Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, I keep hearing people say over and over again on here and other forums that 7th is a "shooting edition". While I have no intention to discuss whether this is true, I have been wondering what people would call a "assault edition". What would need to change to make assault the top dog? Can you do it without making shooting worthless? What would allow a edition that was a healthy mix of both. Just curious about what people think.

A lot of it stems from how many times an Assault unit has to sit with their thumbs up their backsides and get shot in the face. A unit arrives from Deep Strike, they wait and get shot. A unit comes from a transport without Assault Vehicle, they wait and get shot. A flyer zooms/swoops across the table and has to wait a turn after switching to ground mode so it can get shot. A unit Infiltrates within 12" of an enemy, which is well within the threat bubble of charge range, but too bad, they wait and get shot. Not to mention the added shooting of charging into combat. A recent MWG video showing a Dreadknight being Instant Death-ed by a lucky Overwatch while it tries to charge is a spectacular example. Or charging through cover means hitting at Initiative 1 unless you arbitrarily have grenades. Never mind that not every race uses grenades but some races use grenades on everything. Why don't my Genestealers, a CC specialist, have an equivalent anymire (used to have flesh hooks but that's gone) and any Tactical Marine ignores half the rules?

Getting rid of some of those penalties or making Assault Vehicles not just 250pt Land Raiders or nonexistent in most armies would help a lot. Overwatch makes sense and I support that idea, but Infiltrate or Deep Strike being unable to Assault the turn it arrives or Turn 1? That severely punishes the chance for Assault to be worth the effort. You have to take 4+ more models than needed because that's an optimistic count of how many will die while they stand around with a dumb look on their face.

4th was enough I had to see to not want to see another assault based edition.

What seems to always tip it in one direction or the other is how many restrictions they put onto that phase that makes it the weaker one.

Freezerassasin wrote:
So, I keep hearing people say over and over again on here and other forums that 7th is a "shooting edition". While I have no intention to discuss whether this is true, I have been wondering what people would call a "assault edition". What would need to change to make assault the top dog? Can you do it without making shooting worthless? What would allow a edition that was a healthy mix of both. Just curious about what people think.

3E and 4E were assault heavy editions. They had lots of terrain rules that completely blocked LoS, were much more able to assault from transports, you could consolidate from winning one combat into base contact with another unit and lock it in combat, non-skimmer shooting vehicles were exceedingly mediocre at best in most cases so their firepower wasn't as much of an issue, ignores cover weapons & abilities were much less common, there was no overwatch, and you could assault out of reserves (but still not deep strike). The armies that usually won GT's, and generally armies that won by the biggest margins, were assault armies or armies that had a powerful CC component in 3E and 4E. You could go years without seeing an IG army

Honestly, probably the most balanced "everything is viable" edition, despite its many drawbacks, was 5th edition. Most assault units were viable without being insanely overpowered. A couple relatively easy fixes would be to allow units to assault out of stationary transports and out of reserves would solve issues for a lot of units.

That said however, it's not just core rules issues. Lots of units that were formerly viable aren't any longer because of changes to their wargear and the functionality of their opposition. Wyches for example no longer have access to AP2 weapons on upgrade characters and many of the units they find themselves engaging are increasingly resistant to (or simply immune to) their S3 attacks. Genestealers formerly Rended on 6's to hit instead of to-wound, but then Rending started getting applied to lots of different things (like assault cannons) and had to be toned down, and Genestealers never got appropriately costed to reflect this. There's a good number of issues like this.

That said, CC is not dead this edition, far from it, I still lose units to CC in just about every game I play, it's just there's lots of units that can't engage in it effectively.

The difficulty of moving and shooting has gradually been rolling back. It used to be that you couldn't shoot a rapid fire weapon past 12" if you moved and longer ranged assault weapons were rare. Combined with fixed charge distance it made it very hard to move to evade assaults while still fighting back. Now shooting units can do things other than stand around in a line waiting their turn to get smashed.

Variable charge range introduces uncertainty to assaulting. In the past you could be reasonably certain of being able to get the charge before you've made the attempt to do it. Much easier to plan around. In contrast you now always know if your shooting weapons are in range before you try to use them.

