Despite being a member of perhaps an older generation (I'm over 50) I still make silly mistakes in games, but the game itself is just that, a game. If I win, I win, if I lose, so be it. Its the enjoyment of moving the figures, rolling dice and having a chat with good friends that is important to me. A couple of weeks ago I played a chap newish to our club (I've played him a few times before, won and lost) and he beat me. No problem with that, it happens, and he certainly wasn't gloating or anything like that, and during the game we got along fine. But somehow I just felt demoralised by it - I knew it wasn't the losing, maybe poor dice rolls had finally got me? Anyway, skip forward to this week and I have a really good game with another newbie, on his first visit. He's got orc and goblins. Well we had a bloodbath. It was a great game. At the end of the game, I've got a minor victory. My feeling after the game was so much better. OK, I'd won, but it wasn't that. The epiphany occurred today. In the Empire game I felt I was just reacting to my oppo, and waiting for things to be shot off the table while I trundled forward (I had gone second). In the OnG game I felt I was in control, being proactive and doing the things I wanted (I had gone first). I had a basis of a plan. Nothing too complicated, just some ideas about what I wanted to go where and take on which units. For example, I wanted a unit of skinks to shoot the giant he had taken. They did this (and I got very lucky with my rolls, killing it in one round of shooting). The epiphany was the planning and being in control. Going first it seems a lot easier to give yourself at least the illusion of control. I'll have to see if I can this going second too. Strange thing is, when I've played historical games, I've always tried to plan. Not sure what I'm trying to say here, but wanted to put my thoughts down. Sometimes the simplest things take the longest to work out.
Having a plan and making your opponent react to you is a pretty solid strategy in almost every game, not ust Warhammer 6th edition. Also, Skinks are great at killing giants. At least in 5th edition, 6th edition, 7th edition, 8th edition, and 9th age...
The strange thing is its taken me all this time to work this out. I've played games with and without plans and this has been the general feeling afterwards. If I've won without a plan, I know I have got away with it. If I lose with a plan, well, best laid plans and all that. I also play Saga. Played a few weeks ago. no plan. Lost. Poor game was my feeling. Played yesterday against the same player. Had a plan of what I wanted to do. Did it. Guess what? Won by some margin. The whole plan / control thing is such a simple thing, but even the simplest things can be forgotten.
Maybe against the Empire player you just didn't have anything to kill his war machines - did you try using as many flyers as possible to reduce the likelihood of him killing them off in the first turn? Because if you had flyers, you could just try and send them towards his machines and engage them first, forcing him to react to these fast moving units. If they died, so be it, but at least they saved your slower units a pasting and might have possibly took some war machine crew down with them. Certainly as @Scalenex says, forcing your opponent to react to you is a good tactic, and I have a White Dwarf from the 6th Edition era that discusses this in detail. Throwing flying units and cavalry at his machines is a good way to at least get him to react to them and divert his fire away from your slower units.
@Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl you could well be right about the war machines. I'm due to do my first ever Warhammer tournament in October (using 6th edition) and was reasonably happy with a list I've worked on. I might need to tune it a little more to include some fliers, although I do have some chamo skinks for warmachine hunting.. Interestingly though, I had beaten the virtually same Empire list a couple of weeks before used by the same player.