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Who else plays 40k solo? I am new to the game but I found solo patrol/incursion games really helps me understand the rules better. I play my own turn first. Then I think of what the 2 or 3 more likely things my opponent would do and then I roll off a D6 and do whatever the dice says. If it's 3 things then I count the dice as D3 and just choose accordingly.

It also helps to watch a few games online to expand my ideas of more likely ( and unlikely plays)

In the end, I might try coming up with a solo system but the simple dice roll off works very well for now

Cheers

If you're goal is to understand the rules don't try to play solo. With no other player in the game there's nobody to catch your rule mistakes and you're going to build bad habits that you'll have to break when you play the game with other people in the future.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
If you're goal is to understand the rules don't try to play solo. With no other player in the game there's nobody to catch your rule mistakes and you're going to build bad habits that you'll have to break when you play the game with other people in the future.

Whenever I was unsure of a rule, I asked on a discord and I got a reply within a min. It's the next best thing to having someone there.

Cheers

firespace wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
If you're goal is to understand the rules don't try to play solo. With no other player in the game there's nobody to catch your rule mistakes and you're going to build bad habits that you'll have to break when you play the game with other people in the future.

Whenever I was unsure of a rule, I asked on a discord and I got a reply within a min. It's the next best thing to having someone there.

Cheers

That can help you if you know you're unsure of a rule. It won't help you at all if you're sure you know how it works but you're wrong, and that's something that happens very frequently with new players. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've had someone very confidently explain how a rule works and be completely wrong.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
If you're goal is to understand the rules don't try to play solo. With no other player in the game there's nobody to catch your rule mistakes and you're going to build bad habits that you'll have to break when you play the game with other people in the future.

According to that logic you can´t start to learn any new game as you always need to have a certain someone to hold your hand. It´s just not how it works. You read the rules, you understand the rules and you implement them by playing. If you are unsure you consult the rulebook. You need to play solo games in order to truly master the game, if you either want to teach other people in future or simply enjoy the game on your own.

 Strg Alt wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
If you're goal is to understand the rules don't try to play solo. With no other player in the game there's nobody to catch your rule mistakes and you're going to build bad habits that you'll have to break when you play the game with other people in the future.

According to that logic you can´t start to learn any new game as you always need to have a certain someone to hold your hand. It´s just not how it works. You read the rules, you understand the rules and you implement them by playing. If you are unsure you consult the rulebook. You need to play solo games in order to truly master the game, if you either want to teach other people in future or simply enjoy the game on your own.

Or you read the rulebook and then go to your local store/club to play with people. And no, solo games won't let you master the game. At best they'll get you to basic competence where you can play a game with a real player without too much hand holding.

I see no point in playing solo games unless they are specifically designed to accommodate that.
40k is not a game designed for that.

There where some fun missions in the dark vengeance box for solo play. I tried them when the pandemic hit, and adapted them to 8th edition rules.
Solo play is great to get a grasp of the rules, see the flow of the game, but yes the risk of playing something "wrong" remains. But I already payed in a club where everyone had a specific rule wrong so that's not really a counter. It's about having fun in the end

I personally play a lot of 40k solo at home, since I live in the sticks and the nearest game Store that does 40k is nearly an hour and a half way, so getting out there is a pain. It's highlighted to me many problems with 9th compared to third or HH (main games I play). When I play 9th, I can barely remember, but I can remember the other two's basics and my common unit's special rules quite well. Though that may be because i'm used to playing board games solo, from risk to Axis&Allies.

The main thing is to be studious, and not let yourself let things slide.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
If you're goal is to understand the rules don't try to play solo. With no other player in the game there's nobody to catch your rule mistakes and you're going to build bad habits that you'll have to break when you play the game with other people in the future.

According to that logic you can´t start to learn any new game as you always need to have a certain someone to hold your hand. It´s just not how it works. You read the rules, you understand the rules and you implement them by playing. If you are unsure you consult the rulebook. You need to play solo games in order to truly master the game, if you either want to teach other people in future or simply enjoy the game on your own.

Or you read the rulebook and then go to your local store/club to play with people. And no, solo games won't let you master the game. At best they'll get you to basic competence where you can play a game with a real player without too much hand holding.

Wrong. Who says those people at the store know the rules better than you? Buy the product, learn the rules, do several test games and reread the rules during those solo plays. That´s how you flawlessly learn the game.

