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Is it likely that most tournaments will choose to roll a D6 for first turn with the player who finishes deploying first adding 1 to their roll? Has anyone attended a tournament yet where the meta was such that low unit count armies depending on first turn warrants such a change?

I surely hope so. I've been playing a 4 knight list of late and I've never even had a chance to go first so it would be nice to at least have the option instead of praying for the seize.

skycapt44 wrote:
I surely hope so. I've been playing a 4 knight list of late and I've never even had a chance to go first so it would be nice to at least have the option instead of praying for the seize.

You're supposed to have the first turn when you're done deploying first no ? So you would always start first with just four Knights isn't it ? Or I misunderstood something.

I'm not sure its imbalanced. The downside of having less drops is that its usually less units to grab objectives. less targets to destroy first turn for your opponent, and the person who deploys more drops can deploy most of his units after he sees where you deployed.

Lets take the common example people like to use 4 knight lists. If the knights opponent goes first and has a heavy anti vehicle list they can destroy at least 1 knight before you even get a chance to use it. Taking out 1/4 of that players list and putting that player way behind right from the start. 4 knights have a harder time claiming objectives from multiple model units. And his opponent can deploy defensively knowing exactly where most of the knights are deployed and what they can hit/reach.

The only reason I don't like the less drops equals first turn is that it feels extremely gamey.

So is the general consensus for a roll off instead of seize? so after everyone deploys; both players roll off and the person who finished first gets a +1? If so can either player use command points to reroll?

Or you could play a balanced list and not 4 Knights ? I don't think I'd even want to play with someone who brings this up, I had a game today at 1000 pts against Aeldari and he had a damn Wraithknight. With all my might I just killed two units of 5 Kabalites and took off 13 wounds off the Wraithknight before he dealt his 12 damage on each of my characters/units. Bringing this kind of things in small point games or just a list full of them is a big finger to people trying to play a decent TAC list.

But I'm getting off topic sorry.

I don't really mind starting second because yes, I can deploy my snipers in the best places and other things because I have more awareness of his deployment if all is army is there, and that 6 to seize Initiative is not undoable.

 Aaranis wrote:

skycapt44 wrote:
I surely hope so. I've been playing a 4 knight list of late and I've never even had a chance to go first so it would be nice to at least have the option instead of praying for the seize.

You're supposed to have the first turn when you're done deploying first no ? So you would always start first with just four Knights isn't it ? Or I misunderstood something.

I should have been more clear. I was playing against 4 knights.

skycapt44 wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:

skycapt44 wrote:
I surely hope so. I've been playing a 4 knight list of late and I've never even had a chance to go first so it would be nice to at least have the option instead of praying for the seize.

You're supposed to have the first turn when you're done deploying first no ? So you would always start first with just four Knights isn't it ? Or I misunderstood something.

I should have been more clear. I was playing against 4 knights.

Oh I see, yeah I can see why you would want to go first. I think having a roll-off to see who starts first turn would be best, maybe with a +1 on the side that didn't get to chose his side ?

So, they want to favor horde armies and prevent elite armies from placing in their tournaments? As it stands right now, a horde army is more then likely to win on attrition, because every person can wound every other person.

200 Orks vs 25 Grey knights. The grey knights if they do not have first turn are likely to die outright to the Orks heavy weapons. But, because the player of the Grey Knights has purposely built his army to go first. He is banking on the fact he can destroy the heavy weapons before they get a chance to wipe him out.

It doesn't really pan out that way. The 200 Orks could be 4 units of Ork Boyz, and the 25 Grey Knights could be 5 units of Grey Knights. In that situation, the Grey Knights would go second.

Because most actions work on a model by model basis now with regard to shooting attacks, # of models to capture objectives, etc., and not often on a unit basis, MSU is far less impactful than it previously was. I anticipate as the game develops with more releases this will become even more the case.

The result of auto-go-first is it pushes extremes - you either try for an extremely small unit count and "hope" to go first in the same way that people who try to play for KP go for a small unit count and "hope" for the good match-up on the KP mission ... or you say "Screw it" and build without caring if you go second and spam a million units, exacerbating peoples' concerns for MSU.

The latter will happen far more often than the former, favoring MSU spammy armies far more than elite armies.

Furthermore, in casual play, very often you will run into one of two circumstances - either 1) You randomly turn out to have 12 drops while your opponent has 12 drops but you lose the roll to place first, and oops guess you get to go 2nd, or 2) You sit there while your opponent figures out how many characters he can fit in that one RHino in order to guarantee going first, only to then disembark them all on Turn 1 and put the one unit in there he always planned to ride in it, with no real change in mechanism other than literally gaming the deployment mechanic to try to auto-go-first.

