Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey everyone, I know most people prefer to discuss their unstoppable strategies or killer lists here,
but I have a interesting topic that has really been on my mind lately; the dumb mistakes you sometimes
make at Tournaments that really mess the entire thing up? Not just tactics, but anything really.

For me, probably the worst one in recent history happened after I dusted off my Tyranids for the first
time in 3-4 months, after playing almost exclusively Eldar. It was a standard 1850 tournament, and the
first round went Tyranids v. Tyranids and I managed (in large part to a Brood Lord with Implant attack
and lots of lucky 6s), to wipe my opponent.

The next round though was probably one of my most embarrassing performances every. I was paired
against a Chaos Daemons player who fielded two Soul Grinders (Armor 13 Walkers with a nice array of
Close Combat and Shooty). My list including a nice mix of Monstrous Creatures and Swarm, but when
I saw those gorgeously painted monstrosities hit the table I was panicking. The reason? (Espicially since
I had a Tyrgon Prime, Swarmlord, and Carnifex on the table), was that I had forgotten a important
and *BASIC* rule about Monstrous Creatures. The rule? I forgot they roll 2d6 + Strength for Armor
pen against Vehicles. Needless to say, I was reeling to figure out how to deal with the Grinders, and when
my Hive Guard couldn't get to them, and my Zoanthrope got tied up, I mostly just pulled my costly (aka
my Monstrous Creatures) figures away from them, and focused on the other Daemons. Needless to say,
I was tabled with only minor kills of my own, and when the other player asked me why I never used the
Monstrous Creatures against the Grinders who cleaned up my ranks, he was pretty shocked at my answer
and reminded me of the rule. Needless to say this bumped me out of what was looking like a promising run
for the top three in the tourney. But, it was a learning experience.

So hopefully, I won't be the only brave soul and others will post their Tournament Flubs (or just random
game flubs) for others to learn by also.

forgot for the first day of a 2 day tourny that imperial guard command give orders.

Biggest one for me was Warhammer 40K Doubles in 2010, took a squad of eight Stormboyz, they did quite well for me, helped us get a draw and factored well in our one win in 2010.

However I felt they where not playing up to the potential I was expecting and seemed quite costly when compared to their marine equivilents.

So we get to our final game against a CSM/Daemon Nurgle pairing, and one of them was also an Ork player when not fielding Nurgle.

So I pick up the dice to check if one of them dies as they move rolling a five in our first turn, and jump them forward twelve.
The 'Ork' player look overs the table and says, 'aren't you going to add the extra five movement' I reply with 'what?' and he then explains the rules I'd somehow missed in Stormboyz section.

Good game in the end, and we got the Chosen of Khorne award for wiping eachother out.

Going to a tournament with hopes that I won't be in last place

At my first GT ever, the first time I had ever run into Vulkan-led marines (dual land raiders), my orks jump out of their battlewagon and charge an empty land raider with a powerklaw and do nothing. I'm thinking to myself "lascannon and multi-melta, so I'll lose two boys."

The following enemy shooting phase, I said something to the effect of, "Wait, that's a FLAMETHROWER not a lascannon!?!?"

And thus I discovered what a Redeemer was.

Heh, all these comments remind me of another recent disaster, which also was at the hands of
a Chaos Daemons player.

My Friendly, Local, Gamestore likes to run 'weird' 40k tourneys on Fridays. Last friday was a
espicially intriguing but weird one: 1,000pts nothing but HQ and Solo Characters. No retinues,
no transports, no Elites, no Fast Attack, no Heavy Support, no Troops. Just 4-6 bad-ass characters
battling it out for blood and glory.

Well, I have just recently started tinkering with Space Wolves, and since I was having trouble sorting
out what to do with my 'nids in this format, I took the storeowners advice, and tried the Spacewolves
out in the tourney. I don't have any of the special characters for them yet, but plenty of Wolf Lords,
Rune Priests, etc... so I ran 2 Wolf Lords, 2 Rune Priests, a Iron Priest, and a Battle Commander for points.

I was feeling pretty good with all the various upgrades they were running around with, I had Invul saves,
2+ Armor saves thanks to Runic Armor, more Runic Hammers, Frost Blades, and other hijinks then you can
shake a stick at... and I had Jaws of the World Wolf, just in case!

