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Long time lurker and have finally decided to join in the discussion. I am getting back into the hobby and from reading tournament discussion on blogs and forums the general consensus I am getting is most games are decided by the end of turn 2. The last edition I played was 5th and that edition felt like more results were in question going into the final turns.

Is this just for tournaments with ITC-like missions or is this the norm, even for playing missions straight from the rulebook?

Thanks!

When two alpha strike armies meet, the game can be decided by the end of turn 2.

The norm is to be decided around turn 4.

Lethality is super mega ridiculously high this edition. Highly-tuned armies emphasizing lethality in 8th can absolutely vaporize so much of the enemy army in one go that things are usually over quickly.

In a more toned down meta, things survive longer, but you still have to take things designed to survive. For example, it is common and even expected that a Baneblade or Knight should be deleted in a single round of enemy shooting, even in casual play. It is possible to make a Knight more survivable through Stratagems and whatnot so it *might* last another turn.

So theres 2 armies that im gonna say YES to this for ssure. Imperial Knights and Astra Militarum. If either of them get turn 1 the likeliness of you seeing a turn 3 is not great. It's why good line of site blocking terrain is a MUST. It's the one thing that REALLY takes out Imperial Knights. That and fast/quick models able to hold down an objective out of sight.

Think of Imperial Knights as the "Filter" for competitive play. If your army can beat a Knights army you have a good chance at succeding in competitive.

Yes and no, it depends on what you are bringing and the missions you are playing. If you are focusing on damage output then you are likely sacrificing durability, which if you come up against another enemy doing the same, will most likely result in the game being decided by turn 2.

If you play missions that have continual scoring like those in the recent Chapter Approved book, and you take units that are more focused on durability and objective capping, then the game is most certainly not decided by turn 2. I play both Chaos Daemons and Space Wolves, and both factions have unit options and combinations that maximise durability.

Since my friend bought a whole primaris imperial fists army, yes.
Against another normal army like necrons or DG ? No

JakeSiren wrote:
Yes and no, it depends on what you are bringing and the missions you are playing. If you are focusing on damage output then you are likely sacrificing durability, which if you come up against another enemy doing the same, will most likely result in the game being decided by turn 2.

If you play missions that have continual scoring like those in the recent Chapter Approved book, and you take units that are more focused on durability and objective capping, then the game is most certainly not decided by turn 2. I play both Chaos Daemons and Space Wolves, and both factions have unit options and combinations that maximise durability.

Depending of course on what your army composition is, as you say.

I play Slaanesh Daemons, also from Codex: Chaos Daemons, and they have that problem. Game is over by Turn 2 against another high-lethality army (either I make it to combat and they're doomed or I get deleted). Against a durability army, Slaanesh shines - at least if they sacrifice any power. Slaanesh lethality is insane, with a 200-odd point monster featuring 10 attacks at -3 rend and 3 flat damage. Additionally, their Mortal Wound output is pretty good with how many psykers they can take, though they suffer a bit from the "+1 each time you cast Smite" ruling. Typically, a "normal" game with my Slaanesh daemons is that they use their speed and aggression to pin the enemy in their deployment zone - at least, if the enemy doesn't delete the daemons of the board with little effort given their crappy durability.

That's why I say lethality is super high; I am confident I can bring down almost any foe with my daemons. I am equally confident that the foe will bring me down, meaning the game comes down to IGOUGO. Indeed, turn 2 is sometimes too late; you can tell from whether or not the initiative was seized and who's going first which army will win, dependent on terrain.

I also play Slaanesh Daemons; my tactics are "run at it, shouting" and I have never had a game in 8th that was decided by turn 2.

That said, I play on tables that by tournament standards are utterly saturated with LoS blocking terrain against armies that are far from optimized.

The game is basically decided at that point yes. While one should try to continue playing (dice are still a thing after all) you can overall just stop a game even with casual armies.

Spoletta wrote:
When two alpha strike armies meet, the game can be decided by the end of turn 2.

The norm is to be decided around turn 4.

This is false. When two alpha-strike armies meet the game is generally decided by the role to determine who goes first, and alpha-strike is the rule rather than the exception.

I've seen games turn into four-turn slugging matches, but that tends to involve ludiculous amounts of terrain on the table. If you're not having to maneuver a lot to get line of sight at all the lethality level is stupid. I think I've seen more games end in a bottom-of-round-one concession than I've seen make it past turn three.

Not most. But a lot. Far too many. It's heavily dependent upon non-codified terrain rules.

Everybody keeps talking about "you're not using enough terrain" but that's incorrect as everyone wants units that fly and can shoot pretty far or without LoS.

No way

In my experience, yes. It's rare to see a game go to turn 3 in any meaningful state (i.e. the game is decided turn 2 if not before that).

The simple fact is that GW cranked the killyness of everything to a ludicrous degree. Hurricane Bolters and Twin Assault Cannons are the best example.

