A new player!

timewizard · by **timewizard** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 2:30 am

My neighbor has decided he wants to learn to play 40K!
He's 17 years old and after seeing my minis and a bit of a game I was playing one day, he had expressed an interest in playing.
So tonight we started.
I spent about 45 minutes or so with him. Put some terrain on the game table and put a couple of squads of marines out.
Then I went over the terrain types and effects, game turns, movement, shooting, assaults, armor saves, cover saves, pretty much just the basics of the game.
I loaned him my rulebook so he can read up and told him not to worry about selecting an army as yet.
Tomorrow we're going to get a basic game in, most probably marine vs marine, simple list, 1 HQ 2 troops.
Will let you know how it goes.

killmaimburn · by **killmaimburn** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 7:47 am

It is an acceptable way to learn the game..but for the very very first time he sees stuff,AND is learning,I'd suggest he wants to see shiny robots exploding and excitement, not a 20 man footslog.
Suggest first game you ignore the 2 troops 1 HQ and balanced points- point this out to him.
Avoid terminators,
You take 1 av12 walker. take 1 rhino(don't rhino rush at him)+ one other tank (not vindie, as by accident they can be good) and a tactical squad.

He takes a full 10 man tactical squad(with special weapons), 10 man assault squad (fully equiped inc melta bombs) 1 captain (not named, not librarian) with some good assist CC stuff. A dev squad with 2 heavy weapons, lascannons or something.(something that makes sure your dreadnought isn't really going to be a threat)

Treat it like boot camp and your guys are disgraced astrates or something playing paintball with the noobs..
Don't have an inside voice, tell him when you think you've got an advantage and how you intend to exploit it, tell him when you think your cornered and what he can do to make your fears manifest etc..
He'll learn about vehicle and transports and walkers and jump infantry,CC and shooting against vehicles etc.(whilst only having to keep in his head half of that in game) He' learn the core game principle of shoot the choppy and chop the shooty (about the only tactics there really are) and you guarantee him a win which will make him have positive thoughts about the game.

BANE · by **BANE** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 8:47 am

To hell with that, rip him a new one! Got to get the wins where you can :-)

mattjgilbert · by **mattjgilbert** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 9:32 am

Is that from the Nigel King school of learning?

Good new TW, and a new opponent

ruffian4 · by **ruffian4** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 12:03 pm

Yeah, would agree with kmb, big explodey stuff!!!

timewizard · by **timewizard** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 12:46 pm

Good suggestion KMB! :idea:

I'll give that a try.
Don't worry Bane, once he gets up to speed...no mercy, no respite!! :twisted:

Stunty · by **Stunty** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 4:39 pm

mattjgilbert wrote:Is that from the Nigel King school of learning?

Nige takes some flak on this forum lol

killmaimburn · by **killmaimburn** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 5:11 pm

Its all jealousy... ... ... :mrgreen:

skywalker · by **skywalker** » Tue Mar 08, 2011 12:17 pm

He's got broad enough shoulders to take it :twisted:

timewizard · by **timewizard** » Tue Mar 08, 2011 2:30 pm

Well, the tutorial game went well. James had:
Tac squad X10 with flamer and multimelta
Assault squad X10, sgt had melta bomb
Dev squad X5, 2 lascannon, 1 missile launcher, 1 heavy bolter
Captain with power sword and stormbolter

I had:
Dreadnought with assault cannon and stormbolter
tac squad with flamer and missile launcher adn rhino
Predator with autocannon and heavy bolter sponsons

I had us play pitched battle/annihilation figuring it would be the easiest set up for a new player. I won the roll and deployed my forces. I split into combat squads, 1 in the rhino and 1 with the missile launcher on the second floor of a ruin.
James deployed well using cover effectively (with a small bit of help!). He also split his tac squad into combat squads (told him it helped with the heavy weapon selection.)

I suggested he put the dev squad into cover in a ruin giving good field of fire and cover saves if needed. In the event, he didn't need it that much!

I told him he now rolls to sieze the initiative meaning he could go first. I said "You have to roll a '6' to go first." which he promptly did!

He shot at the rhino with his dev squad, immobilizing it! He was beaming!

Game went well. I managed to knock off a couple of his dev squad guys forcing a morale check so he got to see how that went.
His reduced dev squad managed to destroy-explode the predator! Another "Yes, yes, this is great!" moment for James!

Highlight for him was getting his assault squad into a multiple assault with the dreadnought and a combat squad;

After the smoke cleared, he wrecked the dread with his meltabomb and in the next combat round wiped the rest of the combat squad. His losses were 2 assault marines!

It didn't take too much longer for him to roll over the rest of my force. He wrecked the rhino and wiped the remaining combat squad.

Final score: James-5 KP / John-0 KP / WH40K-a new player.
He can't wait to play again, now wants to try a balanced battle.
@KMB - Thanks for the suggestion on forces and gameplay. Each step of the way I told him why I was moving a certain way, pointed out how to make best use of cover and LOS, when to shoot and when to run. He got a good grasp of the fundamentals very quickly.

We'll see how it goes from here!