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I hear so much talk about Alpha Strikes and how much damage a full strength unit can do to another unit. So I am wondering if everyone plans for turn 1.

I played a game against Chaos Daemons and got to go first, but honestly I think I would have faired better by going second. Closer to rapid fire range. closer to initial charge distances, Easier to focus on certain enemies and counter-play.

I am wondering your thoughts on going first vs going second. Do you think some armies are better at going 2nd than others? Do some armies NEED to go first?

Losing first turn to a heavy shooting list is usually a disaster in the making. Losing first turn to demons lets them buff up and get closer, but they can't melt 1/2 your list before you move.

Depends on the list and the map.

If there are actually a lot of places to hide then it could be worth planning to go second.

on the other hand if the table is a barren desert then you are probably boned.

on the other other hand if the enemy has a ton of long range shooting or is running something like raven guard or alpha legion then you may be boned as well if you give up first turn.

since a lot of talk on this forums is about balls to the walls competitive you could expect a lot of las cannons and sneaky heavy units infiltrating in first turn. in a casual sense you probably wont need to deal with it as much as you think.

Can't really see any disadvantage to going first in most games that don't rely on last-turn objectives. Even if your entire army sits still and you just fire whatever long range weapons you have at the enemy you've still gained a marginal advantage compared with going second.

If you gain 6" of movement with a melee list then that's an advantage too. Even if you get annihilated by enemy rapid fire shooting next turn then that's only what would have happened turn 2 if you'd chosen not to go first.

Depends on the mission and terrain quite a bit in my experience.

I may need to add a poll to this, But I feel that maybe 1 out of 10 times would someone choose to go 2nd when given the opportunity to go first. It might actually be less often than that.

ITC Champions Missions is about a 50/50 split on who wins, first or second with the edge favoring the player who goes second due to the way scoring works.

It depends on the lists, the missions and the terrain involved.

"hope for first turn, plan on going second" is what I live by. If you can't survive the first turn punch then you've basically turned your game into a coin flip. Especially if you're an army with a lot of drops, you should never just assume you'll get first turn. If you get it and can take advantage of it, great. But most of the time I feel like you need to assume the worst and when you're surprised with something better then you can capitalize on it.

I will say some of the itc missions heavily reward going second for objectives, but I'm still not sure if that balances out going first for the alpha strike. Many of them have certain goals that are achieved after both players have resolved the rest turn, which means whoever good second has a good chance to knock the opponent off key objectives for bonuses or knock out more units.

Now that a lot of people adapted to Alpha Strikes with screens, some armies prefer to go 2nd and wait for breaks in enemy movement and deployment.

I set up pox walkers, spawn, and nurgling up the board that protect me well from turn 1 deepstrikes, but once I move forward to claim Objectives, (we always play Maelstrom) the gaps appear.

Most Daemon players I've played always reserve themselves one turn.

"hope for first turn, plan on going second..."

Quoted for truth. I will add that it’s even better if your army can still go second if that’s the optimal choice - for example end game scoring as has already been noted. And also even if you’re going first there’s always the chance your opponent might seize the initiative - so even if you’re going first it’s wise to deploy in a manner to mitigate getting seized on which in a way is a hindrance to going first.

I just assume I am always going second. I have only gone first with my Blood Angels once in the last eight games... Ugh.

The only time it’s better to go second is as an assault army playing another assault army to increase your chances of getting the charge. Even with going second, tabling is still a thing and the chance to cripple an opponents army first turn is too much of a chance to pass up.

Going first is only 30% of the win. 50% is listbuilding and minmaxing. Another 15% is dice luck elsewhere and the rest is tactics.

 Icculus wrote:
I hear so much talk about Alpha Strikes and how much damage a full strength unit can do to another unit. So I am wondering if everyone plans for turn 1.

I played a game against Chaos Daemons and got to go first, but honestly I think I would have faired better by going second. Closer to rapid fire range. closer to initial charge distances, Easier to focus on certain enemies and counter-play.

I am wondering your thoughts on going first vs going second. Do you think some armies are better at going 2nd than others? Do some armies NEED to go first?

Don't rely on being closer to rapid fire range etc by going to second. That works against h2h armies. Shooty armies don't neccessarily move one inch closer. Certainly if scenario isn't forcing it my IG will generally just blast away if I get first turn. With turn 1 assaults already possible don't see point in giving up rerolls and ease up any charges.

If scenario isn't one that makes it bad idea for enemy to sit back and opponent is shooty army he will likely stand still. On some deployment zones and rules it's even possible that he'll PULL BACK units he deployed forward to push your forces from his fire base. So you end up actually further away...