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Hi !
So, let's talk about our biggest, worst tactical fails on the battlefield ! What did you do wrong ? What was your dumbest decision as commander ?

Recently, I was fighting a nids army with a Space Marine force (1500pts vs 1500pts).
I made my vv charge a big squad of hormagaunts. Big fail: a sporocyst was near (10ps, maybe less), but didn't had any line of sight on the fight. So I saw no threat in it. It was the first time my friend played with one.
And suddenly, I recalled what he told me: the sporocyst can spawn a mucolid ! Too late: it was my friend's turn, and, obviously, he made the mucolid spawn and send it on my vv squad.
On the squad, only 1 veteran survived.

200pts lost because I forgot about a 15 pts mucolid. and my left flank teared apart

What about you ?

Forgetting to make my vindicators face the freshly teleported 20 man unit of necron warriors. I got 1 to shoot at it got 24 hits after attached characters

1d4 chan told me that cadre fireblade's volley fire stacked if I added in more blades. Advanced tau tactics had a thread on it too.

They both were wrong and I promptly got corrected at a tournie.

My biggest fail was forgetting I took the Arjac's Shield Brethren (The Hammer Bros) formation in my army so I had like 600+ points of my 2000 point army sitting in a box. I was wondering why my army felt so out numbered but I figured it was just because the Orks are just so numerous and MEQ take up a lot more points.

Biggest tactical fail was probably letting my Mega Armored Warboss get into a challenge with a Dreadknight. Dreadknight cut the Warboss in half like it was nothing before it continued to slowly chop my boyz down over the course of 3 rounds of CC. I had a Nob in the unit that could of soaked the challenge and the Warboss would of made short work of the Dreadknight between the Lucky Stikk rerolls and just being a CC murder machine. Pro Tip: Don't play 40k with 2 hours of sleep.

Caused a massive horde of hormogaunts to fail a leadership save. Next turn, instead of letting them just run off the table I took some pot-shots at them. They auto-rally and charge me, swamping my bike squad in cheap bodies and tying them up for the rest of the game when they could have been doing something useful.

Leaving a unit in reserve all game without rolling or worse forgetting to deploy a unit. When you play Imperial Guard Infantry it happens once in a while.

CB

Captain Brown wrote:
Leaving a unit in reserve all game without rolling or worse forgetting to deploy a unit. When you play Imperial Guard Infantry it happens once in a while.

CB

yup, I did this this weekend. Completely forgot to deploy a dreadnought, and so I just had it in reserves where it remained until turn 3. Oops.

I always bring this up but it always sticks in my head. I made a decision and it turned out to be the wrong one and ruined my chances of winning

My IG versus a Green Tide.

My gunline had failed to stop the Orks from making it to the walls of my Fortress and so I fired the Deathstrike Missile Danger-close. It scattered back onto my Fortress and destroyed 3 sections which killed over 40 Veterans, an Inquisitor and his retinue and my last Tarantula sentry gun. After that, the Orks just washed over the remnants of the fortress and mopped up my survivors.

3k game, ad mech conclave against tyranids. Full turn's shooting at a harrdian instead of everything else. Charged his dimachaeron with a unit of four kastelans. Two fatal tactical errors. A definite loss.

In a 1850 tourney (cad/ad) only put 3 riptides in 1 unit and charged a person with id. And was promptly over run.

I forgot a psychic phase which got Lorgar killed, does that count?

Stupid 7th...

I charged assault drill centurions with a ravenwing command squad and though it would be a good idea....I was wrong

I’ll do stupid fluffy cinematic stuff all the time rather then the tactically smart thing.

I don’t play chaos, but still accept all challenges.

Leaving a squad of Plague marines out in the open when a basilisk was looking at them.

1850 point game.

I did deep strike some Death Company with attached Librarian (who was not only my Warlord, but also kitted out big time) just in charge range of Nurgle Prince with The Black Mace (I was looking to eliminate some nearby Plague Marines and didn't notice the Prince). 400 points may as well have vanished.

Needless to say I lost that game quite thoroughly.

Not my biggest tactical failure... there have been so many LOL.

In a recent game playing for the Relic-Hammer and Anvil.

I had a squad of Sentinels outflank late game, but instead of putting them way back to my opponents deployment zone, thus being able to intercept the relic; I put them within inches of his stealth suits (forgeting that I couldn't charge out of reserve).

Needless to say, my Sentinels got hosed, and it cost me the game.

Back a few editions ago I was playing my Eldar against another Eldar player who had Harlequins. I had gotten mixed up with a Fantasy rule where you didn't get Rending if you need a 6 to wound. So I moved my Fortuned Wraithguard out in front of them to absorb their charge and tie them up. Their turn they went through all like wheat.

Morale of the story: don't play more games than you can remember!

Vangaurd Assault. I was playing a Brigaide list against one of my buddy's three Land Raider lists featuring termies inside and some whirlwind support. A list that I historically beat before the models are fielded because he never has the offense to deal with soo many Orkz.

I made the mistake of bunching my transports into a tight block and scouting, moving, and going flatout at my buddies land raiders, expecting to assault next turn.

My opponent had deployed his land raiders on the two corners at the table edges of his of his deployment with whirlwinds in the back. Instead of engaging any of my models whatsoever, my opponent split all of his vehicles as fast as they could down one table edge or the other, specifically putting my assaults at difficult range with maybe a whirlwind or two to eat at most.

No assaults were made turn two even with a waaagh, disembarking gave my opponent 6 more inches of mobility on my wagonz and from that point we played a long game where I couldn't catch him and he couldn't confidentally deal with my numbers so he just picked on my wagonz as they struggled to pick my orkz back up and bring them anywhere near even assault range.

