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Regardless of how long you've played, we all make mistakes. List some things every player needs to keep in mind when considering the opponent's army throughout a game. What are some common scenerios and strategies that must always be considered. What mistakes do even seasoned players tend to make? What methods would you suggest to improve a player's overall strategy?

 Arth-Rytis wrote:
Regardless of how long you've played, we all make mistakes. List some things every player needs to keep in mind when considering the opponent's army throughout a game. What are some common scenerios and strategies that must always be considered. What mistakes do even seasoned players tend to make? What methods would you suggest to improve a player's overall strategy?

I think it boils down to 3 things: The mission, your list, and your opponent's list
Firstly, the mission matters, a lot. You can see this in the disparity between ITC and GW events. You need to know the mission and play to it in the game...sometimes the mission objectives aren't exactly commonsense or intuitive mid-game.
Secondly, this game is won or lost when you build your list. Period. You can lose a game because of a dumb mistake, but if you bring a list that is bad you will lose ALL your games. Based on the mission, build your list to maximize your score (and minimize your opponents)
Third, have a working knowledge of the other armies in the game, and don't be afraid to ask questions about your opponents units throughout the game. Not knowing what your opponent can do will hurt your target priority a lot.

In game, there is very little that doesn't revolve around those three...Warhammer 40K doesn't have that much strategic depth and the game is rarely won or lost on tactical acumen. More often than not, the outcome could be predicted based on the lists each player exchanges before models even hit the table.

1. Play the mission not your opponent. Many games can be lost due to you feeling you have to kill unit x or y, but really it comes down to getting those victory points, not killing your opponent (unless that is the mission)

2. Dont get bloodthirsty. Cant mention how many times i gleefully charged an entended target and killed it to realize i pulled my unit away from its support and into hostile territory only to then watch the unit die a horrible and easily avoidable death if I just didnt get so focused on getting the unit into combat.

3. Pay attention to what can actually hurt you and whats there to distract you. Killing 20 cultists can be fun, but if doing so you waist 2 valkeries to do so then get blown away buy a 5 man laz havoc squad you may have made room for your troops to move forward killing the bubble wrap but that doesnt do your valks any good.

4. Take a step back and relax. Many times players get so into a game where they dont just see the big picture. If things look bad ask your opponent for a moment (not suggesting you do this in timed tournaments btw) take a few steps back and relax. Then look and see whats going on. Are you losing due to bad list? Bad rolls? Or is your opponent up to something? Whenever an opponent of mine does something unexpexted that seems counterproductive i stop and think hard about why he would do that. Its like chess, if someone is "offering " up a piece in trade is it because they have no better option or is it because they want your piece gone more than they want to keep theirs alive.

For myself, my group plays almost exclusively "end game scoring" missions. The strategies and tactics for that are quite different to turn-by-turn scoring. In end game scoring, slower units that are durable can play an important role in holding objectives, while in t-b-t scoring, they tend to be a liability. That tends to be my basis for overall strategies. Ensuring I have units that can sit and hold, units that can move quickly to take distant objectives (or deep strike) and units that can deal damage quickly to clear space.

From there, I look to the mission, and stay focussed. My last game happens to have been t-b-t scoring. One central objective, most models within 3" scores a point at the end of the round. My one friend used a C'tan power (I know... it was a weird list) to teleport to the centre with a Spyder and a bunch of scarabs. My turn, I moved up with 20 Guardsmen, wiped out the scarabs and cleared away the C'tan, and then assaulted the single Spyder. I did eventually kill it, as it only had 2 wounds left. It took me 3 turns, but those boys weren't shot at and I scored a point a turn for those 3 turns (in a 5-turn limit, I was then unbeatable).

Should Guardsmen with Heavy Weapons and no close combat upgrades normally attempt a first turn assault? No. But, in that situation it was tactically correct to do so, as the lone Spyder wasn't able to inflict significant casualties, while my other long range shooting was keeping the rest of the Necrons and Eldar (3-way game) at bay. By focussing on the mission, I kept large numbers of models near the objective and scored the points, while my opponents were busy bashing and being bashed elsewhere on the board.

