First Turn Advantage - A problem for Ninth Missions?

With as strong as the Eradicators are, chances are you won't see to many of the Executioners. That is a lot of points to be one shot off the board by a unit that walks on in turn 2 or 3. Their 24 inch range makes it pretty hard to screen against or prioritize as a target when they start in reserves.

Ty Traughber

Where those fliers stormhawks Intercepts? I bought 2 and 2 repulsor executioners that are unassembled now since I was on the fence about how viable they are. I saw very few teams used fliers in smaller tournaments. When I looked at the top LVO 2020 lists. 7 of them were space marines and 0 of them had either any flier or any repulsor executioner

gundam

Exactly this! The ITC rules before were players rolled for first and second turn before deployment occurred, giving the second player a chance to hide from LOS and react. I really hope things go back to that direction, with the addition of more terrain on tables.

Justin Burton

Actually, that might help the numbers out a lot would be rolling to see who goes first BEFORE deployment. Part of what I think I am seeing is that people are deploying with the thought that they need cover, but MAY be able to go first, so will need to move away from cover to get a firing solution. Problem is there isn't enough cover and the enemy can move and draw a bead on just about everything. If you KNEW you were going second prior to deployment, I am sure set-up would be very different as well as the use of reserves. So maybe changing/tweaking the order of operations for determining who sets up first, goes first would be all that is needed...

Ty Traughber

Though mandatory reinforcements my not be a great idea, it might help reduce the amount of lose to TOASt (Turn One Alpha Strike). Having a plethora of targets makes it a shooting gallery and not everything can have a hiding spot. It also cuts down on the amount of firepower that can be lobbed downrange. Maybe forced for both sides. Attacker can bring 50% with 25% available on T2 and everything available on T3. Defender can set up to 75% with everything placed in reserve available on T2. Defender has choice of deployment and is set up first and Attacker goes first. This would give different advantages to both players at different stages of the first 3 turns.

Ty Traughber

A excellent example was a Youtube of Dark Angel Ravenwing versus Deathguard. I would have put money on the Deathguard because of the high resiliency. DA won the roll off, and then promptly stuck two flyers on two sides of the Deathguard deployment, effectively cutting those paths of movement. Then was able to force-channel them or freeze them until they could eliminate the fliers. DA was also easily able to concentrate fire because of the long movement of the Ravenwing and just about everything was able to unload to very devastating effect. There was almost no real way for the Deathguard player to counter. Flyers are definitely on my wish-list to acquire now.

Ty Traughber

The Alpha strike is just brutal now in 9th. Though I haven't played yet under the new system, watching all the online youtubes of games has been crazy how much can be taken off the board. I think a big problem is the size of the table. Putting opponents that close together is really cutting back on the effectiveness of the terrain. Yeah, everything might start behind cover and are obscure, but with the fast moving vehicles, bikes, and flyers, suddenly you are back out in the open again. Those extra couple of inches on the board really does open up the use of covering terrain. When that news came out, I thought assault was going to be the way to go, but seeing how devastating shooting can be early on, it has really changed my mind.

Ty Traughber

Possible solutions might be: player going second gets extra CP in their first command phase (maybe +1 for every 500 points/25 power in initial armies); player going second gets to nominate some units from the player going first that can't activate in turn 1; player going second gets to nominate some units from the player going first that are re-allocated to strategic reserves (maybe restricted to coming on in edges in the first player's deployment zone in turn 2). These don't need to be exclusive - if the player going second got 4CP (2000 point game) but could spend say 2CP to prevent 20 power worth of opposing troops activating in turn 1 or send them to strategic reserves, that would even things up nicely. Iron Hands would not be happy! [Sheds crocodile tears.] These solutions all have the advantage that they could be achieved within one minute of a roll-off, don't require changes to core mechanics, and can be flexed with the mission if it might require more/less of a handicap.

Nicholas Harmer

I think a system like Kill team would be better for 40k. That way there's more interactivity and a bigger chance for the second player to have a chance

Sem785

A system more like kill team would definitely make it more balanced, gameplay might slow slightly

Jeremiah Shepard

It works great in games like Infinity.

For years I’ve wanted 40k to switch to the system where one unit goes and then the opponent chooses a unit. Not the whole army, just a unit at a time until all units have gone.

I'd like to have Apokalypse style first turns, where you mark your units that were killed in your opponents first turn, but you still get to use them in your first turn before you remove them at the end of it. Otherwise I liked the attacker deploys then Defender deploys style of CA19 as it also sped up the start of the game significantly.

Sören the German (Trembich Moving Moments)