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I didnt read anything about this but it might help mitigating the disavantadge of going second in 40k:
Establishing a turn 0 in which the player going second can only cast psychic powers or activate deffensive buffs, ie. Cursed Earth, Might of heroes,Take defensive stand on defensible terrain, popping up smoke with leman russes..etc, small but sometimes crucial buffs to keep the defending army alive...maybe even give a d3 unit redeployment ala Ultramarine, but maybe that be too much on top of everything.

I dont know what do you think?

Or we could play with a great deal more terrain cutting down cross-map turn 1 firepower.

I'll pass on turn 0. This can be addressed outside of the game itself.

Or we can get rid of IGOUGO and not have to worry about such a silly problem because of the obsession to hold onto legacy ideas.

 iGuy91 wrote:
Or we could play with a great deal more terrain cutting down cross-map turn 1 firepower.

Seconded.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Or we can get rid of IGOUGO and not have to worry about such a silly problem because of the obsession to hold onto legacy ideas.

This. Cure the disease. Don't put a band-aid on the symptom.

 Lance845 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Or we can get rid of IGOUGO and not have to worry about such a silly problem because of the obsession to hold onto legacy ideas.

This. Cure the disease. Don't put a band-aid on the symptom.

You don't need to perform an open heart surgery for a simple laceration injury a few stitches would fix.

 skchsan wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Or we can get rid of IGOUGO and not have to worry about such a silly problem because of the obsession to hold onto legacy ideas.

This. Cure the disease. Don't put a band-aid on the symptom.

You don't need to perform an open heart surgery for a simple laceration injury a few stitches would fix.

The disease is the turn structure. It's time for a new ticker.

 Lance845 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Or we can get rid of IGOUGO and not have to worry about such a silly problem because of the obsession to hold onto legacy ideas.

This. Cure the disease. Don't put a band-aid on the symptom.

You don't need to perform an open heart surgery for a simple laceration injury a few stitches would fix.

The disease is the turn structure. It's time for a new ticker.

Turn structure is turn structure. It is what it is. We don't need to make every wargame of similar scale work like bolt action. Variety is spice of life, and outside of power gaming and ideal saturation of terrain (i.e. sparse) enabling the cross-board annihilation, alpha strike is not a problem at all.

High terrain density is only bad if your list focuses on units that don't benefit from terrain, at which point, is it the game or the player's problem?

I don't think anything needs to be done, I don't think there is anything wrong with the current going 1st or going second situation.

From what I've read, it seems that in 9th the advantage to going first is minimal, and sometimes going second is advantageous, especially when playing with an appropriate amount of terrain.

That being said, even if there were a significant advantage to going first or second, why is this necessarily a bad thing? 40k isn't designed primarily as a competitive game, but even if it were, most competitive games have an inherent advantage to one side over the other. This advantage isn't removed from the game as a bug, but is seen as a feature, and competitive play embraces it by structuring the way that competitive play is conducted:

Chess - white has an advantage over black
Tennis - Serving player has the advantage
Pool - player breaking has the advantage
Football - Home side advantage
Formula one - pole position advantage

For narrative play, first turn advantage is irrelevant IMO, for casual matched play, I expect the first turn advantage is less influential than player ability and army list.

Of course there are no statistics available for casual play, so there is no way to know if there is a first or second player advantage.

For competitive play, is there a statistical first turn advantage for competitive play? Have there been enough competitive games to determine? And do the statistics account for army list, and faction?

If there is an advantage, rather than change the game, perhaps competitions should change the format of their tournaments rather than change the game itself if they feel there is an issue?

Most competitive sports can offer solutions: play sets, league play rather than knock-out, home and away games etc.

 skchsan wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Or we can get rid of IGOUGO and not have to worry about such a silly problem because of the obsession to hold onto legacy ideas.

This. Cure the disease. Don't put a band-aid on the symptom.

You don't need to perform an open heart surgery for a simple laceration injury a few stitches would fix.

