How to Win Warhammer 40k: The Psychology of 40k

40k is as much about using your head as it is about playing with plastic models. I had the master, Fritz to teach me... and I learned. I hesitate to use the term 'head games' but what it boils down to is just that. If you can get inside your opponents head, you have already won half the battle. The easiest way to do that is through knowing your opponent. That is what I bring you today.

Let me begin with some psychology. I am no psychologist. I am a middle school teacher though... that makes me part psychologist, psychiatrist, parent, and lunatic for hundreds of kids a day. One of the most important things I learned in college is this:

The pre-teen child lives in a world where there is one glowing beacon of right... themselves. Every moment of their lives is spent satisfying that one and only truth. The teenage years are where we start becoming adults, and begin learning that for the greater good, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. (Thanks Spock!) So we start to practice consideration, and as we morph into adults, hopefully we master it and employ it.

In general, you and I, are just large versions of that pre-teen narsisistic, self-centered entity. We play a game, and control our army. We put in hours and hours of time on our armies, and our egos and attitudes about them grow proportionately to how much time we put in. As does that inner child! The more serious we get about our armies, the more likely we are to revert back to the age of 8 and forget about all those rules we learned on the way towards being a functional adult. And the more likely we are to treat the person across from us in a less then desirable way... and become pliable to certain tactics...

Once we have come to understand that when we step up to a table we are dealing with an individual who is very capable of reverting back to the mentality of a 1st grader, we can begin to figure out how to use that to our advantage. I have learned how to use my classroom management techniques and child psychology tactics to give me an advantage.

Back to Sportsmanship:

I wrote a post not long ago about sportsmanship and how it impacts tournament performance. Black Matt wrote a post about sportsmanship a few days ago and it is quite a lively discussion on his blog and strikes right at the heart of this post. For the most part, my opponents enjoy playing me in tournaments. Most of them at the end of the game thank me for being a good opponent and playing a great game, and usually right after I just finished smacking them all over the table for two hours. But some of my good friends might not see it. Black Matt, Charly and Brother Captain James might be shaking their heads right now because I am such a dick... Hah! Sorry brothers but when you and I play, the gloves come off. The point is that how we play our friends at the club and how we play a stranger at a tournament MUST be different. You MUST extend that stranger every courtesy and remember that you are not playing a friend. When I play at a tournament I employ a sort of patient persona that I suspend when I get my buddies on the table in a casual game to the death. (Maybe I should do it all the time!?!) That is another discussion.

What do I do?

In my recent sportsmanship post, I wrote some tips. Allow me to expand on that.

I create a story! I make batreps and take video and pictures throughout the game. That means that after every turn, both mine and my opponents, I am keeping a running dialogue that summarizes the game. For example: "Ok, my opponent just finished his turn and he is beating the pants off me, and now on my shooting, I MUST destroy his Land Raider if I am to have a chance, he is walking all over me and my back is to the wall." That quote does a couple of things. It creates drama. Now I have set the stage... my opponent knows that he has stake in the game, and where it is... now, if I destroy the tank, he can see the drama unfold... if I fail to do it, he can celebrate! The loss of the tank is lessened because he knows that I had to do it to survive, and my failure to destroy it gives him a sense of accomplishment... both options feed that 8 year old ego inside of him. I do this throughout the game, creating peaks and valleys of drama and emotion. Every engagement is pivitol and every loss is heart wrenching. But at the end of the game, win or loss, my opponent has a sense of satisfaction. All a product of well coordinated stroking of the ego. It is not fake, I am just creating a situation where we both enjoy playing the game by .

"You will catch more flies with honey then you will with vinegar." So true. A little compliment goes a long, long way. Feed that 8 year old subconsious! Engage your opponent in discussion about his stuff. Ask him questions about his models. Compliment things that he obviously spent time on. Do not offer criticism, even if he asks for it. Pick up his best model and tell him what you like about it instead. Saying good things about your opponent humanizes you. It brings to his deep memory all of those nice things his mommy used to tell him. Or his favorite teacher told him. It makes that beacon of glowing self truth feel good. How does this benefit you? In every way! He will be a nicer person. In game terms, it may even influence his decision making... "I don't really want to destroy mommies speeder... do I?" "That might make her stop saying nice things about me..." Remember, this is all in the SUBconcious.

Caviat: The things I write are meant to be both entertaining and informative. Feel free to call me a big fat bullshiter on this stuff if you want. But it is true! :)

Jawaballs