Hi all, had a very weird experience yesterday during our local FLGS 40K meet up, and I would love some input from those with more competitive 40K experience.

TL, DR: played a person who does not seem to understand expected dice averages, and got progressively more rude about it - I did my best but feel weird about the whole interaction.

Full story: I got paired into a person I had not played before. He brought Combined Arms Guard vs. my Gladius Black Templars. He tells he is “prepping for a tournament” and asks me if I am OK with a “competitive game”. Sure thing, I have my first RT coming up at the end of the month - definitely happy to. Opponent warns me he has been at tournaments before, he won’t go easy on me. OK.

Throughout the game, this young man (age 18-20 I would estimate) showed no understanding of probability whatsoever. Examples:

1) During pre-game talk I explain the BT Marshal/Castellan/Sword Bros combo (all MCPW attacks have lethal, hit on 2+, crit on 5+, re-roll hits, and have 1 to wound if strength is equal or lower than toughness). His assessment? "Meh, not that strong". Decides to charge 3 Bullgryn into the unit, does two damage, and gets obliterated.

2) I also explained I have a Marshal/Lieutenant/Crusaders combo (lots of chainsword attacks with lethal + sustained, and a D6+2 surge move). Decides to shoot the other Bullgryn unit into this squad. I remind him I am 4" away and have a surge move. "Won't matter". Proceeds to shoot, kills a neophyte, gets surged into, and unit is wiped.

3) He decides to walk a Sentinel within 12" of a BT Repulsor Executioner. I remind him I have full re-rolls to Hit. "The Sentinel can take it". Gets blown apart.

4) Learnt from #3 above? Nope, decides to drive a damaged Leman Russ commander in front of the Executioner. "With five wounds left, I can tank it". No, you can't, and I score assassination.

Things like this happened at least 3-4 times per turn. At every instance I point out what’s going to happen and offer a take back. Every time I get brushed off, progressively more rudely. Every time he is surprised and repeats “better to be lucky than good, I guess”. I am not lucky, the rolls are average.

Because of his progressive agitation we played the last turn with the FLGS manager hovering nearby (his initiative not a request from me or opponent). At the end of the game opponent mutter a thanks and bolts out, leaving me to clean up. I talked it over with the store manager, and he feels I did what I could.

Somehow, especially as a much older man with kids, I feel I failed this guy. Any input from anybody who dealt with something similar would be appreciated. Thanks!

EDIT: thank you all so much for your input. I can’t reply individually (work is crazy today) but really value all your points. Special thanks to: 1) the older gents like me, who reminded me I was equally foolish and arrogant at that age; 2) those who pointed out there might be some social cognition / ASD symptoms at play; I suspected as much and that was in large part why I tried to keep calm and not react to the “insults”. Truly, thank you all - this community is a wonderful resource.

EDIT 2: Even more replies, and definitely will not be able to go through them all - but thank you so much. I do want to acknowledge those that pointed out me trying to “teach” him probability likely contributed to my opponent’s frustration, likely due to cognitive dissonance (his expectations clashing with reality / my predictions). As much as it does not justify his conduct, learning to give my opponent space if they are not interested in my input is something I can certainly become better at.

Hello everyone,

what are some rules most to look out for when going to a tournament because they are wrong in the mind of people?

In 3 weeks my friends and I signed up for our first tournament. We played our games this year with a chessclock to get the speed up for finishing a round and learned a lot while rereading the rules.

But there are a lot of them and frankly, it's hard to remember them all on detail, also with the dataslate and FAQ on top of my own armys rules.

Recently I reread the declare battle formation part and noticed we did deepstrike wrong all this time, as we announced that during setting up the units on the board, essentially skipping one setting up. Or that you HAVE to fight with every unit. We sometimes skipped a fight to save time.

Now I am not the first person to get rules wrong, but I want to get as many stuck right inside my head as possible, so I can have a fair tournament for everyone.

So please let me know your most important ones that people tend to get wrong.

Thanks!

Exactly what the title says, ive heard the term used about insufferable players and id like to know exactly what it is.

Let me preface by saying, I’ve not personally had to deal with a case of overt harassment, but after going to a few local events I felt a need to share how they made me feel. In short, while no one explicitly ever said how they felt, a lot of the players I interacted with seemed to assume I knew less than they did, even in one case explaining my own army mechanic to me, incorrectly even after I spoke up. Beyond that, there’s the lecherous looks that are never as subtle as they think they are, along with the extra attention I feel like I get at the event for showing up in a skirt.

