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Hey folks!

I've got a Dark Angels buddy who has been struggling with 40k. He's a bit of a skiddish guy at times, and often forgets some of his very important rules (like forgetting that his Nephalim flyer's missiles only scatter 1d6" instead of 2d6"). But his real problem is that he is making a lot of strategic and tactical errors. Like putting his Chapter Master AND Librarian with Devastators (who are all armed with different weapons) up on a building in the table corner when that leaves The Relic out of view, and about 3" out of range! In a 1500 point game, doing this effectively had me play with a 300-400 points advantage.

(at the end, he even said "man, Chaos Space Marines sure seem strong!"... poor guy was becoming delusional)

It's not that it wasn't a fun game; actually, it was a ton of fun! However, at the end he even said "It was a great game as always, but I'd sure like to win one some day." And that hurts, because I know that it's that kind of disheartening feeling that can pull you out of a game. You need to feel like a winner sometimes, and I want to help my buddy out.

I don't want to just point out all of his mistakes, because then you get the sense that your opponent is playing your army for you. At first I thought "maybe we should switch armies" so he could see that it's him and not his army (Dark Angels) that's the problem. Then I realized that this is just insulting him... not actually helping him. I think that eventually he'll learn, but the learning process is going to be very painful. Any suggestions on how I can help him learn tactics and strategy? I know pretty thoroughly where his list and his strategy/tactics went wrong, but I need some help in teaching him how to learn from these mistakes and not repeat them. Almost all the mistakes he's made are the same ones he's made in other games.

Here's a battle report I did, with lists:
http://darkshard.ca/darkshard/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=4590

First I would recommend you play smaller games. 1250 or so, the main advantage is he will have fewer units he needs to learn how to use. At 2000 there are simply too many moving parts to the game. I would also drop any flyers and pyskers from your lists. Those are just complications.

Your right don't point out mistakes unless he asks you and then only focus on a few he can fix in the next game.

Here is the important part; talk about your actions during the game. Describe your game plan as it unfolds. Explain what your doing during your turn; "I'm moving this unit behind cover so your Devastators cant shoot me," "Unit X is the greatest threat too me this turn, so they need to die." "I need to push you off that objective this turn to win", etc. What this does is displays how strategy and tactics work.

And one last thing, some people like to just push models around the table and put no thought in it. If he is one of those guys than there is little you can do for him. He'll change or quit when he is ready and not a moment before then.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
First I would recommend you play smaller games. 1250 or so, the main advantage is he will have fewer units he needs to learn how to use. At 2000 there are simply too many moving parts to the game. I would also drop any flyers and pyskers from your lists. Those are just complications.

Your right don't point out mistakes unless he asks you and then only focus on a few he can fix in the next game.

Here is the important part; talk about your actions during the game. Describe your game plan as it unfolds. Explain what your doing during your turn; "I'm moving this unit behind cover so your Devastators cant shoot me," "Unit X is the greatest threat too me this turn, so they need to die." "I need to push you off that objective this turn to win", etc. What this does is displays how strategy and tactics work.

And one last thing, some people like to just push models around the table and put no thought in it. If he is one of those guys than there is little you can do for him. He'll change or quit when he is ready and not a moment before then.

I think you're right. He was itching for a larger game, since he had been doing a number of small games (around 600 points or so he said), and wanted to sink his teeth into something meatier. Maybe too large, too fast for him. I know he's really proud of his flyer though, so I'll let him use it next time and won't take any anti-air, which will let him really go to town with it. I have been pointing out my steps as we go, and why I'm taking those steps. When he won the roll for going first, he let me go first and I started placing my Rhinos as close to the Relic as I could. When he saw me doing this, he realized his mistake in letting me go first in the Relic and asked if he could go first instead, and I of course let him. I gave him a bunch of points on how to use his flyer too, so we'll see how that goes!

If he wants to use a flyer than I would recommend you use one as well. So he can see an example during the game.

I used my Heldrake in the last game, and it was quite powerful. I also used my manoeuvres with it as examples at the end of the game to show him why his "strafe up the middle" strategy didn't work, because he had no plan for it after that first move.