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Is it that bad out there? [Having You Army Decimated On Turn One]

I keep reading in many threads List, Tactics, and in other Discussions where someone brings up “Don’t Use That Unit, It Will Just Die On Turn One!” or “That List Will Just Get Tabled On Turn One!”

Now I don’t play in a very “Ultra-Competitive” environment, but we also run 2k+ games and usually don’t have that many games where entire Units/Vehicles Die on turn one. The last game I was closed to being tabled on turn one was a DoM list where it podded in near most of my units and I could do nothing but roll 5-6 on my LD test.

Is that really that common for so much death on turn one?

It's a rare day I see massed carnage on the opening salvo. There are a lot of things that would factor into this, but the 'perfect storm' that I've witnessed this type of occurrence contained the following:

-very experienced player with highly optimized shooting style list vs. very inexperienced player with very non-optimized list

-table with little to no LOS blocking terrain

When the new eldar dex dropped me and my mate played a large battle (can't remember what points but it was somewhere from 5,000 - 8,000), I was BA. I let him proxy all sorts for serpents. He got turn 1.
During turn1 his serpent shields (I hadn't checked these out yet), wiped out 2 vindis, 5 baals, and his lances took out a landraider and immobilised and destroyed the demolisher cannon of my 3rd vindi. Of my mech I had 1 landraider, 1 baal and 2 stormravens (which obviously hadn't arrived yet) left. That was before I even had a chance to move.

 Anpu42 wrote:
Is it that bad out there? [Having You Army Decimated On Turn One]

I keep reading in many threads List, Tactics, and in other Discussions where someone brings up “Don’t Use That Unit, It Will Just Die On Turn One!” or “That List Will Just Get Tabled On Turn One!”

Now I don’t play in a very “Ultra-Competitive” environment, but we also run 2k+ games and usually don’t have that many games where entire Units/Vehicles Die on turn one. The last game I was closed to being tabled on turn one was a DoM list where it podded in near most of my units and I could do nothing but roll 5-6 on my LD test.

Is that really that common for so much death on turn one?

Most of it is good old internet hyperbole mixed in with Dakka's obsession about only fielding options 'X/Y/Z' because, "winning..."

Outside of really awful dice or something like a Tau or IG gunline castled up on planet bowling ball, it's rare to see an opening salvo crush an opponent to the point it essentially becomes 'game set & match.'

That's not to say crap can't happen occasionally, or that once in a while you'll have match-ups that are horribly one-sided... 5th ed Durp Knights vs. Daemons for example was a classic case of "why gakking bother", especially if the Grey Knight player used one or two Warp Quakes to force the Daemon player to deploy about 24"-30"+ from their waiting gunline.

If you just stand out on planet bowling ball against a focused shooting army, you might get a savage beating turn one.

Against moderate lists at the FLGS, with a reasonable amount of terrain (which you take advantage off) you should be fine.

The internet (and Dakka by extension) tends to live in the worst case scenario. While it’s good to prepare for them, the odds of them all happening at once are very low, or even impossible. So take what you read here with a grain of salt, and pay attention to what’s happening at your local tables.

Tbf that was worst case scenario and was down to the fact that I hadn't read the new eldar dex. If I had I would have realised that A) the shields ignore cover and B) when spammed the shields put out more S7 shots than the lasguns of an IG battleline.
Knowing this I would have probably started my tanks in reserve and let my podded and jp melta help thin it out first.
Some lists are designed for the alpha strike, but if you can weather it you can hit back hard.

 Nevelon wrote:
If you just stand out on planet bowling ball against a focused shooting army, you might get a savage beating turn one.

Against moderate lists at the FLGS, with a reasonable amount of terrain (which you take advantage off) you should be fine.

The internet (and Dakka by extension) tends to live in the worst case scenario. While it’s good to prepare for them, the odds of them all happening at once are very low, or even impossible. So take what you read here with a grain of salt, and pay attention to what’s happening at your local tables.

I usually take everything with a grain of salt here. I just wish more did.

The worse I ever inflicted was my Space Wolves list where I had this tally in our 1st 6th edition game:
Divination Rune Priest + Long Fangs: Dreadnaught & Rhino
Rifleman Dread: Razorback with Commander & Honor Guard [But this happens every game by turn 2 like a bad running gag.]
Land Speeder Typhoon Squadron: Dreadnaught

I had the opposite happen a few weeks ago, played a guy who wanted to give up turn one as nothing happened.
We set-up, I went first, moved my army up and tried for fun, with four dice, to become a greater deamon, made it.
He then shot his whole army at me, everything he had as it was all in range, and I went on to pass every save I was made to take (most being 5+) except one. He wanted to give up just due to very dab luck.

