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So, I am a bit salty at the moment but maybe there is someone who can help with my problem.

I mostly play against one friend, he mains SOB and plays a mix between netlist and some "funlist" additions.
I havent been able to win for one time in about a year (approx.) I played guard, the new necrons and CSM against him. With more and more competetive lists but so far I wasnt able to score a win.
Even more depressing, I mostly loose big e. g. 20 to 55 Victory point and tabled @ T3.
Is ist just because Sisters are way stronger than my armies or am I just plain bad? I try to focus on objectives but mostly roll extremly bad (as far as I can tell) or just dont live to turn 2 with enough of my army still standing to have any impact.

I think my mindset is biased aswell. I dont see my self in a spot where I am able to win.

Manous wrote:
So, I am a bit salty at the moment but maybe there is someone who can help with my problem.

I mostly play against one friend, he mains SOB and plays a mix between netlist and some "funlist" additions.
I havent been able to win for one time in about a year (approx.) I played guard, the new necrons and CSM against him. With more and more competetive lists but so far I wasnt able to score a win.
Even more depressing, I mostly loose big e. g. 20 to 55 Victory point and tabled @ T3.
Is ist just because Sisters are way stronger than my armies or am I just plain bad? I try to focus on objectives but mostly roll extremly bad (as far as I can tell) or just dont live to turn 2 with enough of my army still standing to have any impact.

It can be tough when you play just one opponent. Any structural problems will manifest in every game.

Is it possible to post your lists? Are you using the 9th Ed mission pack? I don’t play CSM, but there’s are likely some folks here that can help.

Cheers,

T2B

Sisters are good, but if your buddy isn't going bleeding-edge competitive, wins should be within your grasp.

I'll echo the call for specific lists-that should help.

Well I lost every game for 3 years,bar two one which I won by opponent not showing up and another by drawing, because my opponent had to leave.

From my expiriance two elements are crucial to both players enjoyment of the game, but you have any influance only on one.

first is the over all game play knowladge and skil. The bigger the gap the harder it is to win,and the easier it is to be suprised by something. The smaller the gap the better the game. This you can work on.

the other one is over all codex power. GW does not create armies equal, and a for fun list for SoB may not be equal to a for fun army of necrons or csm. Personal choices are important, I know being a termintor army players in 8th, but sometimes the gap is so large that there isn't much you can do then wait for an army update or look how good armies for the faction look online and upgrade. And this isn't about copying and buying some GT power house of a list, spending another 1000$ on stuff in a short span of time. But I don't know, maybe you mix a shoty list with a melee list, and your codex can be either a shoty or a melee list, but not one that does both over time. Maybe there are some crucial units that carry the army, or which make the army work within the given rule set.


also, and I know that this maybe a non advice considering corona and all, but it is good to play other people and not just the same 1-2 person over and over again. After 20-30 games with the same model collections, you both more or less know how you play, and the game is often reduced to just rolling dice.

Thanks for your reply

Are you using the 9th Ed mission pack?

yes, grand tournament pack.

Is it possible to post your lists?

Sure, last game our lists were (with some room for errors regarding the unit compostion)

Necrons (me)



Sister of Battle (my friend) (Valorous heart)



2k points for each player, with strike force (12cp)

Do you have a conversation at the end of your games about how it went? Do you ask him how he won or what were the things he struggled with? This could give you insight in to where you're going wrong in your gameplan. Lists are one thing*, but neither of you are running super competitive optimized lists at all so the problem could very easily be you just not understanding or getting to grips with the Mission Pack and how to score Objectives. A common mistake some players make is that they hyper-focus on kills to the exclusion of all else whereas 9th Edition is a game where you can easily get tabled and still score 90-100 VP's. You could also be switching armies and lists around to the point where you're just not getting a good grasp of what works and doesn't work and blaming losses on "bad" units or a "bad" list when really it's your poor decisions in-game that led to a defeat.

*I will say though, Mehprit is entirely the wrong Dynasty to go with that Necron list you posted. Very few of the units get any direct benefit from the traits and especially vs Sisters and their Invuns it's practically a useless bonus. Try the same list but use other Dynasties instead; Novokh and Obsec + 6" pre-game move are popular choices right now.

The other thing I have to ask is what exactly is your list trying to do? It seems like you bought a box or two of a large number of units but didn't really have a plan for how to make a list that supports itself.

