Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi Hi,

Having played a fair amount of 6th now, I am realising from turn 2 onwards that the game could well be won by first blood. I personally like that the mechanic exists to avoid A LOT of draws but it does make me think that it does make rhino's/small units unrunnable.

For example, in today's game we were playing relic and it soon became clear that we would both have linebreaker and warlord and no-one had any troops left we still had a load of flyers/terminators what not running around but by targetting the troops you can win by first blood..

I was just wondering if anyone else had any opinions on this or if it's just in my local metagame, we usually run around 3-4 troops in 1500-1750

C-Hydra

I would say yes that would be a pretty reasonable assessment to try to win by first blood IF EVERYONE really only takes 3 or 4 troops. IMHO that is real low. I take minimum 4 but average 5 or 6 troops. If someone does that and everyone normally only takes 3-4 in your lfgs then it would seem that they would have a major advantage then since they can actually score in the end

Nope.

First blood doesn't penalize the player with the flimsiest units, it rewards the player with the strongest alpha strike. If you have gobs and gobs of long-range shooting, you will more consistently get first blood than if you have tougher units.

And how do you get the most long-range shooting? Generally through MSU gunline spam. In a fight between a land raider list and a guard foot gunline, I'd certainly expect the gunline to beat out the land raider list for first blood as killing power is more important here than durability - no matter how durable you try to get, if your opponent is properly shooty, they're going to get first blood.

First blood is the second attempt to curb MSU mech lists (the first being KP of 5th ed), and it's the second time in a row that their "cure" for the problem is just going to exacerbate the problem.

First blood is something that I often count on, running pure BA infantry (tact/ras/dev) I can reasonably count on getting 2 out of the 3 extra points.

3-4 troops is a average number for alot of armies (if your not IG) being 1 selection per 500 points, the goal now is to balance the need for mobility and survivability.

Whats your main army?

Oh ya and that..any half decent shooty list going to get first blood so not something your going to want to bank on lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Main army is codex sm

It can, as if the MSU player goes 2nd (since they have to deploy things now) then it is easy to lose a rhino or similar vehicle. It can be quite crucial though as it's the only objective that can't be claimed by both sides. Personally, it's just encouraged me to no have any "weak" easy KPs in my army. If my opponent wants first blood, he has to get through 6 t6 wounds or about 20 gants! Not easy with the cover usually available, and psychic powers flying around. However, I must concede to Ailaros that when I do lose first blood, it normally is to a spammy MSU type list.

jifel wrote:It can, as if the MSU player goes 2nd (since they have to deploy things now) then it is easy to lose a rhino or similar vehicle.

Yeah, but it's also easy to lose a single unit if you're NOT doing MSU.

That and it's easy to forget that the more you focus on durability, the worse your killing power is going to be. If your opponent is running a 3x land raider list, yeah, it's going to be tough to kill one of his raiders, but it's likely that your opponent's firepower is so terrible, that it's going to be really hard for him to claim first blood against you first.

The only real exception to the fact that better firepower (and better rolling for 1st turn) is the one who wins is in the case of drop-pod assault, which starts with literally nothing on the board. I'd expect them to get first blood a lot.

 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, but it's also easy to lose a single unit if you're NOT doing MSU.

This. Took a single Rhino with a 10-man squad with a balance of shooting and assault upgrades? Too bad, it dies just as easily as one of the GK player's 6x Razorbacks with three naked acolytes in them. Took a Land Speeder at all? Dead. Mandatory PCS for your 50-man blob squad? Better keep it behind LOS blocking terrain. Brought nothing but AV 14? Oh good, there's a chance it might not die to random lascannons on the first turn. The only way to avoid giving up first blood easily is to have nothing but large and durable infantry units, and play them defensively. Too bad this is a terrible strategy, and almost always worse than taking a good army and just accepting that you won't get first blood when you go second.


But overall, even if it was intended to punish MSU, what it really does is give even more of an advantage to the player who goes first and reward them for doing the things they were going to do anyway (killing your stuff on turn 1). It's stupid game design, and the best solution is to house rule it away.

