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So you have won the "first turn roll- off". Now should you go first or take the second turn?

Personally I like to let my opponent start the turn because this gives me alot of tatical advantages. For example I can counter-deploy my opponent and match the deployment of his. I usally play against imperial guards (and space marines). If i let IG go first then most of their guns will be out of range the first turn effectivly minimizing their shooting. But it can also of course pay out to start the first turn; you get to fire with those long range guns maybe destroying some vital unit(s).

So do you go first or second and why? Share your words!

Depends on a ton of circumstances
1. Who is the other player
2. What army are they using
3. What mission/deployment are we using
4. How is the terrain set up
5. Have I had anything to drink that day
etc.

If I have one of the following armies, I always perfer to go second.

Weathering Armies
An army like footslogging orks or SW grey hunter spam can weather the alpha strike pretty well and still have firepower to return. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, you can get cover pretty easily when your looking at the entire board, so most infantry will get their 4+ save. Secondly, anti-tank fire is a lot less effective when utilized against a 6 point ork. When playing an ork footslogger army, I would lose between 3-10 boys in the first round of shooting. While some armies are much better at dealing with horde at range, they are not common armies today.

Poor examples of weathering armies would be AV 10 spam, like dark eldar or truuks. Even razorback spam (AV11) can have problems weathering in STR 8 spam games.

Reserve Armies
The other option is to go with a reserve list. Another army I play is Mech'dar with Yuriel. This gives me a 3+ reserve roll on turn two, and all my vehicles can burst onto the board going 24". One of the best strengths of the reserve list is that it allows me to have less turns of return fire. By coming in a the bottom of 2, my opponent has between 3-5 turns to shoot at me. If I started on the board, he would have 5-7. This makes it harder to destroy the 10+ grav tanks I'm bringing to the table.

Reserve armies also get the alpha strike, as they can shoot on the turn they move in. They also get an extra turn of shooting, as they can start shooting as soon as the bottom of 2, where their opponent can only start shooting at the top of 3.

Reserve armies also counter the first 2 turns of night fighting necrons. This helps when they bring the stormlord. Reserve armies also can come in on the table edge during spearhead, which can take people by suprise. Reserve armies also can come in where they want on the board edge, allowing you to take advantage of poor enemy deployment.

Going Second
So why go second? Well, it gives a considerable advantage on objective missions. It allows you to move to objectives when your opponent cannot respond.
In timed games it gives another strong advantage. Generally you know when your going to have 1 turn left to play, such as when there is 20 minutes left before the round is called. This lets you objective contest/grab knowing when you cannot be countered.

Going Fisrt
So why go first? If you have an alpha strike army like guard, going first can be a decisive blow. Going first can also let you pull some scout-PF shenanigans to destroy vehicles. These are significant advantages, and if you don't have an army that is designed to take the second turn, the first turn is often a better choice because of these options.

It depends on the army, and you really have to look at it in the context of your opponent as well like others have said.

Look at Imotekh's Necrons for example. You'll have night fight on the first turn limiting the long range shooting of both players, and you have 4+ to seize the initiative. I really think the latter is key here. Basically, it seems that you'd always want to go second so you get a much stronger deployment, you get the last turn, and you give the opponent plenty of chances to make a mistake, and then you still have a 50% chance to go first if you want. For example, you were expecting that the opponent might reserve if he doesn't get first turn, but he got it and deployed on table, so now you just steal and wipe him out. It's a pretty good scenario since many opponents don't even realise that this is what you're looking for, and if they win the roll off they'll say they take the first turn when they should in fact pretty much always force you to go first and plan accordingly. Naturally, most armies can't handle the Necrons when they go first since reserving will gimp them in more ways than one, so this isn't a terrible thing to happen either.

If you played some more traditional armies with less special rules regarding the start of turn, you'd resort to more basic principles. If you play Space Wolves with shooty elements and some assault elements, you naturally look at what your enemy plays with. If you think you'll need to be in a hurry to get somewhere and to suppress something you'll want to go first, especially if you'll know your immobile firebases have good line of sight. If you think that first turn casualties will be minimal on either side or that you can deal with the enemy assault elements even if they get a free move towards you, you'll go second. If you play against infiltrating 60 Genestealers, you really want go first. Much of his army will deploy after your army deploys anyway, so you'll be better off just deploying smartly right away and then get to react immediately to where he placed his guys (move your units even Long Fangs to refuse one flank for example and set up proper kill zones and counter-assault lanes so when he starts his first turn it will look like if his Stealers move at all they're all dead. This way you'll guarantee they won't assault you on turn two, and that its the TWC who will get the first assaut in the game after the enemy has been sufficiently softened up).

So in short, you might have some basic ideas in mind regarding your own army but each time you see your opponent's army, the mission and the terrain you'll have to make a strategy based on that information.

To simplify how I decide:
1. what army am I facing? Drop pod armies, for example, I'd normally want to go first so I have something to smash up.
2. Who am I facing? Knowing your opponent, some opponents go for the throat, while others sit back. Knowing how an opponent plays effects this.
3. What am I playing? My daemons never want to go first, while my BA almost always want to go first.
4. Mission. Whats the goal of my mission? KP's mean I want to kill as much as quickly as I can, while objectives I want that last turn to swoop in.
5. Terrain. Sometimes heavy terrain you can afford to go second, sparse terrain you want to go first.

Honestly, its different for everyone. Theres benefits to both!

If you have the range advantage (i.e. majority 36" fire power as opposed to a 24" army) going second is often quite advantageous. The enemy won't be in range with half their guns due to your retroactive deployment and you can pick and choose engagement as you like while still sniping away.

Well i play orks and i have a very fast army, almost all of the armys i play against are shooty so i like to go first and go up as quick as possible and hopfully get the charge second turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well i play orks and i have a very fast army, almost all of the armys i play against are shooty so i like to go first and go up as quick as possible and hopfully get the charge second turn.

I also play orks and it really does depend on the scenario, obviously mission matters also. Dawn of War I usually go second no matter the mission. But with KP missions I prefer to go first and "set the pace" and objective missions obviously 2nd is an advantage.

I play templars with multiple LRCs, but it depends on the situation.

With a pitched battle deployment, I will usually try and go first since I will be in the middle of the table with shooting and a second turn assault.

Spearhead- if they have something I need to kill and don't want them to play keep away, I'll go second to counter-deploy and try and steal initiative.

Dawn of War, I want to go first so I have the first turn of non night-fighting shooting.

Exceptions-against armies with ridiculous amounts of firepower, I always want to go first to get me some cover

I've found that going second, and reserving my army, works quite well with my bikes. It means that my opponent loses two turns of shooting at my army, and when I roll on every model can shoot as if stationary anyway.

Of course the reserve rolls can be annoying, so a bigger army where every unit is duplicated is better on average than a smaller one.