In terms of quickly enabling you to play a game, it simplifies things even further by taking a roll out of the equation. But make no mistake, it pushes extremely low unit count armies and extremely high unit count armies, and with both of those things comes spam to ensure redundancy of elite function or optimize the most efficient MSU choices. It pushes a Knight player, for instance, to just say "Screw it" and take 4 Knights or so, instead of building a list that has greater variety but "too many" units to safely ensure going first. It pushes a Scions player, for instance, to just say "Screw it" and take a million drop units, because taking any kind of larger investments wouldn't help them go first so why bother.

Long and short, when the reward for correctly optimizing your numbers is an 84% chance to go first, you'll go to far more extremes than when the reward is 68%. Similarly, when your chance to go first if you have more units is still 32% instead of only 16%, you're less likely to just say "eff it" and go to the extremes of MSU. Some people simply don't like rules that force the game into extremes.

My current tournament army is

Stormraven 1
- Castellian Crowe
- Purifier squad (5 man)
- Purifier squad (5 man)
- Dreadnought 1
Stormraven 2
- Purifier squad (5 man)
- Purifier squad (5 man)
- Dreadnought 2
Dreadknight

This has me fielding 3 units (2 on board and 1 in teleportium). If I face a horde army, I absolutely want to go first. I have to kill anything they have that can do multiple wounds to my Stormravens. On turn 1, I will move forward, death blossum the two stormravens and then on turn 2 drop off all the troops to move within 3" for smite spam. If my opponent goes first, there is a very good chance I will lose one or two stormravens near my table edge and at that point, I might as well concede.

By changing it to a random roll. Grey knights become pretty much instant losses to huge swarm armies.

Dont worry guys, AoS has you covered! Instead of rolling for the first round, you roll for every other round! That way the turn order can switch from round to round and add to the fun!

(sarcasm)

MVBrandt wrote:
It doesn't really pan out that way. The 200 Orks could be 4 units of Ork Boyz, and the 25 Grey Knights could be 5 units of Grey Knights. In that situation, the Grey Knights would go second.

Because most actions work on a model by model basis now with regard to shooting attacks, # of models to capture objectives, etc., and not often on a unit basis, MSU is far less impactful than it previously was. I anticipate as the game develops with more releases this will become even more the case.

The result of auto-go-first is it pushes extremes - you either try for an extremely small unit count and "hope" to go first in the same way that people who try to play for KP go for a small unit count and "hope" for the good match-up on the KP mission ... or you say "Screw it" and build without caring if you go second and spam a million units, exacerbating peoples' concerns for MSU.

The latter will happen far more often than the former, favoring MSU spammy armies far more than elite armies.

Furthermore, in casual play, very often you will run into one of two circumstances - either 1) You randomly turn out to have 12 drops while your opponent has 12 drops but you lose the roll to place first, and oops guess you get to go 2nd, or 2) You sit there while your opponent figures out how many characters he can fit in that one RHino in order to guarantee going first, only to then disembark them all on Turn 1 and put the one unit in there he always planned to ride in it, with no real change in mechanism other than literally gaming the deployment mechanic to try to auto-go-first.

In terms of quickly enabling you to play a game, it simplifies things even further by taking a roll out of the equation. But make no mistake, it pushes extremely low unit count armies and extremely high unit count armies, and with both of those things comes spam to ensure redundancy of elite function or optimize the most efficient MSU choices. It pushes a Knight player, for instance, to just say "Screw it" and take 4 Knights or so, instead of building a list that has greater variety but "too many" units to safely ensure going first. It pushes a Scions player, for instance, to just say "Screw it" and take a million drop units, because taking any kind of larger investments wouldn't help them go first so why bother.

Long and short, when the reward for correctly optimizing your numbers is an 84% chance to go first, you'll go to far more extremes than when the reward is 68%. Similarly, when your chance to go first if you have more units is still 32% instead of only 16%, you're less likely to just say "eff it" and go to the extremes of MSU. Some people simply don't like rules that force the game into extremes.

Given that objectives are controlled by the number the of models within a given distance belonging to a certain player in 8th edition, what exactly is the problem people have with MSU armies?

I think it is too early to the rules release to be making changes to the game rules...

I would say play it per the rulebook for a while to see how it goes, then if the First turn is an issue then look at it..