Or tweak it a bit. Something like "second blood" perhaps. The first person to kill two units gets the point. Or three. The further you go, the more that MSU armies start getting ACTUALLY punished relative to non-MSU ones.

Of course, I don't know why you'd do this either, as the next most popular list type behind MSU spam is things like draigowing that barely have any units on the table at all. Propping up the second most popular list type at the expense of the first most popular type doesn't really make much sense to me.

I think in order to get the kind of thing they're looking for, you'd have to take a page from old VP: whoever kills 10% of their opponent's force first gets a VP. That way you're punished for MSU, as it's going to be easy to rack up a bunch of cheap, easy kills to get to that 10%, and you're also punished for bringing a 3-unit army, as you're only a couple of 1's on your armor save rolls, or a single penetrating lascannon hit away from getting it on a single, big, expensive kill.

Line breaker feels like the first blood of going second

 Peregrine wrote:
But overall, even if it was intended to punish MSU, what it really does is give even more of an advantage to the player who goes first and reward them for doing the things they were going to do anyway (killing your stuff on turn 1). It's stupid game design, and the best solution is to house rule it away.

Does First Blood favor the person who's going first? Uh, yeah, that's the point. The person who's going first is at a disadvantage otherwise. In 5th edition, the player going second won more often in competitive play-- in 6th edition, where 5/6 missions are objectives and Flyers provide even more of a reason to go second, First Blood helps provide a reason to go first.

Leth wrote:Line breaker feels like the first blood of going second

Except that on most occasions, the person who gets first blood also gets linebreaker as well, at least where I play.

If linebreaker were exclusive, like first blood, then perhaps it would be a counter, but since both players can get linebreaker, but only one can get first blood...

Kingsley wrote:The person who's going first is at a disadvantage otherwise.

I don't understand why you keep saying this. Yes, there is a slight advantage to going second as far as taking objectives is concerned, but there is a HUGE advantage gained by getting to shoot your opponent before he gets to shoot you. If we're talking assault, it's the difference between getting shot once before your turn-2 charge hits your opponent, or getting shot twice. You get subjected to 100% more shooting if you go second.

Whatever advantage you gain in objectives is much more than offset by your opponent's gunline getting to blow 25% of your army off the board before you get to so much as make a move. An advantage that trickes down every turn that you have units that didn't get to do anything because they were killed early on before they had a chance to be useful. An advantage that lasts until the last turn of the game, rather than an advantage that doesn't show up until the last turn of the game.

 Kingsley wrote:


Does First Blood favor the person who's going first? Uh, yeah, that's the point. The person who's going first is at a disadvantage otherwise. In 5th edition, the player going second won more often in competitive play-- in 6th edition, where 5/6 missions are objectives and Flyers provide even more of a reason to go second, First Blood helps provide a reason to go first.

When you come across an army that can alpha strike at least (on a very conservative estimate) 300pts in a 1500pt game, you'll reconsider the idea of going second. As a gun-line player, I want to go first. When I switch this to MSU with air-transports, I want to go first. Neutralising threats before they even get a chance to hit you allows you to spend the rest of the game shooting down the opposing player's troops choices.

Completely anecdotal evidence: The last 3 games I've played I've gone first. On all three occasions I got first blood. On one occasion I wiped out an entire unit of long fangs, a rune priest and a unit of 10 grey hunters. One occasion I killed off two objective sitting tactical squads. On another I killed off a Vanquisher among other things.

First blood just rewards player 1. There's nothing you can do to combat it other than hiding if you're going second. In MSU spam you'll probably give up first blood, but if you ignore MSU you'll probably give up first blood. I know I'd rather lose 1 small unit than 1 large unit.

 Ailaros wrote:

Kingsley wrote:The person who's going first is at a disadvantage otherwise.

I don't understand why you keep saying this.

Because the data say it.

 Ailaros wrote:
Whatever advantage you gain in objectives is much more than offset by your opponent's gunline getting to blow 25% of your army off the board before you get to so much as make a move.

