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To be honest, for all the claims of objectives... From my experiences they mean little to nothing. Perhaps it is my meta, but whilst we try to focus on objectives, it ends up becoming a massive slaughter zone of melee, magical blasts, and shooting where all that is left is carnage. In my time gaming, I have had one game where it changed it from a win to a loss. All that was left on the field was my Lord of Change, a 1 hp Skull Cannon, my enemy's 1 warrior and 1 termigaunt. One more turn, he'd be gone. Yet in the end he made a lucky run role and it changed the ending the dice denying one last turn. That being said, the whole entire time before that we were focusing on wiping our enemy off the map. Doesn't matter if I'm holding objectives if the nids get to me and rip me apart in cc.

Something I forget. Grenades.... I'm just going to leave it at that xD

 StarTrotter wrote:
To be honest, for all the claims of objectives... From my experiences they mean little to nothing. Perhaps it is my meta, but whilst we try to focus on objectives, it ends up becoming a massive slaughter zone of melee, magical blasts, and shooting where all that is left is carnage. In my time gaming, I have had one game where it changed it from a win to a loss. All that was left on the field was my Lord of Change, a 1 hp Skull Cannon, my enemy's 1 warrior and 1 termigaunt. One more turn, he'd be gone. Yet in the end he made a lucky run role and it changed the ending the dice denying one last turn. That being said, the whole entire time before that we were focusing on wiping our enemy off the map. Doesn't matter if I'm holding objectives if the nids get to me and rip me apart in cc.

Something I forget. Grenades.... I'm just going to leave it at that xD

For some sure.

Tyranids and IG laugh at this though.

Experienced players, including national tourney regulars, don't pay too much attention to lists and/or armies that aren't "hot" at the present time.

I play with guys that are getting 9th place in the country for 40k tourneys, I played said guy who got 9th in a recent one with my CSM, which was for reference:



And I totaled him. He was using some eldar and SM combo with grav centurions and a CM with bike unit thing.

 Aijec wrote:
I see these all the time and just want to scream because of how illogical their decisions are.

I'll get a few started:

1. Ignoring first blood, it's such a huge VP and defines who's the aggressor and who's defending a lot of the time

2. Losing focus on the games objectives, it's never ALL about killing. I see people start gunning for objectives turn 4 and really get punished for poor planning all.the.time.

3. Going first, to the new player (including me at one time) it's easy to see why first deploy first turn is beneficial. You shoot first!
I'm actually surprised at how often I go 2nd nowadays. You have the chance to grab objectives last and even have the opportunity to seize. Of course you counter-deploy aswell, which is tough to evaluate game by game.

I could go on forever with these but I want to hear others opinions and instances awell

1: First blood is HUGE Especially in low VP games like the Relic.

2: No comment

3: A lot of people will take 2nd turn, especially if both players have fliers, simply hoping to bring their flies in AFTER their opponent simply to try to shoot down his fliers first.

----

Things I see:

Forgetting to use Psychic powers that resolve in the movement phase.

Ralis wrote:
A lot of people will take 2nd turn, especially if both players have fliers, simply hoping to bring their flies in AFTER their opponent simply to try to shoot down his fliers first.

Alpha strike tend to be hit or miss.

I creating my entire Eldar army on the premise that I would be going 2nd every game...if I go first...fine...but let's plan for 2nd.
It's my Beta strike list.

The focus is resilient deployed units and properly timed reserved units...(that aren't so resilient)

This also helps to avoid giving up first blood.

My Eldar have never given up first blood.

...my Tyranids do every single time.

 Aijec wrote:
2. Losing focus on the games objectives, it's never ALL about killing. I see people start gunning for objectives turn 4 and really get punished for poor planning all.the.time.

I'm guilty of this. I lost to HulkSmash this past NOVA because I got caught up killing his troops.

One of the biggest recurring mistakes I see at my FLGS is people not spacing out their infantry models to the maximum unit coherency. It usually only takes a pie plate or two before they remember.

 Dannyevilguy wrote:
Targeting troops because 'they can hold objectives'.

Depending on your opponent, killing troops might be an excellent idea.
If your opponent has no troops they are trying for a tie in any objective game. Its never a good situation to be in.

That's why you see army builds like 'screamerstar' always trying to keep their troops off the board. They are easy to kill.

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Dannyevilguy wrote:
Targeting troops because 'they can hold objectives'.

Depending on your opponent, killing troops might be an excellent idea.
If your opponent has no troops they are trying for a tie in any objective game. Its never a good situation to be in.

