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Hi all

I've been having some issues as of late when it comes to the army side of the hobby. I don't know what it is but over the years i've developed some sort of decision paralysis when it comes to making army lists to play the game. I think mentally in life i'm a bit on the rocky side, but i'm trying to get more than the six games i managed to do last year, after all I have these models and armies, and i do like to get games in (pretty much just against brother and currently two games into the new year).
Currently rocking the Sororitas banner for over a year now (i swear they will be painted one day ^^: ), as well as slowly building up the collection of Leagues of Votann (similar circumstance, i just suck at painting ^^;; ). But I've made the grave error of overbuying, basically whenever i was in my local grab a box of this, a box of that, put it on the shelves. And... you can kind of get the picture. I own pretty much two of all the sisters things (exception of some characters and just singles of named characters), and I'm in a similar boat with the votann. The votann are currently just a build project right now till later this year, between work and mentality, i'm trying not to force build to the point I break again ^^;

So, I'm hear to ask for advice primarily on the Sororitas side. Maybes if i figure out this block I can put that to use and use it on the votann in future. I don't tend to tournament style game, just pure filthy casual. But after the last couple of games that have been... one sided murders, I'm doubting my list creating ability and trying to make up new lists is triggering the issues.

Is there any advice for building army lists, or trying to combat decision paralysis ?
Been in the hobby for over a couple of decades, and i do like it. I do have a laugh playing the games with my brother. But I want to be able to fight back, give him some sort of challenge, a nail biting game.
I've tried looking at tournament sisters lists too but, no offence to any sisters players in the tournament scene, it just looks a bit boring. I lean more into the infantry heavy side with my armies, mostly because it feels fluffy, and personal preference I like the look of more infantry than tanks on the board.

Sorry if I was waffling towards the end there, just nerves and all that ^^;
But I would like advice to try and get over my decision paralysis, and to create better lists for myself for future games

Thanks for taking the time to read

I'd been doing the same for years.

I was wracked with indecisiveness, as I had lost my armies (built and unbuilt) in a move and was trying to start over from scratch.

I was depressed about their disappearance, and any attempts to build an army that resembled them just made me sadder.

I decided to build a marine army based around Grey Knights, but everyone kept talking about refreshed models and I am really afraid of that word. (I invested heavily into Age of Sigmar right before they scrapped 95% of my Stormcast Eternal army).

So I moved on.

Then I picked this chapter and that one, and this other one over there... then decided to build my own (with a lot of prodding from posters here and B&C).

Then spent more time trying to figure out backstory then actually building the list.

So, I feel your pain as you leap from one unit to the next, trying to make your army work.

What I can tell you is that look at units that can hold objectives. In most games all my super silly silly units don't win games.

The boring heavy Intercessors which don't do anything but sit on an objective, do better than anything else.

Look at your army for boring hard to kill units (or units with Lone Operative) to sit around and hold objectives.

Then build out from there.

That's what I'm trying to do.

6 games a year? Steady on! I don't think I've played 10th yet, maybe once...

In regards to how to not get stomped by your brother every game, it's not as simple as just finding a meta list (which is great since that seems like not what you want anyway.)

There are plenty of specific armies / lists / matchups that are just really rough, so it is hard to say without knowing what you're fielding and what you're up against. (For example, I main Kroot and some armies like T'au just can't deal with their aggression and durability, whereas Death Guard's aura debuffs put me on the backfoot from the start and it's an uphill battle the whole game.)

Without more specific info on exactly what you're running, the best advise I can give are these: 1) Try to find some other people to play with. If you do better against other people / armies, then it might just be a matchup thing; plus seeing other playstyles will help you improve too. 2) Go in with a game plan. Knowing exactly what you want your army to do. Planning / building it around executing that strategy is both flavourful, and tactically beneficial. 3) Practice threat assessment. If you know what units in your opponents army are constantly giving you the hardest time, try to plan around them in advance. If you already have a game plan in mind before you hit the table, it will be a lot easier during the match. 4) Consider how impactful your units are in each game. What is X unit's role in your army, is it able to fulfill that role, if yes, great, if no, why? Can that be corrected, and if not, you likely need a different unit to fill that role.

If you wanted to post your and your brother's lists and give a brief overview of how the games went, I could give you some information that's a bit more tailored to your situation.

