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5 Intercessors are 100 points with no upgrades.

More and better terrain will help, you'll probably have to house rule something like a gap filler rule that makes the large amounts of not solid terrain into solid.

Overall, my experience is that 1000 point value games is the breaking point for most games, although if you go specialized you can break it even more.

At 2000, well 2000 points of stuff doing things is pretty much going to level the opposition. I'd rather play a different game with 40k miniatures than try to make it work.

The whole thing people say about finding a better opponent is only a stopgap measure when the rules themselves don't really understand their own limits.

 Vertrucio wrote:
More and better terrain will help, you'll probably have to house rule something like a gap filler rule that makes the large amounts of not solid terrain into solid.

Overall, my experience is that 1000 point value games is the breaking point for most games, although if you go specialized you can break it even more.

At 2000, well 2000 points of stuff doing things is pretty much going to level the opposition. I'd rather play a different game with 40k miniatures than try to make it work.

The whole thing people say about finding a better opponent is only a stopgap measure when the rules themselves don't really understand their own limits.

I'd say the opposite - 2000-2500 is the point where it works. At smaller points level more powerful units become essentially unstoppable.

To the OP - listen, there are all kinds of people out there. We call them WAAC, "That Guy", competitive, etc. These labels are meant to communicate our dissatisfaction with the way certain people play the game.

It can be surprising when it turns out to be a friend who is doing it. I like trying new lists and competitive builds as much as anyone, but I try to keep in mind who I am playing against when doing it. Not everyone thinks that way.

A few suggestions:

1) Talk to your opponent about your dissatisfaction. See if he understands and is capable of change.

2) Play against some other players. Sometimes we get locked in with a small group of people. Variety is the spice of life.

3) Figure out a way to cut down on your setup time. It sounds harsh. If it takes me more than 20 minutes to set up a game, I know I did something wrong.

4) Think up some new scenarios / alternate rules that account for your opponent's advantage. I really like the Relic mission because it forces people to focus on a single objective. Think about how you could make that work against him, there are a lot of ways.

5) Finally, not to blame the victim, but look at your own army list and consider whether or not there are ways to make it better. Any time I get tabled I come back the next game with something different. We are using a system with power levels - max out your own units with weapons you know will hurt him.

6) Don't play Tau.

LMK if any of this works.

One thing I'd like to say: It's give and take, so think about your opponent as well. It seems like he enjoys playing hard lists, so don't just ask him to play a softer list, but try to meet his expectations as well.

Personally, I don't min-max at all cost, but I try to play semi-hard lists. Then there is one guy who does not give a feth about playing 40k as well, but he plays it because he does not want to be alone at home while we play (my group consists of friends I knew before we started 40k). It is absolutely no fun playing against him when part of my fun is trying to do my best to get a close match. So try not to be this guy.

its hard to say without knowing what your table and lists look like but if you are trying to walk small squads of elder right up to his gun line you are going to have a bad time. also don't forget you are not required to deploy everything if you know you might get pasted first turn. units like rangers and striking scorpions can deploy from reserves right where you need them and can really put heat on his support characters and other units. Eldar transports are fast and durable. Eldar more so than a lot of other armies really require you to use the proper tool for the job so make sure you aren't using a scalpel when you really need a hammer.

I wish there was an introduction of a "First turn only" Stratigem that allowed for a FNP or + cover save to all units.

Something that would cost 3CP to the player going 2nd.

In Tournaments going 1st is HUGE.. most games are won in that turn.

OP.
Your opponent is not using magic.

He fields units, what ones are effective? Why?
Do you have any means of counteracting that?
Do you have good deep-strike units? That may mitigate the first turn massacre.
Play to your army's strengths. Not to your opponent's. If he likes to shoot, get him in melee (as long as you are better at it than him).

What is the point of playing?
To have fun.
Learn the rules so it is "easy".
Make plans and execute them.
Try to outplan, outwit your opponent, honestly it is OK to do that just don't do a victory dance when you win.

Now there may be a slight chance that your opponent, really, really, REALLY likes to win (as in possibly past what the rules would allow).
He may use the "loud confident voice" stating a rule as fact... look it up anyway... to "help you remember" and he may be wrong.
Is your opponent able to see your army before you see his or his list?
How about you wait till he pulls out a list before he sees what you brought along. (I knew of a few people who would make some 3 lists against hordes... etc).
Look for strange ways of rolling or scooping up dice, if you cannot see it, it may be wrong.