For myself, I like armies with lots of solutions / answers. So I like taking a wide variety of units, so I can have the tools to deal with whatever comes my way. Because I have lots of tools, I can adapt to whatever the mission requires. In this case, feeding all of my infantry into a central meat grinder. At least, that's what it could have been, had my opponents focussed on the mission rather than dueling over a *pointless* ruin.

Rather than drop my Scions in an aggressive position to kill more guys, I dropped them into the central ruin that held the objective, to ensure numbers near the objective... and fill space so my opponents couldn't get within 3".

Focussing on the missions lets you see value in units that aren't efficient damage dealers. Some are just quick, to get where you need them. Others are just crazy tough, and take a lot of effort to remove from objectives. I think the most important strategic / tactical advance a player can make is seeing units as tools to achieve goals, rather than murder-plastic that has no purpose but to remove other murder-plastic as efficiently as possible.

Play a weaker army.

 koooaei wrote:
Play a weaker army.

Better yet, play your friends' armies.

Experience is all that matters. You make a mistake, than a second time the same on and so on until you manage to avoid that. Simple. Knowing what other armies can do is also a matter of experience.

If you have additional time to invest try watching some BatReps on youtube, especially the most competitive ones.

Terrain and the table is also of key importance as is how you deploy onto the table. A strong list can work badly if you position yourself wrong.

And into that there are three aspects you have to consider
1) Your plan for your army. This is where you work out key bits of how your army functions. It's about making sure that any unit that supports another is deployed within good support range of that unit. It's about making sure that you don't unbalance your army by putting all your anti-tank on one flank only and leave the other totally without any potential cover.
It's also about knowing what you want to keep on the table and what you might deploy off-table to bring in later - as well as sound reasoning for those choice. Esp where units can be deployed on and off table (sometimes you want them on the table to start with, sometimes ready to deep strike)
These are plans and ideas you can have without even knowing the objective, terrain or enemy deployment.

2) The Terrain and objectives. So now the terrain is down and you've got the objectives for the game you can modify your deployment to suit the terrain. Making sure your large units have room to move forward; that you've got objective holding units in places where they can easily move toward objectives etc... Because you've already got some core ideas for your army, such as support and synergies, you can already start to see where units can fit onto the table and where is sensible for them to go.

3) The enemy. Your opponent will make deployment choices of their own. You already know their army from the army list so now its case of seeing where they deploy things. This is a balancing act as you've got to balance point 2 (ergo objective and terrain focus) with your opponents choices. This is really where you ensure that if your opponent has a tank, you've got anti-tank ready to oppose it in the right position.
You can also pressure them by putting powerful units of your own down early and force them to put their counters in specific spots too. Put your tank down on a flank so they put their anti tank down to counter, yet you know you're going to hold that tank back behind terrain and thus you can put your heavy infantry next to it to threaten their anti-tank early. etc....



Good deployment and a good rough battle plan can make the early game (which is often a critical time) a lot easier to think about (once you've had some practice). It can let any list work better because you've got things in the right places from the start and don't have to waste a turn shifting things around to get them where you want before your opponent has even had a chance to challenge you by moving.
I think it also helps to reinforce objective focused thinking, because its such a key part of this phase. That helps you keep your focus on the actual objectives not just on killing models.


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 greyknight12 wrote:

I think it boils down to 3 things: The mission, your list, and your opponent's list

There is no denying that list building is a big part of the game, but a bad table or bad playing can easily have a good army destroyed by a weaker one. The internet tends to focus VERY heavily on lists because its very easy and quick to talk about; but often overlooks the actual playing and moving on the tabletop. In fact the actual game side of the game is almost ignored - partly because discussion requires either sketches or descriptive language which takes longer to write out.

I also think that its an area where many people run on trial and error/instinct and luck. So whilst they can play well they don't actually know how to describe what they are doing to other people in a meaningful way. So the gameplay side can appear almost as "just do what's logical" to them, which is particularly useless to try and pass on to others when teaching them.

Intellectual Honesty.