The disease is the turn structure. It's time for a new ticker.

Turn structure is turn structure. It is what it is. We don't need to make every wargame of similar scale work like bolt action. Variety is spice of life, and outside of power gaming and ideal saturation of terrain (i.e. sparse) enabling the cross-board annihilation, alpha strike is not a problem at all.

High terrain density is only bad if your list focuses on units that don't benefit from terrain, at which point, is it the game or the player's problem?

I disagree with you on every point including it being like bolt action, with the singular exception of liking variety.

You don't need to mimic BA. BA's turn is made up of many components including their order dice, and blast markers and so on. You don't need to transfer 40k datasheets to BA directly. Apocalypse is a great example of a new turn structure that fixes a ton of the problems that result from 40ks current turn structure. Even going in that direction is a massive improvement and fixes alpha strikes inherently instead of trying to fix them indirectly by turning every battlefield into a massive pile of terrain.

I like variety. I like variety in my terrain make up and board lay out too. I like not NEEDING to flood the board with terrain to cut down on the impact of 1rst turn advantage. I think it's interesting to have large open spaces mixed into dense terrain spaces.

It's simple. The games the problem. You are just so used to patching over it with terrain that you are having troubling seeing it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aash wrote:
I don't think anything needs to be done, I don't think there is anything wrong with the current going 1st or going second situation.

From what I've read, it seems that in 9th the advantage to going first is minimal, and sometimes going second is advantageous, especially when playing with an appropriate amount of terrain.

That being said, even if there were a significant advantage to going first or second, why is this necessarily a bad thing? 40k isn't designed primarily as a competitive game, but even if it were, most competitive games have an inherent advantage to one side over the other. This advantage isn't removed from the game as a bug, but is seen as a feature, and competitive play embraces it by structuring the way that competitive play is conducted:

Chess - white has an advantage over black
Tennis - Serving player has the advantage
Pool - player breaking has the advantage
Football - Home side advantage
Formula one - pole position advantage

For narrative play, first turn advantage is irrelevant IMO, for casual matched play, I expect the first turn advantage is less influential than player ability and army list.

Of course there are no statistics available for casual play, so there is no way to know if there is a first or second player advantage.

For competitive play, is there a statistical first turn advantage for competitive play? Have there been enough competitive games to determine? And do the statistics account for army list, and faction?

If there is an advantage, rather than change the game, perhaps competitions should change the format of their tournaments rather than change the game itself if they feel there is an issue?

Most competitive sports can offer solutions: play sets, league play rather than knock-out, home and away games etc.

The difference here is that the larger the game the more you can focus fire to eliminate entire units before they get any chance to act. 40ks tactical depth is boiled down to taking turns swigning the club that is your army at the other guy.

Yes. There is enough data to know first turn is a significant advantage. It's something like 60-70% of games with roughly equal forces and skill levels are won by the player with first turn advantage.

In chess you do get to move first. But you don't get to move first with EVERY PIECE and remove their pieces before they have a chance to react.

Basically you are wrong. On pretty much every level you have a lack of information or flat out wrong information.

What the game needs is more incentives for holding down the central region of the board and discourage backfield camping.

AA doesn't do either so I'm against AA as a solution. It merely decreases the rate of casualties and does nothing against absolute casualty amount. As in, AA is just as lethal as IGOUGO, just at a slower rate.

Ample terrain coverage can prohibit backfield camping from being effective to a certain degree. Better objective based ruleset forces players to commit to holding down objectives rather than playing napoleonic standoff.

 skchsan wrote:
What the game needs is more incentives for holding down the central region of the board and discourage backfield camping.

AA doesn't do either so I'm against AA as a solution. It merely decreases the rate of casualties and does nothing against absolute casualty amount. As in, AA is just as lethal as IGOUGO, just at a slower rate.

