Playing With Myself: A 40K Solo Play and Solo Learn Experience

My thoughts:

• After everyone engaged the game mostly played itself without any input from me.  Roll dice, remove casualties, move the turn tracker along.  No real opportunities for problem solving, tactics or strategy.  It’s almost like the game is decided by deployment and how lucky your dice are.  I am aware that this is a low points level game, and having more units on the table, especially infantry screens for heavy hitters, should change this.  As will experience.  I’ve not added in stratagems yet either.  They could really help here.  I am also aware that I’ve been listening to people bad mouth 40K for a very long time and that could be affecting my opinions.  I am trying to keep an open mind.  I want to like this, even if only so I have an excuse to buy more cool minis.
• I realised after the game that I was casting 3 psychic powers per turn with the Hive Tyrant instead of the two he is allowed.  This probably affected the outcome.  Not sure by how much.  I’ll make sure I don’t do this again.  Every game I get a little better at following the rules.
• I’ve just been looking in to CPs and Stratagems working out how to maximise them all.  Having 3HQs to qualify for the =(CP detachments seems like a good idea, so I’ve gone to try and look up what the cheapest HQ option is for each faction.  I’ve gone to the book and remembered that the stats are on one page and the costs are on another and some stats are in the codex and some are in the core book and weapon costs are elsewhere too.  So to work out that simple question I need 2 books open on a total of 6 pages and that’s ignoring the errata.  I had a quick look on their roster app which doesn’t use points and it only gives me names of models with no idea what they are.  Comparing it to their web shop I’m given different numbers oh HQ options, and searching the shop for things listed in the app sometimes yields no results.  This is a really poor way to run a game and makes me incredibly frustrated.  It makes me want to close the books and walk away.  It’s creating barriers between them and my wallet.  What are they thinking?
• Might be more to come

Questions:

• Do you have to charge in a straight line?  I’ve not seen any rule stating this and I’ve seen chatter implying otherwise.
• Do you fire all your guns on overwatch, the same as in the regular shooting phase?  I’ve been assuming so.
• Can you see through your own unit to shoot etc?  – Yes.  I checked the rules
• What is the definition of a unit?  Is that anything from the rule book?  Any individual model, or anything that makes up a stat entry, or just whole squads of grunts?
• If I have a rule that lets me reroll 1s, can I reroll the reroll if it comes up 1s?  If it was reroll misses I’d say no, but this would require “luck” to get the second reroll, like exploding 6s in Mantic games.
• If after AP you need to roll a 7 or over to save, is a 6 (the max roll)  still a pass, or is no save possible?  I’ve assumed no save is possible so far.
• How does Line of Sight interact with the height of other models?  I’ve been working under Warmachine rules without thinking.  Is this a case of true LoS, or can anyone see a tall model over small models?
• In Justin’s recent playthrough it appears they are rolling morale tests after the shooting phase and after the melee phase.  It is only after both are over, isn’t it? I’ll admit I was only paying half attention as I was painting.
• Likewise, they seemed to be using a lot of Stratagems and CPs.  They do not refresh between turns, do they?  You have your pool and you can only spend it once?  I don’t know how much they spent, but it seemed like more than I can see how to earn, at least with my limited collection and experience.
• I’ve just looked up stratagems and instead of being the dozens I thought I’d seen it appears there are only 3 unless the scenario says otherwise.  Are there more in other books I should be aware of?  – I’m seeing some faction specific ones in the codecs.  Dunno if there are more anywhere else?
• May be more to come

Thought and opinions are welcome on my terrain set up and my tactics (and my writing style and content).  I’m doing this to learn, after all.