Ten mistakes new players make

None of these will ruin your game. They'll just cost you a few minutes, or a few points, until you've done them once and know to watch for them.

1. Moving before measuring. Work out whether a move is legal and how far you can go before you pick the model up, not after.
2. Shooting without checking range and visibility first. It's much faster to check both before you start rolling dice than to roll, realise the target wasn't valid, and have to unpick it.
3. Forgetting battle-shock tests. They're easy to miss because they happen at a specific point in the Command phase, not whenever you remember. This is exactly the kind of thing the turn tracker's reminders are for.
4. Losing track of objective control. It's not always "whoever has a model standing on it" — check what's actually required before assuming you hold an objective.
5. Spending every Command Point in the first battle round. Command Points are often more valuable held in reserve for a moment that matters than spent as soon as you have them.
6. Deploying everything in the open. Use terrain to break line of sight to your most vulnerable units, especially in your first deployment.
7. Not agreeing the mission and points level before you arrive. Confirm both with your opponent in advance so you're not building or adjusting a list at the table.
8. Skipping a unit's abilities section. A rule that only matters once or twice a game is exactly the one you'll forget if you only read a datasheet's stat line.
9. Losing track of which battle round you're on. It matters for reserves, for scoring, and for knowing how much game you have left — keep the tracker's round counter visible rather than relying on memory.
10. Inventing a house rule to fill a gap instead of checking. If you're not sure how something works, it's faster in the long run to check the official rules than to guess and have to unwind it later.