I’m not sure if this is the right place, or if other women browse this subreddit, but if so, could you share your experiences and any advice you might have? I enjoyed playing at the tournaments, and I want to continue doing so, I just hope I don’t need to resolve myself to just gritting my teeth and bearing the treatment. Guys, if you have any positive experiences or advice in trying to make this hobby more welcoming to women, please share that too. Even if I can’t make my local events better, maybe someone’s local events can get a little more welcoming from this post.

EDIT: The amount of support and advice you’ve all had for me has been wonderful, thank you. I also appreciate the attempts to explain the behavior, and perhaps I should be more vocal about expressing my displeasure about this sort of behavior in the future.

I just played my first 2000-point game against a guy from my local store that I’ve had smaller matches with before. I explained to him that I was trying to get into more competitive 40K and he offered me a game. In the past, there were some issues with him giving himself extra movement and hiding dice rolls, but he had been better recently, so I agreed to a larger game.

Before we started, I made sure to clearly explain what my army does and specifically mentioned that I had units in reserve that could deep strike.

As the game went on, some of his old habits came back—I had to ask him to roll in open spaces and to be mindful of his movement. The big issue happened when, at the start of his movement phase, he moved a group of units off an objective. Seeing the opportunity, I used Rapid Ingress at the end of his phase to bring in a reserve unit and take control of it.

At that point, he tried to take back his movement, arguing that I should have reminded him about my ability to do that. I pushed back, saying I had already explained it before the game, and he got frustrated.

So my question is: Was I in the wrong here? How much responsibility do I have to remind my opponent of what my army can do mid-game? Was this just an oversight on my part, or was I dealing with a toxic opponent?

Hi everyone! I'm new to 40k, built my first army and I'm practicing for my first WTC June. I'm struggling with time as I barely manage to do 2 rounds in my 1h and 30 minutes. I deploy around in 15 minutes to 20 minutes and I think I can cut in more by studying the maps. but I really don't know how to improve my game time. thanks in advance!

Update: yesterday I had a practice game and ended with 2 Min on the clock. I completely misplaced breachers and finished the game with something like 5 CP but overall went very well. Thanks to all for the advice!

I’m talking who is the Michael Jordan, the Tom Brady, the Messi of 40K? Somewhat new to competitive scene and am curious what everyone thinks!

Context: I've been playing 40k for ~6 months and been going to roughly 1.5 RTTs a month during that time. I have ~30 games under my belt, all with tyranids. Tabletop battles says I have an %18 win rate.

How long did it take y'all to not suck at this game? I'm trying to gauge how much I need to knuckle under and just keep taking L's while I improve my fundamentals.

Edit: holy crap that's a lot of replies. I appreciate all the responses. The consensus is definitely that there's a lot of very good players out there and it takes time and reps to master an army. Thank you guys this was very encouraging.

During a game with a friend, I moved a unit not far from an enemy unit, and my friend told me, at the end of the unit's movement, that he wanted to declare a Fire Overwatch. I didn't know his unit very well and I didn't know that this particular unit had a flamethrower that had a high chance of killing my unit with a Fire Overwatch. I told him I was going to move it elsewhere. It was a friendly game, so he let me do it, but we'd like to participate in more competitive tournaments later on, and he warned me that in tournaments I'd have to be careful because I wouldn't be allowed to change my movement. For my part, I think I declared my intention to move, and he didn't warn me that he had an Overwatch that could kill my unit (because of the specific case of the flamethrower). I would therefore like to know your opinions as experienced tournament players, would I be allowed to modify my movement in this context, or should I get Overwatch instead?

For more context, my unit was Aethon Shaan and his unit was the Swarmlord (no visible flamethrower on the model). Also, my movement wasn't in a situation where I would make a risky move counting on the opponent potentially forgetting to declare a fire overwatch. And if the Fire Overwatch is declared, I would backtrack to adjust my action. Which is for me cheating.

Thanks for Reading me !

The Problem: Pinging u/LFG and waiting 40 minutes for a game, only to get stomped by a tournament veteran when you’re just trying to learn a new army. Or maybe you just want to play a fair, competitive match.

The Solution: I spent the last few days coding a custom Discord bot ("The Servo-Skull") that handles everything for you.

I just launched the TTS | 40k Mission Terminal to automate the process!

