r/WarhammerCompetitive • u/Icaros5 • 1d ago
40k Discussion How do you practice and improve at 40k when you can't actually play games?
I've been playing 40k for a few months now (~1-2 games a week), and I'm looking for ways to improve at the game during the week when I don't have 3 straight h of time to play a game.
Obviously, playing actual games is the best way to learn, but I'm wondering what I can do outside of games to improve my decision-making and overall understanding of competitive 40k.
I'm looking for resources or exercises that help you practice specific aspects of the game, such as:
- Deployment: How to deploy properly depending on the mission, terrain layout, matchup, etc.
- Movement and positioning: How to plan movement, control space, screen effectively, get good firing angles and position units for future turns.
- Decision-making and trading: Learning when to commit units, when to trade a unit for another, when to split shots, how to prioritize targets etc
- Secondaries and scoring: How to approach scoring, when to sacrifice units for points or when it's best to play tactical vs fixed.
- Matchup knowledge and list analysis: Understanding what different armies can do and how to play into them.
I'm interested in practical resources I can use to actively practice these things, rather than just general advice to watch battle reports or play more games. For example specific YouTube channels that explain the reasoning behind competitive players' decisions, rather than just showing battle reports, websites with guides for different terrain layouts, deployment strategies, or lines of sight on the different maps, tools or exercises that let you simulate deployments or just places for learning advanced competitive concepts that aren't immediately obvious to newer players.
I play Thousand Sons, so faction-specific resources are welcome too, but I'm mainly interested in improving my fundamentals and overall game knowledge.
TLDR: Basically, if you wanted to get better at competitive 40k during the week without being able to play actual games, what would you do, and what resources would you recommend?
Edit: Just edited the games per week because I was getting a lot of comments about it. I did play A LOT during summer holidays, and that's why the average I posted was so high, but this past month post-holidays I can no longer play that much and I'm puilling 1-2 games a week, that's why I was asking for help. My bad for just posting an average that is not the true reality of where I am right now.
51
u/Slavasonic 1d ago
I think if you're playing 4 games a week you're doing better than 99% of folks you'll meet at a tournament. I think the best thing you can do is make sure that you're adequately processing the experience your getting from your games. Things like noting what worked, what didn't, what mistakes you made, patterns you've noticed across games, etc. I have bad memory so I try to take photos of my games to remind myself of the board state throughout the game.
3
u/Ws6fiend 1d ago
I think it depends on the quality of the opponents you play as well. When I play with friends if I know their rules I will tell them everything possible so they can make an informed decision. Does it hurt me in games? Yeah but losing teaches you more than winning.
1
u/Icaros5 20h ago
Just edited this topic. I did play a lot during summer (lots of free time and lots of hype with friends to start playign warhammer) but since mid september I amb playing more like 1 maximum 2 games per week, and that is why I made the post. I suppose 1-2 games per week is still a lot for most people, but not as much as the average I originally posted including the summer time
25
u/HaybusaYakisoba 1d ago
If you're playing 4 games a week and not feeling like you're improving the answer isnt more games. In fact, 4 full games per week is above what i get (or my teammates get) per week except for the week or two before a big event prior to list submission. Contrary to popular belief you dont get better playing more (assuming you know the rules) you get better SPECIFICALLY PRACTICING skills you specifically intend to improve. Most of your reps should be improving weak areas not neccesarily full games. Also what you dont do is just as important as what you do. Stop taking bad games if you want to improve. Every game you play down in hides mistakes and builds bad habbits.
8
u/Poizin_zer0 1d ago
I can only affirm what this person is saying you can grind 2000 reps but if you're not critically thinking about the how's and why's that caused you to lose or places you can improve you're not going to improve too much.
9
u/abominare 1d ago
Youre playing far more games than easily 99% of people. Hell youre getting more games in a week than id bet 90% of people get in an edition. Youll oddly find the warhammer hobby is largely filled with people that neither play nor paint.
But, between finding someone on discord tts/or an in person play group you could push for practice sessions. Deployment and the first 1 to 2 rounds are highly critical so agreeing to game like that where you deploy layout the initial moves and then discuss how your strategies would have interacted is still very useful.
9
u/Ratattack1204 1d ago
Dude. If you’re playing 4 games a week you’re already playing more than like 98% of players haha. I know people in professional teams who win GT’s that don’t play that often.
7
u/Top_Try_3324 1d ago
The best way to improve is to play games, but also to make sure the reps you're getting are high-quality reps of people also wanting to improve as competitive players. To answer your question a bit more closely, look at doing deployments on all of your maps, try running through your turn one, do some math on mathhammer tools (or by hand) with your key units into various meta threats, so that you can know what to expect when you're using your units, or watch some tournament games focusing on top-tables/finals to see what high-level play looks like.