I did do it in Fantasy, but if your main bunker, with General as wizard in it, fail their re-rollable 10+ Ld check on turn one, then run off the table, we just re-started the game.

My two worst:

1k -
My CM bombarded a LR, it scattered and ID'ed his pimped out DP with everything (Iron Arm, Endurance, gift, 2+ rerollable, black mace, etc)

Tac squad snapshot ML explodes a Defiler

Las Devs explode the LR.

He's just got Abby + friends now on foot, and a 5man chosen left.

We called GG, he put his stuff back, and we played again.

~1600 -
Swordwind vs mech speedfreaks (everyone in AV11 vehicles).
Night fighting. Hammer and anvil.
Reapers take out their biggest threat. To be expected.
My 1 Serpent (for FDs) drops another.
The Brightlance vyper blows up a third.

I sequestered a 10man DA squad after that, and managed to still give the Ork player plenty of melee that game, but it was rough.

Oh, and that Lance Vyper penned with the exact result I wanted every round in 6th, Explodes wasn't always best). Love that little guy!

~1000 each, 2v2
First game with Eldar, after preordering my army/6th end codex.
My Fire prism blows up an AV13 Necron skimmer every. Single. turn. Even when one had a 2+. Omg win. Didn't help that noone believed how powerful my 2xSerpents would be...


Sometimes you face 4+ serpents, and t1 is rough. Other times, the dice just love you.

I do wish we'd see more combined arms and less gunlines, though.

I've seen few games that were decided by the end of turn one but many that were decided by the end of two.

I have been tabled turn 1 b/c I put too much in reserve but besides things like that or silly mistakes I think no one should get tabled turn 1.

Now a Vehicle can easy die on turn 1. I drool when I see Rhinos b/c they make easy 1st blood. They are little more durable now which I think vehicles needed.

"Getting tabled turn 1" is usually hyperbole to describe lists that invest too much in upgrades, expensive characters or units, which results in a very low model count. Excluding nigh-invincible deathstars, if your army has about 30 wounds in total, your opponent can easily shoot them off the board, no matter how awesome they are.

I whitnessed a 1850 per player team match with 2 nid players using the Skyrending List (I think thats what the template list is called) VS one Imperial Guard and One Ork player. Nids went first 6 Flyrants and a stupid amout of Crones and Harpies ended the opposition turn one. They Orks and guard still had units but it wasn't pretty. The Ork and guard players asked for a reset. they went first and still lost but it wasn't one sided.

So yes it can happen, but realize when you hear about games like this there are 100+ other games being played that are not one sided.

Bharring wrote:
I do wish we'd see more combined arms and less gunlines, though.

Unfortunately, lately it's become Warhammer ShootyK, to the point I've had to redo my Orks as a shooting army. Orks! But if I try to take an army with assault, the assault units get shot up getting there, get shot again on the charge, and then there's not enough left to make a dent (especially against Space Marines, where Orks have hideously few AP3+ options in assault, pretty much just power klaws except Burna Boyz mobs and Kommando mobs). All the Tyranid armies I see that are successful right now are shooty Tyranid armies. So that's two armies that talk up in the fluff how they jump all over their enemies and beat them to death, both relegated to having to shoot, because assault sucks and shooting is just way too superior.

 ErikSetzer wrote:

Bharring wrote:
I do wish we'd see more combined arms and less gunlines, though.

Unfortunately, lately it's become Warhammer ShootyK, to the point I've had to redo my Orks as a shooting army. Orks! But if I try to take an army with assault, the assault units get shot up getting there, get shot again on the charge, and then there's not enough left to make a dent (especially against Space Marines, where Orks have hideously few AP3+ options in assault, pretty much just power klaws except Burna Boyz mobs and Kommando mobs). All the Tyranid armies I see that are successful right now are shooty Tyranid armies. So that's two armies that talk up in the fluff how they jump all over their enemies and beat them to death, both relegated to having to shoot, because assault sucks and shooting is just way too superior.

True, but we have been throwing Assault Armies vs. Assault Armies. Those games have been a blast.

The only time I really see first turn tabling, or really first turn wins based on how much damage the person does, is when I see my buddy play his Dark Eldar. Dark Eldar are fast enough and have enough fire power to effectively end the game turn one with some fairly average rolling. I play against both Tau and IG fairly often and with proper use of terrain you can avoid their massive alpha strike enough to make the game an actual game. With Dark Eldar they have so much speed they can get around LOS blocking terrain and have enough fire power to neuter your counter strike first turn. Their one downside is that if they don't go first you can effectively neuter their army just the same, so it is kind of a crap shoot with them.

