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What do you think the most important thing is when one wants to improve their game.

What advice would you give to someone after they lose their games?

Figure out why you lost, and go from there.

It's hard to improve if you don't know why you're losing games. Especially for new players, or old players who don't play a lot of games like me, who often have no idea why we lost one particular game or another.

Newer players have yet to gain much experience. Experience helps a lot, so playing - and yes, losing - a lot of games can definitely help. If you can figure out why you lost - which I'd definitely help with as the new player's opponent, given the opportunity to do so without having it feel like rubbing salt in the wound - and improve on that for the next game, then progress is made. ^_^ I like progress and learning.

I know when I first started playing, I lost a hell of a lot of games. But I kept coming back for more, because I enjoyed playing. My mistake, though I didn't realize it at the time, was that I'd eventually become somewhat frustrated at my losses, and I'd blame the army I was playing. Not because I thought it was a bad army, but because I'd come up with this... I dunno the word for it, but it's basically a silly idea I come up with in my head because it sounds nice, when in reality it's silly... that the army's playstyle and I didn't mesh well. But I'd switch, JUST as I was getting good with my current army.

Keep your chin up, and keep gaming. You will get better, so long as you strive to improve yourself. ^_^

Play it, play it, and play it some more. It takes a long time to get good at anything.

I voted "Stop Blaming Dice", because it just doesn't seem to fit with the rest. If you're blaming dice (or anything, for that matter) you need a swift kick in the pants, because you will never get better with that attitude. That being said, pretty much everything there is important, though the least important one would be "Bring the most effective army". If you get stuck in the classic builds everyone else does, then there's no real way for innovation. Someone had to be crazy enough to say "HEY! What if instead of using Flash Gitz for anti-vehicle, I use Lootas?", or "What if, instead of spamming Boyz, I spam trucks!". I guess what I'm getting at is, the most efficient army is hard to discern, and will only usually be revealed to you once you get up to snuff with all these other things. Make mistakes; they're great, so long as you learn from them.

Not enough people analyze why they lose. Too often they'll blame dice for when they make a stupid move, or say the opponent's army is overpowered because they're using paper to fight the opponent's scissors while the rock is in another part of the field.

Try not to suck...
If I play friends then afterwards we talk about the game what went well what didn't, and what we planned and how that changed as the game developed. An AAR if you will.
That kind of discussion will help you modify your plan, or army composition. Sometimes all your gak can be tight and you still lose. It's a game you get better by playing, so play more.

Been playing since 5th edition came out and at each GT or pseudo high lvl competition I go to. There is always a "new" rule my opponent is glad to bring to my attention and the TO always agrees.

So obviously the answer is to know your rules, so that your opponent doesn't run over impassable terrain, claim benefits from area terrain he's not actually in, and oh so many more.

The best way to get better at 40k is to have a tutor. a mentor and teacher to help you master tactical Genius.

you all know the only way to get better at 40k is CREED!

I've gotten better when I stopped looking at "net lists".

I drew the line when I had enough of the idea of "take Kroot and jam them down YOUR throat, your family's throats, your neighbors throats, all the while as they take up a "cheap" amount of space in your list to do nothing but sit and die" was their same theme.

So far I've gotten better without have to use those, things.

Stop trying to play just for a win. This is easy, if you're playing the game just to try and win, you shouldn't be playing at all. You should play warhammer for fun plain and simple. Nobody likes the ass who always does everything they can to get a W, even if that means taking the most dirty army that exploits the rules they can think of. A game of warhammer if telling a story. Win or lose if everybody had a good time and a good story was told that's all that matters. I usually just pick a selection of my fav. models, and throw them out there results be damned, just because it's more fun that way. It's almost always the guys that are there just to win that never have anything painted. If you really care about getting better, just play more games, and focus on having a good time along the way. Playing with an army that you took the time to paint yourself will change how you look at the entire hobby in the first place. Play for fun, and you'll get better as a result.

Victorious 40k wins first and then plays the game, while defeated one plays the game and seeks to win.

