Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I play with a group of friends on Vassal...where frankly quite a few of them are not very good at the game. As an example I played a 1000pt battle last night against a CSM player who took 4 squads of Cultists, one squad of Havocs, one squad of obliterators and some terminators against Tyranids. I tabled him in Turn 3. Now I'm not claiming to be a tactical genius (far from it) but at the moment these games aren't fun for either of us.

So how do you deal with games against friends that just aren't that good? I'm worried about sounding condescending by telling him what to do.

So, i've added some poll options, any other ideas would be good though.

I like to do some sort of de-briefing after every match. There you can poke fun at each other about terrible dice luck and put in a hint or two about things you could improve.
I wouldn´t play worse just for the sake of it accept maybe i do a demo game or play against kids (what i try to avoid, feels kinda akward ). But my friends got to earn their win.
Once I played against a buddy of mine who crushes me like every time... Then i caught him pulling a really stupid move just to give me some easy points and that felt quite terrible tbh... I prefer a challenge to improve my gameplay.

Yeah, playing with friends, we generally talk about the game afterwards, what worked, what didn't. It's easy enough to make suggestions without being condescending about it.

I ask if they want some help, and if they do I help. I try not to be condecending in the process of course. But if someone keeps loosing I ask questions like 'on turn 4, you shot my immobilized rhino instead of my squad of GH, why?' and explain why I did what I did afterwards. I find it often helps to tell them what I'm hoping they'll do, and why. ie. please charge my GH so I can shoot the crap out of you with overwatch then counter-attack.

I keep some easy mode lists and I will often give advice if the person is receptive, even going so far as to tell them exactly what I am going to do.

I deliberately field 'weaker' units that I need experience with, or units that aren't my optimal army selections.

As we go, I try to point out rules situations or tactics they might not be aware of or might want to take advantage of.

I remind them of things that have gone poorly for them in previous games, and the ways we discussed to counter it.

Other than that, I believe that when it comes to victory and defeat, you don't warn a child that the stove's hot. The stove will tell them for you. A good solid trouncing will be far more educational (for those capable of learning) than any soft handing or kind lessons.

Afterwards, I offer to give them advice on what went wrong for them. (I ask if they want it before I give it, I don't want to be a gloater.)

I also take this as an opportunity for 'strength training.' I like occasionally shorting myself 2-400 points so I can get a better sense of how to still be able to win when at a points deficit, so that I can be better prepared for an unexpected loss of a unit in a competitive situation. These games are the perfect situation for that, although I rarely tell them I'm coming to the table with 250 points less than them.

I like to play what I'm comfortable with but take the foot off the gas so to speak.

Well, I am easily the best player in my group, and every one knows it if they don't say it. MY friends play me, but the don't expect to win, hell, one of em just tries to kill Eldrad for a 'moral victory' heh.

But I never hold back, because I help them with lists and such, and advise them on what to take etc and then I fight them 'cause I learned to be so good by being thrown in the deep end when I was younger, and I lost all the time until I started to win as I learned from each defeat.

I can't use a weaker list, or go easy, because my friends would notice and think I was just being condescending, and if I try offer advice, they think I'm being arrogant and condescending sometimes. But we play and have fun, and I play up their little in-game victories etc.

Against younger children at my FLGS, well everyone knows I'm rarely, if ever, beaten, so I don't get many challenges from the kids, but when I do I don't hold back, as usually they're back chatting or being arrogant about their new army that just came out, so I destroy them with a 'lesser' army to put em in their place.


Von Chogg

When I had strong armies, I would play down to my opponent tactically. Winning every game and tournament with overpowered lists at the time (White Dwarf Necrons, Steel Legion) did not make for an enjoyable hobby, however. Now, I pick inferior lists and try my best to win a game. I'm lucky to get a draw, but I have a blast and (hopefully) so does my opponent.

When my friends make complete bonehead moves, though, we never let them forget about it. By far the best one was when a buddy had only one Daemon Icon in his Chaos army, back when it was required in order to bring in Daemons. He had two or three units of Daemons waiting in Reserve. This single-wound model that was the only one capable of summoning Daemons was also equipped with a plasma pistol. You can guess what happened.

