Dying to the Fullest

One of the things that I generally count as a rookie mistake, and one that I myself do often, is misjudging a units durability, or also, bad application of their firepower. For example, me and my friend were playing a 300 point (ish) game, and I had a squad of heavy bolters. My heavy weapons squad was the only unit I had placed that my opponent could shoot. I had first turn of shooting, but statistically, I knew they would get one kill, yet still, I deployed them, thinking nothing of it. After only one round of shooting, and losing one heavy weapons team, they fell back, and off the table.

The proper thing to do in those cases: Never ever give your opponent one thing to shoot at, unless the odds are ridiculously stacked in your favor. See, it's either you present most of your army, or none of it. Otherwise, you will lose the units you have placed to the fore, and then no matter what you do, you're at a disadvantage thanks to a lower amount of points. So, just don't present that part of your army. See, if I had put that squad in reserve, or if I had moved them behind some terrain, to bring out later, then I would have won the battle, but I didn't. I made a costly mistake.

Now this is easier to do in smaller games, then it is larger games. In larger games, I would have had far more men on the table then the 21 I did in this game, and in that scenario I would have held onto my heavy weapons teams. Anywho, what I'm tryin to say is, DON'T leave units to die, if you can, just fall back, or use enough forethought to reserve them.