It isn't my preference, but I have played a solo game or two. In my case, I do it to advance storylines in narrative campaigns.

My GSC, for example, can only grow their army according to the brood cycle, so purestrains have to infect civilians to create brood brothers, who must then sit battles out in order to gestate and nurture the subsequent generations of hybrids before said hybrids can be added to my list.

So if I want to play my GSC Crusade against and opponent, and I want to bring neophytes, I've got a lot of games I need to play before I can do that, and a lot of folks aren't interested in playing the NPC Civilian factions so that I can grow my Cult.

if you have no preference for the winning side it can be a good way early edition or starting out to get a better understanding of the rules or even a new codex/ how to play against it. just assume the role of each general and act as you would for each army. knowing what the the enemy might do can help your win against that army in the future or think up new tactics to respond. always look at strategems while playing the army to see if there are any gottcha things you had not thought of to respond with for future use. if you don't remember it after a few reading chances are your opponent will nto remember you can do it either.

PenitentJake wrote:
It isn't my preference, but I have played a solo game or two. In my case, I do it to advance storylines in narrative campaigns.

My GSC, for example, can only grow their army according to the brood cycle, so purestrains have to infect civilians to create brood brothers, who must then sit battles out in order to gestate and nurture the subsequent generations of hybrids before said hybrids can be added to my list.

So if I want to play my GSC Crusade against and opponent, and I want to bring neophytes, I've got a lot of games I need to play before I can do that, and a lot of folks aren't interested in playing the NPC Civilian factions so that I can grow my Cult.

Wouldn't it be easier and less tedious to handwave that specific part and let it happen in the background between actual games?

I play a lot of solo 40K, in addition to other games. I find narrative works so much better than typical comp style games. It’s a place where you can try out those unique missions that rarely get used. I might occasionally play comp style if I’m just trying to get used to a new army and how it synergises, but that never comes close to playing a live opponent.

"Playing solo 40k" is an oxymoron in my eyes.

Solo playing can be really fun from a narrative line of thought.

Have you painted all your minis? If not then I would focus on getting that done first. I don't play solo, tried it once and while it was decent fun I feel like the rules don't really add much. If you want to roll dice you can roll dice, you can just invent a situation for it like Kairos Fateweaver vs Syll'Esske and roll to see what happens. If you want to set up minis then you can create a diorama instead of deploying and moving strictly according to the rules. The rules are there to facilitate an adversarial game between two people with a winner and a loser, with only one player that becomes impossible. I played one to three times a week with a group of friends from middle school and later started playing on tabletop simulator so I have always had plenty of enemies to fight, only once have I tried to play by myself and it was a bit too involved for me to want to do it again and I found creating dioramas and just rolling for things to be more rewarding time-wise.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
If you're goal is to understand the rules don't try to play solo. With no other player in the game there's nobody to catch your rule mistakes and you're going to build bad habits that you'll have to break when you play the game with other people in the future.

I wouldn't worry about that too much, everyone gets rules wrong, what's important is that you let people know that you're new and that it is okay to correct you on stuff when you do get to play against people. Two newbies playing together is pretty much just going to double the amount of things they get wrong and not everyone is lucky enough to have access to a mentor that can help them through getting started. This is a newbie's thread but I will say the same to veterans, it is so super important that you let opponents know that it is okay to correct you as well, 9th is supposed to be played by the book. You generally don't need to look up threads on Dakka to find out how a rule is supposed to work as much as you did in previous editions, so it is quite likely that even a newbie knows a rule well enough to correct a veteran that has misremembered.

a_typical_hero wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
It isn't my preference, but I have played a solo game or two. In my case, I do it to advance storylines in narrative campaigns.

My GSC, for example, can only grow their army according to the brood cycle, so purestrains have to infect civilians to create brood brothers, who must then sit battles out in order to gestate and nurture the subsequent generations of hybrids before said hybrids can be added to my list.

So if I want to play my GSC Crusade against and opponent, and I want to bring neophytes, I've got a lot of games I need to play before I can do that, and a lot of folks aren't interested in playing the NPC Civilian factions so that I can grow my Cult.

Wouldn't it be easier and less tedious to handwave that specific part and let it happen in the background between actual games?

It would be easier to start all of my D&D games at level 20 too, but I don't do that either.

