first game/rookie mistake

[Jenn]

Sounds like he made a couple of rules mistakes himself. First of all, in Dawn of War, the player who deploys second cannot deploy any models within 18" of a model deployed by player one. Second I'm not sure if I'm reading this right or not but it sounds like he used his Waaagh! on turn one which is also against the rules.

I think your biggest mistake may have been putting your destroyer lord in with a heavy destroyer. those two units should never hang out together mainly because they are completely at odds in their battlefield roles Heavy destroyers/ Destroyers should always be moving away from the enemy, sniping at them from a safe distance where as destroyer lords should be looking for backfield non dedicated combat units to attack to disrupt the enemy battle plans. This of course could have been made more readily apparent by Games Workshop, but such is life.

Also, I'm curious how you came out to 9 kill points in a 1000 point list.

As for mistakes I made when I first started playing...

I started right after the 4th edition Tyranid codex came out, I was notorious for doing stupid things that the codex didnt allow, like give my warriors leaping and wings or my hive tyrant wings and extended carapace. I always got in trouble for giving my units upgrades that werent allowed. Also I had this nasty habit of attacking vehicles with my hormagaunts, for some reason I always forgot that they just simply couldnt do a damn thing to that rhino over there, but I sure as hell was gonna try. Also I loved sending my flyrant out ahead of the rest of my army completely solo... I could never figure out why he always ended up being the first thing that died. Ahh, the innocence of youth...

[kingsfan2099]

You will make mistakes in your first 10 games at least. Takes time to learn the rules and even more time to develop tactics to counter all the armies you'll come up against.

[kellyj]

Regardless of mikstakes, its still a game ruled by the variance of the dice.
I just had an IG on IG game. Turn 1 I killed his Medusa with a Valk. His turn 1 he Immobilized the Valk with his Valk.
Thats OK, he's got alot in reserve and I'll shoot him up piecemeal as he comes in.
Until his outflanking reserves come in (Master of the Fleet) on turn 2 and I end up with 2 Valks each with a PCS (2xmelta, 2x flamer) AND a 6 strong Ogrin unit (Scouts, outflanking thanks to CREEEEEED!!!!) all coming in on my side of the board.
The game went down hill pretty fast from their.

[MercyKiller]

Completely new to the game and being unfamiliar with the intricacies of the unit statistics, I charged a unit of assault terminators with my Necron warriors. I thought it was a friendly game and they would give me pointers, but they took advantage of my naivete. =[

[Trepanation]

I wish I had only made dumb mistakes in my first game. I still make them on a fairly consistent basis, in part because I can never play regularly anymore. The dumbest mistake I made recently was to completely forget about my Combat Drugs for my Wyches until around turn 4.

[marsdonut]

People shake their head when I bring my Tau to game. Their codex may be outdated, but they have rules in place to prevent themselves from assaulting, and thats pretty awesome. (Firewarriors and Kroot? Both their rifles are rapidfire. Can't win combats you're not destined to fight, but when you do... all the better )

On the minimum to getting better, I would say build a list every day. Whether you have the model or not, just make a list. Experiment with the points and get comfortable with the system that loves numbers.

What I have done to learn the game is saved every list I have made, and put that into a binder. In that binder, I have written out several pages of notes about the game at large, mostly about rules I hear about and things I forgot to do. Every now and then, I'll take a glance during a game and check whether I was repeating a foul, and in hopes of correcting it, I'll record date/time and inform my opponent if there was a rules gaff ("Sorry, that guy is actually fearless!"). And I'll insist we continue playing without trying to roll back time, because mistakes happen and hey, I can still have fun now that I know better.

Now, what I don't try to do is find someone brand new and exploit them. Because I have had opponents like that and they ruined the experience for everyone they corrupt. I am also starting to become accustomed to /giving/ opponents the benefit of the doubt in terms of cover or templates. (Quick glance, yea, I see 5, but I'll say you hit 6. Go ahead and roll to wound.) I think I learned that behavior from watching Shawn from "bluetablepainting" and I think its good to have a super positive attitude in gaming. (Comment about BTP: Their youtube battle reports reflect awful rule misunderstandings, but if you tune out the bad and recognize what they did wrong, you're going in the right direction.)

@Kelly: Took me several tries, but I read that as "Regardless of milkshakes, ..." XD

[Ironwolf]

My first game/rookie mistake was in 3rd when equipping my long fangs with all plasma not knowing bout the gets hot rule and trusting too much in rapid fire bolters while letting my grey hunters get charged but a near full size boyz squad.

[pgarfunkle]

Back in 3rd I teleported a squad off the table edge because I completely forgot about the likely hood off scatter. Very annoyed with myself.

[Geachinator]

My first game I charged out of cover with my Ork Nobs and my assault distance was just short of those squishy 'ummies, well I can say try not to land yourself in front of a platoon of IG with autocannons my unit turned out to be the squishy one in the end....

[kellyj]

Mistakes can be recovered from.
Milkshakes just hang on your waistline and give you gamer-gut.