Some exercises to practice for struggling or new players

[KanKrusha]

I have been playing the game for many years and to be honest I have never been any good. Recently I decided to try and work on my micro skills and here are a few exercises that I came up with to work on my skills. I thought other players may find them helpful.

The aim is to forget about winning the match for one game and focus on only practicing these exercises. I suggest trying these out in 3v3s as no one will notice that you aren’t playing normally. To be honest my play has been better doing these exercises than when trying to win anyway!

Use cover in every engagement.
This is an extra exercise for really new players whereas the other exercises below are for players who know the basics but may have some bad habits. For a whole game, every movement order you make that is not a capping command must end with the squad in cover. In addition, every time your squads are shooting or being shot at move them into cover. Even if you think they will win the engagement you must move them into cover. Remember the aim of playing is to practice this exercise not to win the game. If moving into cover means moving too close then move back out of range to find cover. Even if it costs you the game, practice the exercise. You probably need to do this for 3 games till you get used to the idea of the importance of cover.

Queue up a movement command EVERY time you issue a capping command
Even after years of playing I have found this exercise helpful. This exercise is to get you in the habit of queuing up commands. The rule is that every time you issue a capping command you must queue up another command, either another cap or a movement to end in cover. Pick cover next to the point you are capping or bring the unit back across the map to rejoin your army. Do this for a whole game. (To queue commands simply hold down the shift key as you issue the second and subsequent commands.)

This is an easy exercise and once I tried it and saw how powerful it was I just made it a habit for every game. After that, new ways of positioning units started to come naturally.

Did you know you can queue up a retreat after capping? Did you know you can queue up an ability? Did you know that you can go back and queue up commands even after giving commands to a different unit?

Use grid keys for abilities and building units
You must be using grid keys for this exercise. You must be using grid keys period!
Using grid keys is much faster and more accurate than moving your mouse from the play area all the way across to click an ability and then all the way back again to select a target. Plus you can track much better. I always knew this but out of habit I persisted in mouse clicking. What a mistake!

For this exercise play the whole match only using grid keys to activate abilities even if you don’t know what they are. Slow down, look over, see which hot key to press and then use it, all the while tracking your target with your mouse. I was shocked to find that even though I had to slow down to look and find the hot key to do this, that the end result was still faster and more efficient. Even when I felt I was going reaaallly slow the final time to use an ability was never slower than using the mouse. And was always more accurate This exercise needs to be repeated 3-5 times until it becomes a new habit.

Play a whole game without over-extending a single squad or your hero
I frequently get a bit too aggressive and over-extend units result in squad losses. For this game try to play the whole game without over-extending. Be cautious, look at the mini map frequently and imagine that a banshee squad is trying to flank and get in behind your squads (best done on a laney 3v3 map). The result will be a much more defensive and cautious play style but the first time I did this was the first time I got halfway through tier 2 without losing a single model. Of course, then I got over-excited and threw my whole army away in a single showdown. Try to keep it up for the whole game, don’t forget you aren’t playing to win; you are playing to practice this exercise. Your allies won’t notice anything funny if you do this, they will just think you are preserving your units better than usual! This exercise needs to be repeated multiple times.

Dress your lines
Anyone who has played a Total War game will be familiar with the concept of having to keep your lines well organized even when marching across half the map and needing to dress the lines neatly before a fight. Leave a big gap in your lines and a cavalry unit will charge through and rout half your army.

Perform this exercise for a whole game every time you plan to advance your units or attack. For this exercise pause your units just out of combat range and organize them into neat lines before you advance. This means that as you advance you will be moving your units en masse instead of drip feeding your squads one at a time to your opponents. Show discipline and don’t select all then a-move but move your squads individually as you normally would. Just stop out of range and organize them first. This is a one-off exercise and you don’t need to repeat it once you can see the difference it makes.

Play off the mini-map not the main screen
The main screen is just a distraction! Try and watch the mini-map as much as possible. All the important strategic information is on the mini-map. This one is simple but hard to maintain for a whole game: every 5 seconds glace at the mini-map, even in the middle of a big engagement. It is helpful if you have a metronome or timer app that can give you a little signal to trigger you to look at the mini-map. In addition, every time there is a lull in the fighting stop and look at the mini-map. For the whole game plan your movements while looking at the mini-map not at the main screen (stop, look at mini-map, plan).

