My opponents keep countering my scouting maneaters by covering their entire deployment zone. It's starting to make me think scout is a wasted ability as deploying a bit further up is not all that effective.... Where do you put them if you can't get to a flank?

Thanks for the help I'm starting to get annoyed that my maneaters are underperforming

I have opponents doing that, especially after playing them more then once...or if they are just experienced.  Look at it this way...just by changing their deployment, you've already won.  If they want to spread all of their stuff out to address your one scouting unit, then it's easier for you tactically to isolate the units that you think are a big threat and address it.

In my last game my opponent put their biggest and scariest unit on their weak side because they knew I'd be scouting my maneaters there.  Yes, my maneaters died after killing maybe 200 points of guys...so they didn't get their points back.  BUT what happened is that my hoard of ogres and my cannons wiped out everything except for them because their weaker units weren't supported.

If they separate their hammer too far from their anvil, just consider your maneaters a tactical sacrifice....like sabretusks...

kl thanks for the replies.
I think I run into the most problems when I'm playing an army with access to loads of chaff (e.g. O&G, VC). The maneaters are just so far away from support that they get road blocked, redirected and never reach a juicy combat :/