Ample terrain coverage can prohibit backfield camping from being effective to a certain degree. Better objective based ruleset forces players to commit to holding down objectives rather than playing napoleonic standoff.

It isn't as lethal because you can actually counter lethality via moving and killing over the top shooting before it can do anything. IGOUGO lets the player do whatever they want with no consequences. If you told the players of any other game that there was a Strat made for the second player getting cover on everything, they'd laugh at you because that's stupid.

 Lance845 wrote:


The difference here is that the larger the game the more you can focus fire to eliminate entire units before they get any chance to act. 40ks tactical depth is boiled down to taking turns swigning the club that is your army at the other guy.

I haven't commented on tactical depth, or lack thereof in 40k. I also haven't commented on the various pros and cons of IGOUGO versus AA as I don't think they are relevant to this discussion, by all means start yet another thread to beat that horse all over again if you are interested in that discussion.

Yes. There is enough data to know first turn is a significant advantage. It's something like 60-70% of games with roughly equal forces and skill levels are won by the player with first turn advantage.

Where are you getting your figures? 60-70% is admittedly very high for a first turn advantage. I wasn't aware that enough competitive games of 9th had been played to come up with useful statistics, and how are you ensuring that skill levels are roughly equal?

In chess you do get to move first. But you don't get to move first with EVERY PIECE and remove their pieces before they have a chance to react.

I'm well aware of the turn mechanics of chess, I wasn't making a direct comparison between the turn mechanics of the games, but merely pointing out that inherent advantage to one side over the other is not exclusive to 40k. In tennis one player serves for the whole game, so the competitive game is played in sets. In football, one side plays at home for the whole game, in competitive play, leagues are used to mitigate this, or aggregate scoring over home and away legs. In combat sports fights are carried out over a series of rounds between the same to competitors to reduce fluke/lucky wins. If first turn advantage is so grievous as to warrant changing, I can think of a number of ways to effectively reduce it that tournament organisers could implement without relying on GW changing the rules of the game. A system similar to tennis with sets where games would alternate who has first turn and that a clear margin of 2 games is required to win seems a fairly straightforward solution.

Basically you are wrong. On pretty much every level you have a lack of information or flat out wrong information.

Wow, you seem very hostile towards me for expressing a different opinion. "Basically you are wrong" seems inappropriate for a discussion about subjective opinions. I'm curious as to what information I lack or is wrong regarding my opinion that first /second turn advantage isn't necessarily a problem? Or is the fact that competitive games often play leagues, or aggregate scoring, or playing a number of games in sets are common ways to mitigate inherent advantages of one side in other competitive games?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
It isn't as lethal because you can actually counter lethality via moving and killing over the top shooting before it can do anything. IGOUGO lets the player do whatever they want with no consequences.

And I'd tell you that's just bad deployment if you "hid" your units where your opponent can reach with 1 turn of movement (hence, the need for ample terrain). Bad tactics isn't proper grounds for changing the game.

IGOUGO only becomes a problem when your opponent's entire army is parked in the rear field, has LOS and range to all of your units, and you are either forced to footslog into the sea of fire or you do the same thing (park everything at the back).

 skchsan wrote:
What the game needs is more incentives for holding down the central region of the board and discourage backfield camping.

AA doesn't do either so I'm against AA as a solution.

You are correct. AA has nothing to do with making the midfield valuable.

This thread isnt about mid field value though, it's about 1rst turn advantage. Midfield desire has nothing to do with first turn advantage and thus it's solutions has nothing to do with the topic of this thread

It merely decreases the rate of casualties and does nothing against absolute casualty amount. As in, AA is just as lethal as IGOUGO, just at a slower rate.

Correct, AA does not reduce net killiness. It does however increase interactivity and tactical decision making.

Ample terrain coverage can prohibit backfield camping from being effective to a certain degree. Better objective based ruleset forces players to commit to holding down objectives rather than playing napoleonic standoff.

