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Not saying it should be implemented but if there was a ranking system to determine who goes first how would you structure it? I imagine it would be based on initiative and/or how fast an army can move.

I.e.- Eldar/DE are fast and nimble so they'd be at or near the top.

Space Marines somewhere in the middle with Blood Angels & white Scars higher up compared to vanilla marines

Orks probably at or near the bottom.

Again, I'm not proposing this to be implemented, just how would you order most or all the armies accordingly. Just for fun.

In 2nd edition factions had a "Strategy Rating" and when you rolled to go first you added that number. Elder were like 4 with Marines a 3 and guard was a 1. Works varied depending on what clan. I liked that.

 Boris420 wrote:
Not saying it should be implemented but if there was a ranking system to determine who goes first how would you structure it? I imagine it would be based on initiative and/or how fast an army can move.

I.e.- Eldar/DE are fast and nimble so they'd be at or near the top.

Space Marines somewhere in the middle with Blood Angels & white Scars higher up compared to vanilla marines

Orks probably at or near the bottom.

Again, I'm not proposing this to be implemented, just how would you order most or all the armies accordingly. Just for fun.

Sounds like you're more or less describing the old initiative stat. You could probably just use the average initiative for various armies from older editions and then give a +1 or -1 to that for subfactions as appropriate. Although allies would need to be accounted for. Do 500 points of White Scars give your 1500 points of imperial guard a higher "first turn ranking"?

Iirc, dark eldar used to have rules that let them always be the attacker in attacker vs defender missions. Something like that might model what you're alluding to, although you'd have to tie that to the missions you're using.

In general, always letting one army go first before another army is probably bad for competitive missions, but it can be a thematic element in narrative (or fluffy matched play) missions.

Ah I did not know that 2nd edition had such a system in place. I didn't start playing until 4th. I would like to see certain armies automatically gain first turn instead of rolling to see who goes first. Instead of tournaments being won partly by luck of the dice, certain armies would have to strategize according to their rank and if that means they go 2nd then so be it. Alas, this is just my opinion and some armies may actually prefer to go 2nd if given the choice which I would understand. Some armies have strategems specifically for re-deploying in case they lose the opportunity to choose who goes first or not.

 Boris420 wrote:
Ah I did not know that 2nd edition had such a system in place. I didn't start playing until 4th. I would like to see certain armies automatically gain first turn instead of rolling to see who goes first. Instead of tournaments being won partly by luck of the dice, certain armies would have to strategize according to their rank and if that means they go 2nd then so be it. Alas, this is just my opinion and some armies may actually prefer to go 2nd if given the choice which I would understand. Some armies have strategems specifically for re-deploying in case they lose the opportunity to choose who goes first or not.

Every army except Genestealer Cults wants first turn the majority of the time.

Battlefleet Gothic had:
*Imperial, Chaos, Tau at 2.
*Space Marines, Tyranids, Orks at 3.
*Dark Eldar, Eldar and Necrons at 4.

What an absolutely horrid idea. How do you balance armies when there is a strict hierarchy of who gets the first turn?

My army rules are all balanced for me going first. But some armies go before me. So I really suck against those armies because my rules are worst when I don't go first.

My armies rules are balanced for me going second. But some armies are even slower than me and force me to go first. Now I'm at a disadvantage because my rules don't support me going first.

 alextroy wrote:
How do you balance armies when there is a strict hierarchy of who gets the first turn?

The same way as you do currently, with playtesting as well as follow-up adjustments based on community feedback and tournament result analysis.

My army rules are all balanced for me going first. But some armies go before me. So I really suck against those armies because my rules are worst when I don't go first.

My armies rules are balanced for me going second. But some armies are even slower than me and force me to go first. Now I'm at a disadvantage because my rules don't support me going first.

Your army becomes a bit cheaper, no big deal. This is not any different from having bad Chapter Tactics, Strats, Relics or WL traits.

 alextroy wrote:
What an absolutely horrid idea

Sorry Alex. My main concern was armies winning tournaments simply due to luck of first turn versus tactics and strategy. I know the dice gods will inevitably play the major role in who wins and loses but in my opinion the first turn helps overwhelmingly and perhaps too much. Obviously an OP codex helps too but if armies were based on a rank/tier system then you could tweak strategems specifically for the purpose of countering an army that goes before you. Of course this would take major revisions and there would be cases where you face the same army as your own so what to do then but have a roll off anyway. I was just curious what order would people would rank all the armies if in some future edition this was the case. Just for fun. I didn't mean to upset anyone.