Hurricane Bolters, when first introduced in 4th edition, "consists of three twin-linked bolters". This meant they could either fire 6 shots at 12", or 3 shots at 24" if they did not move, re-rolling failed hits. Now they fire 12 Shots at 12" or 6 shots at 24" with Centuions being able to fire 12 shots at 24" regardless of if they moved or not.

Twin(-Linked) Assault Cannons went from 3 Shots re-rolling misses in 3rd edition and could jam to TWELVE SHOTS EACH.

In 3rd edition, Rapid Fire weapons allowed 1 shot at 12" if you moved; or 2 shots at 12" or 1 shot at 24" if you remained stationary, and you couldn't charge if you fired them.

Rapid Fire weapons in general have steadily become more and more lethal, starting with the range increase from the standard 24" to 30" when T'au were introduced, to making the double fire happen at half range instead of 12", to allowing two shots at 12" instead of 1 on the move, to allowing Rapid Fire weapons to fire at maximum range regardless of whether you moved. The move to save modifiers instead of the flat cover system, combined with a D6 system that basically crushes the usable dice results and has a MASSIVE impact between AP0 and AP-1, the game is simply more lethal. Grunts die quicker, which means you need to spam more grunts to survive even a single turn of shooting, which in turn makes elite models worthless to take because things such as Plasma make multi-wound models a detriment, not a benefit.

The issue is that you can build very offensive armies, that can expect to do about 40% of their points worth of damage almost from the first turn. (Some units won't do anything, but some get more than 40% by hitting optimal targets). That's on average dice - so you could roll better - but also roll worse.

This is especially true with deep striking units that arrive on turn 2.

If your opponent has lots of defensive bonuses (minuses to hit, minuses to damage, invuls, FNPs etc) then this may be mitigated. If they don't - and their army is offensively weak so doesn't do very much in return - it can often be over quickly.

On planet bowling ball:
2000 points multiplied by 40%=800 points damage. Leaves your opponent with 1200 points.
1200 points hits back at say 25% damage = 300 points killed.
So your turn two and your 1700 attacks again at 40%=680 points.
So your opponent now has 520 points left, compared to your 1700. Lets say they get 33% return and kill 200 points.

Well its turn 3, and your essentially untouched 1500 points is ready to mop up their rather sad looking 500 points, while enjoying total board domination because the opposition is all dead.

But its really about the armies you take. You can easily build armies which don't have this kind of firepower (and at the same time, avoid point pinatas that offer your opponent 100% returns from some of their units.)

LOS blocking terrain also does matter - because most armies can't just fly wherever they want - and most units can't ignore LOS for shooting. Its often not about getting "can't shoot full stop" - its about "can't put fire into the most optimal target". So your units can then respond next turn and inflict a suitable level of damage back so fewer things die next turn.

Strongly agreed with BCB on the negative impact of the changes to the cover and ap/armour save systems. One of the worst changes made in 8th imho.

Bad games are decided by turn 2 or even 1.

By bad games I mean games were players play full alpha strike lists and don't think about how to engage the enemy to maximize their chances of winning so they go all out on an early offensive leaving the game to basically a coin flip.


In tables were you see players that actually know how to play, games aren't decided as early. Normally they come down to turn 3-4.


But I agree that the amount of bonus and rerolls make things too reliable and lethal. Is a little sad when I see things like a full hand droping but then goes like "nah I reroll everything" so of 30 shoots 26 end up hitting and wounding or something like that.

 Galas wrote:
Bad games are decided by turn 2 or even 1.

By bad games I mean games were players play full alpha strike lists and don't think about how to engage the enemy to maximize their chances of winning so they go all out on an early offensive leaving the game to basically a coin flip.


In tables were you see players that actually know how to play, games aren't decided as early. Normally they come down to turn 3-4.


But I agree that the amount of bonus and rerolls make things too reliable and lethal. Is a little sad when I see things like a full hand droping but then goes like "nah I reroll everything" so of 30 shoots 26 end up hitting and wounding or something like that.

Wargames dilemma of a sort. If you don't bring an Alpha Strike army, and the opponent does, you automatically lose. The only winning move is not to play (or bring your own Alpha Strike list).

Rerolling everything was a bad idea. Rerolling 1s wasn't too bad, but everything? That's too much. Gw concentrated too much on increasing lethality instead of survivability.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Everybody keeps talking about "you're not using enough terrain" but that's incorrect as everyone wants units that fly and can shoot pretty far or without LoS.

Flying units don't ignore LoS, they just tend to be taller. FLYERS and Knights are really tall and you need terrain that's designed to hide them and also hide units from them.

Indirect fire is a different problem, but it only gets really abusive when you can spam it. Nine Basilisks being legal at 2000 is kind of stupid.

It depends on who you're playing, the armies you play and the level you play at.

