The results from WTC show that the first player has a 57% chance to win the game. On average any player will win the game 50% of the time, since ties are close to impossible. If it's possible to get a tie, I am ignoring it for this calculation.
The math
The chance that this result happened by chance can be computed using the Binominal Test - you can try it here for yourself: Easy Binomial Test Calculator (socscistatistics.com)There were 292 games played (n), 166 (or 167) games were won by the first player (K), and the chance of winning a game (p) is 0.5. Inserting the numbers show that the chance of the first player getting at least this many wins by chance is .011, or 1.1%. So we can conclude that it is almost certain that the first player win rate is due to going first being better, and not due to random chance.
I am not a professional statistician, but this seems rather straight forward - feel free to inform me if the calculation is wrong.
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| Went second against Lucant, pushed off scenario |
Discussion
Every single player I have talked to during the WTC agrees that going first is a huge advantage. One just said "don't even look at the table or matchup, always go first". The problem is as follows:
Most armies can run units (almost) to the middle of the table turn 1, leaving the opponent the choice of not grabbing much - if any - table space, or getting alphaed top of 2. Both are bad.
Many armies can run, then defensive / control feat plus run, scoring zones on their side while leaving the second player scrambling to not lose on points top of 3.
I had several matches at the WTC where I knew that if I won the die roll I had good chances, and if I lost I was already in trouble. And that was exactly what happened, if I went first I had a fairly good time (even if I lost - I am not all that good), but going second was brutally hard.
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| Going first against Borka |
I even had one game where I had to move AD units backwards bottom of 1 to not get charged. It’s ridiculous, Steamroller has to be fixed for Mk4. Mk4 is otherwise amazing though, best edition ever, miniatures are awesome, keep it coming.
Just fix Steamroller, please!
