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Something I've noticed in playing, and I'm not sure this was an intended effect, but. First Blood highlights to new players the importance of focusing fire on a single target.
I'm sure this is second nature to most of us grizzled vets here, but to the new recruits it's not so obvious.

That said, in terms of being a game-changer - it's still more sensible to ensure you have enough units to reliably take objectives. After all, in most missions the objectives give you more than one point, so that's a "net profit" so to speak.

I run a rhino list in my CSM army, and as such it is pretty common for me to give up first blood; however, I rarely lose because of it. Out of the last 6 games I've played I gave up FB in 5 of them, I lost 1, won 4, and tied 1. My opponents tend to go too far out of their way to get a FB by killing one of my transports, they put them selves in bad positions as such and take heavy casualties as a result. So I use transports as bait. I'll give up one victory point to destroy most of their scoring units on turn 2.

 Kingsley wrote:


As more data are collected, do you really expect things to change?

You can't expect anything. You have to wait for the data to be available. I also doubt there will be a non-bias party who could be bothered to collate enough from multiple tournaments. I'd like to be proven wrong there though.

 Griddlelol wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:


As more data are collected, do you really expect things to change?

You can't expect anything. You have to wait for the data to be available. I also doubt there will be a non-bias party who could be bothered to collate enough from multiple tournaments. I'd like to be proven wrong there though.

The problem here is that this data typically isn't collected in the first place, much less collated by any central party-- TOs have to make an effort to include information about who went first in their report sheets or something, which is currently not a mainstream practice.

It's a shame, I'm quite interested in this since both sides have valid points - referring to going first or second not First Blood.

Drawing a causal link between the two would difficult with just the "x number went first, of this y number won." Simply just not enough information to make a judgement on it. It could easily be the player who won was simply lucky or better.

MSU does not necessarily imply first blood for your opponent.
Transports like Rhinos or Razorbacks are very fragile these days. If you can keep them in cover, 25%, with a 4+ cover save, they can be rather resilient. But if not, they might be gone in the first round.
Ten days ago, in an RTT, I battled Nurgle Marines (mostly on foot) with my Necrons army. The enemy had first turn but could not really target me (no night fight). Then my to ABs targeted his two Rhinos (launching smoke before) and both got destroyed.

On a battlefield with no terrain, and when the night fight rules are not in effect, one can realistically predict that the player who goes first, is the player who scores first blood. However, that is usually not the case, and most battlefields should at least afford you the opportunity to deploy out of LOS, or at the very least in cover.

As a long time Tau player, i regularly set up my entire army (or as much of it as possible) in cover, or out of LOS, and try to stay like that the whole battle. Similarly since i've recently started playing Imperial fists, i tend to try to set up the majority of my force in cover or out of LOS, its not a concious effort to deny first blood per se, rather than my desire to avoid casualties before they do anything.

As to the specific question, MSU will make it easier for your opponent to score first blood by having small unit sizes, but scoring first blood does not in, and of itself, provide a massive advantage. as others have said, its usually the player who goes last that has the advantage when scoring on objectives. Random game length can mitigate that somewhat, but generally speaking, i find the player who goes second has a bigger advantage than the player who goes first

Tournaments have random game length for the # of turns played, but game length in minutes/hours is fixed in stone. When the game runs out because the clock runs out the game favors the MSU army that goes 2nd because they can snag objectives when the clock is almost gone. Most players disdain victory by the block, and players that intentionally slow play are rare. 6th ed often does take longer to play than 5th ed, and there are many reasons for that.

Unfamiliarity with 6th ed rules.
Look out sir
Hull points
More measuring

and most importantly...

A change in the meta. 5th ed's holy trinity of 3M being the meta did 1 really positive thing for the game, it made the game play really fast. Now that other lists are competitive those other lists are populating the tournament scene and slowing down the game. Mech IG v Mech SW just plays faster than nids V orks. TOs haven't seem to caught onto that fact yet so people are getting clocked by the clock, and that situation heavily favors the player that goes 2nd.