Give a little thought on "synergies" like the units with various auras or various command point abilities.
What are the special rules for your chosen army? It may be a big bonus depending on the situation.
Think of cost efficiencies.
What appears to be king right now is two things: ~6+Strength weapons by the bucket full (assault cannons)of hits and the 9+strength weapons with a ton of AP and Damage (lascannons) or the generic inbetween of plasma.

Assault weapons, do you like to advance and possibly get to attack first? Or maybe depend on a jet/jump pack to get there?
Pistols: nice to be able to shoot prior to having another round of melee fighting. Plasma pistols or Grav-pistols can make a difference... or say if you assaulted a vehicle... that infernis hand melta is definitely inside of 1/2 range.
Want to move and shoot? ESPECIALLY critical for aircraft: machine spirit or it's equivalents for no negatives for moving is a huge bonus (strafing run and interceptor are specialized versions).
Re-rolls for overcharged plasma weapons is invaluable, where can you get that?

I am looking for feedback on a SM army of 2000 points (not getting many takers) but it does not hurt to post it up and see if anyone with a bit more critical thinking than you can suggest to help.
Many times you can get things pointed out you did not know.

Anyway, this is a good start but without detail, hard to determine the cause of the losses.

Reading thru this thread it is clear that a return to RPG narrative elements whether in the form of missions or pregame discourse, a return to sportsmanship and army comp rules with no named characters, and generally not treating 40k as Magic the collectible card game with 3d cards are all aspects of the fix. Finer grained terrain and cover rules, these would help as well. But the big issue seems to be people focused on the deck building phase as just that, a way to use rare special tokens to exploit rules and tip the balance of the game in their favor instead of collecting cool stuff and letting the game playnout on the table. So now it comes down to how many cards can i play before my opponent so that I can stop him playing any at all. Fist turn alpha strike entire armies now death stars... Justyuck.
OP if you opponent is of this mindset, then either ask him to change his mind or IMO drop the dude and spend your time developing other relationships. MtG reminds me of cat piss and stale socks. I can't stand it and the fact that it has infected this venerable wargame. Insidious as it is, this mindset seems to have infected your opponent as well. So one question, does the dude play MtG?

jcd386 wrote:
You can also build your list in much a way that you can survive the first turn and still be effective.

Sometimes you simply can't. Many armies have no options to mitigate shooty alpha-strikes.

 jeff white wrote:
Reading thru this thread it is clear that a return to RPG narrative elements whether in the form of missions or pregame discourse, a return to sportsmanship and army comp rules with no named characters, and generally not treating 40k as Magic the collectible card game with 3d cards are all aspects of the fix. Finer grained terrain and cover rules, these would help as well. But the big issue seems to be people focused on the deck building phase as just that, a way to use rare special tokens to exploit rules and tip the balance of the game in their favor instead of collecting cool stuff and letting the game playnout on the table. So now it comes down to how many cards can i play before my opponent so that I can stop him playing any at all. Fist turn alpha strike entire armies now death stars... Justyuck.
OP if you opponent is of this mindset, then either ask him to change his mind or IMO drop the dude and spend your time developing other relationships. MtG reminds me of cat piss and stale socks. I can't stand it and the fact that it has infected this venerable wargame. Insidious as it is, this mindset seems to have infected your opponent as well. So one question, does the dude play MtG?

Alpha strike will always be a thing as long as the game is IGOUGO. If it switched to some form of alternate activations at least it could be mitigated. I look forward to seeing what GW tries in Necromunda. Maybe they'll be able to import something into 40k 9th in another 4 or 5 years.

Until then, best to remember this is a beer and pretzels game and we play for fun. Dice for the dice gods!

Really the best solution is to just complete a turn for each unit individually, and deal with the fact that halves the amount of CC attacks models get.

 Vertrucio wrote:
More and better terrain will help, you'll probably have to house rule something like a gap filler rule that makes the large amounts of not solid terrain into solid.

Overall, my experience is that 1000 point value games is the breaking point for most games, although if you go specialized you can break it even more.

At 2000, well 2000 points of stuff doing things is pretty much going to level the opposition. I'd rather play a different game with 40k miniatures than try to make it work.

The whole thing people say about finding a better opponent is only a stopgap measure when the rules themselves don't really understand their own limits.

I'd like to politly object to your last point.

I don't think that finding other opponents are only a half solution, in regard to the fact thay you can virtually house rule everything when playing at home. With someone else it could be possible to make several tweaks and rules both playes would agree to go on with so as to not take the fun out. In case you play in local stores etc, then surely it won't fix the game itself and hiw easy it's broken or abused by players, but in the precise case we are discussing, it doesn't seems so so far: in our fellow's case, it could be an alternative to getting endlessly stomp by one dude.