Trends in army design. There's now more firepower to be had and assault largely hasn't kept up.

3rd was the assault edition. Blood angels moving 18" getting out and assaulting from rhinos, obliterating the unit they charging then sweeping advance 2D6" into the next unit.

Those were when assault was viable and shooting was STILL better then.

Third was clearly the assault king, and it could be abused something fierce. However, I think forth edition, even with the entrapment rules was the most favorable to assault vs shooty balance. It wasn't as overpowered as 3rd and as such made a hybrid shooty/assault armies much more viable. You didn't need to strongly focus on one or the other.

With the regularity of failing a 6" charge across open terrain (not including wounds due to overwatch) 27% of the time... 7th edition is not assault friendly no matter how you look at it.

5th was in a pretty good place assault vs shooting; a few tweaks were needed (assaulting out of outflanking was lame and funneled a lot of games into the middle of the table to avoid it; there was zero risk involved, unlike the few deepstrike and assault units and using transports), but instead GW added nerf on top of nerf which I noticed as soon as I flipped through the 6th edition BRB, and at the time I only played shooty armies and went, "wait, this is too much,"

- Overwatch. Good idea, poor implementation. Adds a lot of dice rolling for limited impact. It would have been better to give units the option to go into overwatch mode and fire in the opponents turn; basically at-will interceptor, and provides counters to outflanking units, deep-strikes and a balance to units which "hide" in assault; see an enemy deathstar in combat with a single guardsmen at the end of your turn? Put the units around him into overwatch; eliminates a non-sensical byproduct of the rules and introduces real choices. These would not be snap shots, obviously.

- Transports. It makes no god damned sense that so many armies completely lack an assault transport, or they only come at Land Raider prices. There are so many options; mark of khorne on rhinos makes them assault transports for similarly marked units, allow units in general to assault out of stationary vehicles. That was never a serious problem in older editions.

- Charge range. The complete randomness makes charging a frustrating conclusion to what is a frustrating process in closing with the enemy. While the average charge range is 7'' now, the reality is you want to be within 2-3 inches, and usually forgo shooting with any assault unit for fear of ending up just slightly out of range. Premesuring added completely certainty to shooting, but random charges created complete uncertainty for assault. But then I don't much care for premesuring myself; I liked it at first, but it's so easily gamed, especially with assaults and reduces another element of skill; guesstimating ranges was a big thing. Nothing more obnoxious than opponents starting their deployment by measuring every last difference and demanding the stats of all your units to ensure they have the exact correct, optimal deployment.

- Deep Strike and Assault. Always limited, only like, what 4 units in the game ever had this capacity, and they weren't exactly game-winners. Vanguard veterans were super-expensive, Zagstruk gave one unit of stormboyz the ability to do so, and they weren't half as effective as they are now. They gave utility to some units which are pretty one-dimensional now, and were an excellent tool against gunlines, but came with serious risk; these units were expensive, and mishaps are bad, especially if you wanted to land inside charge range.

Deep striking assault units, with the possible exception of very cheap ones, should have a shooting deterrent.

The relic in the Necron codex that allows forcing one turn of snap firing at that unit is a good example.

Warp Talons blinding effect is the right idea, terrible implementation.

Basically, this kind of thing should be the standard, so that the sitting around for a turn with no or minimal (coughfive stormbolterscough) shooting isn't punished.

Honestly, probably the most balanced "everything is viable" edition, despite its many drawbacks, was 5th edition. Most assault units were viable without being insanely overpowered. A couple relatively easy fixes would be to allow units to assault out of stationary transports and out of reserves would solve issues for a lot of units.

Of course 5th edition was the Mech Edition, where assault was typically just a sideline for high powered vehicle dakka with razorback spam, chimera spam, dakka dreads, etc.

And yet it was still the most balanced between shooting and assault, if mech wasn't there.

I'd like to see an edition that is not an "assult edition" or a "shooting edition" I'd like to see an edition where both methods can be used effectively, no one actually superior to the other.

