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Testify wrote:

English Assassin wrote:
Warhammer 40,000 is simply a laughably poorly-balanced game; unless you're picking from an underpriced/overpowered army list, you've little choice other than to cheesily spam the most competitive choices available to you.

That is catagorically untrue.
There are people here who've been wildly successful with Eldar (mech and foot), vanilla marines, orks (mech and horde), imperial guard footlists, chaos deamons, chaos marines (of all flavours), Dark Angels (Ravenwing and Deathwing), etc.

Oh really? That'll be why Eldar, Chaos Marines and Daemons are so well-represented in tournament placings? (That is sarcasm, by the way; they're not.) Your anecdotal claims don't count for much in the face of empirical data, and what those data say is that - ignoring occasional exceptions - a few spam lists from a few codices consistently outperform all other possible choices. In the original poster's case, this is particularly profound; the more recent power-armoured codices simply offer either more options, better units for the same cost, or equivalent units for a lesser cost.

Skriker wrote:The key is knowing your units, knowing how to use them AND using the effectively in games. Don't let the enemy units do the jobs they were assigned to do. Gun down the melee monsters and assault the shooting focused troops. Tactics and smart use of your army still account for a lot despite the poor balance and lack of any real point cost comparity across numerous books.

Now that's all true, but unless your opponent is a dunce (and I will admit that our community is not exactly short of them), he'll be doing just the same. Assuming even fortune with the dice, your Chaos Marines will be beaten far more frequently than they'll win if you're playing against an opponent of equal competence and experience who's fielding (for instance) a Long Fang/Razorback spam list; that list will simply put more bolters on the table for the same points cost.

hotsauceman1 wrote:h that is the unmodified list, i put a dread with a drop pod in there in liu of the tact.
But like i said, i have no more bikes, just those two.

Two...squads?

Yeah. Just those two. I do have a scout bike squad though.

Ebay brony, ebay.

Well im feeling alot better, i think i just am going in with thr wrong mindset, im going to go in with the mindset of "Lets socialize over tea and toys" Rather then "Today is the day i win"

hotsauceman1 wrote:Well im feeling alot better, i think i just am going in with thr wrong mindset, im going to go in with the mindset of "Lets socialize over tea and toys" Rather then "Today is the day i win"

And also, if you lose you shouldn't think 'OMG another loss!' but 'Here's what I learned from today's defeat...'

Also, you are a kid. And being new to warhammer, probably havnt mastered the nuances of why you are losing.

Strategy is not instantly mastered, and the quality of your opponents will eventually determine your own level of accomplishment.

Although some basic concepts, such as force multipliers and tactics can be applied to any conflict, You cannot be expected to correctly formulate a consistantly winning battleplan without understanding the strengths, capabilities, and weaknesses of your army, as well as your opponents.

Think of every battle as an opportunity to gather data on what works and what doesn't, but the more important question is "why did it work?"

Once you begin to formulate answers to that question you will find yourself exploiting your opponents weaknesses, rather than the frustration of them exploiting yours.

Good luck man, at te end of the day it's just a nerdy hobby, don't take it too personally

I can sympathize with the OP. I started back in March and have played a few games, and have yet to win any, and it can be a bit disheartening, but it's also been pretty good for figuring out weaknesses of my army and what I need to get as I go, so it's a bit of a mixed bag.
Many of the other things people have been saying are good points, too. New edition means everyone's on a bit more of an even playing field, as nobody knows quite what works and how things work yet.
Another point I'd like to make, too, is to think of it as more than just a game, but a multi-part hobby. I find the painting and building parts of it to be almost as much fun as the battling, not to mention that having a cool looking army to play with will make winning feel that much more rewarding,. Admittedly, this part is a bit YMMV, though.

If winning is important to you, and certainly anyone should be craving a win if they are playing a competitive game, it's probably time for you to take the next steps towards that win.

What are those steps?

1.) Know the rules inside and out.
Read the book, front to back, several times. come to the point where you know it inside and out. If something is unclear, google it, if google can't find the answer, then come to Dakka and ask. This is the first step to winning. You cannot make a winning move unless you know the rules and you can have to wool pulled over your eyes if you aren't clear on the rules.

2.) Know your army inside and out.
Memorize your army's codex. Understand every ability they have. Watch/Read Batreps until you can't find anymore. Study winning army lists. Build the best army list you can come up with and then let Dakka tear it down for you. Rebuild it again. Make 500, 1000, 1500, and 2000 point army lists to practice your list making ability. If you know yourself, then you are half way to winning.

3.) Play. A lot. And without ego.
After you have 1 and 2 down, go play again. Keep it cool. Don't invest your whole being in every roll you make. Don't get red in the face at every model your opponent kills. Just play to play. Play to enjoy the mechanics, the terrain, the models, the culture. And just do what you know you should.

You follow all three of those suggestions, I can promise you, you will win a game, if not a string of games.

But you have to honestly tackle 1 and 2 and get em right. Otherwise all bets are off.

Sometimes, the dice just hate you. My Ravager once spent the entirety of a game shooting and missing the broadside of a fortification. In fact, I don't think that Ravager has hit anything in the two months I've owned it. These things just happen.

Just play as best you can. There really isn't much else to do.