Could you maybe post your full list? This would make it easier to see if your army composition is a problem or not. Your experience seems to be shared by quite a few players (*cough* me *cough*) who started this edition by rebuilding their old lists. You have to play your army to its strengths in 8th edition (e.g. running characters with auras behind a few units. Or, Wave Serpent spam ).

Largely going from 7th still, but I find most of the deployment types in the rule book lean heavily towards an alpha strike type situation. Starting 24" apart, in full range of damn near everything, is silly. We tend to play on a much larger table and generally have a couple of turns of movement (through terrain etc) before even engaging with the enemy - evens it out some.

I know I can't say it for sure, but it just sounds like he is writing better lists and playing smarter than you. If he is going first and wasting your Dark Reapers, it's because he has less drops than you and you aren't deploying your Reapers in a Wave Serpent. Put them in that Transport, in a difficult to hit spot and you'll find they live to fire back. If you go a step farther, you can put a few Wave Serpents in your list, deploy those reapers, a few squad and all of your characters in transports and drastically cut down on your drops, making it likely you go before him.

Guilliman is basically the death of fun in 8th. hes the shiny new toy, so GW is not going to balance him, so really you should just talk to your opponent and see what you can do to balance him out. I would advise that the player who doesn't have Guilliman fields an additional 150 points, similar to the fix we applied in my group with Wraithknights in the last edition. Because people shouldn't be penalized for using their cool new models, but after a certain point fair is fair.

You need to find some new people to play against.

I started running an all-Primaris force. I spent most of my games playing against some variation of Guard and kept getting stomped to the point where I was willing to give up.

Then I actually got healthy enough to go back to the FLGS (I recently had some extensive dental surgery, it did a real number on the way I talk, my smile, and the way my breath smells due to the massive amount of tissue removal and such). Playing against anyone else, I did great. Not always a 'win' but I have a 1500 point list that's being replicated right now by a few people to even better results with a few tweaks.

Avoid playing against one type of army all the time. It'll have you discouraged and you'll be so far into building a certain type of army that you'll suck at fighting everyone else.

Another tactic- it's bizarre and doesn't sound like it makes much sense.... but ask your friend if you two can 'swap armies' for a game. It'll help you learn what he has and how to counter it.

Play a different game. Clearly you are looking for 40K to be something it's not. We're in the Golden Age of tabletop wargaming and it's an exciting world out there full of balance and well written rules. Take the red pill.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
Play a different game. Clearly you are looking for 40K to be something it's not. We're in the Golden Age of tabletop wargaming and it's an exciting world out there full of balance and well written rules. Take the red pill.

You're kinda right here. The best 40k gaming is when people get together for 'fun games'. Competitive 40k is a pointless endeavor at the moment.

I'd suggest playing Infinity. It's cheaper than you think, and it's a breath of fresh air. It has funny little gimmicks that will make you think of 40k as a caveman game.

Or, alternatively, find a better class of opponent.

A 'good 40k game' in my opinion isn't "Let's put 2k down" and going competitive. It's games like I have with friends where we go, "Let's get Grimaldus and some Black Templars against Ghazghkull and do a narrative mission".

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


A 'good 40k game' in my opinion isn't "Let's put 2k down" and going competitive. It's games like I have with friends where we go, "Let's get Grimaldus and some Black Templars against Ghazghkull and do a narrative mission".

+1. You basically defined what 40k is about.

But since your friend doesn't seem to be in that mindset, once again, either convince him to or quit to find new opponents with the same way to enjoy the game as you do or even new games.

You might also just be incompetent at that, as some suggest, however the core of your problem has nothing to do with your skills i think, and remains the same : a player who would just play for fun would have already tried to bring something up to artificially balance your encounters. Since he hasn't so far, either he is sure you try to beat him and don't get any results whatsoever because he is head and shoulders above you and just waits for you to start getting harsher , more competitive, or he is a WAAC and doesn't give a damn as long as he crushes somebody in the end.

Well, it looks like the advice has run the full gamut:

- Don't play him.
- Make a better list.
- Place better terrain.
- IGOUGO / Alphastrike / too close placement is to blame.
- Play a different game.

Every kind of game has rules that have strengths and weaknesses.
The OP needs to get a better handle of what works and what does not.
A new opponent or game system will most likely exchange known problems with new ones (the devil you know or the devil you don't?).