Atm the rulebook seems to be a balance against horde armies that can have A LOT of T1 charge capability, or long range shooting..
doing a roll off I can see top teir meta is just going to be Tyranids
or just weight of numbers like Imperial Guard

Youn wrote:
My current tournament army is

Stormraven 1
- Castellian Crowe
- Purifier squad (5 man)
- Purifier squad (5 man)
- Dreadnought 1
Stormraven 2
- Purifier squad (5 man)
- Purifier squad (5 man)
- Dreadnought 2
Dreadknight

This has me fielding 3 units (2 on board and 1 in teleportium). If I face a horde army, I absolutely want to go first. I have to kill anything they have that can do multiple wounds to my Stormravens. On turn 1, I will move forward, death blossum the two stormravens and then on turn 2 drop off all the troops to move within 3" for smite spam. If my opponent goes first, there is a very good chance I will lose one or two stormravens near my table edge and at that point, I might as well concede.

By changing it to a random roll. Grey knights become pretty much instant losses to huge swarm armies.

So because you built your army to Game the mechanic to go first, it is a problem if you cannot do this anymore and need to build a more balanced list? Or you auto lose to Scions who put all their storm raven killing in deepstrike, and drop in killing both your Storm ravens? So you concede then because your highly skewed list has no chance in that circumstance. maybe the answer is a more balanced list when you cannot guarantee and alpha strike, which is the point of the rules change.

People keep saying it is a check on horde armies, it isn't it is a check on MSU armies (or it tries to be).

Also for those who say "changing the rules" this mechanic is part of the mission rules, if someone writes their own mission this is not actually part of the base rules. There are actually missions in the rulebook with other determinations of who goes first (mostly the narrative missions) There are missions with Roll offs for first turn, missions where the "attacker" goes first, missions where only one player rolls and goes first on a 4+, missions where Power level determines first turn (lowest goes first), as this is part of the mission, there is nothing that prevents an event that writes it's own mission (or alters any missions) from making this change as well.

I built my army to use the rules we have for the game system. By changing the rules you effectively change the balance of the game.

I still lose to huge horde armies, but going first I have at least a chance to do real damage to them before they wipe me out. If I don't go first, then my higher point cost per model pretty much penalizes me.


And Stormravens cannot start in deep strike.

Youn wrote:
I built my army to use the rules we have for the game system. By changing the rules you effectively change the balance of the game.

I still lose to huge horde armies, but going first I have at least a chance to do real damage to them before they wipe me out. If I don't go first, then my higher point cost per model pretty much penalizes me.


And Stormravens cannot start in deep strike.

No the scions are in deepstrike, and kill your storm ravens that start on the table even if you go first.

You built your army to play the book missions, something that has been uncommon in tournaments, especially large ones. As I pointed out other methods of getting first turn exist in the rulebook, for other missions. It is just a common feature of matched play missions that the army with less drops go first. It does not seem to me that going first has been used in determining points costs of units, so I am unsure how it changes the balance of the game, it just changes the effectiveness in a particular mission. What you are saying is akin to saying "I built my army for Kill points, but no one plays kill points so my army is now bad." It is a mission rule, not a game rule.

Actually, scions in deepstrike are still a deployment. I also don't mind if my ravens are killed. Their purpose is to deliver my troops with a 3" smite range to close enough to actually use their 3" range.

The issue really is they're altering the missions to help the Tyranid players. It's not like they didn't have a say in the 6 months leading up to the release. The TOs were the playtesters.

Youn wrote:
Actually, scions in deepstrike are still a deployment. I also don't mind if my ravens are killed. Their purpose is to deliver my troops with a 3" smite range to close enough to actually use their 3" range.

The issue really is they're altering the missions to help the Tyranid players. It's not like they didn't have a say in the 6 months leading up to the release. The TOs were the playtesters.

If the ravens die with things embarked you may end up losing quite a few models. My point with the scions is, sure you go first, but you lack value targets turn 1, get deepstruck against and die., smite from GK wouldn't do a whole lot to MSU squads.

Why does this change help nid players over say IG, or Marines, or Necrons or....the answer is it doesn't. IT helps MSU armies against super elite alpha strike armies.

You seem to think Hordes are the armies that really benefit, that simply isn't true. MSU benefits because MSU allows you to force an elite army to fully deploy before you deploy anything of value (or on the table at all.) I mean say any list with reserves against you, needs 2 or 3 reserve units to force you to deploy your whole army. Then can deploy to minimize your effectiveness.

Just because the TOs were on the playtest team does not mean GW used all their feedback. It seems like this is an instance where that feedback was ignored. I would wager most TOs also had feedback regarding Maelstrom set up, Kill points, and the missions in general that don't seem to have been used. I mean the relic is a straight up terrible mission for competitive play, you think no one said "hey winning the game for holding this one objective is really bad."