I'd not call 7-th edition explictly shooty. Assaulters have better midboard controle over shooters.

 koooaei wrote:
I'd not call 7-th edition explictly shooty. Assaulters have better midboard controle over shooters.

Very specifically it's FAST assaulters, there's a grand difference between flesh hounds and CSM assaulting with BP and knives. Or Wraiths and Bezerkers.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
I'd not call 7-th edition explictly shooty. Assaulters have better midboard controle over shooters.

Very specifically it's FAST assaulters, there's a grand difference between flesh hounds and CSM assaulting with BP and knives. Or Wraiths and Bezerkers.

Aye there is a clear "class divide" between good assault units and bad ones, hinged heavily on mobility (inherent or having one of the few good assault transports) and durability/affordability. People don't like terminators because they either slowly trudge up the battlefield and die, pay their unit price against for a transport with mediocre shooting capacity and the same capacity as a 35 point transport, or risk dying to mishap or an entire army shooting at them via deepstrike, and have little control over when they come in.

Wraiths run across the board in two turns and are almost impossible to kill with anything short of D templates. Lychguard aren't half as mobile, but are also superdurable and fairly cheap, these are decent assault units.

 koooaei wrote:
I'd not call 7-th edition explictly shooty. Assaulters have better midboard controle over shooters.

No, not really. My BA have control over their own graves usually at midboard.

Martel732 wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
I'd not call 7-th edition explictly shooty. Assaulters have better midboard controle over shooters.

No, not really. My BA have control over their own graves usually at midboard.

Use some drop pods then; Blood Angels are the best drop pod army.

I do agree though that 7th isn't a 'shooty' edition as assault is still easy to get to and psychic spam is a thing too.

If you're trying to rely to me, Pozy, you're on ignore. You might as well put me on ignore as well.

Isn't that a little immature? Threatening to ignore me because you don't like that I think that Blood Angels are actually a good army?

SGTPozy wrote:
Isn't that a little immature? Threatening to ignore me because you don't like that I think that Blood Angels are actually a good army?

Quite the contrary, I've noticed you stalking Martel posts throughout the forum, bringing up how BA drop pod armies are the best even when that's not the OP's topic, conveniently always after Martel posts first in the thread (i.e. this one). Also if you consider someone ignoring you as a threat, that kinda reveals the inflammatory nature of your posts, doesn't it?

It's not a threat; he's ON ignore already. I'm trying to save him time and effort.

" I've noticed you stalking Martel posts throughout the forum, bringing up how BA drop pod armies are the best even when that's not the OP's topic"

Oh, that's what those messages are about.

No offence to anyone, but lets get back on topic

Regardless of previous BA postings..

I think there is far too much to mitigate assault based armies short of specific models.

Generally as someone mentioned they are either going to be fast (Wraiths) or tough but really cheaply costed (Lych)

One of the main issues that killed normal assault troops has been a vast variety of reasons, some worse then others of which I will compile a few:

No charging from non-assault based transports, ability to snipe out champions or hidden melee weapons, overwatch, charge ranges, loss of assault based outflanking, constant ways of generating difficult terrain, assault troops losing grenade options

Many of these alone would've hurt, but the combination of some drastic ones just made it worse and worse short of powerful fast assaults or powerful deathstars has killed any assault troops that aren't of the very specific variety.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Regardless of previous BA postings..

I think there is far too much to mitigate assault based armies short of specific models.

Generally as someone mentioned they are either going to be fast (Wraiths) or tough but really cheaply costed (Lych)

One of the main issues that killed normal assault troops has been a vast variety of reasons, some worse then others of which I will compile a few:

No charging from non-assault based transports, ability to snipe out champions or hidden melee weapons, overwatch, charge ranges, loss of assault based outflanking, constant ways of generating difficult terrain, assault troops losing grenade options

Many of these alone would've hurt, but the combination of some drastic ones just made it worse and worse short of powerful fast assaults or powerful deathstars has killed any assault troops that aren't of the very specific variety.

Pretty much.

