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I'm so new to war hammer 40k that I might well be treated as though I'm drooling and eating dirt hand over fist at the same time.
So to start, I'm trying to run chaos undivided as Black Legion, though I have a few units painted red and silver and also have some death guard units as well. My brothers and I play extremely casually and use some house rules we haven't touched moral or psykers yet and it doesn't seem like it's going to happen for a bit. I've mostly been fighting the Space Wolves and haven't had much success which brings me to the main reason for this post. Obviously I'm fielding the army wrong or something. I played a 120 point game against space wolves last night and got completely mauled I lost 30 models of varying units while the space wolves only lost 15. I was assaulting a "fortress" with only 1 point of entry and very few defenses on my side while the defender had loads of cover and nooks where his units could hide, right out the gate I'd say not fair and we quit the game early because my brother got tired. I fielded 1 Defiler with missile pods, 2 hell brutes 1 armed the power claw and heavy bolter the other armed with missile pod and twin lascannons, a forge fiend armed with 2 Hades auto cannons, 2 havoc squads with heavy bolters rocket launchers reaper auto cannon lascannons multi-melta and boltguns, 50 marines with assorted small arms with meltas flamers heavy bolters and plasma rifles, a squad of terminators with combi-bolters power axes and a reaper auto cannon as well as a squad of 3 obliteraters. I can't give the exact army list my brother fielded but but it was to of equal point value. With the very vague details I've given, I'm typing this in a drunken stupor, obviously I did something wrong aside from letting him have such a well defended area. What else could I do better? Next time I'm supposed to defend. I know the details are very vague but I'm so mad because he's the type that writes down how many wins he has and how many units he has killed/ lost and instantly gets very cocky when he wins. Despite the fact that he wanted to quit first he is still very assertive in the idea that he won despite this.
1 tactic I'm gonna start using is I'm gonna buy some Rhinos and try to rush lines with them carrying troops while using pox walkers as meat shields. Is this a legit tactic?

Welcome to the game, Sabot, and welcome to Dakka!

Sounds like you guys were playing a narrative scenario. Which is to say, a distinct attacker and defender, as opposed to a more neutral "matched play" game. If that was the case, the attacker usually should get more points to offset their more difficult objective of storming the defences. When you say 120 point game, I'm assuming you're talking about Power Level, as opposed to the "Points" at the back of the book?

In any case, I would suggest that you're playing a HUGE game for beginners. Until you have the rules down, you should probably be playing games more like 25 to 50 Power Level. 75 to 100 PL is a comfortable length game for players that are familiar enough with their army that they don't need to look everything up every turn. Are you both using a single detachment? If not, I would recommend that you both play a game using a single Battalion. It keeps things from getting way out of hand. My suggestion would be to play a game with fewer units until you have a better handle on what your units can do.

There are general suggestions I could give, such as sticking to Plasmaguns on your Infantry, rather than Meltas or Flamers. Plasma is really just so good it's an immediate help to your army. If a unit is "mobile", specialization in weapons can be good as you can choose your targets. If a unit is a sit'n'shoot unit, a more versatile load out can help, as your targets are whatever your opponent leaves in your line of sight.

If you're defending next time, you should have a fairly easy time gunning his line down as he approaches.

Plus, we all get stomped from time to time. Even a nearly 30 year vet. In my last match I got curb stomped.... Because I let some objective cards lead me down a foolish path.

I had to concede the game end of turn three with two tac squads left. Twenty Marines, out of position, with the opponent running away with points, twelve to my three.

Smaller games help folks learn and it keeps it shorter but still some tactics only appear at certain points levels.

If you're losing, you're learning. It's part of it.

Try narrative game. Handwave rules you don't want. Enjoy the game and learn as you progress.

Your toys, your fun.

As much as no one likes to hear it: losing is a part of the process. When you start playing games against people you're facing a difficulty cliff instead of a curve that you'd generally find in single player focused games.

Basically the problem is you're trying to learn your rules, your opponent's rules, the game rules, basic and advanced tactics for both and even if you get all of that down you can still fall prey to bad die rolls, being hit with a meta breaking lists that steamrolls yours, or a tactic you've never seen before taking you by surprise.

Even the best players have to go through all of this, and to some extent we all go through a truncated version of this when our armies get updated and when editions change.

All that bad news aside, there is some ways you can get better. The first is talking to your opponent after a game to see what they saw to tear your army in half. Another is to focus on playing objectives as those points can make or break you winning a game. The last is if you play a particular person regularly, see if they'll trade armies with you and see how they use your army.