6
u/Icaros5 1d ago
Watching tournaments is cool, the problem is most of the time they just stream the game but don't explain the WHY to each players actions. I've played chess for a long time and when watching competitive games the commentators try to explain the WHY to every move, but I have yet to find that for Warhammer
3
u/Top_Try_3324 1d ago
For the why people make decisions you have to shift over to things like Art of War where the games are between top-level folks but the intent is also to explain choices. Some streams to mic up players, so sometimes you can hear some of what the thought process is but otherwise it's a lot of watching and then seeing if streamers have talented enough folks that they can provide insights. You can also listen to tournament reports on various networks where top players go through their events, matchups, and things (Stat Check on YouTube has some of these done by Innes).
0
u/SolarianIntrigue 1d ago
Art of war doesn't even get their own rules right half the time, much less actual tactics. I remember seeing a video of theirs where a space marines player went up against a meme questor forgepact Knights list, ran all their infantry out in the open, put two tanks in range of an Atrapos to kill a squad of skitarii and got rightfully destroyed in the following turn. Then proceeded to get pissy and complain that he's fighting a tournament list and his rolls are bad
3
u/PlacePotential6209 1d ago
That would be so cool. This is something I wondered too, your original question. I'm going to be doing tts now with a buddy who's teaching me the game. But I got to watch him play on tts the other night against someone working out a tournament list and ask questions. They were very vocal on the whys of what they were doing and it was great. I didn't ask as many questions as I wanted to, to try to be respectful but it was still a good experience.
4
u/Pantheron2 1d ago
For me I do a lot of Sadhammer as u/Desperate_Turnip_219 described. even if it doesn't help you get much better at the game, it lets you familiarize yourself with your opponent's army rules and what their big targets are. I will also watch gameplay footage from tornaments, like i used to do for football games back when I played football (as an aside, american football IMO, maps well onto wargames because you have plays, you have a general leading a small skirmish force, you have a primary goal (scoring) and secondaries (getting a first down, etc.) to focus on)
3
4
u/HeavyMetalSaxx 1d ago
Take notes during your game, like literally write stuff down. Identify which plays worked and didn't work, and also try to identify how much luck played into those successes and defeats. Remember that just because something worked doesn't mean it was a good choice, and just because something didn't work doesn't mean it was a bad choice. Luck cuts both ways and it's easy to fall into survivorship bias and only remembing what happened after the dice fell and not how the dice fell
11
u/carlos_quesadilla1 1d ago
Tabletop simulator.
If you have a computer and 3 hours of time, you can always find a game on TTS. There are a ton of discord communities with LFG rooms that you can find matches in at basically any time during the day.
12
u/Kant_Lavar 1d ago
He's asking for what he can do when he doesn't have time for a game.
7
u/DD_Commander 1d ago
Then technically the answer is still Tabletop Simulator. With TTS you can save your game and pick it up later. Not as good as playing the game out normally, but much closer to real practice than playing alone.
1
2
u/AbyssKnyght 1d ago
Speed40k.
Just move and roll dice. Don’t think too hard.
Proto40k
Play out your first 2/3 turns with your opponent. Should be plenty of information for the both of you. You’ll just have to practice your late game play another way.
Both are just ways for you to make more mistakes faster, which if you are paying attention to them, is the fastest way to learn things.
2
u/luneth41 1d ago
Tabletop Simulator and rapidingress.com are my go to resources, as well as keeping up with the meta via listhammer.info and various discord servers
2
u/sarvothtalem 1d ago
IF you are playing 4 games a week and don't think that is enough to improve then I must be the shittiest player to exist. (I maybe get 1 game in a month)
2
u/Blakearious 11h ago
If you have enough points for 2 armies you can 1v1 yourself at home and keep the table up to continue where you left off Or 1v1ing yourself on tts and saving for the same effect
2
u/PMeisterGeneral 1d ago
Learn army lists.
Firstly your own. Main things I need to check are sergeant/exarch weapon profiles and deadly demises.
Then build 5-0 lists in new recruit and...read them.
Also draw the 15 terrain set ups and where your army deploys so you don't waste time thinking about deployment IRL
1
u/PracticalMushroom693 1d ago
Tabletop Simulator. Tons of guides online but happy to help you get setup too, DM me if you want
1
u/Tony-Pepproni 1d ago
After your games you should ask if there were any blunders you’ve made during the game. You can also ask people to tell you if a move was a mistake during your game (after you made it)
1
u/Zallocc 23h ago
Youtube battle reports are a good resource. You don't even have to watch competitive games (I tend to find them overlong and usually dry), just try to dissect and understand what the players did right or wrong, line moving in/out of cover, using the right/wrong unit for a task, over/under committing, etc.
1
u/MurdercrabUK 21h ago
Learn your map layouts. Pick a disposition, look at the primary objectives and the layouts, and draw out where the sightlines are, where's safe to stage, how far you have to charge to get from your staging area to fight somewhere relevant, where you can fit your reserve drops and where your big models can move. Your play will improve dramatically when you're deploying based on where you want to be at the top of round three.
106
u/Desperate_Turnip_219 1d ago
Play some sadhammer. It's like normal Warhammer, but you walk around the table and play for player 2 as well.
It's not perfect, but you will realize what actions you are taking that are easily punished. "Oops, I moved that up too far, it's so easy to take for me now."