 Grimskul wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:
Isn't that a little immature? Threatening to ignore me because you don't like that I think that Blood Angels are actually a good army?

Quite the contrary, I've noticed you stalking Martel posts throughout the forum, bringing up how BA drop pod armies are the best even when that's not the OP's topic, conveniently always after Martel posts first in the thread (i.e. this one). Also if you consider someone ignoring you as a threat, that kinda reveals the inflammatory nature of your posts, doesn't it?

I did it to return the annoyance to him as he (until recently) used to do the exact same thing so I'm showing him how annoying it is (and he ignored me whilst I stuck it out like a man).
What I said is relevant though as Blood Angels can charge after deep strike... How is that not relevant? They can do something that no one else can.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

No charging from non-assault based transports, ability to snipe out champions or hidden melee weapons, overwatch, charge ranges, loss of assault based outflanking, constant ways of generating difficult terrain, assault troops losing grenade options

I would love if 8th edition altered or even removed some of these things to make assault more viable. I prefer assaulting to shooting for sure.

Honestly, I think that consolidating into another enemy unit not only makes sense fluffwise, but also from a gameplay point of view.

Anyone stupid enough to keep non-assault units within D6" of a combat deserves to get his army clubbed to death. On rare occasions, someone charges a unit and completely obliterates it in 1 turn. When that happens, there's a possibility of 2 units getting assaulted one after another but disordered charge is a thing so the only really thing you'd getting out of it is extra attacks.

Speed is not everything. Sometimes you don't need to kill stuff to controle the board - just frighten it off for long enough.

I'm playing footslogging orkses and it works for me at least.

DaPino wrote:
Honestly, I think that consolidating into another enemy unit not only makes sense fluffwise, but also from a gameplay point of view.

Anyone stupid enough to keep non-assault units within D6" of a combat deserves to get his army clubbed to death. On rare occasions, someone charges a unit and completely obliterates it in 1 turn. When that happens, there's a possibility of 2 units getting assaulted one after another but disordered charge is a thing so the only really thing you'd getting out of it is extra attacks.

I agree with this point, this one change alone could make a big difference. Even a charge distance of 6" + D6 I think is a good one. Limit overwatch to assault weapons only. Meh.

 Rippy wrote:

DaPino wrote:
Honestly, I think that consolidating into another enemy unit not only makes sense fluffwise, but also from a gameplay point of view.

Anyone stupid enough to keep non-assault units within D6" of a combat deserves to get his army clubbed to death. On rare occasions, someone charges a unit and completely obliterates it in 1 turn. When that happens, there's a possibility of 2 units getting assaulted one after another but disordered charge is a thing so the only really thing you'd getting out of it is extra attacks.

I agree with this point, this one change alone could make a big difference. Even a charge distance of 6" + D6 I think is a good one. Limit overwatch to assault weapons only. Meh.

Yeah, no. It'd be too powerful. There are things that can get into combat very quickly and have higt charge ranges thanks to fleet and ignore terrain. Like beasts. Wraiths come to mind. Suggestions like: "just keep out of harm's way and spread your troops out keeping them apart from one another" won't work in larger games - you simply have no space to spread out and it's actually not always possible even on larger maps due to terrain.

And deathstar units that are impossible to kill in one go. What can, say, a not mobile shooty army do against them if it can't hault their advance with chaff?

I'm playing orks and even orks often have to protect themselves from charges using chaff units that block the path. And now you want to take those mek gunz, grots and smaller squads bauble-wrapping the important blobs out of the game.

It would be fine if we had explictly footslogging assaulters who do need something going for them. But when we have stuff that's in your face t2 and you even can't hault their advance...what'd be the point of shooting at all?

if I had to give the advantage to anyone in 7th edition, I would say that it's not necessarily the edition of shooters, it is the edition of speed.
Shooting units preform better than most assault units, however assault units with speed are good.
Fast moving units seem to be the key to 7th edition. You have your flyrants, wave serpents, wraiths, etc. To be a good unit, whether shooting or assaulting in 7th ed, you need to be moving fast, jinking, JSJing, etc.
7th edition is an edition of moving really fast.