Don't forget to look at tactics and army lists others employ (dakka has fairly solid sub-forums for both) and try to approach each game with the intent to have fun while trying to win over trying to win to have fun. That subtle shift will generally make games less of a grind.

And if you find yourself losing anyways, give yourself a small goal, even if it doesn't score you points: aim to kill their warlord, or control a specific objective, or kill a certain unit that always gives you trouble. These sub objectives can help make a losing game more fun, and sometimes help turn the game around because instead of trying to focus on all the really big things influencing the game, you take a step back and take a look at some smaller ones and don't stress about the game as much.

One of the best ways to play is "Let's play and just focus on shooting this turn" and do run-throughs. Then "Let's try melee" and walk through the steps. Just put a couple of squads down each, don't worry about points, and just get the hang of it piece by piece.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
As much as no one likes to hear it: losing is a part of the process. When you start playing games against people you're facing a difficulty cliff instead of a curve that you'd generally find in single player focused games.

Basically the problem is you're trying to learn your rules, your opponent's rules, the game rules, basic and advanced tactics for both and even if you get all of that down you can still fall prey to bad die rolls, being hit with a meta breaking lists that steamrolls yours, or a tactic you've never seen before taking you by surprise.

Even the best players have to go through all of this, and to some extent we all go through a truncated version of this when our armies get updated and when editions change.

All that bad news aside, there is some ways you can get better. The first is talking to your opponent after a game to see what they saw to tear your army in half. Another is to focus on playing objectives as those points can make or break you winning a game. The last is if you play a particular person regularly, see if they'll trade armies with you and see how they use your army.

Don't forget to look at tactics and army lists others employ (dakka has fairly solid sub-forums for both) and try to approach each game with the intent to have fun while trying to win over trying to win to have fun. That subtle shift will generally make games less of a grind.

And if you find yourself losing anyways, give yourself a small goal, even if it doesn't score you points: aim to kill their warlord, or control a specific objective, or kill a certain unit that always gives you trouble. These sub objectives can help make a losing game more fun, and sometimes help turn the game around because instead of trying to focus on all the really big things influencing the game, you take a step back and take a look at some smaller ones and don't stress about the game as much.

ClockworkZion nailed it. I recall hearing early on in my 40k career something to the effect of, "Don't bother keeping track of your wins and losses until you've played at least 20 games." You will very likely lose pretty much all of your games early on. That's fine. That's to be expected. The goal is to have fun and get comfortable with the rules. It would be kind of weird if you were consistently winning right out the gate.

To help learn rules and have fun rather than torturing yourself, play smaller games. I like games that are roughly 1,000 points (50 power level) for new players. It's enough for you to field a little variety in your army, but small enough that you'll get through turns faster and thus move on to the next turn faster and thus repeat the turn process faster. Plus, it will mean that it takes you a lot less time to suffer one of your obligatory newbie losses. No point in dragging things out, right?

Rather than playing heavily biased narrative missions, you might try out the Eternal War, Maelstrom or Open War missions.

Eternal War is very basic. You don't have a lot of special rules to juggle mid-game. It is, however, very prone to favoring some armies over others. This isn't really a game type recommended if you want balance, but it is a good "training ground."

Malestrom is more complicated and very random. You will probably want the maelstrom cards if you go this route. I personally dislike just how random the game is (you get the impression your commander is drunkenly yelling at you to run in circles), but that randomness can potentially level the playing field against a more skilled opponent. Unless you're on the receiving end of some bad luck. Then it just makes things worse. But hey. You were probably already losing anyway, right?

Open War can be pretty unbalanced, but the games are automatically shorter (they only go 5 turns generally), the special rules can be weird enough to balance the playing field the same way Maelstrom can, and the special rules are usually simple enough that you don't have to keep track of a bunch of extra objectives or goals mid-game. You'll need to buy the Open War cards for this.

Thinking of the smaller games, for new players I recommend escalation leagues. It allows you to slowly expand your army and how to play them without just throwing yourself into the deep end on day one, which can make it easier to learn the rules of the entire army over time.

One thing I will like to add- look, don't get caught up in winning/losing too much. You'll end up spending a fortune on models you 'need' but don't really like and it becomes a sort of trap.

Start playing Narrative games, have fun and just goof off with it.