Use an ability or global you have never or rarely used
This one is easy, the aim of your whole game is to use an ability you are unfamiliar with. Do this for each ability you are unfamiliar with, even if you think it is useless, to find out how powerful it is and get an idea of how you might incorporate it in usual matches. Its amazing how much trying an ability once opens up the ability for you to use in future games.

As an alternative try combining abilities with different units. A nice easy one is to combine an inquisitor’s crossbow ability with a catachan barrage (or a manticore or hellfury strike). Pick a combo and see how many times you can pull it off for the game. Go for a triple if you feel like a laugh. Once you see how powerful ability combos are then you will want to try them all the time.

Thanks, this is a list of exercises to practice not a strategy guide. And remember you are playing the match to practice the exercise, not to win.

[Cyris]

These are wonderful tips!

[Narcolepsy]

Props KanKrusha, I've been trying to put these into effect (when I can focus on more than one thing at once). Nice job dude

[Aetherion]

Excellent tips. Could you suggest any exercise to judge the ranges or focus fire/target priority? I found these (esp FF) particularly useful

[Lichtbringer]

Excellent tipps.

But while reading these I realized something:
I do not value cover. I have made bad experiences with cover. I want to stay far away from cover if possible

Maybe its because I play Eldar. But I feel like my DAs have a better shot agaisnt a Tacticalsquad when both of them aren't in cover. Atleast they do some damage then.
And if I put my DAs into cover, the Tacs always find cover nearby too. While they run there, they take almost no damage, then my DAs start to drop.

Also, if neither are in cover, its way less obvious that I am going to throw a grenade. When I am in cover and run out of it to my enemy its painfully obvious.
When I am out of cover, the tacticals will often even come into my grenaderange, because they see a good killing opportunity and don't want me to be able to run away as easily.

If I am not in cover already, my units lose 3 models before they get there.

My DAs also always never all fit into the cover. Then they get wrecked.
When I am in the open, my enemy is way less inclined to go find cover himself, he sees a good opportunity. He is also less inclined to go melee me.

When I have 2 DAs in cover, my Opponent gets one Tac squad in cover AND only in range of one of my DAs.

When I am in cover I get outranged by big shootas.

When I am in cover, AOE hits harder.

When I am in cover my Opponent in general approaches way more carefully then if I just stand there.

Even if I am in cover my DAs get shot down hard.


Energyshield cover on the other hand, I can dig that

[KanKrusha]

All good points, I have noted similar stuff with orks and cover being quite situational. As I say it is a list of exercises not a strategy guide. I give no gurantees about what you will learn.

For focus fire you could try combining this with the "dress your lines" exercise. Once in combat press Ctrl-a (select all) then a click (attack move) on your target. You will need to then micro your melee squads to stop them charging in. Do this for a whole game

Personally I find I am too busy using abilities to carefully focus fire. To get over this problem, for a whole game try selecting a target for each squad by hot key (go through them all) and focus firing before you use any abilities.

Once you have done that play a whole game the opposite. Play a game making sure you trigger an ability in every single engagement. Even if it is an irrelevant ability you have to use one.

[Thunderhost]

Very good pointers!

One thing I find very useful; Learn the ranges of weapons, especially setup teams. If you know these, you can arguably almost nullify their effects, flank them, and generally be unhindered in your movement. IIRC Noisy is VERY good at this (if you want to watch replays).
Another is listening for audio cues, e.g the sound of the Zoanthrope can be heard from a distance, letting you know it's there.

[Epostle]

I like this thread, but it would be awesome to get more insight on how to "Micro"

Like most things, I know it takes practice, but are there any tips/exercises to improve micro?

For instance, what key bindings are best used when selecting squads? How can I improve being able to observe the map?

Questions like these I'm having a hard time understanding myself just because the higher level players how played longer and know the tricks. Is there an exercise that can help us to improve or than the obvious play more?

