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Every time I play against friends, I get pretty demoralized, but I'm just terrible at tactics, terrible at rules lawyering, and I can't ever build an effective army. I refuse to play SM (hate them so much, even their fluff sucks in my opinion), but my friends play SM or CSM. Does anybody have any sort of tips or advice to help me at least have a single win in my books?

Play against others. Playing different people with different armies and tactics helps you up your game and begin to form working tactics. Battling one person over and over can be counter productive to your army building.

Well give us an idea of what you play and what you have. We need a starting point.

I've played mostly Tyranids when i started, then moved over to Orks for about six-seven months, and I tried a DE army a few times. Really, since my friends don't mind if I proxy, I am in a position to try anything. As for playing other people, I don't fight just one person over and over. I've got several friends who play the game. One who plays CSM, one who plays Blood Angels, one who plays Grey Knights, one who plays Space Wolves, and one who plays Chaos. I mainly play against CSM and BA, and on occasion Chaos.

If you can't win a game, learn to paint better. Your guys will look better than your opponent's and theirs will be demoralized.

Redbeard wrote:If you can't win a game, learn to paint better. Your guys will look better than your opponent's and theirs will be demoralized.

Ya know there is some truth to this. A fully painted army looks much better and makes you feel better about your army. Also people with painted armies tend to take losses better from what I have seen. Probably because they get more out of the hobby than just wins and losses.

Tyranids and DE are pretty tough for people just getting started. Orks aren't neccessarily easier but with a high enough point game they can be devastating.
Not really sure on how to give nid advice as I don't play them.
Orks require bodies to get a PK nob into CC with lootas providing covering fire. I would also make sure to never forget about the Waaagh! as that can get your boyz across the distance faster.
DE require finesse and patience. With them you have to be ready to sacrifice some units but most importantly you need the alpha strike. Once you shake or stun the vehicle move on to the next one...don't keep hammering it. BA will fall to Incubi same as Marines. Take out the marine heavy weapons first can make your army all but impossible to kill due to your speed.

We make soft lists when that happens. They can do it? Or they only cares winning?

tickedoffspoonbender wrote:Every time I play against friends, I get pretty demoralized, but I'm just terrible at tactics, terrible at rules lawyering, and I can't ever build an effective army. I refuse to play SM (hate them so much, even their fluff sucks in my opinion), but my friends play SM or CSM. Does anybody have any sort of tips or advice to help me at least have a single win in my books?

First thing's first: post an army list and look for critique here on Dakka. We can help better if you are specific with your list and your plan, and as specific as possible with your opponent's list and plan. You don't need to be good at rules lawyering to win games. If that is the case, you need to find new people to play against. You do however need a pretty solid grasp on the rules and the rules of the army you are facing to win regularly.

If you cant' win at all, it's most likley because you either dont' have an effective (not necessarily brutally competitive) list, or you simply aren't learning from your mistakes.

The former we can help with, the latter might be indicitive of a personality quirck. Consider trying to articulate after every game what mistakes you m ade, what you could do better, etc. If you can't do that, than you simply don't have any grasp on the rules.

Get a tutor.

A local friend who's gaming ability you respect, and have them mentor you. If your friends are crushing you - and they are your friends...have them walk you through the game, and why you lost. Use these at platforms to experiment and improve.

What Dash said. They're your enemies on the board ut your friends the rest of the time. If you get douscouraged and quit playing, they lose a pal in the hobby and someone to play with.

In general, though: calm down. Remember what each part of your army does, what each part of the enemy army does, then attack the right targets. Bait your enemies into attacking (relatively) unimportant targets while you cripple them.

Make your decisions without haste. Learning to prioritize is _higely_ important in this game, and can make a weaker army beat a 'stronger' one. Pick your targets well to reduce the enemy's ability to hurt you. Sometimes you can just stun vehicles and move on to other targets; sometimes you need to destroy them completely.

You picked some armies that have a steep learning curve: they can be lethal once you know all the ins and out, but ghastly if you make even a few mistakes too many.

Change up your army list. Your friends will be like "....."

Well i just started in February, and have only played against my brother's Necrons, and my friends IG. My suggestion is to go to comic shop who has scheduled 40k games and analyse both the winner's and loser's tactics. This helps by expanding your tactical "vocabulary", be seeing moves that don't work, and why not, and ones that do, and why. If you do this long enough eventually you might see moves or tactics from the shop being used by your friends, and you might just figure out how to counter them.

Godspeed.

I learned by watching and asking questions. Most gamers love new blood and welcome all questions. Don't be afraid to ask why they're doing things certain ways. Also, When I first started playing the people I played against would usually allow me to field whatever I had (maybe 900-1200 points) and they would take considerable less (600-700) This allowed a handicap in my favor and allowed me to learn tactics on a smaller scale. Granted I still got demolished, but it wasn't as bad because I was getting help.

For 'nids,focus on fieldinggeneral alrounders like warriors,termagants,gargoyles,carnifexes.Specialized creatures like lictors,zoanthropes,harpies are bset left out.In fact just stick to unit ill list.tyrants,genestealers,warriors,terms,horms,rippers,gargoyles,fexes.

the tyrant,fex and gargoyles will help with getting used to monstrous creatures and jump infantry,and the rest will give you solid core to practice with.