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Probably the most important of all is First Blood.
Some missions can be won on First Blood alone like Emperors Will.

With the introduction of First Blood does this require a rethinking to army lists?
Could this one VP be enough to see a move away from easily popped Rhino's or MSU?

In each game I've played in that had First Blood and went second, I lost a rhino and ended up either tying or losing by 1 VP.

Each time.

I generally give up First Blood to get Slay the Warlord. It evens out.

at my shop we ply at first blood come from removing a model as a casualty last i checked rulebook says vehicles are not removed in this fastion

thats how we play it at least

I'll always go for first blood, as long as it isn't a stupid idea based on the enemy forces. I also think that lone wolves should award first blood to the team who owns them when they are killed, that would be fun.

You don't need to change your army list, you simply need to deploy your solo models and light vehicles in a way that they are harder to kill.

 techsoldaten wrote:
I generally give up First Blood to get Slay the Warlord. It evens out.

That's an interesting response and not one I expected. Be aware though that you can build your army and tactics to weigh favour to you in order to deny your opponent access to your warlord in order not to give up this VP.

I still feel First Blood is one of the most important secondary VP's.
If you tie on objectives this could easily be the distinguishing factor between win or loss.

Line breaker in most cases is relativley easy to get.
Warlord is not and a tactful player shouldnt grant this to you easily.

So this begs the question, should we be more geared towards getting First Blood and denial of Killed the WarLord.
If we are more geared towards getting First Blood does this mean we should move away from MSU or elements in our list that could easily give away First Blood or can we include those elements anyway but use tactics like reserving those elements to prevent First Blood going to the enemy.

Or, is First Blood not as importnat as I think it sounds to be?

Debate away, interested to hear your views.

 techsoldaten wrote:
I generally give up First Blood to get Slay the Warlord. It evens out.

Except of course Slay the Warlord isn't limited to one player. The player who got FB can get StW as well. Not exactly even, especially as many Warlords are powerful units that are going to be shot down anyway.

First blood does come from vehicles, but it means that you have to think about deployment which unfortunately the annoying seizure of initiative can screw up. Man I hate that rule. Oh I hate First Blood too - yay rewarded for something I was going to do anyway!

I used to be very concerned with this, but now I think First Blood can largely be avoided via tactics and canny deployment rather than at the army list stage.

For instance, make sure all your units have at least one model out of Line of Sight of the enemy on the first turn. This will make sure they can't be killed by non-Barrage shooting. Similarly, it may be wise to deploy AV 10 or 11 vehicles behind terrain on the first turn (or in Reserves) to prevent easily giving up First Blood.

If you're really concerned about First Blood and you think it will be what swings the game (as in some Emperor's Will missions), it may be wise to consolidate your units-- keeping 10-man Marine Squads in Combat Squads or blobbing Imperial Guard squads together-- to make it harder for the opponent to pick off a few guys and claim the VP.

@L0rdF1end, @Griddlelol: Yeah, I did not expect that to be the general logic.

I realize both sides could get Slay the Warlord, but it's not something that happens very often in my battles. I usually field an army that looks like this:

- A CL mounted on a bike with Sigil of Corruption and either MoN (T6) or MoS. He rides with a squad of bikers with the same mark. When it's MoS, they also get IoE and FnP. The CL also carries the Black Mace.

- 4 squads of NMs with IoE and sonics who ride up in Rhinos.

The CL is very hard to kill and has only died in a few games I have played under 6th edition. I use him to create conditions where I can max out on VPs just by having him on the board.

I will usually lose a Rhino in the first couple rounds, which is how opponents get First Blood - it's easy so why not. However, I am getting my bikers into assault range at the same time, and the 25 - 40 attacks they bring on the charge tends to generate a lot of interest from opponents. After the bikers dispatch their first crop of victims, they generally become the target of a big torrent of fire from multiple units.

This is where the NMs come in. I can usually have them in position to shoot without moving by turn 3, letting me drop 100+ shots on enemy units while they are focused on something else. 100+ shots that ignore cover tend to kill MEQ quickly, giving me back that VP. My bikers tend to survive whatever gets thrown at them

The trade I am making is First Blood for 1 - 2 'easy' VPs in the early rounds, plus Slay the Warlord when my CL catches up with his HQ. As a side benefit, my NMs and bikers are typically in very good position to accumulate more VPs in subsequent rounds by either charging or shooting up anything that comes at them.

It's not foolproof and doesn't win me every game, but it works more often then not.

I've stopped taking any Rhino's because of first blood. Every game I'm involved in is now search and destroy the easiest first blood target than continue business as usual. All the points brought up in here are completly valid. Games with even objectives, Relic, and emperors will, these all come down to the first blood kill more often than not.