Generic army advice:
1) You need several units dedicated to holding objectives &/or doing secondary missions/actions. This is important because you win games via victory points, not simply killing everything.
as long as you end the game with more VPs than your foe it really doesn't matter how much you've killed or lost unit wise.
2) Killing things - is still important. You need to be able deal with vehicles, big monsters, and (relatively) tough characters.
2a) SHOOT IT! I have watched sooo many players at the local shops skip shooting at something because "Statistically it won't do much" (think bolt pistols vs a tank). They don't want to waste the time rolling dice for little/no result. They are correct. It won't do much. But saves the enemy doesn't even have to make are the best kind of saves for them. So make them roll a few dice!
3) You need units that will serve to keep the enemies attention on focused them, not your units trying to hold the objectives/score secondary actions.
4) You need to familiarize yourself with the stratagems in the core game, your own detachment/army rule, & to a lesser degree the strats & enhancements that go with it. The 3 strats that've been most valuable to me over the years are: Grenades, Tank Shock, & Overwatch.

Specific army advice:
1) Identify where your army is weak and fix it. This is a bit conditional based upon who/what you play against frequently. Also on if you've got some sort of theme or preference in your own armies look that leads you to not using certain options (if this is the case, realize that you're intentionally limiting options & plan around it).
You say you play Sisters - know the rules & options for including Imperial Agents, Knights, etc in your force.
2) Who/what do you face off against? Build stuff that can deal with what you know your foe brings. This might well lead to having units that you only use against certain people/armies.

Playing: Wether you win or lose? Just play more. As long as you have fun playing it doesn't really matter what your W/L record is. Because the whole point is playing with the toy soldiers you're collecting, building, & slowly painting. also by playing more? You'll get better at the game.

Building that shelf worth of stuff: Pick a day as your "Build Day". Let's say Monday.... Build at least 1 kit of your shelf. Repeat every week.

 SolarBurrson wrote:
Hi all

I've been having some issues as of late when it comes to the army side of the hobby. I don't know what it is but over the years i've developed some sort of decision paralysis when it comes to making army lists to play the game. I think mentally in life i'm a bit on the rocky side, but i'm trying to get more than the six games i managed to do last year, after all I have these models and armies, and i do like to get games in (pretty much just against brother and currently two games into the new year).
...
So, I'm hear to ask for advice primarily on the Sororitas side. Maybes if i figure out this block I can put that to use and use it on the votann in future. I don't tend to tournament style game, just pure filthy casual. But after the last couple of games that have been... one sided murders, I'm doubting my list creating ability and trying to make up new lists is triggering the issues.

Okay. First thing we REALLY need to know is this: What missions are you playing? Are you guys using the missions out of the book? Are you using Leviathan cards? Are you using Chapter Approved 25-26 cards? Do you guys play different missions each time or are you playing the same mission over and over again? Are you even playing missions or are you just beating the hell out of each other and whoever's army dies first is the loser?

I'm going to share a bit of my personal experience so I can clarify why this information is important, and share my own path to improvement as a player.

I started in 1989, back when you either created your own mission or the goal was to beat the hell out of your opponent. I was a high-schooler and not tactically intelligent at all. No useful information was gained on my part from any of the battles I played. In 1998 I dropped the hobby because I couldn't find anyone else to play against (small town in the US South. If you know, you know).

Fast-forward to about 2008 when I got back into the hobby after years of playing Dawn of War. I picked up the T'au and was back to just beating the hell out of opponents. Wasn't good, didn't learn anything. Around 2014 I developed a friend group that played more regularly and 7th edition had multiple different missions in the rulebook with different win conditions. I didn't improve MUCH but I started to understand that different units were good for different things and where you started a unit on the table could have an impact on how useful it was.

In late 7th edition I played my first tournament. I remember 8th edition was announced during the second game of the day. I got crushed because there was a lot I still didn't understand about the game. Things like - deployment, list building, movement. I still thought it was just about rolling dice and telling stories and the best story would win.

In 8th edition I finally started to think about what I was doing. I lost a game to a college kid in round 2, so I asked him what I did wrong. He was very polite and explained that my list was bad and my deployment made it easy for him. After that I started to try to think about what I was doing in deployment - it's not always about having cover, although often it is.

In 9th edition I started keeping a diary of my battles and tried to record a few things from each. Opponent's army, how deployment went, where I felt like the battle had changed momentum, things I did well. That kind of thing. Once I understood what I was doing wrong, I started looking at the units I was bringing and realized I didn't have what I needed to accomplish what I wanted.

