I had a friend how had not played the game much get introduced to the game at an event. The guy that showed it too him tooled him with a jumping jack judgement deck again and again. I asked him what he thought about the game and he voiced how lame it seamed to him. His introduction confinced him it was a game of who could get there lame lucky combo rolling first.

The game CAN be like that. My only comment here is that those of us that like this game needless to say, would like to see the game grow string and have a wide play pool to play in. We WANT more people to enjoy and invest in the game.

The way to do this is too get new players to enjoy the game and want to play more, is to put together some decks that are realitvly balanced to oneanother and reflect well the playstyle and variety of the races and give a good feel of the game.

I am sure the demonstrater ment well, but tooling a newbie with a tuned judgement deck dosn;t make for a fun experience. I have no issues with extreme deck builds, I really find on the grand scheme things are rensonably balanced and I enjoy playing with and against themed decks.

But I know that new players may not know how to use the killer combos in a deck, or even know what cards to expect and preper for till they have played a bunch of games. Also it little fun to play a new game in which you feel you had no chance and there was nothing you could have done. Orc rushing a player in four turns and smiling at them accross the table about what a great game this is, is not gong to win over new players for example.

There are a lot of clever combos that can be put into "demo" decks to demonstrate the "cool" factor of deck design and play options without making the ubber combos.

I carrey in my box a "balanced" empire and dwarf deck and a not so rushie orc deck and a vanilla orc/chaos deck for playing with beginners.

If the beginer is a bit more experienced I may give them to try one of my more tuned decks, it gives them the chance to see the neat combos and options a well built deck can have and explore them for themsevles, while I may keep a slightly less tuned deck and chalange myself to play out of it. This is good too, cause I also would not want to make sub-par plays in order to not beat my opppenent too bad. I think demos work best when the teacher plays to his best potential, but uses a more "clunky" deck vs his newer oppenent!

Game worshop gets based alot by the online and experienced community, but one can take a page out fo there sucssful book, they rope players into warhammer with those trimed down rules and handfull of model demo games. A few base units on each side, basic stright forward play, and the potental player walks away either winning, or feeling like they had a good chance, this makes for a fun experience that leads the person into wanting to play more. If they set up a greater demon that ran accross the table and killed all the guys army and took no damage, they woudl not likey win many converts.

If you are showing some new player the game and want to turn them into a future oppenent. Don;t do it by showing them how "clever" your killer deck combos are. (The ones you may even have picked up online ) show them with back and for balanced decks that represent the factons and the fun options this game has.

Just a word from the wise.

Agreed. You should never even include Verena in a demo deck it's completely unfair if a player doesn't know about it. It's OK to have some surprises, like Sigmar's Intervention or Waaaagh! or something, but certainly not Verena. I think you have pretty much identified the ideal approach somewhat tuned midtempo decks and slightly less tuned decks for the demo-er to play.

I have found that if I teach someone how to play by letting them use the orc rush, it lets them get the basics more easily. They are not at a point where they know to rush or could even do it well.

I also don't use Verena against them as they don't know to build up developments. The deck I like to use against them is a Chaos sniping deck, that can beat the orcs on occasion. It is a good deck to show the action windows and timing.

All-in-all, I stay away from Order decks for either the beginner to use, or to play against as they are a little more complex in how they play. Developments seem to be the harder thing for people to remember as there isn't some reminder in your hand and they typically interact with cards that the newbie doesn't know exist.

I did do a follow up game or two letting the newbie use dwarves and I used orcs. After they get the basic rules, I let them use the more complicated order decks so they can get why developments are good and how to work with them. He stabilized and beat me (I played straight forward to the battlefield on purpose) and he really enjoyed how the dwarves work.

I played 2 games with the simple process of taking all of the dwarves and some neutrals. Nothing fancy, nothing changed. Just the basic set deck with no cards removed or added other than some neutrals. You shouldn't need more than that for a demo of it. I suppose there might be the problem that people wouldn't have them seperated that way after building their own decks, but simple is best for demos. It's hard enough to learn a new game without adding requiring them to look for combos.

Giving an orc rush deck to a new player is cool. Its fun to units into the battlefield and start hitting stuff. You do that and they will likey have fun if they win or lose.

Some of the "power cards" especialy ones that totaly hose a player in one play are best avoided. Troll vomit and judgment are good examples.

Dywnarc said:

So far, Judgement of Verena + Will of the Electors appears to be the only "insta-win" combo and lets hope it stays that way...

I would generally demo the game with Base Set decks for each faction + 10 Neutrals randomly dealt out. Possibly remove some of the more byzantine or confusing neutrals first.