All this is solvable within the existing game system.
I just hate how people do not give rules a chance and try to house rule almost immediately.
Play many games with the straight up rules and you can figure out all kinds of interesting tactics and strategies.
We play standardized games for a reason: pick-up games.
If you are used to your own special snowflake rules, good luck convincing anyone else to play them.

Have we taken a look at the Stratagems?
Are there good ones that require certain units?
Have we looked at force structures to get max command points?
Have we looked at missions, what are key force capabilities needed to gain objectives?
Are there certain chapter/craftworld/special snowflake rules that give a situational edge? How can you achieve those conditions?

At the very least, why the heck did you lose in the last game and the time before that?

The majority of the time a person has "invested" too much into a friend or their models to reasonably drop the person or game: this is rather trite if not unreasonable advice.

More often than not, a player is pushing around models reacting to their opponent as things come up, you should never do this.
Have a plan, work toward it and only as a secondary measure do you react in a limited fashion to your opponent's strategy: be the one in control or you lose.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
+1. You basically defined what 40k is about.

I know. My first foray into Warhammer 40k was into a very, very competitive scene. After getting crushed by turn 3 nearly every time I played, against people who had absolutely no desire to do anything other than 'win'... I just put the models away and didn't touch them until many years later.

12 years, to be specific.

Hyper-competitive players are the bane of 40k. I have a guy in my local community that's a bit of an exile from my FLGS. The dude has literally bought and flipped (as in, resold) at least 4 armies in the last year to keep on the 'competitive edge' of the game. He's no fun to play against, because every list he brings is a tournament-winner (which is fine), but it's almost embarrassing watching him put everything he's got into beating some guy with a brand new boxed 'Start Collecting' set with the glue still drying. After putting him into a 'pariah' status (which helped us get new players), he only showed back up to sell off his old models when something 'better' came out.

I can't wrap my mind around that. I invested in my 4 armies because I thought they were cool. I lose a LOT, but I have fun playing them. Right now, my main 'lol' on the tabletop is "You killed one of my guys, now I'm dumping literally every gun I have on the Repulsor into that thing that did it, because Black Templars angry".

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
A 'good 40k game' in my opinion isn't "Let's put 2k down" and going competitive. It's games like I have with friends where we go, "Let's get Grimaldus and some Black Templars against Ghazghkull and do a narrative mission".

+1. You basically defined what 40k is about.
But since your friend doesn't seem to be in that mindset, once again, either convince him to or quit to find new opponents with the same way to enjoy the game as you do or even new games.
You might also just be incompetent at that, as some suggest, however the core of your problem has nothing to do with your skills i think, and remains the same : a player who would just play for fun would have already tried to bring something up to artificially balance your encounters. Since he hasn't so far, either he is sure you try to beat him and don't get any results whatsoever because he is head and shoulders above you and just waits for you to start getting harsher , more competitive, or he is a WAAC and doesn't give a damn as long as he crushes somebody in the end.

Narrative, when carefully done, can be VERY balanced and very competitive.
Giving careful thought, some customized rules for the scenario, always with the viewpoint you could play either side and it works.
I would usually make a list of "hidden" objectives that would be randomly drawn so it adds a bit of a "shell game" to it all.

Yes, sometimes friends could be a WAAC player so you may have to emphasize the fun element a bit more or keep exposure to a minimum (playing competitive games) or it will kill your fun.

To bring something to "artificially balance" the game is a "scrub" mentality where the #1 fallacy is that you assume your opponent will use and understand the artificial rules you placed on yourself.
A game is played by it's rules as written.
Anything else, you are playing a different game and you have to make sure your opponent is aware and agreeable.

If I may - OP - what would you like to get out of the hobby? I ask because I am a very competitive gamer (which despite the Casual At All Costing in this thread isn't a bad thing) and it sounds like that's also what your regular opponent is interested in. The question that I think would be most valuable to find the answer to is what drives you to play 40k? Are you a competitive guy, are you interested in tournaments and making 'hard' lists? Or do you have another driver for your hobby?

Once we know the answer to that it will be easier to offer reasonable advice that isn't condescending (i.e. that you're bad) or preachy (i.e. anyone interested in competitive play is contributing to the degradation of the hobby).

Also, I'm thinking the OP might be one of those unfortunates that lives in an area like my hometown- not many players at all (one guy I knew played Warhammer fantasy, and he couldn't even be assed to paint his Lizardmen and most of them were missing limbs or heads).