PenitentJake wrote:
It would be easier to start all of my D&D games at level 20 too, but I don't do that either.

That's not the same at all. Level 1-20 is the story of your D&D hero, if you start at level 20 you miss the entire story and skip straight to the final scene. Your GSC force harvesting helpless civilians to spawn more reinforcements is more equivalent to the backstory of your D&D character before they reached level 1, or the stuff they do between adventures. And I really doubt you and your D&D group spend time roleplaying your character doing chores on the farm from 10 to 16 years old (before all of their family was tragically slaughtered by the bad guy's minions) or describe in explicit detail how your character goes to the bathroom before settling down for the night (roll a ranged attack to hit the toilet!).

Or maybe you do those things. You've certainly made it clear in the past that if something doesn't have a rule attached to it and involve rolling dice in the tabletop game then it didn't happen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blndmage wrote:
Solo playing can be really fun from a narrative line of thought.

How so? I can see how solo play would be useful for competitive players since tournament playtesting isn't a real game anyway but what's the point for narrative play? If you're controlling both sides of the story then why bother putting models on the table? Just write a piece of 40k fiction about a battle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Wrong. Who says those people at the store know the rules better than you?

The fact that they've been playing the game for a while and you're a fumbling newbie? But it's not just a linear scale from better to worse. If you play solo you have nobody to catch your mistakes. If you play with another person you may each make mistakes but hopefully most of them are different mistakes and the player who does know the correct rule can catch the mistake. And then both of you learn the correct rule and improve your understanding of the game.

Buy the product, learn the rules, do several test games and reread the rules during those solo plays. That´s how you flawlessly learn the game.

Or learn the game and then go play it with other people. I've never bothered playing solo games and I have no problem learning how to play.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
Solo playing can be really fun from a narrative line of thought.

How so? I can see how solo play would be useful for competitive players since tournament playtesting isn't a real game anyway but what's the point for narrative play? If you're controlling both sides of the story then why bother putting models on the table? Just write a piece of 40k fiction about a battle.

I'd rather play out a specific scenario to see how it goes, as dice actually can shift things.

I'd rather play out a scene than mathhammer it. I like seeing my models in play

Aecus Decimus wrote:

How so? I can see how solo play would be useful for competitive players since tournament playtesting isn't a real game anyway but what's the point for narrative play? If you're controlling both sides of the story then why bother putting models on the table? Just write a piece of 40k fiction about a battle.

Blndmage has an outlook/mindset which is fairly foreign to the vasty majority of the 40k community, I've noticed.

 Blndmage wrote:
I'd rather play out a specific scenario to see how it goes, as dice actually can shift things.

I'd rather play out a scene than mathhammer it. I like seeing my models in play

I still don't get the appeal. Maybe solo play works for a non-game where you line up two forces on opposite sides of an empty field and exchange dice until one side is destroyed but it all falls apart as soon as decisions are being made. Consider even something as basic as a feint: your plan involves scoring the right-side objective so you send a decoy to act like you're making a play for the left-side objective and pull your opponent out of position for when your real threat arrives from reserves. So does the other side fall for the bluff or not?

If you're playing with another person you have all the back and forth of a real game with real decisions being made.

If you're playing solo to learn the rules who cares which one you pick, as long as you're working through the mechanics and learning that you roll to hit before rolling to wound that's all that matters.

If you're doing solo playtesting for competitive play you pick the worst-case scenario, that the bluff fails, because all you care about is finding out if your list can still win in that matchup when your opponent picks the right counter.

If you're doing solo narrative play you pick the winner according to which outcome you want to see and the game aspect is negated. If all you're going to do is run through a scripted story with a small chance of RNG disrupting it then why not just write the fanfiction of that story? Or, if seeing your models is so important, why not build a cool diorama of the key moment and take pictures of it? Is there some appeal I'm missing or is this purely about being validated as a "40k player" even if you're not really playing the game?

You don’t see the point.
Other people do-and considering it’s a game that’s played for fun, who cares how other people have fun?

 Strg Alt wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
If you're goal is to understand the rules don't try to play solo. With no other player in the game there's nobody to catch your rule mistakes and you're going to build bad habits that you'll have to break when you play the game with other people in the future.