See point one. Nothing to do with this thread.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aash wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:


The difference here is that the larger the game the more you can focus fire to eliminate entire units before they get any chance to act. 40ks tactical depth is boiled down to taking turns swigning the club that is your army at the other guy.

I haven't commented on tactical depth, or lack thereof in 40k. I also haven't commented on the various pros and cons of IGOUGO versus AA as I don't think they are relevant to this discussion, by all means start yet another thread to beat that horse all over again if you are interested in that discussion.

it's directly relevant to first turn advantage. And any discussion on fixing first turn advantage is going to bring up igougo because 1rst turn advantage is only a problem because of IGOUGO.

Yes. There is enough data to know first turn is a significant advantage. It's something like 60-70% of games with roughly equal forces and skill levels are won by the player with first turn advantage.

Where are you getting your figures? 60-70% is admittedly very high for a first turn advantage. I wasn't aware that enough competitive games of 9th had been played to come up with useful statistics, and how are you ensuring that skill levels are roughly equal?

The data has been gathered over several editions. 9th hasn't changed enough for 9th to skew the data.

In chess you do get to move first. But you don't get to move first with EVERY PIECE and remove their pieces before they have a chance to react.

I'm well aware of the turn mechanics of chess, I wasn't making a direct comparison between the turn mechanics of the games, but merely pointing out that inherent advantage to one side over the other is not exclusive to 40k. In tennis one player serves for the whole game, so the competitive game is played in sets. In football, one side plays at home for the whole game, in competitive play, leagues are used to mitigate this, or aggregate scoring over home and away legs. In combat sports fights are carried out over a series of rounds between the same to competitors to reduce fluke/lucky wins. If first turn advantage is so grievous as to warrant changing, I can think of a number of ways to effectively reduce it that tournament organisers could implement without relying on GW changing the rules of the game. A system similar to tennis with sets where games would alternate who has first turn and that a clear margin of 2 games is required to win seems a fairly straightforward solution.

If players want to commit to a 9 hour best out of 3 situation to play any game of 40k sure. You don't think thats a crazy ass thing to suggest for balancing first turn advantage in what amounts to a board game?

Basically you are wrong. On pretty much every level you have a lack of information or flat out wrong information.

Wow, you seem very hostile towards me for expressing a different opinion. "Basically you are wrong" seems inappropriate for a discussion about subjective opinions. I'm curious as to what information I lack or is wrong regarding my opinion that first /second turn advantage isn't necessarily a problem? Or is the fact that competitive games often play leagues, or aggregate scoring, or playing a number of games in sets are common ways to mitigate inherent advantages of one side in other competitive games?

No hostility intended. Just a statement of fact. You bought nothing to the table that was correct or could be built upon practically. When I sit down to play a single game with a friend I want the game itself to provide a fair chance for each of us to win. Not whoever goes first is most likely to win because whoever goes second will be stuck in a spiral of exponential model loss.

So if AA doesn't reduce the lethality, then why is this being proposed as a solution to increasing the defensive capacity of player going 2nd?

The point is there are more ways to reduce the offensive capacity of the player going first (which indirectly improves the overall durability of player going second) than to uproot an entire system.

One of these ways is to decrease the emphasis on practicing 'best defense is good offense' as primary driver for winning the game.

 skchsan wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
It isn't as lethal because you can actually counter lethality via moving and killing over the top shooting before it can do anything. IGOUGO lets the player do whatever they want with no consequences.

And I'd tell you that's just bad deployment if you "hid" your units where your opponent can reach with 1 turn of movement (hence, the need for ample terrain). Bad tactics isn't proper grounds for changing the game.

IGOUGO only becomes a problem when your opponent's entire army is parked in the rear field, has LOS and range to all of your units, and you are either forced to footslog into the sea of fire or you do the same thing (park everything at the back).

1) Untrue.

2) See my point about liking variety.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 skchsan wrote:
So if AA doesn't reduce the lethality, then why is this being proposed as a solution to increasing the defensive capacity of player going 2nd?

