40K gaming with your significant other

Sup guys, so a lot of us have significant others who because they love us, tolerate our geeky hobby of playing with man dolls. Some of us actually have significant others who actually enjoy the hobby with us, sharing in our passion for the game, the lore, and the models.  For the rest of us, we have significant others who fall inbetween these extremes, they are not into the hobby as much as we are however occasionally they might enjoy to "dip" their toe into the water so to speak and actually join us in some hobbying.  From painting, modeling, to actually playing games, they join us as in some small measure, they might actually enjoy it, that or they love us so much and see that we need to get a game in and happily offer their help.  My wife falls into this category, she listens to me as I excitely tell her of new releases, of changes to rules, etc.  She provides feedback when I ask it about my painting including bringing me down a peg if I start calling myself the greatest painter ever, etc.  The other night, she asked me If I would be interested in playing a game.  I jumped at the chance as again the more interested I can get her into my hobby, the closer I get her to jump into it with both feet in.  In preparing for the game I decided to focus on the following items to make it enjoyable for her and thus make it enjoyable for me.

1.  Play a small game - The last thing you want is for a game to last 5 hours which will not do you any favors with keeping them interested.  Small games will make it easier for them to grasp the rules and thus keep the game moving.

2.  Keep it simple - You really dont want to overwhelm your significant other with a ton of rules causing not only confusion but an unwilliness to keep playing the game.  Lets be honest, 40K has a steep learning curve, we want our significant other to grasp the basic rules and so feel that they are understanding the game and contributing to your enjoyment as well.  No psychic powers, no flyers, etc for your first game.  Concentrate on the basics of moving, shooting and assaulting.  Slowly introduce rules such as morale, psychic powers, etc once they feel a little confident in the rules.  Keep senarios simple, no malestrom for now, maybe just do kill points for your first few games, etc.

3.  Dont run a tourney list - Ok so this can be interpeted in several different ways.  What I am referring to is to play a list that you would take to a FLGS to play a friendly game, not what you would take to a no holds barred tournament.  This goes without question, the last thing you want to do is to table your significant other by turn 2 using your optimized list.  Tone it down a little bit, run a list that is both fun and capable of being challenging for your significant other.  Since the game as a steep learning curve as we mentioned above, take it easy on them.  If they make a mistake offer them a mulligan.  Dont be a dick, make it enjoyable for the 2 of you and you will be surprised by having them ask to play more games with you.

So how did the game went you may ask?  Not bad, I did get my teeth kicked in as she decided to play my Tau farsight list which does amazing in smaller point games.  I played my dark mech with 2 daemon engines, no psycher support (to keep it simple) 2 blobs of cultists and a warpsmith as my HQ.  She took a commander, 2 squads of suits (one 3, one 2), some marker drones, and a squad of 2 broadsides with missiles.  As you can see, I was outgunned from the start with only a forgefiend as my long range firepower.  He managed to gun down one of the squads of crisis suits early on but then felt the wrath of the broadsides in return.  I wont even mention the maulerfiend who just got gunned down at the beginning of turn 2 by the same squad.  Once those 2 elements were down, it was just a slow death for my cultists and HQ.  Yes the game was a little one sided which was my fault but as it was more of a teaching game, encouraged her to get the rules right and allowed her opportunity to recover from mistakes if she misplaced models, etc.  I took pics of the game which are the pics shown.  All in all, the game was super fun and something that hopefully fosters her desire to play the game more.  Who knows, maybe she will want to start an army...

Firewarrior spam test drive

Sup guys, been an age since I posted, sorry about that but with the holidays now in full swing and me getting a new job/position and work which includes a ton of traveling, life has been hectic.  I want to talk about my experience with using the Tau list that I posted about.   Basically the list revolves around spamming strength 5 guns everywhere from running 4 full squads of firewarriors to 2 squads of stealth suits.  For heavy support, 2 squads of broadsides.   I also included 2 remora stealth drones and with their updated rules are really good for their price point.  These added in more strength 5 guns to the list as will as 2 additional marker lights.  A couple of weeks back I was finally able to take the list out for a test run in a couple of games and really liked how the list performed.  My first game was in a 2000 point league against an eldar with necron allies (yup you heard that right) list that included a wraithknight,  2 mini jetseer squads, 2 night scythes,  necron overlord in a douche canoe, and I want to say a couple of Annie barges.  My opponent definitely had an edge on me however through useful application of fire warrior firepower I was able to kill off all of his units threatening my side of the board and using my lone commander battlesuit and riptide to contest the objectives that he didn't have obsec units on.  Needless to say I lost 3 of my 4 firewarrior units but that last one was able to claim an objective on my opponents side due to laying low behind some line of sight blocking terrain and running them the last 2 turns to claim the objective.  I ended up winning the game but it was definitely close with that last firewarrior squad netting me the win with a lucky run roll.  It was a close game but it did show me that my list at least had some legs to stand on.  My second game was during my clubs game day.  I played against a great opponent who was running iron hands space marines with bikes,  centurion dev squad, chapter master of doom on a bike, and a couple of dreads.  First priority in this game was to get rid of the fast movers.  He brilliantly placed the chapter master in front to tank wounds however unless a model has 6 to 8 wounds, I don't care if you have a 2 up save, if I make you take 60 armor saves, you are going to lose the model.  That is exactly what happened as I had 3 full units of fire warriors using the storm of iron power from the ethereal to obliterate both the chapter master and the bike squad.  I then went after his mobile scoring units leaving just the centurions and a devastator squad left which I shot at all game but he kept making his pesky armor and cover saves.   We got to turn 5 before we called it by the score of 10 to 3 in favor of the Tau.   Well the army does have legs to stand on but I can definitely see some of the weak spots.  Blast template heavy armies will absolutely destroy the linchpin which is the ethereal so I might want to add another one to at least make it a little bit harder for my opponents.   I will need to play the list more to see if it's something I will stick with.  As I am a gamer with ADD, in my pics you will see my first squad of crisis suits for my far sight enclave army.   I wanted to have a low model count army that I could take with me during my business trips that is easy to carry with me on planes.  Currently I have about 1000 points which travels wonderful in a small malifaux bag I had sitting around.  The army includes 6 crisis suits, a commander, a riptide, 3 broadsides, and marker drones.  The army has been fun to use even though I have lost more games with it then won.  I hope to finish it in time for next trip and might had several more units to bring it up to 1500 pts.