We had just finished up playing at the club when Bobby approached me with an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Was I interested in an entire Tyranid army?
Unbuilt and unpained, most still new on the sprue.
10K points and enough bits to make conversions.
What Bobby didn’t know was that before I stopped by the club I had just gotten paid from work. Buy a Tyranid army, or fix my twenty year old car and keep it running for a few more months.
I did the responsible thing and bought the army.
I was about halfway through building them out when the Warmaster approached me and let me know that the club was going down to Games Day in three months and I was on the team. Ready to represent I was going to play Space Marines, but he told me this wouldn’t’ work. The team was all playing a different faction so this way we would pick up some bonus points in the rankings, and the only army not accounted for was Tyanids.
So now I was playing them at the tournament.
The build and paint wasn’t the problem, it was the tactics.
Three or so months to learn the army and get it and myself into fighting shape.
Here was the plan turned into a formula.
While one can’t replace experience, and with that you have to play actual games and shape the tactics, one can cut down the learning curve and compact it.
Turn nine months of weekly gaming experience into three.
Here is how I did it:
Start with the meta.
What was the current state of Tyanids in the Warhammer 40K scene?
What build are primary and working based on the synergy of the rules and the army? What lists are faring well at events and what lists are struggling. Same with the units in the army- which are *good* and which are *trash* from a competitive point of view.
YouTube, streaming tournaments events, and prominent Tyranid player blogs gave me the overall picture.
Now, with this the start of what I would be planning to play at the event. Do I go with the current meta and play what is working, popular, and known, or do I mix part of it up and take 1/3 of the army and add something experimental or less known.
Can I add in some spice that players will not be expecting?
What in the army can do this?
Next is the event itself.
On the meta side, based on the rules and army releases, what are the top tier I armies people will be playing? What can I reasonable expect to face? Again, YouTube, streaming games, and past events will give a complete picture of this meta.
With my Tyanids, what is my plan to counter this?
Can I counter it?
Does my preliminary list I’m building need to be adjusted?
Regarding the event itself, are there mission outlines or examples of previous tournaments using the same format? Start asking the questions about how you are going to both play the mission and prevent your opponent(s) from playing the mission.
This questions shape the army list and the tactics for the event.
Now for physically playing games.
I was currently playing Warhammer 40K game twice a week at the club- Monday evenings and Sunday afternoons. I could increase this by also playing on Friday evening at the Comic shop.
Three games a week would give me 36 games.
What if I increased it to 108 in the same amount of time?
This familiarity in the army is critical. One needs a critical mass of games so the shift from thinking about the rules of the army and what you need to move on the table and how to do it becomes second nature. Having this means during your turn you can focus on seeing the tactics on the table, and the opportunist and mistakes made on the table- covering your mistakes and exploiting your opponents.
How to get in 108?
In one night of gaming I could get in a single game.
IF I played a game to the halfway point, stopped, and asked myself most likely if the game continued who would win, I could now get in 3 games a session.
This format also sharpens momentum and making important game decisions quickly and at the start of the game.
Meeting up with other club members going to the event or other competitive Warhammer 40K players ready to also explore this type of tournament training format.
Which leads to the last part of cutting down the learning curve, what I call the war-council.
We made a Facebook group for the team members going to the event, where we would all post up battle reports from our weekly games and then analyze them and brutally break them apart. No holding anything back why you lost or suck. Take the advice and refine your tactics and army.
This is how I prepped for the tournament, and continue to prep for tournaments when competitive play arises.
Taking nine months for conventional gameplay and compressing that into three months.
Prepare for glory.
See you in the game.
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