Hi, I need some help. There is a guy at our club that I play fairly regulary. He always loses every single game he plays (not just against me) and always looks so dissapointed efter the games. He writes wierd armylist and often make bad tactical decisions. Ive been trying coach him a little bit after each game, on things he could have done differently and list improvements to help him. But he doesnt seem to listen, he often repeats his mistakes. When I know Im gonna play against him I try to write casual lists to match his armies. But its not always easy, the rest of the club members are fairly competetive, so sometimes I get stuck in that mindspace. I dont just want to let him win, that will not be a good game for me. Dont get me wrong, I like playing against him, he is a pretty funny guy and games against him are rarely boring. He just looks so sad after the games and often takes brakes from any gaming. I want to help him improve, but dont know what more I can do to help. Should I do more?
It sounds like you are doing a good job already, trying to explain and help him after the game. The only thing that comes to mind, is to ask if he wants to come and watch you plan against someone at the club, and at the same time explain to him why you make the choices you do, in regards to army list, strategy etc. However this of course depends on the person, though it is something you can bring up at the end of your next game, and for example ask if he would like you to teach him some strategies. If he is running another army than yours, you could even consider using his army to show him how it could be played. I applaud your efforts, if we had more players like you in the community, it would be a much better place for the new players!
You could also consider asking if he would like you to mentor him during a game he play, in this case I would try the role as an advisor, and ask him to tell me what he plan to do, and why (before he does any moves), and if I would have considered a different action, ask if he had considered X, Y etc. Warhammer is quite tactical, and some people find it hard at start due to this, but as soon as they grasp the idea, the same person tend to progress quite quickly.
First off, I really like the fact that you are trying to bring the guy up in skill so that he can enjoy the game. This is the MOST important thing in Warhammer as, at the end of the day, it's a hobby and should be fun. I have a couple of suggestions. 1) Get him to play some chess. He needs to get the idea of predicting actions and consequences of leaving things unsupported. He can just get an app and start playing the computer. It's good as it has different pieces that are good at different things. 2) Get him to watch some battle reports from YouTube. He can do his own exercise for himself of what errors the person made and what good decisions they made. 3) It might sound silly, but have him take a look at actual tactics used in warfare. Wikipedia would be good for this. 4) Have him do some Math-hammer, meaning "20 Saurus face off against 20 Black Orcs" and have him work out in a turn what is the average wounds each would cause. He can do a bunch of different examples and have his own cognition that, yes, you can have luck, but statistics will pan out much better. - Otherwise, does he do anything specific that makes him lose? One friend of mine just choses army lists based on the ones he likes and doesn't really care about tactics. He loses a lot, but he just enjoys playing. I think the main thing would be to get him to assume a state of mind of enjoying playing the game, rather than being obsessed with losing. Maybe give him some examples of your losses? We've all been there: unlucky rolls nuking our pride and joy units, all of the luck seeming to be on the other side, etc. etc. If you won ALL the time, I would argue that it would start to lose it's challenge and thus it's appeal.
Thank you so much for your replies, this will help me a great deal. I was thinking of maybe organising a double battle with him in my team. So we can come up with strategies, plan our lists together and help him during game.