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Play a couple games against yourself. Just set up some books, cups, cans, etc. as terrain on a smalll table, put 2 or 3 different units on each side, and have a couple games against yourself just to familiarize yourself with mechanics and rules. Don't worry too much about getting it wrong, this is just to get a 'feel'. Once you feel like you understand the basic concepts of how the game is played, play a few small 500pt-1000pt games against friends or guys at your local shop. Tell them you're just learning how to play and need help with some rules, dont be afraid to refer back to your books CONSTANTLY (Ive been playing for almost a decade), and any mistakes you made they should be able to help you out with. Be careful of who you play with, last thing you want to do is learn at the feet of TFG or similar... first they'll usually tell you the wrong rules, and often times they will totally abuse your newness to absolutely destroy you so they can get their own sick jollies.

Dunno about being a champion, i'd be happy enough just being able to be able to complete a phase without my opponent having to remind me I can't do this or that etc...


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Yeah thankfully none of the guys I have played have been like that in fact I am certain a couple let me win although they fervently denied it bless them.


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The miniwargaming channel is absolutely fantastic.

 FURIOSO wrote:
Okay guys where do I begin, I picked up a copy of the rule book and i'm blown away with all the stuff I need to memorise. I play dark eldar so I decided I would focus on the open top/fast skimmers and passenger shooting rules but I still manage when I finally pluck up the courage to play a game get it completely wrong. It's frustrating because I know my opponent would rather be facing someone who was an actual challenge but instead he's stuck trying not to board wipe me by turn two. Does anybody get where i'm coming from or have any tips on when/what to learn? Because at the moment I don't feel like playing, I enjoy the game but I just don't want to be stuck facing someone who will kick me off the bard in one turn and yes I know dark eldar are probably one of if not the worst starter armies, but i've had space marines and they were just boring as hell. I have the strategies all planned out in my head etc and then I forget a certain rule which means my raiders can't fire their dark lances and my passengers fire snap shots so my paper boat was eaten by a carnifex killing my warlord and running the whole unit off the table by turn 3 it's just if I had learned properly that my guys couldn't fire at full BS if the raider moved, I could have shot the carnifex to shreds with 20 something 3+ shots. It's little things like that and learning the core rules in general, I still end up measuring wrong etc. What do you guys recommend I do?

If you are really intimidated start small. Start with only using basic foot troops. These will show you the baseline and most used rules and get you used to them. From there start adding other unit types: Jump infantry, units with lots of special rules, cavalry/bikes, monstrous creatures and walkers and then finally vehicles and flyers. Learn a bit at a time and it is less intimidating. The more you play the more you will recall those rules you use all the time, but those you don't use as often you are allowed to look up whenever you need to. You don't have to have the entire rulebook memorized to play.

As for learning how your army works, that is a separate issue from learning the rules. Dark Eldar are a tough "starter army", but it sounds like you've played at least a little before, so you can give them a go. They have great minis and a cool feel, but a tougher learning curve. Space marines are generalists and can be very forgiving to newer players because they have decent armor, decent weapons and decent base troop stats. Dark eldar are more specialized and much more fragile. That said, you will need to work on the DE learning curve whether you start playing them today, or you wait until you feel you know the rules a lot better, so you may as well just start today. For learning the ins and outs of other armies, if you have access to the codecies your friends use, mock up some combats and see how your weapons work. Set up a really tough carnifex and see what you can do to it with you different weapons in a round of combat. It isn't that tough to do that. In general, though, the tricks you want to learn all come from experience, so play, play PLAY! The more games you play and the more things you try the more comfortable with and more aware you become of your army's capabilities.

Skriker

A lot of good advice here. Make sure your opponent knows ahead of time that you are new to the game. If I'm playing someone who doesn't know the rules I'll tend to bring an experimental/fun list as opposed to stuff that I know works. Bring out the possessed, warp talons, mutilators, etc.

I found the best way was to master infantry movement, shooting and assault (just the basics using troops and simple HQs). Then I moved onto vehicle movement, damage, etc.

Then once you have those mastered, work on incorporating moral checks, different weapon types, etc.

From there you can work on specific special rules.

 Blackhair Duckshape wrote:
Get a decent reference sheet and play with some one who is willing to walk you through the game.

Don't hesitate to ask why a certain thing is happening if you don't understand.

This. Start with a reference sheet and work from there. When I'm learning a new game I always look for a good reference sheet that walks me through the game rather than trying to actually read the rulebook.

As you play the game, rules will come up and you'll have to look them up, I think that's the best way to learn. Start with reference sheet and then just start playing the game and look up rules as you need to. If you can get a friend to put together a basic army for you, that would be best, so you can get a handle on how the game works before you delve in to actually constructing an army.

READ READ READ READ then RE-READ RE-READ and maybe a little bit more of RE-READING.

When I first started playing I was like uuuugghhh da hell? So I just kept reading the book and all the special rules in the codex and the rules for different types of units etc.

It helps a TON if you just play like 5 games in a 2 week period. It will help you remember the rules. For me when I started playing fantasy I understood the basic rules but the people I was playing with knew everything so had a hard time following along.
I then played about 4 games in a week and now I know most of the rules just need some clarification of stuff about special rules for other armies but not mine.

I also made a little reference sheet so I didn't have to constantly flip through the codex or rulebook which was helpful for the stuff I always got confused about.

