"Your Dumbest Gaming Move Ever in a Modern Game?" Topic

Time for some fun……………….

Just what was your dumbest gaming move, in a modern era wargame, ever.

Rules Set: Combined Arms 1/285th scale

Sent in an entire T-72 Battlaion, reinforced with a BMP Company, into a very obvious Kill Zone that even a noob could have seen. Rather then try and extract myself from the mess I walked into I pressed the attack hoping the Dice Gods would save me.

The two turn result of both foolish moves wasn't pretty and my head (Legs, arms, feet, hands, and the rest) were politely handed to me.

I've done lots of dumb moves, but somehow memory is merciful and I don't remember them so well…

"I've done lots of dumb moves, but somehow memory is merciful and I don't remember them so well…"

likewise I'm sure. Best to forget and start anew, I always say. That being said, I've made some classics, like the time I opted to charge an ACW Union infantry corps manning some pretty commanding heights with a Confederate brigade, all the while bitching about the lack of artillery support I was receiving.

deciding that even though the Brit armored cars could reach the heights I wanted to set my AT guns up on, they would never break contact with the rest of thier force to try to over run me.

Once again confusing intentions with capabilitys.

First company level WW2 game I ever played. Sent Sherman tanks straight up the road, Firefly in front, confident that they would get at least a chance to spot and deal with the enemy or take appropriate cover. My (veteran) playing partner shouting "no, don't do that". Rich Jones, refereeing, saying "let him: it will be good for his experience".

Well, let's just say it was good for my experience but very bad for the tankers!

That's when I threw away the rulebook and started properly reading military history, tactical manuals, and first hand accounts to work out what to do.

Not the Dumbest move I made but it was the Dumbest move I have seen in awhile. We were trying out the new Warmachine MKII rules and I was running Cryx against Mercs. My opponent was running Mangus the Traitor against Iron Lich Asphyxious. Mangus was not doing too well and he decided to blow his feat and run straight into bases to base contact with Asphyxious. This was pretty much running into a wood chipper since it ended his turn and Gaspy is unstoppable in Hand to hand with full focus.

I never make dumb moves, but I often suffer from very bad luck;)

The worst move I can easily recall was playing Charles Grants old 'Battle' rules. MGs have a long beaten zone (very realistic really).

Anyway, in one of our endless refights of his 'Action at Twin Farms' scenario, the defending MGs were positioned on either flank with nicely interlocked fields of fire, so I decided the obvious thing to do was to march my rifle company forwards between them in long lines towards the farm. This of course exposed them to flanking fire from not one but two MGs, and in a couple of turns they were all dead, every single one.

Never forgot that, just like the first day of the Somme.

Charging the Scots Greys across the front of a Russian battery, in the hope that some might survive and catch a unit of grenadiers in the rear.

Just too tempting – twelve figures started the charge and one came out the other side.

My opponent was very good about it, and restricted his laughing to a mere ten minutes or so…

I've invited persons I later regretted inviting……

First time my ACW cav encountered canister comes to mind. It was the first time I had played gunpowder era…
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I do remember a cold/WWIII game where the Brit player hid two companies of Challengers in a forest that the Russians "cleared" as an L.Z. on turn one. Most of mine are way to numerous to recall here. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Too many to ing count!!!!

(Currently banging head against wall to remove the stupid!)

When sneaking the wounded president off the board in a game of Combat Zone, under the cover of a wall, forgetting another player had some figures on the other side of the wall. He dropped a few frag grenades over the wall and injured himself laughing.

Again CZ, my hero runs amok and with his last action, stands behind a ruinned wall for cover. My opponent moves up and points out that my dumb hero has his back to an open doorway and his guy has a shotgun at pointblank range. It didnt end well.

Phil

Similar to plutarch 64:Playing Naps Bats and I charged two 8# batteries with Russian Kuirassiers who were rated as elite in the hopes said Dice Gods would help me out, so how could I lose!!

