Value of Master Tactician

What is it worth ?

A normal seize the initiative is 6 , 4+ . So 2 in 6 more , which is roughly 1 in 6 games it will come into play ...

Does anybody have any figures on DE win rates eg going first vs 2nd .. eg if 50% and 30% . Then you can say 1/6 games have a 20% higher chance . Master tactician would increase your chance of winning by 3.3% per game..

If so what do you do with Vect besides thi s?

A 50% chance to set up 2nd and go 1st is fantastic for DE but Vect is so damn expensive!

I win more going second.

I agree with mush. Being able to keep away from everything and set up so tey don't have LOS is a big boost. Only time I like going first anymore is if it's night fight

I struggle to set up everything out of LOS though. You have to have a lot of serious terrain around to hide even just 3 Raiders so that an opponent can't draw a bead at all. Night fighting helps though, if you get it.

I regularly take vect, if I win the roll off I normally let the opponent go first it really screws up their deployment. We have to deploy as if we are going second anyway if we don't then we are that fragile that half the army gets wiped out.
Deploying second with a 50% chance of going first is gold IMO.

Interestingly if you take smurf allies with their HQ Cato Sicarius you get to re-roll steal the initiative and you can have him turn 1 come down in a drop pod with a bunch of marines as a massive distraction. This does sink alot of points but it is alot of fun!

He is also a monster in cc as long as he goes up against 3+ armour or less.

Yeah in if you can't hide everything, starting troops 6" away from their vehicle is really nice too. Really forces target prioritization from your opponent. The fact that they can move back into 2" coherency of the vehicle embark, then still move the vehicle and shoot as normal is priceless.

The goal isn't to hide anything. It's a myth that you need line of sight blocking terrain to go second as dark eldar, it can help, but it's not needed.

Simply make sure all your units have some form of cover and force as many tough choices on your opponent as possible. Start all your troops out of their transports in area terrain so they can go to ground if need be and keep them safe from explosions. This forces even more target saturation (remember you can still flat out the turn you embark, as long as the transport didn't move before you embarked).

Range is another big factor in reducing first turn fire. Though sometimes it's better to start closer if it means you can present more threats to your opponent. That being said every game is different.

Going first almost always carries a 1/6 chance of losing for us because of seize the initiative.

I'm new to DE, but as an Ork player I really needed to go first in 6th. There was no way to hide everything, as there was just too much to hide, and I often won only due to getting that first kill victory point. If I didn't go first, with all those squishy units, I was practically handing my opponent that VP.

I don't know if I'll use Vect, but I know I'll set up as if I'm going second and that I won't hold back if I end up going first!

Interesting discussion , on moving first .. it looks like the terrain has a major bearing eg his value increases the more open the board . Do you guys find it hard hiding raiders due to being in the air ?

I saw this 2012 Grand Tourney list and it used Vect as an ally

http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/3th-Seed-Sean-Nayden-Eldar-Dark-Eldar.pdf

Nice legal list there or do we not bother for transport capacities at GT's :/

Very strange setup he ran I'd love to see how that fared against a horde army..

I personally think vects way too expensive.. If we steal the initiative its unreal if we setup second however I don't think his point cost warrants the fact that most of us setup to go second anyway.. I couldn't justify him below 1750 maybe more for my playstyle. That and I feel other HQs can bring more important benefits to the table for way cheaper

bklooste wrote:

I saw this 2012 Grand Tourney list and it used Vect as an ally

http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/3th-Seed-Sean-Nayden-Eldar-Dark-Eldar.pdf

Except for the fact that that is an Illegal list, you can't take squads bigger than the transport capacity of their transport (it says so clearly in the Dark Eldar codex.

That beast star list did well until tau got released, markerlights shut it down pretty hard.

panic wrote:

Nice legal list there or do we not bother for transport capacities at GT's :/

Very strange setup he ran I'd love to see how that fared against a horde army..

I personally think vects way too expensive.. If we steal the initiative its unreal if we setup second however I don't think his point cost warrants the fact that most of us setup to go second anyway.. I couldn't justify him below 1750 maybe more for my playstyle. That and I feel other HQs can bring more important benefits to the table for way cheaper

Looks like they missed that ... Ooops..

Vect looking at 1850 and 1999 games. I mean if you think the first turn stel by improving our win by 3% is say worth 100 points then he is 140 which is not bad..