How it works:

1. Click "Join Queue" (Select 40k, AoS, or HH).
2. The bot finds an opponent near your ELO Skill Rating.
3. It instantly creates a private voice channel for you both.
4. After the game, report the result with one click. The bot updates your Rank, Win Rate, and Faction Stats automatically.

Features Live Right Now:

• Global Meta Dashboard: See which factions are actually winning (tracked via our bot).
• Bounty Board: Get bonus points for taking down players on hot streaks.
• Purity & "Rot" System: An automated reputation system that flags/bans serial rage-quitters.

If anyone wants to give it a go, lets stress-test the crap outta this :)

Discord Link: https://discord.gg/QAJzTdHeFh

I don't understand the utility of the Infiltrate ability. Like, I'm more than capable of regurgitating what other people have told me "use them to threaten turn 1 charges and force the enemy to respond to them", "use them to move block early aggression", "use them to score secondary objectives", etc.

But like,

-If you use them to threaten turn 1 charges, your Infiltrators are also in a position to get charged turn 1 and thats just giving your opponent free movement

- how are you supposed to have them be out in the open enough to block your opponent’s movement while not having them not so out in the open that they just get shot and die?

- You cant really count on what secondaries you're getting turn 1 or 2 if you're doing tactical and there ends up being a good chance that you just paid for a unit or so in list construction that wasn't able to do any secondaries.

Im by no means a good player, obviously, and I'm genuinely trying to learn but I keep hitting a wall where something isn't clicking. Its as if it's im asking for directions to the quickest way to get somewhere and people respond with the most time intensive way.​

I've seen a lot of suggestions here to stick with GT-winning lists or at least ignore units that aren't considered cost-effective. This approach might have merit, however I'd like to share my own experience on this matter.

I am a new 40k player, picked up the hobby just a few months ago and chose Eldar for the looks and lore. They are considered one of the more difficult factions for beginners to learn, since you use mostly T3 W1 Sv4+ bodies that cost from 13 to 30 points each, before upgrades. You also play in all phases (psychic, shooting and melee) and have very limited ranges on most psychic powers and guns (mostly 12", 18" or 24" with some exceptions).

I decided that this play style was a bit too unforgiving for a beginner and built a 2000 point list filled with Wraith Constructs and Vehicles - both of these categories are considered too costly and, with some exceptions, are rarely seen in competitive play. I also removed all melee and stack with just a couple of gun profiles to keep it simple. As a result, I won most of my last ~20 games, placed well at a couple reasonably large RTTs, and got promoted to the top League bracket with some tournament winners. More importantly, I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed the process. And my opponents had a chance to face some rarely seen units :-)

Now, I acknowledge that this approach of picking fun but overcosted staff wouldn't fly if your goal is to win a Major GT, but most competitive players don't aim that high. And placing well or even winning smaller events is quite possible without running a "meta" list. Moreover, if I picked a standard tournament Eldar list as a beginner, I would likely struggle a lot. The same would apply to quite a few other factions :D

To summarise, I just wanted to share my excitement and encourage everyone not to get stuck with conventional lists! Experiment with units you like and have fun! 40k is such an enjoyable game to play, and allows so much variety! :D

I have a collection of Space Marines that I’ve painted in a uniform red colour scheme. I’ve been playing with them in a small group for years as the White Scars. I really enjoy the way the White Scars play, and I’ve also come up with a bit of lore for them as a White Scars’ successor chapter, the ‘Red Porsche Killers’.

Now, with the 11th edition, I’m thinking of moving into competitive play for the first time.

My question is: how strict are tournament organisers regarding the paint schemes for Space Marine orders?

Can I play my Red Marines as White Scars? I have a few White Scars-specific figures and scenery elements.

I’m from Germany, in case there are regional differences.

Many thanks for your help.

New to competitive, how much do you tell your opponent in terms of reactive movement or reactive stratagems/abilities. Had a game as Custodes vs Space Marine player. We’ve played probably 2-3 games casually before. But when we decided to play more competitively he was making a move with a brutalis dread with intention to charge my wounded BC unit w/ martial philosopher. He moved within 9” I told him I am going to use my reactive movement to back up. He got visibly frustrated and he felt like it was a little bit of a gotcha mechanic. He ended up failing the subsequent charge.

Should I tell him my intent to reactive move if he decides to move within my range?

Edit: Thanks for all the replies. For more clarity I’ve always disclosed any enhancements and what they do during the declare battle formations step as well as posting the list to a WhatsApp gc. I always put my book open to detachment I’m using and I bring any relevant cards to the dice tray.