You are asking two questions here. First lets address MSU ... If you are playing with allies MSU is fairly common -
Night Scythe w/ Warriors
5 GH w/ plasma and WG
Small henchmen squad ( maybe six strong with Coteaz )
Small GKSS squads
Small fire warrior squads to support Tau shooting

So MSU still thrives. Now you also have certain army lists that well with MSU and rhinos.

We know the rhinos are going to go down but they did pretty quickly in 6ed as well. They still get you up table and provide cover for units behind them. So rhinos will be used. Razorbacks might be used less as the added expense might now be excessive. Myself, I've switched to drop pods but I play SW lately so that is understood and getting fist blood is not an issue with a seven or eight man squad in a pod with a couple of special weapons or Logan and relentless dropping in. With a 6" deployment we are now pretty safe.

First Blood always gose to who ever got 1st turn so i don't know how you can build a list that always get 1st turn.

 yorkskargrimironklaw wrote:
First Blood always gose to who ever got 1st turn so i don't know how you can build a list that always get 1st turn.

Couldn't disagree more.

Plenty of lists are resilient enough or can be deployed carefully enough not to give up 1st Blood on the 1st turn of the game.

There should be a lot of terrain on the table in 6th (if you play with the terrain "mini-game" you deploy 12 pieces of terrain on average and we've used that as a target for "narrative terrain placement" as well) so getting cover saves or having LoS totally blocked, even for vehicles, shouldn't be that difficult.

IMO it's significant, but not significant enough to change your strategy over it. If you're making dramatic changes to avoid giving up first blood then you're probably reducing your ability to claim the other VPs. I'd rather throw away 1 VP and know I have the best possible chance of getting those 3-VP objectives than obsess over first blood and make sure I get it but in the process lose the other VPs.

It's pretty trivial.

If two players bring offensively focused armies in this edition, someone is probably getting tabled. If only one person brings an offensively focused army, he's probably going to table the opposition.

No armies are currently durable enough to withstand the punishment every army* is capable of producing. This isn't the edition for objectives anymore.

It doesn't matter if you lose the first thing. It only matters who loses the last thing.

*poo armies like Eldar need not apply to 6th edition.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
It's pretty trivial.

If two players bring offensively focused armies in this edition, someone is probably getting tabled. If only one person brings an offensively focused army, he's probably going to table the opposition.

No armies are currently durable enough to withstand the punishment every army* is capable of producing. This isn't the edition for objectives anymore.

It doesn't matter if you lose the first thing. It only matters who loses the last thing.

*poo armies like Eldar need not apply to 6th edition.

This doesn't match my experience. I've found that objectives are big this edition-- 5/6 scenarios are objective-based rather than just killing-- and now that every army can bring AV14 buildings that block line of sight, 2+ cover, etc. it's harder than ever to be tabled.

I wrote huge thing on It in my blog and concluded that 1st blood is pretty essential:
http://tzarkahn40k.blogspot.ie/2012/11/imperial-guard-in-6th-edition-looking.html?m=1

 Kingsley wrote:
I've found that objectives are big this edition-- 5/6 scenarios are objective-based rather than just killing-

That's a half truth. They are only objective based when enough is alive to score objectives. And that simply doesn't happen any longer.

 yorkskargrimironklaw wrote:
First Blood always gose to who ever got 1st turn so i don't know how you can build a list that always get 1st turn.

Imotekh with Allied Coteaz.

4+ Rerollable Sieze. AND forces your opponent to reroll his seize. So 87.5% to natural-roll or seize first turn. 2.8% chance for your opponent to seize.

Not to mention (with any army) First blood only goes to the first turn if you don't account for it in deployment. Second turn, you just need to deploy smart.

Night fight? Keep everything either out of 42 inches, or out of LoS. Anything you can't do it to, at least give them 2+ or 3+ cover with shrouded. Opponent moves towards you or wastes a turn. If its the former, you move out of LoS and shoot what you can.

No Night fight? Full-Obscure your front AV on transports behind ruins while exposing your side, still keeping your opponent's heavy hitters in your front arc. He'll have to shoot at side armor (since its what he can see) and you get 3+ cover. Hide MSU behind transports or walls. Same with transports that can't be obscure-cover boosted.

First blood isn't automatic for first turn. Not even close. It only is automatic if you don't account for it in deployment.

MSU gives up 1st blood easier, but does better at capturing objectives.

 TheCaptain wrote:
Imotekh with Allied Coteaz.

As they are only allies of convenience, wouldn't the Grey Knights die to lightning? You could end up giving away first blood yourself if not careful.

 juraigamer wrote:
You don't need to change your army list, you simply need to deploy your solo models and light vehicles in a way that they are harder to kill.