Its a combination of just playing a ton of games and assessing how each of your units do in each game along with the context in how they did and trying out different types of units and unconventional squad loadouts. How you play each unit also affects the turnout of how the unit does.

For example, fielding three single deffkopters with rockets might have gone bad for you in 5 straight games but maybe its because you started them out on the table when you really you should have been outflanking to get side armour of vehicles.

I think the most important thing to do when someone loses a game is to be objective about it and not take a sort of editorial viewpoint on it. In other words, be nytimes, not fox news when reviewing your games.

Know the rules.
If you know what your army can do, and you know what your opponents army can do then you're on to a good start.
You need to identify strengths and weaknesses in both forces.
Put your strength against their weakness and prevent them doing the same thing to you.

Shoot the assault units and assault the shooting units.

Know what your opponent is good at, then don't let them do it.

Practice helps, because these things come with experience.

Also, always remember the objective.

I don't know how many games I've won because my opponent lost sight of the victory conditions.

Its definatly a mix of things.
I know most rules, know most of the codex's, but i still don't win all that many games. I could blame the CSM codex, but that would be wrong because i still win sometimes, just not as often as i would like.

40k is a Tactical game, that starts from the point of building your list. You need to know what to do in game, to know what to take in your list. In game you need to get the right balance for your army, against the army you are facing. No two games will go exactly the same, its hard to work out really, when it comes to dice its all luck which makes it hard to rely on anything happening right all the time.

marv335 seems to have a pretty good list of what you need to be doing....

I voted for playing lots of games, but there are several that are equally important IMO.

Knowing the rules inside out is a massive help, not only for your own army, but all of them if at all possible. At least all of the ones you regularly fight. PLaying lots of gaimes is vital, but if you don't analyse your games, realise what went wrong and why it went wrong, the extra games are pointless.

Definitely play more games.But,i found that after a loss ( and i have a LOT of those ),i talk to all my friends at my FLGC.

It has helped me a lot,just sitting down after and as AustonT said,have,what is essentially an AAR.Looking at opportunities missed in a game with a friend is always good.

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:Been playing since 5th edition came out and at each GT or pseudo high lvl competition I go to. There is always a "new" rule my opponent is glad to bring to my attention and the TO always agrees.

So obviously the answer is to know your rules, so that your opponent doesn't run over impassable terrain, claim benefits from area terrain he's not actually in, and oh so many more.

I agree with this.

40K is a fairly simple game except for the complexity of several sections of core rules (e.g LoS, wound allocation) and especially the amount of special rules in the different codexes.

You need to learn the special rules for your own and opposing armies to avoid getting into "I didn't know they could do that!" kind of situations.

Friendly players will usually explain their important special rules at the start of a game however it is difficult to remember them all.

It's no one of those things. If you play a lot and don't think about why you lost you won't get anywhere. If you play little but over analyse you won't have as broad a base of experience to draw on.

The best players in my experience have a solid knowledge of the rules, lots of playing experience, a willingness to think and learn from their mistakes and good list building skills.

Also, having a good attitude to the game shouldnt be overlooked.

combo. You have to play alot of games, keep up with new codexes and with current faq/erratta, and always reflec ton past games and what you can do differently

Knowing the rules and what armies can do ranks up there for me. Even though i hate to say it, but knowing the rules means knowing how to abuse them to your benefit. (but please don't be TFG.)

second would be just playing lots of games, playing games will give you lots of tactical skills that are needed to win.

Knowing the rules and playing the game a lot are two viable options if you want to get really good at the game ('ard boys comes to mind) since the game really is a lot about rules wrangling and not making the mistakes.

However, if you want to get good at the game, I'd say would be "stop trying to win". If all you do is strive to win, you're losing focus on what's important, which is to have fun.
You're two at the table and one of you is going to lose and chances are the other guy's your friend, so it's better if both of you can enjoy it regardless of the outcome.