Objectively review your games, accept your mistakes and look to solve them.
Bad players blame dice (it is very, very occasionally the dices fault. But vast majority of the time that bad roll that cost you the game was caused by a mistake you made needing that roll to be good)
Good players blame mistakes and learn from them.

@Overread
The internet focuses on lists over gameplay because Warhammer 40K has very little strategic depth once the game starts.

 greyknight12 wrote:
@Overread
The internet focuses on lists over gameplay because Warhammer 40K has very little strategic depth once the game starts.

Even if it only covers the basics then its still important to cover them. In improvement discussions (esp on the net) one has to generally assume lowest point of understanding and work from there. People do it with lists all the time, but they don't dedicate half as much energy to the actual game itself.

Like I said even a good list in the hands of someone who just doesn't have even the basic skills, is going to fair badly. It might take them many games (esp as they might not be self critical about every game or any game) to start to learn those basics.

So there's no shame, harm or pain in discussing the basic concepts of tactics. Besides, like most of us have agreed, the internet tends to not just underplay it but totally ignore it, which is a great failing.

 greyknight12 wrote:
@Overread
The internet focuses on lists over gameplay because Warhammer 40K has very little strategic depth once the game starts.

I'd say the internet focuses on lists over gameplay because the "internet" doesn't have the tactical prowess to finesse the strategic depth of 40k.

Don't change your list too much from game to game. Play games with mostly the same units and iterate slowly. Instead of looking to replace units, think instead about how you might have used them differently. Looking in your codex for fancier options to solve the last battles problem units is fun, and part of the hobby for sure, but coming up with a solution without resorting to buying the new hotness will help your game (and wallet) in the long run. Sticking with the same units will force you to get creative with your tactics. You might still lose, but you'll begin to get a deeper understanding of the tabletop options available to you.

It's been said before but it should be repeated: Don't blame dice! Bad rolls suck, but they're gonna happen and it's your job to mitigate the effect. And it's easy to blame a loss on critical-roll dice failures, but if you are hanging the game on a single roll you probably screwed up somewhere. I recently had a game where my genestealers failed a critical counter charge, needing a 3, but rolling double 1s, then a 1 with my re-roll Strat. I was all grumbly at first, but then I kicked myself with the "don't blame dice!" rule and it shifted my focus to my sloppy play in the first turn that resulted in my crappy position by the third turn. It was my own damn fault, not the dice.

Sometimes it is important to play the mission. Don't let ego get in the way that you MUST destroy his army. Removing three knights is still hard for a lot of armies, however Knights lack mobility and board control, and can only be in three places at once.

It is also asking a lot, but it's good to know what broken gak other armies can do, not just your own, so you can insulate against it.

I am also learning deployment is massive now. Always deploy as if you're going to go second.

I personally find Almost Pro Gaming a good youtube channel for learning new tactics

 Dashofpepper wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
@Overread
The internet focuses on lists over gameplay because Warhammer 40K has very little strategic depth once the game starts.

I'd say the internet focuses on lists over gameplay because the "internet" doesn't have the tactical prowess to finesse the strategic depth of 40k.

Long time no see bud


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Arth-Rytis wrote:
Regardless of how long you've played, we all make mistakes. List some things every player needs to keep in mind when considering the opponent's army throughout a game. What are some common scenerios and strategies that must always be considered. What mistakes do even seasoned players tend to make? What methods would you suggest to improve a player's overall strategy?

1. Build your list with the mission(s) in mind, and what you expect to face - ITC events tend to use the BCP app... once you register for an event, you can look at opponents lists. Unless you have a dead set list you want to play, research what you will face, and make a plan.

2. Knowledge is power in 40k... if you don't know what something does ASK! Always feel free to ask your opponent questions before rolling dice, this will give you a clearer picture of things. The more you play, the more you will memorize stuff. Reading battle reports helps, and see how people utilize units.

3. There is no "one way" to play a unit - Units can fill multiple purposes based on list composition. For example, Plagueburst crawlers can be used as a mobile battering ram or a gun platform. List composition can tell you how your opponent intends to play, and what hes going to try and do.

