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Since the player who wins the deployment roll-off gets to choose who goes first, and the person going second isn't required to seize the initiative, there should be some reason to choose to go second, right? Deploying second I can understand, using their deployment to your advantage, but should you ever opt for the second turn? Under what conditions is it tactically sound?

Null deployment. If I play an army that starts with nothing on the board (and I play two--Salamanders and Dark Eldar), I will occasionally force my opponent to go first, meaning he has an entire turn of faffing about.

This is especially advantageous in missions where that delay is more costly.

Drop Pod armies that null deploy like to go 2nd as it generally wastes the other players turn 1.

Also when your playing against a reserve heavy army and you want to also hold things in reserves to counter their reserve deployment. If you only have a few hard to kill things on the table (say riptides, dreadknights, landraiders, artillery crew in ruins etc) then they can only attempt to kill those things and on turn 2 they have more of their stuff arrive but with only a limited number of targets to shoot. Bottom of turn 2 and your reserves arrive with most of their army on the board.

Flyer vs Flyer situations prefer to go 2nd as you get the jump on the enemy flyers and it forces them down or jinking giving you air superiority.

Going 2nd is also great if you are playing Eternal War missions and you have fast units that can jump on objectives on the last turn. It prevents them from being able to shoot you off the objective.

I've thought a lot about this as a guard player that likes to move up the board. Against assault-happy armies with little shooting, I'd rather they go first so that they can move into closer range of my guns and I don't have to worry about inadvertently moving a unit I did NOT want in combat into a chargeable position with my first move. If I let them run at me first, I can clear some board space and they become weaker before I ever start moving towards midfield.

As an assault Khorne Daemonkin player I like first because my units are 6-12 inches further up the board before they start dieing in droves, meaning I get charges off sooner.

As an assault Imperial Guard player I like first because my units are 6-12 inches further up the board before they start dieing in droves, meaning I get charges off sooner.

As an assault Chaos Space Marine player I like first because my units are 6-12 inches further up the board before they start dieing in droves, meaning I get charges off sooner.

Besides reserve strategies like mentioned above one of the main reasons is to react to deployment. Odd as it sounds assault armies can benefit greatly from going second although that is rarely the choice. Outside of certain builds most armies don't inflict serious damage at long range. Deploying to further limit by LoS and setting up to eliminate those units that threaten the greatest damage can be better than surging forward against an opponent prepared for your deployment. Then consider you have the bottom inning for things like objective grabs and flyers.

Opting to go second is frequently more dependent on missions than matchups. In any objective-heavy game, going second is a huge benefit, as you'll have the last opportunity to contest/control objectives.

There's also this handy flowchart:

ARE YOU AT AN ITC EVENT? -> YES

DID YOU WIN THE ROLL TO GO FIRST? -> YES

GO SECOND

DJ3 wrote:
Opting to go second is frequently more dependent on missions than matchups. In any objective-heavy game, going second is a huge benefit, as you'll have the last opportunity to contest/control objectives.

There's also this handy flowchart:

ARE YOU AT AN ITC EVENT? -> YES

DID YOU WIN THE ROLL TO GO FIRST? -> YES

GO SECOND

Not always. If your opponent has deployed badly/deathstar that will be invisible and you've got a killer alpha strike then you'll want to go first.

The advantages to going second:

- Counter deploying
- Beta striking making your opponent waste their first turn
- Get to make the last play for objectives

ARE YOU AT AN ITC EVENT? -> YES

DID YOU WIN THE ROLL TO GO FIRST? -> YES

GO SECOND

hahha, whats that about then?

 Ratius wrote:

ARE YOU AT AN ITC EVENT? -> YES

DID YOU WIN THE ROLL TO GO FIRST? -> YES

GO SECOND

hahha, whats that about then?

ITC rule that you score points at the end of the game turn, not player turn. So you can manipulate who gets Objective based Maelstrom cards, as well as EW.

I've recently found it useful to go second playing against extreme deathstars (as a WS bike army). Putting loads of units in outflank means they can't push into the game as much as they like else they give up the backfield to units coming on from reserve - it splits their attention. Going second means you get longer before your last reserves come in, and hence longer keeping them distracted; as mentioned above, it also means you give up less grabbing objectives with ObjSec units.

I do split deployment (Drop Pods in the Front, Rhinos in the Back), so it is generally better for me to go second since if the opponent advances on my Rhinos, I can put the Drop Pod right behind them and make a "corridor of death" between my Sternguard and Scouts and my Tactical Squads. This also means that my Flyers will be able to go killing the opponents flyers that came in from reserves on turn two. It isn't perfect, but it has its benefits. If I was running straight Drop Pods (which I have considered in the past), obviously it would be much more advantageous to go second, since I could plop my pods based on the threats that I saw.

Basically, if a good portion of your army starts in reserves, it is always better to go second.

I'm actually really curious about this too after looking at all the opinions. I run DE and I've been playing around with an alpha strike (I think? turn 2 deployment?) anyway and the results I had was just drip feeding my army into firing range and have each unit nicely blown to pieces as it arrives.

As a result I've been trying to think of ways to make more of speed and deployment but opting to set up last, but just not having a lot of luck. So my questions is are they're a few set ups/battle movements that work well (as a template) going second?
So far I find its go second lose a unit or two but I could just be lacking in the strategy department.

When playing against non shootya rmies. You let them come closer, you shoot them!

