Since the arrival of 6th Edition, the general consensus on 40k has been that it is game suited to ranged combat, and good ol' melee has been nerfed to the extreme. I'm still struggling to see why this is the case, as so far it seems that the only major nerf we've had to assault is Overwatch. Yes, there are minor quips as well such as transports too but is it really fair to assume that an army based around melee combat is automatically destined to lose?

Overwatch: Sure, it can hurt in some cases, but the odds of you taking massive losses to Overwatch really that high? A Tactical Marine trying to kill a Chaos Marine via Overwatch has a 1/36 chance of actually doing any damage. In such an assault with 10 guys charging, then yes, you may take 1, maybe 2 casualties occasionally. Unless you're against Tau, which to be fair, suck in melee anyway so this is their compensation, Overwatch really shouldn't put much of a dent in your assault.

Varying charge range: Bit annoying I know, but it's a double-edged factor. Yes you might roll 2" for assault, much shorter than you could in 5th, but likewise you could roll for a 12" charge, double what you could previously do.

Transports: I can see how this would be annoying. Not being able to assault from a transport even if it's stationary is rather messed up, but there are other ways you can get around this such as Deep Striking, using faster troops, or even using transports anyway and shielding them from return fire before they assault.

I've just listed a couple of reasons why I've heard that Assault is dead. I'm not claiming those counterarguments as fact, I just want to start a discussion, because as I see it, assault really isn't as bad as it's made out to be.

Was Assault nerfed? I think that is a pretty undeniable fact.

Was it ruined? Nah. That's the internet echo-chamber effect going on where the loudest are the right-est.

Casualty removal from the front combined with random charge distance was the biggest blow.

Not being able to assault out of anything that isn't an assault vehicle along with the weakening of transports through the hull point system didn't help.

Assault isn't dead but if you aren't a FMC, Beast, or Cavalry it's definitely not the most effective way to go about your business.

I've been winning more it seems with melee forces than shooting ones. Granted, only my tau are mostly shooting, but since I can win melee with riptides, why not?

In a word, no. Assault is certainly no longer the dominant factors in 40k like it was in 5th ed, but it is still far from dead. As anecdotal evidence, most of my games are generally feature a good number of assaults, usually from both sides depending on the opponent, and these are often the deciding factor. Assault out of vehicles is a change I've not really found to affect me (although I was never a fan of transports at all in 5th).

Looking at it more mathematically and objectively, Overwatch is rarely a significant factor, and while it does tone down assaults, the potential for damage is fairly low. Charge range is now statistically 1" further than before on average, and in you are just as likely to roll 12 as you are 2.

Finally, the other think to bear in mind is that the real 'assault' codexes (nids, orks, BA, possibly SW and DE) have not yet been updated, but you can bet that when they do, they'll get some kind of buff to their assault prowess, just as the likes of tau and eldar have to shooting. Once nids are out, and orks are rumoured to be close behind, expect the meta will be a very different place.

Another way that assault was hurt was that you can't assault the turn your unit enters the table anymore, which really hurt a lot of outflankers in particular.

It isn't the deciding factor in 40k anymore but it's still viable. Overwatch is a joke unless you have some serious buffs to it via psychic powers or some kind of army abilities.

And that's a good point Paradigm - a lot of assault heavy armies haven't even been redone yet. I guess Chaos Marines are an assault-heavy army, but they're having a bit of trouble.

 Paradigm wrote:
Looking at it more mathematically and objectively, Overwatch is rarely a significant factor, and while it does tone down assaults, the potential for damage is fairly low. Charge range is now statistically 1" further than before on average, and in you are just as likely to roll 12 as you are 2.

This is more than a bit of a dishonest way of looking at it. A roll of a 12 is less likely to be required (it is however always a success) as a roll of a 2 is likely to screw you over (how many 1-2inch charges are you doing after all?). No one is declaring charges at 11-12 inch charge range, hell, most probably don't declare charges over 7. And overwatch doesn't need to be massive to have an effect. Removing one casualty from the front can, and often will, bump the needed charge roll up a whole number. Going from needing 5 or more to 6 or more is 4 roll possibilities lost. 6 to 7 is even worse, at 5 roll results. Even a 7inch charge is risky with a 41.7% chance of failure. It's not like these dedicated assault units have the means to survive being left in the open after all.

 Brother SRM wrote:

And that's a good point Paradigm - a lot of assault heavy armies haven't even been redone yet. I guess Chaos Marines are an assault-heavy army, but they're having a bit of trouble.

Chaos Daemons are an almost exclusively assault army, and they are doing fine. Thankfully to FMCs, Beasts and Cavalries but hey, they are still doing fine.

There are a lot of small factors that all work together to screw over assault.

Overwatch, as JPong notes, can take away the model who would make it into combat. Drawing casualties from the front means you have more total inches of movement required before contact.

Other small things that add up:

- Hammer&Anvil deployment, which can greatly increase the distance between deployment zones

- First Blood objective, which is far less likely to be decided in an assault

- Challenges, which can blunt the effectiveness of certain assaults

- AP on power weapons means they're less overall effective

- Shooting is more powerful. Pre-measuring allows your opponent to maximize models in-range, move&shoot rapid fire at range, move&snapshot heavy weapons, focus-fire causes more casualties, cover is not as strong overall.

- Flyers can't be hit in assault, meaning an all-assault army has a huge weakness. This then requires removing assault elements to add shooty things to deal with aircraft.


I don't think any of these, alone, would have killed off assault as a viable strategy (perhaps flyers), but taken together, we're left with a game that really doesn't favour assaults. In general, you're better off buying more guns than you are taking an assault unit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, yeah, and "Disordered Charges" taking the teeth out of multi-assaults is another one of the little things that add up.

Redbeard, a lot of the things you mention don't ruin assault, just add an element of change to it. For example, challenges just mean you have to be more careful about keeping more characters in the squad, and the AP changes to power weapons just means you can't take on TEQ with impunity now. But frankly, killing 2+ save models in CC was rarely the best idea in 5th anyway.

The thing to bear in mind was that in 5th, assault was the dominant force, thanks to rapid-fire weapons being less useful, guaranteed charge ranges and no penalty for multi-assaults. While it's now less good, it's still a significant force, just more balanced than it was previously.

 Paradigm wrote:
The thing to bear in mind was that in 5th, assault was the dominant force, thanks to rapid-fire weapons being less useful, guaranteed charge ranges and no penalty for multi-assaults. While it's now less good, it's still a significant force, just more balanced than it was previously.

I keep seeing this everywhere, but no one ever backs it up. Fifth was a shooting edition. Shooting won tournaments. Imperial Guard blew everything away. Even traditionally good close combat armies, like Space Wolves and Blood Angels, won the game in the shooting phase. Did everyone forget how Fifth actually played, or am I just crazy? It was nearly all tanks and armour. Tanks don't CC. Infantry were taken sparingly and preferably only if they could shoot (hint Long Fangs). Even Orks made the switch to shootas instead of choppas.

Where is everyone getting this Close Combat was OP in Fifth? Decisive, sure. But the assaulted army wanted it to be decisive. That way they could shoot the guys that did assault. It was one of the big advantages of multiple small units.

 curran12 wrote:
Was Assault nerfed? I think that is a pretty undeniable fact.

Was it ruined? Nah. That's the internet echo-chamber effect going on where the loudest are the right-est.

most of my games have ended with some big assualt.

What you are doing is confusing the two powerhouses of 5th, Vehicles/transports and assault. You tended to see a lot of armour in tournaments simply because the lack of HP for vehicles and the way glancing worked made them far more survivable. As such vehicles that could shoot and survive made it into tournament lists, but on the other end of the scale, of the two competitive styles of IG, one focused on armour, but the other focused on assault with power blob.

Your ork point is just statistics, in either edition shootas gave you more shots/attacks over a given period of several turns.

Rapid-fire changed for the better, in 5th the lack of ability to move and fire made them far more situational.

SW won by shooting simply because they could shoot as well as they could assault thanks to counter attack, so could fire rapid, get charged and be no worse off.

I suspect that they will 'rebalance' this by giving out assault units that are undercosted or have some crazy special rules.

This is basically what they did in cavalry in WHFB 8th.

 Paradigm wrote:
What you are doing is confusing the two powerhouses of 5th, Vehicles/transports and assault. You tended to see a lot of armour in tournaments simply because the lack of HP for vehicles and the way glancing worked made them far more survivable. As such vehicles that could shoot and survive made it into tournament lists, but on the other end of the scale, of the two competitive styles of IG, one focused on armour, but the other focused on assault with power blob.

And those power blobs did so well in tournaments, and all those vehicles were taken for the CC ability? No, they weren't. They were taken because they could shoot. Infantry were taken if they could shoot well, and opened up dedicated transports that could shoot.

 Paradigm wrote:
Your ork point is just statistics, in either edition shootas gave you more shots/attacks over a given period of several turns.

And you are acting like they didn't take it all for shooting. They took lootas galore and shootas. Because shooting was better. They actually had some of the best assault potential in Fifth, but they weren't winning tournaments with it.

 Paradigm wrote:
Rapid-fire changed for the better, in 5th the lack of ability to move and fire made them far more situational.

So they went from near ubiquitous to near ubiquitous. They got buffed, but I haven't argued anything about them or whether they needed it or not. It just further hurts assault as now they can be shot at full strength while chasing down that tactical squad, yay.

 Paradigm wrote:
SW won by shooting simply because they could shoot as well as they could assault thanks to counter attack, so could fire rapid, get charged and be no worse off.

No, they won shooting because they could put 30 rockets down field. The fact that they could hold their own in assault just made the further OP. Proof that they weren't winning by assault is they were couldn't shoot and charge. If they got into the choice between the two, they would shoot, no questions asked, because even 10 rockets has a good chance of doing damage.

Everything revolved around the shooting phase. Armies with poor shooting did poorly. Armies with great shooting did great.

 Ailaros wrote:

RELATIVE BUFFS FOR SHOOTING

- Your charge distance is at the mercy of the dice. I have seen several assaults that would have been in range in 5th fail in 6th.

- You can no longer run and assault with Fleet.

- Grenades got nerfed for assaulting through terrain.

- Assault grenades no longer hurt vehicles.

- Overwatch

- And, because it really needs to be mentioned twice given the scope of the rule, transported units can overwatch if their transport gets charged, walkers can overwatch, and flamers are overwatch BEASTS. There is now literally no point in attempting to assault a unit of burnaz.

- A unit type that IS IMMUNE TO CLOSE COMBAT was born and became a staple in many lists (fliers)

- You can't assault out of a non-assault vehicle ever and that includes when it is destroyed on you

- Multi-charges were nerfed

- Challenges killed a lot of the potential of combat beast characters

- You can't assault on the turn you come on from reserves

- You can't assault if you Infiltrate or Scout and go first

- The distance from which an assault vehicle brings you closer to the enemy is reduced

- Some random objectives half your assault range

- Furious Charge got nerfed

- Wound allocation forces you to take the models from the front as casualties, this makes an assault unit take an extra turn(s) of being exposed to gunfire before they can get stuck in.

- Wound allocation means that hidden weapons upgrades are no longer hidden. You only need to kill a squad to the point where the upgrade model is the closest to something. This is very easy to achieve with deepstriking.

- Loss of by-unit cover in favor of by-model cover destroys the ability for foot hordes to advance upfield.

- Addition of focus fire

- Addition of Precise Shot.

- Worsening of cover. Intervening units only give 4+, hills no longer area terrain, etc.

- Power weapons got screwed up. Either Ap3, or I1, take your choice...

- You can no longer disembark after moving more than 6" in a transport (killing mech assault units).

- grenades can now be thrown.

- walkers can no longer tie up squads in close combat.

- grenades now work against monstrous creatures in close combat. This hurts dedicated assault units relative to basic infantry that have no desire to be in close combat.

- pre-measuring makes it much easier to make sure shooting weapons are in range, while not helping assault units make it into assault more reliably.

- rapid fire now puts more shots out on the move.

- you can now move and fire heavy weapons. This and the above change to rapid fire mean that you can now back up away from assault units while still shooting.