Now I play Votann and have used almost exact same army list for over 2 years. As a result, I've gotten better and better at remembering what each unit does, what their abilities are, and how to use them effectively. I finally can understand the potential of a unit to do what I need, although I still tend to both over- and under-estimate their survivability at the same time. Like, I'll underestimate what they can do in the middle of the game so I won't risk them, but I'll overestimate what they're good for in the list-building stage. It can be very frustrating, especially since I know I need to do a lot still to improve.

For you, I would suggest the following:

1) play different missions if you aren't already. If you were just playing deathmatches, switch to missions and change them up randomly.

2) keep a diary of how each game went. If you think something happened that was important, write it down.

3) Look over the missions when you have spare time and think carefully about the implications of the scoring. Think about what you need to score and when, and compare that to the list that you enjoy bringing. Sometimes you have to change to something you're not SUPER keen on to have what you need. Sometimes you become really keen on something that works well for you.

4) Set an army list and play multiple different missions with it for a year or so, tracking your performance and your mistakes. This will help you a lot more than just reading over your codex.

5) Accept that it's possible that you're in the bottom 25% of players. I have come to realize I'm in the bottom 50% and probably won't ever be a whole lot better. I could maybe get in a couple of games a week and train really hard and get to top 30%, but ... I think that's my ceiling. It sounds like you just don't want to be the doormat, so I think you can definitely get to a point where you'll enjoy the game. But it will take a while. And you'll have to play more than 6 games a year.

Ok, finally back to reply. Work has been a bit hectic, so got a bit of down time finally... well before the next day hits ^^:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I'd been doing the same for years.

I was wracked with indecisiveness, as I had lost my armies (built and unbuilt) in a move and was trying to start over from scratch.

I was depressed about their disappearance, and any attempts to build an army that resembled them just made me sadder.

I decided to build a marine army based around Grey Knights, but everyone kept talking about refreshed models and I am really afraid of that word. (I invested heavily into Age of Sigmar right before they scrapped 95% of my Stormcast Eternal army).

So I moved on.

I've been in the hobby for years, a lot of armies basically coming and going. A lot of regretful selling from a dumb younger me that just fluttered from army to army wanting new excitement. Which eventually led to me (amongst other life things) basically to just doubt a lot of things i do.

Sorry to hear you lost your armies on the move, i can genuinely see that becoming something that would bring a person down, especially if you couldn't get back what was lost even with time.

I've kind personally put to the side the ideas of making my own color schemes or order for my sisters. mostly i just don't have that level of confidence. Though i might start naming my characters. Give them a sense of purpose rather than just. This is my leader, or this is that character.

Thanks for the advice, I will look into objective sitters. I don't think sisters do a lot of tough, but there must be something there for them ^^

Crispy78 wrote:
6 games a year? Steady on! I don't think I've played 10th yet, maybe once...

Well from game 5 to game 6 was like half a year apart. I like to play the game but a lot of conflicting schedules basically got in the way. And not a lot of game clubs locally that aren't a big hike to get to. So going to try and beat that record this year ^^:

 Tawnis wrote:
In regards to how to not get stomped by your brother every game, it's not as simple as just finding a meta list (which is great since that seems like not what you want anyway.)

There are plenty of specific armies / lists / matchups that are just really rough, so it is hard to say without knowing what you're fielding and what you're up against. (For example, I main Kroot and some armies like T'au just can't deal with their aggression and durability, whereas Death Guard's aura debuffs put me on the backfoot from the start and it's an uphill battle the whole game.)

Without more specific info on exactly what you're running, the best advise I can give are these: 1) Try to find some other people to play with. If you do better against other people / armies, then it might just be a matchup thing; plus seeing other playstyles will help you improve too. 2) Go in with a game plan. Knowing exactly what you want your army to do. Planning / building it around executing that strategy is both flavourful, and tactically beneficial. 3) Practice threat assessment. If you know what units in your opponents army are constantly giving you the hardest time, try to plan around them in advance. If you already have a game plan in mind before you hit the table, it will be a lot easier during the match. 4) Consider how impactful your units are in each game. What is X unit's role in your army, is it able to fulfill that role, if yes, great, if no, why? Can that be corrected, and if not, you likely need a different unit to fill that role.

If you wanted to post your and your brother's lists and give a brief overview of how the games went, I could give you some information that's a bit more tailored to your situation.