If you lose 25% of your army in one turn of shooting after deploying second, you're probably doing something wrong. I only even concede First Blood about half the time when going second and can't think of a time in 6th edition when I've lost more than one or two units on the first turn-- one or two models is more common! In any case, your assertion is not borne out by the evidence, as tournament data from 5th edition, which favored going second less than 6th edition does, indicate that the player who goes second tends to win more often. I suspect that the difference will be even more striking in 6th edition, First Blood or no First Blood.

A counter to first blood, play daemons, then they can't shoot anything on there first turn, so if you scatter poorly then you'll lose it but otherwise you'll be fine

What data states going first is a disadvantage?

 Kingsley wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

Kingsley wrote:The person who's going first is at a disadvantage otherwise.

I don't understand why you keep saying this.

Because the data say it.

 Ailaros wrote:
Whatever advantage you gain in objectives is much more than offset by your opponent's gunline getting to blow 25% of your army off the board before you get to so much as make a move.

If you lose 25% of your army in one turn of shooting after deploying second, you're probably doing something wrong. I only even concede First Blood about half the time when going second and can't think of a time in 6th edition when I've lost more than one or two units on the first turn-- one or two models is more common! In any case, your assertion is not borne out by the evidence, as tournament data from 5th edition, which favored going second less than 6th edition does, indicate that the player who goes second tends to win more often. I suspect that the difference will be even more striking in 6th edition, First Blood or no First Blood.

If I run at least one Rhino and I go turn 2 as CSM, those stupid things are almost certainly going to give up first blood. It doesn't really have anything to do with unit sizes.

Kingsley wrote:If you lose 25% of your army in one turn of shooting after deploying second, you're probably doing something wrong.

If you're not losing 25% of your army in one turn of shooting after deploying second, you're probably not playing against a competent gunline player.

Kingsley wrote:your assertion is not borne out by the evidence, as tournament data from 5th edition, which favored going second less than 6th edition does

Firstly, [citation needed].

Secondly, if your data set is going to be limited to, say, "people who won Adepticon in 5th edition", you're looking at an incredibly tiny data set.

First blood penalizes MSU.

5/6 games being objective based rewards MSU. 1/2 of all games have 3 to 5 objectives or 6 objectives.

Line breaker rewards MSU.

MSU isn't dead, if anything it's in better shape now than ever.

I think AV10/AV11 take a bigger hit. MSU, not so much.

 Ailaros wrote:

Kingsley wrote:If you lose 25% of your army in one turn of shooting after deploying second, you're probably doing something wrong.

If you're not losing 25% of your army in one turn of shooting after deploying second, you're probably not playing against a competent gunline player.

The amount of damage you take after deploying second is largely in your hands, not your opponents'. After all, you have the chance to set up your units wherever you want, including potentially in Reserves! Hence, you can mitigate much of the damage that your opponent has the chance to do. While there are some exceptions to this, most notably Barrage weapons, by and large deploying second allows you to counter much if not all of your opponent's shooting.

A good example of this is from my first game at the Bay Area Open tournament. I was using a fairly MSU (and not particularly optimized) Space Marine list and came up against a Blood Angels player. His list was essentially mine but much more optimized for the mech/MSU matchup, with more Razorbacks, better units inside, missile launcher Devastators instead of Thunderfire Cannons, and so on. He had much better shooting firepower against the targets in my list across practically all ranges, and while my Dreadnoughts were powerful in assault against his Marine squads without power fists, the rest of his army was superior to mine in assault.

Luckily for me, my opponent decided to go first. I was then able to deploy my forces in a position such that my entire army was either in cover or out of range. To engage my vulnerable AV11 targets, he would have to move into range of my static shooting. I weathered the storm of his first shooting phase, taking a few vehicle damage results but losing only a marine or two from backfield Combat Squads, then moved into firing position with my mobile elements and did serious damage with my counterattack, going on to win the game.

