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So I've played and watch a couple games and for some armies it seems like being able to go first is mandatory for their victory. There are some games I feel I definitely would have won had I gone first. Do you have similar thoughts?

No. If your army automatically loses on a coin flip at the start of the game, you need to go back to the drawing board.

No way.
A good alpha-strike list, for example, involves staying off the board or out of LOS before being hit. Hordes cause little damage for several turns. Transport-heavy lists give big shields until the vehicles are popped.
It's true that going first is an advantage for some armies, but it's by no means required.

You need more terrain.

LoS blocking terrain will help reduce turn one effectiveness. Play smaller games too, on bigger boards. It will really improve things.

 jreilly89 wrote:
So I've played and watch a couple games and for some armies it seems like being able to go first is mandatory for their victory. There are some games I feel I definitely would have won had I gone first. Do you have similar thoughts?

It's not mandatory, in fact some armies are built around going 2nd.

That said, there very much are obviously games that get decided by whomever went first and yes it does usually confer an advantage (a fundamental flaw of the i-go-you-go system) and the more "gimmicky" the army, the more dependent on turn order it will usually be. Going first is often hugely important, but not always and going 2nd isn't an automatic loss all the time.

Depends. If I have a Arty list then going first is great. Any other list I can go both ways. Going 2nd has the advantage of being able to counterdeploy your opponent.

I would be interested in seeing in the tournament scene how many games are won after getting the 2nd turn vs the 1st turn.

It definitely favours who gets the first turn. I find coming up with a list that has both the mobility and firepower to exploit the alpha strike as well as the resilience to withstand going second veeeeeeery tricky.

With every game coming down to a die roll to see who goes first, you need to develop tactics/lists that allow you the best chance to win either way.

A player who knows their army, has a few different tactics they use depending on whether they're going first or going second, should always give a good accounting of themselves.

 Swastakowey wrote:
You need more terrain.

LoS blocking terrain will help reduce turn one effectiveness. Play smaller games too, on bigger boards. It will really improve things.

I'd really like to see more photos of the battlefields people play on when they post questions/concerns.

In most cases, I really prefer going second, it opens up so many possibilities in counter-deploying and keeping yourself safe for the first turn.

"Oh, you've put a Hammerhead on the left flank? I'll just put my Russ in the other corner behind this building. Have fun shooting conscripts"

If the enemy are doing significant damage on the first turn, they are using a lot of artillery (in which case you should look at reserving some units) or you need to use more terrain and think about deployment/counter-deployment. There's no way going first/second is really going to decide the game, unless it comes down to a last-player-turn objective grab, in which case 2nd is better.

ShaneTB wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
You need more terrain.

LoS blocking terrain will help reduce turn one effectiveness. Play smaller games too, on bigger boards. It will really improve things.

I'd really like to see more photos of the battlefields people play on when they post questions/concerns.

I agree. Every time someone says something like this all I can think of is the tables they have in GW stores which are cheap, small and empty haha.

Table is among the most important aspects of 40k. It can make or break a game.

 Swastakowey wrote:
You need more terrain.

LoS blocking terrain will help reduce turn one effectiveness. Play smaller games too, on bigger boards. It will really improve things.

This...


Without enough LoS blocking terrain, Guard and Tau armies in particular can stomp the **** out of the opponent on the very first turn because their effectiveness dwindles as the distance between armies does.

MOAR TERRAIN

Even before I had my scum-bag "everything in drop pods and fliers" list, I always went second.

You have the opportunity to put your AT unit in front of their AV units, etc etc. Put it behind a wall, force them to waste a turn.

Going second is ok, only for very resilient armies or armies with super fast scoring units that can be hidden whole game and made to score on last turn of the game. Or armies that can easily counter not having first blood. At all other times going first is much better. Destroyed units don't shot back and if your shoting is realy powerful you could easily be playing 1500pts vs 1300 or less from turn 1 onwards. But in general in 7th the one that wins is the person that draws the better objectives. If your opponent gets turn 1 and even gets first blood and kills a unit or two, but you do 3 missions and get three new cards and he doesn't , you have a much better chance to win.

I find that a lot of times first blood really is a game maker. Because with most of the original missions there aren't usually a ton of points scored that single point can mean the difference between a tie and losing.

I have yet to see a proper army that wants to go second, I swear.

In the age of anything Ap2 it seems that if you don't go first, you're prone to lose all the best stuff in a single sweep before you do anything. Especially when it's large blasts.

Gunlines and artillery-based ones want to pound enemy's biggest guns before they can hurt their ranks.

Drop Pods want the enemy to stay as condensed as possible, so any movement ruins it for them.

Mech and 'regular' balanced armies want to kill enemy's biggest threats before they get to shoot.

The only kinds of armies that would not be screwed by going second are:

Flyer spam akin to necron bakery - they want their flyers to arrive second to shoot enemy flyers down the turn they arrive.

Bike/high mobility armies that benefit from the reduced distance.

Assaulty armies(vaguely, same reason as bikes though).

But it still doesn't give them any advantage aside from the Necron flyer list and they'd still be better off when going first.

 Klerych wrote:
I have yet to see a proper army that wants to go second, I swear.