Can we get a full breakdown of the Necron models you have to see if there's a better list hidden in your collection?

 Canadian 5th wrote:
The other thing I have to ask is what exactly is your list trying to do? It seems like you bought a box or two of a large number of units but didn't really have a plan for how to make a list that supports itself.

Can we get a full breakdown of the Necron models you have to see if there's a better list hidden in your collection?

well, i have more or less everything regarding Necrons, except flayed ones, the Monolith or Tomb blades (and the FW stuff^^)



My list was supposed to pressure into the midfield objectives. The Doomstalkers were supposed to be my long range support, protected by the spyder. They died all but one in t1 to Meltas and Exorcists. My warriors were vaporized before they had the chance to shoot, destroyed by flagellants. I had turn one but failed to destroy even one rhino.

My Lychgaurd teleported with the crpytek, using my veil of darkness and managed to destroy one exorcist in t2 and another one in t3. Then they were vaporized by the retributors,

Manous wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
The other thing I have to ask is what exactly is your list trying to do? It seems like you bought a box or two of a large number of units but didn't really have a plan for how to make a list that supports itself.

Can we get a full breakdown of the Necron models you have to see if there's a better list hidden in your collection?

well, i have more or less everything regarding Necrons, except flayed ones, the Monolith or Tomb blades (and the FW stuff^^)



My list was supposed to pressure into the midfield objectives. The Doomstalkers were supposed to be my long range support, protected by the spyder. They died all but one in t1 to Meltas and Exorcists. My warriors were vaporized before they had the chance to shoot, destroyed by flagellants. I had turn one but failed to destroy even one rhino.

My Lychgaurd teleported with the crpytek, using my veil of darkness and managed to destroy one exorcist in t2 and another one in t3. Then they were vaporized by the retributors,

Sounds like part of the problem is lack of LOS blocking terrain. How much terrain do you use and how much of it useful? Losing a unit in T1 to melta suggests lack of terrain and/or poor deployment.

Aash wrote:

Manous wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
The other thing I have to ask is what exactly is your list trying to do? It seems like you bought a box or two of a large number of units but didn't really have a plan for how to make a list that supports itself.

Can we get a full breakdown of the Necron models you have to see if there's a better list hidden in your collection?

well, i have more or less everything regarding Necrons, except flayed ones, the Monolith or Tomb blades (and the FW stuff^^)



My list was supposed to pressure into the midfield objectives. The Doomstalkers were supposed to be my long range support, protected by the spyder. They died all but one in t1 to Meltas and Exorcists. My warriors were vaporized before they had the chance to shoot, destroyed by flagellants. I had turn one but failed to destroy even one rhino.

My Lychgaurd teleported with the crpytek, using my veil of darkness and managed to destroy one exorcist in t2 and another one in t3. Then they were vaporized by the retributors,

Sounds like part of the problem is lack of LOS blocking terrain. How much terrain do you use and how much of it useful? Losing a unit in T1 to melta suggests lack of terrain and/or poor deployment.

We have 1 big LOS Blocker in the middle, 1 smaller LOS Blocker in each deployment zone and another 1 in eacht deployment zone which blocks LOS but only for smaller models like infanry, my doomstalkers are too high and can be seen more or less everywhere but the middle

Are you putting anything into reserves?

how aggressive do you deploy?

your buddy's list isn't terribly beefy, do the exorcists give you problems? yes you should focus on them but not if a squad of Retributors is able to draw a bead on you.

unless your buddy plays all the tricks, like max use of miracle dice, you should be able to at least win a couple of times due to dice rolling alone.

Manous wrote:
We have 1 big LOS Blocker in the middle, 1 smaller LOS Blocker in each deployment zone and another 1 in eacht deployment zone which blocks LOS but only for smaller models like infanry, my doomstalkers are too high and can be seen more or less everywhere but the middle

LOS blockers are considered infinitely tall in this edition so as long as you're giving your LOS blocking terrain the correct rules this shouldn't be happening.

Manous wrote:

Aash wrote:

Manous wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
The other thing I have to ask is what exactly is your list trying to do? It seems like you bought a box or two of a large number of units but didn't really have a plan for how to make a list that supports itself.