So what happens? The Chaos Daemons player gets the half of his force out he wants, right beside mine, and with
two Heralds of Tzeentch and a Fateweaver... manages to Boon my Wolf Lord with Eternal Warrior (Saga of the Bear)
and the Rune Priest with Jaws of the World Wolf... My Anti-Psychic abilities couldn't stop it (Daemon Gifts don't count
as psychic powers), My awesome Armor... useless, my cool Invul Saves... nope... all I could do was sit there and try
to be a good sport as 3 of my 6 guys eventually became chaos spawn, and then the rest died to Breath of Chaos and Bolts.

I was wiped in turn one. It was a single elim tourney, and I spent the rest of it in a daze of WtF just happened???

The upside of the story is I did get some good trades out of going, including 3 Carnifexes and 2 Hive Guard, so... I guess
it goes to show, I should stick to the 'nids

Dashofpepper wrote:At my first GT ever, the first time I had ever run into Vulkan-led marines (dual land raiders), my orks jump out of their battlewagon and charge an empty land raider with a powerklaw and do nothing. I'm thinking to myself "lascannon and multi-melta, so I'll lose two boys."

The following enemy shooting phase, I said something to the effect of, "Wait, that's a FLAMETHROWER not a lascannon!?!?"

And thus I discovered what a Redeemer was.

oh Tim Hudak, you so funny. (I watched that game after I finished up my round)



----

Mine would have to be back at the Baltimore GT in 08. Played Nidzilla with the old codex, wasn't familar with the new SM codex. Few moments of "Wait TH/SS Terminators have a 3+ inv WHAT" and "PotMS does WHAT NOW".

Yep....but I've never made that mistake again.

I bet that flamer did more then tickle your ass, Dash!!!

I once trusted my Zoanthropes to babysit a couple broods by themselves. 6 1's later...

I was at a doubles tourny with a kan wall list partner, in all my games I forgot my Landspeeder... I forgot it at home, and thought I knew my list...

Playing in a team tournament with my wife.. We we were running Eldar.

One of the mission objectives was to keep your HQ alive.

By turn 3 Eldrad had killed himself with perils of the warp.

worst flub after shooting abaddon on his 4 term friends out of their land raider on the other side of the field.
so a third of his army was out of play before he had a turn


I advanced towards his side. it was a kill point mission.
the despoiler ate serveral squads of berzerkers.

we drawed.

By turn 3 Eldrad had killed himself with perils of the warp.

Truthfully, Eldrad deserves that fate and it makes me smile.

Not me, but an opponent:

Round 1 of a tounrey, I'm playing New Codex CSM, and he's playing Eldar. He's got a nasty looking army with a lot of bright lances and a LOT of firepower.
I'm quaking. At this point, I'm figuring I'll just try to zoom my transports as close as possible before they get popped.

He wins roll to go first.

Unbelievably, not only does he NOT try to get most of his bright lances so that they have shots on my vehicles (He was worried about a 4 man bike squad with 2 meltas), but he proceeds to march the foot slogging troops towards me each turn.

He had an Autarch with wings. He kept leaving & taking off from D. Terrain and rolling a LOT of 1's. Eventually killed himself with no help from me.

By the end of the game, he'd just marched everything towards me and it died. He had a half-dead Viper left.

Eric

I forgot to move my Ork HQ (point sink) into action for three full turns because I was so engrossed with my Grots beating up on some space marines in close combat.

I mean Grots with their stabbity stabbity knives taking on and winning against the Emperor's finest. Just plain funny.

Got three that come to mind readily:

One of my first Doubles tournies - my brother and I always team and we hadn't played against Orks much. We were playing Eldar + Lash Chaos. We had a pretty good start on them coming across the board, picking off Orks here and there, until my brother (under my expert tutelage ) lashes a unit of diversified Nobz into our ranks. We looked at each other as the rest of our weapons did nothing to them and they rolled into our ranks. And proceeded to roll us into the loser's bracket.

Thirdly, a while back I was playing IG and it was the last turn. I needed a decent run to get to the last objective and pull out the win. So, I shot all my weapons and then flubbed my run roll, completely forgetting about Move! Move! Move!

Finally, not so long ago, I made a critical mistake. And nowadays, it's not like me to make a mistake like this, but it does happen: I was playing against Nids with my Eldar. I had unit of Fire Dragons sitting happily in a Wave Serpent. And, from reserve, a unit of termagants had just walked on and out of synapse! Not only that, but there was a Hive Tyrant within about 12" of my Wave Serpent. So, immediately seeing blood and seeing a target of opportunity, I tank shock the termagants - who manage to pass their Ld! Then, I turn some shots on them and kill a few and they break and run off the board. Meanwhile, my Dragons are still embarked because, in my haste, I didn't think to disembark them, go after the Tyrant with 6 Fusion Guns and just shoot the termagants. Instead, I made a huge bonehead mistake. Then, the Hive Guard proceeded to blow up my Wave Serpent and assault the Dragons and beat them! I deserved it though. I should have disembarked the dragons, killed the Tyrant, shot at the termagants to break them and then moved the Wave Serpent to a more advantageous location. Targets of opportunity were my undoing that day!

