NEED HELP on going second

I have played about 6 games since i have gotten home. I had an overwhelming number of models to put together so i didnt have all the models for an 1850 match i WOULDVE wanted. however, i had a pretty decent list. however, no matter how i put these lists together, it didnt seem to matter if i went second. If i went first, i dominated with overwhelmingly. If i went second, i was toast. so easy to blow up our transports now it almost seems going second isnt an option. Im sure there is ways around it. hopefully i can get some good advice. ALSO, i had a bout the other night on assaulting vehicles. this seems crazy to me. the way i have tried to play has been, get across the board IMMEDIATELY seeking cover when necessary. (try to get in CC) problem is, with a constricting board it seems inevitable that we will have our vehicles in assault range for the enemy as we come to a stop. i could not find anything anywhere on what the rules are on assaulting a vehicle that has moved flat out. to me it seems ridiculous that a squad can hit a vehicle on the same roll as it would if it were parked. anything????? BTW my usual list i had run consisted something like this:
-Haemy
-archon
-5 squad of incubi
-10 wracks
- 20 wyches
- 10 blaster born (2 squads)
- 1 ravager (learned my lesson, realizing i need to have 2)
- 3 raiders
- 4 venoms
- 1 razorwing jetfighter

on a side note:
I played a different game with hellions, with a less experienced player. I decimated mostly becuz i seized initiative and prolly due to lack of experience on my opponents part. however, the hellions worked swimmingly for me. I was able to move quickly, get good cover, the hammer of wrath worked kind of a little, the shooting with 30 shots was nice (had 15 hellions), and the hit and run afforded me to claim two objectives with one squad LAST TURN!!!! I assaulted with the hellions, then assualted again with my wyhces (had lelith, SHE WORKED AMAZINGLY). hit and ran with the hellions, while the wyches mopped up what was left of the SM infants. wyches claimed the objective they were already on, and the hellions hit and ran 12 inches (objectives placed very close to eachother).

sorry i rambled so much, been a while since i have been on here. Thanks for reading guys, and please let me know wha tyou think of the going second thing, it was almost sad, i had to concede twice)

I've had the misfortune of going second several times, and I've lost a few vehicles, but I did win 2 of the 4 times I went second, so 50% isn't bad. I need to look at my rule book and the FAQs but it seems like I read somethinb about assaulting a vehicle that has moved flat out. Yes yes the move Ravagers the better IMHO.

FWIW, you can only claim one objective with one unit, no matter how big that unit may be.

pray for night fight and that you can deploy somewhere where you can obstruct line of site. you can try to use the night shields and stay out of range but when most vehicles are shooting between 36" and the ridiculous basilisk shooting 240" its kinda hard. as for the assault of vehicles if they move they are WS1 and otherwise WS0. if there is anything more than that it is not in the main rule book.

The "win big lose big" is a common trend with Dark Eldar. In my experience I think the main culprit is players building their army to go first and not having a solid plan if they end up going second, which leads to winning when you go first and losing when you go second. With the addition of night fight this problem has only got worse again a lot of players rely too much on night fight and get punished badly when they come up against armies that can ignore it (imperial armies with search lights, Tau black sun filters etc). Combined with the glass cannon nature of the army and you will jump from one extreme to another.

How to get around this? Build your army and your battle plan around the worst case scenario: going second without night fight. The Dark Eldar army has all the tools it needs to be successful going first built in, so going first will never be a problem even if your list is designed to go second. This will make your games a lot more consistent.

How to get the most out of going second?

Reserves: reserves are really strong this edition. Coming in on a 3+ is a massive boost for DE. Going second means reserve units avoid and extra turn of your opponents shooting: coming in on turn 2 you avoid 2 of your opponents turns of shooting (his turn 1 and his turn 2), and only miss one of your turns of shooting (your turn 1). Your opponent always missing that extra turn of shooting can really make DE units like reavers/hellions/scourge a lot more survivable. Reserve also means the unit in reserve always gets the alpha strike even if you go second! This is huge considering the glass cannon nature of DE.

Objectives: going second is great for last turn denial or capture of objectives as well as earning line breaker. As there is a 50% chance the game will end on turn 5 and your opponent won't get a chance to shoot your scoring/contesting units. Abuse this!

Secondary objective: Going second with a fragile army like DE means your opponent should always get first blood. On the other hand our army is so mobile there is almost no reason not to get line-breaker (a luxury not all armies have). As for slay the warlord either gear your archon out to kill the enemy warlord or to gear him out to stay back and stay alive.

Cover and terrain: vehicles only need to be 25% obscured to get a cover save! This means in 6th even in the most terrain sparse board you should be able to give all your transports cover, by using them to shield each other. Remember you can put those venoms with fliker field in front to create cover for your raiders.

Stretch those legs: With S4 vehicle explosion being inside an AV10 open topped transport is not the safest of places. So keep your troops out of them until they need to move (if a transport hasn't moved before the troops embark it can move flat out after they embark). This tends to put your opponent in the hard position of what to shoot, it also means he tends to ignore those empty transports meaning your more likely to have them around at the end of the game, giving you more late game mobility.

Minimise incoming fire: Because of the massive mobility of DE it's a sensible idea to deploy as far away from your opponent as possible to limit their incoming fire first turn. First turn isn't a big deal if you only lose one or two empty transports.

Plan your Pain: Power from pain rocks, it's a good idea to try and make sure units that can benefit from it get those infantry kills. Don't shoot venoms at units that are almost dead if you can avoid it, save those for your reavers, deepstriking hellions or a unit of warriors. A 5+ save might not seem like much but it makes your T3 units that little bit more survivable and make riding in our fragile transports less daunting. Power from Pain is designed to compensate the high casualties DE take, if you don't make the most of it, you are playing with one hand behind your back!

In short have a solid plan for when things don't go your way (second, no night fight) and then enjoy the clean sailing when you get first turn. This way you should have far more consistent games.

Ironically I prefer going second!

I agree with going second!

Sometimes, especially in smaller point games (1000-1500), I find you can really minimize the amount of damage your opponent can do to you on his/her first turn. I find this allows me to really hit hard on my first turn.

In a 1000 point tournament I recently played in, I was even able to deny my opponent shooting at me at all. With nightshields, the use of terrain, and being able to see where your opponent deploys, it worked really well for me.

Also, more times then not, you can go second. If you win the dice roll, you can choose to go second, and if your opponent wins the roll they usually choose to go first. This allows me to almost build a strategy on going second.

vehicles being able to go all out if it didnt move during the shootting phase. i wasnt aware, thanks mush

I almost always end up going second, so I always deploy with as much cover as possible from major threats. Ideally, the most dangerous enemy guns can't even draw LoS.