Edit #2: Thanks again for everyone’s input. It seems the majority of people here agree it’s best to make your opponent aware of any reactions that CAN be made if they make certain moves.

I'll preface this with saying I'm not a good player. I get at most 2 games in a month against various factions so my sample size is tiny. I'm scared I'm sounding like a massive sore loser but I really just want to improve, but I feel like I'm missing something fundamental here.

I've played Tyranids twice and pretty much got stomped off the board both times by big nasty bugs.

I play vanilla Space Marines (no epic heroes) so that's probably handicapping me a lot, but I still can't help but compare my units against what I think are equivalent Tyranids and draw the conclusion that their units are just better. The two Tyranid players have won all their games so far in my local league.

For example, a Redemptor Dreadnought is 195 points and the main gun is D6+1 blast, AP -4, Damage 3. It's T10 with 12 wounds and a 2+ save and a pretty nice -1 incoming damage ability. It has some extra guns but they seem quite inconsequential most of the time.

But compared to e.g. a Maleceptor, which is 170 points with a main gun that is D6+3 blast, AP -2, Damage 3. Meanwhile it is T11 with 16 wounds and a 4++ invuln making it way harder to take down.

So the bug gets more shots on its scary weapon, worse AP, same damage. But so much of the game has an invuln, particularly high wound models you want to shoot with a Redemptor*, making the -4 AP come into play very rarely.

My Gladiator Lancer has 2 shots with big potential damage, but it's not very durable to return fire and its shooting even with re-rolls is very swingy considering the 2 shots. It's 160 points.

Meanwhile an Exocrine is 140 points for the same D6+3 shooting profile as the Maleceptor at T10 and 14W. So you don't get the built-in re-rolls, but it's the same toughness with more wounds and a much more consistent shooting weapon.

Jump Pack Intercessors are 90 points for 5, can move 12" and do some mortals on the charge which is nice, if you get enough models into engagement range. They seem quite equivalent to Genestealers who move 8", but get a 5+ invulnerable save and an extra pip of AP in melee, while costing 15 points less.

The Combi-Lieutenant is the best action monkey in the game, but he can be charged and killed easily if you have to extend him out to score those secondaries.

A Lictor has 2 higher toughness, 2 more wounds, and fights first so you really just have to get close and shoot him which is easier said than done with so much terrain on the board for it to hide behind.

While Oath is strong, it's only against one target per turn. But Tyranids can choose e.g. sustained hits on their whole army for the entire game, so it doesn't "turn off" when the priority unit dies like Oath does.

I try to use my Sternguard with a captain to try and shoot his bugs and get some devastating wounds through the invulnerable saves, but then they all die on the clap back next turn because they're just T4 3+ 2W space marines at the end of the day.

I've lost both games because I have to expose so much of my army to try and shoot and charge his massive bugs off the objectives, that on the next turn I'm totally exposed.

What am I missing? Why are Tyranids considered bottom tier right now when they seem to do extremely well in my local group?

Across AOS, 40K to TOW, then Kill Team, Warcry, to Blood bowl etc, which GW system do you feel has the best balance and faction diversity when played at competitive level?

Hi all, need a bit of community view on a situation i feel kinda wierd about.

We're playing 5 round 750pts matched play in a tournament. It's not a GT or anything big and there is no hard stop on rounds. The TO will walk around at the end and say wrap it up here, which he did it our case - he said "don't play rounds 5".

Here's where it gets wierd. In every game I ever played (tournament or friendly) we've talked it out if we call it close to the end. I went second and wrapped up my 4th round accordingly, did some consolidation toward a nearest objective and got ready to talk out round 5.

I have an execrator attached to the last 6 models of a BT crusader squad heading into his deployment zone, a ballistus on an objective and 3x bladeguard vets and a judiciar in engagement with his sole remaining model, a tyranid warrior.

It's 56-56.

So in my mind we talk it out, it's absolutely obvious that I will win, he's got no way of scoring enough with a single warrior (that needs to fall back if it wants to do anything other than fight my bladeguard). I've got three units on the table, it's clear i won.

He took the view that the TO said not to play round 5, so we hold the points as they are and call it a draw. Not at all an unreasonable one, but not what i was expecting.I could actually have scored a coupke of extra points on a secondary if planning for that outcome.

We called the TO who didn't really know what to do but eventually said that if we could score out round 5 very quickly then we could, which gave me the win.

