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I have thought about setting up my table and running my guard vs my marines, but playing both armies myself and exhausting the possibilities of the options i have available for each army. I don't get to make it to the store to play much, maybe once every 5 weeks and I was wondering if I could gain any experience this way.

At first it might sound silly, but I can be as much of a rules stickler to myself and either way I win the battle :p. Really I wanted to use it as a way to explore unit synergy and to better familiarize myself with the rules.

I'm 30, married with a toddler and none of my close friends have any interest in 40k (even though they play every pathetic PS3 game that comes out) so I don't get too much 40k action. I have gotten the wife into Team Fortress 2, but she's drawn the line and table top gaming.

So what do you think ? Can anything be gained through this repetition or are there better games to play by myself

~Lion~

A friend of mine taught himself how to play that way. Personally I would like to at some point, but it's such a pain to drag out the folding tables and terrain that I'd rather not spend the better part of 4 hours playing a game against myself. It might give some insight into how units work and what they're good against or let you test a strategy or two, but it's nowhere near as fun as a proper 40k game.

I do. I also play with my kids. They are learning and I basically recommend the best move and they move the models. They tabled me once. That was awkward.

Yeah not looking to replicate the fun, but to play test my army options to distill it down and to become thoroughly familiar with the rules.

Maybe when my daughter is older (shes 16 months now) I can get her into Sisters or Eldar or something.

You don't even need to set up entire games. Maybe you want to just get realistic ideas on how quickly a unit can make it across the table to an objective, how many gaunts does it take to reach a IG firing line and still do damage? (ALOT)
Unit A and Unit B face off multiple times starting at different ranges. Build your internal library of what to do in each situation that can arise.

The problem with that for me is, that the game is decided before it even really has begun. I'm very fast with a judgement which depends on my daily moot, so that it would never be a fair fight.

If all of your 40k-playing friends live too far away (As they do in my case, I have a amazing FLGS and everyone is always up for a game, but the people I start wargaming with moved away for university, like I did and I want to game with them too), then you could consider Vassal 40k as it's a nice alternative (not a replacement) if you want to stay in contact/shape

is vassal a big program? Thinking of downloading it

The title of this thread makes it sound a lot more suggestive than it actually is.

I never play against myself, too much of the fun of the game is the social aspect for me to want to do that. I'd just get bored. But if the joy is the game itself for you, I can see this being really rewarding, and good practice for when you do get to the store. Who knows, maybe you'll even entice your wife to join you.

TonyL wrote:is vassal a big program? Thinking of downloading it

The engine itself is with 16mb kinda small, but mostly all of the volume are the pictures in the modules. The 40k-module comes in at a little bit more than 60mb, so if you compare to modern day games its really tiny. But if you look at it you will see, that it's more a simulation of a board game rather than a real video game.

It is how i taught myself the rules, it is also a good way of learning how to best use a new unit.

cheers shadox, i'll check it out tonight then. I hear its awkward to install/set up but i'll give it a go

Tried not to laugh at thread title.
Failed.

The closest I come to playing with myself is when I grab my dice and roll to see how the odds play out.

Example: I wonder about how many marines I'd kill by rapid firing splinter rifles into them.

I roll 20 dice. Grab hits, roll wounds. Roll marine armor saves.

Repeat until I feel I have a good idea what my odds are.

Joey wrote:Tried not to laugh at thread title.
Failed.

Yeah, I saw it and thought "that's a mighty personal question..."

Ultra Grey wrote:

Joey wrote:Tried not to laugh at thread title.
Failed.

Yeah, I saw it and thought "that's a mighty personal question..."

You all have dirty minds!

Who doesn't?

Kevlar wrote:Who doesn't?

Have a dirty mind? Or... hmm.

htj wrote:

Kevlar wrote:Who doesn't?

Have a dirty mind? Or... hmm.

Both. Either.

I've sometimes tried to see how my new unit works out against some of the units I fight commonly.

Ultra Grey wrote:

htj wrote:

Kevlar wrote:Who doesn't?

Have a dirty mind? Or... hmm.

Both. Either.

One quite naturally leads to the other.

When playing with yourself, you don't have another persons perspective...as awkward as that sounds. Seeing a strategy, or load-out on a character from a third party can find fault or give insight. What your doing is trying to do the best with what you have available. Share some of your findings and see what happens.

I tried doing this once. Didn't like the results. So now I make my wife play. She's learning and actually seems almost half interested. Although I'm sure that's just because she wants to make me happy haha. Luckily my flgs is awesome and in the last 2 months I've yet to not be able to get a game. And I'm teaching my brother how to play too so that helps.

But for play testing it's amazing to do this. So you'll never be disappointed in a game with new units.

I play with myself all the time.

Yeah, normally when i'm at the computer with some videos playing.
I haven't really done it for real but i do it all the time with myself so when i do i can feel good about my performance.

Did it to better learn the rules and test some things out.

I have and I quite enjoyed it mainly because it was CSM and Orks but because I enjoyed Abbadon fighting Ghazzy ...

Not like full games but sometimes just to translate mathhammer into empirical instead of theoretical. I can make a list that looks good on paper but it isn't until i lay the models out that i get a real sense of how it might look on the table.
Is there enough there that my opponent will feel like he doesn't have the tools to beat it or does it turn out taking only 2 vehicles or something really isn't viable now that i physically look at it?
I can run the percents on what should survive a round of tau shooting but what's it look like when I'm actually rolling imaginary railguns in numbers the points would allow using target priority and such? Did I even take markerlights into account before putting myself in the tau shoes just now reminded me they have that combo skewing dice for them?
In what kind of board terrain and deployment does red paint jobs make the difference for getting that turn 2 assault off?
That sort of thing.

That's how i'm currently learning

TonyL wrote:is vassal a big program? Thinking of downloading it

Getting all your models out, and playing an actual game, will take far less time than playing one game of vassal.

DarknessEternal wrote:

TonyL wrote:is vassal a big program? Thinking of downloading it

Getting all your models out, and playing an actual game, will take far less time than playing one game of vassal.

This^ I spent about three weeks trying to understand Vassal, then gave up without learning anything