Can we get a full breakdown of the Necron models you have to see if there's a better list hidden in your collection?

well, i have more or less everything regarding Necrons, except flayed ones, the Monolith or Tomb blades (and the FW stuff^^)



My list was supposed to pressure into the midfield objectives. The Doomstalkers were supposed to be my long range support, protected by the spyder. They died all but one in t1 to Meltas and Exorcists. My warriors were vaporized before they had the chance to shoot, destroyed by flagellants. I had turn one but failed to destroy even one rhino.

My Lychgaurd teleported with the crpytek, using my veil of darkness and managed to destroy one exorcist in t2 and another one in t3. Then they were vaporized by the retributors,

Sounds like part of the problem is lack of LOS blocking terrain. How much terrain do you use and how much of it useful? Losing a unit in T1 to melta suggests lack of terrain and/or poor deployment.

We have 1 big LOS Blocker in the middle, 1 smaller LOS Blocker in each deployment zone and another 1 in eacht deployment zone which blocks LOS but only for smaller models like infanry, my doomstalkers are too high and can be seen more or less everywhere but the middle

The old rule of thumb I’ve always used is the terrain pieces should fill a quarter of the table when grouped together. This should be terrain that provides cover and/or blocks LoS or Obscures, not including purely or mostly decorative terrain such as hills and/or barriers/scatter terrain. If units are still getting wiped out turn one, instead of a quarter, use enough terrain to fill a third of the table.

I can't offer much on the list building and tactics side of this, but I do want to link a Tabletop Titans video on how they set up terrain.




In the video they go over their philosophy for setting up tables. They spend a good amount of the video discussing how to make interesting games that force decision points for each player. They also go over how some terrain may or may not affect units depending on what kind of move abilities they have. It's a little long, but I think it is well worth watching for players interested in creating challenging games even when 40k balance doesn't always let that happen.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Manous wrote:
We have 1 big LOS Blocker in the middle, 1 smaller LOS Blocker in each deployment zone and another 1 in eacht deployment zone which blocks LOS but only for smaller models like infanry, my doomstalkers are too high and can be seen more or less everywhere but the middle

LOS blockers are considered infinitely tall in this edition so as long as you're giving your LOS blocking terrain the correct rules this shouldn't be happening.

Oh, well this was a mistake by my side in this case.

Are you putting anything into reserves?

how aggressive do you deploy?

your buddy's list isn't terribly beefy, do the exorcists give you problems? yes you should focus on them but not if a squad of Retributors is able to draw a bead on you.

unless your buddy plays all the tricks, like max use of miracle dice, you should be able to at least win a couple of times due to dice rolling alone.

I dont usually put anything in reserve and deploy quite aggressive to get into firing range especially when I get T1 ... He usually deploys the tanks and retributors out of sight when I get t1 which leaves me with the rhino or some other smaller vehicles.
Sometimes my Stalkers or DDA (before the Doomstalker Release) are able to destroy 1 or 2 Rhinos but i normally dont manage to destroy a exorcist within 1 turn I just constantly roll quite bad. (like 2 shots average per Stalker with one wound per 6 shots average)^^
He surely knows how to play his SOB, he uses CP and Miracle Dice quite excessive and in the right spots which leaves me with no equal response . I just think Necrons are way weaker in regard of special rules (holy rites compared to command protocols or comparing their stratagems)

Honestly I am quite close to quit playing 40k altogether. I started out as a painter and had a blast with my astra militarum at the beginning of 8ed. Unfortunately this army was constanly on the nerflist is considered to be quite weak (but more importantly, i grew tired of the playstyle and wanted sth different). Cant help myself wondering if its time to move back to the painting and leave the gaming to my friends.

I'm surprised you lost 3 Doomstalkers to that list in 1 turn.

Retributors and Exorcists are good but not that good on average.

But yes, the height of your models makes no difference. If a piece of Terrain is classed as Obscuring (ruins over 5" tall qualify for this) anything can hide behind it (barring exceptions like 18+ wounds)

Here's a game between two competitive players showcasing Necrons vs Sororitas. Even though the Necron player takes two Doomstalkers and acknowledges that they're not very good units, he still proceeds to win the game 78-48. The Sisters list is definitely the more competitive/strong one in this game too.

Manous wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Manous wrote:
We have 1 big LOS Blocker in the middle, 1 smaller LOS Blocker in each deployment zone and another 1 in eacht deployment zone which blocks LOS but only for smaller models like infanry, my doomstalkers are too high and can be seen more or less everywhere but the middle

LOS blockers are considered infinitely tall in this edition so as long as you're giving your LOS blocking terrain the correct rules this shouldn't be happening.

