I have a bit of a dilema, concerning one of my regular opponents. He plays woodies and has started collecting dwarfs as well now. He is an extremely nice guy (perhaps too nice even), but he is totally clueless about this game. Now that in itself is no real issue, and he is still a relatively new player and woodies are quite hard to properly master, the real problem is that he actually doesn't show the slightest sign of being on a learning curve. On the contrary even, he may be even getting worse. He puts his Woodelfs (like they were dwarfs) in a tight battle line closely packed together. He doesn't move, he shoots/magics for a turn or two and then he dies. And each time he designs a new list and thinks it will do better. He also has the patience of a shrimp (when playing warhammer) and can just not restrain the urge to make silly charges. He has been told countless times to change his tactics, we even swapped armies once, and I tried showing him how to spread out, how to annoy, how to (double) flee etc. etc. but it just does not hit home. During the army swapping game I basically explained why i did each and every move, and i basically told him that i would never ever want to see a tiddy wood elf battle line ever again. But yesterday, it was the same. If i had cast Comet i could have killed his entire army with one spell. If this guy was like 12 years old (appologies in advance to most 12 year old's who do understand this game after two tries) i would understand, but he is a full adult, and he is always talking about history and strategy like he is a direct decendant of Alexander, Napoleon or Ghangiz Khan. Further more, the rules, even very basic ones just dont seem to stick. Basic things like forward arc always pop up every game. Basic movement issues pop up every game....no you cannot move backwards, wheel 90 degrees and move backwards some more while sliding to a side. (part of this is probably language issue btw, as many people here appear to speak English at a decent level, but often don't seem to fully comprehend what they are reading). Anyway I just had to rant a little bit to ease my mind a bit But how do you go about with issues like this. When you have an opponent that is a very nice guy, but is really boring and annoying to play against, btw: one solution is allready presenting itself.....his dwarf army is nearing completion.
I had a guy similar to your Napoleon. Nice guy, total moron. He's gotten a lot better now, I taught him stuff by laughing with him, friendly ribbing used to disguise throwing actual tactics for him to pick up, and a fair amount of patience.
lol, that is his other downside....No beers and bacon for this guy, only tea and cookies....if you understand what i mean
Since he is so predictable, I have to wonder how it would go if you mirrored his tactics for one game? See if his tidy woodelf battle line would advance on turn 3 or 4. He does sound like a natural-born-dwarf player.