Oh boy did I lose!! It was a slaughter and I lost the only heavy cav unit in the game! AAARRRGHH!! Needless to say it was a tough battle from there on!

Not me but… marching a Confederate brigade into a field covered by Union units on the surrounding hills whilst exclaiming "lets go and kick some ass". The only ass that got kicked was his.

Certainly not my dumbest but a recent one I remember well was getting my left and right mixed up writing a move in a Check Your 6 game. I stunned my opponent by manuvering my plane right in front of him and offering a close range tail shot. Of course he wasn't too surprised to shoot me down.

Playing a 25mm WWII skirmish, in which our British Paras had to assault a farm and recover an SS briefcase.
All went well, we had set up booby traps incase of patrols, killed the guards, got the case, started to exit the farm yard, when a German armoured car apeared on the table edge!

"Quick lure it over the mines I just layed!" says the sapper player. So to lure it towards the trap, we all run across the fresh minefield.
BOOM!
Five players and one GM, thinking "did we just do that!?".

I can't remember my own, but the one I can remember went like this:

Player: I'm going to attack here.
Me: You don't want to do that. There are better options. Even if I roll my worst and you roll your best, you lose horribly.
Player: That's ok. Lets just roll and see what happens.

As most have said before. Going into a charge with a slim hope of victory and hoping the dice go your way. My latest one was 7YW and using my French Chevauleger to attack some Brit highlanders. I knew the odds but thought the dice would go my way as they were earlier. Well I got my but kicked, as I should have. I just hope I do not forget this next time.

During a multi-player game I commanded the reserve T72 regiment of a motor rifle division. The intent was to move through the hole that the other players had made in the US armour brigade lines and exit of off the US side of the board winning the monster scenario. I moved the entire T72 regiment (1 model=1 platoon) in march column down a staight 4 lane highway in double wide columns while under local NATO air superiority. The only remaining stand was my RHQ SAM7 stand and he had to walk back to old mother Russia!

I charged my Recon Platoon of MG armed Jeeps into a line of dug in German MGs. It was one of my first games, and I was told by the other FoW players that it was WWII 40k, and thus thought I had Space Marine armor saves!

Not my own blunder, but I remember I Battleground WW2 game I GMed where the German player (a novice, to his credit) decided to clear an infantry manned roadblock with a Tiger while leaving behind his infantry escort. A few brave Soviets, using the woods on the side of the road, managed to get close enough to the unbuttoned Tiger to get some grenades on the engine deck and immobilize the beast (the rules do allow for that, albeit at low probability).

Never lead your assault with your infantry mounted in trucks…..

Not my own. But was shocking in it's mental deficiency

Playing DH on a pretty sparsely covered board. Our Germans had been caught in the open and were tasked with hanging on until support showed up against American armored infantry. My team mate (in charge of the main German forces) decided to take the only building. The problems I tried to point out.

1. It would take two turns at a full run to make it into the building

2. there was nothing but open field between our position and the building

3. If he moved the squad into the open they could be shot by 3 .50 cal's and the gun half track (an American 1/2 track with 3 .30 cal and 1 .50 cal) not to mention a few other American rifle sections.

I tried to point out the futility of the move. But he grumbled something about "this is how infantry does it" and "I was in the infantry, I know what I'm doing!"

the first German rifle squad went up and over the hill we were defending.

In a single roll of enemy dice they were turned into a fine pink mist.

He still seemed unconcerned by the result. Fortunately his wife called him away before he could lead us to final victory.
I was left to hold the line with what was left. Needless to say, we lost.

I was in shock but the fight was still interesting.

If it's Age of Sail, steer clear because I *will* smash into you. I'm not claiming ramming with intent to board, I just can't drive.