The point is there are more ways to reduce the offensive capacity of the player going first (which indirectly improves the overall durability of player going second) than to uproot an entire system.

Because NET lethality isn't the issue. It's uninterrupted lethality.

IGOUGO means despite your army being comprised of many units they all act on your turn as one blunt force instrument. Some form of AA means potential damage output is inherently mitigated AND can be responded to.

And as I've said, unless you set up a napoleonic standoff, it's not that big of an issue.

 skchsan wrote:
And as I've said, unless you set up a napoleonic standoff, it's not that big of an issue.

Right. If we all build the same table with an abundance of los blocking terrain and we all deploy hidden behind it and we all don't bring any units that can ignore LOS or gain no value from terrain then the issue goes away. We all just have to do that. Just those 3 things to circumvent an inherent flaw in the basic structure of the game.

Yes, forcing players to put more emphasis on positioning & setting up the shot, instead of having all the positioning and shots set up from turn 1 will solve the issue IMO.

Let's say you're playing CS - are you going to run down a corridor with AWP aiming at you on the other side, or are you going to try to flank him?

If you did run down the corridor and got killed by the AWP, are you going to blame the game?

 skchsan wrote:
Yes, forcing players to put more emphasis on positioning & setting up the shot, instead of having all the positioning and shots set up from turn 1 will solve the issue IMO.

Let's say you're playing CS - are you going to run down a corridor with AWP aiming at you on the other side, or are you going to try to flank him?

Nothing you are saying can't happen in a different turn structure without the issues that require everyone to jump through those loops. It's JUST as advantageous to deploy intelligently in AA. But it's ALSO important to set up ambushes and bait out the opponent.

There is no baiting the opponent in IGOUGO. You can't respond to them taking the bait for it to matter.

Don't claim to want tactical and strategic thinking and planning while only wanting a single tactic and strategy.

Again, your "fix" is a band aid people put over a symptom. The turn structure is the disease. You have everything to gain and nothing to loose by changing it.

How is there no baiting in IGOUGO? This just goes to show your case against IGOUGO exists in a vacuum.

At any time you forced your opponent to take a risk, you've baited them.

"I need to bring my unit closer into double tap range, so I need to go in deeper towards enemy's formation"
"That unit hugging that corner is just outside my TLOS, so I need to reposition, potentially exposing myself to counter-attacks"
"This unit of terminator just DS'ed into the center of my formation. Do I attack the unit of terminator, who will wreck the crap out my units if left unchecked, or do I attack the contemptor dreads with double kheres that's 25" away?"

 skchsan wrote:
How is there no baiting in IGOUGO? This just goes to show your case against IGOUGO exists in a vacuum.

At any time you forced your opponent to take a risk, you've baited them.

"I need to bring my unit closer into double tap range, so I need to go in deeper towards enemy's formation"
"That unit hugging that corner is just outside my TLOS, so I need to reposition, potentially exposing myself to counter-attacks"
"This unit of terminator just DS'ed into the center of my formation. Do I attack the unit of terminator, who will wreck the crap out my units if left unchecked, or do I attack the contemptor dreads that's 25" away?"

Because it's not one unit. It's all your units. And they all act in tandem to focus fire and eliminate the biggest threats before they get a chance to act. And the bigger the game the more guns you can bring to bare to accomplish that.

If ALL I could do was deepstrike 1 unit I either have to hold off till the end of the turn and hope my opponent leaves an opening for me or I use one of my other units to bait one of their units forward to MAKE an opening for my deepstrike unit.

Nobody makes risky moves. They move everything at once and they all shoot at once and they all charge. Only melee fights are AA. The LEAST interesting part of the game tactically.

With AA who they activate and when is all a tactical choice with risks and rewards. In IGOUGO the only risk is weigh law of averages on your dice pools to decide if how many shots you need to fire to on average eliminate the target.

