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How can I better teach the new guys how to play 40k at a friendly (and mildly competitive) level without freaking out over their win/loss record, or TONS of bad die rolls?

A little history for context:

I took over the 40k club at my FLGS in 2008 and brought membership up from practically nothing to over 100 members at one point. Unfortunately despite the $95,000 our club ALONE poured into our FLGS from 2009 to 2011 during my reign (I got the numbers from the store), it closed back in August due to tax issues. Long story short we were forced to evacuate though we were fortunate enough to grab our terrain before the state seized the property.

We've since relocated to a newer store that is hard to get to and not laid out like a typical retail store. Not a lot of people like the layout, and not a lot of people like the geographical location either, but we needed a new home store and I knew the owner (our club ultimately decided as a group to make this our new home so it wasn't just my idea). Unfortunately, though we moved the terrain and "core" players to this new store, a vast majority of our club hasn't made the transition either due to the fact that a bunch of them are lazy bums who don't use our forum and just didn't know about the new store, or that they decided to call gaming quits with the closing of the original store. Heck, maybe they're gaming at their homes now, I don't know. Point is we have maybe six people showing up semi-regularly now.

Now on to my problem:

I haven't been able to recruit many new players at our new store (it's mostly a card shop though they've done well trying to accommodate us) and I have no idea how to get in contact with most of the crowd that went to our old store (like I said, I encouraged forum usage but they were lazy and/or just disinterested). With the few players we have gotten, I'm running into another problem. I'm running lists that seem harsh for new players, to those new players. Before our old store died, many of us played rather competitive games. We attended tournaments regularly (local Cons and local tournaments), and even though we enjoy our scenario/fluff-based games of 40k from time to time, we usually play moderate to heavily competitive games. Knowing that new players usually can't afford larger armies and don't quite yet know how to play at a competitive level, I usually bring out a fun list that I came up with that is really sub-par.

Problem is, even with that list I still can't shake that "gotta win" feeling and I end up clubbing our baby seals through superior tactics or rules-knowledge. (Note: I'm not trying to be conceited here, but compared to new players I'm definitely a leg-up, if you understand my meaning.)

The army I'm using is Blood Angels. I'm no recent convert though as I've been running the boys in red since 1996 when I started in 2nd Edition. I've played through the dual dex, the pamphlet dex, the PDF dex, and now the Ward dex, so I'm no stranger to the different ways Blood Angels have been run and played for the last 15-ish years. Anyways, when I play competitive games with the Blood Angels, I usually go all mech (I know, shocking). I don't like DoA and I honestly think it's inferior to Mech BA, but I digress. I am having difficulties building a fluffy list AND playing it with a "who cares" mindset in regards to the result of the game. I hate that I have trouble not trying to win every game, and I don't want to be "that guy".

Here's the list I run when I'm playing a friendly, "fun" game:


So, six weeks ago we had a new guy start to show up who's very interested in the game, has TONS of money to spend on it (and thus our new FLGS), and decided to join our club after a few weeks of checking things out on his own after finding our club online. We started off playing smaller games (500-1,000 points) where I would unintentionally crush him, and then he purchased a large chunk of models off of eBay because he got a very sweet deal. He's playing Chaos Space Marines by the way.

So, after he graduated to the 2,000 point level, I continued to stomp his army into the ground, again unintentionally. He obviously doesn't know how to play very well because he's new and hasn't read the rules yet, but he also consistently rolls ones and twos all game long. I tried teaching him things here and there and giving him advice but he usually won't take it, because now that the internet is a thing he's able to research army lists and tactics on forums such as this one. So, for example, I'll give my honest opinion on his unit builds and selections, and he'll say something like "Eh, well, I don't know, this is good for these reasons but I think your units are amazing and overpowered." I have honestly tried to be nice during our games and not go for massacres, but I'm thinking my days of being a great teacher are slipping away. I actually pride myself on having a very solid understanding of the rules, and even veteran 40k players at my FLGS, with a rulebook open in front of them, still ask me rules questions on a regular basis. I always try to explain things simply and give examples, and I usually know rules from most of the codexes and FAQ's. Unfortunately, due to the games we've played, and the rules-knowledge I bring to the table, I believe he's reading more on the internet on what to do then reading his codex and rulebook and trying them out on the table and asking his opponents' opinions. His bad die rolls sway his opinion of the game a lot, and during a game where I accidentally brought a quasi-competitive BA list one night to play against his Chaos, I killed a Daemon Prince in the first turn of shooting (Dawn of War, he deployed it forward, then I went and had range) and he threw it across the store where it shattered into a billion pieces. In another game he had Abaddon hop out of a Land Raider only to get shot-up, and after losing that one model and taking no other casualties yet that game, he told me "the game's over" and "he's done". I'm having difficulties figuring out how to respond while still being able to encourage him to play more games and show up.

