Twist on rolling off for deployment

I've been thinking for a while and had just always accepted the 40k 5th edition way of rolling off for first turn and deployment.

That is the following:

• Both players roll off.  
• The winner then decides whether to go first or second.
• Player who goes first chooses which deployment zone they want.
• Player going first deploys their forces.
• Player going second deploys their forces.
• Players deploy infiltrators and perform scout moves.
• Player going second may attempt to seize initiative.
• Game begins.

That is the player with the first turn gets to decide not only who goes first, but also which sides each player will start on.  

For a while I never questioned it because it was all I knew, but recently I was watching a game of American football on tv and something dawned on me.  In football at the beginning of the game, there is a coin toss and the winner gets to choose one of three options.

• Offense (Receive the kickoff)
• Defense (Kick the ball off to the other team)
• Choice of side of the field to defend.

Whether they play in the Super-Bowl or Adepticon Team Tournament; they use the same uniforms for both.

While in the vast majority of circumstances teams will choose either to take Offense or Defense, the option still remains to simply pick the side of the field to defend and allow the opponent choice of offense/defense.  

I then wondered if there could be an application to 40k rolling off for first turn because it is essentially the same thing, except replacing a dice roll-off with a coin toss.  The only difference is in 40k, the player who takes first turn also gets the choose the side of the field to defend.  In the 40k tournament I ran last weekend, I made a twist to the rolling off for deployment rules.  

• Both players roll off.
• The winner gets to choose to either A) go first or B) to go second and choose deployment zone.
• Deployment zone is chosen by player going second.
• Player going first deploys their forces.
• Player going second deploys their forces.
• Players deploy infiltrators as per normal rules.
• Players scout as per normal rules.
• Seize the Initative.
• Begin game.

I tested it out at the tournament I ran last weekend for the Adeptus Windy City group at the Chicago Battle Bunker.  I was unsure about how the response would be to the mission, but it got an extremely positive response, with several players wanting to incorporate it into events they run or take it back to their gaming groups.

It's a small twist that hopefully can put some added strategy to the game.  Depending on the terrain setup, it may also reduce the damage of a first turn alpha strike as the player going second can pick the best deployment edge in an attempt to mitigate the damage done.

I would encourage anyone to at least try out this idea or something similar and let me know what you think of it.  

Catching up...

I know it's been many months since I've last updated.  A lot has happened since my last post and I've simply just haven't had the time to blog, between school, work, hobbying, and other stuff.

I went to the NOVA Open in August.  I had the pleasure of joining forces with Neil and Steve from the 11th company to play as "Team Podcast" or "Team Win at all costs" in the Trios tournament.  We did quite well for our first time playing together, taking 2nd place out of 12 teams.  Our team played Dawson and Silas from the Imperial Vox Cast.  Well Neil and Steve played them.  I was in the singles match against their third teammate, Joe Guardsman from the IVC forums, who was a very fun guy, but it was a pretty one sided victory for the Dark Eldar.

I did alright in the singles tournament, going 5-3 overall, ending as runner-up in my bracket on day 2.  First game, I played Dawson from IVC.  He controlled the game very well, but I nearly stole it in the end with my DE contesting objectives.  Also I got to have some fun games against Ciaran from the Overlords podcast, played against Neil in a friendly match.

In September, I traveled out to California for Da Grand Waaagh, hung out with Carl from the Independent characters podcast as well as Bill and Dawson from IVC.  I got in a friendly game against Carl at 'The Boiler Room' and watched in amazement as he rolled nothing but ones for difficult terrain and dangerous terrain.  It led to a turn three rout of his Nurgle themed chaos army by my Dark Eldar.  In the tournament itself, I ended up going 2-1-2.  Had two games I could've won (I was winning in attrition), but didn't get enough done to win the mission, so they were both draws.  The last game I played Bill from IVC.  We had an excellent, fast played, fun game against his Raven Guard.  I pulled out a win on the objectives, but it was a game more dominated by movement than shooting.

In October, the Eternal Warriors podcast has gone on hiatus until January.  We're working on some format adjustments and hope to be back even better.  In the meantime, I've been steadily working on getting use out of models I normally don't use.  Recently when I've been meeting for friendly games, I've made lists using all models I haven't played with in a long time.  I played in the local Adeptus Windy City tournament with my Dark Eldar, but didn't do very well.  I realize that I need to get more practice, as often I may only get 1-2 games total between tournaments.

This month, I signed myself up for Adepticon.  I barely managed to get a hotel room in time, and just barely got signed up for the events as they sold out super fast.  I'm going to play in the 40k Championship Friday, Team Tournament on Saturday (Go Team Podcast!), and the Warmachine Team tournament Sunday.  I'm excited to play in these events, but I have no idea what I will bring for these events.  I know I'll bring Skorne for warmachine.  For 40k, I may try to get the Apollo Marines done by Adepticon.

 Also I ran the monthly Adeptus Windy City 40k tournament last weekend.  We had 20 people for a spirited three rounds of play.  Everyone seemed to have a good time and really enjoyed the twist I put on the standard roll-off for deployment.  Here are the Tournament Pics that I took, showing the different games and interesting scenes.  The things that surprised me were that there was only one Grey Knight player, one Space Wolves, and one IG player.  I think it was just a case of people got bored of running the same armies for several months so they switched up and used different armies.