4. Know your army - Knowing your army(s) is key to playing 40k. If your always referencing basic rules, like strength or toughness, it slows down the game and makes you more prone to mistakes. This comes with time, but spending 10 minutes before a game reviewing your units can help a lot when your starting.

5. Each mission format changes the meta - different mission formats (ETC, ITC, GW, etc.) change army compositions, and make certain units better. Knowing this, research and plan.

6. All armies are viable - Yes, there are "weaker" and "stronger" forces, but every army is viable in its own way. Don't ever take an opponent lightly because you see his list and think it is weak.

7. SKILL IS PART OF 40K - Listbuilding is good and all, but the ability to pilot a list is what separates players. This is why netlisting isn't as huge as, say, Magic; 40k has a lot more variables.

8. Test different army types - the only way to know how you prefer to play is to try different stuff, if you enjoy a playstyle you will perform better. For example, I know I HATE to play a pure gunline. I like to be more in your face, even with shooting units. So I tend to take a more close-up force with a few ranged elements, or a pure CC army.

9. Proxy before you buy - this is where test games, and friendly games, are important; proxy and test stuff when possible before you commit to buying. Theres nothing worse than buying a unit that looks cool, getting him all painted and pretty, then finding he never gets used because hes terrible on the table (looking at you Forge and Mauler fiends)

10. Last but not least... HAVE FUN! 40k is all about fun, win or lose. It is a competitive game, but you need to take it with a grain of salt; you will have games where you roll like crap and your units fall over in droves. But because of this, never give up, never surrender, and most of all have fun. Who knows, maybe one day your Typhus will kill 15 genestealers and win you the game (speaking from experience)

Remember to use all your units. My standard mistake is forgetting a unit and focusing on the epic Primarch duel in the middle. That's why I lost my last game.

pm713 wrote:
Remember to use all your units. My standard mistake is forgetting a unit and focusing on the epic Primarch duel in the middle. That's why I lost my last game.

This is why having a pregame battle plan helps. If you already have plans for where and how to use your units you're more likely not to forget a unit because it has a specific role to play in the army that isn't just a counter/reactionary role to what the enemy has done.

Another is to consult your own army list and double check that you do recall using each unit that turn.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Don't change your list too much from game to game. Play games with mostly the same units and iterate slowly. Instead of looking to replace units, think instead about how you might have used them differently. Looking in your codex for fancier options to solve the last battles problem units is fun, and part of the hobby for sure, but coming up with a solution without resorting to buying the new hotness will help your game (and wallet) in the long run. Sticking with the same units will force you to get creative with your tactics. You might still lose, but you'll begin to get a deeper understanding of the tabletop options available to you.

It's been said before but it should be repeated: Don't blame dice! Bad rolls suck, but they're gonna happen and it's your job to mitigate the effect. And it's easy to blame a loss on critical-roll dice failures, but if you are hanging the game on a single roll you probably screwed up somewhere. I recently had a game where my genestealers failed a critical counter charge, needing a 3, but rolling double 1s, then a 1 with my re-roll Strat. I was all grumbly at first, but then I kicked myself with the "don't blame dice!" rule and it shifted my focus to my sloppy play in the first turn that resulted in my crappy position by the third turn. It was my own damn fault, not the dice.

I think having several lists with very different units is invaluable. Have several lists, determine a scenario, and then have your opponent roll your list after theirs is determined. It gives you more experience with different units, and eliminates any tailoring temptations.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dashofpepper wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
@Overread
The internet focuses on lists over gameplay because Warhammer 40K has very little strategic depth once the game starts.

I'd say the internet focuses on lists over gameplay because the "internet" doesn't have the tactical prowess to finesse the strategic depth of 40k.

"Depth". Still too many point and delete combos.

The counter would be you still have to point and delete the right units which is about piloting. I tend to take unusual lists and quite often my opponents focuss the wrong target.

1)For me its seperateing when to play the mission and when to go for the table

2)Noticeing your mistakes so you don't repeat them

3) remembering the minor options strategems like dataspike or the one that lets you see a mysterious objective that dont come up often but can be hugely important.

