Editing Warhammer Army Project/Tips (section)

===Initiative===
Determines who goes first in a fight, it's important to many units. In a combat round not going first will risk your units not getting their full buckets of dice as some of your dudes get diced before getting their attack off. Especially important if they are fragile, but less so if they have very good protection or if their unit is so big, the loss of men will not affect your combat power. 

The initiative is boosted by 1 on charges, and certain weapons also affect it. Spears and Lances let your cavalry have a combined total of +2 and +3 respectively when you charge, while Spears and Pikes on infantry give a +1 or +3 respectively if they get charged by something bigger or faster than them. There is also a factor of some armies having such a big gap between their initiatives (ie. Elves vs the majority of books) that trying to go first is pointless most of the time. 

The base initiative is often tied to race, so here is a quick lineup by order of slowest to quickest:

*-: non-attacking objects, stomp attacks - Stomps, in particular, are resolved after absolutely everything else, including ASL attacks.
*-0.5: affected by Always Stikes Last - ASL does not reduce the initiative but states that model attacks after everyone else
*0: Slow race with great weapons - Dwarfs with great weapons have an effective initiative of 0, but still attack before ASL
*1: Saurus Warriors, Humans with great weapons
*2: The slow Reaction speed Races - Greenskins, Dwarfs, Ogres, Nurgle, Elite Humans with great weapons and most often skeletons
*3: Humans, Elves with great weapons
*4: Elite humans, Norskans, Chaos warriors, Skinks, Skaven
*5: Elves, vampires