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Greetings, Dakkites! I require your sagely wisdom!

Here's the deal: A friend of mine is getting into 40k, after years of being whittled down by yours truly. Hooray! He's playing Salamanders, because fire. Anyway, he knows nothing. Nothing! It's not practical for him to ask at our local GW (it's pretty far away) or anything, I'm the only person he knows who can teach him (plus, I want to, and he wants me to). I know from experience that it's a lot easier to learn and get into it when you have an actual player to teach you. Trial by fire is the most fun way to learn!

So, on to the questions. I'm thinking of setting up some videogame-esque tutorial levels. You know, like in RTS', where it'll be like "right click to move your unit, bla bla bla" and give you a marker to move to, maybe spawn a solitary enemy and show you how to make your guys attack. That sort of thing. Except, of course, tabletop. Essentially I'd be setting up small scenarios - nothing too complex, not yet - to cover the basics; moving, shooting, assaulting, etc. Eventually, when I think he's gotten the hang of it, I want to engage him in a small-scale game.

Now, I don't want to overwhelm him with rules, and I don't want to use my superior experience to destroy him completely every time. At the same time, however, I don't want it to be too easy. Mistakes must be punished by failure! I was thinking of matching his Salamanders with Chaos Marines - nothing fancy, just regular Traitor Marines with Bolters. MEQs are a fairly good standard for practice, I think, and their rules are fairly simple to follow. After those, perhaps some Tyranid 'Gaunts, to teach that numerical superiority is not everything, but at the same time, one should be wary of weaklings in large numbers. Maybe a Dreadnought or a Rhino, for learning about vehicles. So, Dakkites, thoughts? Proposals? Help? I don't mean to imply I'll cover everything in a single session - but I do wish to cover everything.

I would just set up a small scenario where you pit a tactical squad vs. a couple small broods of gaunts. It will show the difference between armies better than Marines vs. Marines, and he'll feel powerful gunning down weak little bugs with bolters. Just escalate things from there bit by bit, so have the second fight against hormagaunts instead of termagants to illustrate the assault phase, then from there move on to multiwound models, then vehicles, and so on. Once he's been introduced to all the core concepts, do a small 500 point game using everything he's learned.

Here's one. I bought the battle for Macragge starter set back in 4th. Obviously GW doesn't sell it anymore. Assuming the Moderation team allow it, I could PM you the Campaign from it. Nothing fancy, just a Tactical Squad with Chainsword/Bolt Pistol Sgt and Flamer and Missile Launcher against 10 Fleshborer Termagants and 6 Genestealers. You may also need some terrain. Suitable.

HOWEVER, if this is not allowed, as I know dakka does not normally allow rules to be.posted online, I would be more than happy to devise similar missions for you. Just need to wait for a Mod to pick up.

Brother SRM: The 'feeling powerful' thing is a great idea! I can combine that with learning the values and demerits of hordes o' gribblies. :3

I'll do both of those things, if time allows! I wasn't aware the starter sets had missions like that. Sounds cool. :3

Deadshot: Heil NI!

Yeah if you have guardsmen they work great too. They're easy to knockout, but scary in numbers.

A cool thing you could do there would be have him fight a regular 10 man guard squad. He will annihilate them. Then, have him "engage" a 30 man blob squad. He'll learn why the little guys tend to team up against marines, and show him how the best way to fight them is.

I only say this because I play guard. Orks and nids could both do this pretty well too I would think. The idea is to show him that in a 1 on 1 fight, he will always win. However, there's not gonna be many fights where its a straight up 1 vs 1. He needs to learn to fight 1:2, 1:3, or even 1:4 odds, and be ready to expect them.

Frozen Ocean wrote: I wasn't aware the starter sets had missions like that. Sounds cool. :3

Deadshot: Heil NI!

AoBR doesn't it just gives you a small rulebook. The BfM did a short 6 mission campaign to teach the rules. It didn't have any characteristics, just told you what you needed.

Ie, Lt Varras is the Imperial Navy Pilot at the GK showcase in the Big rulebook. When him and the marines were shooting it said he needs a 4+ to hit with his Bolt pistol. Sgt Octavian is a better shot and therefore.needs a 3+. It was actually very cool and I wish I had got to play it.


Also, its good to see another Ulsterman here on Dakka. Maybe I'll meet you in real life sometime.

I don't have Guardsmen, but I could easily use Termagaunts! And will, actually.

Deadshot, that sounds uncannily like some sort of primary school maths book. "Julie has ten apples. James has two apples. How many more apples does Julie have?" lololol.

What about vehicles, monstrous creatures? A Chaos Rhino and then a fancy bossfight with a Carnifex?

As for close combat, should I give him Assault Marines vs Hormies or something? I don't know if they have grenades (they probably do), but I should probably cover those. I kind of forget that grenades exist, because I play Tyranids >.>; .

We've probably already met, but we just don't know! I used to go to the GW store all the time, because it was close to college (in College Square East) and we got silly amounts of free time in a day. >.>