That's why you see army builds like 'screamerstar' always trying to keep their troops off the board. They are easy to kill.

Yeah, it's very mission and opponent specific.

Which brings me to what I think is probably the real big thing I see screwed up: Target Prioritization. Being able to identify what to shoot, how much to shoot it and when to shoot it is a skill I see that many players lack.

Spreading out, making it easy to take out their army piecemeal. making a 2k v 2k turn into multiple little scenes of 2k v 500, also psychic powers in general (part of the reason I never take psykers, I always forget about powers). Another thing I see is that people forget to use declining a challenge to their advantage (oh why yes I shall have my apothecary run around the fight crying like a little girl and avoiding combat whilst still giving everyone fnp).
Heroic intervention, always forgotten, and a damn nice thing to abuse

I'm horrible at target prioritization, so I usually default to killing their troops on objective games and killing anything near my troops.

Forgetting about your reserves. I have seen this happen a few times where you are calculating your kill points and you're looking at his list saying, "Hey, wasn't there a Vendetta that you flew off the table?"

This of course happens in the heat of the moment, when you're so focused on one thing that you COMPLETELY forget about important parts of the game. I myself usually get carried away like this and forget things.. but this may be more for the 'newer' players then the 'seasoned veterans'.

Thinking the one big, giant unit will win you the game.
Like this guy who brings swarmlords, then rage quits when I kill him. Or the people who think landraiders are invincible.
It is just kinda sad TBH. I learned attack those units right away.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Thinking the one big, giant unit will win you the game.
Like this guy who brings swarmlords, then rage quits when I kill him. Or the people who think landraiders are invincible.
It is just kinda sad TBH. I learned attack those units right away.

It's for this reason I stopped taking expensive units. I had a 4th-5th edition CSM army I played that was a total of 53 or models for 2k points, every single one of them ridiculously expensive. Land Raiders are bullet magnets, as are any kind of demon prince.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Thinking the one big, giant unit will win you the game.
Like this guy who brings swarmlords, then rage quits when I kill him. Or the people who think landraiders are invincible.
It is just kinda sad TBH. I learned attack those units right away.

Well if you focus enough fire to kill my invisible Swarmlord with three Tyrant Guard I consider that a win, I have PLENTY other units to win the game with.

EDIT: You know, to flesh out this idea. I think a lot of people do underestimate what they don't see very often. Everyone expects me as the Tyranid player to take biomancy on all of my MCs. But I regularly take SL with three guard and go for invisibility with him, with four powers he USUALLY gets it. If not, he has plenty of other fun powers to play with and can still take a decent amount of fire power. Is it an expensive group? Yes but I can flood the table with cheap, read: free, troops with Tervigons.

Invisible Swarmlords were great until Tau happened.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Invisible Swarmlords were great until Tau happened.

Tau pretty much wreck everything so that isn't saying much....

Really hoping the new Tyranid codex doesn't spontaneously roll over and die to Taudar like the current one.

Anyway, tactical mistakes, would playing Tyranids vs Taudar be considered a tactical mistake?

 Aijec wrote:
I see these all the time and just want to scream because of how illogical their decisions are.

I'll get a few started:

1. Ignoring first blood, it's such a huge VP and defines who's the aggressor and who's defending a lot of the time

Agreed, it's a VP for doing something you're trying to do anyway.

2. Losing focus on the games objectives, it's never ALL about killing. I see people start gunning for objectives turn 4 and really get punished for poor planning all.the.time.

People like to kill the other guy's models. I think everyone is a little guilty of this, but yeah, you're right - if you start worrying about how to capture objectives the turn before the game will / might end, you're plan probably is going to be more victim to circumstance than anything!

3. Going first, to the new player (including me at one time) it's easy to see why first deploy first turn is beneficial. You shoot first!
I'm actually surprised at how often I go 2nd nowadays. You have the chance to grab objectives last and even have the opportunity to seize. Of course you counter-deploy aswell, which is tough to evaluate game by game.

I think this is a relatively rookie thing. I almost can't think of a minis game where it is not advantageous to have the bottom of the turn.

The one I make is forgetting to use my psychic buffs at the correct time. I finish the move phase and then during the shooting phase go to make the buff before shooting. I know, its a little thing and most players (including myself) would just let their opponent make the leadership roll then, but I was supposed to roll in the move phase so I usually end up wasting psychic powers by not actually getting to use them.

Playing some rules like it is 5th ed, or 4th ed, or 3rd.

 DarbNilbirts wrote:
Playing some rules like it is 5th ed, or 4th ed, or 3rd.