Making a Rhino harder to kill doesn't make it hard to kill.

felixcat wrote:We know the rhinos are going to go down but they did pretty quickly in 6ed as well. They still get you up table and provide cover for units behind them.

I take it you mean 5th. Regardless, the big difference is killing a Rhino rarely won you a game before, now it happens quite often to many people. That's a significant difference to the old edition.

 yorkskargrimironklaw wrote:
First Blood always gose to who ever got 1st turn so i don't know how you can build a list that always get 1st turn.

Except it doesn't. Razor SPAM list goes first against Marine horde; who do think will honestly get First Blood?

DarknessEternal wrote:And that simply doesn't happen any longer.

You can say that with 100% certainty? Because you'd be wrong. I'm pretty sure plenty of people here can attest to that (one already has I believe). Then again such broad blanket statements are rarely correct.

I pretty much never get First Blood. I play a lot of marines with plenty of Drop pods, so whenever I go second there's always a pod landing unerringly near something vulnerable and melta-ing it to oblivion before I can do anything.

First Blood would make more sense if more armies had acces to alpha-striking capability.

The only influence I've seen first blood come in on the games now is a slight increase in drop pod sternguard etc being played.

Nightfighting / being out of 36 inches seems to help avoid the worst of it. Admittedly, it still does happen to me.

I think it's probably influencing more games than GW were intending. It was probably designed as a tie breaker, but quite often I find it ending up causing a tie.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
I've found that objectives are big this edition-- 5/6 scenarios are objective-based rather than just killing-

That's a half truth. They are only objective based when enough is alive to score objectives. And that simply doesn't happen any longer.

I have never been tabled in 6th edition, including against Nob Bikers, pure shooty IG, Dark Eldar venom/lance spam, multiple Baleflamer Chaos, and aggressive Tyranids. I think I've tabled an opponent twice, and once it was because the last enemy unit had to fly off the board. I think the addition of Fortifications makes tabling someone quite difficult. Every (non-Fearless) army can now have 2+ cover saves for its backfield objective claimers; every army can bring AV14 buildings. Further, people seem to bring more units to the field than they once did. These factors combine to make tabling rarer in my experience than it was in 5th edition.

 Trickstick wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:
Imotekh with Allied Coteaz.

As they are only allies of convenience, wouldn't the Grey Knights die to lightning? You could end up giving away first blood yourself if not careful.

I believe your right. Allies of convenience are considered enemies that cannot be charged, shot, targeted with psychic powers or have templates or blast markers placed over them. The Storm Lords (cooler name then Imotekh) power is none of the above. So it should affect the Space Wolves. So you'd have to account for this in deployment.

 ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:
Imotekh with Allied Coteaz.

As they are only allies of convenience, wouldn't the Grey Knights die to lightning? You could end up giving away first blood yourself if not careful.

I believe your right. Allies of convenience are considered enemies that cannot be charged, shot, targeted with psychic powers or have templates or blast markers placed over them. The Storm Lords (cooler name then Imotekh) power is none of the above. So it should affect the Space Wolves. So you'd have to account for this in deployment.

It does effect them, but this is nothing new.

Kind of like how Runes of Warding affect yourself as well (much to the surprise of my recent BA opponent who loves using his Epistolary ).

Playing Tau I have been very lucky with first blood in 90% of my games.

Getting lucky with going first and/or night fighting gives my broadsides a nice open field to pick off units.

But for Tau it's something that hasn't really affected how I have been playing. Trying to keep units completely hidden or giving them good cover and moving them to better firing positions on my turn. Having the ability to ignore night fighting and the kind of firepower to render even the most heavy armor moot really means my opponent has to be agressive if he wants to take first blood from me.

A recent game had me facing off against TWC and mass Longfangs. we rolled for night fighting before deployment, so the SW player left the TWC in the open, thinking they'd be out of range or atleast getting a 5+ from night fighting. Couple railguns caused a morale check which drove them and the WolfLord with them off the table. In one phase I managed to destroy a huge expensive unit that was going to do a lot of hurt to me if I didn't stop them early.

I didn't shoot at them because of secondary objectives. I took them out because I viewed it as a threat. I think it's actually silly I got 2 secondary objectives along with that. It compounded the enemies loss immensly. Now he had to deal with starting off an entire unit down, down by 2 points, and he wouldn't be able to make up 1 of those points. And this was in the 2 objective mission.

After that game I really saw that it's something that most people probably don't take it into consideration that much. As a Tau player, I always play with as much hidden as possible and try to focus fire on one unit at a time. So this has come more naturally to me when 6th hit. I think it's a great way for a tie breaker with secondary objectives, but I understand why people don't like it.