I'm not fully behind only getting a +1 for finishing first because of the huge bonus to MSU in the deployment method, but I do think, auto go first is a huge advantage. Maybe a solution would be Finish first is +1 to roll for first turn, if you finish say 5 deployments before your opponent you also get +1 to seize in the case you lose the roll for first turn. If you finish 10 deployments before gain an additional +1 to seize (so 4+ seize). The problem with a single solution (either just +1 or just go first) is scalability. Take your list against a 4 knight list. You both built to take first turn, but you auto-get it for having one fewer drop? seems a bit off to me.

This all came about because some of the playtesters were (incorrectly) not allowing the re-roll stratagem on Seize the Initiative before the first turn. This made it safer to take extreme lists. The rules specifically state that rolls both before and during the game can be re-rolled. But it's all a wash. The odds of successfully rolling to seize with a re-roll are 1 in 3. The odds of winning the roll-off for choosing first turn with d6 vs d6+! are 1 in 3, though it doesn't cost any Command Points. The will of the game designers be done!

Coldsteel wrote:
This all came about because some of the playtesters were (incorrectly) not allowing the re-roll stratagem on Seize the Initiative before the first turn. This made it safer to take extreme lists. The rules specifically state that rolls both before and during the game can be re-rolled. But it's all a wash. The odds of successfully rolling to seize with a re-roll are 1 in 3. The odds of winning the roll-off for choosing first turn with d6 vs d6+! are 1 in 3, though it doesn't cost any Command Points. The will of the game designers be done!

What makes you say this about the testers? It isn't true BTW.

Bigger armies already have the advantage by being better at controling points and having more CP. Small armies going first exists to counter that. If a TO makes so smaller army does not go first, then they should also eliminate CP and not count number of miniatures for controlling objectives.

The missions balance out the advantage lost by the lower unit count army. I think that never having the option to go first (especially if the other player can make you go first and there's nothing you can do about it) is too strong and they should have changed the format.

Breng77 wrote:

Youn wrote:
Actually, scions in deepstrike are still a deployment. I also don't mind if my ravens are killed. Their purpose is to deliver my troops with a 3" smite range to close enough to actually use their 3" range.

The issue really is they're altering the missions to help the Tyranid players. It's not like they didn't have a say in the 6 months leading up to the release. The TOs were the playtesters.

If the ravens die with things embarked you may end up losing quite a few models. My point with the scions is, sure you go first, but you lack value targets turn 1, get deepstruck against and die., smite from GK wouldn't do a whole lot to MSU squads.

Why does this change help nid players over say IG, or Marines, or Necrons or....the answer is it doesn't. IT helps MSU armies against super elite alpha strike armies.

You seem to think Hordes are the armies that really benefit, that simply isn't true. MSU benefits because MSU allows you to force an elite army to fully deploy before you deploy anything of value (or on the table at all.) I mean say any list with reserves against you, needs 2 or 3 reserve units to force you to deploy your whole army. Then can deploy to minimize your effectiveness.

Just because the TOs were on the playtest team does not mean GW used all their feedback. It seems like this is an instance where that feedback was ignored. I would wager most TOs also had feedback regarding Maelstrom set up, Kill points, and the missions in general that don't seem to have been used. I mean the relic is a straight up terrible mission for competitive play, you think no one said "hey winning the game for holding this one objective is really bad."

I'm not fully behind only getting a +1 for finishing first because of the huge bonus to MSU in the deployment method, but I do think, auto go first is a huge advantage. Maybe a solution would be Finish first is +1 to roll for first turn, if you finish say 5 deployments before your opponent you also get +1 to seize in the case you lose the roll for first turn. If you finish 10 deployments before gain an additional +1 to seize (so 4+ seize). The problem with a single solution (either just +1 or just go first) is scalability. Take your list against a 4 knight list. You both built to take first turn, but you auto-get it for having one fewer drop? seems a bit off to me.

I think the book missions are complete gak.however I have faith nova and eventually itc will go back to multi tiered missions. And as long as those tournament missions have an element of killpoints it will partially counter MSU. If MSU is still to strong then killpoints should have more of an emphasis in missions.

gungo wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Youn wrote:
Actually, scions in deepstrike are still a deployment. I also don't mind if my ravens are killed. Their purpose is to deliver my troops with a 3" smite range to close enough to actually use their 3" range.

The issue really is they're altering the missions to help the Tyranid players. It's not like they didn't have a say in the 6 months leading up to the release. The TOs were the playtesters.