Oh, well this was a mistake by my side in this case.

Are you putting anything into reserves?

how aggressive do you deploy?

your buddy's list isn't terribly beefy, do the exorcists give you problems? yes you should focus on them but not if a squad of Retributors is able to draw a bead on you.

unless your buddy plays all the tricks, like max use of miracle dice, you should be able to at least win a couple of times due to dice rolling alone.

I dont usually put anything in reserve and deploy quite aggressive to get into firing range especially when I get T1 ... He usually deploys the tanks and retributors out of sight when I get t1 which leaves me with the rhino or some other smaller vehicles.
Sometimes my Stalkers or DDA (before the Doomstalker Release) are able to destroy 1 or 2 Rhinos but i normally dont manage to destroy a exorcist within 1 turn I just constantly roll quite bad. (like 2 shots average per Stalker with one wound per 6 shots average)^^
He surely knows how to play his SOB, he uses CP and Miracle Dice quite excessive and in the right spots which leaves me with no equal response . I just think Necrons are way weaker in regard of special rules (holy rites compared to command protocols or comparing their stratagems)

Honestly I am quite close to quit playing 40k altogether. I started out as a painter and had a blast with my astra militarum at the beginning of 8ed. Unfortunately this army was constanly on the nerflist is considered to be quite weak (but more importantly, i grew tired of the playstyle and wanted sth different). Cant help myself wondering if its time to move back to the painting and leave the gaming to my friends.

IIRC in matched play missions you deploy your army before determining who gets first turn so it shouldn’t be possible to put tanks in cover when your opponent gets first turn, since you don’t know who has the first turn yet.

Manous wrote:
well, i have more or less everything regarding Necrons, except flayed ones, the Monolith or Tomb blades (and the FW stuff^^)

My list was supposed to pressure into the midfield objectives. The Doomstalkers were supposed to be my long range support, protected by the spyder. They died all but one in t1 to Meltas and Exorcists. My warriors were vaporized before they had the chance to shoot, destroyed by flagellants. I had turn one but failed to destroy even one rhino.

My Lychgaurd teleported with the crpytek, using my veil of darkness and managed to destroy one exorcist in t2 and another one in t3. Then they were vaporized by the retributors,

Can you build something like:



I suggest this because it's going to be easier to play than what you had while having enough tough bodies to actually hold objectives in the face of determined fire. The Veil is to throw forward that Gauss Reaper brick of Warriors who then tear into whatever infantry unit is bothering you at the moment. The other brick marches up with the Technomancer. The Immortals and the 10 man unit of Warriors hold a backfield objective while the Ghost Ark (with the Chronomancer inside) and Wraiths rush up the field and tie up the enemy so they can't take back any objectives. The Doomsday Arks are your fire support and deal with enemy armor your other units will have trouble cracking.

Manous wrote:

Necrons (me)

Spoiler:

2 Mephrit Patrols, consisting of

CCB with Orb of Resurrecrtion ->Orb of Eternity, Warscythe
Technomancer with Canoptek Control Node, Fail Safe Overcharger
Chronomancer with Veil of Darkness Relic and Hypermaterial Ablator

20 Warriors
5 Immortals w Gauss

10 Lychguard with Warscythe
3 Canoptek Spyders
1 Triarch Stalker with Heat Ray

2 Cryptothralls

2x5 Canoptek Scarabs
3 Doomstalker

Mephrit dynasty might not be the best choice here. Maybe try one of the others.

Why were you running 2 patrols? Is it because you only have two troops? Other than having that max sized Warrior unit I'm not seeing the advantage/reasoning. You could do 5x Immortals, 5x Warriors, & 15x Warriors in a Battalion & save yourself 2 CP, and have another unit that could be doing something.

What units are you supporting with your Technomancer & Chronomancer, why, & what did you expect those units to do? I suspect I know, but you tell me.
And then tell me how it worked out. (again, I suspect I know....)


