Strike First, Strike Hard Show No Mercy
Today I want to speak about a topic that has been on my mind since the start of 6th edition - do you take first or second turn in games. Conventional wisdom has been to always take the second turn as Daemons to deny the enemy one of their shooting phases. I am here to tell you that conventional wisdom is wrong - against normal armies.
I completely get it. Daemons have to Deep Strike in - most of their units are assault based and opponents want as many shooting phases as possible to take them down. Unfortunately, the nature of Daemons has completely changed with the coming of 6th edition and the White Dwarf updates.
Screamers launch flyby attacks the turn they arrive, Flamers drop in and destroy tight vehicle formations while Soul Grinders can catch multiple vehicles in their Phlegm blast. Cover for vehicles is easier to get, but generally worse while Hull Points let vehicles get wrecked by attrition. All these factors combine to make Daemons an great Alpha Strike army with good follow on assault potential once they close - which is almost immediately unless you are contending with Warp Quake.
Add to that the protection Night Fighting gives your shooting - and that you lose that protection completely for your opponents first shooting phase if you take the second turn and Daemon simply want to go first. They want to knock enemy units out of vehicles, pin them, cause them to flee or make them stand there and shoot before being crushed in assault.
They also want to avoid the annoying Psychic powers that can make inflicting damage more difficult for Daemons - especially the divination rerolls and juke saves for moving. Finally, there is nothing better in an objective game - with Kill Points being 1 of 6 missions now - than putting a wall of Daemons in front of my opponent while they are still in their own deployment zone. Even if they manage to wreck 50-60 wounds of Daemons over the course of three turns (that is around 270 bolter shots for you sabremetrics guys w/ BS4 and a 5++), they are never making it to the backfield where my troops have been busy securing the objectives.
This last point is probably the most important - Screamers can severely restrict movement with thei r turbo boost - and can start Death or Glorying the incoming Tank Shocks. Flamers DS close anyway and get in the way while foot units have no way to make it by. The enemy is bottled up in their Castle - if they decided to castle against you - or you are pinning one flank down hard - having avoided half the enemy firepower - if they have spread out across their Deployment Zone.
I take the first turn whenever I can with Daemons - it is too good to give away. Not to mention, there is nothing like wrecking an enemies toys before they even have a chance to play with them.
I think the only real question is would I 'sweep the leg?'
Damn right I would Danielson.
The funny thing is the past 3 games I've lost are the ones I went first. Granted, my army is very different from daemons.
ReplyDeleteI think what it comes down to is the pairing and how comfortable your opponent is. Going second for many armies has a huge deployment advantage, especially with pre-measuring. All 3 of my losses when taking first turn were against opponents who were vastly more experienced with the army they were playing.
Your daemon list is more shooty than assaulty IMO and people can be unprepared for that. While 5th ed favored castling against assaulty daemons, that tactic actually hurts for the reasons you said.
I think orks and the new CSM would give you the biggest challenge being armies that bring enough fearless bodies to survive the alpha strike, overwatch, and tie up the screamers and flamers.
Keep up the good work tho, maybe someday we can get a game in.
I agree that some other armies want to take a second turn and react to deployment - Daemons on the other hand do not need to worry about this. Maybe a better title is 'Why Going First with Daemons...'\
DeleteIn general with Daemons I tend to roll an opponent or am just trying to survive with a model on the board. In either case it never comes down to that last turn, unless it is me trying to eke out 2 or 3 points. With an army like your DE you actually have to think about last turn objective grabs, being pulled off one in an assault and a number of other last turn Shenanigans.
Orks have always been a hard battle with Daemons - the change to fearless makes those mobs really good too. The CSM book with Noise Marines could be brutal - although Daemons tend to eat up MEQ. I need to see what builds emerge to know - if people spend alot of points on those CSM squads with upgrades and banners, things will go well for the Daemons.
I have also read through the CSM book a few times - I really want to bring a LVL 3 Slaanesh Sorcerer - possibly on a mount with some bikes in place of one unit of Fiends. That way he can swap into the Fiends unit as well.