Going second allowed me to set up the battlefield in a way that favored me and hence control the flow of the battle, even against an army that strongly outshot mine (and was, quite frankly, better than mine in the matchup in question).

 Ailaros wrote:

Kingsley wrote:your assertion is not borne out by the evidence, as tournament data from 5th edition, which favored going second less than 6th edition does

Firstly, [citation needed].

Source is 3++. Unfortunately, the article seems to have been lost in the hosting issues/site transfer, but it is referred to here, which also talks about some of the other interesting factors involved. For instance, going first is better for low brackets, but going second is even more favored in top brackets. In other words, the better you are, the more of an advantage it is to go second.

 Kingsley wrote:


Source is 3++. Unfortunately, the article seems to have been lost in the hosting issues/site transfer, but it is referred to here, which also talks about some of the other interesting factors involved. For instance, going first is better for low brackets, but going second is even more favored in top brackets. In other words, the better you are, the more of an advantage it is to go second.

It also states the data set is tiny. This all looks to be much more like conjecture than actual evidence.

 Griddlelol wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
Source is 3++. Unfortunately, the article seems to have been lost in the hosting issues/site transfer, but it is referred to here, which also talks about some of the other interesting factors involved. For instance, going first is better for low brackets, but going second is even more favored in top brackets. In other words, the better you are, the more of an advantage it is to go second.

It also states the data set is tiny. This all looks to be much more like conjecture than actual evidence.

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

My (fairly extensive) experience jibes with Kingsley's. Going second is almost always a very serious advantage in an objective game. The exceptions tend to be on tables with too little terrain for a balanced game.

This principle held through 5th edition, and is holding true through ~40 games of 6th so far as well.

I think you absolutely cannot build a list in 6th that cannot reliably take first blood.

Once that's said though, I'm not sure that means the death of MSU. The more I play around with the Chaos codex the more I feel that it's a strength in a lot of the late fifth/early sixth armies. MSU is alive and healthy, I don't see that changing.

But FB, yeah. If your army can't kill something in your first turn, you're missing out on a pretty important tiebreaker.

 Mannahnin wrote:
My (fairly extensive) experience jibes with Kingsley's. Going second is almost always a very serious advantage in an objective game. The exceptions tend to be on tables with too little terrain for a balanced game.

This principle held through 5th edition, and is holding true through ~40 games of 6th so far as well.

Are you using random game length, or, like many tournaments, are you removing it and playing a fixed game length. And are your games finishing due to reaching the turn limit, or because time ran out?

Many tournaments use a fixed game length? That's dumb. It gives absolute power to fast armies going second.

rigeld2 wrote:
Many tournaments use a fixed game length? That's dumb. It gives absolute power to fast armies going second.

None of the tournaments that I have played in have used fixed game length, as random game length is generally agreed to add to the game. Some games do end before they should thanks to running out of play time, but that's very dependent on player skill. I tend to finish all my games on time now that I'm used to 6th edition gameplay, but less experienced players may have trouble moving through the game quickly.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
My (fairly extensive) experience jibes with Kingsley's. Going second is almost always a very serious advantage in an objective game. The exceptions tend to be on tables with too little terrain for a balanced game.

This principle held through 5th edition, and is holding true through ~40 games of 6th so far as well.

Are you using random game length, or, like many tournaments, are you removing it and playing a fixed game length. And are your games finishing due to reaching the turn limit, or because time ran out?

I, like every decent tournament I've encountered, always use random game length. Where the heck are you getting the idea that "many tournaments" are removing it?

Time limits are occasionally a factor, and I will certainly say that they're more of a factor early in 6th, where games take longer as people are learning the rules, things overall run slower, and many TOs have been slow to adjust or simply failed to use the option of setting a lower point level and/or longer time for rounds to make up for it.. Most of my games end due to random roll though, not time. When the clock does end it, of course going second becomes absolutely critical in an objective game, not merely a serious advantage.

I was going to ask the same question. I have not heard of any tournaments taking out random game length. I don't know if Peregrine is being serious or inflammatory.