Take physical, written notes (not just mental ones!) if you're opponent pulls a cunning tactic, make a note of it. If you forget something, write it down. This should help to compound and speed up your learning process, also reduce the number of 'silly mistakes'.

Equally, when you're prepping your army list. Make a couple of tactical notes. 'Don't forget to use xyz strat in situation A, or B, or C'

Taking notes is a good idea, both during a game (where they might be short and not that detailed) and also after the game. Same day that you play, write out what you learned and observed in the game.

By doing this after an event you start to jog your memory and you start to put things into more long term storage not just the 5 mins after the match reflection, which is forgotten fairly quickly.

spend 15mins learning D6 probability off the Intertubes

If you want to learn how to get the most out of tactical positioning of units, play with fragile and glass cannon units. It should, in theory, teach you the value of how, when, and where to strike after a few games.

Try to build good all-round lists, with two or three mini armies within the list, try to avoid single mega combo style lists.
Not all codices can do this well, tau and gsc spring to mind, but most can, even if it's not the most optimal.
Having an aggressive contingent pushing forward supported by a backline of longer range units and possible deep striking units will allow you to be involved in a good all-round game. You're forced to think about how to move and organise target priorities at both ends of the table, so to speak.
Learn from how your opponent moves, movement in 40k is the most tactical part of the game, both in the movement phase and the charge/combat phase. D6evolution on YouTube has some great tutorial videos. Movement and positioning are what usually separates the best from the rest.

 Overread wrote:
Taking notes is a good idea, both during a game (where they might be short and not that detailed) and also after the game. Same day that you play, write out what you learned and observed in the game.

By doing this after an event you start to jog your memory and you start to put things into more long term storage not just the 5 mins after the match reflection, which is forgotten fairly quickly.

This is a large part of why I'm a proponent for Battle Reporting. Takes some time, but its fun and rewarding to share, and it helps you (and possibly others) learn the game

I would say that it boils down to:

1) Know your army. Understand what each unit is good at and especially what your stratagems and psychic powers are good at. Importance of synergies between different aura effects, stratagems and powers can't be overstated.

2) Know your enemy, at least superficially. Read about different armies and get at least a rough idea of what they are good at and what kind of broken OP tricks(Just about everyone has them) they can pull off. At least half of all games IMHO are lost because you don't understand what you're going up against. Watch other people play and observe how different armies function on the field.

3) Concentrate your offensive, have clear battle-field roles for your units and take time to consider probabilities before doing anything. Keep constant track of your enemies threat ranges and positions.

4) Don't change your list too hastily. It takes a time to get used to new list configuration, and almost always you lose the first few times when running a new list. The answer is usually not to change the list, but to change how you run it.

Learn the close combat phase. I mean REALLY learn it

This phase is where good players really show finesse and control. The movement steps, nuances and possibilities in this phase make it the most freeform phase.

i play regularly ETC competitive events (sometimes team events and most in single events), what i noticed is really good players very very seldom make mistakes, they perfectly know what their list can do and how ,and how they need to approach the opponent list/mission, they study a lot single matchups
For example last tournament i played i faced an army i never faced in 8th edition, i made a deployment mistake with my nurglins and that costed me the match, next time sure i wont repeat that mistake
-Focus on mission, if ur playing maelstrom dont let the opponent distract you , you can kill nothing but anyway win
-Know perfectly ur list, play the list over and over, with small improving changes but keep the list like it is, is a great mistake change list every 2-3 games, more you change more you need to start back learning (Im playing my nurgle/korne demons list since months and never got below 3rd place in every event i played)
-Observe what opponent do also during his turn you can learn some tricks you can find useful later
-Know the rules, if you dont know them hardly you can play at best
-Play always against skilled opponents and never give up until last turn also if the match is nearly impossible, you can learn a lot also when you lost badly, play against unskilled opponents teach you nothing, is like a turkey shoot
-Focus on a list you really like, play something dont satisfy you isn't fun and lead to boredome, dont follow others preferences play what you like
-If you can play inside a team/squad that can give you suggestions and support.
Every player has different personal ways to improve own skills, but this is what i think can be important, i started play competive in 3rd edition and I still play, hope was useful for you.