I see this a lot. Actually this is the one I see others do most often. The one I posted earlier was the one I personally do most often.

 DarbNilbirts wrote:
Playing some rules like it is 5th ed, or 4th ed, or 3rd.

Not really so much a tactical mistake as it is just having the rules wrong, though.

The biggest mistake, and this has been true over several editions, and is ESPECIALLY made by more veteran players is this:

Believing that the end result of a decision necessarily determines the quality of the decision.

This might not be a mistake in some things in life, but it certainly is in 40k, which has a random element. And you see it all the time, especially in tournamenters.

For example, your opponent brings a land raider full of terminators into a weak part of your line, only defended by a single meltagun, and the meltagun hits, pens, and explodes the land raider, the result killing two terminators. The wrong-minded player then leans back, and says "my opponent made a pretty big mistake there, rushing their land raider forward like that". Conversely, take that same situation, except have the land raider charge right into the thick of it, against a hedge of 8 melta guns in melta range. Despite this, the meltaguns don't manage any more than stripping off a few hull points and throwing some stunned results into PotMS, allowing terminators to gut key units the next turn. The player then buries their hands in their face and bemoans "I made such a huge mistake letting that land raider get so close".

In either case, it comes across like this.

40k is a game about playing the odds. Just because you play the odds, though, doesn't mean you're always going to be successful (or that you're ever going to be successful, for that matter). It's the dice themselves that determine success. Wishing that you had played more conservatively or liberally when you were, in fact, playing good odds is, itself the mistake, not the other way around.

40k is a dice game, not a science. That's a mistake that everyone is capable of making, and once you succumb, it can easily lead to mistakes on the table.

The biggest mistake that I see regularly is lack of focus fire.

While the standard "shoot something until it's dead" is something some players don't do, I'm specifically referring to ignoring the rule that lets you target models not in cover.

There's been a few times where I've managed to cause a moral check that's ruined the flow of a game for my opponent by simply wiping out those not in 4+ cover. It's a great rule and I feel like more people should exploit it.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Really hoping the new Tyranid codex doesn't spontaneously roll over and die to Taudar like the current one.

Anyway, tactical mistakes, would playing Tyranids vs Taudar be considered a tactical mistake?

I don't have a problem with Tau.

Just make sure every time you face Tau you have 5+ MCs...they can't handle that...barring Crisis Suits.

I don't know what you're going up against, but in my experience Taudar excel at killing MCs, especially if they only have 3+ armour and no invulns.

One mistake my friend always makes is dropping in a single sternguard squad unsupported just to take out a tank, that lone unit worth more than the thing it destroyed will then get gunned down.

He does it over and over and I've set several ambushes in games knowing he'll do it and it's won me the match.

there are loads of mistakes that players make, some are absolute howlers...

To paraphrase Napoleon- 'Never interrupt an opponent when he is making a mistake its impolite!'

Focus fire- this is where Tau get the rap (and why I like them ) simply because when the marker lights go on a target I intend for it to be either dead, or severely buggered in combat effectiveness. With other armies its the same, taking out the units that are a major threat to yours will make victory far easier in the long run. As a newbie found out when he faced my Dark Eldar with CSM/IG that Daemon prince got splintered to death by turn 2 and victory was assured by turn 4 at my archons leisure

'to be first or not to be first that is the question' : With Dark Eldar its vital really, it gives you the chance to screw over the enemy, and reduce the return fire which then means you are less likely to lose your paper planes. With other armies it just depends on your view point which brings me on to the next subject...

First blood: its always handy and tends to decide emperors will missions more often than not, in missions where there are more objectives it just adds an extra little bonus for going first.

Objectives- these are the real killer, some get too carried away and they then lose on objective VPs despite killing more than their opponent. Or in the case of my Tau there isn't usually any scoring units left...


There are also the rules clangers well all drop, we all forget things occasionally they just so happen to be game changing when they happen . or the cheeky sods trying to argue their way out of something they know they've mucked up

its all a comedy really- romances, tragedies, and a lot of farces!

 Griddlelol wrote:
The biggest mistake that I see regularly is lack of focus fire.

While the standard "shoot something until it's dead" is something some players don't do, I'm specifically referring to ignoring the rule that lets you target models not in cover.

There's been a few times where I've managed to cause a moral check that's ruined the flow of a game for my opponent by simply wiping out those not in 4+ cover. It's a great rule and I feel like more people should exploit it.

Agreed. Especially when shooting at Eldar or Guard that rely on those cover saves. Running a unit off the table is just as good as killing the whole unit!