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.

Today I played the first game of the league my local GW is running, Deathwatch vs Genestealer Cults. I'd been looking forward to it for ages, planned my list, my tactics, painted a lot of my army (check out my plog ).

Anyway after a long day at work I arrive at Games Workshop to learn that they need to close earlier than usual today so we have to hurry the game, but no worries we're only playing 650 points.

So my opponent and I roll off, we get our models out, except... and here's the big except... in my hurry, my tiredness and possibly a bit of distraction from my recent wisdom tooth removal, I completely FORGET to get out my unit of 5 bikers with power axes!

During the whole game (where I got tabled btw) I was wondering why I didn't have a nice juicy unit like my opponent's 20 genestealers, and it was only when I was packing my models away that I realised that I'd been playing with only 2/3s of my force!

Needless to say I feel like a bit of a prat, so has anyone else has any similarly gormless moments that've cost them a game?

Every time I charge T4 multiwound models into units with S8 attacks, I spend the next 2-3 turns kicking myself and wondering why I thought it was a good idea. Sometimes when I'm trying to focus on managing an effective psychic phase and not forget all the little Daemon special rules, the absolute basics just go out of the window.

I can top that. I went to a convention to run my Old West game one time (drove around 3-4 hours to get there). I busted out my tubs of terrain, carted them in...rolled out the gaming mat, set up the terrain...pulled out the gaming cards/dice, etc.

I realize I'm one pelican case shy: my fething miniatures.

Luckily I had some buddies who scrounged up some of their personal Old West collections (they lived in the area where the con was) but it was really stupid of me. My buddy put it very well: "That's the kind of mistake you only make once".

Sure enough, it's now doubly checked every time I put my stuff in the car. This is a game I sell too, so each convention game is advertising, etc. I almost had to fold up my table and scamper away like a fool...

I made the mistake recently of charging a unit of Assault Marines and a unit of Ravenwing bikers into a Houndstar with the Cyclopian Cabal. One of those Chaos Sorcerers had Iron Arm and Warp Speed up (I had forgotten about him) and just mulched the Assault Squad all by himself. The KDK herald that was with the Hounds finished the bikers. 9 models (there was a chaplain with the Assault Marines) that I literally just threw away for nothing. Talk about embarassing. That's another mistake you generally only make once.

I turned up 20 a 2K game sans a 260 point Ogryn unit [facepalm]

Actually, I can top all of you:

A friend of mine decided that he wanted to run a Dark Heresy campaign, he liked he fluff of the universe and thought the Inquisition sounded cool. Good, right?
Well, it turned out he was lax in a few areas of knowledge. We started aboard a Imperial merchant ship heading towards a planet we where supposed to be investigating for heresy. Okay, so stuff happens, we get our briefing, and then we leave and head to the nearest food deck. Our GM describes this great big hall, filled with vendors of all forms of food and lined with balconies. All around we can see humans, orks, tau and eldar mingling freely....
Orks. Tau. Eldar.
On an Imperial vessel.
My guardsman pumps his shotgun, the priest primes his flamer, the assassin draws his swords and the psyker prepares to mindfuck everything.
The GM gives us this look and says "umm, what are you doing?". Que ten minutes explaining the Imperium of mans utter xenophobic (literally) hatred for everything non-human.

So, we finish that session up, a week passes and we reconvene for the second session. All goes well until:
We run into some tough resistance to our investigations, namely in the form of a merchant and some local security. Getting fed up, and noticing that the Guardsman is now juggling his grenades (literally), the Assassin produces the parties Inquisitorial Rosette. And the Guards/Merchant look at it, confirm it, and still keep on being ancy. They still insist on being uncooperative and they still keep on holding us up. Obvious heretics. We prepare to purge and the GM goes "Wow guys, what are you doing? They just dont respect your authority, after all you are only the Inquisition."
Imperial citizens NOT respecting the Inquisition.
Que another ten minutes explaining the structure and hierarchy of the Imperium, and the Inquisitions position within it.

TLDR, running a Dark Heresy campaign without any real background knowledge of the 40K universe is a bad idea. And the game never ad a 3rd session.

I played a Dark Angels team with Ravenwing for quite a while, and then stepped up to a larger game by adding a Deathwing squad with a whole bunch of terminators. They all had Deep Strike. My first game in with the new army, I'm getting killed by a Chaos army. After we roll to see if there is going to be a 6th turn, my opponent looks at me and asks, 'So when were you going to bring in your reserves?" I had been so focused on fighting with my ground troops and bikes that I had never looked at the whole formation of unkillable terminators sitting on the table behind me! I was so used to having my whole army on the table that I forgot to bring in my reserves at the start of turn two. Just the fact that I managed not to get tabled was actually pretty good, since I was about 900 points shy of my opponent!

I also got a call from a shop owner once asking if I was missing a whole unit of Warp Talons. I had moved them between a couple of ruins early in the game to get them out of Line of sight until they could charge an enemy unit that was advancing when it got close enough. I ended up killing off their intended target when my Helbrute went off on a Crazed roll and blew it up. I never had to pull out the warp talons to finish them off. I tabled the opponent on the third or fourth turn and we packed up our stuff and left. The shop was hosting a tournament the next week when a player was going to duck a unit into the cover and found them. (Wondering what warp talons were doing on the table in a game of Tau vs. Orks!) It turns out that this was a pretty good hiding space, as the owner told me I was not the first person to leave a squad in that gap.

I could admit to more, but you guys might start to get some ideas about me! (Even my handle comes from a "Never split the party" moment in a D&D game!)

Well I feel a bit better to know that I'm not alone in my idiocy