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I've found that the imbalance between going first and second is so staggering, that I cannot play games and enjoy them because more often than not who goes first and then deep strikes after only 1 round of enemy shooting, tends to decide the game. I feel like skill and list building has been supplanted this edition largely by the RNG of a single roll. Anyone else feel this frustration?

That is just you and those other 4 dudes mate.

 Jaxler wrote:
I've found that the imbalance between going first and second is so staggering, that I cannot play games and enjoy them because more often than not who goes first and then deep strikes after only 1 round of enemy shooting, tends to decide the game. I feel like skill and list building has been supplanted this edition largely by the RNG of a single roll. Anyone else feel this frustration?

Roll for everything.

Roll to choose sides, roll to see who goes first. All this stuff about the person who sets up fist gets the first turn is horse gak.

 Jaxler wrote:
I've found that the imbalance between going first and second is so staggering, that I cannot play games and enjoy them because more often than not who goes first and then deep strikes after only 1 round of enemy shooting, tends to decide the game. I feel like skill and list building has been supplanted this edition largely by the RNG of a single roll. Anyone else feel this frustration?

If you are getting alpha struck that badly, perhaps you should use more terrain?
It would seem that they designed 8th with City Fight terrain in mind, considering how important LOS blockers are.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Jaxler wrote:
I've found that the imbalance between going first and second is so staggering, that I cannot play games and enjoy them because more often than not who goes first and then deep strikes after only 1 round of enemy shooting, tends to decide the game. I feel like skill and list building has been supplanted this edition largely by the RNG of a single roll. Anyone else feel this frustration?

If you are getting alpha struck that badly, perhaps you should use more terrain?
It would seem that they designed 8th with City Fight terrain in mind, considering how important LOS blockers are.

Our local club is supremely lacking in Los blocking terrain, and I find a single antenna is always poking out.

Bite the bullet and build some terrain. Thats what we did.
Years of playing with bad terrain and finally about 5 years ago did something about it. Also makes assault much better especially if your playing the bottom floor always blocks LoS. Much more balanced and fun games with proper terrain. Its the difference between 8th edition being trash or pretty damn decent.

 Jaxler wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Jaxler wrote:
I've found that the imbalance between going first and second is so staggering, that I cannot play games and enjoy them because more often than not who goes first and then deep strikes after only 1 round of enemy shooting, tends to decide the game. I feel like skill and list building has been supplanted this edition largely by the RNG of a single roll. Anyone else feel this frustration?

If you are getting alpha struck that badly, perhaps you should use more terrain?
It would seem that they designed 8th with City Fight terrain in mind, considering how important LOS blockers are.

Our local club is supremely lacking in Los blocking terrain, and I find a single antenna is always poking out.

Good! You already know the fix! Also I'd recommend trying the ITC rule of all first floor terrain is blocking to LOS

Yep. Even if you're using the ridiculously impractical GW terrain with windows and gaps everywhere, you can do something about it. We went and simply bought a bundle of lollipop sticks and scrounged around for cut up sprues. Glue them across the openings and paint them up as boarded or blocked up. It really helps.

You can turn almost any piece of garbage into terrain. Water bottles, soda cans, etc. I’ve got some old oil filters from semi-trucks that I’ve cut the bottoms out of. I plan to make them into large line-of-sight blocking promethium tanks.

This is one of the reasons why I am so frustrated with the Tactical Reserves restrictions.
It would make SOOOOOO much sense to only restrict the play who goes first from bringing in Reinforcements on turn 1.
Player 2 should 100% be able to drop in units on Turn 1 to counter balance the fact that they went 2nd.

I mean the way it goes now, Player 2 has to weather TWO turns of Player 1's shooting and/or melee before being able to drop in some help.

If Player 1 gets to go first, Player 2 should get to drop in Reinforcements on Turn 1 as a balancing measure

-

I actually think that's a pretty neat solution.

Related question, where was the GW addendum that replaced auto first turn with the +1 to the first turn roll for whoever finishes deploying first?

Wasn't that something specific to CA 2018 missions?
I don't think it was in a FAQ.

I feel that if you adopt the system where one player deploys, then the other deploys, then whoever deployed first goes first, getting the first turn is much less game-deciding. Whoever is going first has to deploy blind, while their opponent can react and counter-deploy, allowing them to mitigate the first turn advantage.

Also, terrain is absolutely vital. If it's not possible for you to deploy most of your army out of LOS, your table probably doesn't have enough terrain. Remember that the historical recommendation was 25% coverage- that's a LOT of terrain, and it makes a huge difference.

Yeah, 25% BLOS terrain covers a lot of the table if you spread it out properly. It doesn't have to be big terrain either. Even if its just 2" high it should hide most infantry. 6" could probably hide some vehicles.
Build those hedgerows.

 Galef wrote:
This is one of the reasons why I am so frustrated with the Tactical Reserves restrictions.
It would make SOOOOOO much sense to only restrict the play who goes first from bringing in Reinforcements on turn 1.
Player 2 should 100" be able to drop in units on Turn 1 to counter balance the fact that they went 2nd.

I mean the way it goes not, Player 2 has to weather TWO turns of Player 1's shooting and/or melee before being able to drop in some help.

If Player 1 gets to go first, Player 2 should get to drop in Reinforcements on Turn 1 as a balancing measure

-

Most likely, that would just lead to Player 2 putting everything possible into Reserve, essentially allowing them to perform the alpha strike of the game.

I think the IGOUGO system just needs to be purged.