- parts of a squad can now move without affecting the accuracy of heavy weapons.

- old wound wrapping gotten rid of. I'm glad, but for the purposes of this discussion, it is a boost to shooting more than assaulting.

- pile-in moves reduced to 3" from 6".

- unengaged models in a unit that is locked in close combat must now move closer to the enemy units. Used to capture objectives far away while in close combat with this one in 5th.

- barrage weapons may now fire within their minimum ranges.

- barrage weapons no longer lose strength against vehicles from off-center scatters.

- artillery units got MUCH more survivable.

- models with two pistol weapons can now fire them both.

- vehicles can shoot all weapons at cruising speed.

- in order to charge a vehicle, you must have some way of damaging it.

RELATIVE BUFFS FOR ASSAULT

- hypothetical increase of maximum charge range from 6" to 12". Given that assault range is no longer reliable, I still consider this more of a nerf than a buff. I mean, if you're 12" away, are you really going to attempt to charge? The most likely result is that your opponent will get some free overwatch, and you're still not making it into close combat.

- hammer of wrath.

- assaulting vehicles now gives you much better chance to hit.

- rage rule change

- gets hot now affects those rare vehicles that have it

So, some of these changes are more important than others, and you can uselessly nit-pick them all you like, but the fact is that there were 39 rule changes to make shooting better, and arguably up to 5 rule changes that make assault better.

Put another way, for every rule that made assault better, there were EIGHT rules that make shooting better.

6th ed is a shooting edition. End of.

Not to mention the codices that have come out since 6th. Eldar and especially tau make a mockery of assault. Or, really, any game mechanic that isn't rolling dice to see if you damage something.

Seems a lot of people here are taking the "well, i assaulted something and won in this edition, so assault isnt bad" route in this thread. Instances dont make good points.

Assault was 2nd rate in 5th, but it had its moments. All the big armies (guard, SW, GK) were so shooty that it was hard to close the gap, and two of them were actually decent enough in melee to deter you from closing.

6th did a few things to change the game that havent been mentioned:

1: Cover. With a 4+, you could be shooting at each other a while before units died. With a 5+, things die a lot faster to shooting, making shooting more valuable and assaulting to deny cover less valuable. Also the inclusion of ignore cover weapons further reduced the necessity for assaulter to remove those 2+ and 3+ cover save units.

2: fleet no longer being all that fleet: a lot of assault units were fleet. In 5th that was huge, since you added about 3.5" to your assault move. In 6th, its more like an additional 2" and you could actually roll less on the fleet reroll. It was also not uncommon for beasts to go 24" in a turn if they got that 6 rather than the near impossibility of it happening now.

3: casualties from the front: This, combined with overwatch, means you are losing a lot of the ability to close the gap when spread out to mitigate blast effectiveness. If you spread each unit 1.5" from the next, you are losing about 2" charge range with just a few casualties. Before you lost nothing.

4: fliers made it necessary to shoot. You cant assault fliers, and they are a big part of this game now. Helldrakes eat most assault units, so you NEED to have a solution to them.

5: outflank nerfs. Just look it genestealers. The inability to assault out of outflank or on first turn infiltrate just ruined a lot of assault armies.

All of these turn into this: if you want to assault in 6th, you have to be able to tank damage. Glass cannon assaulters are dead and rotting. A large portion of the assaulters in the game were mid quality or glass cannon assaulters, meaning they are gone. Therefore, you see far less assault. They do exist, but outside of MCs, 2++ demons, terminators in land raiders, or the thousand gaunt nid swarm you wont see much of any effective assault. Even with those lists, shooting is still a large portion with only a small portion of the list actually devoted to melee.

Paradigm wrote:Redbeard, a lot of the things you mention don't ruin assault, just add an element of change to it.

Did you even read my post? It wasn't a list of things that ruined assault, it was a list of things that, when taken all together, ruin assault. Individually, not one of those things would have doomed assault armies. But when you have to work harder and take more casualties to get into assault and then do less damage once you're there, it's hard not to see this as a nerf.

The thing to bear in mind was that in 5th, assault was the dominant force, thanks to rapid-fire weapons being less useful, guaranteed charge ranges and no penalty for multi-assaults. While it's now less good, it's still a significant force, just more balanced than it was previously.

You didn't play in a lot of competitive 5th ed games, did you? 5th ed was not about dominant assaults, it was about MSU shooting, and the survivability of underpriced transports with guns on them. 5th ed wasn't called the parking lot edition for nothing, chimeras and razorbacks were far more dominant than any assault army.

 Redbeard wrote:
You didn't play in a lot of competitive 5th ed games, did you? 5th ed was not about dominant assaults, it was about MSU shooting, and the survivability of underpriced transports with guns on them. 5th ed wasn't called the parking lot edition for nothing, chimeras and razorbacks were far more dominant than any assault army.

I don't get this. There has been some sort of revisionist history going on here (and other places) every time this topic comes up. They all just keep swearing that Fifth was assault oriented. Even assault armies were taking troops so they could get more razorbacks or rhinos or psyweapons. There is a reason Tyranids did poorly in this "assault" edition, and it has nothing to do with their assault units being bad in the context of Fifth.

Melee combat is still definitely very much alive.

Shooting simply got better and melee got worse. That doesn't mean melee is horrible. Melee was so good in 5th it could stand to take a hit and still be decent.

All the rule shift has done is mean that its wise to bring a balanced list with both shooting and melee(if possible)

@Redbeard: I did read your post, but what I was saying is that even with all these factors combined, assault is still a viable and important part of the game, and a change is not a nerf. YOu just have to adopt a different approach, and be more careful with what you charge. Assault is still just as viable as ever it was.

And no, I did not play competitively at all in 5th (or 6th, for that matter), but from what I saw of the competitive scene, and from my own experience in a semi-competitve meta, assault was generally preferable to shooting if I had the choice. And against the likes of mech IG or Razor-spam, I imagine assaulting them was potentially more effective than trying to outshoot them.

The point I am trying to make is simply that assault has not received the 'screw you' that is mentioned by the OP. It is still viable, and will become more so. The trend of this edition has been the shooty armies getting better at shooting, so I fully expect the assault armies to get better at assault.

JPong wrote:I don't get this. There has been some sort of revisionist history going on here (and other places) every time this topic comes up. They all just keep swearing that Fifth was assault oriented.

Yeah, I really don't get this either. It's like 6th ed is balanced now because it saved us from 40k being only an assault game all the time.

As much as some people would really like to believe this, it is SO untrue. Assault armies were workable, but they were hardly overpowered. Imperial guard in 5th edition was one in which you could play power blobs if you wanted to, but guard in 5th edition was way, WAY more all about leafblowers. It's like people are blocking out kan walls and razorspam and venom spam and a whole bunch of others in some desperate bid to feel justified that 40k has become a boring gunline game, because that's how it's "supposed" to be.

But the rosy tints are even worse when you keep going back. People are somehow remembering 4th edition and thinking "consolidate into close combat ZOMG WAY TOO CHOPPY!!!". And they forget what it was like to play against SMF gunlines, and they forget what Tau gunlines could do in 4th edition. There were definitely more choppy armies in 4th but that's because, GASP!, you could actually win a game with close combat in 4th edition. That doesn't change the fact that 4th ed was just as much about shooting as assault.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Melee combat is still definitely very much alive.

Shooting simply got better and melee got worse. That doesn't mean melee is horrible. Melee was so good in 5th it could stand to take a hit and still be decent.

All the rule shift has done is mean that its wise to bring a balanced list with both shooting and melee(if possible)

Not really, it got hit hard enough. All that got better was shooting, it just simply swapped from Mech based gunline shooting with Razorbacks and other such things to more less transport based.

And no, I did not play competitively at all in 5th (or 6th, for that matter), but from what I saw of the competitive scene, and from my own experience in a semi-competitve meta, assault was generally preferable to shooting if I had the choice. And against the likes of mech IG or Razor-spam, I imagine assaulting them was potentially more effective than trying to outshoot them.

That's..Not comparable and it's a poor anecdotal at best.

The point I am trying to make is simply that assault has not received the 'screw you' that is mentioned by the OP. It is still viable, and will become more so. The trend of this edition has been the shooty armies getting better at shooting, so I fully expect the assault armies to get better at assault.

Chaos space marines aren't exactly thrilled being in the middle here .

But the rosy tints are even worse when you keep going back. People are somehow remembering 4th edition and thinking "consolidate into close combat ZOMG WAY TOO CHOPPY!!!". And they forget what it was like to play against SMF gunlines, and they forget what Tau gunlines could do in 4th edition. There were definitely more choppy armies in 4th but that's because, GASP!, you could actually win a game with close combat in 4th edition. That doesn't change the fact that 4th ed was just as much about shooting as assault.

Don't forget Tau Fish of Fury, and Eldar Skimmerspam.

While I see less assault units being fielded (BA assault space marines for example) I see a great deal of deathstar units that revolve around melee.
During last six tournament games I faced twice a Daemon player with either Flesh Hound with a Khorne Herald unit or Screamerstar, 1 Necron player with Wraiths and 1 Eldar player who deployed Jetseer Council.

I think that assault itself isn't dead. It's only that it is usually 1 big, tough and fast squad that, if not countered, can single-handedly wipe out your entire army.

 Ailaros wrote:

JPong wrote:I don't get this. There has been some sort of revisionist history going on here (and other places) every time this topic comes up. They all just keep swearing that Fifth was assault oriented.

Yeah, I really don't get this either. It's like 6th ed is balanced now because it saved us from 40k being only an assault game all the time.

As much as some people would really like to believe this, it is SO untrue. Assault armies were workable, but they were hardly overpowered. Imperial guard in 5th edition was one in which you could play power blobs if you wanted to, but guard in 5th edition was way, WAY more all about leafblowers. It's like people are blocking out kan walls and razorspam and venom spam and a whole bunch of others in some desperate bid to feel justified that 40k has become a boring gunline game, because that's how it's "supposed" to be.

But the rosy tints are even worse when you keep going back. People are somehow remembering 4th edition and thinking "consolidate into close combat ZOMG WAY TOO CHOPPY!!!". And they forget what it was like to play against SMF gunlines, and they forget what Tau gunlines could do in 4th edition. There were definitely more choppy armies in 4th but that's because, GASP!, you could actually win a game with close combat in 4th edition. That doesn't change the fact that 4th ed was just as much about shooting as assault.

All that seems to matter to them is that Mephiston won games but lets ignore the fact that he didn't win tournaments.

In 4th edition assault was predominant. You could wipe out a unit in assault and consolidate in another unit and lock them into close combat. You could easily roll through a whole army this way with a dedicated assault unit.

5th edition toned that down. You could no longer consolidate into another unit so if you wiped out someone in close combat you just sat there for a round of shooting. Ig and SW dominated with their superior shooting so other armies compensated. Vehicles were more durable and became mobile bunkers. Assault was still viable though with the help of 4+ cover saves from intervening models and the ability to outflank and assault from reserves.

6ed the trend continues more drastically.
Assault out of vehicles and from reserves is no longer possible. Rapid fire rules changes make base shooting units better and more flexible. Easier to fall back while sustaining fire.

Random assault ranges hurt a lot. On average you have a 7" average assault which is in theory better than the flat 6" you got in 5th. I see people say "well now you have 12" assault, that's better". I think that is idiocy. In general no one is going to declare a 12" assault and open them selves up to over watch on the slim chance they can make it. Or unless they have no other choice to. In general people are going to only attempt to assault what they think they can reach. Finally, I've already seen games were a 3" assaults failed due to double ones. Shooting units have no restrictions where they just suddenly not shoot. Pre measuring and set weapon ranges allow them to set up optimally to do the most damage. Assault units even with the best set up can catastrophically fail due to bad luck.

yeah assault got hit with the nerf bat really hard...

orks are a shooty army... AGAIN... after edition after edition keeps trying to fix that....

hopfully the new dex's will do somthing to mitigate it, but its quite boring with EVERYONE playing gun lines...(at least competitively) at tournaments....

which wouldnt be so bad if there were VIABLE/reliable ways to get stuff into combat before they get shot to bits.

i feel I am at a significant handi cap with my CCW orks, or marines, or anything CCW, and I have been playing since 3rd ed, it never felt this gimped for CC before.