WW2 Eastern front game assaulting what seemed to be the whole Southern Ukrainian front with one platoon of fallschirmjager. Anyway eventually armour arrives and I forgot to fire a smoke screen infront of the Russian SU-(not sure which one but it has a massive closepole). Threw a Stug and Jagdpanther over a bridge and neither survived. Yes I know it was stupid.

jon

I like to mask my carefully sited artillery batteries by marching my Highlanders in front of them.

I've mentioned here before my brilliant maneuver to defeat Wellington at Waterloo that resulted in Napoleon being the first casualty in the French army.

CmdrKiley is also famous for running into things in any game that involves pre-plotting such as old Crimson Skies

In the first round of the WRG Renaissance tournament at the very first Historicon (which was called something else back then, although I can't remember what), I waited and waited while my opponent slowly and carefully moved his Polish army into position to fire on me with the guns from his wagon laager. This took two turns but I wasn't worried, because on turn 3 I launched my huge cavalry force, half again as large as his if not quite as heavily-equipped, into the heart of his army in what should have been an overwhelming attack. Unfortunately, my ability to estimate distances wasn't quite as acute as I had thought (no pre-measurement in WRG Renaissance); they came up short and became disordered.

Turn four consisted of him destroying 90% of my army while the Janissaries (the only survivors) packed up their soup kettles in disgust and marched back to Constantinople.

The only bright spot in this disaster was that my opponent was such a gentleman he didn't even snicker.

LT

If it's Age of Sail, steer clear because I *will* smash into you.

Ditto, or worse. I've even managed to stern-rake a friendly vessel with devastating results.

I remember playing a WW2 game with some kids at our summer day camp. One of the girls wanted to shoot at a farmhouse after being told that there was friendly infantry in it. About three turns later she decided to shoot at the farmhouse and with a good roll blew up the house and destroyed the squad. That happened 13-14 years ago and we still talk about it. BTW the look on the face of the boy who's infantry bought it was priceless.

I turned down the chance to publish Dungeons & Dragons.

'I turned down the chance to publish Dungeons & Dragons.'

Don't worry, it's crap.

Well, I did cut that poor DD in half with my Battleship. Our DD that is, just too anxious to bring the guns to bear (preplotting two moves ahead).

A friend who runs Napoleonics tells of the player who assualted the battery with a cavalry regiment, rolled the best possible result, the battery commander rolled the worst possible result and still the regiment was obliterated. Next turn, another cavalry regiment is ordered to charge the battery. My friend reviews the results of the previous attempt only to receive the apparently standard 'I think I can do better this time.' He did not.

I failed to remove a pathetic cheater from my group. Instead I suggested folks try to tolerate and ignore his antics -- he wasn't that great a player anyway and you only had to sit across from him once in a while.

Totally tore up the group.

mjc

A friend who runs Napoleonics tells of the player who assualted the battery with a cavalry regiment, rolled the best possible result, the battery commander rolled the worst possible result and still the regiment was obliterated.

Sounds like an odd set of rules where a cavalry regiment has NO chance of over running guns. What was the battery? Machine guns?

Don't worry, it's crap.

I wouldn't go that far, but it wasn't, and still isn't, my cup of tea. But it made a lot of money, which I could have used (still could).

In a D-Day operation I had the French underground as part of my forces.They were allowed to be placed anywhere onthe board after a certain time. I totally forgot about them until my U.S. troops got caught in the open. Remembering that I had the French, they "popped up" just in time to take all the German fire. Viva La France.

"If it's Age of Sail, steer clear because I *will* smash into you. I'm not claiming ramming with intent to board, I just can't drive."

Fantastic!

My Dumbest Move: I was playing in a refight of the SCW battle at Tereul. I was the Republican player. Thanks to a slew of nifty moves, we won late in the game. It seemed tougher than it should have been, though. Just when I was musing on that, the umpire (Pete Panzeri, in fact) informed me that my artillery had never fired a shot. Sure enough, my forward observer had never moved.

In my defense, I was not told I had a forward observer, and had left the artillery to someone else, but I was in charge, and I should have realized that one reason it was so tough to deal with Italian tanks running around in the open was that my artillery never friggin' fired. Unreal.