I lost all my games for 6 months straight when I picked up again after a break of a few years. Don't sweat it. Easy steps forward, minor adjustments at a time. After every game, try to find the minimal adjustment you could make to see an improvement. I see some players drastically change everything in every game, and that's not how you want to do it, in my opinion. I think you'll learn more by thinking about threat assessment, target priority, and maybe pulling back instead of going for the "glory charge" or whatever. Using the same (or similar units) over and over again can give you a better feel for what they can really do. There are probably some quick list adjustments, that will help, but try sticking with the stuff that brought you into the game in the first place.

Take it slow.

Sabot88 wrote:
I'm so new to war hammer 40k that I might well be treated as though I'm drooling and eating dirt hand over fist at the same time.
So to start, I'm trying to run chaos undivided as Black Legion, though I have a few units painted red and silver and also have some death guard units as well. My brothers and I play extremely casually and use some house rules we haven't touched moral or psykers yet and it doesn't seem like it's going to happen for a bit. I've mostly been fighting the Space Wolves and haven't had much success which brings me to the main reason for this post. Obviously I'm fielding the army wrong or something. I played a 120 point game against space wolves last night and got completely mauled I lost 30 models of varying units while the space wolves only lost 15. I was assaulting a "fortress" with only 1 point of entry and very few defenses on my side while the defender had loads of cover and nooks where his units could hide, right out the gate I'd say not fair and we quit the game early because my brother got tired. I fielded 1 Defiler with missile pods, 2 hell brutes 1 armed the power claw and heavy bolter the other armed with missile pod and twin lascannons, a forge fiend armed with 2 Hades auto cannons, 2 havoc squads with heavy bolters rocket launchers reaper auto cannon lascannons multi-melta and boltguns, 50 marines with assorted small arms with meltas flamers heavy bolters and plasma rifles, a squad of terminators with combi-bolters power axes and a reaper auto cannon as well as a squad of 3 obliteraters. I can't give the exact army list my brother fielded but but it was to of equal point value. With the very vague details I've given, I'm typing this in a drunken stupor, obviously I did something wrong aside from letting him have such a well defended area. What else could I do better? Next time I'm supposed to defend. I know the details are very vague but I'm so mad because he's the type that writes down how many wins he has and how many units he has killed/ lost and instantly gets very cocky when he wins. Despite the fact that he wanted to quit first he is still very assertive in the idea that he won despite this.
1 tactic I'm gonna start using is I'm gonna buy some Rhinos and try to rush lines with them carrying troops while using pox walkers as meat shields. Is this a legit tactic?

My first game, I lost 69 out of 70 foot slogged marines on the first turns shooting phase against ad mech. my opponent seized and deleted nearly everything, only my captain survived. What I try to do is analyze every game after it is over, talking about it with others and my opponent, so that I can try to learn something from it in order to do better next time. It really works too, I've learned a lot by simple trial and error, throwing myself head first into traffic on more than one occasion.

ClockworkZion nailed it. I recall hearing early on in my 40k career something to the effect of, "Don't bother keeping track of your wins and losses until you've played at least 20 games." You will very likely lose pretty much all of your games early on. That's fine. That's to be expected. The goal is to have fun and get comfortable with the rules. It would be kind of weird if you were consistently winning right out the gate.

What do people do if they lose 50 or 100 games, and still lose or worse see that their opponents are improving, while their army does nothing?

Welcome to the Miniature Wargaming hobby!

The most important thing is did you have fun?

Winnings and losing aren't really important, the game is a form of entertainment. The spectacle of two painted forces doing battle over a miniature field of battle. That is what we play for. Yes, there are those who for them winning is the most important thing.

Speaking as someone who has over 2 decades of miniature wargaming experience, making winning the important aspect of the game ultimately robs you of the entertainment value fond in this hobby. Having said that, it is good to know your opponents. If they only care about winning, they will tend to be bad opponents.

A few thoughts to add to thoes already given.

1) The first part where you play your brothers more so and you've been using both house rules and leaving some out (like the psychic phase) means that you're still a beginner. There is NOTHING wrong with that at all. Everyone has to be a beginner at everything at some stage.

However it means when you then play a more experienced player in a narrative battle you are at a disadvantage because you are still learning the rules and you've not practised all of them and you've adapted some with house rules that you might be using in that game. AT this stage it is hard to use even a good army list and to make full use of good tactics even when you are not at a disadvantage attacking a heavily defended site in a narrative battle.