Also just learn the basics i.e one day just read the rules for 1 Phase and re-read it a few times and then the next day a different phase or some special rules you always use etc etc.

It gets better the more you play because the less you need to use the rulebook...but you will always check the rulebook during the game for one reason or another haha

I will definitely try practice battles hopefully i'll find an opponent who doesn't want to just table me by turn two

I would suggest that you read the rulebook cover to cover at some point. You don't need to do it all in one sitting but you should do it at some point. The exception based rules mechanics this game uses have some nasty surprises for anyone who tries to learn the rules peace meal. Practice also helps as well, as other posters suggested. Start with infantry, that way you don't get burned by the exception based mechanics, and then expand to more complicated units.

Yeah I think I will have to give it a proper read when I get the chance, for example tank shocking raiders with shock prows sound awesome but I don't even really know what tank shocking is....

I don't think I've read any of the GW rulebooks cover to cover, they're boring as all hell. Granted, I also haven't played much 6th edition so I'm sure I only have a casual understanding of the rules, but in previous editions it was usually sufficient to work from the army book down. So start with a reference sheet to get an idea of the flow of the game, then start constructing an army and you'll inevitably have to look up "what does this mean, what does that mean, what's the significance of that" so then you read the relevant section of the rulebook/codex to figure it out.

But then I've been told I have a strange way of learning, so maybe it's just me. I just find GW rulebooks so painfully boring to read, lol. I think the only one I've actually read through the rules start to finish was Aeronautica Imperialis... because the rules are dead simple and are contained within about half a dozen pages.

I never said the rulebook was an exciting read... Neither are technical white papers.
But if you want to know the rules you have to read them.

I find well written technical papers to be vastly more interesting than GW's rulebooks, lol. But reading them start to finish seems kind of unnecessary if you have a decent reference sheet to begin with.

Your approach to reading would be fine with any sensibly written document, but this is GW we are talking about here. The exception based rules are laid so that you can be told an explicitly and with no uncertainty that a given rule must be resolved a specific way, only to find out that applying the aforementioned rule is wrong because a rule elsewhere that you may have missed overrode it. I have had many an opponent quite angry with me because they were caught with their pants down do to a strange rule interaction or even a normal exception (vehicle and MC cover saves in 5e was probably the worse), and thus I advise anybody learning to rules to read the whole thing, least they get angry with someone who is actually applying the rules correctly.

Yeah I knew that passengers in open topped vehicles could fire at something different than what the main guns fired at, my opponent insisted they couldn't so I gave him benefit of the doubt him being much more experienced but it meant my venom full of blasterborn never became the murder machine it was meant to be meaning that I was wasting blaster shots putting down gaunts rather than carnifexes.

 FURIOSO wrote:
Yeah I knew that passengers in open topped vehicles could fire at something different than what the main guns fired at, my opponent insisted they couldn't so I gave him benefit of the doubt him being much more experienced but it meant my venom full of blasterborn never became the murder machine it was meant to be meaning that I was wasting blaster shots putting down gaunts rather than carnifexes.

Part of learning 40k is learning that even the veterans get rules wrong all the time. This is because it's long and poorly written, where some rules don't make sense from either a gameplay or realistic perspective. It's like reading someone's undocumented spaghetti code.

With a new codex or unit, I always take as few options as I can.
Make a basic list, with basic troops, and no tanks or vehicles. Proxy as you need, and you'll get the hang of the common rules, and the general idea of what your models can do.
Then, add in a change, like a heavy weapon choice, or a new terrain type, or a new basic unit.
Once you know that a S4 weapon needs to roll 3s to wound a T3 model, and so on, the rest will just flow.
Only then throw in vehicles, psychics (I know...) challenges, etc. When you use vehicles, don't use them as transports for a game or two, just to get the vehicle rules ironed out.

Start small, and see if you can get Combat-Patrol type games. You'll get in more games. Your opponent won't get as grumpy about missing out on a 'proper' game, as it'll be over quicker, and you'll see more enemies to learn them, too.

I'm pretty set on what dark eldar need to wound, they're all fixed values 2+ 3+ +4 Poison Etc so that's one less thing to memorise lol.

 FURIOSO wrote:
Yeah I knew that passengers in open topped vehicles could fire at something different than what the main guns fired at, my opponent insisted they couldn't so I gave him benefit of the doubt him being much more experienced but it meant my venom full of blasterborn never became the murder machine it was meant to be meaning that I was wasting blaster shots putting down gaunts rather than carnifexes.

The rules for passengers shooting out of a transport, opened topped or otherwise, can be found on of 78. Hope this helps the next time you need to look it up. All firing passengers can fire at a different target from the vehicle.

Just a little from my experience. Usually I take the opponent's word for it and check it after the game so I don't slow the game down. And if you find that you have played a rule wrong, that'll tend to stick in your head if it'd cost you a unit or even the game. After a few games losing, you'll get the hang of it.

Just read through this thread, lots of good advice, will definitely be helpful to me as I'm thinking of learning 40k soon myself.

It may sound obvious, but the best place to start when learning any new game is the turn sequence.

It doesn't tell you only when things happen, it tells you what happens.

I.e. Move -- Shoot -- Pick up money -- Build units. (Made up example.)

Taking my example, you can then learn the Move rules, ignoring the rest of it for a while. Moving some units around a table is a good exercise.

Yeah I am fairly familiar with the whole turn sequence but it's just the multitude of other special rules and circumstances that is going to take me some time to get my head round.