Opponent's Dumbest Move: I gamed with a fellow who was a Teutonic Tread Head. You know the type: every unit in his army is SS; he wears a little repro Afrika Korps cap he bought from some Bulgarian off eBay; he wears a t-shirt with SS runes, even though we had two Jewish fellows in the group; he is a member of a reenacted SS mountain division no one has ever heard of, etc.

Anyway, he was a master of tank tactics, so no one could tell him anything. We were playing Crossfire, and I was the umpire. I informed him before the game that his reconnaissance company had uncovered Soviet AT rifle teams on a small, wooded hill, just straddling a bend in the road. I marked the spot for him with two burning wrecks – two burning wrecks *of former German reconnaissance vehicles.*

Brushing aside my warning, and not heeding any advice from his compatriots, he proceeded to drive two platoons of tanks – one platoon of Pz-IIs, one of Pz-IIIs – straight up the road, with no infantry support, in road column, Pz-IIs in front.

Several initiatives later, the Germans were left with lots of infantry, but no armored vehicles or prime movers with which to tow the objective off the table. Game over.

(BTW, he told me after the game that he was "used to working with Tigers and Panthers, really." Whatever.)

May I offer one more?

That same Teutonic Tread Head decided to delve into Napoleonics by purchasing – you guessed it – a British Guards division, with the Life Guards and Scots Greys in support. Nary a run-of-the-mill battalion among them. He challenged me to a game. All I had was a brigade of Westphalians, backed by a brigade of French chasseurs a cheval.

We played Piquet. I offered him his choice of terrain, and he took two wooded hills, side-by-side, and gave me the burden of attack. Problems?

1. Do not place your Guards so high up the wooded hill that they cannot see out. Do not place your horse artillery so high up the wooded hill it cannot fire out. Do not allow me to advance up to your nose without being fired upon.

2. Do realize your mistake and attempt to fix it by charging your Scots Greys and Life Guards laterally across my two 6-lb. batteries at point blank range. Dead cavalry.

Anyway, the Westphalians actually got a victory off the British (he ran low on morale points on the cavalry charge, and foolishly spent the rest of them trying to rally a cavalry unit that had only one stand remaining). Why bother?

This wasn't modern, but it was a good memory, nonetheless. And here's one for your "weird" column: Who primes with GW green? The whole British army looked like they had the flu. Bizarre.

Realizing in a fit of sanity after charging across an open field at a platoon of M4's that halftracks are NOT tanks, even ones equipped with Pak 40's. Do not run your Pz. Grenadiers across the open field to capture the farmhouse when it has a MMG platoon inside and expect to survive.

Quote:donlowry
I wouldn't go that far, but it wasn't, and still isn't, my cup of tea. But it made a lot of money, which I could have used (still could).
End Quote:

I dunno depends, are you and Gary still friends?

I met him at a convention and wished I hadn't

It is a good thing our toy soldiers, umm sorry historical miniatures, get to stand back up after we make stupid moves.

In most cases for me I like to take chances with my minis that I never would with real warm bodies that have relatives. And when a dumb move happens we all mostly get a good laugh out of it.

I was warned by other players in the campaign DO NOT go against Ed's unpainted Port Regiment, just don't. Ignoring their warnings in the next battle, in which they were present, I sent a French Middle Guard Regiment straight at them on a hill. Ok I got my butt kicked and everybody got a good laugh out of it (Dam Dice).

It ain't the falling down… It's the getting up that counts.

Back in the late 70's, I was playing in a large modern NATO vs Warsaw Pack game using a set of rules called "Leopard Tracks".

My Recon Platoon was suppose to take and hold a hill on one of the flanks, while the main 'push' would be on the other flank. By the time I reached the hill, the Warsaw Pack team had already reach the hill with a platoon of T-55 and I was unable to force them off.