2) Like others above I would suggest that instead what you need are some games which are smaller in size and where you and your opponent go into it knowing its a beginners game and where the primary focus is not winning for either side; but instead practising the rules. You might even replay bits over again - eg you might get to the shooting phase and shoot one unit then undo that and shoot another of your opponents - learning how the different stats of those units line up to your own shooters and thus what target makes best focus of your weapons. Take if over, most clubs will have more than a few player willing to teach others and spend an evening go through the rules and gameplay. A few small games - heck just one squad per side - can start to reinforce the proper rules in your mind.

3) Once you've got a handle on the rules and all the phases of the game it becomes a lot easier to scale things up to using more models and adding variety to the game. Because you've built an understanding of how the game works you can now more easily start to make choice on what units to take and also how to use them in the game.
You know that your anti-tank units are good against not just "tanks" but models with similar stat lines and abilities; whilst those rapid shot low power units are good against that swarm of termagaunts etc...

4) Throwing in the odd fun game of "hey lets siege a fort" then becomes more entertaining because now you've got some groundwork done on the game. Win or lose you're in a better position to make good choices that you are confident in.

This learning process also carries through to after the game as you can more easily work out what went wrong, what went right and what was just the dice causing you a loss or the dice playing stronger in your favour than expected.



Self learning is a SKILL that you have to learn. It's also one that takes a little time to work out and requires some grounding in whatever it is that you are learning (that's why even at Uni you have lectures and lecturers to give guidance and overviews of subjects). Right now you admit yourself that you're very new to this so don't beat yourself up for losing when you're still getting to grips with things

OK, first off - Punctuation & paragraphs are your friends.

"I'm trying to run chaos undivided as Black Legion"

Strong choice.

"I have a few units painted red and silver"

Paint doesn't matter.

"also have some death guard units as well."

Another strong choice.

"My brothers and I play extremely casually and use some house rules"

OK.

"we haven't touched moral or psykers yet and it doesn't seem like it's going to happen for a bit"

So you're not really playing the game. No issue with not playing Paykers if you don't want to, but the rules for moral are key to your army being as deadly, or as resilient, as it's suppose to be.

"I played a 120 point game"

As mentioned above Power Level, not points.

"I was assaulting a "fortress" with only 1 point of entry and very few defenses on my side"

Like was said above, in a match like this if one side gets fortifications then the other should have some other kind of advantage like twice as many points/power level.

I fielded 1 Defiler with missile pods, 2 hell brutes 1 armed the power claw and heavy bolter the other armed with missile pod and twin lascannons, a forge fiend armed with 2 Hades auto cannons, 2 havoc squads with heavy bolters rocket launchers reaper auto cannon lascannons multi-melta and boltguns, 50 marines with assorted small arms with meltas flamers heavy bolters and plasma rifles, a squad of terminators with combi-bolters power axes and a reaper auto cannon as well as a squad of 3 obliteraters.

That's a HUGE ARMY for a new player. Try playing smaller, at least until you have a firm grasp of all the rules. What was your HQ?

"Next time I'm supposed to defend... he's the type that writes down how many wins he has and how many units he has killed/ lost and instantly gets very cocky when he wins."

So for your next match YOU get the fortifications and he ONLY gets as many points/power level as you get to start with. Then, after you wipe the floor with HIM, he'll be a lot more open to running fairer missions.

"1 tactic I'm gonna start using is I'm gonna buy some Rhinos and try to rush lines with them carrying troops while using pox walkers as meat shields. Is this a legit tactic? "

The Pox Walker meat shield isn't just legit for Death Guard, it's encouraged. Ii'd even go so far as to say "intended."

You CAN go with Rhinos for your Black Legion, but transports are overcosted this edition. For what you pay, you're usually better off bringing something else.

I'd say, for now, play one more big game with your brother. Insist on using the moral rules. Then watch as he crosses the battlefield toward you, and you unleash a firestorm of shooting. Then when he gets in assault range of those narrow choke points, feed him worthless Pox Walkers for him to assault.

Then, after he's lost badly, he should be more open to playing smaller, fairer, more balanced missions.

That will give you a chance to optimize your army as a smaller force.

Quick tactical tip for almost any wargame, but 40K too: Don't try to storm you opponent's castle with only part of your force unless you are just trying to tie up the castle forces.

Breaking a "strong point" takes a focus of models and firepower.

Castle doesn't refer to physical defenses but a tactic of deployment where your opponent creates a "strong" concentration of his forces which he intends to hold back until a certain point.

This is his "castle". Even in the dice are with you, generally speaking, you will lack the needed "dice" numerics to overpower his concentrated force and their return fire will decimate the a more loose formation of assaulting troops by being able to single them out in sequence to maximize his concentrated fire potential.