Grey Templar wrote:Melee combat is still definitely very much alive.

Shooting simply got better and melee got worse. That doesn't mean melee is horrible. Melee was so good in 5th it could stand to take a hit and still be decent.

All the rule shift has done is mean that its wise to bring a balanced list with both shooting and melee(if possible)

This is all wrong. Those assault armies that are working are really not bringing much shooting, relying on FMCs to handle fliers for the most part. And even in 5th, assault took a backseat to shooting, so to say it could lose more and still be viable is just wrong.

Paradigm wrote:
And no, I did not play competitively at all in 5th (or 6th, for that matter), but from what I saw of the competitive scene, and from my own experience in a semi-competitve meta, assault was generally preferable to shooting if I had the choice. And against the likes of mech IG or Razor-spam, I imagine assaulting them was potentially more effective than trying to outshoot them.

Actually, switching your own army to a similar shooty army was the most effective solution. Armies that people would typically think of as assaulty, like blood angels, space wolves, and grey knights (and dark eldar) relied on shooting to win games in 5th.

The point I am trying to make is simply that assault has not received the 'screw you' that is mentioned by the OP.

Trying and failing. It has been screwed over, and no amount of gloss-coating it will change that.

It is still viable, and will become more so. The trend of this edition has been the shooty armies getting better at shooting, so I fully expect the assault armies to get better at assault.

You're awful optimistic. I'm not seeing it.

 Redbeard wrote:

It is still viable, and will become more so. The trend of this edition has been the shooty armies getting better at shooting, so I fully expect the assault armies to get better at assault.

You're awful optimistic. I'm not seeing it.

If they do actually fix it with future codex releases, it's going to be in the most horribly broken band-aid solution ever. It will pretty much have to be "all these assault units ignore the rulebook, here are their rules for assaulting instead." And that's the worst part of it. Assault armies won't become good with the rules, they will become good in spite of the rules.

Revisionist history is very common here, and pretty much all over the net. This is mainly because people who have played more editions have more "street cred", so the vast majority who haven't played for long parrot incorrect information to give a certain weight to their posts.

The most frequent one I see, being a chaos player, is that IW was the most op build in the old good dex. It wasn't; siren bomb was.

4th was the last combat edition, 5th was won in the shooting phase. Assault was better, so all the best armies had serious firepower and good counter assault ability (Gk, Sw, Ig), but no mainly assault force won competitions.

Saying melee is equally viable to shooting in 6th shows reading comprehension issues. Melee is awful, outside of very few armies that spam specific units (Fmc, beasts, cavalry), while shooting is simply so much better and safer.

I don't pretend to know which is better shooting or Assualt, all I know it's more about meta and versitality. My mainly assault orks dominated my local area for weeks till people build anti melee units, then it was blob IG with masses numbers being the dominate, now it's blast template heavy weapon spam or eldar run and hide tactics that dominate.

As have been pointed out here are some very viable assault armies at the moment, but there are few of them and they are not built for friendly play. Daemons and Necron assault armies are built for winning tournaments not Friday night gaming.

As it stands the edition was build for shooting and it isn't helping that both Tau and Eldar further got shooting rules that bypassed the rulebook. The entire Tau army ignores many handicaps that would limit a shooting phase to the point most major blogs actually list bringing large amounts of LOS blocking terrain as a viable tactic. They have certainly been swung as the beginner army and its not fun bringing their obvious counters which roll them up over and over again to have to actually make close combat work.

As far as I can tell, there's no way to be sure for now. The Chaos Daemons book nerfed their assault but they also have lower points costs and that's the only assault army book (CSM is included in Chaos for all intents and purposes) to be released so far, and all the other assault books (especially BA and 'Nids both of which I use) are kind of screwed for the time being, the only viable build for 'Nids is MC and MC suck and are boring as hell to play.

JPong wrote:
I don't get this. There has been some sort of revisionist history going on here (and other places) every time this topic comes up. They all just keep swearing that Fifth was assault oriented. Even assault armies were taking troops so they could get more razorbacks or rhinos or psyweapons. There is a reason Tyranids did poorly in this "assault" edition, and it has nothing to do with their assault units being bad in the context of Fifth.

This. In fact, I think I'll sig it. I have no clue how people came to the conclusion that Transporthammer 40k was dominated by melee.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Melee combat is still definitely very much alive.

Shooting simply got better and melee got worse. That doesn't mean melee is horrible. Melee was so good in 5th it could stand to take a hit and still be decent.

All the rule shift has done is mean that its wise to bring a balanced list with both shooting and melee(if possible)

Melee was not that great in 5th either. I'm not sure what game you were playing.

Melee was worse in fifth than sixth for most units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Melee was worse in fifth than sixth for most units.

 darthnatus wrote:
Melee was worse in fifth than sixth for most units.

Most units? I don't suppose you'd like to support that assertion with any examples, because I completely disagree.

Here's why I don't do assault armies anymore.

1) Ork boyz. In 5th ed, ork boyz would typically take 2 turns to reach an opponent 24" away. Turn 1, move 6, run. Turn 2, move 6, fleet, assault 6. With a couple of squads coming across the line, and taking casualties from the back, we'd get there with 15 boyz, combi-charge into a couple of units, win the combat, and have a day, allowing our nob to whack on the scary stuff with his powerklaw.

In 6th ed, it now takes 3 turns to reach that same opponent. We lose the second turn's fleet move, replacing it with a charge that doesn't have a 6 guaranteed on one die. We've also pulled casualties from the front, so that set us back a couple of inches. Because of that, we take an extra turn of shooting, at rapid-fire range, and lose an extra 6 boyz, leaving us with fewer to hit with. When we hit, we have to whether another couple of casualties, and cannot effectively combi-charge anything. Then, as another kick in the pants, our nob gets challenged out by any tough enemy, reducing the rest of the boyz to cheerleaders, and the nob gets whacked before he swings.

My orks rely on shoota boys entirely now.

2) Eldar. I used to run banshees in a wave serpent. And Harlies in a Falcon. They'd fly up and get in position, and then the next turn, hop out and unleash hell. Can't do that anymore, now they need to disembark the turn before they charge. It's not hard to shoot down T3 models sitting on the table. The few that do survive get to face another round of overwatch fire before they stick in. The Banshees used to be able to mince up anything, but they've got no game against terminators anymore.

3) Genestealers. These guys used to outflank, and then show up and charge a unit, almost a guaranteed unit kill. See anyone run genestealers in 6th? Oh, no, because you're not allowed to assault without giving your opponent two chances to shoot you in 6th ed, and 5+ save models just can't take that sort of punishment, even bolters ignore their saves.

That's three. I cannot name a single assault unit that is better off with 6th ed rules over 5th. But, I'm open to the possibility - whatcha got?

I'm still running my nids assault based, they do fine still. Yeah overwatch sucks, and no assaulting out of deepstrike, but with so many people focused on ranged they tend to not bring enough choppy to protect themselves once i get into cc.

. I cannot name a single assault unit that is better off with 6th ed rules over 5th. But, I'm open to the possibility - whatcha got?

Blood Angel Death Company and CSM Spawn. But that is mainly because of the changes to the "rage" rule. Does that count?


I'm not seeing the huge swing in favor of shooting, but that is mainly because of my local meta-game being heavy on the assault armies.

TR

Aren't spawn in the same FA slot as helldrakes?

Makumba wrote:
Aren't spawn in the same FA slot as helldrakes?

They are.
I don't use them, but I'm not your usual Chaos player.

But the guy asked for examples of assault units that have improved under the new rules. I gave him two. He didn't ask for "assault units that got better under the rules and are the optimum choice for the hyper-competative player"

TR

Redbeard wrote:Most units? I don't suppose you'd like to support that assertion with any examples, because I completely disagree.

Here's why I don't do assault armies anymore.

To which I'd add power blobs. And the entire BA codex that doesn't have the "fast" rule. And purifier spam for GK, and trukk rushes for orks. And the entire DE codex (no assaults from a WWP? oops).

In fact, I, too, am having a hard time thinking of an army that got BETTER at assault because of 6th ed. Arguably, demons are better now, but that's because they got a new codex.

 Brother SRM wrote:
It isn't the deciding factor in 40k anymore but it's still viable. Overwatch is a joke unless you have some serious buffs to it via psychic powers or some kind of army abilities.

And that's a good point Paradigm - a lot of assault heavy armies haven't even been redone yet. I guess Chaos Marines are an assault-heavy army, but they're having a bit of trouble.

I used to think this way, but consider that the overwatch doesn't need to make a serious dent in the unit's numbers, it just needs to kill the one or two guys who actually ended up being in charge range. This alone can completely screw a unit that depended upon making that charge to survive...units like Wyches that are pretty worthless standing out in the open.

Trench-Raider wrote:

. I cannot name a single assault unit that is better off with 6th ed rules over 5th. But, I'm open to the possibility - whatcha got?

Blood Angel Death Company and CSM Spawn. But that is mainly because of the changes to the "rage" rule. Does that count?

I guess that counts, although they're not better because of assault, they're better because they're not easily misguided anymore. In terms of what they do in combat, they too are worse off under 6th ed rules.

 Valkyrie wrote:
Since the arrival of 6th Edition, the general consensus on 40k has been that it is game suited to ranged combat, and good ol' melee has been nerfed to the extreme. I'm still struggling to see why this is the case, as so far it seems that the only major nerf we've had to assault is Overwatch. Yes, there are minor quips as well such as transports too but is it really fair to assume that an army based around melee combat is automatically destined to lose?

Not automatically, but there is a big disadvantage now. I played my friend at the week there down at the store and it wasn't fun for him. He has to remove models left right and centre while my Tau shot at him. On the other hand in the afternoon an assault force did beat me and my apocalypse partner, but then one guy was running Monsterous creature daemons with ironarm on them, so when your T10 you can pretty much do what you like anyway and when your other monsterous creatures are T6-9 and flying then it is a big advantage. However not everybody gets to have T10 creatures in their army list.

Overwatch: Sure, it can hurt in some cases, but the odds of you taking massive losses to Overwatch really that high? A Tactical Marine trying to kill a Chaos Marine via Overwatch has a 1/36 chance of actually doing any damage. In such an assault with 10 guys charging, then yes, you may take 1, maybe 2 casualties occasionally. Unless you're against Tau, which to be fair, suck in melee anyway so this is their compensation, Overwatch really shouldn't put much of a dent in your assault.

Remember that Tau have supporting fire, markerlights also work in overwatch, you can buy systems to increase the ballistic skill of your overwatch, they a system for interceptor (my favourite), etc, etc. As good old Boromir would say "One does not simply charge into Tau".

Varying charge range: Bit annoying I know, but it's a double-edged factor. Yes you might roll 2" for assault, much shorter than you could in 5th, but likewise you could roll for a 12" charge, double what you could previously do.

Don't forget the models removed from the front as well from overwatch will increase your charge range.

Transports: I can see how this would be annoying. Not being able to assault from a transport even if it's stationary is rather messed up, but there are other ways you can get around this such as Deep Striking, using faster troops, or even using transports anyway and shielding them from return fire before they assault.

Low armoured transports usually die first turn and give away first blood pretty easily.

I've just listed a couple of reasons why I've heard that Assault is dead. I'm not claiming those counterarguments as fact, I just want to start a discussion, because as I see it, assault really isn't as bad as it's made out to be.

One other thing you forgot to note is that is that models are removed from the front which then increases the distance between you and your enemy. It's foot assault lists that are affected the most in this edition. i.e. Blood Angel Assault Marines.

Considering I even get to assault from time to time, and I'm the one army not supposed to (tau), I'd say its not dead.

Just no longer brain-dead simple as it used to be and requires some effort.

 Paradigm wrote:
Redbeard, a lot of the things you mention don't ruin assault, just add an element of change to it. For example, challenges just mean you have to be more careful about keeping more characters in the squad, and the AP changes to power weapons just means you can't take on TEQ with impunity now. But frankly, killing 2+ save models in CC was rarely the best idea in 5th anyway.