Yeah I used to play a lot of tcg back in the days, even then i didn't like jumping on the meta, made for really boring games.
I'm less looking for advice on getting a tailored army to take him down, he's not like the penultimate boss, just a filthy casual like me. But as for his armies its Imperial Fists, Custodes, and on a rare occassion World Eaters. So a lot of armor to usually chew through ^^;

I'm usually playing Sororitas, the 6 games in the prior year were mostly penitent host cause evicirator go brrrrrrrr and limbs go flying. Also cause penitent engines are pretty cool looking too ^^;
But i've tried my hand a little at army faith. With next one i'm going to try to give a go being Hallowed Martyrs
Other than 1 i will give your other points a go. 1 is difficult cause my local is pretty much stopping in store games, so i have only access to games against my brother, and if i get a chance to play his friends, rare as that might be

ccs wrote:
Generic army advice:
1) You need several units dedicated to holding objectives &/or doing secondary missions/actions. This is important because you win games via victory points, not simply killing everything.
as long as you end the game with more VPs than your foe it really doesn't matter how much you've killed or lost unit wise.
2) Killing things - is still important. You need to be able deal with vehicles, big monsters, and (relatively) tough characters.
2a) SHOOT IT! I have watched sooo many players at the local shops skip shooting at something because "Statistically it won't do much" (think bolt pistols vs a tank). They don't want to waste the time rolling dice for little/no result. They are correct. It won't do much. But saves the enemy doesn't even have to make are the best kind of saves for them. So make them roll a few dice!
3) You need units that will serve to keep the enemies attention on focused them, not your units trying to hold the objectives/score secondary actions.
4) You need to familiarize yourself with the stratagems in the core game, your own detachment/army rule, & to a lesser degree the strats & enhancements that go with it. The 3 strats that've been most valuable to me over the years are: Grenades, Tank Shock, & Overwatch.

Specific army advice:
1) Identify where your army is weak and fix it. This is a bit conditional based upon who/what you play against frequently. Also on if you've got some sort of theme or preference in your own armies look that leads you to not using certain options (if this is the case, realize that you're intentionally limiting options & plan around it).
You say you play Sisters - know the rules & options for including Imperial Agents, Knights, etc in your force.
2) Who/what do you face off against? Build stuff that can deal with what you know your foe brings. This might well lead to having units that you only use against certain people/armies.

Playing: Wether you win or lose? Just play more. As long as you have fun playing it doesn't really matter what your W/L record is. Because the whole point is playing with the toy soldiers you're collecting, building, & slowly painting. also by playing more? You'll get better at the game.

Building that shelf worth of stuff: Pick a day as your "Build Day". Let's say Monday.... Build at least 1 kit of your shelf. Repeat every week.

My non warhammer friend has given me similar advice, while it might not be everyday, I should try to take 3 - 4 hours out of my day to just warhammer. Either build, paint, army listing... basically the non hobby gaming side just to try and get through things without it crushing me or making me feel like there is an impossible pressure to perform... its, taking a little getting used to. but its a start

I stopped a while back from just giving up in games. I now see them out till the end. Not so much rage quit flip the table, but just mentally getting down and just rolling to hope it ends quicker. ended up apoligising to my brother back then after one massive stompfest at the hands of his custodes. its not a solo game after all, opponent matters too

thanks for the advice. I've been reading up on my stratagems and when they happen, as well as unit and character rules. Think after the first game i had this year i realised how much i was out of practice. I forgot what most of my units did... which was mildly embarrassing after realising all the stuff i could have done ^^;;;

 dadx6 wrote:

 SolarBurrson wrote:
Hi all

I've been having some issues as of late when it comes to the army side of the hobby. I don't know what it is but over the years i've developed some sort of decision paralysis when it comes to making army lists to play the game. I think mentally in life i'm a bit on the rocky side, but i'm trying to get more than the six games i managed to do last year, after all I have these models and armies, and i do like to get games in (pretty much just against brother and currently two games into the new year).
...
So, I'm hear to ask for advice primarily on the Sororitas side. Maybes if i figure out this block I can put that to use and use it on the votann in future. I don't tend to tournament style game, just pure filthy casual. But after the last couple of games that have been... one sided murders, I'm doubting my list creating ability and trying to make up new lists is triggering the issues.