There was NO game in 7th 8th or 9th where anyone ever managed to deepstrike into the middle of my units because I could keep my guys positioned properly to box them out. Every activation is a risk in AA. It's all a back and forth between me and my opponent and the threat of 1rst turn advantage is removed inherently. There are no alpha strikes. There is no focus firing before I get the chance to act. It's just fixed. And my terrain can be dense or light or anything t create more varied game. All units, terrain utilizing or not have a place. And LOS ignoring units/weapons can still have a place without getting spammed.

Just going to note this contradiction.

 Lance845 wrote:
Nobody makes risky moves... In IGOUGO the only risk is weigh law of averages on your dice pools to decide if hw many shots you need to fire to on average eliminate the target.

 skchsan wrote:
Just going to note this contradiction.

 Lance845 wrote:
Nobody makes risky moves... In IGOUGO the only risk is weigh law of averages on your dice pools to decide if hw many shots you need to fire to on average eliminate the target.

Thats not a contradiction. A move is a distinct action in the game. Shooting damage calculations is math. Those are 2 different things.

Movement is geometry, which is part of math.
Shooting is probability, which is part of math.
They're both math.

During movement, you put expendable units within range of counter attack for the chance of wounding an intended target. Risk management.
During shooting, you allocate X amount of shots onto intended target based on the probability so that least amount of shots are wasted via overkill. Risk management.

Why do people screen? Because the popular "biggest threats" are weak against assault. Risk management.

Calculated risk is still a risk. Active management of risk is not a flaw, it's design feature.

I am not arguing semantics with you. You KNOW that movement is a distinct mechanic in the game and it's obvious I was talking about the movement of units.

There is nothing you loose by ditching IGOUGO and you gain better and more of everything you are arguing for with deployment, terrain, risk and reward, and tactical and strategic decision making by going towards AA. It's a pure win/win.

You have to stoop to this semantics bull crap because you don't have any actual arguments against it.

It's people lost in the legacy of always using IGOUGO and refusing to see why it's such a garbage system.

I've had a more than a fair share of games where my opponent 'all-in' their army, whose offensive was mitigated via positioning & abilities. At the end of his turn he left his key units completely open which cost him the game.

Beta strikes are stronger than alpha strikes if you deploy right. It doesn't need AA to accomplish this.

The only time this doesn't work is when my opponent castles up along the edge of his table.

In AA, you only put 1 unit at risk at a time. In IGOUGO, you put your entire army at risk at once. It's a double edged sword that's not going to be solved by AA. It's only delaying the inevitable.

 skchsan wrote:
I've had a more than a fair share of games where my opponent 'all-in' their army, whose offensive was mitigated via positioning & abilities. At the end of his turn he left his key units completely open which cost him the game.

Beta strikes are stronger than alpha strikes if you deploy right. It doesn't need AA to accomplish this.

The only time this doesn't work is when my opponent castles up along the edge of his table.

Again, you get more and better of all of that in AA. And just because your completely anecdotal opponent was an idiot and over extended himself when he had no reason to doesn't make the turn structure good. Or better than AA. Or anything. It's just a story about how one guy sucked at the incredibly simple game that is 40k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 skchsan wrote:

In AA, you only put 1 unit at risk at a time. In IGOUGO, you put your entire army at risk at once. It's a double edged sword that's not going to be solved by AA. It's only delaying the inevitable.

Incorrect. EVERY unit is at risk at any time. The opponent has to weigh your options with their options. Try to figure out how you will react to what they do to determine what would be the best course of action.

Your entire army is "at risk" from a force that has been reduced by the full fire power of your entire army. Any unit that can be shot will be shot. And with enough shots you can cripple those units abilities to pose a threat at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A unit of 30 hormagaunts is a severe risk in melee. A unit of 5 hormagaunts is laughable.

If my hormagaunts will reach you on my next turn you can turn all your guns on them to cripple their ability to pose a threat. Not true with a single unit activation.