According to that logic you can´t start to learn any new game as you always need to have a certain someone to hold your hand. It´s just not how it works. You read the rules, you understand the rules and you implement them by playing. If you are unsure you consult the rulebook. You need to play solo games in order to truly master the game, if you either want to teach other people in future or simply enjoy the game on your own.

With a game system as unclear and unintuitive as w40k? of course. Take 2 players make one play solo games for a month and another player play vs other people, and you will see who is not just a better player, but also has a better hold on to the rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
You don’t see the point.
Other people do-and considering it’s a game that’s played for fun, who cares how other people have fun?

Because right is more important, then fun.

Karol wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
You don’t see the point.
Other people do-and considering it’s a game that’s played for fun, who cares how other people have fun?

Because right is more important, then fun.

With there being so many different ways to play the game, your "right" and mine are different.

Karol wrote:

Because right is more important, then fun.

Utter rubbish. To the point of bloody mimded ignorance. especially within a hobby whose bedrock for decades has been DIY and 'if you and your group don't like the rules, feel free to homebrew it'.

Aecus Decimus wrote:


I still don't get the appeal. Maybe solo play works for a non-game where you line up two forces on opposite sides of an empty field and exchange dice until one side is destroyed but it all falls apart as soon as decisions are being made. Consider even something as basic as a feint: your plan involves scoring the right-side objective so you send a decoy to act like you're making a play for the left-side objective and pull your opponent out of position for when your real threat arrives from reserves. So does the other side fall for the bluff or not?

If you're playing with another person you have all the back and forth of a real game with real decisions being made.

If you're doing solo narrative play you pick the winner according to which outcome you want to see and the game aspect is negated. If all you're going to do is run through a scripted story with a small chance of RNG disrupting it then why not just write the fanfiction of that story? Or, if seeing your models is so important, why not build a cool diorama of the key moment and take pictures of it? Is there some appeal I'm missing or is this purely about being validated as a "40k player" even if you're not really playing the game?

Fair point on the feint - when you playing solo, you can't really try and 'outwit' the other guy with clever trickery but please don't be dont reduxtive to reduce it to a 'non-game' (which is a bit of a cheeky take imo) that's about 'lining up two forces on opposite sides of an empty field and exchange dice until one side is destroyed' Why can't cover be a thing, for example? Why can't other elements also play a role.

Why can't it be 'scripted' in the sense that units are going to target certain points or things on the battlefield? (You use the term in a particular way - please note im using it differently - rather than a preconceived outcome/story, im using 'scripted' in the sense than the units involved would have particular 'instructions' or 'behaviours' to run - try and get into the thought space that you shouldnt take decisions from your omnipotent 'gods eye' view - the units on the ground won't have this - but rather what would 'likely' orders/instructions for them be - since they'll only have been told what's relevant to them and they won't know thr big picture- and play it out) Or, as an alternative, take direct player decisions/agency out of the equation and roll on a table to see what the units do - think along the lines of the 'bad guys' in Blackstone fortress. In other words, take a step back as a participant and a step forward as a director. Youre still involved. Its just a different approach. And it's less about 'gaming the system' and manipulating an advantage for yourself than it is about seeing what kind of outcome resolves out of the game-state.

Ita reductive and disingenuous to dismiss it all and say 'theres no point, just write a fanfic'. Whole point of doing something like this is dice happen. You want to see what happens.You want the uncertain narrative. The chaos. The active 'fog of war'. You cant necessarily plan on the outcome - you won't necessarily want one side to win.

And honestly, I can see why someone would find it fun to play out a scenario in a manner like this. For no other reason than to see what happens. I can think of far worse ways of spending an afternoon indoors when it's bucketing down with rain out. You might not like this approach and thats fair too. Just don't dismiss it out of hand. Horses for courses and all that.

i use a 40k system thats solo and is quite good...played loads of games with it . Has a decent AI system. Can email it to you

Certainly nothing wrong with solo wargaming and 40K is no exception. However, one could easily write a book or two on adapting most wargames for solo play, so just sticking with the vanilla 40K rules I'd recommend Tyranids and Chaos Knights for their themes that lend so well to ALIENS and War of the Worlds.

One you play as "charge the nearest victim with no thought for the creature's safety", while the other has a low model count(less to think about) and fixated on either occupying objectives or outright extermination. Both fit the role of a menacing villian perfectly.