Okay. First thing we REALLY need to know is this: What missions are you playing? Are you guys using the missions out of the book? Are you using Leviathan cards? Are you using Chapter Approved 25-26 cards? Do you guys play different missions each time or are you playing the same mission over and over again? Are you even playing missions or are you just beating the hell out of each other and whoever's army dies first is the loser?

I'm going to share a bit of my personal experience so I can clarify why this information is important, and share my own path to improvement as a player.

I started in 1989, back when you either created your own mission or the goal was to beat the hell out of your opponent. I was a high-schooler and not tactically intelligent at all. No useful information was gained on my part from any of the battles I played. In 1998 I dropped the hobby because I couldn't find anyone else to play against (small town in the US South. If you know, you know).

Fast-forward to about 2008 when I got back into the hobby after years of playing Dawn of War. I picked up the T'au and was back to just beating the hell out of opponents. Wasn't good, didn't learn anything. Around 2014 I developed a friend group that played more regularly and 7th edition had multiple different missions in the rulebook with different win conditions. I didn't improve MUCH but I started to understand that different units were good for different things and where you started a unit on the table could have an impact on how useful it was.

In late 7th edition I played my first tournament. I remember 8th edition was announced during the second game of the day. I got crushed because there was a lot I still didn't understand about the game. Things like - deployment, list building, movement. I still thought it was just about rolling dice and telling stories and the best story would win.

In 8th edition I finally started to think about what I was doing. I lost a game to a college kid in round 2, so I asked him what I did wrong. He was very polite and explained that my list was bad and my deployment made it easy for him. After that I started to try to think about what I was doing in deployment - it's not always about having cover, although often it is.

In 9th edition I started keeping a diary of my battles and tried to record a few things from each. Opponent's army, how deployment went, where I felt like the battle had changed momentum, things I did well. That kind of thing. Once I understood what I was doing wrong, I started looking at the units I was bringing and realized I didn't have what I needed to accomplish what I wanted.

Now I play Votann and have used almost exact same army list for over 2 years. As a result, I've gotten better and better at remembering what each unit does, what their abilities are, and how to use them effectively. I finally can understand the potential of a unit to do what I need, although I still tend to both over- and under-estimate their survivability at the same time. Like, I'll underestimate what they can do in the middle of the game so I won't risk them, but I'll overestimate what they're good for in the list-building stage. It can be very frustrating, especially since I know I need to do a lot still to improve.

For you, I would suggest the following:

1) play different missions if you aren't already. If you were just playing deathmatches, switch to missions and change them up randomly.

2) keep a diary of how each game went. If you think something happened that was important, write it down.

3) Look over the missions when you have spare time and think carefully about the implications of the scoring. Think about what you need to score and when, and compare that to the list that you enjoy bringing. Sometimes you have to change to something you're not SUPER keen on to have what you need. Sometimes you become really keen on something that works well for you.

4) Set an army list and play multiple different missions with it for a year or so, tracking your performance and your mistakes. This will help you a lot more than just reading over your codex.

5) Accept that it's possible that you're in the bottom 25% of players. I have come to realize I'm in the bottom 50% and probably won't ever be a whole lot better. I could maybe get in a couple of games a week and train really hard and get to top 30%, but ... I think that's my ceiling. It sounds like you just don't want to be the doormat, so I think you can definitely get to a point where you'll enjoy the game. But it will take a while. And you'll have to play more than 6 games a year.

Errr Chapter approved current mission deck i believe
And we always do random missions, setup etc. If its a main mission we've played the previous game, that just gets redrawn

Yeah i pretty much before 9th edition just pretty much played the deathmatch style kill what you can games at my local workshop... which didn't really help for when it came to learning about armies. No missions, just beat each other up, 1k points max. And the tables were too small for deployment. My opponents pretty much ranged from meta to easily distracted a lot. So learning my stuff probably wasn't idea there.
Playing my brother now i do tend to use the mission decks more than ever before, its honestly hard to imagine now playing the game without some form of structure.
I've never played in a tournament before. Mostly due to the never having a painted army issues

I have an app on my phone "Tabletop Battles" keeps track of the score, command points, missions drawn etc. I probably should check back in on prior games, see how i fared

Oh and i've no issue with the last bit. I set my bar low i step over it. I'm not looking for greatness, or to be the next big champ. All i'm wanting is to just improve my game, my view of the game, and also improve so i can give better games and not get tied up in getting one sided so i can put up a fight so my brother can get more out of it too