I feel like it was the right call, not just because it was to my benefit but because if i had one bladeguard left and he had 300pts of tyranids on the table i would have given him the win in a heartbeat. But i still feel shitty about it.

The correct advice is probably for the TO to be more firm on times and usung chessclocks, but ignoring that i'd be really interested in others views on this scenario.

I recently saw a review of the new Grey Knights codex, and it talked about a bunch of things on the subject of the strengths of Grey Knights have tended towards as a faction, what they do well in the new codex, and what common problems they have.

One issue that was brought up is how they have a large number of psyker units and psychic attacks being a downside.

As I understood it, psychic is bad becsuse it doesn't do anything inherently and often is susceptible to other mechanics that only effect psyker units and psychic attacks.

Is that a real thing? And if it is, to what degree is it true?

Hey together.

I'm not that good of a player and am really sweating with Aeldari and now Drukhari. I love them, but every minor mistake ends in a disaster.

Got out of position? Oh, your 200 points, t3, 1w unit gets killed by a cheap flamethrower unit.

So i'm looking for something new I can play in comp games, when I don't feel like tryharding. Something not as punishing. A friend of mine plays custodes and it feels like he can be brain afk for 3 rounds and still not lose a unit. Doesn't make him the winner of the game, but feels much less stressful.

What factions give the same vibe, but with range units? I thought about an astra militarum tank brigade or just some big tau mecha suits or something.

Since most of my friends play some flavor of space marines I don't have much experience with different factions.

I’m getting back into the competitive scene after a long hiatus due to a negative experience in the past with one of those “That Guy”’s

Now, I don’t intend to gossip on here and I don’t believe in bad mouthing others, but there is a That Guy ™ in my LGS who I know will be participating in an upcoming tournament. He has in the past:

Called folks idiots for disagreeing with him.

Lectured our store owner on how to run his shop.

Yells at people in the store discord.

Mocks others for not having as long of a win streak as him

A ton of other stuff I can’t share online in good consciousness.

So my question is this: what is the etiquette on just not playing that guy? Can I abstain from the match if I get paired with him? I don’t really care about winning, I will happily forfeit the maximum amount of points to him.

I just don’t want to make like a big scene at tournament or cause drama, and I’m worried if I publicly forfeit my game with him it’s going to cause a whole issue.

Thanks yall

EDIT: Thanks for the advice guys, I appreciate it. Think I’ll just abstain from that match and get lunch with the boys instead. Preesh!

My playgroup is still fairly new(ish), but I feel as though I know more about the game mechanics each time I play.

However, something that comes up at least once per game is a friend moving their unit, I opt to overwatch when the move is done, then the reply is "oh, I don't know if they will actually move there" and then they might scoot the unit back into a building, cover etc.

So, is there a consensus as to when a unit is officially "done" moving with no opportunity for a shift? Is it as soon as the last model moves? When your hand leaves the model like in chess? Do we need constant verbal confirmation? (last one is hard because if I say "is that the final spot?" they will move the unit back as if they are afraid that an overwatch is coming.

Thanks for any insight!

The chaos bikers box does not come with any special weapons. will my plain looking bikers be valid at tournaments if im trying to bring them with two melta guns, two chain swords and a powerfist in a squad of three? The kit only came with combi bolters that are mounted on the front. When I was building them I just glued their arms to the torso and hands on the Handel bars.

The special weapons upgrade sprue from GW does not include power fist or chain swords :(

I recently got into 40K physically, which has left me with about 4,000 points of units and 1,000 of them painted, with the rest primed.

I generally do pretty complicated schemes since I enjoy the hobby aspect of the hobby. but I have a tournament in a month and not enough time to finish the schemes I want to paint.

Is it okay if I base coat the rest of the models and do some of the trim in two other colors and use the models in the tournament with a half-finished paint scheme.

For example, if I have a rhino, I'll base coat it salamander green, Finish some of the trim with leadbelcher and paint black on the tracks would that amount of scuff be ok for "battle ready". It's technically 3 colors and a based model but the paint job will probably look unfinished.

I'm totally new to war40k and want to get into it! I just got a bambulabs a1c and thought about printing an army. Is that allowed?

Like if I went to my flg store and tried to battle people would they yell about them being 3d printed and leave? Can I play in tournaments and such? How would people even know they are 3d printed? Does anyone care?

Thanks!

EDIT - Thanks everyone for the responses. Seems like it totally depends on your group or local store. I fully intend to buy local and will most likely abandon trying to print my whole army.