In general:
*Do you know your friends SoB inventory &/or standard lists?
*Do you understand how your friends army works & how his actual list works?
If you know these things you can plan around them.
*What is your entire Necron inventory?

ccs wrote:

Manous wrote:

Necrons (me)

Spoiler:

2 Mephrit Patrols, consisting of

CCB with Orb of Resurrecrtion ->Orb of Eternity, Warscythe
Technomancer with Canoptek Control Node, Fail Safe Overcharger
Chronomancer with Veil of Darkness Relic and Hypermaterial Ablator

20 Warriors
5 Immortals w Gauss

10 Lychguard with Warscythe
3 Canoptek Spyders
1 Triarch Stalker with Heat Ray

2 Cryptothralls

2x5 Canoptek Scarabs
3 Doomstalker

Mephrit dynasty might not be the best choice here. Maybe try one of the others.

Why were you running 2 patrols? Is it because you only have two troops? Other than having that max sized Warrior unit I'm not seeing the advantage/reasoning. You could do 5x Immortals, 5x Warriors, & 15x Warriors in a Battalion & save yourself 2 CP, and have another unit that could be doing something.

What units are you supporting with your Technomancer & Chronomancer, why, & what did you expect those units to do? I suspect I know, but you tell me.
And then tell me how it worked out. (again, I suspect I know....)


In general:
*Do you know your friends SoB inventory &/or standard lists?
*Do you understand how your friends army works & how his actual list works?
If you know these things you can plan around them.
*What is your entire Necron inventory?

Thanks for all the helpful replies^^

I ran 2 Partrols for point reasons, I was under the thought that necron troops are quite bad.

Chronomancer was supporting the lychguard while the technomancer supported the doomstalker and spyders. Chronomancer worked well and kept them alive for some time while the technomancer supported the stalker for1 round then they died and he was destroyed by the vindicare. (my friend burned the Cryptothralls.



Regarding your general questions:

I have a good idea of his inventory and now how sisters work to some level, because I play mostly against them but until now I completely failed to do sth against them, be it with Astra, Necrons or my CSM. If i play Astra he destroys my tank commanders to fast. If i play CSM I lack damage and my crons... well they feel just lackluster in comparision to the Sisters especially their rules.

My Necron inventory is quite big, I can field more or less everything except tomb blades or the monolith or flayed ones.


Thanks for all the helpful replies^^

I ran 2 Partrols for point reasons, I was under the thought that necron troops are quite bad.

Chronomancer was supporting the lychguard while the technomancer supported the doomstalker and spyders. Chronomancer worked well and kept them alive for some time while the technomancer supported the stalker for1 round then they died and he was destroyed by the vindicare. (my friend burned the Cryptothralls.

Can you build something like:

yeah I could field sth like that.

ccs wrote:

Manous wrote:

Necrons (me)

Spoiler:

2 Mephrit Patrols, consisting of

CCB with Orb of Resurrecrtion ->Orb of Eternity, Warscythe
Technomancer with Canoptek Control Node, Fail Safe Overcharger
Chronomancer with Veil of Darkness Relic and Hypermaterial Ablator

20 Warriors
5 Immortals w Gauss

10 Lychguard with Warscythe
3 Canoptek Spyders
1 Triarch Stalker with Heat Ray

2 Cryptothralls

2x5 Canoptek Scarabs
3 Doomstalker

Mephrit dynasty might not be the best choice here. Maybe try one of the others.

Why were you running 2 patrols? Is it because you only have two troops? Other than having that max sized Warrior unit I'm not seeing the advantage/reasoning. You could do 5x Immortals, 5x Warriors, & 15x Warriors in a Battalion & save yourself 2 CP, and have another unit that could be doing something.

What units are you supporting with your Technomancer & Chronomancer, why, & what did you expect those units to do? I suspect I know, but you tell me.
And then tell me how it worked out. (again, I suspect I know....)


In general:
*Do you know your friends SoB inventory &/or standard lists?
*Do you understand how your friends army works & how his actual list works?
If you know these things you can plan around them.
*What is your entire Necron inventory?

Some good advice there, but Warriors' min-squad size is 10.

At the OP, I will echo the earlier suggestion to gain Obsec for your entire army. I'm a new Necron player, but I run Nihilakh for Obsec and access to a Strat that allows a unit to shoot and still perform an Action.

I maybe off-side here, but from your posts on this thread it strikes me that you are focusing on killing. Killing enemy units is important, but 9th Ed makes you also look at Primaries and Secondaries. Think of how your list can achieve Secondaries such as Deploy Scramblers and Engage on All Fronts.