The nearest place to play Warhammer was an hour away, and it wasn't unusual to show up and find 2 guys there playing a game, wait for them to finish- and the rest of the day no one else showed up.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Hyper-competitive players are the bane of 40k. I have a guy in my local community that's a bit of an exile from my FLGS. The dude has literally bought and flipped (as in, resold) at least 4 armies in the last year to keep on the 'competitive edge' of the game. He's no fun to play against, because every list he brings is a tournament-winner (which is fine), but it's almost embarrassing watching him put everything he's got into beating some guy with a brand new boxed 'Start Collecting' set with the glue still drying. After putting him into a 'pariah' status (which helped us get new players), he only showed back up to sell off his old models when something 'better' came out.

We each have our sliding scale I guess.
Have mercy (main focus learning) on the new players: there are few of us as it is. Give them a chance to get good, you never know they could progress really fast.
I have seen so many folks that grudgingly use their bare plastic models as little more than chess pieces: the look and "majesty" of the game is irrelevant to them.
To assemble and paint models is a commitment, you lose a bit of flexibility as rules change when models are complete.
40k has a good look to it, with a great story and "history" so to ignore it all to only consider the rules is missing out and seems a bit soulless (plus 40k is not a master strategist pursuit by any stretch).

I think anyone not trying to participate in the full-package hobby can be a bit of a bane since there is little to discuss with them due to such a narrow interest.

 Grey Templar wrote:
From what you listed, it doesn't sound like you actually have much terrain at all. You need some big rocks to break up the line of sight.

I would also recommend a house rule that gives multiple layers of cover bonuses. Like Woods give +1 to your save. A ruined building gives +2. And something like a purpose built trenchwork or ADL gives +3.

I have a pretty good amount of terrain. Maybe just not enough to break up cover. The game I played... I separated the board, half ruined buildings and half citadel woods... and house ruled the woods gave a +1 cover... unfortunately being able to see through the woods gave complete LOS on just about everything.

Thanks everyone for your input. I think the next time I will play him I'll choose Deathguard. I'm going to take a unit of terminators and obliterators to knock out some of his back line units that like to hide and capture points. Also going to take a ton of pox walkers along with Typhus and Necrosis.

Also trying to get my hands on a Defiler and/or a Predator. I used a Landraider in one of our games but man its a point sink, it is durable though.

 Talizvar wrote:
I think anyone not trying to participate in the full-package hobby can be a bit of a bane since there is little to discuss with them due to such a narrow interest.

I'm no fan of playing with people who just use the pieces to play a game. I'm not going to shriek if every model isn't pro-painted (many of mine are simply primed, with a few parts done on them). I like seeing someone who's put an effort into making his army.

However, I say I'm not a fan- but when that sort of person inevitably gets bored with the game and starts selling off his models, I'm usually there to take advantage of that bargain with a smile on my face.

To the OP, I think he may be simply limited on the sort of person he plays with. If he's stuck with this one guy, then he might be better off spending his time making a little road trip to a FLGS to find some new games. He might be shockingly good at games near his skill level.

Farseer_V2 wrote:
If I may - OP - what would you like to get out of the hobby? I ask because I am a very competitive gamer (which despite the Casual At All Costing in this thread isn't a bad thing) and it sounds like that's also what your regular opponent is interested in. The question that I think would be most valuable to find the answer to is what drives you to play 40k? Are you a competitive guy, are you interested in tournaments and making 'hard' lists? Or do you have another driver for your hobby?

Once we know the answer to that it will be easier to offer reasonable advice that isn't condescending (i.e. that you're bad) or preachy (i.e. anyone interested in competitive play is contributing to the degradation of the hobby).

Or just play a game with a tight ruleset that caters to all types of gamers. There's a fallacy that poorly written rulesets such as 40K promote casual gaming, when actually it makes it a lot harder to arrange a game due to all of the different variables that have to be negotiated. My go-to game is Infinity. One question is all it takes - what mission shall we play? Due to being such a well written ruleset it lends itself very well to narrative and casual gaming at the same time as having a thriving tournament scene which allows players from all around the world to turn up to a tournament [Interplanetario] and throw down knowing only the missions [and points level but unless otherwise stated it's always 300 points]. When I used to play 40k it required discussion after discussion and negotiation of house rules. Even after 3 editions of superheavies being in the core game some people still think there is a discussion to be had about whether the other person should get to use their expensive toys or not, and I've even seen arguments on batreps about whether FW should be included, something that I thought had been laid to bed years ago. 40K has never been about producing a balanced ruleset, it has always been a vehicle to sell models. Rogue Trader even required a Games Master. People really need to stop trying to make 40K something it's not and has never been.