Also, never underestimate the power of a boltgun. I've done more damage in some games of 6/7/and 8th with boltgun troops vs specialty forces that are supposed to do more. Maybe it's just the dice gods having some fun. Still though. When you bolter down avatars, wraith forces, wraith knights, and vehicles.. it just feels good.

In almost any table top wargame concentrated firepower in the form of MORE DICE almost always carries the day.

You want firepower, and lots of it. Even your CC troops should be equiped with some nasty pistols in 8th because you can ASSAULT AND SHOOT while being in combat. It is something I've seen an awful lot of bat-reps forget. You have to shoot the closest unit.. which happens to be the one you are in combat with. PISTOLS make Chaos Assaulty forces very potent. Use them properly.

Hey man! Welcome to the hobby.

You've picked a solid starter army. For casual play, all armies are viable.

The scenario you laid out, if I read it right, was heavily stacked in the defender's favor. I'd suggest a few things.

1. Take a little bit of time, just read through your army's rules, get familiar.
2. Consider watching some battle reports online (Glacial Geek on YouTube keeps his short, and a lot of fun) to give you an idea how how some of the rules and other armies work.
3. Play a somewhat smaller game until you are comfortable with your rules knowledge.

Power Level is sort of a meme here, its not well written. I'd suggest using points instead, and try to maybe play 1000 points to get quicker learning games in. I suggest for these games using completely symmetrical terrain if possible to even the playing field.

Don't get discouraged, losing early in this hobby is pretty common considering how long some folks have been in it. I know I did.

Sabot88 wrote:
I'm so new to war hammer 40k that I might well be treated as though I'm drooling and eating dirt hand over fist at the same time.

Read some rules and then you will only have a slightly glazed look.

So to start, I'm trying to run chaos undivided as Black Legion, though I have a few units painted red and silver and also have some death guard units as well.

Hey! my first army!
I did the same thing: a little bit of everything to get a feel for what flavor of chaos I liked most.

My brothers and I play extremely casually and use some house rules we haven't touched moral or psykers yet and it doesn't seem like it's going to happen for a bit.

I have friends that want to house rule at the drop of the hat.
I had to put my foot down and stop the madness with this "house rule": Play game straight up as written THEN make one change.
We found too often our "fix" would break something else.

I've mostly been fighting the Space Wolves and haven't had much success which brings me to the main reason for this post.

They can be historically the harder SM army to beat.

Obviously I'm fielding the army wrong or something. I played a 120 point game against space wolves last night and got completely mauled I lost 30 models of varying units while the space wolves only lost 15. I was assaulting a "fortress" with only 1 point of entry and very few defenses on my side while the defender had loads of cover and nooks where his units could hide, right out the gate I'd say not fair and we quit the game early because my brother got tired.

Please look at the rules for terrain placement and side selection.
It is easy to make a good defense if you know you will get those terrain pieces.

I fielded 1 Defiler with missile pods, 2 hell brutes 1 armed the power claw and heavy bolter the other armed with missile pod and twin lascannons, a forge fiend armed with 2 Hades auto cannons, 2 havoc squads with heavy bolters rocket launchers reaper auto cannon lascannons multi-melta and boltguns, 50 marines with assorted small arms with meltas flamers heavy bolters and plasma rifles, a squad of terminators with combi-bolters power axes and a reaper auto cannon as well as a squad of 3 obliteraters. I can't give the exact army list my brother fielded but but it was to of equal point value. With the very vague details I've given, I'm typing this in a drunken stupor, obviously I did something wrong aside from letting him have such a well defended area. What else could I do better?

Part of a loss is: army selection, how your army deployed, who went first, how many command points you get (using them yet?) and what the heck your opponent fielded and how.
Firing at the building and destroying it around his ears is also something worth considering.
Avoid choke points especially if they expect you to assault.

Next time I'm supposed to defend. I know the details are very vague but I'm so mad because he's the type that writes down how many wins he has and how many units he has killed/ lost and instantly gets very cocky when he wins. Despite the fact that he wanted to quit first he is still very assertive in the idea that he won despite this.
1 tactic I'm gonna start using is I'm gonna buy some Rhinos and try to rush lines with them carrying troops while using pox walkers as meat shields. Is this a legit tactic?