Not upset at all. I just think it's a really bad concept after the brainstorming stage. It is one thing to have a disadvantage in the game 50% of the time because your opponent won the roll off for first turn. It's another thing to have that disadvantage 100% of the time against certain armies because that's just the way it is.

Personally, I hope they someday come to the conclusion that IGYO is a bad game structure and retool the game for a more integrated experience. Then the first turn advantage will dwindle to near insignificance.

I think this could work if each faction had something to being higher/lower on the list.

Maybe IG would have prepared positions giving them cover on T1 if they go second and they can chose to automatically go second unless their opponent also wants that so goes to a straight roll off and neither gets their T1 bonus.

Maybe Orks who loose the roll of and have to go second get an advance bonus for all infantry (or just count as having rolled a 6) as they charge into the fight.

The problem isn't the method of determining who goes first, its the antiquated rules system the makes going first a 75% chance of victory.

The best system would be looking at every faction and their win-rate going first versus going second. Then put each of them into a table and for any given match give +1 to whichever player brings those numbers closest to 50/50. This still leaves room for things to go sideways and prevents people from list tailoring/deploying knowing they're sure to go first while also trying to balance things.

I wonder if it could be related to army composition - how obvious an army is, what it's comprised of, and how much you commit to your opening attack.

this would comprise of a list of modifiers which would be added to your warlords leadership stat (I can't think of a better stat for it):

some ideas (not exhaustive), based on the idea that big units and vehicles are easy to spot, and fast units give you an edge:

A unit on the battlefield after deployment will either confer +1, 0, or -1, it cannot have more than +1 or less than -1. Add up all their modifiers and then round it down to +1 or -1. EG a kill tank has movement 12" (+1), over 10 wounds (-1) and is a lord of war (-2), so has a result of -2. This rounds to -1.
A unit of 30 stormboys is over 15 models (-1) and has movement 12" (+1) so has a resulting modifier of 0.
A unit of 5 kommandos in cover has +1 for being in cover with special rules, so is +1.
A unit of 3 mek guns is 3 units after deploying, so each one has -1 for being slow.
If a unit is over 15 models, -1
If a unit has a speed less than 5", -1
If a model has a wounds characteristic of over 10, -1 (I don't think any units have multiple models after deployment with over 10 wounds any more, though I could be wrong).
If a model is a Lord of War or a Titan, -2

If a unit has a movement characteristic of over 9", +1
If a unit has any rules to gain extra benefits from cover, and is in cover, +1

Units in transports aren't on the battlefield so don't count.

After you tot up your score, you roll 2D6, add your warlords leadership and your modifier, and whoever rolls highest goes first.



This would mean that armies focused on speed or stealth would be more likely to strike first, which makes sense. It also means armies with strong leadership are more likely to be organised enough to strike first.

It also incentivises people to hold stuff in reserve, as you can dramatically affect your chances of going first by not deploying a full unit of 6 smasha guns. By trundling them into position, you have (realistically) given the enemy the chance to see you do so and then attack before you're fully prepared (IE, going first).


As for the being solely based on army choice, It falls down because A: people mix armies and B: an army of eldar wraithlords/knights etc. should be more likely to go second to an army of ork trukks and buggies.

As long as Marines get a boost

The answer is to have players blind bid a number of CP points they are willing to spend for the right to choose whether to go first or second. This then becomes a self-balancing mechanism, as bidding more CPs means you have less CPs to use during battle, helping to offset the advantage for going first.

 Mezmorki wrote:
The answer is to have players blind bid a number of CP points they are willing to spend for the right to choose whether to go first or second. This then becomes a self-balancing mechanism, as bidding more CPs means you have less CPs to use during battle, helping to offset the advantage for going first.