He just recently purchased an Imperial Guard army from a friend who was selling it at roughly 60% off retail, and he thinks that will help his win/loss record (a mindset I'm afraid our club may have accidentally bestowed on him, especially after the amount of games he's lost). He has played two games with the army (which is a Valkyrie/Vendetta-spam plus infantry spam list) first against my Tyranids in which he won overwhelmingly, and second against Daemons where he drew. Next, he wants to finally play against my Blood Angels again, and I told him I'd build a middle-of-the-road list that would be able to handle his six Valks/Vendettas and 80 infantry dudes while not being "uuber competitive". Problem is, every time I try to build a Blood Angels list lately, I can't help but make it mech'd out or include units like Death Company with Lemartes in a Stormraven, or TH/SS Termies + a Sang Priest + a Librarian in a Land Raider.

If you guys would be willing to give me tips and advice on what to do, I'd be MORE than willing to listen.

Now, if this were just a single isolated incident, I might just be frank and tell the guy that this hobby isn't for him, or that he needs to take other people's advice, or even just play smaller games with him. However, this is literally the second person this has happened with, bad die rolls, internet research, and all. The other guy played Chaos as well, then picked up some Marines (he runs them as Templars and Vanilla Marines), and he's got Orks.

If you've read this far, then I would seriously like to thank you. I only ask that you give me your realistic opinions on what to do in these situations, and if you even have list ideas for my Blood Angels, I'd like to hear them.

Please, help me Dakka Dakka, you're my only hope...

I completely understand where you are coming from. I am the President of a local club, and as the President it is my sole responsibility to grow the club. Because of that, I have become the local rules judge/recruiter/trainer for new guys. I run a very competitive (as much as an old codex is able) BT army and a very competitive Tau army. In my mind, I simply do not want my BT army to lose, so I will not even try to weaken it. I am very OK with my Tau army losing, but sometimes even if try to lose it still wins because my opponents roll very badly or they are just not geared to fight a pure shooty army. So I found that a new guy needs a little win under his belt from time to time to keep him going. My solution was to make an Ork army. It completely sucks. I made it with almost every ork unit (so no duplicate units) and I made it funny to play against. I found that most new guys do not like to play as orks, but love to play against them (and kill them). And since I don't "care" about the orks, I have no problem losing with them or having them be the club's punching bag.
I would also say that when you play a computer strategy game, if you ever play on the easy level you will notice that the computer does crazy stupid things that make no sense. I think that is the only way to make it "easy". I would say that if you did not make a new army/punching bag, you will have to force yourself to make stupid moves that defy logic. In your mind, you say "it makes perfect sense to shoot that guy walking out of the land raider" but. what you need to do is say "oh crap! I did not even notice that guy until he assaulted me!" If you are like me, that is almost impossable lol. So, that is why I made the orks. Since I don't care about them, I dont care about winning and even have fun with the ork hijinks, and everyone seems to get a kick out of murdering them, so everybody, including me, wins.

Holy long initial post. So here are my thoughts...

#1 You might not be the best person to introduce new players into the game. If your running Mech'ed BA, you have a reasonable chance of stomping your opponent, especially if they are new. They couldn't careless how many additions you've played with your army. You are likely running one of the top 5 most competitive builds out there right now, you have no business playing someone who doesn't know your codex as well as they know their own.

#2 Build lists that are on par with the opponent you are facing. No one likes a walk in the park or getting massacred.

+1 to Orks are great targets for new players.