There is quite a nice solo method in Horizon Wars that could be modified, using a deck of cards as a primitive AI for the OPFOR.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
It would be easier to start all of my D&D games at level 20 too, but I don't do that either.

That's not the same at all. Level 1-20 is the story of your D&D hero, if you start at level 20 you miss the entire story and skip straight to the final scene. Your GSC force harvesting helpless civilians to spawn more reinforcements is more equivalent to the backstory of your D&D character before they reached level 1, or the stuff they do between adventures. And I really doubt you and your D&D group spend time roleplaying your character doing chores on the farm from 10 to 16 years old (before all of their family was tragically slaughtered by the bad guy's minions) or describe in explicit detail how your character goes to the bathroom before settling down for the night (roll a ranged attack to hit the toilet!).

It may have seemed this way to you because of the way I wrote the post you were responding to- in my original post, I spooke about "jumping the timeline" occasionally in order to field test a few units that I find interesting which haven't made their way into the story yet. And that can make it SOUND like the story, where I have army list exclusions until I achieve particular story events, is boring. It isn't.

Our civilians aren't helpless- they are one of the more interesting features of the campaign. There are six noble families (we call them Thresher Houses, because it's an agri world, and the nobles are responsible for harvesting the massive continent-spanning fields). Which nobles get converted impacts the character of the cult as it grows. It is also the politics between the noble houses that drives some of the battles and story hooks- Investigations of Cult activity can be redirected by Thresher activity, diplomatic outreach between Houses provides an opportunity to infiltrate additional families and guildsmen visiting Thresher Houses provide opportunities for the Cult to grow beyond the planet.

I'm not sure how many brood cycles the Cult will end up with, but I feel like the first of those brood cycles will end up being analogous to the first five levels- you know, where you only tough enough to have one attack per round, and you pretty much need a home base that you can return to regularly. You aren't taking on dragons at this level- or demons, or ancient vampires, or an invasion of mind-flayers. Lots of skeletons and zombies. And just like the first five levels of D&D, you might occasionally want to fight something that ISN'T suitable to your level. One of the cool things we did in the 3.5 days is have our GM run "Dream" sessions, where characters go on a sort of a vision quest- you add the levels to get to your Paragon class and play with the leveled up Paragon for the duration of the dream. It was always linked with the ongoing RP, and it gave us opportunities to explore our future destinies.

That's basically what I'm doing when I skip ahead in 40k- testing something out before deciding whether or not I want to grow into it back in the ongoing narrative.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Or maybe you do those things. You've certainly made it clear in the past that if something doesn't have a rule attached to it and involve rolling dice in the tabletop game then it didn't happen.

I've never said anything of the kind, though there are several people who have either deliberately misrepresented what I said, or perhaps lacked the reading skills to interpret it properly.

There was this one guy, CadianSgtBob who basically jumped in for a weekend to tell everybody how to play and pick a bunch of stupid fights- probably ended up banned or on the ignore list of literally EVERYONE on Dakka, because I haven't seen him since. Then there was this other guy- Shas'O something or other. Same deal really... Haven't seen him lately either.

You probably don't know either of those guys, because your own post count is only 200. But then you seem to know a fair bit about my post history prior to you August 22 join date, so maybe you have seen them around.

Anyway, to clarify: I believe that Role Playing Games, and games which incorporate RPG elements, are artforms that incorporate both background "flavour" and rules which help resolve player choices and NPC reactions in a manner that is consistent with that flavour. Racial stat bonuses in D&D are an example of mechanics that exist in order to make the player choice more consistent with the fluff. In 40k, faction and subfaction traits are intended to achieve the same effect. Many people see these rules as clutter, and that's a valid opinion; a good number of these folks would rather see faction and/or subfaction choice represented in other ways- most suggest unit exclusions or atypically applied obsec. Either way though, it's still using rules to represent faction and/or subfaction identity.

I absolutely see the value the things that happen in games which don't involve dice. It was fairly frequent for my D&D group to play through entire 5 hour sessions without rolling a die. White Wolf's live action Masquerade was diceless, though there were still mechanics for resolving challenges. In 40k, RPG elements don't occur in the same way- they are expressed through the combination of Mission Objectives (VP's), Agendas, Win/ Loss, Territorial Control, Crusade Progression, Escalation, Detachment Structures, and Allied Forces.