I can't remember the victory conditions, I just remember losing a low scoring game that I could have won if I would have not made either of three almost unforseeable mistakes.

I play daemons.

Deep struck a unit of three exalted flamers planning to torrent a unit of grey hunters that were poised to slam through a bunch of my backfield horror units.

Forgot the torrents were heavy until the shooting phase came around. By that time i had left my horrors sitting there during the movement phase and allocated nothing else to deal with the grey hunters. Didnt even psychic shoot the hunters to weaken them a bit, as i thought 3 ap3 torrents would be overkill anyways. Then i remembered they couldn't shoot the bloody torrents anyways.

The grey hunters shot and charged my 20 man horror unit with a herald in it on their turn, and were stuck in with few horrors left due to a rough instability test after combat. I couldn't shoot them that turn either. Assault phase came and they won, consolidated towards an 11 man horror unit with an exalted flamer in it, shot and charged the horrors in their turn, losing a grey hunter to overwatch. They remained stuck in yet again in my turn and passed their warpflame test from my overwatch... Giving them 6+ FnP.

Rinse and repeat for yet another 11 man unit with exalted flamer. I had everything else pushing his backfield in an attempt to weaken the rest of his army and gain enough victory points to squeeze out a win.

I actually ended up winning that game narrowly... But the mistake was so punishing it felt like a loss anyways. Needless to say i will never make that particular mistake again. At least those grey hunters had a glorious match!

Oh, there were countless of tactical mistakes. For example, last game i detached a 1-wound librarian that was also my warlord and threw him near the board edge in hopes that he'll make his jink saves against a couple lances and i didn't want to risk him in close combat where i needed the deathcompany that had been accompanying him. Well, the opponent prompty got Assasinate, Witchhunter and 'Shoot something to death' the next turn. Libby certainly didn't make a jink save.

Moved a squad of Striking Scorpions out of cover to charge a Skitarii unit then forgot to actually charge.

Forgetting that the avatar is immune to fire.

Remembering that the avatar is immune to fire after lining up a meltagun-wielding execution line at short range.

"These Incubi will shred those Hammernators"
"Oh"

Split my Chapter Master from Grav Centurion units and the two units charged different targets.

Once played against one of my friend's Tau army (we were playing a "modified" Break Through mission originated from Strong Hold Assault book), I had a Droppoded Grav Centurions with CM (footslogging, Storm shield, TH, Artificer armor) along with other droppod units already in the middle of Tau deploy zone and are close to the Tau table edge. The trading shots caused havoc on both sides.
AND THEN, in my third turn, I saw a squad of Broadside and a Hammerhead tank near my Grav Centurion unit, and split my CM from the unit, then charge the CM into the tank and Grav Centurion into the Missileside squad. When the TH exploded the Hammerhead, I noticed "oh ", now my CM with only two wounds left is standing in the firing field of a ton of plasma rifles, and the other missileside squads. He is shot to Dead Dead in the incoming turn, and the Centurion and the Missileside basically tied up each other for an eternity. And I lost the game just by two points .
What I should do is remain the CM attach to the Grav Centurions, move the squad in between the tank and missileside and make a multi-charge (Centurion models into the Missileside, and CM into the tank) instead, that will leave me safe due to the whole unit will be count as lock in combat with Missileside in the following turn.

locarno24 wrote:
Forgetting that the avatar is immune to fire.

Remembering that the avatar is immune to fire after lining up a meltagun-wielding execution line at short range.

I played across from a RW player who forgot that and lined up a ton of bikes and attack bikes in front of mine. It was hard to not grin madly!

I'm joining this thread just to be aware of what needs to be remembered in the heat of battle

Running Wraiths (couldn't resist)

Infiltrated 40 Flayed Ones against a Flamer heavy, All Drop Pod army, after deploying 2nd. Nothing like having your stuff burned, and have to flail your arms 1" away on turn 1 to take another round of Flamer love.

Verbally stating that I was going to play mono Harlequins in the club league (the club didn't allow allies or formations)

My first opponent was a Dark Eldar player... 6-9 Liquifier guns in as many units as possible dropping from deep striking Raiders and a ton of venoms... and then it was an army of Imperial knights...

The next day I invested in 18 scatterbikes and only played competitively from that point on

Putting my two CCS near the front lines, with Tau player getting the first turn. Needless to say, it was a massacre.

Neophyte2012 wrote:
Split my Chapter Master from Grav Centurion units and the two units charged different targets.

Once played against one of my friend's Tau army (we were playing a "modified" Break Through mission originated from Strong Hold Assault book), I had a Droppoded Grav Centurions with CM (footslogging, Storm shield, TH, Artificer armor) along with other droppod units already in the middle of Tau deploy zone and are close to the Tau table edge. The trading shots caused havoc on both sides.
AND THEN, in my third turn, I saw a squad of Broadside and a Hammerhead tank near my Grav Centurion unit, and split my CM from the unit, then charge the CM into the tank and Grav Centurion into the Missileside squad. When the TH exploded the Hammerhead, I noticed "oh ", now my CM with only two wounds left is standing in the firing field of a ton of plasma rifles, and the other missileside squads. He is shot to Dead Dead in the incoming turn, and the Centurion and the Missileside basically tied up each other for an eternity. And I lost the game just by two points .
What I should do is remain the CM attach to the Grav Centurions, move the squad in between the tank and missileside and make a multi-charge (Centurion models into the Missileside, and CM into the tank) instead, that will leave me safe due to the whole unit will be count as lock in combat with Missileside in the following turn.

Not really. You'd just make broadsides flee without being able to sweep them and would end up in the open again.