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A friend of mine is on the verge of quiting because he thinks the game is to unbalanced to continue. Mayby you can come up with more elegant arguments than I, and stop him from quiting.

History: he has a Tau army and lost a few times to an Imperial Guard player with an alpha-strike based army, but the last straw to him was getting curb-stomped in an apocalypse game. We had Tau, horde tactical marines, Infantry Guard, and shooty Eldar; we had amost no vehicles. The other side was mech Khorne berserkers with a titan, fast Orks, and a completly Bloodletter based Daemon army. First they killed off the marine player with an orbital bombardment, then the Daemon player deepstriked and and assualtedin one turn my friend's Tau and killed his entire army without taking damage, and opened us up to the mass charge and titan.

Now that you know the story, mayby you could explain to him that not all games of 40k are unbalanced. (even if that apocalypse game was) I don't want him to quit and lose one of the things we play together.

How did the daemons assault out of deep strike? Unless Apocalypse is different he cheated.

Also, the game IS unbalanced, but that doesn't mean you can't win with underdog armies, you can either tough it out or quit.

Hang in there Tau guy there's not enough of you out there. Though he obviously needs some tanks if he has none.

I can not comment on the Apoc game since they are always wacky.


I find that a lot of the imbalance is with IG is the lack of 5th ed terrain. Most everyone still plays with terrain made in 3rd or 4th ed were True LOS did not exist so any old hill or forest would keep you from getting blown away turn 1.


Play a game with him were most of the terrain is on top of some collage text books and see how it goes.

That just sounds like a particularly rough game to me. Just tell him to stick around and practise, the'res no point in him selling all his models and then changing his mind lagain later on.

Everybody has a few bad games. Tell your friend to stop being a crybaby.

I too have felt the sting of an IG Alpha Strike army hiding in one corner of a board. To piggy back on some comments, use tons and tons of city terrain. Pack it in so much that he has no easy line of sight and force him to move those tanks and take full advantage of your JSJ. Also the names escape me but there are some good upgrades for tau vehicles to make them harder to hit at range.

Brother SRM wrote:Everybody has a few bad games. Tell your friend to stop being a crybaby.

I would have to go with this. You just have to roll with the punches some times. If he constantly fights imperial guard he might want to re-tailor his list to counter them specifically. And re learn tactics that work on them. If he thinks hell win every battle or have a fair chance in every match up he's sorely mistaken. Best of luck though. Last resort is tell him to have a break from the game.

But... 40k IS horribly unbalanced.

That does sound like rather a horrific Apoc game. But at the end of the day, if he pushes on and keeps trying, things will work out. I admit that Tau probably aren't the best force in this respect, but experience comes through practice. I had trouble when I first started my Eldar, and when my Necrons met 5th Edition it was just loss after loss until I learnt how to adapt and use them with the new rules. Tell him to just keep trying, and the rewards will be all the sweeter when they come

Apocalypse games - Hello weird rules and out the window to reason...

But seriously, give him some good small games, cityfight and killteam come to mind, or just game ordinary smallish games of 40K. He'll get better with experience.

Let.. him.. win.. a... game.

It sux, but it will pull him in. The big baby.

Also, find some players that will make a "fun list". Not a "hardcore list". Too many people create a list to win and these games can be too serious and disappointing if you loose.

I tend to look at a game likes its a movie. Im just watching it all unfold before me as if im not playing. Makes it fun, even if you loose.

Apoc games you can't take seriously. Its just an event where you can use crazy mini's like titans and crazy rules.

I wouldn't sweat an Apoc game, its just the nature of Apoc to have unbalanced stuff.

I don't know much about Tau besides fighting them a few times, but can't he put stuff in reserve and then move onto the table and railgun several key IG vehicles before his tanks/suits get shot at?

Really, I think the IG are just a really tough army. I see tough army lists as a challenge, so I don't mind playing them (and losing to them)