Stop blaming anything, always look for the truth. Instead of blaming dice do the math. Instead of complaining about "cheese" learn how to beat it. Build your lists to be strong in the scenarios you will be facing or if you are going somewhere with funky random homebrew scenarios know that this is beyond your control and just relax.

Play lots of games. As much as you can. You can get lots of quick playtest experience by just playing out the first two turns and starting over. Find a playtest partner that is more interested in learning than winning your playtest game. Talk out deployment and every aspect of the game as you are playing to find the optimal decision. When you playtest don't roll to see who goes first, play it both ways in two games. Once you can see how your army does going first as well as second you will be alot closer to "freeing your mind".

Know the rules. Read all the army books until you are familiar with most of your opponents stuff. Always ask to see the codex when you aren't familiar with something, they could easily be wrong but well intentioned. Read the FAQs periodically.

Brother SRM wrote:Not enough people analyze why they lose. Too often they'll blame dice for when they make a stupid move, or say the opponent's army is overpowered because they're using paper to fight the opponent's scissors while the rock is in another part of the field.

A very nice way of putting it actually.
The main reason why I did say to stop blaming dice si because there are times when it is the dice's fault. For instance, that classic story of a Guardsmen beating a GD in melee. Did anyone make a mistake? Probably not, unless the IG player wanted to send the Guardsmen, but that could have been to slow him down for a turn or two.
In that case, the dice ruined Chaos players unit. Not him.

Id say know the rules the best you can, and after that, think about why/how you lost everytime. Youll figure out how to get better after awhile. So I guess play alot of games would add to that as well

I would something that has helped me to improve in wargaming is to watch other people game-especially if they have the same army as you-and talking to them afterwards about why they did certain things.

To get better at anything in life, you gotta keep playing and playing!

However I selected Analyse why you lose.

You can keep ploughing away indefinitely, but if your not prepared to sit down and think why is something not working, your essentially wasting a games worth of improvement becuase you'll keep making the same mistakes again and again til it eventually sinks in.

No advice is 100% on a unit. I have had people tell me my assault marines are garbage for Vanilla marines. yet I win games VS good players with them. why? because its how you make them work not how it looks on paper comparing it to another unit.

I have lost game where I am satisfied on my tactics and wouldn't have changed anything. why? because simply put my dice rolls are terrible. and I don't mean
bad I mean TERRIBLE!!! but it doesn't anger me I see it as a training weight to push myself even further. and if you want an example of my rolls.

5 sternguard rapid fire and I literally roll 7, 1s. and 2, 2s. I get 1 wound and he makes his save.
10 sternguard rapid fire the 3+ AP round, gets hot I kill 5 of my own guys and kill 2 of his.
11 las cannon shots, 9 thunder hammer attacks, 3 dreadnaught attacks, 3 multi melta shots at 1 yes ONE!! stormraven. I never destroyed it and it contested my objective losing me the game.
I shot a total of 6 vindicator shots at a squad of thunderwolf cavalry through a whole game and killed 0 of them with them.


I kid you not these are average games for me. even all my friends constantly laugh and joke about my terrible rolls.
In the past 12 games I have gone 1st once and never managed to seized.

but guess what? I win most of the games I play. I never allow anger or frustration to effect me. I simply think of a new strategy or tactic to make up for bad rolls or mistakes. and with this attitude you achieve more. Simply accepting reality allows me to move on.

That's why the games I lose I tend to be satisfied with how I played. it's just a fact that tactics can only take you so far and the dice rolls carry you the rest of the way.

As a new player I believe the most important thing (other than playing a lot of games to gain exp) is to analyze your mistakes after each fight. It should be rather easy if you talk about the game with your opponent. This way he will point to your weaknesses at once (since he took advantage of them and won !duh!). Post-game analysis lets say

If you lose, you're the only one to blame. If you want to win, you must improve your list, learn strategies, watch the experts play, ask people in forums, read blogs, revise your strategies, analize your mistakes and play a lot of games.

shoot the stabby ones!
stab the shooty ones!