Game 6 of UK indy GT (just this weekend), fairly convinced I'd already lost however was trying for each extra KP to make it a bit more respectable.

Eldar WS with, as it turns out, 5 DA on board (never used them all game, not needed...) tries to ram a rhino of mine, as ive shot ALL of its weapons off. In the way (as in, where the WS had to land to Ram, 22" from the WS) were 2 oblits. I follishly DIDNT DoG with them, despite only needing a 5+ on 2 dice to penetrate, of which 5 out of 6 results would have been a dead vehicle AND dead occupants, and the 6th would have been a stunned vehicle! WOuld have made it 9-8 on KP, and I would have had a spare unit of oblits who werent firing at a WS

My only excuse is running a 39 degree fever that day. Sigh!

I somehow came 48th of 120 players. Good old luck helped me in every other game

Last tournament I played I put all the objectives markers in the other player's deployment zone for the 3rd game. On the plus side, I did sieze the initiative.

Sarge wrote:Last tournament I played I put all the objectives markers in the other player's deployment zone for the 3rd game. On the plus side, I did sieze the initiative.

This reminds me of a flub by one of my opponents once (and a good player, he just made a mistake) - we were using a die as a turn counter placed on a small statue. He swarmed that statue for two turns and, instead of moving toward the objective, just shot my troops that were holding it down. I was certain he was going to assault me, at least to contest, but he never did.

At the end of the game, we were tallying up mission points and he pointed to the turn counter and said, "Well, I have that objective." I reminded him that that was the turn counter and the objective was in the woods over here, by my guys. He stood there shocked for a moment and I told him I was wondering why he wasn't moving toward the objective, but I wasn't going to say anything.

Ardboyz, Chaos vs. Chaos, flew my two DPs up in front of my army on turn 1. By turn 2 they were engaged by groups of Spawn. They finally got out of the clusterfeth by turn 4

Reece and I not deploying anything in Round 4 of the Adepticon TT against Da Boyz. Lost us the game more than anything, for true.

First tournement ever I made countless mistakes. I didn't know Hammerheads had a template shot when playing orks. I didnt know kroot got +1 cover in woods. I didnt know crisis suits got an extra 6 inch jump. Basic was completely unaware of anything going on around me. Sportmanship awards are bitter sweet

MegaDave wrote:

By turn 3 Eldrad had killed himself with perils of the warp.

Truthfully, Eldrad deserves that fate and it makes me smile.

+1

I hate Eldrad, hes like Mephiston only more annoying because the whole army benefits.

Forgot my movement phase a couple times.

mine was whn i completly forgot about a few reserves.... i had stayed up all night prior

Mine was back in 4th at a RTT. The mission was reserves and I forgot to roll for a unit of terminators for the whole game. After I had lost my opponent woundered why my army was so small. I adopted a new system for keeping track of units in reserve after that.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Game 6 of UK indy GT (just this weekend), fairly convinced I'd already lost however was trying for each extra KP to make it a bit more respectable.

Eldar WS with, as it turns out, 5 DA on board (never used them all game, not needed...) tries to ram a rhino of mine, as ive shot ALL of its weapons off. In the way (as in, where the WS had to land to Ram, 22" from the WS) were 2 oblits. I follishly DIDNT DoG with them, despite only needing a 5+ on 2 dice to penetrate, of which 5 out of 6 results would have been a dead vehicle AND dead occupants, and the 6th would have been a stunned vehicle! WOuld have made it 9-8 on KP, and I would have had a spare unit of oblits who werent firing at a WS

My only excuse is running a 39 degree fever that day. Sigh!

I somehow came 48th of 120 players. Good old luck helped me in every other game

I think you mean wisely, given that the Wave Serpents Energy Field would have negated your extra dice of penetration.

Yep, I worked that out after writing the post - was getting my WS and Falcons mixed up there

Still, it was probably still worth a shot...

Platuan4th wrote:Reece and I not deploying anything in Round 4 of the Adepticon TT against Da Boyz. Lost us the game more than anything, for true.

Hahahahahaha... Geez, Whitedragon and I had to carry the day, AGAIN!