[Crewfinity]

really the way to micro is to just do it

i put units that i micro more frequently on lower keybinds since they're more accessible to me, so like with SM i have FC on 1, upgraded scout on 2, tacs on 3, asm on 4, and capping scouts on 5.
you can also group units that you'll be using in the same place/targeting the same stuff on one hotkey once you start getting more units (ex double shootas on hotkey 3)

beyond that, try to be less complacent. make sure you queue up orders for your units, especially your capping squads. once they have their orders, move to a different unit by double tapping their hotkey and give them orders. try to rotate around all your units while youre not in engagements to maximize your army efficiency. a lot of 1v1 play is determined by how much your army is doing in between engagements and how well you're using them. try not to stay more than a few seconds on a squad unless you're actively microing them around, and try to be aware of where your opponents units are by scouting around.

as far as the nitty gritty of microing around, here are some basic tips:

try to keep melee units out of LOS of all enemy ranged units. use them for scouting around but dont approach needlessly, dance around terrain to make the enemy chase you, go back into fog of war and backcap more things, or try to circle around to a good flanking position or into a retreat path. line of sight blocking terrain is your best friend

with ranged units, try to hug cover as much as possible and avoid blobbing. by spreading out your ranged units, you can avoid getting multiple squads suppressed by a setup team, and you can also kite approaching melee units much more effectively. dont be afraid to back off if you dont like the look of an engagement, pull back a bit into a better position instead of holding as long as you can and then retreating. try to always be aware of good positions to dig in at, such as green cover close to choke points, or a garrison in a key location.

try to keep map presence. spread your units all over the map and apply pressure wherever you can, only bring units together when you need them all for a push or to prepare for an engagement. dont retreat needlessly, even if you only have 1 squad and the enemy is pushing with their whole army, a lot of times you can kite that squad away and make him chase you, buying you more time to prepare than if you had just retreated out.

[KanKrusha]

Hi epostle

The exercises above are to work on your micro. The question how to improve micro gets asked occasionally and there isn't usually a good answer because it comes down to practice. However, if you practice "consciously" you can improve much faster. Practicing consciously means being aware of what you are doing and how you could have done each thing better, reviewing each game and thinking how to improve. Replays help because they are a bit more objective than your flawed memory of the game.

It is possible to train skills through coaching. That is why drills and exercises are important for sports. You also need to be thinking what is this drill trying to teach me? In order to teach skills you need to regard a skill as something that is Teachable, Learnable and Measurable. If you imagine yourself standing with a clipboard trying to assess someone's performance in a game you would need some measurements to count. As we are talking about micro we are talking efficiency and the best way to become more efficient is to reduce waste such as wasted mouse movement or wasted clicks, wasted actions or waste losses. So thinking about counting errors and reducing waste. You might count units lost, squad idleing time, player idling (watching a unit and not clicking) time, inaccurate clicks, repeated clicks, time units spent out of cover etc etc. you would also look at player posture and how they have set up their desk and computer

In many ways micro is not just about clicking faster it is about using less effort to achieve more. If your movements can be smaller and more precise they will be quicker and more accurate. That's why there is actually a lot of tactical skill that goes into micro skill, it is not just brainless clicking.

If you are playing consciously and working on improving your micro with some practice exercises you will hopefully start to see opportunities to improve. if you can start seeing your own ways to improve you will pick up the skills faster. The brackets below are just a start, start using those and then see if there is more you can do.

Look for ways to reduce wasteful and inaccurate mouse movement (hot keys and grid keys)

Look for ways you can check on your squads better (cycling through units and using the minimap)

Look for ways to reduce wasteful retreats (fall back more and earlier so you dont have to give up the field)

Look for opportunities to reduce your squad idle time (queueing up orders). When you queue up an order you want to move the squad at the end to where you anticipate the fight will be, not just to safe place.

look for opportunities to reduce needing to watch a squad before issuing another order (queueing up orders again) ie player idle time

Look for opportunities to improve your use of the environment - watch a Tex replay and see how he dodges around objects

Look for ways to avoid getting caught in melee and more importantly retreating from melee

Watch your replays and see how often you try and fight an "even" firefight. Chances are what you though was even was actually an advantage to your opponent. Look for opportunities to kill your opponent's models without losing your own, likewise look for ways to avoid a fight that will cost you models.

Start anticipating more. When you start anticipating you will start acting earlier. Anticipate your opponent using a nasty ability and fall back or move your squads earlier, likewise anticipate the melee squad coming in and catching your ranged squad, anticipate the jump squad jumping, anticipate the path your retreating squads will take and will they go right through a melee squad or past a grenade?

PS - disclaimer, I can talk the talk but not walk the walk!

[Epostle]

I like all the advice. I know part of the game is playing it, but sometimes it takes more than just playing the game. That's why I hate the answer "just play" because as an ex-competitive gamer, I know that's not always the case.

However, I loved the advice, and it's making me see a little bit more, so thanks