The thing to bear in mind was that in 5th, assault was the dominant force, thanks to rapid-fire weapons being less useful, guaranteed charge ranges and no penalty for multi-assaults. While it's now less good, it's still a significant force, just more balanced than it was previously.

Yes but those AP3 power weapons don't kill Riptides or Broadsides. Not all 2+ armour saves are Terminators.


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 Ailaros wrote:

Not to mention the codices that have come out since 6th. Eldar and especially tau make a mockery of assault. Or, really, any game mechanic that isn't rolling dice to see if you damage something.

I agree and I play Tau. In the morning game every week down at my store I just blow my opponent off the table and thats it. It is really only in the apocalypse game where things are a bit different and thats because players are taking FMC, Caestus Assault Rams, etc, etc.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Considering I even get to assault from time to time, and I'm the one army not supposed to (tau), I'd say its not dead.

Just no longer brain-dead simple as it used to be and requires some effort.

Assault armies had to cross an entire field of battle, running from cover to cover, denying LOS, and stripping off layers of unimportant units to get to the meaty bits, all while hardly doing any damage themselves with their mediocre supporting fire. Gunlines sit in one spot and point at things until they die. Which one is brain dead?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

JPong wrote:
I don't get this. There has been some sort of revisionist history going on here (and other places) every time this topic comes up. They all just keep swearing that Fifth was assault oriented. Even assault armies were taking troops so they could get more razorbacks or rhinos or psyweapons. There is a reason Tyranids did poorly in this "assault" edition, and it has nothing to do with their assault units being bad in the context of Fifth.

This. In fact, I think I'll sig it. I have no clue how people came to the conclusion that Transporthammer 40k was dominated by melee.

I don't know. There have been numerous examples of armies that did well in 5th listed in this thread. There are still people coming in saying assault was OP but have yet to list one strong 5th assault list. I can think of maybe 2, both orks. Speed Freaks and Biker Nobs from early in the edition. They were all but phased out competitively after IG hit.

Just that some of these people lost to assault in 5th, which none us are claiming was impossible. Quite the contrary. As an assault army in 5th you were fighting an uphill battle both ways, but atleast you could have fun because you were doing something. Now all you do is struggle hard to kill one unit and die. It's no longer fun to play assault armies because every rule in the book works against them.

 DarthOvious wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
Redbeard, a lot of the things you mention don't ruin assault, just add an element of change to it. For example, challenges just mean you have to be more careful about keeping more characters in the squad, and the AP changes to power weapons just means you can't take on TEQ with impunity now. But frankly, killing 2+ save models in CC was rarely the best idea in 5th anyway.

The thing to bear in mind was that in 5th, assault was the dominant force, thanks to rapid-fire weapons being less useful, guaranteed charge ranges and no penalty for multi-assaults. While it's now less good, it's still a significant force, just more balanced than it was previously.

Yes but those AP3 power weapons don't kill Riptides or Broadsides. Not all 2+ armour saves are Terminators.

But the point still stands, trying to kill a Riptide in CC with anything less than a TH/SS termie squad is probably futile anyway, better to drop them at range with plasma/LC and the like. And as for broadsides, they were a unit that, thanks to their huge range, were rarely assaulted in 5th anyway. All that has changed by the AP changes is that a small subset of 2+ sv units are more survivable, and half of them are not targets you'd want in CC anyway. Where is does have a noticeable effect is that 2+ HQs are now even harder to crack, which is certainly a setback.

However, there are also positives to the changes, most notably the power maul, which, as a +2S at initiative weapon, is against many targets a fair trade for AP. It allows you to hurt tanks and increase your wound output, hence forcing more saves to make up some of the difference from lost AP, without sacrificing initiative.

I guess that counts, although they're not better because of assault, they're better because they're not easily misguided anymore. In terms of what they do in combat, they too are worse off under 6th ed rules.

They also got better due to the changes to "fearless" that prevented extra wounds from losing combat. In fact alot of units could make the same claim.

TR

 Paradigm wrote:
But the point still stands, trying to kill a Riptide in CC with anything less than a TH/SS termie squad is probably futile anyway, better to drop them at range with plasma/LC and the like.

So what you're telling me here is that Assault Marines with Jump Packs can't even kill Tau units in close combat. Thanks for playing.

I play Tau and in one game my Riptide killed a Daemon Prince with the Black Mace IN CLOSE COMBAT and then went on to ID Kharn the Betrayer. Don't get me wrong, I know that won't happen too often but it is a bit ridiculous that half my opponents can't even get into close combat with me to begin with and if they do I still have a chance to kill some of their best assault units.

Armies that do get into close combat with me are sometimes so depleted that they don't do very much. I had a squad of Tau fire warriors hold up a tactical squad one time. That wouldn't be much of a problem if it wasn't for the fact that I outgunned tacticals completely before they got a new codex.

At the weekend there my friend took Moloc with an honour guard in a landraider in his list. I blew the land raider up first turn with Longstrike and ignoring the big cover save he did have for placing it behind a building. I then killed some other marines of his and the next turn when he drop podded a unit of sternguard in I intercepted them and wiped them out before they even did anything. 3 Broadsides with HYMP & SMS all with Early Warning Overide Systems cause a lot of damage, even when intercepting.

And as for broadsides, they were a unit that, thanks to their huge range, were rarely assaulted in 5th anyway. All that has changed by the AP changes is that a small subset of 2+ sv units are more survivable, and half of them are not targets you'd want in CC anyway. Where is does have a noticeable effect is that 2+ HQs are now even harder to crack, which is certainly a setback.

2+ HQ's with a good invulnerable save are hard to crack. Not many of those going about. Dante can be instant killed by a railgun, heavy rail rifle or Fusion Blaster (Which Tau have a ton of), Mephiston doesn't have an invulnerable save so lots of fusion and plasma will take care of him.

However, there are also positives to the changes, most notably the power maul, which, as a +2S at initiative weapon, is against many targets a fair trade for AP. It allows you to hurt tanks and increase your wound output, hence forcing more saves to make up some of the difference from lost AP, without sacrificing initiative.

Doesn't mean very much though when there is a list as long as my arm of ways in which 6th ed nerfed assault. Some of things mentioned were not present in last edition in any form so of course they nerfed assault.

I didn't play 5th edition, but I recall many posts lamenting how all marine builds were Rhino Rush....wasn't that an assault based army build or were they just rushing forward to shoot melta guns (which seems like a waste to me)?

Anyway, to me, assault isn't dead entirely, just a heck of a lot harder to pull off. It can really only be done well by dedicated assault ARMIES, with the exception of really expensive units like TH/SS termies coming out of a landraider, and even those have to be very selective with their targets. I run a horde multi-deity daemon list with lots of large blocks of daemon infantry, along with some beast and cavalry units (I use them more for screening), and I've had a lot of success with it. Is it easy to use? No way, but it is fun and tends to be pretty effective simply because people are rarely ready for it, as they think Chaos Daemons=Flying Circus, so they don't bring the volume of fire that's really needed to thin the ranks before the assault hits.

This edition really does favor shooting over assault, that's pretty much impossible to dispute. That being said, assault is still one of the best ways to dislodge large blocks of troops such as Necron Silver Tide blocks and Tau Castles, so it has its uses. It seems that 6th edtion is really going the route of specialized armies, and if you are not running a dedicated assault army, chances are you won't be doing anything during the assault phase.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
I didn't play 5th edition, but I recall many posts lamenting how all marine builds were Rhino Rush....wasn't that an assault based army build or were they just rushing forward to shoot melta guns (which seems like a waste to me)?

Let me quote myself for you. Rhino Rush was not a thing. Rhino parking lots were. Tactical marines are just not good enough at close combat to even consider it a thing.

JPong wrote:
I don't get this. There has been some sort of revisionist history going on here (and other places) every time this topic comes up. They all just keep swearing that Fifth was assault oriented. Even assault armies were taking troops so they could get more razorbacks or rhinos or psyweapons. There is a reason Tyranids did poorly in this "assault" edition, and it has nothing to do with their assault units being bad in the context of Fifth.

Assault armies weren't taking those vehicles to deliver pizzas. They were taking them to deliver lead. 5th and 6th is about putting as much lead in the air as you can and seeing what sticks.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
Anyway, to me, assault isn't dead entirely, just a heck of a lot harder to pull off. It can really only be done well by dedicated assault ARMIES, with the exception of really expensive units like TH/SS termies coming out of a landraider, and even those have to be very selective with their targets. I run a horde multi-deity daemon list with lots of large blocks of daemon infantry, along with some beast and cavalry units (I use them more for screening), and I've had a lot of success with it. Is it easy to use? No way, but it is fun and tends to be pretty effective simply because people are rarely ready for it, as they think Chaos Daemons=Flying Circus, so they don't bring the volume of fire that's really needed to thin the ranks before the assault hits.

This edition really does favor shooting over assault, that's pretty much impossible to dispute. That being said, assault is still one of the best ways to dislodge large blocks of troops such as Necron Silver Tide blocks and Tau Castles, so it has its uses. It seems that 6th edtion is really going the route of specialized armies, and if you are not running a dedicated assault army, chances are you won't be doing anything during the assault phase.

How does Tau not bring the volume of fire to kill a daemon dedicated assault army. They don't even have to change anything they do, they just get the volume of fire. The best way to take out their ranged units is to take your own Tau army and go first. Even if you get enough men there to beat them in combat, you still have to continuously get shot. And they still move as fast away from you as you do towards them.

No, I'm not saying ASM can't kill tau units, I'm saying ASM can't kill Riptides. There is a world of difference. If I have ASM, I'm going after the fire warriors and pathfinders, rather than a T6 MC. What I'm saying is that for killing models with a 2+ save, then killing them with ranged AP2 weapons is a better option. Just because a unit that was never meant to take on hard targets can't take on said targets (in a single army), this doesn't invalidate an entire phase of the game. Getting into CC with tau SHOULD be hard as once you do reach them with a significant part of your force, it's almost a given they will be destroyed.

2+ HQs are often hidden in squads, and kitted for CC, hence why I mentioned them. Of course, your lascannon/railgun can kill that Chaos terminator lord, but can your LC/Railgun kill his 30 cultist bodyguards? No, so he's going to get into CC, where the best way to beat him is a challenge, and this is where the loss of AP2 on power weapons does hurt, and I freely admit this. Dante and Mephiston are bad examples as they are both rarely seen and rather overcosted. Conversely, a Hive Tyrant with a 2+, Chaos termies lord/sorcerer, or a terminator libby/chaplain/captain all have access to either wings and high T for the Tyrant, or good invulns in the case of the others.

I'm not trying to say assault is as good as ever it was, and I accept it has been nerfed, but not into playability. It is still viable, you just have to think more carefully and what, when and how you assault.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
I didn't play 5th edition, but I recall many posts lamenting how all marine builds were Rhino Rush....wasn't that an assault based army build or were they just rushing forward to shoot melta guns (which seems like a waste to me)?

Anyway, to me, assault isn't dead entirely, just a heck of a lot harder to pull off. It can really only be done well by dedicated assault ARMIES, with the exception of really expensive units like TH/SS termies coming out of a landraider, and even those have to be very selective with their targets. I run a horde multi-deity daemon list with lots of large blocks of daemon infantry, along with some beast and cavalry units (I use them more for screening), and I've had a lot of success with it. Is it easy to use? No way, but it is fun and tends to be pretty effective simply because people are rarely ready for it, as they think Chaos Daemons=Flying Circus, so they don't bring the volume of fire that's really needed to thin the ranks before the assault hits.

This edition really does favor shooting over assault, that's pretty much impossible to dispute. That being said, assault is still one of the best ways to dislodge large blocks of troops such as Necron Silver Tide blocks and Tau Castles, so it has its uses. It seems that 6th edtion is really going the route of specialized armies, and if you are not running a dedicated assault army, chances are you won't be doing anything during the assault phase.