For some reason I thought there was a rule against first turn assaults unless you went second, but after flipping through the Game Turn and Assault section I can't seem to find anything on that so I don't know if I'm just crazy and imagining rules but if it does exist that would be a reason to go second along with the others listed

 disdamn wrote:
For some reason I thought there was a rule against first turn assaults unless you went second, but after flipping through the Game Turn and Assault section I can't seem to find anything on that so I don't know if I'm just crazy and imagining rules but if it does exist that would be a reason to go second along with the others listed

There is no such rule. It is perfectly to charge on the first turn, so long as you have not made an Infiltrate or Scout move. It is very difficult to pull off, as you have to cross twenty four inches and have your opponent be right at the edge of their deployment zone, but it is legal.

In my experience, I have found the following:

Going first is best against assault-heavy armies, deep-strikers, and psychic heavy armies. You get two turns of shooting vs. only one. This is especially important with alpha-strike heavy armies. It also benefits going against shooty armies, as you get off the first round of shooting.

Going second is best against null deployment armies and for claiming objectives. Drop pod and beta-strike/null deployment armies always want to go second.

The ITC does give an advantage to going second for scoring objectives, but it isn't totally game-breaking. If anything, it's an improvement on the end-of-round scoring in unmodified maelstrom.

While going second does have significant advantages, and is necessary for certain armies, you otherwise want to aim to go first.

When there's a large, open midfield that needs to be crossed to get to each other, it's generally advantageous to have them leave cover first, have to get out of their transports first, etc.

Also - as I see miniature games as being heavily psychological - going second allows you to realize just how much of a chance you have by how much get's destroyed or damage in the first round of shooting, and thus you can form an idea of what needs priority.

I thought that first player turn assaults were illegal.

Martel732 wrote:
I thought that first player turn assaults were illegal.

They are illegal only if you made a Scout or Infiltrate move. Otherwise there are no restrictions as to charging on the first turn.

Martel732 wrote:
I thought that first player turn assaults were illegal.

No, unless you Scouted/Infiltrated. Or arrived from reserves turn one without a rule saying you can charge (like Skyhammer).

It's just most armies are 24" apart usually, so you'd have to move 12, then charge 12 and lose no models to overwatch. Impossible? No, but it's very hard. It can be made impossible by deploying just over 24" away.

 Frozocrone wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I thought that first player turn assaults were illegal.

No, unless you Scouted/Infiltrated. Or arrived from reserves turn one without a rule saying you can charge (like Skyhammer).

It's just most armies are 24" apart usually, so you'd have to move 12, then charge 12 and lose no models to overwatch. Impossible? No, but it's very hard. It can be made impossible by deploying just over 24" away.

Well, there is a strat with Necron Scarab Farm that can make a turn one charge fairly easily.
It's done by adding aprox. 12 inches worth of scarabs before the scarabs move.

At least when I play my necrons, I very much like going second, especially when going against assaulty armies.

Going First: Move up, barely get into range, take a few shots, maybe cause one or two casualties. Then get either assaulted or shot at back and take (at least what necrons consider to be) fairly heavy casualties.

Going Second: They already have mostly moved into your range, you step up and rapid fire anything you want.

Not to mention that deploying second lets you put your anti-tank units in position to pop their tanks, anti infantry v infantry, ect.

Xafilah wrote:

 Frozocrone wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I thought that first player turn assaults were illegal.

No, unless you Scouted/Infiltrated. Or arrived from reserves turn one without a rule saying you can charge (like Skyhammer).

It's just most armies are 24" apart usually, so you'd have to move 12, then charge 12 and lose no models to overwatch. Impossible? No, but it's very hard. It can be made impossible by deploying just over 24" away.

Well, there is a strat with Necron Scarab Farm that can make a turn one charge fairly easily.
It's done by adding aprox. 12 inches worth of scarabs before the scarabs move.

I was talking generically but you are absolutely correct about Scarab Farm.

when facing an army with no really significant long range guns on the table, he spends a turn walking up to you basically and as a result it wont be that impactful, this also means you deploy second so your counter deploy in anticipation of movements and either he powers through and gets shot at, or he has to not do what he wants and forcing an opponent to not do what he plans is how you win games my friends, and if decides to get shot to pieces anyway thats fine, your potentially removing models from the table and that can mean just as much if you dont screw it up. its simple tactics, force your opponent into a situation where theres nothing but bad decisions.

Necrons benefit immensely from going second in many cases. The combination of superb resilience and most weapons firing at 24," I like letting my opponents move into my gun range.

Now, my Ork walker army...completely different story. I never elect to go second. Having the run move early helps.

A good time to go second is when both players are playing assault heavy armies. Often the player who goes first will rush all his units right into the middle of the board because he is used to wanting to get as close as he can. This will not only put him in range of whatever shooting you have, but sometimes also in range of your assault units as well.

 TheFivth wrote:
A good time to go second is when both players are playing assault heavy armies. Often the player who goes first will rush all his units right into the middle of the board because he is used to wanting to get as close as he can. This will not only put him in range of whatever shooting you have, but sometimes also in range of your assault units as well.

I second this when deamonkin came out I played a game against them with my space wolves and we were both hoping to go second. I ended up going first and I had some drop pods come in at around the halfway mark and my dreadnoughts disembark away from him and then I moved my stuff up the feild. The one problem was murderfang didn't like this idea and scattered 12 inches straight at his bloodthirster.

Eternal war missions, going second can really help, as you get last shot at objectives. As others said, null deployment. When you both have flyers, your flyer will get first shot at their flyer.

Just a quick question about deployment: it's legal to have a null deployment? I was under the impression you needed to have at least 50% of your army on the field. If I can keep my entire Daemonkin army in deep strike and outflank reserve I totally would.