Hi everyone!
I thought it would be interesting to hear how people tend to use surge. I’ve not played a surge army much, nor really faced one, so I’m really interested in hearing the general (or indeed specific) tactics people use.
Obviously, trying to get a flank, but how exactly? I can think of a few ways that might work, but i imagine there are some “classic” surge tactics.
There are a few ways you can use it - some more sensible than others - and it does depend a lot on the army you are playing against/with.
As a general need you will need multiple casters and it helps if they have the ability to multi-cast, get buffs or have artifacts that help (gladestalker druids, supreme ironcaster, stone priests - amulet of fire heart, crown of wizard king, wand of borrowed time). Mobile ones (mounted, flying or boots of levitation) means you can get the caster where you need it.
Shoot then surge - things like ice elementals, upgraded AD golems, EoD guardian archers etc. Move up, shoot something (it doesn’t have to be the unit you are planning on going into - but extra wounds are nice) then get surged into combat. Being able to do damage in multiple phases is great.
Nimble flyers - wraiths, air elementals (units & greater) undead wyrm etc. Does what is says on the tin. Move 10, spin to appropriate angle surge get surged in. Better the squarer the unit for ease of placement.
2nd line - use the surgable units as a reserve, being able to cover enemy fliers or get into units that have been stuck in combat with the front row of your army.
Retreat, shoot surge - armies like dwarfs & AD often have lots of short range firepower and a rock hard anvil. Get the enemy engaged with the golems/elementals, back up and shoot them with magic, fire throwers, decimators etc - then surge the rocks back in.
Surge bomb - get a unit to go weeeeeee into the enemy from a surprising distance! EoD and FoN have surgable units with access to scout and plentiful mobile casters and/or those with scout themselves. Deploy badly and all of a sudden you can get surge charged turn one. A guy at the masters used zombie troll hordes backed up with surge 30+ (morgoth, liche with levitation, 2 revenant kings iirc) and could just fire units silly distances.
Awesome, all good stuff! In a 2300 point army with lots of shambling, how many surge carers would you recommend roughly? I realise it will vary s but, but as a rule of thumb
Probably 1 caster for every 2-3 key surgable units (so discounting things like zombie regiments, etc)
The troll launcher was apparently being called The Railgun 
Many of my armies (Salamanders, Trident Realm, Herd, Free Dwarfs) have shambling units, but I’d say this is the only way I use surge. Surge keeps enemy flyers honest and allows for (square) shambling units to push around once melee is joined to grab flanks. All my shamblers are ground-based and non-nimble, so the shenanigan potential is much smaller, and frankly, good players don’t really let you get reliable surge flanks off. I find the tougher the event I’m at, the less I use surge.
That said, if you’re playing with shambling units, if you don’t take surge, that shambling is a pure negative instead of a potential positive. So even just stapling the tome to somebody is a requirement. Water Elementals are the only thing I’ve run without a surge caster in the list, as Sp 7 helps them stay relevant without support.
Another surge tactic, you can use it to charge through woods you otherwise couldn’t see through, like when two units are playing chicken and nobody wants to break the tree line to give up LOS. Shamblers can push into the woods and then be surged into contact.
Sometimes I’ll use surge to get extra inches up the table (which I call “exploratory surge” because it’s so random), but I generally see this as a bad idea and only do it if there’s either no downside to rolling max inches, or I don’t care if the surged unit is charged next turn. Like when shoving a Greater Earth up the table 
EDIT: Of if using another (chaff) unit from over-surging into danger, like parking some Mastiffs some inches in front of Earth Elementals and shoving the rocks safely up the table.