Rhino rush made a lot of sense in 5th even if you weren't assaulting. Your troops were in a mobile bunker and safe from pie plates. Even if all you did was shoot plasma you still could sit on top on an objective and claim it while still inside the vehicle. Because of the lack of hull points your opponent couldn't depend on glances to take out rhinos so the enemy would have to expend their heavy weapons against it if they wanted to be sure to crack it open. This took the heat off of your 2+ armor units and over whelmed anti vehicle firing if you went full mechanized.

You're playing demons which are one of the best assault armies currently and you're saying that you have difficulty. Other armies not fully specialized for assault but are considered fluff assault armies are having a much harder time (Black Templar, Orks, Blood Angles, hoard nyds).

The best way to i've seen to dislodge castled troops are drop pods with heavy flamers and barrage pie plates. Trying to assault is one of the least effective things for a majority of armies out there.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
I didn't play 5th edition, but I recall many posts lamenting how all marine builds were Rhino Rush....wasn't that an assault based army build or were they just rushing forward to shoot melta guns (which seems like a waste to me)?

3rd ed was Rhino rush. Blood Angels Rhinos could move 18", squad disembark, and assault all in the same turn. This was when assault was overpowered in relation to shooting, but note this was absolutely years ago.

Anyway, to me, assault isn't dead entirely, just a heck of a lot harder to pull off. It can really only be done well by dedicated assault ARMIES, with the exception of really expensive units like TH/SS termies coming out of a landraider, and even those have to be very selective with their targets. I run a horde multi-deity daemon list with lots of large blocks of daemon infantry, along with some beast and cavalry units (I use them more for screening), and I've had a lot of success with it. Is it easy to use? No way, but it is fun and tends to be pretty effective simply because people are rarely ready for it, as they think Chaos Daemons=Flying Circus, so they don't bring the volume of fire that's really needed to thin the ranks before the assault hits.

Daemons turned out OK, but they had a new codex. Space Marines are still to be tested. In terms of assault marines with jump packs, especially Blood Angels then you're pretty much done.

This edition really does favor shooting over assault, that's pretty much impossible to dispute. That being said, assault is still one of the best ways to dislodge large blocks of troops such as Necron Silver Tide blocks and Tau Castles, so it has its uses. It seems that 6th edtion is really going the route of specialized armies, and if you are not running a dedicated assault army, chances are you won't be doing anything during the assault phase.

Assault is very specialised now. Only certain things work. i.e. FMC, Caestus Assault Ram Terminators, perhaps Lamnd Raiders as well. But foot slogging troops going across the board have no chance.


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 Paradigm wrote:
No, I'm not saying ASM can't kill tau units, I'm saying ASM can't kill Riptides.

Riptide being a Tau unit.

There is a world of difference. If I have ASM, I'm going after the fire warriors and pathfinders, rather than a T6 MC.

And they don't survive to get into combat with them.

What I'm saying is that for killing models with a 2+ save, then killing them with ranged AP2 weapons is a better option.

In other words, shoot them. Which I think is the point being made here.

Just because a unit that was never meant to take on hard targets can't take on said targets (in a single army), this doesn't invalidate an entire phase of the game.

You mean assault marine? Those guys who are meant to be good at assault? Those guys who come in the Blood Angel codex in abundance and are supposed to be what the Blood Angels are all about and what they are supposed to enter CLOSE COMBAT with.

Getting into CC with tau SHOULD be hard as once you do reach them with a significant part of your force, it's almost a given they will be destroyed.

And you say this while telling me that assault marines are not supposed to charge the Riptide. You getting the picture yet? Tau will shoot all the big stuff and kill it and when you're lowly assault marines charge the Riptide they then die in CC.

2+ HQs are often hidden in squads, and kitted for CC, hence why I mentioned them. Of course, your lascannon/railgun can kill that Chaos terminator lord, but can your LC/Railgun kill his 30 cultist bodyguards?

You're talking to a guy that runs Farsight Bomb in his apocalypse games. You can ask Lysander next time what happened to him and his 5 Terminator bodyguard.

No, so he's going to get into CC, where the best way to beat him is a challenge, and this is where the loss of AP2 on power weapons does hurt, and I freely admit this.

While you're at it you can ask the wolf lord what happened to him and his terminator bodyguard.

Dante and Mephiston are bad examples as they are both rarely seen and rather overcosted.

Yes, so two of the best BA HQ's don't even get used. Considering that Mephie was pretty much one of THE BEST CC CHARACATERS under 5th edition and now he doesn't even get used should tell you something.

Conversely, a Hive Tyrant with a 2+, Chaos termies lord/sorcerer, or a terminator libby/chaplain/captain all have access to either wings and high T for the Tyrant, or good invulns in the case of the others.

Invulnerables are pretty rare and on normal units are overcosted. and even then that doesn't mean much to me. My Tau army pump out that many shots that you WILL ROLL THAT MANY ONES. In one shooting phase my Broadsides (HYMP & SMS) removed A WHOLE GREY HUNTERS UNIT off the table in one turn. It even included a wolf guard in termie armour in the unit has well. They just failed that many armour saves. I usually don't care what invulnerables you have.They weren't even anywhere near me while I did this as well. They were pretty much the full 30" away from me.

I'm not trying to say assault is as good as ever it was, and I accept it has been nerfed, but not into playability. It is still viable, you just have to think more carefully and what, when and how you assault.

Not all assault is impossible granted, but a lot of it is. Footslogging units just doesn't work and light transports will be blown up before they even get to me. It really only leaves Land Raiders, Stormravens. Assault Rams, FMC, left. So if you don't have high armour or you don't fly, expect to be shot to pieces by Tau.

I'm hoping the Space Marine chapter traits actually help some armies out. Khan being able to scout I think may help out against Tau.

Rustican wrote:
You're playing demons which are one of the best assault armies currently and you're saying that you have difficulty. Other armies not fully specialized for assault but are considered fluff assault armies are having a much harder time (Black Templar, Orks, Blood Angles, hoard nyds).

The best way to i've seen to dislodge castled troops are drop pods with heavy flamers and barrage pie plates. Trying to assault is one of the least effective things for a majority of armies out there.

Since I tend to play against shooty Eldar and Necron armies the most, of course getting into assault is going to be tough. It shouldn't be easy to get to assault, even for a dedicated assault army, because once the assault actually lands (typically on multiple fronts), it can completely derail a shooty army.

Those other armies you listed can perform assault reasonably well, its just easier and more effecient to just go shooty. The fact that Chaos Daemons are the only assault themed army with a new codex is pretty much the reason they are the current best assault army. I have a feeling Nids will take their place very soon, as they will be able to provide far more reliable supporting fire than non-allied Daemons can, and will have even cheaper assault troops and bigger unit size.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

Rustican wrote:
You're playing demons which are one of the best assault armies currently and you're saying that you have difficulty. Other armies not fully specialized for assault but are considered fluff assault armies are having a much harder time (Black Templar, Orks, Blood Angles, hoard nyds).

The best way to i've seen to dislodge castled troops are drop pods with heavy flamers and barrage pie plates. Trying to assault is one of the least effective things for a majority of armies out there.

Since I tend to play against shooty Eldar and Necron armies the most, of course getting into assault is going to be tough. It shouldn't be easy to get to assault, even for a dedicated assault army, because once the assault actually lands (typically on multiple fronts), it can completely derail a shooty army.

Not when the threat is on a T6 2+ monstrous creature that will likely just punch you back and have most of your attacks bounce off the armour save. it shouldn't be easy for a shooting army to just point/click away units at a time without having to move either, and yet it is.

Yes, Riptides are tau units, but they are hardly representative of the codex. Most of a tau army will consist of T3 WS2 FW with a 4+ save, which even a damaged squad of ASM will destroy if they reach CC, and with a good amount of terrain, multiple targets being offered, and if used properly, they are probably going to reach them.

I'm not trying to point out that assault is the be-all-and-end-all of 40k. Shooting and CC are balanced, and the Riptide is one of the units you are better shooting. On the other hand, there are a lot of targets that you are better off assaulting than trying to shoot down, like fire warriors in cover.

ASM have never been good at taking on dedicated CC units, they are designed to use their mobility to avoid the dangerous units and kill weak, shooty troops. It makes sense that you're not going to go for CC units with CC units, you're going to shoot them, but the inverse is also true, and CC against shooty units is the best option.

Farsight bomb is one list in one codex, and against other lists, that aren't tau, then the likes of Lysander+termies is a unit that will do well. not every player is a tau player, and not every army is tau.

The problems with BA are really more to do with changes to do with reserves and low model count than changes to assault, that is why you don't see Dante or meph because they can't afford to drop 200+ points on Characters when their troops are too expensive across the board.

And yet again the example with the GH goes back to tau, and while I appreciate that they are your army and therefore a good example for you to use, there are plenty of armies who can't put out that much firepower. Tau are the best army at shooting these days, as they should be. One army does not mean that suddenly any models on the board will be blown away T1, any more than one army having heldrakes means MEQ might as well not show up, or that Vendettas mean no one should bother bringing fliers.

I'm really ok with where assaults are at. Assaults really should be something you use to clear a position after softening it up for the vast majority of armies. Armies reliant on CC as their overwhelmingly primary engagement method should be relatively few, we have a whole other game system where CC is the primary battle method and shooting the support. We've been gradually getting over the 3E/4E CC crush. That said, the assaults do work rather well in 6E, however the units that take best advantage of it have changed. Instead of the large mobs or mechanized assaults of 5E, it's the units with inherent speed that really shine in 6E, jump infantry, beasts, and bikes. These units are able to get stuck in faster than ever (especially Jetbikes...against just about any point on the board). The "drive up and pile out of a rhino" days are over, for good or ill, but units like Wraiths, Scarabs, and Assault Marines have never been more effective.

Biomancy and Swarmlord say




COME @ ME BRO

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Not when the threat is on a T6 2+ monstrous creature that will likely just punch you back and have most of your attacks bounce off the armour save. it shouldn't be easy for a shooting army to just point/click away units at a time without having to move either, and yet it is.

I dunno, I am thinking of giving up on this thread. It's just a bunch of people sticking their fingers in their ears and saying "Nuh-uh. It'll be fixed when the codex comes out." They have far more faith in GW than I do, since 5th favoured shooting, and the assaulting armies objectively did not perform. Yeah, Mephiston may have beat your face in once or twice, but he didn't win any tournaments, those were reserved for Razorbacks. And 6th is objectively worse for assaulting in every possible way.

Assaulting is still more risky than shooting. It's still easier to whiff your assault unit's attacks and get wiped. In 5th I lost a whole unit of Nob bikers to a single tau unit because 3 power klaws failed to do a single wound, I lost one wound and failed my morale and reroll and was swept, that doesn't happen with shooting, the worst that happens with shooting is you whiff your shots and choose another available unit to shoot.

Close Combat was nerfed to give it an all or nothing check before you even do any damage. Imagine if every shooting unit had a 1 in 3 chance (still better odds than a 7 inch charge being successful) of not shooting when trying to, given fluff of the unit wasn't looking out in the direction, or a smokey battlefield made it impossible for them to see their target or some other BS reason. There would be complaining to high-hell about it, and it would still be better than random charge lengths since they wouldn't have to deal with overwatch.

Shooting people would complain about cover saves being too strong in 5th, when they were the only thing keeping assault armies possible. Practically every gun in the game has an AP value, but Power weapons are expensive, and easier than ever for shooting armies to snipe. They also don't have to deal with the terrible WS table. That same table that makes it so no matter what your weapon skill, your dedicated assault units still have as much chance of hitting as a marine does shooting, and it takes a ridiculous amount of WS to reduce return melee attacks to merely ork shooting levels.

If assault dedicated armies are going to be in the game, they need to be as good or better than shooting dedicated armies as they only have half the game and half the army to do all their damage. Right now, they are neither.

It doesn't help that BS is often a static 4+ or 3+, while at best with WS you can get a 3+ if you are lucky.

The first time I faced 120 shoota boyz in 5th edition was the game I realized that 40K was officially a shooting game. My BA starting us a lot of mech after that debacle.

