Playing With Myself: A 40K Solo Play and Solo Learn Experience

Introduction

Despite not playing 40K and only intentionally buying one small starter army mainly to paint, I now own 4-5 starter armies depending on how you count them.  Given I’ve spent the last month or so painting up my Space Wolves I thought it was about time I learnt to play.  Inspired by @Evilstu ‘ s article series I thought why not learn to play against myself?  My meta has shrunk from about 8 of us to just me for now until my friend gets his shifts changed, or some toddlers grow up so now seems like a good time to try solo play.  It’s either that or “leave the house” and “be social” and I can’t be having with that!

Goals

My plan is to start small and play a few 500 point games until I can get through them without forgetting rules or powers, looking at the wrong stats or spending all the game looking things up.  I’ll then up the points size and try again and again.  I own around 1600 points worth of Tyranids and Space Wolves so I’ll be using those armies, and trying not to buy anything new, at least until I decide I’m enjoying myself and want to keep playing long term.

I’ll be writing battle reports between games and sharing them here.  As I go I’ll run in to issues and be asking questions here I’d appreciate answers to.  If you see me doing something odd, or killing things I shouldn’t be able to, please speak up and make sure I’m doing things correctly.  I want to learn as much as I ant to have fun.  I was thinking I’d put my questions in colour to make them stand out, but I’m not seeing that as an option, so let’s see about putting them all in bold, shall we?

As I go I’ll be giving my thoughts, not just on the games I’ve played and the models I’ve used, but also on the rules and the experience of both learning the game with minimal GW experience, and playing the game as a solo experience.

Background

Here’s a little background to provide context to my perspective on things.  Skip this bit if you want.

I’ve been wargaming for around 6 years now.  I mainly play Warmachine, but I’ve dabbled a little in other games here and there from time to time. For those that might not know, Warmachine is a competitive play focused game with tight rules with clear definitions.  It has fluff, but it isn’t written with fluffy narrative play in mind.  It encourages tight precise play.  I understand that this is not the 40K way so I expect to have some perspective clashes because of this.  I will try to keep an open mind though.

Growing up in the 80s & 90s I was very much aware of GW.  I had Hero Quest and Space Crusade.  At some point I got my hands on a copy of Rogue Trader, and a Fantasy two player box that had elves and maybe undead in I think?  My only opponent was my younger brother and we did not have the money to actually buy anything (This was all second hand) so we could never deep dive in to anything and I’m sure I did the brotherly thing of misreading the rules in my favour every battle.  Other that those experiences 25ish years ago, I got in a couple of demo games of 8th Ed 40k 1-2 years ago at low points but otherwise haven’t touched it.  GW has always been there in the background of my life in one form or another, but apart from brief focused stints at Dawn of War I’ve never done the deep dive beyond the 80’s board games