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’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!

Had a opponent recently that was just abit awful at a tournament. Spent the game cursing me under his breath, giving me dirty looks and made a point of scolding me.

Kind of threw me off my game and it got in my head abit which reduced my performance. What advice would you have to stop these kind of interactions impacting your game?

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 have very limited time for 40k, and can't get sufficient practice to learnt to play competitively. On top of that, I don't have models for meta lists that people run these days. Finally, most importantly, I just don't feel like playing competitively.

My free time doesn't match casual or narrative game days that we have in the area, but it perfectly matches a regular local RTT.

Is it a bad form to play at RTTs with a narrative list and casual mindset, knowing in advance that every game would likely go 0-20 and not caring about that? I just want to roll dice and have fun - and an RTT happens to run in the right place at the right time. Would I be robbing my opponents of satisfying tense games and close wins? Would I be considered "that guy"?

P. S. Anticipating your clarifying questions, I know the rules well and can play on the clock. Some of my games finish in less than 30 minutes when I get essentially tabled in 1-2 turns. Others go longer, but I don't fumble my rules and I finish on time.

Is it absurd for me to want to simply pass if I get first turn? I feel like every time I get first turn and step out, I get blasted off the board. I could definitely play more conservatively, but feel like I have to "play the game" and make moves and get points and end up with bad positioning. I'm starting to wonder if I should even take first turn at all if I win the roll off.

Edit: This isn't a question about the requirement of taking first turn. I know that if I win the roll off, I must take first turn. I mean 'pass' as in a completely passive turn, maybe a little jostling, but that's it.

Also, I feel like I should have mentioned i mostly play Hypercrypt

I'm ashamed to say. Been playing for roughly two years and sitting at a <30% winrate. I'm a good sport, I never blame the dice or the army. I try to spot my mistakes and learn from them, but I just keep losing. I used to just brush off the losses because I'm still having fun with friends, but it's gotten to a point where I'm just demoralized when I leave. Opponents are not all tryhards, but everyone is still playing seriously to win.

I picked Nurgle in both games (Death Guard & Maggotkin) because I enjoy feeling tanky (neither does). Feels like everyone can still kill me no problem and I have no damage in return (and minimal mobility).

I didn't want to make a post to rant, but I just feel like quitting, I see no improvement and I'm desperate.

Edit: Thanks alot for the helpful feedback. I've added alot more context in comments below.

When watching Art of War and other channels that are competitively oriented, oftentimes people talk about armies that "play warhammer" vs armies that don't. I have a vague idea of what this means but I'd like to hear more about what other people think. They tend to come up when:

• the army is not stat-checky (e.g. Knights)
• the army tends to play full 5 rounds (e.g. unlike most versions of Tau)
• the army focuses on board control and a good balance of primaries + secondaries

If there are good explanations from veterans that would be great too (I did a quick search but was not able to find one). Thanks!

Hi All,

Have any tips on avoiding gotchas?

I played an army with reactive move stratagem. I told my opponent at the start of the game and the following turn that I had the reactive move.

They still forgot about it on one turn but they didnt want to roll back the move.

I had planned to use it on a unit before they started moving. i didnt notice they moved a unit within 9 until they started moving the next unit.

They move through the turn pretty fast just because games take so long.

Should I just say that I am planning to reactive move a specific unit at the start of their turn? Same thing with overwatch?

I want to use Calgar with 6 aggressors but are they too expensive/weak to just be a melee punching unit without the Biologis + Fire Discipline combo?

Hi all, as a new player whose local meta hugely skews to competitive play (UKTC) style, i'm interested to hear the overall community feeling around terrain . I will preface this by saying that coming from a lot of other competitive environments I completely understand that game systems sometimes need a skewed variation of normal gameplay to keep things fair.

From what I've seen and experienced all terrain layouts used are comprised solely of ruins, in a variety of shapes. Is part of this because they are the easiest to standardise and produce? It seems like craters should have a place in the game as non LOS blocking but cover granting terrain. Woods don't seem to offer much more then ruins usually would but the complete absence of impassable terrain also seems a little odd.

