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For my part, a tendency I've observed is that I don't focus my fire enough. I'll often damage a vehicle here, a vehicle there, a unit here, a unit there, and leave the job unfinished. This bites me in the ass regularly, yet for some reason I keep making that mistake despite being aware of it.

I keep posting to 40k general discussion.

Alkaline_Hound wrote:
I keep posting to 40k general discussion.

Ah, sorry, I should have posted this under Tactics... How do you delete a thread?

Because the topic is genuinely interesting, I'll try to get it back on track.

1. I don't put enough space between my units. I constantly forget about consolidation and end up creating neat little lines my opponents can pinball their melee units through. Fortunately most of my opponents ALSO forget about consolidate and don't take advantage, but when they do I get screwed.

2. My movement phase is sloppy. I get so focused on what I'm doing in the moment that I forget to set myself up for success during my opponent's turn. This sometimes leads to holes in my backline or exploitable gaps in my screens.

I forget to use my litanies a lot....

I've played in 2 tournaments where I kept forgetting that my GSC Pauper Princes could reroll failed hit rolls in the first round of combat. That.... shouldn't happen, but apparently it did.

Keep forgetting to declare any characters near units I charge as charge target, get heroic intervened and can't strike the bugger.

On LOTR side I always forget to take into account heroic combat so opponents have easy time reaching my casters/banners with heroes. Particularly mounted ones can do surprise assasinations with that. Grumble grumble. Should have second or even third line between(3rd line in case I lose priority next round)

Using units I like instead of what's most "efficient ".

Also up until Faith and Fury came out I guess playing Night Lords.

I keep giving 8th edition a fifteenth chance to not be bad.

I don't split shots anywhere near as much as I realistically should/can, or overestimate just how much damage certain things can soak up when I do split fire.
I ignore/forget Combat Doctrines on the regular.
Honestly don't think I've ever considered using Heroic Intervention.

I don't consider doing "cool" tactics (you're damn right I'm charging your Dreadnought with a Valkyrie) or taking sub-optimal units as tactical mistakes though.

Still in the learning phase so I don't mind that much because I'm experimenting with setups, but two things come to mind:

1) I keep taking big, expensive, points hungry units without really investing in adequate bubble wrap\support to keep it alive for long.

2) I keep forgetting to actually factor in the extra cover when I use the Prepared Positions stratagem. A regular annoyance.

Here in 8th there's always some strat or something I realize I could've used last turn or in the phase I've just completed.
It's probably a combination of A) these things didn't really exist like this in previous editions, B) I'm not impressed with 8th enough to really care to study up on them.

Others would look at my armies and tell you that my biggest mistake is not using whatever the current gestalt has decreed as being the optimal units.

I keep running Space Wolves.

I am lazy with my charges, and frequently just move my models up into combat rather than carefully positioning them to use their pile in's and consolidates efficiently.

When care and precision isn't really necessary to handle my usual opposition, I get complacent about it.

I don't like expendable screening squads, so I don't use them and then I get charged and eaten almost immediately by Aberrants or Knight-Gallants or the like.

Not sure if being greedy, and trying to pull off unlikely high risk manoeuvres is a tactical mistake per se.

Like if there are low odds for a hero trooper to charge a character or tank and plink of that last wound he's going in... or if he's supposed to tank an unreasonable amount of fire power..

I lean heavily towards trying to pull outrageous moves and make the game more interesting.

I keep deploying like I'm going to go first. In fairness against a lot of competitive lists if I go second I'm probably going to lose but I shouldn't be setting up like I'm trying to make sure of it.

I'm not great at remembering and leveraging all the nonsense in the melee rules either

Buying tyranid rules expecting them to be decent.

Fixed the habit in recent game but going too aggressive and opening pockets in my backline for deepstrikes and flyers.

Leaving space between my screen and gunline to deny consolidate

I constantly forget all tactices, because I play Orks and the only thing I do with them is move forwards .

Lots of fun though

I always forget to shoot/move units...mostly because I am such a hurry to get 3 turns in before the clock runs out.

I often screen really well against deep strikers charging from behind and on the flanks, but then fail to screen effectively up front... a solid round of shooting depletes my forward infantry, leaving my characters exposed before I can reposition. I also push too far up the table instead of lurking just inside my own weapon range, giving my opponent easier charges than he deserves.

I frequently forget feel no pain, not a huge deal as I rarely make them even when I remember that I have feel no pain on a unit.

I am super forgetful and in 6th-7th I played with people that were very loose with forgetting stuff so I made a habit of not even caring when I forgot. MWBD at the start of the turn goes poof the second you touch a model, Szeras and DS as soon as you make a hit roll, MWBD could be a lot more forgiving but I trained it for a couple dozen games and went from forgetting 40% of the time to 5% of the time.

It's one of my least favourite aspects of the game, I don't remember ordering the cheap memory.

Impulse control.

I'm decent at thinking through a plan and acting on it, but there always comes a point where I'll be tempted to deviate from the plan for something stupid. For example, the last game I played, I had a group of Death Shroud Terminators moving to take an objective that was unguarded (I had assumed my opponent was planning on deepstriking onto it so I wanted the DS guys there to handle whatever he dropped in). So I get to a point where a single Warp-Time from my allied Black Legion sorcerer would get them there, but they're also a stone's throw away from murdering some scouts who are A. not on an objective, and B. not really a threat to any of my stuff, but C. would be very fun to kill. So of course I warp-time 'em to the scouts (who I absolutely butcher), but then the sorcerer gets killed, I can't get the objective fast enough (because Cataphractii armor), and my opponent takes that objective. This happens to me a lot. Maybe I should just play World Eaters? At least then it would be "in character"

Tycho wrote:
Maybe I should just play World Eaters? At least then it would be "in character"

I use that argument regularly for my own failings...

Tycho wrote:
Impulse control.

I'm decent at thinking through a plan and acting on it, but there always comes a point where I'll be tempted to deviate from the plan for something stupid. For example, the last game I played, I had a group of Death Shroud Terminators moving to take an objective that was unguarded (I had assumed my opponent was planning on deepstriking onto it so I wanted the DS guys there to handle whatever he dropped in). So I get to a point where a single Warp-Time from my allied Black Legion sorcerer would get them there, but they're also a stone's throw away from murdering some scouts who are A. not on an objective, and B. not really a threat to any of my stuff, but C. would be very fun to kill. So of course I warp-time 'em to the scouts (who I absolutely butcher), but then the sorcerer gets killed, I can't get the objective fast enough (because Cataphractii armor), and my opponent takes that objective. This happens to me a lot. Maybe I should just play World Eaters? At least then it would be "in character"

Definitely sounds like your disposition is better suited to world eaters.

If I get the chance, I will try to make the most hilarious / movie like / cinematic / storytelling things happen, although the chances are near impossible...

get that Demonprince with the company commanders laspistol!
Charge that dire avengers squad with the lone intercessor searg, because of the epic moment!
Don't fall back out of combat, because my space marines are angry!

I just forget whole units. I guarantee every game I play I'll get to my combat phase and realise that I didn't shoot with something. Usually it's something with good shooting as well like a squad of Shadow Spectres. Yet I never forget the Rangers....

I forget to fire all the weapons in a unit, especially on the Repulsor, and I keep forgetting the psychic phase entirely!! I have one Librarian and don't use him often, but when I do use him, I
completely forget about him until half way through the shooting phase!