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Due to the covid and the craziness of have 3 kids i have come to find myself at regular unable to go to my FLGS or have long period of time for friends to come play at the house. Have a huge set up at the house terrain, table and 6 2000+ point armies. Typically i play 1000 or less for time and mangment sake games with all the kids and other stuff that comes up tend to take me a day or 2 to get through. I have learned many ways to solo and randomize the experience but looking to see if you have any tips or if solo play os something other people have done. Normally i tend to try and always make the best tactical choice for both sides and the only limiting factor is really using suprise strategm tactics. Long post but does anyone play 40k solo even just to try out strategies or what not. Any tips or tricks thanks!

I always felt that solo 40k would need to be different to the standard 2 equal armies approach.

With 6 armies there's a chance you've got a horde in there - perhaps go for a last, desperate hold-out of a small army in the centre and an endless horde coming in from the edges. Give yourself the challenge of lasting more turns than last time, or killing more enemy units. If you wanted to, you could give yourself supply drops every 3 turns to try and improve survivability.

I wouldn't enjoy playing both sides of a normal game, as I wouldn't be able to perform sneak attacks or surprise taktiks. Half the enjoyment is seeing your opponent fall into a carefully laid trap.

Ive been doing solo play, I havent really been trying to run normal competitive or pickup style games but instead narrative scenario games.

Here is a battle report I wrote up on one home game. I've got a new table and terrain on the way for some other stuff for solo gaming, so I'll be doing more of this sort of thing going forward.

Yeah, I'd look at something like how blackstone fortress or other dungeon-crawling/horde games set up a sort of simple AI for the enemy forces.

You, the player have full control over your forces, but then set up some set of rules to control the enemy forces: (move towards closest, shoot/charge closest being the dead simplest)
Could have each enemy unit roll an AI dice to determine what action they take: be aggressive, seek cover, go for objectives, etc.
And then set yourself up some kind of challenges, like the aforementioned "horde mode" of having respawning waves of enemies, or asymetrical forces that you're trying to best.

For funsies, CA 2019 had some challenge mode ideas where the scenario setups were utterly lopsided but the point was to see how high of a score the outmatched player could attain before succumbing to their fate.

Another could be using hidden forces on one side. Number the units in their list, make tokens for them (perhaps separate vehicles and infantry units to different colours) and have one side act as an unknown force until visual contact is established.

4th edition style Kill Team would also lend itself well to this, where it wasn't so much like two commando teams duking it out as it was one elite group infiltrating a lair of one Bad Dude and their henches. The elite squad would try to get as close to their objective as possible without raising an alert, racking up counters for making noise or attacking sentries, until too many were accrued and all hell broke loose as guns opened and small groups of cronies started to pour from all doors and windows around the commandoes while the big Bad Dude laughed manicly against the setting sun racing to their escape chopper. It was glorious.

I've played a couple of solo games with non standard battle lists so I can play with what I've got. It's fun if you play it without bias. Remembering to play what you know vs what the commander you're playing would know is fun.

One thing is you can play the enemy "properly" or at least how your headcannon would consider "properly".

Playing against an "AI" especially a super simple one isn't, IMHO, as fun as playing against an "enemy". I have played mismatched forces using counters for the enemy until something is revealed. This also isn't perfect because I'm sure an infiltration team can tell the difference between a Baneblade and a squad of 5 Cadians long before they get close to it but it does introduce an element of surprise.

Misterjam7 wrote:
Due to the covid and the craziness of have 3 kids i have come to find myself at regular unable to go to my FLGS or have long period of time for friends to come play at the house. Have a huge set up at the house terrain, table and 6 2000+ point armies. Typically i play 1000 or less for time and mangment sake games with all the kids and other stuff that comes up tend to take me a day or 2 to get through. I have learned many ways to solo and randomize the experience but looking to see if you have any tips or if solo play os something other people have done. Normally i tend to try and always make the best tactical choice for both sides and the only limiting factor is really using suprise strategm tactics. Long post but does anyone play 40k solo even just to try out strategies or what not. Any tips or tricks thanks!

I do, especially before a big game or something.

I make a point not only to test my own list, but also the lists my prospective enemies might use, and play against them to identify the weaknesses of my own list, the capabilities of prospective opposing lists, and how to overcome both. I take notes and keep it all in mind, and can go through multiple such iterations in a day in this manner as I refine my list and my tactics and gain a better understanding of what my opponents might be looking to do and bring and how I'm going to respond, pre-empt, and defeat it.

Saw this after getting back into the game after a very, very long break, didn't end up using it yet and not based on 8th/9th, but principles could be adapted. Pretty nice spawn mechanic. Obviously not my content.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/3o31pa/40k_solo_heresy_or_how_to_play_40k_by_yourself/

Don't know about solo play as such, but this got me thinking about a fun lil solo excercise:
Sine its a IGOUGO game, we could be..

Playing single battle rounds

First, devise a game scenario with both forces in certain positions. Then just play your own battle round and see how you fared.

Take a photo of the initial game scenario before you begin your turn. This way you can repeat the same turn several times.

Maybe sounds boring but avoids needing any silly A.I. (flock how I hate the misuse of that word these days) mechanics in place, and you don't have to "pretend" to be playing both sides.

These initial game scenarios could even be shared online by the community and compiled onto a Dakka resource.. if the idea is sound and catches on?

I know this will not cover the enemy using their strats to counter your moves, and resolving overwatch potential could be a pickle, but it might still be fun to see how much different people would score playing the same turn. Scoring rules would need some brainstorming though (VPs scored for destroying units but also for how you'd leave your troops positioned for the upcoming battle round, objectives captured/denied etc)

How old are your kids? Teach them to play...

The game is basically already a solo game seeing that 30 minute uninterrupted turns are still a thing.

Crispy78 wrote:
How old are your kids? Teach them to play...

Oldest is 5. Slowly been incorporating her in. She loves rolling dice and or picking which models to use during army building. Still a little to young to understand the simple tactics concepts

But the new 9th crusade system is great ( although so much bookkeeping for playing the armies yourself) it helps make for more thematic and narrative encounters that actually grow from game to game.

I have Astra Militarum and Dark Angels. Now that 9th has come around, I plan to do a couple of solo games in the 500-1000 pts range on a regular basis, simply to get the grip of the terrain rules, special rules and especially the truckload of stratagems that armies have come to have.

Misterjam7 wrote:

Oldest is 5. Slowly been incorporating her in. She loves rolling dice and or picking which models to use during army building. Still a little to young to understand the simple tactics concepts

If she loves rolling dice, there's your enemy AI XD
I agree with previous poster that there need to be some simple AI rules, cause playing both fully would be not fun