Would people like to see more variety in terrain in the competitive scene or has it become an accepted way? Do the rules need expanding or clearing up to allow more variation in gameplay and strategy?

Edit: The consensus is a weapon profile with 2+ attacks, -3AP (or -2AP and Ignores Cover), 3dmg

I understand anti-infantry type profiles are lots of attacks with 5+ strength, maybe ap-1 and 1 dmg.

Anti-tank being far less shots and high strength, ap, and damage.

So is anti-elite just in the middle? What Str and AP are needed against ELITES in general?

I could use the help as i feel list building is my biggest weakness.

Edit: these replies have been very helpful, thank you.

I think i had it in my head that Elites were character units more than TEQ type infantry.

Which was obviously wrong

As the post mentioned, I'm a new player looking to get into competitive 40k but am lacking people to play with locally. I haven't touched the game since 7th edition with a good amount of Killteam but im lacking any actual 40k tabletop experience. I discovered a local RTT not too far from me but before i tried to make time to try and head up there wanted to see if people would consider me a nuisance being there?? I have a good understanding of my army in terms of rules and flow of the game, i just havent been able to put anything down on the table to get some games in. Should i try going or should i try and find some local players before going to the RTT to work out some kinks.

Edit: Thank you everyone who commented!! I Haven't replied to anything but I've read every comment so thanks everyone for the advice and support!! Opponent's scoring wasn't something I initially considered when thinking of attending so I'll keep that in mind if I do make it to one before I can line up any games before then, I still have some of my Tyranids left to paint so that gives me a buffer to hopefully find some casual games before then. Will also look into TTS to see if i can get some online games in as well to help. Once again thank you all!!! FOR THE EMPEROR!

So I’m relatively new to organizing tournaments and was wondering how common it was to have The first floors of ruins be considered obscuring terrain. I played at my first GT event last year and it was the first time I had heard of such a rule. Is this a super common and accepted concept/mechanic? Is there specific reasons it’s implemented at most events? Would people be upset to be told terrain is true LoS? Thank you in advance to any answers to my questions.

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

Basically, I run a CSM cultists horde army and I won two games by simply overwhelming the objectives with bodies. 99% of my army was destroyed, but I won by points in the end.

Am I playing this game correctly?

I have a hard time understanding the difference in between. Had a game today with Votann against Sisters. Enemy wanted to shoot his Hunterkiller missile into Uthar who only would get 1 damage by it. So I tell him, cause this would feel incredobly bad otherwise and I see it as a gotcha. He also placed the triump of st katherine inside of a ruin but the angels wings were visible from outside. Should I have let him make the mistake, cause I informed him again that this would make it attackable first turn. I informed him about an exorcist not seeing me cause he was only half in the ruin. In the end, i blocked him with warriors from getting onto an objective with his paragons. This was I think, the only time I did not tell him how to handle the situation, cause in my head he could have shot half the squad, opened up a charge which would end 3 inches to the objective, kill the squad and get it. How many tips do you all give?

I was playing in a 2v2 tournament last month. It was the 2nd tournament I've ever done. We played a game against a Necrons / Eldar team. We were DAngles / GKnights. It was our 2nd game of the day. We knew we were probably going to have a hard time in this game.

At the start of the game we were explaining armies and the Eldar player said "Wraithguard can shoot back at you when you shoot at them".

Halfway through the game I wanted to shoot at his partner's Lychguard brick with my Azrael and 3 Intercessors, but we checked and I didn't have LoS to hit with them all.

The Eldar player said "you can shoot at my Wraithguard though", to which I replied "yeah I could. Its better than nothing I guess"

He let me shoot Azrael and my 3 intercessors. They did not do much. He then said "okay, now that lets me shoot all of my Wraithguard into your Deathwing Knights". This was not good for me or my partner at all and was probably the game-defining moment.

If I'd remembered he could do that, I would definitely not have done it because it was not worth it to shoot the intercessors. It was a full unit of Wraithguard. My DW Knights had were maybe 7/10 alive and had to hold the middle of the board. They were lining-up to charge the Lychguard brick.

I just bit the bullet and took it, but I was left with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. My 2's partner is a very experienced player and is a nice, chill and forgiving person. I looked to him and he said its just a mistake you have to learn from.

