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Hey Dakka, hope y'all had a good holiday and are doing good..

I need a little bit of advice to be frankly honest.

The tl;dr, I have a problem and I need advice on how to solve it:

I get really frustrated and fed up after losing (and I basically lose every game) and I would like to work on not being frustrated and fed up, but I can't seem to get rid of that feelsbad.


The Long Read:
I play Chaos Space Marines (IW specifically), though to be honest I'm not sure the army really matters - though with Chaos it seems particularly intensive for whatever reason. Perhaps its the perspective that its a more elite army and therefore each unit should perform its role more effectively - or that they should be more survivable. Either way, I'll elaborate:

I've enjoyed 40k lorewise for a long time, but I only just started playing the tabletop seriously about a year ago. I had a starter box that I had bought as a kid way back - the Dark Vengeance box - and had set aside because kid me did not comprehend cutting sprues and painting. (I was.. 10?)

To be honest with you, I would probably rather have picked Imperial Guard or Mechanicus as my army since I like them more fluffwise. However, as I painted them and wrote my own fluff for a homebrew chapter and all that, I started to grow to accept and even like Chaos and My Dudes theoretically.

Last Fall, my friends and I did a Crusade game over Tabletop Simulator. I played Imperial Guard. We had two factions - Imperium (and a Tau player) vs Craftworld Eldar&Harlequins (and an Admech player). Overall I think it went pretty well and I had fun with that. I didnt have a codex but I still did pretty well with the Guard. However, I noticed something while playing: I was a sore, salty loser when I felt the flow of a battle was turning irreversibly against me. I was trying not to be that way - I just wanted to have fun and enjoy the story being made on the table, but I couldn't really shake it.

To be honest it used to be worse and I've been trying very hard to work on it. I used to toss the TTS dice or models or flip the table at the end. I don't do that now and I try to keep my voice under control. I always make an effort to shake my opponent's hand (at the FLGS or verbally on TTS). It doesn't really get to anger anymore, but it definitely just ends up just soul-crushing and I kinda just want to give up the hobby because I really don't enjoy feeling this way despite my every attempt and I certainly don't enjoy losing all the time. And I also don't want to ruin my opponent's fun if they happen to notice that I've stopped enjoying the game. Competitive, casual, Crusade, it doesn't matter. It seems to just creep up regardless. It didn't bug me as much when playing Orks, but as much as I like Orks I don't really want to main them. I prefer shootyer, tanky-er armies. (Also I only collected Chaos IRL and I don't really have the disposable cash to drop on an entire second army)

I think the moment that the game ceases to be fun for me is when I recognize that my situation has become unsalvageable. That big terminator block that is super expensive and was supposed to be a really tanky front line died in a single turn to enemy shooting. That Maulerfiend failed that invuln save and I have no CP to reroll or any way to save it and keep myself in the game. My entire army collapsed under some Thunderwolves. My kill tally is pathetically low compared to my opponent and I've got hardly any of my army left. Those obliterators consistently rolled all 1s on the d3 shots and still missed every one. My Leman Russ completely failed to do any damage whatsoever. There is no move I can make or clever play to try and come back. It is checkmate.

I don't know that it's even losing itself that is the problem so much as that moment of "failure cascade" that occurs once the ball starts rolling downhill, but you still have to play it out to its conclusion - and this generally starts kicking in within the first three turns often times for me.

I love my narrative wargaming and I really want to enjoy it. I want to have fun, but I can't seem to. I don't want to win every game - I just want to be able to enjoy the game itself even when I lose.

I would like some advice on this - even if it is just giving up the hobby entirely, much as I really don't want to.


(P.S. I'll post the meme here so you don't have to: "Git gud. Skill issue.")

First of all I think it is a very important step that you recognise this as a problem for yourself and that you want to do something about it.

There are two approaches in my opinion:

1. Improve the game environment so the chances of having a bad experience are less likely.
- Look at some battle reports how other players handle CSM.
- Look for advice on how to use units or improve your list.
- Make sure your rules knowledge is tight enough.
- Play a mission with more random elements for both players, so luck is more of a deciding factor.
- Play a mission where "victory" is not the goal. For example a form of "last stand" where you just have to see how long you can hold out.
- Maybe your collection isn't well rounded enough for the game size. Try to player smaller or larger point sizes.
- Play team games of 2v2 to even out the player strength on both sides.
- Talk to your opponents to tone down their list if there is a particular unit you might have problems dealing with.
- Talk to your opponents to try out a different, but compatible ruleset. (One that should be better balanced).
- Talk to your opponents to swap armies with them for a game or two and see how they handle it. Try to see where their armies have difficulties when you control them.

2. Keep working on your own emotions and perception of the game
- Is losing that one unit really that bad for the game overall?
- Could you do something different the next time to avoid getting the unit it that situation?
- Try to detach yourself more from individual dice roles. Something here went bad, but surely there where other moments where you got lucky or destroyed something important from your opponent?
- Maybe you can find fun in doing something on the tabletop that is not directly related to winning the game from a rules POV. Maybe your Chaos lord is able to take out the enemy commander in a duel?