That could work, but then some armies rely more heavily on CP than others, so would lead to minor imbalance there. Only minor though, so it's probably one of the best suggestions so far!

 some bloke wrote:

 Mezmorki wrote:
The answer is to have players blind bid a number of CP points they are willing to spend for the right to choose whether to go first or second. This then becomes a self-balancing mechanism, as bidding more CPs means you have less CPs to use during battle, helping to offset the advantage for going first.

That could work, but then some armies rely more heavily on CP than others, so would lead to minor imbalance there. Only minor though, so it's probably one of the best suggestions so far!

You would functionally be creating a "go first" stratagem with a variable CP cost. Which, yeah. I like that. Not a silver bullet, but probably a good addition to the game.

Or you could remove one player just getting a whole blasted turn to do anything uninterrupted as a core game mechanic.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Or you could remove one player just getting a whole blasted turn to do anything uninterrupted as a core game mechanic.

Sure. But not every thread needs to be about AA, and something like a CP bid to go first is a relatively minor, self-contained change in comparison.

We should probably overhaul the kitchen, but that's expensive. In the meantime, there's nothing wrong with getting a new microwave instead.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Or you could remove one player just getting a whole blasted turn to do anything uninterrupted as a core game mechanic.

Or we can make it a cooperative game where it doesn't matter who goes first!

IGOUGO is as much a part of 40k as it being a wargame.


Offering a set of stratagems which work defensively and having a CP bid system to see who goes first would be an effective fix. Defensive stratagems can be focused on phrases like "If the unit has not moved in the previous turn" and so will have limited use mid game but massive use for whoever goes second on the first turn, because nothing in their army will have moved.

These stratagems can be things like "Decoy" which would allow you to spend a heft CP lump to remove a model from the board and place it in reserves when it is first targeted in the first turn (the attack cannot be taken back - they are spending a lot of CP to have your big gun blow up some cardboard boxes in camo netting!), or "Dig In" to have cover confer a better save.

Having some decent defensive tricks to pull when you go second would balance out the game an awful lot.

 some bloke wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Or you could remove one player just getting a whole blasted turn to do anything uninterrupted as a core game mechanic.

Or we can make it a cooperative game where it doesn't matter who goes first!

IGOUGO is as much a part of 40k as it being a wargame.

Clinging to traditions for the sake of legacy is irrational.

Wyldhunt wrote:
We should probably overhaul the kitchen, but that's expensive. In the meantime, there's nothing wrong with getting a new microwave instead.

The roof is sagging, the taps always leak, the light bulbs flicker, and the floor is heavily scratched but sure a new microwave will fix the kitchen.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Clinging to traditions for the sake of legacy is irrational.

Fair point. I guess it's time to overhaul it into a cooperative game then!

Is it really necessary for every thread which doesn't involve AA to include a disclaimer saying "Whilst AA is a valid option to reduce this issue, we all know they aren't going to do it, no-one can agree on the best way to do it, and it's not the topic we are discussing so don't bring it up"?

When someone says "better ways to determine who goes first" and someone replies "change the entire game", it's akin to someone saying "How can I make my army more competitive" and being told "play a different army". It's not helpful, and it's not the question being asked.


To confirm my views - I would love if 40k went to AA. I agree it would reduce alpha strike problems. I also think it would take a bigger overhaul to stop other things from breaking, and it continues to not be the topic of discussion here.

 some bloke wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Clinging to traditions for the sake of legacy is irrational.

Fair point. I guess it's time to overhaul it into a cooperative game then!

Is it really necessary for every thread which doesn't involve AA to include a disclaimer saying "Whilst AA is a valid option to reduce this issue, we all know they aren't going to do it, no-one can agree on the best way to do it, and it's not the topic we are discussing so don't bring it up"?

When someone says "better ways to determine who goes first" and someone replies "change the entire game", it's akin to someone saying "How can I make my army more competitive" and being told "play a different army". It's not helpful, and it's not the question being asked.


To confirm my views - I would love if 40k went to AA. I agree it would reduce alpha strike problems. I also think it would take a bigger overhaul to stop other things from breaking, and it continues to not be the topic of discussion here.

We also know that GW isn't going to make major changes to determine who goes first. They had data showing that going first was busted and their fix was not letting high role pick if they want to be P1 or P2 and making a change to scoring on T5. If they were ever going to make a larger fix this was their chance.