English Assassin wrote:Now that's all true, but unless your opponent is a dunce (and I will admit that our community is not exactly short of them), he'll be doing just the same. Assuming even fortune with the dice, your Chaos Marines will be beaten far more frequently than they'll win if you're playing against an opponent of equal competence and experience who's fielding (for instance) a Long Fang/Razorback spam list; that list will simply put more bolters on the table for the same points cost.

The difference is that plenty of people playing uberlists in the local shops are not great players and are relying on the list to win for them. Even some that are good players are also relying on the list to win for them. That kind of narrow sightedness leads to plenty of losses against supposedly useless armies and plenty of rage because the cool toys from the cool list didn't auto win for them. Playing against long fang/razorback spam can be annoying, but it doesn't equate to an instant loss except against the poorest of opponents.

Skriker


Automatically Appended Next Post:

McNinja wrote:Sometimes, the dice just hate you. My Ravager once spent the entirety of a game shooting and missing the broadside of a fortification. In fact, I don't think that Ravager has hit anything in the two months I've owned it. These things just happen.

Just play as best you can. There really isn't much else to do.

Dice losses are definitely worse than tactical losses. If your tactics are unsound, eventually you can improve them, but bad dice rolling is not something you can control at all. Some people have their "lucky" dice, but losing a game because you rolled horribly throughout is not something you can blame on yourself by any means. Of course this implies that you aren't playing that experimental grot list and every model in your army is a grot with horrible stats which stacks the deck against you rolling effectively in the first place...that would fit in the unsound tactics side of the equation, though.

Skriker

I can't tell what you are doing on the table but when I crush people it is usually because they don't take risks. If you are already losing more than you are winning you might as well make some crazy moves. Luck is 50% of the game.

The other thing that helps is know your armies. All the armies. If you know the weaknesses of another army exploit it on the field. Almost every army has something they are weak at or weak against.

If you have a well rounded army chuck what you know will be mowed down by your opponent right in his face. They wont hesitate to take the low hanging fruit. It is human nature. And while he is grinning over a simple slaughter, you have spent your turns setting up an offense he can't counter. Even better they figure out what you are up to and now are scrambling to compensate and their entire strat is going out the window and you can take advantage. Make it look like you are scattering units but actually set up an offensive. Don't be afraid to sacrifice your pieces. You are playing another person. It may look like your army vs. his but really it is you vs. him. The trick is to get them to move their pieces in response to yours the way you want them to.

Short Version - Luck is #1. Do not think of combat as a numbers game. Know the other armies. Set up traps. Hold Positions with your biggest guns while they are using theirs to slaughter your worst. Learn how to move the opponent around the board. Sacrificing a piece can easily help you win a game. Go nuts because you have been losing allot anyway.

Let me know if this helps.

Biker lists are very hard to play. They've got less than Marine numbers but require Eldar-level precision to play well. It's not an easy army for a newer player to run either, although you tempered that a little with a more mixed list.

As for list advice, those five assault Marines with a power weapon and plasma pistol aren't doing you any favors. I'm a big proponent of taking 10 man squads or none at all almost every time, and even then assault Marines aren't terribly good. The five scouts with a Land Speeder Storm don't seem too dangerous either; that's a very fragile unit that's costing 125 points and not doing all that much. If you're going to take this sort of unit, you need to give them some punch in the form of a combi melta or power fist on the sergeant. A handful of shotguns doesn't scare anyone.

Analyzing your games, what usually leads to your defeat aside from your aforementioned mindset? Do tanks just trump you? Do hordes eat you alive? Do blast templates make a mockery of your small squads of expensive dudes? Name what you're having trouble with, and we can help give you counters.

Many of the skills that will make you good in 40k will make you good in any war game.

Think strategy.

1. Focus fire. Take a 5 identical unit on 5 identical unit battle. Fair, equal, might as well roll a dice to see who wins right? Wrong.
If one spreads his units out while the other groups up and takes on the enemy piecemeal then the 2nd player will win. Bunch up your army and focus everything on a smaller part of his each turn.

2. Templates. If your opponent is bunching up his guys. Drop some blasts on the suckers. Make him spread out his forces. Then use #1 to focus fire and take his army out piece by piece.

3. Low AP shooting. Make sure you have enough. Too much and you can get overrun by a hoard and just not have enough guns on the field. However lots of players like the heavy tanks, deathstars and high points models. These guys die to low AP high strength shooting. Keep adding more until you realize that unit of terminators or demon princes can't get near you.

4. Castling. Deploy your slower guys in the middle and your fast guys to one side. When he moves towards your fast guys, move everything to the other side spreading him out. Then take out units one by one.

These are just basic non-army specific strategies I'm sure there are may who could write a better guide than me. Hopefully this can give you some ideas.


When I started playing I lost every game for a long time - everyone was better than me. Start setting goals for yourself in a match. Try to destroy a number of his units or points or kill that one guy. Think about how you can avoid or take out each part of his army.

Learn the other guys army. Don't just think about your move, think about what you would do if you were him and you'll learn from every loss. Learn the weaknesses of your army. Ok you lost, but what weakness did he exploit that let him kill your guys. Did you move them too far out, not keep them in cover?

I don't think I won a single game of 40k for the first 6 months or so I played. It just took that long for things to "click" as to how my army should work and pretty soon after that I started doing ok. One thing that helped me a lot was playing with good players that were willing to give me some advice as to what I was doing wrong and what I could have done better.