Necrons are currently one of the strongest armies in the game and it's mainly because they play the missions so well. They can easily deny their opponents kill secondaries, are excellent at playing the primary objective and have a wealth of options when it comes to achieving their own secondary objs. Like TangoTwoBravo said, if you're focusing on killing stuff, especially as Necrons, to the detriment of the mission then you're playing the game wrong.

 Bosskelot wrote:
Necrons are currently one of the strongest armies in the game and it's mainly because they play the missions so well. They can easily deny their opponents kill secondaries, are excellent at playing the primary objective and have a wealth of options when it comes to achieving their own secondary objs. Like TangoTwoBravo said, if you're focusing on killing stuff, especially as Necrons, to the detriment of the mission then you're playing the game wrong.

Quite possible, I already thought I just might play completly wrong.
Yeah, guess I am to focused on scoring kills. Was tabled a bit too often ^^

I play Sisters, and I have struggled against some of the armies you play. Whether Necrons or Guard, S6 is poison to Sisters. Wraiths are a particularly tough match, because they cross the board easily and bring both S6 to wound me on twos and high AP to deal with my power armor. Guard under the right orders can dish out so many shots I eventually fail saves. Ratlings and Assassins go after my support characters, and Sisters are a very aura dependent army. Valorous Heart in particular is weaker against those two armies, because Guard bring tons of AP- and Necrons bring AP -3, the two APs the VH can't ignore. When I beat those two forces, I do it by playing the mission aggressively, moving fast to objectives, cutting my losses by hiding or reembarking, and watching the scoreboard. CSM may just be in a more squishy and/or overcosted place right now.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

Some good advice there, but Warriors' min-squad size is 10.

You're right, I think in terms of Immortals....

Small update

We had some after the game talk.

Bad words and accusations were flung from both sides and it escalated a fair bit. I guess I wont play anytime against him in the near future. may have lost a friend today.

Gonna quit for now and go back to painting. Thanks for all the nice and constructive feedback but I fear it was in vain.

That's a real shame. It is awful to lose a friend over a game, so I hope that doesn't happen once you both cool down.

Manous wrote:
I try to focus on objectives but mostly roll extremly bad (as far as I can tell) or just dont live to turn 2 with enough of my army still standing to have any impact.

This was the stand-out phrase in your initial post. Necrons being mostly wiped on Turn 1 is statistically improbable and if you mostly roll badly then the reason is likely 1 of 2. Either:

A: Your opponent has perfectly catered their army for modifiers to wonderfully counter your armour saves and ensure your shots are mostly getting negative modifiers (which the lost doesn't look like it does)

or

B: Your dice are crap.

I mean this seriously - not all dice are equal and cheap dice especially can be particularly imbalanced. You won't always roll a 1 or 2, but you might find you roll a lot more 1's or 2's than just 33% of the time. A lad at the club had a lot of dice he got cheap off ebay - turned out there was about a 80% chance of rolling a 1, 2 or 3 and we tested the hell out of those amongst us.

As for more tactical solutions:

Buy more Immortals and give them Gauss. Sisters are not female marines - they are much more squishy so those Gauss Blasters are much more effective. I mean a LOT more Immortals.
Lychguard suck. Really they suck. Unless your opponent it coming to you which Sisters tend not to - leave them on the shelf.
Spyders suck - you are handing your opponent some easy secondaries to score against

Get a Skorpeth Lord - he's cheap as hell from ebay - quick to build and paint and can really deal some pain.
Wraith are an excellent choice against Sisters

Manous wrote:
Small update

We had some after the game talk.

Bad words and accusations were flung from both sides and it escalated a fair bit. I guess I wont play anytime against him in the near future. may have lost a friend today.

Gonna quit for now and go back to painting. Thanks for all the nice and constructive feedback but I fear it was in vain.

Everyone the world over is under more stress right now due to Corona and its impacts in various aspects of our lives; which can manifest itself in various ways and end up with people saying things that they don't mean.
Never under estimate the power of an apology nor that it "takes two to tango" and many friend arguments are often born of both sides being somewhere in the wrong and somewhere in the right. An apology and a new attitude might well turn things around.












Moving onto the original topic of you losing a lot I think that there's a huge amount you can be doing to help yourself that you might not be.