There are many "legit tactics".
The launchers on the CSM Rhinos do provide some nice added fire and those too have a fair bit of wounds on them.
Combined metal/meat shields do not hurt.
You seemed to have an awful lot of toys that are expensive, you may want to look at what units gave you the most trouble and look at what weapons best kill them.
Units that sit in the back and bomb you could use some infiltration or deep-strike units for you to go say "hi".

Brothers in particular can be irritating, usually all it takes is to get to know the rules and figure out what each favored unit you field works to place victory within your grasp.
I find that this edition responds very well to large volumes of dice, all of them do, but this edition it seems more.

Some more things to consider:
- Look at the different things you can spend command points on, what units benefit the most from them?
- Get units with buffing auras out there to support the other units that need that help the most.
- Look at the unique wargear available and how it can vastly upgrade a given model/unit.
- Are the full unit buffs something you would use or are useful vs going to smaller squads?
- What is available to buff leadership or improve matters as unit models die?

Anyway, getting thumped can be part of the learning process.
I would suggest playing some games at a local hobby store, some people may be a bit more "understanding" than your brother.

Yeah, that dude's right.

DO NOT play with the same folks over and over again. Especially if you're the only person they play with. I came out of 'learning the game' with a friend and his brother and when I went to play it was like learning an entirely different game experience.

Thank you all for the fast replies! When I very first got into 40k some people told me a good strategy for Chaos was to put some units into Rhinos and then use the Rhinos to get close and get into melee. They claimed Chaos is really good at melee.

Wall of text. Sorry I can't help, it is hard to read for me. Please use paragraphs next time.

Sabot88 wrote:
Thank you all for the fast replies! When I very first got into 40k some people told me a good strategy for Chaos was to put some units into Rhinos and then use the Rhinos to get close and get into melee. They claimed Chaos is really good at melee.

Chaos indeed is good at it; however tactics can vary a fair bit and they vary between editions too.
Also don't forget that what you play against locally can vary what tactics do and don't work. Some people play with very little terrain which is very different to those who play on very terrain dense boards etc..

So its about first learning the mechanics of the game; how each part works. Which is where you are right now. Focus more on learning to play rather than the tactics.

Once you've got the fundamentals of how the game works from movement to moral to attacking to powers etc... then its much easier to move onto talking about tactics nad how certain things work better than others and where and why they do so.

Sabot88 wrote:
Thank you all for the fast replies! When I very first got into 40k some people told me a good strategy for Chaos was to put some units into Rhinos and then use the Rhinos to get close and get into melee. They claimed Chaos is really good at melee.

#1 - Don't trust "hey, this army is generally good at this, so do that" stuff. A lot of armies are good at a lot of things, but you may not yet be good at executing those things. 8th edition has huge rewards for skill, especially in how you execute your close combat. Chaos can be very good at melee combat, but so can almost every faction in the game. The only ones that you can pretty much discount from close combat are T'au, and even then, grossly underestimating them will get you in trouble. Chaos Space Marines are honestly just "okay" at close combat, but there's a few "pretty good" units that can punch up really well when combo'd with psychic powers (Prescience makes Death to the False Emperor much better), Chaos Lords (reroll 1's to hit), Exalted Champions (reroll 1's to wound), and stratagems (Veterans of the Long War, Alpha Legion Sneakiness). Without those, your Chaos Space Marines are often worse in close combat than many other factions. The exceptions to this are Chaos' Primarchs; Magnus and Mortarion, whom are amazing in close combat really without any support (and become psycho-killa with support), but whom aren't available to your Codex: Heretic Astartes (instead coming in Codex: Thousand Sons and Codex: Death Guard respectively).

From reading your post, it seems like you got some solid shooting. Try some of the Matched Play scenarios, since they don't have attackers/defenders, and set up the board evenly. You might outshoot the Space Wolves, who often have a real close-combat bent to them for Space Marines, so keep a tight formation on your units, not allowing their close combat elements to engage your heavy hitting big shooters. Have your close combat elements either ready to counter-charge, or zoom up flanks/deep strike/infiltrate their way into your opponent's back lines or wherever they leave an opening.

There's lots to learn, and it's okay if you get banged up along the way!

Play smaller games. Lots of them. Bring one of your fancier units per game. These will help you get more intimately acquainted with how these models play. That way, you've got an idea for use cases in your head when you start putting them together to make a cohesive force. That's really the toughest part of getting started - transitioning from identifying what works individually, and then combining all of it in both the design (list building) and gameplay (tactics).

You could always build a gunline, these will help you get good fast, because you effectively ignore the meat of the game.