Topic: Are some armies too complicated for some players?

[Crimsonsphinx]

I watched a game yesterday that was strewn with horrible errors from both players.  Both the players have been playing less than one year and they play two of the more complicated armies [grey knights and dark eldar]

They both struggle with the basic rules.  Neither of them knows the to hit chart or wound charts, they always need to refer to them.  So when it comes to remembering more complicated army level rules, they struggle even further.

Yesterday for example:  We had dreadknights in stormravens, the grey knight player forgot his GM was in his terminator unit, he forgot to roll for his daemon weapon and he consistantly forgets that he has psychic powers.
The dark eldar player was equally bad.  He keeps insisting his 2+ forcefield works forever even when it doesnt if it fails, dubious measuring for weapon ranges and forgetting combat drugs until several turns have passed.

The other members of our gaming group have tried to speak to them, encouraging them to build a list and learn it to try to help them, but they wont have it.  It seems they like making things as difficult as possible to remember, then wonder why they lose.   The dark eldar player plays as Marines and Blood Angels as well which he has no real issues with, but he cant understand dark eldar at all.  The grey knights player is supposedly buying a tyranid army next, which theoretically will suit him, but hes already decided that he wants three tervigons and to mess around with the spawning thing which he doesn't understand.

Is it wrong of me and others to be telling them they should try other, easier to understand, armies?  Its getting to the point where all our advice doesn't seem to be getting through and we have been trying a year or so.

What are peoples thoughts on this?  What would you do in the same situation?

[Sig]

Your suggestion is well meant mate but telling someone to use a simpler army would just sound to them like you're telling them they're idiots. No one likes to hear that especially when it's true.

[Finlay]

Grey knights are reasonably straightforward aren't they.

[Quickbeam]

I have the same problem with my younger brother. It's not that he can't grasp the rules but he just doesn't take the time to . There have been games were he should have murdered me but because he doesn't know his codex or take the time to learn the rules for his army.
What I found the best way to get him to learn is to walk him through a game and try to show everything his army can do.
That way he knows what his army is capable of and learns the rules as we go along.

[Crimsonsphinx]

Grey knights are reasonably straightforward aren't they.

Grey knights can be straight forwards, but they have mountains of wargear options to misread/forget, complicated mixed unit inqusitor squads when they struggle with wound allocation at a general level.

Im not telling them they are thick, im suggesting they would be better to use an army like bog standard marines to learn the actual rules of the game, before moving onto an army which is more complicated.  I have tried writing lists with them, explaining what the options do and what they could use.  I have tried advising them of their various choices a unit can perform in game, but I cant play it for them.

[rufus sparkfire]

Do they not play much? It can be easy to forget things if you only play occasionally.

[Crimsonsphinx]

My group plays every week.  Some people play every week, some play every other week. 

[rufus sparkfire]

Oh. Maybe they need to pay a bit more attention to what they are doing then!

[Finlay]

Ah I see what you mean about complications. More things to remember than army style.

[Crimsonsphinx]

All the players in my group who have been playing fifteen or more years started with bog standard marines [thats because in 2nd ed you only got marines and orks].  I beleive they are the best 5th ed army to learn the rules with, as they have very few confusing things about them.  In reality they would be even better using a 4th ed marine book, as these are even more simple.   

As I mentioned earlier, the dark eldar player has no issues with his Ultramarines or Blood Angels but seems to struggle with Dark eldar, because they are quite a different army. 

[Irisado]

Not measuring ranges correctly isn't down to a lack of understanding of the rules, that's cheating, so I think that there's a couple of issues here.  Not being able to remember rules due to not playing enough would be okay (this happens to me at the moment, as I've only played two or three times in the last year), but when they're playing so regularly, it does seem rather strange.

It's possible to remember the rules for more complicated armies.  I own both the Dark Eldar and Grey Knight codices, even though I don't play either army, and I can see why it would be possible to get confused about all the different items of wargear, but, once you have decided on a list, a good way to improve memory retention is not to change it.  That way, it becomes easier to remember all the different rules.

I don't subscribe to the idea that certain armies are too complicated from some players, providing the players in question have the will to learn all the rules.  It sounds very much to me as though there are other issues at work here, which may need to be identified by talking to the individuals in more detail.

[Crimsonsphinx]

I have tried that Irisado.  We have three people, myself included who started gaming in 1993/94 and the others started the end of 2010.  So we have a huge disparity in terms of experience.

What we try to do is mentor the newer players, in terms of list design and advise them of various options in the game, eg what they could shoot at, but without explicitly saying what we would do, until after the game, and try to explain our thinking. 

I own the grey knights book, and I have read the dark eldar one.  Both are miles more complex in terms of options than any of the codexes of the armies I play as [Guard, eldar, chaos, daemons and marines]

I have advised they should build a list and try to keep to it, just to refine it.  But that tends to fall on deaf ears.  What tends to happen instead is they do the exact opposite coming up with things found on the internet to abuse wound allocation etc which is quite a complicated thing at the best of times, never mind when every model is armed differently.

[phillyt]

I don't find DE all that complicated, though your point about the amount of wargear and special rules is accurate.  If you are a person who knows 40k, making the jump to DE is a snap.  If you are newer, they can be marginally overwhelming.

[patsy02]

I deliberately keep wargear to a minimum because I can't be bothered with remembering stuff. I just see what the unit has and go 'pew pew'. I'm not very good.

[Irisado]

What tends to happen instead is they do the exact opposite coming up with things found on the internet to abuse wound allocation etc which is quite a complicated thing at the best of times, never mind when every model is armed differently.

The perils of the internet for new players.

I sometimes end up giving out a lot of advice on 40K Online to new Eldar players which basically boils down to cutting out excessive upgrades and HQ choices, and focusing more on essential core units, and critical upgrades.  Some new players just get a bit carried away with options.

One of the differences between when you and I started (my first game of 40K was back in 1990/91) is that you ended up listening to your mentors more, simply because there was no internet community to appeal to for help, or to search through looking for army builds.

Still, if they want to stick to this approach, perhaps encourage them to actually read some good 40K forums (not blogs), and then perhaps they might see that less is more.