Wednesday, December 7, 2011

How To Be Better at 40k: Be Batman!

That's right. Batman would be an awesome 40k player because he's the world's greatest detective, meaning he's the world's greatest problem solver. 40k is a game of chance and abstract problem solving, collation of data, and weight of risk and reward. Batman is great at the shit! He know's just how to defeat his enemies and delivers the telling blows in an expert and practiced way.

Now it's been almost every kid's dream to be Batman at one point or another so let's jump right into some simple ways you can be like the caped crusader.

1- Knowledge is Power: Batman has a giant wealth of information at his disposal either inside his own head, inside his giant crime solvin' computer or anywhere else he gain access to. He uses this information to combat villains and solve crimes. In 40k you have the same tools and resources at your disposal so you should really start by knowing everything you can about the game (Fluff excluded cause it might not help you win a game to know those things, though it is interesting).
You're probably at least a bit familiar with all the rules of the Giant 40k rule book, but it's best to go over it a few times, and actually read that sucker if it's going to really stick in your brain, but that's kind of a gimme and usually you can access the books at any time during the game, so what I'm really suggesting here is to read ALL the codices. Yeah, it's not fun sometimes, and you might think that you'll never play an army so why read it's codex? You know when the worst time to find out about some kind of special character BS or giant lazer death beam is? Right after it blows the mother loving hell out of your favorite models. Batman wouldn't walk into a villain's trap only to be killed with no means of escape, so study up.

2-Superstitious and Cowardly Lot: Gamers are in scads as much or worse than criminals. Use fear as a way of building up your army against a given foe. I find it strange that many gamers find particular units much scarier than they actually are, or perhaps over fear strong units. This ploy can be used to your advantage. If your opponent is afraid of some part of your army that isn't important to your strategy then use it to draw his attention. Put in a place where it will draw a lot of firepower off your more important units. If your army is well balanced it's even possible to do this with something that's important to your strategy. for example I have a crazy fear/hate of Thunderwolf cav. I hate them so much! They are way too good and I will literally stop at nothing to bring them down, including over extending my battle line to only get charged from the damn things, meanwhile long fangs are shooting the shit out of my whole army.

3- Know How to Hurt Them: Batman knows all the karaties! He doesn't just know one way to break a guy's elbow, he knows a crap ton. He knows exactly where to do things to people to get them to do what he wants, fall unconscious, breaks their arms, throw them off buildings ect. Don't forget what threatens your army the most and how to deal with them. If your opponent plays mech. then have your anti tank ready, if he's playing horde your flamers and machine guns better be there. If he's got a brick unit you're going to have to find a way to slow it down or make it in-consequent. You're list needs to have strong and weak points but it also needs to have been built to take all challengers, however they come. Batman not only knows how to hurt people but he's never trapped for very long, he's never in a losing situation. He's always got a utility belt shark-repellent to get him out of trouble. You need to remember than mono-building seems practical and the internet loves it but you're going to get beat hard if their not throwing the things you're good against against you. I like to keep a few different types of units around giving them different equipment. Like 3 squads with heaters, and 2 with heavy flamers or heavy bolters.

There you have it, a brief guide on how you can become a better 40k player by pretending to be Batman.

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