Teaching through guidance. Don't loose, but guide the other player by placing your army in the right way, so that they learn.

Guide them as they play and/or post-game evaluation. Also if your normal list is a highly competitive one, you might wanna tone that down too. Not saying your should build a weak list on purpose, but just not something horrifying like necron flyer spam.

Never play down to their level, go hard so that they get better faster

I tell them exactly what I'm going to do, what I think will happen and how I would react to what I'm doing. I then offer them all the choices I can see they've got, and tell them what I'd do in their situation.

This is how come 3 games ago, I nearly got tabled by a ten year old. He was really enjoying himself, so I still see that as a 'win' for me

There's nothing condesending about giving helpful advice. I think that most people would appreciate getting some help with something that they're struggling at.

I actually had this happen to me yesterday. I haven't played 40k in a long time and my local GW started a 500 pt escalation league.

So first match my Tau go against..... Tau...

I overly exposed my units in deployment and placed my terrain poorly. He got first turn and basically castled up - knocked out 150 pts first turn.

He treated me as if I was a veteran player when conducting his shooting/movements, but actually helped me plan my future turns to maximize my effectiveness (we already knew he would win at that point regardless).

I'm glad he didn't go easy on me as it would not have given me realistic expectations of what my units were capable of.

Just do my best and then talk about what happened to their poor tabled army afterward. Its interesting to see who makes changes after being tabled on turn 3 or 4 and who just keeps doing the same old thing.

As someone still fairly new, knowing you did deliberately stupid things would wreck the game. Picking a weaker list is fine, as there are many units that aren't very strong competitively that people don't like to field if they're not interested in fluff (and seeing Praetorians on the table once in a while would be nice), but you'd be condescending my intelligence to not see what you are doing. Play more risky, fine, but don't run cultists into a helbrute.

Point out what you would do in my situation would also be good; that way I know what you're at least thinking (and I could counter it if I knew hot to take advantage of it cough cough*) and whether I seem to be doing something incredibly stupid before I do it and have the game result deteremined by the end of turn 2.

Right thanks for the advice everyone, I'll try picking more fun lists and talk after the game

I throw them a handicap, or run one of my non-optimised themed lists at them.

I've been playing a LONG LONG time. I'm pretty good at 40K as a result, even if i do still get old edition rules surfacing once in a while.

If i'm playing someone new to the game the last thing i want to do is stomp them so hard that they decide that this expensive hobby is full of jerks just looking for an easy tally for their WLD.

I ask what they have, and if they want i help them to build a list.

I then pick out a list that their list would be fairly effective at killing (reverse list tailoring?) but which would not be a complete pushover. I may also give them a small points advantage.

Then i play at my usual casual level, as our forces should be pretty evenly matched or somewhat in the new guy's favor, t balance my skill.

I try to teach as i go, if they are willing to listen.


If this becomes a regular thing playing against the guy, and he's getting a grip on what his units can do/improving in skill i make my lists a bit heavier to compensate. As he and his lists get better, mine follow suit until he's at my level (or beating me hollow as i scramble to keep up in one case...)

I do a debrief after every phase if they want to. The important thing is that the outcome of the game doesn't matter. If they win, awesome - they feel good. If I win, I've pointed out multiple places where they could've stopped me from winning and it's just a lack of knowing the rules that stopped them.

Completely up to the opposing player. Some want advice and some do not.

Overall I find most ask what I recommend they do to combat X unit that I had good success with, and I explain the ways I've seen others have countered the unit.

I know I wasn't the one that asked the question... but thank you! I myself have been struggling to have fun playing 40k recently. Bar the nid player in our group, I've been stomping several of my friends every game. The ork player, the Space Wolf player, and the Dark Eldar player. Now I wouldn't mind if I won, but I demoralize them within 2-3 turns. Once against the Dark Eldar player, I demoralized him turn one. Warp Storm table placed two ignores cover large blast templates on his units and slaughtered over half of each of his troop choices.