In the age of anything Ap2 it seems that if you don't go first, you're prone to lose all the best stuff in a single sweep before you do anything. Especially when it's large blasts.
.

Assuming the enemy can shoot you, that everything is in range, and they have all their fire-power exactly where it's needed.. You're seriously underestimating the value of cover, LOS blockers and the advantage that comes with being able to counter deploy. There's more to it than lining up and being shot.

 Paradigm wrote:

 Klerych wrote:
I have yet to see a proper army that wants to go second, I swear.

In the age of anything Ap2 it seems that if you don't go first, you're prone to lose all the best stuff in a single sweep before you do anything. Especially when it's large blasts.
.

Assuming the enemy can shoot you, that everything is in range, and they have all their fire-power exactly where it's needed.. You're seriously underestimating the value of cover, LOS blockers and the advantage that comes with being able to counter deploy. There's more to it than lining up and being shot.

I'm just not underestimating ordnance barrages and ignores cover large blasts. ,) Especially when you take Forge World into account as eagerly as some people on Dakka who advocate for it's 100% legality in regular games.

In 6th edition my White Scars really, really want to go first, because for some unknown reason my entire army stopped just at they came into range of the enemy... Now I'm much less worried about an alpha strike taking my army out , but that doens't mean I don't still want to go first.

Being able to shoot your enemy before you get shot is still pretty good, while for assault armies one less turn's worth of shooting could be the difference between getting to them with enough units to take them out, and getting shot off the board. In addition for mobile armies moving away from the board edge first makes it less likely that morale tests will lose you units - even Space Marines can be hit by this.

 Klerych wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:

 Klerych wrote:
I have yet to see a proper army that wants to go second, I swear.

In the age of anything Ap2 it seems that if you don't go first, you're prone to lose all the best stuff in a single sweep before you do anything. Especially when it's large blasts.
.

Assuming the enemy can shoot you, that everything is in range, and they have all their fire-power exactly where it's needed.. You're seriously underestimating the value of cover, LOS blockers and the advantage that comes with being able to counter deploy. There's more to it than lining up and being shot.

I'm just not underestimating ordnance barrages and ignores cover large blasts. ,) Especially when you take Forge World into account as eagerly as some people on Dakka who advocate for it's 100% legality in regular games.

Most armies don't even have Ordnance Barrage weapons, and I can think of only 2 things in the game that ignore cover without psychic help (Hammerheads and Riptides, both with Markerlight support). Besides, those weapons exist to fill the role of early-on damage, artillery would be pointless if you couldn't barrage with it, and in that case, of course you're better off going first against it. But IG are the only army that can really do that.

I'm not entirely sure what Forge World has to do with it, to be honest. It has no higher percentage of Ignores Cover, Large Blast or Ordnance than the GW published books.

In 6th and sometimes in 7th, going 2nd is the best thing that can happen. Jumping on objectives last minute when your opponent can't do anything about it? Awesome. More turns for Intercepting units to be effective? Yes please. The list goes on and on.

Don't forget Whirlwinds and Thunderfire cannon can cause problems for lighter armoured troops. Drop-pod flamers and sternguard can also cause a very nasty first- turn alpha strike that ignores cover.

Or Leman Russ Eradicators. x)

I guess I'm just spoiled by the Guard and the FW artillery can make it even better.

I can cover you with S8-10 ap4-2 pie plates if I feel like it while my Eradicators take care of pesky, dug in infantry. Or just leave it to Pasknisher and grind the enemy down through weight of fire when prescienced.

Not to mention the Hellhammer if you really think those measly aegis lines, ruins and trenches will protect you!

It may not completely decide the game, but it absolutely is an advantage in most situations, especially in poor terrain boards.

 Lucarikx wrote:
In 6th and sometimes in 7th, going 2nd is the best thing that can happen. Jumping on objectives last minute when your opponent can't do anything about it? Awesome. More turns for Intercepting units to be effective? Yes please. The list goes on and on.

That is a true point though.

I think going second is better because it provides the opportunity to clean up on objectives without worrying about a counter.

Hide your stuff turn 1 and then come out swinging.

In close games, I find that I have better success when I get the final turn. Getting last turn means having the last turn to pick a fight for a game winning kill point or making the final move toward objectives. I find that getting the final say is a huge advantage of its own and I've voluntarily chosen to go second after winning roll offs because of this.

Much like people have mentioned that some armies are better off going second, some are far better off going first too. These are not competative armies however, as to be competative, you need to be able to cope with both. An example would be a BA assault marine spam. The less shooting your opponent gets against you the better. If your opponent gets 3 turns of shooting against you before you make it into combat, you've probably lost.

Easy rule of thumb:

Standard mission type means going second is more likely to win. This trend was seen in 6E for tournaments using the typical "score at the end of the game" style missions. You get the last say, which can be more critical than the first volley.

Maelstrom mission type means going first is more likely to win. You'll get first right at scoring cards unimpeded, more so if you play something like Eldar which can do a bunch of things first turn to mess with your opponent thanks to ridiculous speaks of objective secured units (wave serpents, jetbikes).

I expect the trend from 6E with the standard book missions and the few experiments in controlled maelstrom missions to make this the case.

I almost always if I have the choice, go second because having the last turn is super good.