The Newman wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Everybody keeps talking about "you're not using enough terrain" but that's incorrect as everyone wants units that fly and can shoot pretty far or without LoS.

Flying units don't ignore LoS, they just tend to be taller. FLYERS and Knights are really tall and you need terrain that's designed to hide them and also hide units from them.

Indirect fire is a different problem, but it only gets really abusive when you can spam it. Nine Basilisks being legal at 2000 is kind of stupid.

Needing such special terrain means you can't count on it. Ever. Even if you own it, opponents can refuse to play with it.

Depends what you play, what your opponent plays, what the mission is, & how much terrain you use.
Skill lv between opponents can also influence this.

Down at the shop the average game was turn 4.

It really does depend on the game and lists and missions and terrain. Here's where some games get decided:

Turn 5/6/7: Two lists and generals that are almost evenly matched, with at least one with a strategy based on getting to objectives more than on killing enemies.

Turn 4: Two lists and generals that are pretty well matched.

Turn 3: Generals that are pretty well matched, but one list runs out of steam early.

Turn 2: Two lists that are not well matched, or two generals where both lists run out of steam early (though these can quickly slip into Turn 5/6/7 territory if they're good enough).

Turn 1: Two lists that are lopsided, where both are susceptible to alpha strikes, and the game is won by whomever goes first.

Deployment: List where the better general has a trick and the opponent doesn't have a means of countering it.

Before game: A bad player, with a bad list, against an opponent with a list based on alpha strike.

It's usually just a tournament problem. And also depends on armies, the mission, points values, amount of terrain and which terrain rules are used and so on. A normal game usually lasts until turn 4 or 5 in my experience, sometimes longer, sometimes at the end of turn 3 not much is left, but the game can still move on for some turns.

I can't remember any game where the winner wouldn't be known at the end of round 3. the only difference is how big of win it is going to be, which is important to those people playing at tournaments, but to someone like me not much.
turn 4+ is in general one person mucking up the survivours and the other one trying to hide and lose as few points as possible, at least in store events. In no event games, may as well GG.

Karol wrote:
I can't remember any game where the winner wouldn't be known at the end of round 3. the only difference is how big of win it is going to be, which is important to those people playing at tournaments, but to someone like me not much.
turn 4+ is in general one person mucking up the survivours and the other one trying to hide and lose as few points as possible, at least in store events. In no event games, may as well GG.

I feel like you should put a disclaimer in most of your posts that you play in an incredibly competitive meta and have no experience of anything else.

I'm a little confused by the consensus here. It's out of whack with my own experiences, amd with the tournament games I watch. Turn 4 is often the round that breaks either way, assuming the game isn't one-sided. In ITC what you do in the late stages of the game is hugely impactful.

At the highest level, games are rarely ever decided before turn 4

At the general skilllevel this forum, I imagine a significant number of games are pretty much decided before the models hit the table.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 grouchoben wrote:
I'm a little confused by the consensus here. It's out of whack with my own experiences, amd with the tournament games I watch. Turn 4 is often the round that breaks either way, assuming the game isn't one-sided. In ITC what you do in the late stages of the game is hugely impactful.

You’re not talking to players who play this game at your level. This forum is largely for semi-comp players, who understand number efficiency on units but don’t have a deeper level of game knowledge to keep them in the running the instant those numbers start to fail for them, playing against players of similar skill. So of course their games will feel unwinnable to them much earlier.

Rahdok wrote:
So theres 2 armies that im gonna say YES to this for ssure. Imperial Knights and Astra Militarum. If either of them get turn 1 the likeliness of you seeing a turn 3 is not great. It's why good line of site blocking terrain is a MUST. It's the one thing that REALLY takes out Imperial Knights. That and fast/quick models able to hold down an objective out of sight.

Think of Imperial Knights as the "Filter" for competitive play. If your army can beat a Knights army you have a good chance at succeding in competitive.

Nah mate your data is out of date at this point, Knight are not and have never been an alpha strike list, they are a higher durability list more than an Alpha list.

Ironhands used to be, slighly more leaning into durability but still impressive damage potential.
Imperial fists are just bonkers alpha/raw damage output list
Darkangels can also bring fairly big turn 1/2 alpha damage too.
Raven guard can bring some not so much alpha strike list more deploment schenanigans list.
GSC

Ultramarines can bring the pain damage wise but they are kore beta strike as they sing turn 2-3.
Blood angels, wolfs Scars are all turn 3+ armies.

Tau
Knights
A lot of choas lists
All depend on durability to keep pounding your list turns 2,3 &4 while you can't do enough damage to break their list.

Gaurd
Sisters
GK
All function more on a raw damage/survivability curve which just means they can win the game any turn as dictated by terrain and matchup.

Eldar are well just eldar and annoying and at their lowest power competitive as it has been.

Games featuring alpha lists are generally done faster, durability and other lists can keep a game going longer