A) Take notes during the game. Note down what happens in each turn of the game. This will slow things down (esp when you're starting to do this and you've not got yourself some shorthand abbreviations to make the writing quicker without losing detail of information); but if you communicate with your opponent that you're taking notes purely to help you work out what is going wrong with your game and to improve your game; then I'm sure many will be content with that (though now and then they'll want a straight game without distractions).
With the notes make sure to take them clearly each turn and to work out what is doing what - if you happen to have any thoughts on why you perform certain actions it can be great to note that down too.


The idea of taking notes is two-fold.
a) It gives you a record of the game that isn't subject to the bias and failures of your own memory. It also means that you can communicate this record clearly to others when asking for advice.

b) It forces you to slow down and, if not before an action, at least after to reflect upon it in the moment.

With a detailed selection of notes you can start asking for help and assessing your game plan.

B) Take photos/video record the game. Visual aids also help a lot, both for you and when talking to others. Again this is providing good information - it can show the terrain setup in a few moments; it can show the deployment choices adn you can show the end-turn status of each round. IT can help give some visual context to your notes and taking a photo should take only a few seconds each turn to do.



The idea here is to record information about your game to enable you to review your own game and to share it with others. The idea here is to advance your game by identifying flaws in your thinking and behaviour. Things that you are doing wrong or poorly which you won't realise you're doing wrong when you are doing them.


B) SLOW DOWN. Yep its a slow game to start with, but sometimes we rush and that makes us think on our feet, which often means we aren't thinking at our best. Instead (again talking with your opponent) you're aiming to slow down things to give yourself proper thinking moments. Of course allowing your opponent the same.

C) Forget the win/loss for a bit. Some of those ideas I propose above might well slow things down so that you or your opponent wins by default because you run out of time. Try not to claim those victories nor lament those defeats because they are simply a matter of running out of time when you're already slowing the game down some. Instead you're making advances in your game and understanding and also want to interspace learning games with notes with straight games where you're not slowing things down

D) Change your perspective on win/loss. Sometimes this helps a lot at the personal level, but also your attitude as a sportsman and player and friend during game. Step back from the overall victory emotionally and focus on the smaller fights. It's important to learn to value the smaller steps not just the big ones; to value when your Lord manages to smash a knight open and kill it; when your spyder dies in a heroic victory standing against a tide of termagaunts etc... Ergo step away from the ideas of "win and loss" and step toward the idea of the "cinematic experience" of the game and battle itself. Where even a loss can be fun and funny and entertaining. This is all about your mindset and attitude when playing and its about changing your viewpoint.
You're not throwing the game away not focusing on the win/loss; instead you're learning to draw value from the experience and journey through the game not just the end result.

E) Look beyond the kill toward the objective and victory. A VERY easy trap we can all fall into is focusing on the idea of killing being the victory; whilst in reality objectives are often the greater influence on a win/loss. Furthermore sometimes being focused on kill or be killed can blind you toward certain tactical thoughts. You put aside ideas like tarpitting or delaying or sacrificial moves because you're objective is to kill; meanwhile if you were playing "to the objectives" then throwing away a whole unit to hold your opponent up from reaching an objective for one or two turns might well give you the points you need to turn a loss or draw into a win.

F) Do some reading on dice theory and probability for wargames. This is all about learning how to interpret unit stats and performance. It's about learning what roles "should be" when you make choices which will help you greatly in making tactical choices. It also helps you avoid mistaken interpretations. Eg that time your anti-infantry kills a knight through a few very lucky dice rolls for you and unlucky ones for your opponent. If you learn purely from the game experience then that might make you think your anti-infantry units are better than they are against knights/high armour vehicles. Instead if you've an understanding of the dice and stats at a basic level then you can better understand that it was a fluke and better understand where units should, in theory, perform better.


Remember that the internet tends to focus a LOT on army lists and less on game tactics and thinking. Indeed its a huge grey area in online communication and learning within geeky circles in wargames. You can get detailed paint guides; army builders and such; but strategic education on things like terrain setup; deployment theory; how to make choices etc... are all quite underdeveloped in general.

@Overread
@Sumilidon


I really want to thank you two and everyone else for the very kind and helpful comments.

You two gave me a lot to think about especially regarding my game attitude and my perspective. I know about my quite negative attitude when I am loosing, well I am working on it but it's hard and takes time. It's just frustrating to loose on a constant basis while utilizing my tricks to no known effect.

I mostly hate this Valorous heart chapter tactic when playing against him


The ability to negate - 1 and - 2 AP with a Imagifier just cancels a lot of my melee and ranged damage