As a horrible player, I find my BA lsits to be pretty weak (mostly cost, but also I'm not the best general lol). You could always try:

Tac squad w/ ML and Flamer
Rhino
Assault squad w/ Hand Flamer Flamer, Power weapon, jump packs
Captain
Libby dread with blood lance and wings
DC with lemartes w/ whatever you want

this is a pretty expensive list without a lot in the way synergy or redundancy. Plus it also has some nice big things for him to kill, so it should be a challenge for you to win and still give him some cool stuff to kill.

that said, he also seems to be rather preoccupied with winning...it may just be my style of play but I find that it's more satisfying to simply field the models you've put the most into, and field them as best as can be. After all, anyone can field abeddon, but if you put a lot of time into painting and assembling him you really want him to be awesome. the other side of that though is that he needs to chill out a bit. If he brings big scary models they're gonna get shot to pieces if that's all he brings. You need to point out, while you're playing, that because the only scary thing he brought was that demon prince then you're of course going to shoot at it. Or abeddon or whoever he brings lol. Because it sounds like he fields his entire army around one big unit that he expects to carry the day...that's one thing you have to emphasize to him, that all those big things do is draw fire from his little guys, the ones who will win him the game (that is, if he is as really focused on winning as he says).

First of all, I will not condone his behavior. Getting physical and causing property damage is NEVER ok when it comes to games. But I can't give him advice, so...

I can relate to your 'gotta win' feelings, I struggled with that for years. But it is an important thing to overcome as both a gamer and a person. Here is what helped me out.

a) handicap. Not every scenario has to be even points, even terrain, because that isn't even, e.g. it favors the more skilled player. Set up defensive scenarios where either you are outnumbered or the other player has a massive terrain advantage. Don't optimize your lists, play scenarios where you have clear weaknesses against the other players list. If necessary just plain give them more points than you. Set up intentionally no-win scenarios and then do your best. This allow you to go all out, but not ruin new players day.

b) What helped me the absolute most was to ROLE PLAY. Intentionally making bad decisions is hard, but making the decisions based on a commanders hubris, lack of knowledge, or foolish pride are easy. Play like a GM instead of as a player. Let your commander get overly fixated on things, pretend he is hide bound and unwilling to adjust to new situations, or that he just doesn't know about certain things going on, on the table. This can go hand in hand with option a. It also helped me to start pretending it wasn't my chapter, but someone else's.

c) play game types that expect one player to win, e.g. space hulk (not the board game) or kill team. In these game types one player plays the antagonist, the other the protagonist. Many scenarios often heavily favor one or the other player. You play one game as one side, and then a second game as the other side. The goal is to do as well as possible. Sometimes you can overcome the rules, but more often than not you are just trying to get the best result possible, a high score, if you will.

In the end though, you need to learn to lose. If you can't do it as a player, act as a GM. If you can't do it as a GM, change the game type. If you don't want to change the game type, intentionally rig the game against yourself. Playing 'fair' against new players isn't actually fair at all.

As a "new" player myself I find this whole topic very interesting as I more often than not get my butt stomped as I do not know all the little rules/ tricks to the game per se. So with all that in mind I will say that his temper tantrums are a bit childish but also his unwillingness to learn is what I find interesting. I am a forum browser as I do like hearing what others have to say about an issue other than what those at my FLGS. Here is what I would suggest, before the game explain to him that this is and "open" game (like when teaching someone how to play cards) that way as the moves are made on the table you can not only stop the game and discuss said moves but also so you can explain why you did what it is you did. I also agree with Aquilaenet and Riplikash in that maybe throwing him the game in the name of being the "bigger man" or the more mature player would help. I personally like playing the more experienced players as this helps me become more competitive so by my losing I can learn and ask questions. BTW I have cut my teeth playing a guy whose main army is GK which is tournament ready so my Necs get stomped all the time lol. Good luck though and don't give up on teaching new players just remember that you need to sometimes let it go and lose....:-D

Thanks for the input guys. I appreciate you all taking the time to read that haha. I'll try to put up a reply later tonight or some time tomorrow as I actually am about to our club night tonight.

Again, thanks.