Stormbreed wrote:
Biomancy and Swarmlord say

...
COME @ ME BRO

Yup, MCs with Iron Arm can make it to combat. There's what, 2 or 3 armies that can do that? And, you better hope your opponent doesn't kill you before you go. Or kill you on the turn you only get +1. Cause that whole 4 wounds and walking thing isn't exactly the fastest way to get around. On average, in fact, regardless of your iron arm, 20 guardians should be able to shoot you to death before you swing - without accounting for scatter lasers or psychic buffs of their own. So, hey, good luck with that.

The shuriken rule is truly the middle finger to MCs of any type.

 Redbeard wrote:

Stormbreed wrote:
Biomancy and Swarmlord say

...
COME @ ME BRO

Yup, MCs with Iron Arm can make it to combat. There's what, 2 or 3 armies that can do that? And, you better hope your opponent doesn't kill you before you go. Or kill you on the turn you only get +1. Cause that whole 4 wounds and walking thing isn't exactly the fastest way to get around. On average, in fact, regardless of your iron arm, 20 guardians should be able to shoot you to death before you swing - without accounting for scatter lasers or psychic buffs of their own. So, hey, good luck with that.

You only run 1 MC?

Drop 3 MCs in turn two on a 2+, have SWARMY with his 5 wounds walking right at them smiling. Its about target priority and making people make those tough choices.

I'm a combined 10-4 at tournaments so far in 6th edition.

Is it hard to get into CC in 6th, hell yea, it takes an understanding of the game. If I'm on them by turn 3 and lose an MC turn 2, that means they are about to get SMASHED afterwards. Obviously that isn't always the case, nor can every army do this. Add in the Flyrant hititng their lines turn 2, and I mean into the biggest blob of troops they have along with Doom and the line becomes blurred very quickly as to what NEEDS to die.

Thats a 1500 list. I agree as the numbers get higher the shooting takes over. But the BRB recommends 1500-2000 for a reason .

Dan

Paradigm wrote:Yes, Riptides are tau units, but they are hardly representative of the codex. Most of a tau army will consist of T3 WS2 FW with a 4+ save

You're right, the tautau lists I'm seeing are fielding 12 firewarriors but only 4 riptides. That's THREE TIMES as many models that are terrible in close combat than those that aren't.

I guess that means that 40k is still three times as choppy of a game as it should be. Let's see some balance for goodness sake!

 Paradigm wrote:
Yes, Riptides are tau units, but they are hardly representative of the codex. Most of a tau army will consist of T3 WS2 FW with a 4+ save, which even a damaged squad of ASM will destroy if they reach CC, and with a good amount of terrain, multiple targets being offered, and if used properly, they are probably going to reach them.

There are these things called Crisis Suits and Broadside Suits who all come with drones. Those T4 units would like to talk to you. The T3 ones also have photon grenades, so you don't get your extra attacks for charging as well as having S5 guns.

I'm not trying to point out that assault is the be-all-and-end-all of 40k. Shooting and CC are balanced, and the Riptide is one of the units you are better shooting. On the other hand, there are a lot of targets that you are better off assaulting than trying to shoot down, like fire warriors in cover.

Did you just say that shooting and close combat are balanced? Can you then tell me why my Tau shooty list gives me a much higher success rate than any of the combat armies I have? Honestly, I have to call you out on this one. I have played both assault armies and shooting armies under 6th edition and AGAINST THE SAME PEOPLE using their same armies. How is it that my success rate for winning is a lot higher now than it was beforehand?

Trust me. This edition is all about shooting and CC is very difficult indeed.

ASM have never been good at taking on dedicated CC units, they are designed to use their mobility to avoid the dangerous units and kill weak, shooty troops. It makes sense that you're not going to go for CC units with CC units, you're going to shoot them, but the inverse is also true, and CC against shooty units is the best option.

You're talking to a Blood Angel player here. Theres this little thing called decent of angels. You may want to see what it did back in 5th ed.

Farsight bomb is one list in one codex, and against other lists, that aren't tau, then the likes of Lysander+termies is a unit that will do well. not every player is a tau player, and not every army is tau.

Yes, the wolf lord and his termies got killed by mass shooting from Broadsides instead.

The problems with BA are really more to do with changes to do with reserves and low model count than changes to assault, that is why you don't see Dante or meph because they can't afford to drop 200+ points on Characters when their troops are too expensive across the board.

So it has nothing to with the fact that a unit of crisis suits with 6 fusion blasters can kill him easy with the aid of markerlights? Hitting him on 2s and wounding him on 2s and Mephie doesn't even get a save. It has nothing to do with the fact that Mephie is only AP3 now? It has nothing to do with the fact that Mephie gets less cover saves from the terrain around him, or that it gets ignored anyway because, ya know, Tau?

And yet again the example with the GH goes back to tau, and while I appreciate that they are your army and therefore a good example for you to use, there are plenty of armies who can't put out that much firepower. Tau are the best army at shooting these days, as they should be. One army does not mean that suddenly any models on the board will be blown away T1, any more than one army having heldrakes means MEQ might as well not show up, or that Vendettas mean no one should bother bringing fliers.

Tau is indeed the example I am using, but you are forgetting that Eldar got a big shooty update as well. Remind me again what Shurikan weapons do............... Oh, right, they always wound on a 6 and they rend.

 Ailaros wrote:

Paradigm wrote:Yes, Riptides are tau units, but they are hardly representative of the codex. Most of a tau army will consist of T3 WS2 FW with a 4+ save

You're right, the tautau lists I'm seeing are fielding 12 firewarriors but only 4 riptides. That's THREE TIMES as many models that are terrible in close combat than those that aren't.

I guess that means that 40k is still three times as choppy of a game as it should be. Let's see some balance for goodness sake!

... Do you not understand how points systems work? What about FOC? Or simple fething logic? Please tell me that post was sarcastic.

 darthnatus wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

Paradigm wrote:Yes, Riptides are tau units, but they are hardly representative of the codex. Most of a tau army will consist of T3 WS2 FW with a 4+ save

You're right, the tautau lists I'm seeing are fielding 12 firewarriors but only 4 riptides. That's THREE TIMES as many models that are terrible in close combat than those that aren't.

I guess that means that 40k is still three times as choppy of a game as it should be. Let's see some balance for goodness sake!

... Do you not understand how points systems work? What about FOC? Or simple fething logic? Please tell me that post was sarcastic.

It was a sarcastic post from him. However a Tau army is not necessarily vast majority T3. I do fine with only two squads of 12 Fire Warriors and two squads of 10 Pathfinders, everything else in my list is T4 or higher. At 1800pts, that includes a crisis suit commander, 2 full units of Broadsides all with Missile Drones, A Riptide with 2 drones, a hammerhead Tank and 2 crisis suits with fusions. So that is 27 T4 models, 3 T6 models and a hammerhead tank in the mix. If you take the Farsight expansion then you don't need any T3 models at all since crisis suits are troops.

 DarthOvious wrote:

 darthnatus wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

Paradigm wrote:Yes, Riptides are tau units, but they are hardly representative of the codex. Most of a tau army will consist of T3 WS2 FW with a 4+ save

You're right, the tautau lists I'm seeing are fielding 12 firewarriors but only 4 riptides. That's THREE TIMES as many models that are terrible in close combat than those that aren't.

I guess that means that 40k is still three times as choppy of a game as it should be. Let's see some balance for goodness sake!

... Do you not understand how points systems work? What about FOC? Or simple fething logic? Please tell me that post was sarcastic.

It was a sarcastic post from him. However a Tau army is not necessarily vast majority T3. I do fine with only two squads of 12 Fire Warriors and two squads of 10 Pathfinders, everything else in my list is T4 or higher. At 1800pts, that includes a crisis suit commander, 2 full units of Broadsides all with Missile Drones, A Riptide with 2 drones, a hammerhead Tank and 2 crisis suits with fusions. So that is 27 T4 models, 3 T6 models and a hammerhead tank in the mix. If you take the Farsight expansion then you don't need any T3 models at all since crisis suits are troops.

Adding on to what you just listed, JSJ kinda feths up assaults as well.

Before someone mentions that you can't rely on JSJ because it's random: yes. It is. So are charge distances.

Im not seeing anyone talk about Necron Wraiths. I think I saw one or two people mention them. I have had alot of success with them in assault. they are not OP at killing units due to the WS4 considering most armies i face have ws4 or higher in some units, but with 3++, 2 wounds and 3 str 6 rending attacks base. Not to mention they have move through cover due to wraith flight and are jump troops. i have used a 6 man wraith squad soaking up all the damage due to the 3++ save against IG and then took out 3 transports and a few vet squads with a 6 man squad of wraiths. Also i have had them tear through eldar armies lately. I know your going to say " that's just one unit in a codex." which is true but usually with the 6th edition that one assault unit can make the difference. as a lot of people are saying it is a bit more balanced. if you can make use of assault WITH shooting supporting them then it works out quite well.

Also I have had success with lychguard with shield and sword with a overlord.

also in 6th i have had success with CSM termies with 2x l-claws. with those they get shot up but if one or 2 make it into CC they can tear through units.

Berzerkers are dead to me now though. a landraider with Kharn and some berzerkers can be ok but that's about the only way to run them.

with Orks, there is nothing I can say. with so much remove cover weapons even the bikers are not good. the automatic 4+ cover is now useless in a lot of cases. IF you can get them to CC before they are shot up they can do well but with so much shooting based armies there isn't much that can be done.

In a lot of cases CC was hurt bad, but at the same time i found with necrons it compliments everything else I do with that army. CSM may be a bit tougher to make competitive but I do find that CC compliments the army well as either a deterent from the charge (which isnt needed in a lot of cases but can help) or to come in and wipe up a mess created by shooting.

All in all incase this is a tldr post: Assault is not dead. it did take a hit but it is more specific now instead of run forward and assault. you have to use some tactis to use it instead of a dead ahead sprint.

The reason no one really bothers with talking about wraiths is because they are talking about the effect with Tau. A single ultra tough close combat unit in a sea of shooting doesn't prove close combat isn't basically dead in the water. It's the same reason that mentioning the winged-hive tyrant isn't useful to the discussion. We know ultra tough and fast units can make it there, however there are a whole boat load of things that can't and they also can't do anything else.

Zachardm1027 wrote:
All in all incase this is a tldr post: Assault is not dead. it did take a hit but it is more specific now instead of run forward and assault. you have to use some tactis to use it instead of a dead ahead sprint.

Assault has ALWAYS required more tactics than shooting. Shooting is literally pointing at things until they die. Shooting armies almost entirely ignore 2 out of 3 phases of the game. Assault has always been more than run forward and assault. Why is it alright to have one section of the game be point and click, when the other involves jumping through flaming hoops?

My Grey Knights made a 9 inch charge last night that ended an entire 35 man blob squad and another in the same round of 8 inches that ruined a Khorne Berzerker squad. Then I make a 9 inch charge to kill a Chaos Marine unit that had been mauled.

That's three charges I never would have gotten in the old rules. So what if they shot a couple GK's on the way in. It would have been much worse than that for me BEFORE this. And with a few little tricks, you can tilt the odds of that.

Tricks like (this is across several armies obviously):
1. Dirge Casters. Fantastically annoying to enemies like Tau.
2. Teeny spam: taking Mutilators as singular models, dropping them in and then mass assaulting the next round with 6 or seven units. The enemy cant kill them al and all of them, even the teeny units, are dangerous enough to want to.

3. Outflank. It gives your opponent one round instead of 2-3 to whittle you. This is ENORMOUSLY impactful in making your charges stronger. Even if they charge YOU, your assault troops are better off than they would be when spending the extra round or two absorbing fire.

4. Rhino Corners. cant shoot what you cant see. expose just a couple from around the corner, let the enemy take their best shot and then charge. the resultant damage may well not be enough to matter even against the Tau. Support fire is only as useful as the number of units that can do it.

Now people can argue that these things dont work all the time. They'd be right. but they ARE ways to make charging much more impactful parts of your games. And they do work. So it's just a matter of positioning and timing.

Harder yes. But assault isn't dead, say my Grey Knights.

