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I have been kinda in a warhammer rut for the past couple of months. Have been having trouble with my chaos, can't get my space marines to work. Want to get to work on my tomb kings but cant figure out where to start. I go to tournaments and do okay, but I am inconsistent and I keep making rookie mistakes because I don't get as many games in as I would like. Be it availability of opponents or just lack of drive I am not getting the experience I need to be successful at the tournament scene consistently.

Then I was sitting there and thinking about my World of Warcraft days, how taking over a class from someone else I was never as good as someone who had played that class from level 1, who had worked through all the different abilities as they leveled, determined the different ways their abilities could be utilized through trial and error, how they could be used in different situations. Most importantly(IMO) they learned the limitations and expectations of any given unit through trial and error.

Now where does this come back to warhammer? We can sit here and mathhammer abilities, statistics, combinations, min/maxing all day and probably get a pretty good list. However there is just going to be a core lack of understanding that just comes from building an army and playing it. I have done my fair share of army jumping and the experience has felt hollow. I would buy an entire army because I think it looks cool, try playing it for awhile, get decent with it, then just get disillusioned. I was never able to bring out the most potential from those lists because I was limited to gimmicks and transparent tactics. I never really got into the SOUL of the army that I was trying to play, never got into the nitty gritty fine-tuning of units in the context of the entire list.

I needed to get back to the basics, I need to start investing more time and effort into my models. When you look at a 500 point list it is much easier to see it getting all painted, but when you see 7 vehicles and 60 guys with more in reserve, it becomes a much more daunting task. I recognize that this is what slow grow escalation leagues are for and I wish I was near one that is convenient enough to get to.

I find myself diving into full on 1850 lists thinking about the components without lots of fore-thought and practice beyond the numbers. I have a table, I have multiple armies, I can proxy. Why am I not throwing these down on the table and trying them out Jy2 style?

So with all of that in mind I think I am going to start playing 750pt lists again. I am going to learn how my list functions at its core as I increase it in size. I can play quick games, getting in some practice. But most importantly I will start investing in my models. The more I invest in both time and effort, the more I will be invested in making them work.


Sorry this is a little rambly, I just felt like getting it off my chest. I will try to come back and edit it for readability later.

I have been thinking the same thing. My problem is that i played a lot in 2nd Ed, skipped 3rd Ed, played a little in 4th Ed realizedy BA sucked in 4th and started collecting IG but didint play them in 4th, then got back into the game after about 5 years or so with around 1 1/2 years of of 5th left. I've been playing on and off for 18 or so years. So now I'm at 6th Ed, combine that issue with the fact that 90% of my games are always around 2K and it has been hard at times for me to see the forest through the trees. Now don't get me wrong , Dakka is a fountain of 40k knowledge and it has made a world of difference to my game. It is now replacement for what you called the trial and error experience of only playin small games with certain units.

I also have my own table and enough armies, I should be playing small skirmishes just to learn the full limitations of each unit, rather than playing large battles.

Yea, also on the painting front it is just so much easier to see progress with smaller armies.

If you get one unit done it shows a lot more when you only have 4, compared to 10-20.

Or if a unit is only 10 men it is easier to get done than when it is 20 or more

Agreed. I'm working (slowly) on a brand new specialist army for 40k and have only just finished my first 1k. Luckily our gaming group seems to be liking this points value at the moment, and it's been great for testing out how the army works.

It's also a lot easier for painting motivation - you can add small units to the mix as you complete them, without the pressure of having to get a fully painted full-sized force ready to go from the start.