If the ravens die with things embarked you may end up losing quite a few models. My point with the scions is, sure you go first, but you lack value targets turn 1, get deepstruck against and die., smite from GK wouldn't do a whole lot to MSU squads.

Why does this change help nid players over say IG, or Marines, or Necrons or....the answer is it doesn't. IT helps MSU armies against super elite alpha strike armies.

You seem to think Hordes are the armies that really benefit, that simply isn't true. MSU benefits because MSU allows you to force an elite army to fully deploy before you deploy anything of value (or on the table at all.) I mean say any list with reserves against you, needs 2 or 3 reserve units to force you to deploy your whole army. Then can deploy to minimize your effectiveness.

Just because the TOs were on the playtest team does not mean GW used all their feedback. It seems like this is an instance where that feedback was ignored. I would wager most TOs also had feedback regarding Maelstrom set up, Kill points, and the missions in general that don't seem to have been used. I mean the relic is a straight up terrible mission for competitive play, you think no one said "hey winning the game for holding this one objective is really bad."

I'm not fully behind only getting a +1 for finishing first because of the huge bonus to MSU in the deployment method, but I do think, auto go first is a huge advantage. Maybe a solution would be Finish first is +1 to roll for first turn, if you finish say 5 deployments before your opponent you also get +1 to seize in the case you lose the roll for first turn. If you finish 10 deployments before gain an additional +1 to seize (so 4+ seize). The problem with a single solution (either just +1 or just go first) is scalability. Take your list against a 4 knight list. You both built to take first turn, but you auto-get it for having one fewer drop? seems a bit off to me.

I think the book missions are complete gak.however I have faith nova and eventually itc will go back to multi tiered missions. And as long as those tournament missions have an element of killpoints it will partially counter MSU. If MSU is still to strong then killpoints should have more of an emphasis in missions.

I've never been a fan of KP because it is too easily gamed, yes MSU has an advantage, but with superheavies in the game, KP as part of a mission can often be too important. I like the ITC proposed change of getting points equal to power level, I'd need to test it out but it intrigues me as an easier VP mechanic. I feel that when KP are a part of every mission, they end up being too important. I think things like number of models near an objective scoring has helped go against MSU a bit, as would advantages to going first for having fewer units.

KP, without modifications, is unplayable in 8th. There's too many units that have been sub-divided and it is hugely unbalanced. For example a mek gunz unit now gives 2 kill points per gun, and a similar issue happens with tau drones.

i always thought that Nova and ITC did a good job at working in KP missions. I like that its in the formats but limited.

Kill points, well applied, is great for missions as it helps balance the format. But it's awful if used as the rulebook says. If we use the "points equal to power level", there's no point in having kill points at all, as it won't punish MSU. On the contraire, it favours maxing out on gear as it does not add to your power level value, so MSU would be even more of a problem

That's why the "small army goes first" rule must stay as it is, because it does for balance what kill points did before.

[quote=MVBrandt 729578 9457782 null
What makes you say this about the testers? It isn't true BTW.

This really shifts the meta in favor of the horde armies now.

Seizeman wrote:
Kill points, well applied, is great for missions as it helps balance the format. But it's awful if used as the rulebook says. If we use the "points equal to power level", there's no point in having kill points at all, as it won't punish MSU. On the contraire, it favours maxing out on gear as it does not add to your power level value, so MSU would be even more of a problem

That's why the "small army goes first" rule must stay as it is, because it does for balance what kill points did before.

Maxing out gear in a non-PL format would mean having fewer MSU units because you spent more on gear. So that would punish MSU. What it punishes is units that are not durable but have high PL. In theory it punishes MSU because most MSU don't max gear but power level assumes a decent amount of gear. If anything PL favors elite armies that load up on gear on few low PL units. It just doesn't punish MSU vs non-msu as much as straight KP.

Lets look at 2 armies

4 imperial knights at 2k points
1 x Errrant
2 x Paladin
1 x warden
is 96 PL

Then an MSU marine list
Pedro Kantor
Primaris Lieutenant
5 x scouts
5 x scouts, snipers cloaks
5 x scouts, Snipers cloaks
5 x Tacticals, melta combi-melta
5 x Tacticals, melta combi-melta
5 x Tacticals, melta combi-melta
5x Devestators, 4Lascannons, cherub
5x Devestators, 4Lascannons, cherub
5x Devestators, 4Lascannons, cherub
7 x Assault cannon Razorback, storm bolter

is 102 PL

So it is obviously quite a bit better for the MSU list vs straight KP (4 vs 18), but the knights are tough to kill. It would take some testing, but seems to me like it makes a more interesting KP game than the marines needing to table the opponent to win.