 Jancoran wrote:
My Grey Knights made a 9 inch charge last night that ended an entire 35 man blob squad and another in the same round of 8 inches that ruined a Khorne Berzerker squad. Then I make a 9 inch charge to kill a Chaos Marine unit that had been mauled.

That's three charges I never would have gotten in the old rules. So what if they shot a couple GK's on the way in. It would have been much worse than that for me BEFORE this. And with a few little tricks, you can tilt the odds of that.

You have a 10/36 chance of rolling 9+ on two dice, or 26/36 of failing. On the other hand previously you had 36/36 of making it 6 inches into combat. Over 2/3 chance of failure is not something worth gambling on when you can just shoot with guaranteed range.

Tricks like (this is across several armies obviously):
1. Dirge Casters. Fantastically annoying to enemies like Tau.
2. Teeny spam: taking Mutilators as singular models, dropping them in and then mass assaulting the next round with 6 or seven units. The enemy cant kill them al and all of them, even the teeny units, are dangerous enough to want to.

Chaos only, and most people don't regarding using an entire elite slot for one Mutilator as a plan, admittedly not much in the Chaos Elite slot is worth taking. 6 or 7 units? 6 maximum if you're taking dual FOCs.

3. Outflank. It gives your opponent one round instead of 2-3 to whittle you. This is ENORMOUSLY impactful in making your charges stronger. Even if they charge YOU, your assault troops are better off than they would be when spending the extra round or two absorbing fire.

And then you're dealing with reserve rules and getting your army shot to pieces piecemeal. That said it can be a viable tactic for Ravenwing/White Scars, but then they're still much better at shooting. How many assault units can both outflank, and have the durability to survive even one round of enemy shooting?

4. Rhino Corners. cant shoot what you cant see. expose just a couple from around the corner, let the enemy take their best shot and then charge. the resultant damage may well not be enough to matter even against the Tau. Support fire is only as useful as the number of units that can do it.

Your description is obviously inadequate, you're using your Rhino to block LOS to your unit, then running the unit around the Rhino to get to assault? You then seem to think that the overwatch fire can only hit the couple of models exposed?

Now people can argue that these things dont work all the time. They'd be right. but they ARE ways to make charging much more impactful parts of your games. And they do work. So it's just a matter of positioning and timing.

Harder yes. But assault isn't dead, say my Grey Knights.

Or, you know, you could just load up with guns and shoot the enemy, rather than rely on unreliable charge distances, list gimmicks (available to only a few armies) and hope.

Freman Bloodglaive wrote:

4. Rhino Corners. cant shoot what you cant see. expose just a couple from around the corner, let the enemy take their best shot and then charge. the resultant damage may well not be enough to matter even against the Tau. Support fire is only as useful as the number of units that can do it.

Your description is obviously inadequate, you're using your Rhino to block LOS to your unit, then running the unit around the Rhino to get to assault? You then seem to think that the overwatch fire can only hit the couple of models exposed?

Technically he is right. Overwatch doesn't override the LOS rules. However, it makes trying to charge slightly more risky as if if those guys that can see and draw a straight line to the enemy die, the charge automatically fails.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Not when the threat is on a T6 2+ monstrous creature that will likely just punch you back and have most of your attacks bounce off the armour save. it shouldn't be easy for a shooting army to just point/click away units at a time without having to move either, and yet it is.

I wasn't aware that the Riptide was the only unit in a Tau army, silly me.

In all seriousness, I'll gladly charge a Riptide with the right unit. Charge a Riptide with ASM or Bloodletters? Sure, especially if I'm just trying to tie it up so I can move a heavy hitter in to finish the job or if the opportunity presented itself to charge with a largely intact squad (volume of attacks can often get the job done thanks to Sweeping Advance). Charge a Riptide with Daemonettes, Seekers, TH/SS Termies, a Venerable Dreadnaught, Plague Marines, any of the many Venom-Sac armed Nid units, or any of the Greater Daemons or Daemon Princes? Sign me up, Riptide-cabobs for everyone

And they get there how?

Intact squad and Tau does not compute.

Freman Bloodglaive wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
My Grey Knights made a 9 inch charge last night that ended an entire 35 man blob squad and another in the same round of 8 inches that ruined a Khorne Berzerker squad. Then I make a 9 inch charge to kill a Chaos Marine unit that had been mauled.

That's three charges I never would have gotten in the old rules. So what if they shot a couple GK's on the way in. It would have been much worse than that for me BEFORE this. And with a few little tricks, you can tilt the odds of that.

You have a 10/36 chance of rolling 9+ on two dice, or 26/36 of failing. On the other hand previously you had 36/36 of making it 6 inches into combat. Over 2/3 chance of failure is not something worth gambling on when you can just shoot with guaranteed range.

Tricks like (this is across several armies obviously):
1. Dirge Casters. Fantastically annoying to enemies like Tau.
2. Teeny spam: taking Mutilators as singular models, dropping them in and then mass assaulting the next round with 6 or seven units. The enemy cant kill them al and all of them, even the teeny units, are dangerous enough to want to.

Chaos only, and most people don't regarding using an entire elite slot for one Mutilator as a plan, admittedly not much in the Chaos Elite slot is worth taking. 6 or 7 units? 6 maximum if you're taking dual FOCs.

3. Outflank. It gives your opponent one round instead of 2-3 to whittle you. This is ENORMOUSLY impactful in making your charges stronger. Even if they charge YOU, your assault troops are better off than they would be when spending the extra round or two absorbing fire.

And then you're dealing with reserve rules and getting your army shot to pieces piecemeal. That said it can be a viable tactic for Ravenwing/White Scars, but then they're still much better at shooting. How many assault units can both outflank, and have the durability to survive even one round of enemy shooting?

4. Rhino Corners. cant shoot what you cant see. expose just a couple from around the corner, let the enemy take their best shot and then charge. the resultant damage may well not be enough to matter even against the Tau. Support fire is only as useful as the number of units that can do it.

Your description is obviously inadequate, you're using your Rhino to block LOS to your unit, then running the unit around the Rhino to get to assault? You then seem to think that the overwatch fire can only hit the couple of models exposed?

Now people can argue that these things dont work all the time. They'd be right. but they ARE ways to make charging much more impactful parts of your games. And they do work. So it's just a matter of positioning and timing.

Harder yes. But assault isn't dead, say my Grey Knights.

Or, you know, you could just load up with guns and shoot the enemy, rather than rely on unreliable charge distances, list gimmicks (available to only a few armies) and hope.

Quitter. Just kidding. But seriously.

Here you miss the point. It literaly doesnt matter what the odds of a 8 inch charge is, because no matter what theodds were, they were better than before. Second, youre response assumes i need to choose between shooting and assaulting. It was an 8 inch charge BECAUSE I shot them first.

You dont need FOC for the teeny spam to work.

You mention that i must "deal" with reserve rules and get shot to pieces to pull this off. Are you ignoring me when i said i was avoiding 1-2rounds of shootin??? A lot of units can definitely both come on, shoot the enemy up and survive reprisal to charge because doing it this way is less shooting to the face than otherwise they would face.

If you read your rulebook, youll find out I am correct about rhino corners.

Shooting isnt bad. Im just telling you that assault aint bad either because heres the ultimate truth: forces that attack morale are the scariest. And melee attacks morale. It will not be as overpowering as it was in 5e and it shouldnt be. But its no lost cause. The only time the random assaults hurt is when in open terrain, less than 6 inches. Every other charge is potentially better.

So, you're saying that assault is good because it's scary, and scared opponents will make mistakes?

I wish I had your opponents.

Unless, of course, you mean to say that assault plays on Ld characteristics, which is true in quality, but not in quantity. It's not that difficult to make your opponent take morale tests due to shooting, while you'll only ever force your opponent to make morale checks if you manage to make it into close combat... and win it with whatever is left.

... unless what you're assaulting is a vehicle, or is embarked in a vehicle, or is stubborn, or is fearless. And it will only matter if they weren't a speedbump or a cheap squad, or something better than you in close combat.

... and did I mention it has to survive long enough to get into close combat?

I dont think i told you it was fear at all.

You must realize that morale is easier to attack. Just one wound can kill a whole unit in combat. Shooting typically takes 3 to force the issue. Psykers and so on all can kill a unit with their primaris power and numerous wargears.

I dont think its important to point out that shooting rocks. I dont think it necessary for shooting to be worse in order for melee to be good. Thats zero sum thinking. I am just telling you that NOT CONSIDERING such tactics will needlessly lead you to losses

JPong wrote:
The reason no one really bothers with talking about wraiths is because they are talking about the effect with Tau. A single ultra tough close combat unit in a sea of shooting doesn't prove close combat isn't basically dead in the water. It's the same reason that mentioning the winged-hive tyrant isn't useful to the discussion. We know ultra tough and fast units can make it there, however there are a whole boat load of things that can't and they also can't do anything else.

To be honest, I don't see what is so tough about wraiths. A unit of 3 are just 6 wounds with a 3++ saves

Zachardm1027 wrote:

All in all incase this is a tldr post: Assault is not dead. it did take a hit but it is more specific now instead of run forward and assault. you have to use some tactis to use it instead of a dead ahead sprint.

Assault has ALWAYS required more tactics than shooting. Shooting is literally pointing at things until they die. Shooting armies almost entirely ignore 2 out of 3 phases of the game. Assault has always been more than run forward and assault. Why is it alright to have one section of the game be point and click, when the other involves jumping through flaming hoops?

It is pretty much that way for Tau now. Tau used to have to move with JSJ but now you can kill pretty much anything before it gets into contact with you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Freman Bloodglaive wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
4. Rhino Corners. cant shoot what you cant see. expose just a couple from around the corner, let the enemy take their best shot and then charge. the resultant damage may well not be enough to matter even against the Tau. Support fire is only as useful as the number of units that can do it.

Your description is obviously inadequate, you're using your Rhino to block LOS to your unit, then running the unit around the Rhino to get to assault? You then seem to think that the overwatch fire can only hit the couple of models exposed?

Out of LOS? Damn.......... guess I'll just need to shoot them with SMS.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Not when the threat is on a T6 2+ monstrous creature that will likely just punch you back and have most of your attacks bounce off the armour save. it shouldn't be easy for a shooting army to just point/click away units at a time without having to move either, and yet it is.

I wasn't aware that the Riptide was the only unit in a Tau army, silly me.

In all seriousness, I'll gladly charge a Riptide with the right unit. Charge a Riptide with ASM or Bloodletters? Sure, especially if I'm just trying to tie it up so I can move a heavy hitter in to finish the job or if the opportunity presented itself to charge with a largely intact squad (volume of attacks can often get the job done thanks to Sweeping Advance). Charge a Riptide with Daemonettes, Seekers, TH/SS Termies, a Venerable Dreadnaught, Plague Marines, any of the many Venom-Sac armed Nid units, or any of the Greater Daemons or Daemon Princes? Sign me up, Riptide-cabobs for everyone

Don't let Paradigm know that you're willing to charge a Riptide with assault marines. He'll tell you not to do that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jancoran wrote:
Quitter. Just kidding. But seriously.

Here you miss the point. It literaly doesnt matter what the odds of a 8 inch charge is, because no matter what theodds were, they were better than before. Second, youre response assumes i need to choose between shooting and assaulting. It was an 8 inch charge BECAUSE I shot them first.

You dont need FOC for the teeny spam to work.

You mention that i must "deal" with reserve rules and get shot to pieces to pull this off. Are you ignoring me when i said i was avoiding 1-2rounds of shootin??? A lot of units can definitely both come on, shoot the enemy up and survive reprisal to charge because doing it this way is less shooting to the face than otherwise they would face.

If you read your rulebook, youll find out I am correct about rhino corners.

Shooting isnt bad. Im just telling you that assault aint bad either because heres the ultimate truth: forces that attack morale are the scariest. And melee attacks morale. It will not be as overpowering as it was in 5e and it shouldnt be. But its no lost cause. The only time the random assaults hurt is when in open terrain, less than 6 inches. Every other charge is potentially better.

Can I ask a question. What happens the turn you disembark from said Rhino? Do they not blow the Rhino up and then shoot at the guys anyway?