.Sometimes first turn wreck you so bad that you can't get back, but tabeled in turn 1 is kinda rear, usually my orks holded until turn 3 in 6 ed against strong eldar lists. I really like New missions with cards.My last game I played against sw and he poped my bw and 2 trukks with pods and longfangs in 1 000 points game , but thanks to cards I managed to win for geting points for missions

 Anpu42 wrote:
Is it that bad out there? [Having You Army Decimated On Turn One]

I regularly have 10% of my army killed on turn one.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Decimate?s=t

I've destroyed a few armies first turn back in 6th.
Recently I did a salamander pod list with 10 pod.
The enemy was too specialised and just got ruined and gave up. I went second but pods. There wasn't a second turn.

My Tau have done it too. Not recently though. I think the people I was playing were possibly running awful lists and playing badly.

I've also been so badly trounced it was over turn 1 but I don't quit.

I have decided a game on turn one just a week ago. A screamer star player was confident enough of his death star to come straight at me, just to then fail the grimoire roll. I was able to charge turn one, which resulted in him loosing three heralds and and eight screamers. The game pretty much turned unwinnable for him right there.

I had a tau army kill 5 long fangs, a rhino, a predator, a land raider crusader and a Venerable Dreadnought before I even moved in a 1,500 point game. There wasn't enough LOS blocking terrain and he had amazing rolls.

I've done it to players who had bad lists when I had merely okay lists and a shooting army. I also pulled off what was basically a turn 2 tabling a few weeks ago, but it was due to hot dice on my part and bad positioning and luck on his.

 Anpu42 wrote:
Is it that bad out there? [Having You Army Decimated On Turn One]

I keep reading in many threads List, Tactics, and in other Discussions where someone brings up “Don’t Use That Unit, It Will Just Die On Turn One!” or “That List Will Just Get Tabled On Turn One!”

Now I don’t play in a very “Ultra-Competitive” environment, but we also run 2k+ games and usually don’t have that many games where entire Units/Vehicles Die on turn one. The last game I was closed to being tabled on turn one was a DoM list where it podded in near most of my units and I could do nothing but roll 5-6 on my LD test.

Is that really that common for so much death on turn one?

You'd find it very humorous how many people think turn one is important. No its not common. I suppose it CAN happen because: dice. But does it usually? no.

My advice is to ignore alarmists and have a good plan B so you just dont CARE when ONE thing gets killed.

I choose to go second which meeans i rarely DONT give up first blood. but you'd want my win/loss record for sure. So dont buy into the alarm. Just PLAN accordingly. There's always reserves if its that big a deal to the force. But once you rely too much on one unit, you're already going to run into problems down the road.

im lucky that it never happened to me

In my experience, it varies depending on the unit in question (i.e. if it's a unit or a vehicle, what protection it has etc.), the game size, the armies in play and what said armies have brought.

From what I've seen, vehicles tend to die on turn 1 - but not whole units. Mainly, I think it's because most long-range weapons also happen to be anti-vehicle weapons, and also because a good roll on the damage table can insta-kill a vehicle. In contrast, most lists don't have enough long-range anti-infantry firepower to kill entire units on their first turn (though they might make them run).

However, in terms of an army getting massacred on turn 1, that's very rare - usually the most that'll happen is that a key vehicle will be taken out, or an expensive unit will take heavy casualties.

The only times I've seen anything like a massacre on turn 1 were:

1) DE vs Tau (this was in 6th). Basically, the sheer volume of long-range, high-strength LoS-/Cover-ignoring firepower downed about half of my vehicles turn one, killing a large number of occupants and leaving them stranded (and doomed).

2) In a recent 2v2 (Necrons + 'Nids vs Necrons + Orks). The Necron-Ork alliance went first, with the orks moving up in various transports, whilst the necrons advanced a few mms. Then, in our first turn, I took out a few transports with annihilation barges and gauss, allowing the contents of one to be rapid-fired by immortals, whilst my partner charged the others with genestealers. Plus, over on the far flank, he'd devastated another unit with an Exocrine (causing it to flee), and managed a long charge against a squad of lootas with some hormagaunts. I think something managed to kill the looted wagon as well, though I can't recall what. Anyway, at the end of the turn, he had his central battlewagon and meganobz squad still intact... but everything else was dead, or almost dead and fleeing.