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Does anyone have any good strategies for keeping tabs on your army’s rules besides play repetition?

I’ve been using BattleScribe to generate a base ruleset for the lists I play and I put tabs on pages with important topics in the rule book and my army’s codex but I still feel like every game I’m spending more time in the books trying to understand what to do in various situations than actually playing. What strategies to you have to either memorize the rules or at least have them close at hand?

Thanks in advance!

Try the same tricks you use to study for tests in school? Lots of things work for different people.

I made a bunch of reminder cards for things using a program called Magic Card Editor. Print them out, sleeve them, keep them on hand as reminders. Fo things like one use Ultramarine doctrines they not only remind me what they do, but once I use them I can toss the card back into my bag.

Also works for warlord traits and psychic powers. GW does sell some things there to help, if you have more money then time.

Writing things down on your army list also helps. Circle/highlight relevant info.

Start with simple lists. Play a basic game, then add more complex units once you master the basic stuff. Helps to have a regular opponent to help.

Play doubles games, or with an opponent who’s willing to answer questions. And don’t be afraid to ask. It will slow the game down, but you will learn a lot.

Run sample skirmishes against yourself. Setup a couple squads of your own models and do a few trial runs.

Actually playing the game and running through the rules with the models and dice on hand makes it way easier to remember. Just reading through the books (or battlescribe) makes the rules seem very abstract.

But seriously, it is hard to remember the rules. but the more you play an army, the more familiar you become with relevant rules. And don't be surprised or upset if you have been playing a certain way for months and then suddenly someone brings up a rule that you thought you knew but it turns out incorrect. This happens to everyone.

More you play the better.

Howver, coming from a daemon player, I keep a whiteboard by my table at home and bring pen & paper when I travel just for marking down my rolls. I also use this for reminders on rules. Taking notes helps me remember things game to game.

It also helps when I recap with my opponents. We generally check rules we may have glossed or hash out options we could have taken. It's another form of repetition.

Also, isn't there a quick play cheat sheet around Dakka somewhere?

 Icculus wrote:
But seriously, it is hard to remember the rules. but the more you play an army, the more familiar you become with relevant rules. And don't be surprised or upset if you have been playing a certain way for months and then suddenly someone brings up a rule that you thought you knew but it turns out incorrect. This happens to everyone.

Also, if someone seems to be playing a rule wrong, don’t be afraid to ask about it! If you are studying the rulebook to learn, you might have it more fresh in your mind then your opponent. Plus some of us older players sometimes have moments where we flashback to previous editions.

Cheat sheets help. List each unit, and any rule you need to remember. Before concluding each phase, go down the list and make sure you've handled each unit. This helps with remembering to shoot, remembering the psychic phase, etc.

Eventually, you will learn the rules of the units you've built based on repetition, but still having a cheat sheet comes in handy, especially if you imbibe alcohol, or get anxious or whatever.

This helps a lot

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/597998.page

Thanks for the responses everyone! A lot of great information and ideas that I can use and that reference sheet looks awesome!

What point are you at in learning the game? Have you got move shoot assault down? Have you learned the basic charts, like to wound and to hit? If you still have trouble with anything like that cheat sheets are a huge help, or remembering little things like 7-BS= what you roll to hit. Same with things like learning how bikes, jump/jet packs, vehicles work.

If your issue is more with special rules, try making flash cards of what rules each unit has. Example would be something like "Bikes: 12" move, 12" turbo boost, can jink for 4+ cover when shot but snap fire next turn, TL weapons, Hammer of wrath (free hit on the charge at S)"

Warlord traits and powers just have them written on note cards for anything you need to remember.

And hey, we still mess up every once in awhile. Even veterans need reminders every once in awhile (sadly you can't assume the person you're playing knows all the rules).

 kingbobbito wrote:
What point are you at in learning the game? Have you got move shoot assault down? Have you learned the basic charts, like to wound and to hit? If you still have trouble with anything like that cheat sheets are a huge help, or remembering little things like 7-BS= what you roll to hit. Same with things like learning how bikes, jump/jet packs, vehicles work.

If your issue is more with special rules, try making flash cards of what rules each unit has. Example would be something like "Bikes: 12" move, 12" turbo boost, can jink for 4+ cover when shot but snap fire next turn, TL weapons, Hammer of wrath (free hit on the charge at S)"

Warlord traits and powers just have them written on note cards for anything you need to remember.

And hey, we still mess up every once in awhile. Even veterans need reminders every once in awhile (sadly you can't assume the person you're playing knows all the rules).

Yep - pretty much this.

The rest of the core rule set (going through the phases, the To Hit and To Wound Charts, etc etc etc) is all just rote learning.

When i started playing, I made up unit stat cards on notecards for each of my units.

They just listed all the stats, special rules and weapons I'd put in them, so I could remember.