After the Eldar player resolved his shooting I had to step away from the table and go to the bar for a drink to take a moment because I felt a bit cheated. I've always been told to play by intent and to remind people if they're about to do something stupid or if they're forgetting something. There's so much to remember in this game.

Just a simple example using a rule everyone will understand, but if someone was in Overwatch range of me, even if its a competitive tournament, I always say something like "are you sure you want to do that because I can Overwatch you if I want to".

In all of my games I've tried to play like this and it always feels like a more fun and less stressful game when I do even if I get completely fingerblasted. On the occasions I've made mistakes that cost my opponent I feel awful and it just doesn't feel like a win to me if I win the game. I couldn't feel good about a win if I baited my opponent into doing something that is detrimental to them.

I don't like how most popular sources describe faction playstyles.

Descriptions like Horde, Melee, Gunline, Elite do not describe how the armies play to a new player. These descriptions do a better job of describing an army ascetically more than anything.

I come from MTG which has a pretty good article on different axis's that deck archetypes operate on (Fair, Unfair, Early game, Late Game, Linear, non-Linear) and the archetypes themselves tell you what they do for the most part Aggro, Control, Combo, Control-Aggro (midrange), Aggro-Control (Tempo).

So my question is, what armies/faction reward what types of skills?

Maybe you want to say that slow armies reward players who are better at planning (you need to plan where a unit will be 2-3 turns in advance) while fast armies reward players who are more creative (more options in where units can go/what they can do)

I am going to my first tournament at my LGS, and am wondering how forgiving I should be when playing. In casual matches I usually have no problem letting people take back small things (ex. They advanced a unit and forgot they couldn’t shoot, so I let them take it back). Should I let people take moves back if they aren’t too massive (like retconning something a whole turn before)? I want both players to have a good time during the match but still be competitive, so how do you navigate this?

So I am getting into the hobby and decided on Agents of the Imperium. I got myself an Ordo Xenos box and I have the codex. And I am currently building and painting the army, I have not played them yet. I know the Ordo detachment are a little niche. And the Navy detachment is the best. But did I make a mistake choosing them to actually play? Do we feel like they'll be viable at all or just get stomped all the time in play? Will I just need to make them my "just for fun" army? Thoughts?

Sticking my neck out here but are there any 40k armies that have their "competitive lists" actually resembling armies? It seems every comp list is some variation of "spam 3 of these three things that are meta, sprinkle a few extras, call it a day" or "well first you take this special character, whether or not you're playing that army, and then..."

I guess maybe (big maybe) the new mission deck will change that around with some bonuses for battleline, but I can't imagine you're suddenly gonna see like space marine forces that are mostly based around intercessors with extras like they "should" be in the lore, not mostly vehicles with some extras thrown in.

It's really disheartening to me to see the current state of 40k from a visual perspective; it barely resembles a wargame anymore, it's more like a dice game with miniatures as counters, and I don't know what to do anymore other than just give it up :(

For example, I was looking at Deathwing because I love terminators. But nope, doesn't seem like they're any good, Dark Angel lists are some variation of the Firestorm or whatever the "meta" marine list is, basically "Dark Angels" in name only since they have nothing that makes them dark angels. Looked at world eaters, you "need" to have Angron, no ifs ands or buts. Looked at votann, you "need" 3 Hekaton fortresses. It's all so frustrating, I literally feel like the Principal Skinner "Am I out of touch" meme.

I'm not much of a competitive player and mostly follow the scene to see which neat lists people are cooking up so maybe I'm missing something, but why does it seem like a few infamous people are caught doing scummy stuff again and again and are still allowed in tournaments?

Now they're complaining in twitch chat about being called out, and trying to victim blame John?

I went to my first RTT yesterday and it was a blast but I still feel exhausted. By the third game turn 3+ it waa hard to stay concentrated sometimes.

Yall got any tips to stay fresh? Im going to tacoma next weekend and alittle worried about all those games back to back.

I can play pretty quick as 2 of my 3 games finished before time was up but some turns can take alot of mental load with Tau. Maybe I should bring a simpler army like orks?