I read an article on the Privateer Press Forums (second paragraph) which got me thinking about this kinda thing. In the forum post, Not Dice talked about two plateaus of learning Warmahordes. The first being learning the mechanics of the game, and the second being learning The Game, or how to use the mechanics to your advantage. I will assume if you are reading this article that you have surpassed the first plateau, or are getting there soon.
Read Everything You Can
Even if you have a solid understanding of the rules, it's never a bad idea to read through the main rulebook every once in a while. Sometimes a specific model of your faction will pop into your head, and sometimes you'll learn something you didn't know before.
Read your faction book. Read it again. Read it until you can name the statline, abilities, spells, weapons, etc. of everything in the book. And then read it again. Knowing the capabilities of your own models is paramount in making an army list, and using them effectively. Sometimes it's nice just to look at the pretty pictures, though.
In my opinion, there's no worse way to lose a game than, "Your model can do what?". You can save your self a lot of grief by learning what your opponents things can do. While you might not have the resources to get all of the faction books, before you play a game, you can take a couple minutes to read your opponents cards. Of course, this won't mean that you can see all of the angles of what his things would be capable of, or the combos your opponent will pull, but you won't be ignorant of your opponents capabilities.
Play Games
There is no substitute for actual in-game experience. Play as many games as you can against as many opponents as possible. Not only can you gain experience against different factions, you can see how other people play the game. Every person has a different way of playing, even though they might use exactly the same list as another.
You can use in game experience to test the effectiveness of the army list you bring to the game. Did that solo do what you wanted it to?
Take time after the game to evaluate things you could have done better or things you did well. Why did that unit die so early?
Be Aware of Your Opponent's Threat Range
Like the title states, be aware of your opponent's threat range. Most of the time, the first half of the game is players positioning their models to charge in subsequent turns. While you can't go the whole game staying outside of your opponents threat range (if you do, that means absolutely nothing is happening, and why are you playing?), you can use this knowledge to your advantage.
There are two situations that generally come up. Your opponent is or isn't aware of how fast your things are. If your opponent isn't aware, or doesn't see the charge coming, you have an advantage and can hit him hard, first. However, if your opponent IS aware of your threat ranges, you might have to trick/force your opponent to devote too many resources to kill your things. For example, if your opponent charges your 3 point solo with his heavy warjack, you won the exchange there, because you most likely parked your heavy in counter charge range. When both players are aware of threat ranges, it becomes a matter of piece trading. But that's an article for another day.
6's and 8's
Play like you will always roll 6's and your opponent will roll 8's. I'm sure everyone knows that the expected value on 2d6 is a 7. However, as we discovered in my Mathmachine article, it's only a 58% chance of rolling a 7. That means you will not roll a seven 42% of the time. The principle behind this idea is very obvious, though. Prepare for bad dice on your part and good dice on your opponents part. Never rely on 2d6 to get you a 7. That's kind of a harsh statement, but I always boost when I need a 7, provided I have the option to boost.
Well that's all for today. Feel free to leave comments!
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