Personally I liked the old V1 Space Marine system, you gave a generic "order" to each unit with a face down marker, basically:
- First Fire: cannot move, will shoot first with +1 to hit
- Advance: move and fire
- Charge: move, can charge, fire with -1 to hit

one player moves his charging units, then the other does, then the advance models move, one player then the other, then shooting comes - first fire models first, alternating, then advancing then finally charging.

useful points, the turn is interlaced more, and its easy to follow - charging stuff can shut down first fire units if they can reach then and if you want your alpha strike you are forgoing movement to do it.

its not perfect but it does work

 Galef wrote:
This is one of the reasons why I am so frustrated with the Tactical Reserves restrictions.
It would make SOOOOOO much sense to only restrict the play who goes first from bringing in Reinforcements on turn 1.
Player 2 should 100" be able to drop in units on Turn 1 to counter balance the fact that they went 2nd.

I mean the way it goes not, Player 2 has to weather TWO turns of Player 1's shooting and/or melee before being able to drop in some help.

If Player 1 gets to go first, Player 2 should get to drop in Reinforcements on Turn 1 as a balancing measure

-

Deepstriking armies already want to go second(if they don't deploy like numpties) because it denies a turn of shooting.

If you're talking about smash captains and the like, you wouldn't want to bring them in first turn anyway because a halfway decent opponent won't leave you any decent charging options until you clear off some chaff.(Yes, even with 3d6 rerolling charges, a good screen will leave you with a 12-15 inch charge at best turn 1.)

If you're just complaining because your unit of Vanguard Vets can't charge their ring of guardsman first turn so their knight Castellan kills your Triple Las predator and Land Raider full of Terminators...that's kinda on you.

All the CA2019 missions go a looooong way to close the dependency between first and second turn.

Deploy first, go first: As stated, first player has to deploy blind. Second player can counterdeploy, which (if you have proper terrain) does wonders for surviving alphastrikes. It also makes the seize roll MATTER, and can really swing a battle if the first player gets too cocky.
Contrasting with the old deploy one unit at a time, both players are deploying/counterdeploying with the assumption that they'll get first turn, which leads to the loser just getting caught with their pants down every time.

Pretty much all the CA2019 missions are also designed with the second player getting the "hammer" in terms of objectives. Most of the VP are calculated at the end of a battle round, which gives the second player a chance to react and dictate who can score which objectives.

Yeah, but that turn system doesn't apply to all missions, just CA 2019. I didn't see anything that says it applies to previous missions, and they seem to be doing this thing where they change it up for every CA.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, but that turn system doesn't apply to all missions, just CA 2019. I didn't see anything that says it applies to previous missions, and they seem to be doing this thing where they change it up for every CA.

CA2017 and 2018 (we haven't had 19 yet). Anybody using the main rulebook missions should really just stop, they are quite bad.

^ The CA2018 (sorry, not 2019 :p) Eternal War and Maelstrom missions IMO, should really be the de-facto missions for any sort of pickup games and a pretty good template for tournament missions. They fix so many problems with the base game just through the mission design alone. They're the most current "generic" missions for the game, and should really replace any of the standard BRB missions before them.

Actually I'm pretty sure Second player actually has a higher win rate in the ITC last time the tally was taken.

The issue is the terrain, or the missions you are using. It's unsurprising, GW has poor rules for both, but lucky for you there is an easy answer

 Imateria wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, but that turn system doesn't apply to all missions, just CA 2019. I didn't see anything that says it applies to previous missions, and they seem to be doing this thing where they change it up for every CA.

CA2017 and 2018 (we haven't had 19 yet). Anybody using the main rulebook missions should really just stop, they are quite bad.

Bah, mind fart. Yeah, CA 2018. CA 2019 is still 3 months from now.

Jaxler, it sounds like your games would indeed benefit tremendously from getting a truckload of terrain on the table (as is only proper) and perhaps adapting the Cities of Death rules for obscuration, hard cover and so forth. They cut down first turn casualties quite a bit. Just had a nice 1000 point match with Death Guard against Mechanicus and IG, first turn they killed maybe one or two guys and scratched my dreadnought. Deployment, LoS-blocking and cover make all the difference.

The other option is also to switch away from IGOUGO system and start playing 40k with alternating activations, 8 edition is very easy to convert into such a system. We use something similar to Bolt Action activation and the games are all the better for it.

I'll chime in with the CA2018 missions. The combination of being able to counter-deploy and having the advantage in scoring has nicely balanced the advantage of getting the alpha-strike.

But that is not true for all missions, some score at the start. Or like the Pillars favour someone swarming the board turn one.

Karol wrote:
But that is not true for all missions, some score at the start. Or like the Pillars favour someone swarming the board turn one.

Most missions that involve taking objectives benefit from swarming the board - it's called board control. It's one of the things that makes elite armies struggle and horde armies good in 8th edition. It's hard for many armies to remove hordes efficiently, they control a lot of the board and therefore they control a lot of objectives.

As I have developed as a player I have actually began to favour going 2nd especially in ITC.

I think baseline 40k is an army of units that are killier then they are durable vs the same. But no one says you have to play the baseline. A list constructed to comfortably go second for example Sean Nayden's adepticon list can actually make someone going first waste a full turn but presenting nothing to shoot at and then steals the advantage by gaining more info for kill more and having an edge for hold more.

Similarly you can utilize the second turn in unfavoured matchups to turn it into a points game rather then a trading resource game.

I would suggest try building lists with getting second turn in mind and you might change your mind. Some examples Include only running imfantry/things that can hide or only presenting things that are miserable to kill like plaguebearers on turn 1. If you rely on deepstrike this is vitally important. If your faction can't do this don't rely on deepstrike.

In the ITC format tbh I think going second takes the edge imo

As mentioned above, I'm pretty sure the stats confirm going second tends to be marginally more beneficial in ITC, probably as a result of the "kill more" and "hold more" objectives being easier to get for the second player. It's certainly possible to balance the game away from the first player having an advantage and I think GW's recent missions have also moved towards that, but probably not quite far enough.