Since I don't have many models for Daemons yet, I ended up crippling myself by taking less points but that doesn't matter when you kill more than that before you even shoot.

So.... thanks for the advice!

When i first started off i didn't know anything about the game, i just bought some models because i thought they looked cool! Then i found out from a friend theres actual rules for it, i was stoked! But when i started playing i learned real well the choices i made were terrible... I had a dev squad just like the picture on the box, with a Las, Plas, Melta, and Bolter... I had a 10 man tac squad with mixed weapons, and assault marines with double pistols... needless to say i had to learn real quick what stuff worked and what didnt, and how to follow the rules and become a decent tactician. The entire time it took me to become a better player i was going up against people who we into this game from 2nd edition, i got beat so many times but yet i got the best experiance i could and learned real quick. So i teach in the same method, i play how i would normally, not competativly but i don't handicap myself. We play the game and i let them do what they please, if something goes bad for them i tell them how they could have changed that around and what they could do better next game, what units are good and which ones im not too sure about. It's all apart of the learning experiance, i love helping out lower skill players, it means later on when they get better we'll have more fun when we play.

I do often let newwer players have a 20% add on after they've seen my list, or I let them pick one non-HQ unit from my list that only walks in on turn 4. Frankly, its never mattered.

I'd say its less telling them what they're doing wrong and more giving them advice to help them figure out the best thing to do. Nobody likes backseat 40k, but new players will always take advice and still feel good about themselves when they win or lose. The more they feel part of the game the better.

With newer players, you must first not play a tournament list, but still a strong list neverless. You want them to see what the games about, but not cream them.

Second, as you play, talk about what you're doing and during their turn give them tips, but don't play the game for them. Tell them what the options are, and recommend what you would do in the situation.

Finally, be friendly.

I find the best thing to help them improve is not to take a weaker list. This just shows them how to beat weaker units. Instead I tend to make a few intentional tactical errors then see what they do.

After each phase I'll ask them what their thought process is & why they made the moves they did. If anything strikes me as glaringly wrong I'll tell them which unit & ask if there is something else they should do with it. Usually this gives them the shove needed to reasses what's going on. If not I'll tell them why I think it was a bad idea & again ask if they'd like to try something else instead and if they ask what would be a good option I try to hint them in the right direction.

I find this to be the best approach because it makes the player consider their options & helps build the tactical thinking they will use in later games. Since I'm not blatantly telling them they're wrong or what to do they arrive to their conclusions more or less on their own. This provides them with insight into the game & their own thought process / where it needs refinement. It also gives them the option to ignore my advice and see what happens which has pleasantly surprised me before because they'll pull things I would never have thought of so we both end up learning.

Well, I know that I learned the fastest how to be a better player my first couple years in the hobby by getting my butt kicked routinely. I've found that I still always learn far more from loses rather then wins.

So maybe a blend of the bottom two choices. Definitely play as normal, and offer up some advice as well.

All 4

Pick a weaker army list deliberately
I will not play my strongest list against players who are new to the game.
Yes, I will play my Necrons because they are my favourite.
But sometimes I might play a melee-Cron list.

Some weeks ago I played a list with 10 Lychguard, Scarabs, some troops and a Tomb Stalker against an Ork-list.
It was so much fun
Play a weaker game tactically
I will not focus fire on his only unit that can actually hurt me.
When I play a vehicle-list, I will not try to take down his only unit that can actually hurt my vehicles.
Tell them what they're doing wrong
At the end of the game I will always do a bit of feedback and reflection upon the game, you can blame my study for that..
Play as normal and hope they'll improve over time
After I 'trained' them, I will also play as normal so he can discover the strenghts and weaknesses of his units.
There is nothing as unhelpful as giving a player the idea that his gak-units are actually good, he might start spending money on those :(

Top three options.

Tabling a guy who doesn't know how to play is no fun for anybody. Give him a chance, give him pointers, and let him have some fun.