I realized that a frontal assault with a recon platoon was probably not the best idea, so I put in a request for an artillery strike on the hill top. These rules had a convoluted artillery system where the command of each side had to roll for each request, as a result it could take awhile for the barrage arrive.

so while I waited for the artillery, I exchange long range fire with the tanks on the hill. After a couple turns of this long range exchange, the enemy tank platoon suddenly withdrew from the hilltop and I proudly move my units in order to take possession of my objective.

I arrived at the top of the hill at same time as my belated artillery strike, that I forgot to cancel. In the following damage rolls, against my own units, I rolled 7 consecutive hits (a dice rolling streak, I do not think has ever been repeated to this day) , and wipe out my entire force.

Needless to say the Warsaw Pact player took the hill back the next turn without any trouble, after he stopped laughing.

Was a big practice run for a wargame. Was a reservist with a CSH unit and volunteered to be the Medic for the OPFOR at Ft. Irwin (because I wanted to play with their toys and I knew a few of the company commanders). Made a gunner(!) for the day in a Sheridan and not knowing what it represented (turned out to be a BMP-2). Had my 'Spandrel' not properly bore sighting and any movement of the turret knocked it out of whack (Did get one 'enemy' tank with it though) Then switching to main gun and hammering away at the 'enemy' registering hits but to my surprise no kills. When our 'tank' got hit they asked me why I was firing the 30mm chain gun instead of the missile. I thought it was something bigger! Oops. [In fairness earlier that day we took down some outflanking APC's with the 'main 'gun'- the commander slew the turret and yelled at me to start shooting so I did, and they had this flashing orange strobe light go off above their turrets so good gun right?].
Oh, and if you pick one up aftermarket from surplus don't park your Sheridan at an angle on a slope – the diesel spills and creates horrible fumes in the vehicle. No padding on the turret cuppolas either might want to add some there. I had fun but the OPFOR kind of take this seriously (as they should, I guess). I figured the Russians shouldn't mind one missing BMP. Nice to get out to the desert in January during the day and enjoy the sun.

dunno depends, are you and Gary still friends?

He passed away a year or 2 ago, I hear. We hadn't been in touch for years before that. Even less now.

Trusting the dice.

I never make bone head moves or at least any that I can remember, yea right. This story is not about me, well anyway we were playing micro armor in the early eighties. I had a recon unit, Stuarts and some jeeps. It was British and Americans attacking German units and we were to take a hill and some woods. Off to our flank, three Panthers appear and start to do some vicious damage. I take off at full speed and get behind the three Panthers. He knows that there are 6 Stuarts at less than 100 yards behind his Panthers. Then he says, "I am not worried about those little pop guns, they can't hurt my Panthers." Well the next turn there are three Panthers that are brewed up. He was ed and we won.

Marching my Confederate regiments in column up an apparently deserted main street only for them to be utterly obliterated by Union infantry in the houses. D'OH. I lost that game – appropriately, as 'I' was the first casualty when the Unionists started shooting!

Giving contradictory orders to my friend, resulting in his Confederate regiments marching to and fro in front of a Union artillery battery for three or four turns, and eventually being destroyed almost to a man while my Zouaves sat in a wood the entire game not moving and took no casualties. We lost that game.

Driving my T-34 company, unsupported, into a town, while my Soviet infantry slogged through a wood at half speed, arriving two turns too late to help the now destroyed tanks and just in time to be annihilated by a Stug platoon supporting a force of HJ, VS and Luftwaffe Field Division.

Attacking piecemeal as the Italians at Beda Fomm rather than waiting for everything to arrive and launching a co-ordinated attack at the 'weak point'. I'm not sure there was one, to be honest.

Conflicting orders (again!) leading to my Anarchist militia and my friend's International Brigade all trying to hide beind the same windmill, only to be shelled and machine-gunned into oblivion before we could extricate ourselves by Moroccans and Nationalist Army troops.

I could go on! :p