Who cares what the enemy does to the rhino if youre getting out behind it. The issue is, they have to actually explode it and even if successful in not just wrecking it, it means that the enemy has spent a fair amount of effort trying and yet, three more just luke it are in position. Cant kill everything.not fast enough.

As for outflankers, the battlefield viewed from the sides provides a lot of cover,yeah?

I think if you look at the simple truth that we can make the nine inch charges we never could before, and give yourself 3-4 units in position to try, life can be good.

 Jancoran wrote:
Who cares what the enemy does to the rhino if youre getting out behind it. The issue is, they have to actually explode it and even if successful in not just wrecking it, it means that the enemy has spent a fair amount of effort trying and yet, three more just luke it are in position. Cant kill everything.not fast enough.

As for outflankers, the battlefield viewed from the sides provides a lot of cover,yeah?

I think if you look at the simple truth that we can make the nine inch charges we never could before, and give yourself 3-4 units in position to try, life can be good.

A Rhino aint that survivable, plenty of games have gone by where the Rhino can be killed one by one per wave transport on an Eldar side, or even just base heavy weaponry..Or tau glancing it with firewarriors..

Unless you can pack 14+ rhinos with actual threats inside, there's no way most of them will survive.

 Jancoran wrote:
Who cares what the enemy does to the rhino if youre getting out behind it. The issue is, they have to actually explode it and even if successful in not just wrecking it, it means that the enemy has spent a fair amount of effort trying and yet, three more just luke it are in position. Cant kill everything.not fast enough.

As for outflankers, the battlefield viewed from the sides provides a lot of cover,yeah?

I think if you look at the simple truth that we can make the nine inch charges we never could before, and give yourself 3-4 units in position to try, life can be good.

Its a better option than a lot, I'll grant you that but a few weeks ago I did play an Ork player with the same kind of idea coming from him. He had 5 trukks (I think it was trukks) all with Boyz inside. None of the boys actually made combat. However his Warboss on a bike and the bike squad did make combat and did in fact kill the Riptide. Alas, after combat I shot him to death as well. However, its a better option than a lot but also bear in mind that those Ork vehicles are open topped and you can assault from them.

Space Marines have Land Speeder Storms... Scouts can assault out of those...

But then what are five man scout units going to do in combat anyway?

Yes, I agree with the idea that winning combat, even by one point can potentially allow you to destroy an entire unit in one go. Of course you don't actually want to do that on the turn you charge because of all the shooting to the face you'll take standing around after that.

Ravenwing/White Scars are quite good with hit and run, because so long as you're not actually good enough to win combat you can disengage after your opponents turn, avoiding their shooting.

I like 6th edition because I prefer shooting over assault. Guns > swords in terms of effectiveness.

 DarthOvious wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Not when the threat is on a T6 2+ monstrous creature that will likely just punch you back and have most of your attacks bounce off the armour save. it shouldn't be easy for a shooting army to just point/click away units at a time without having to move either, and yet it is.

I wasn't aware that the Riptide was the only unit in a Tau army, silly me.

In all seriousness, I'll gladly charge a Riptide with the right unit. Charge a Riptide with ASM or Bloodletters? Sure, especially if I'm just trying to tie it up so I can move a heavy hitter in to finish the job or if the opportunity presented itself to charge with a largely intact squad (volume of attacks can often get the job done thanks to Sweeping Advance). Charge a Riptide with Daemonettes, Seekers, TH/SS Termies, a Venerable Dreadnaught, Plague Marines, any of the many Venom-Sac armed Nid units, or any of the Greater Daemons or Daemon Princes? Sign me up, Riptide-cabobs for everyone

Don't let Paradigm know that you're willing to charge a Riptide with assault marines. He'll tell you not to do that.

A Riptide is not going to dominate close combat against anything that's not an immobile tank. 3 attacks is okay, but WS 2 and Init 2 is horrible. An ASM squad should tie up a Riptide for a few rounds, hell, they might get lucky and win the combat and kill it with Sweeping Advance. Granted, I don't take ASM that often, but if I have them on the board, I'm going to use them in the best way to help the rest of the army, and if that means charging a Riptide to keep it from shooting or to pin it down so my TH/SS termies or Venerable Dread can finish it, so be it.

I view assault units like ASM and assault-equipped Scouts as a means to an end. They aren't good enough to tackle anything of worth and actually kill it, but they do a great job at speeding (or sneaking) across the battlefield and landing an assault to tie up a unit while my terminators, command squad, or honour guard close the gap.

Assault is finally not objectively better than shooting for the first time since 2nd edition.

Internet dumbasses misinterpret that as "worthless" now that they are on equal footing.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Internet dumbasses misinterpret that as "worthless" now that they are on equal footing.

That's so funny. How many turns of shooting does your army take prior to being able to shoot?

Equal footing is a joke. Assault was not objectively better in 5th either. The top armies were exceptional at shooting and capable at assaulting. And won games by shooting, not assaulting.

rigeld2 wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Internet dumbasses misinterpret that as "worthless" now that they are on equal footing.

That's so funny. How many turns of shooting does your army take prior to being able to shoot?

Equal footing is a joke. Assault was not objectively better in 5th either. The top armies were exceptional at shooting and capable at assaulting. And won games by shooting, not assaulting.

It's almost like these people don't read even a single page of threads as I am pretty sure both those points have been brought up and debunked on every page at least once.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Assault is finally not objectively better than shooting for the first time since 2nd edition.

Internet dumbasses misinterpret that as "worthless" now that they are on equal footing.

I guess you missed 5th edition.

Martel732 wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Assault is finally not objectively better than shooting for the first time since 2nd edition.

Internet dumbasses misinterpret that as "worthless" now that they are on equal footing.

I guess you missed 5th edition.

I think he even missed 4th, 4th edition was the Skimmerspam edition! (Tau Fish of Fury, and Eldar Falconspam with various other shooting) Sure if you got into melee in 4th you'd do damage, but at least assault was viable.

JPong wrote:
I am pretty sure both those points have been brought up and debunked on every page at least once.

And they were no more correct now than then.

This is strictly another case of being loud on the internet being equated with being right.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

JPong wrote:
I am pretty sure both those points have been brought up and debunked on every page at least once.

And they were no more correct now than then.

This is strictly another case of being loud on the internet being equated with being right.

Yes, because you are somehow right...Because? You shout louder?

 DarknessEternal wrote:

JPong wrote:
I am pretty sure both those points have been brought up and debunked on every page at least once.

And they were no more correct now than then.

This is strictly another case of being loud on the internet being equated with being right.

So assault armies ruled 5th?
And 4th?
And are on even footing in 6th?

... Can I come play in your meta? It sounds much more fun that the rest of the world's.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

JPong wrote:
I am pretty sure both those points have been brought up and debunked on every page at least once.

And they were no more correct now than then.

This is strictly another case of being loud on the internet being equated with being right.

Yes, because you are somehow right...Because? You shout louder?

Nah man its because he isn't an "internet dumbass", he is here to enlighten us all, a voice of the voiceless if you will (and if you like wrestling references).

Assault is garbage in 6th, with the right planning, right rolls, and the right luck you might do some damage or if you happen to have some beatsticks, but generally assault is crap now.

On one hand it makes sense its the 41st Millennium we have guns that shoot nuclear waves and billions of tiny sharp discs, of course those are going be more of a deciding factor than a chainsaw sword.

On the other hand I got into 40k because of the giant chainsaw sword having super space knights, not to watch a bunch of blue fish men shoot me to death as a jaunt across the board to poke them.

But I'm just one guy I'm sure plenty of people love to have an army of static blue fish men shooting the hell out of everything, but Metas shift and 40k is no exception who knows in 7th we might see the return of assault or it might make vehicles viable again, or it might even turn into a herohammer game, its the price you pay for playing 40k.

One point that many people miss when complaining about random charge lengths is that in practice most charges in competitive 5th edition were already random anyway-- nearly any important charge occurred through Difficult Terrain.

In any case, I consider assault and shooting to be balanced. I'm currently painting up some SM Veteran Sergeants with lightning claws, in fact. A versatile army with the ability to move, shoot, and assault effectively is in my experience stronger than one that relies on one phase of the game to carry the day.

 Kingsley wrote:
One point that many people miss when complaining about random charge lengths is that in practice most charges in competitive 5th edition were already random anyway-- nearly any important charge occurred through Difficult Terrain.

In any case, I consider assault and shooting to be balanced. I'm currently painting up some SM Veteran Sergeants with lightning claws, in fact. A versatile army with the ability to move, shoot, and assault effectively is in my experience stronger than one that relies on one phase of the game to carry the day.

So you have an army that is better than Tyranids in both assault (which they are made for) and shooting (not a surprise considering the gun-beast of the army is BS3 bs indeed GW) this is why gameplay is usually a negative experience for me. When I pay money I don't expect to have my ass handed to me every time.

 DarthOvious wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Quitter. Just kidding. But seriously.

Here you miss the point. It literaly doesnt matter what the odds of a 8 inch charge is, because no matter what theodds were, they were better than before. Second, youre response assumes i need to choose between shooting and assaulting. It was an 8 inch charge BECAUSE I shot them first.

You dont need FOC for the teeny spam to work.

You mention that i must "deal" with reserve rules and get shot to pieces to pull this off. Are you ignoring me when i said i was avoiding 1-2rounds of shootin??? A lot of units can definitely both come on, shoot the enemy up and survive reprisal to charge because doing it this way is less shooting to the face than otherwise they would face.

If you read your rulebook, youll find out I am correct about rhino corners.

Shooting isnt bad. Im just telling you that assault aint bad either because heres the ultimate truth: forces that attack morale are the scariest. And melee attacks morale. It will not be as overpowering as it was in 5e and it shouldnt be. But its no lost cause. The only time the random assaults hurt is when in open terrain, less than 6 inches. Every other charge is potentially better.

Can I ask a question. What happens the turn you disembark from said Rhino? Do they not blow the Rhino up and then shoot at the guys anyway?

Yes you can ask that question. Also the answer is, Yes, they will try. You disembark behind the rhino so if theykill it without exploding it...you're still behind it. And many times thats what happens. And if there are multiple rhinos, sadly, they must not just kill, but explode them, in order to stop me from trying this. And if you are outflanking, this really becomes a nightmare for the enemy.

The fraud on the internet is that the enemy has this "unlimited" hose of shooting it can aim at any tactic. In reality, wreckage, terrain, and other units all conspire to block off avenues of fire, or provide essential cover. So your job as General is to minimize fire on your own forces (which outflanking does for you) and have a plan for what you will do if they do or if they dont get to the correct side...and make sure you include measures in the army, like a Comms relay or Officer of the Fleet, or the Autarch or GrandMaster or WHATEVER to mitigate that risk in the first place.

Heres why it works: They cant kill you on the come like they wanted to...its later in the game when their firepower is lessened... and assaults are ALWAYS more deadly to the assaulted generally. Losing combat and being cut down stinks...and is far more efficient than shooting even though shooting BY VIRTUE OF THE AMOUNT OF TIME IT HAS TO TRY is stronger. By doing the things im talking about, you're eliminating a lot of that TIME advantage the shooting attacks have.

This is a philosophy that guides me all the time in list building and game planning. Mobility and TIMING are WEAPONS.

 darthnatus wrote:

So you have an army that is better than Tyranids in both assault (which they are made for) and shooting

No C:SM army is going to be both better at assault and shooting than Tyranids.

He said he was playing an army good at both. Being good at assault, as far as Space Marine are concerned, still doesn't mean they can charge into 5 Tervigons and 100 Termagants.

 Jancoran wrote:

 DarthOvious wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Quitter. Just kidding. But seriously.

Here you miss the point. It literaly doesnt matter what the odds of a 8 inch charge is, because no matter what theodds were, they were better than before. Second, youre response assumes i need to choose between shooting and assaulting. It was an 8 inch charge BECAUSE I shot them first.

You dont need FOC for the teeny spam to work.

You mention that i must "deal" with reserve rules and get shot to pieces to pull this off. Are you ignoring me when i said i was avoiding 1-2rounds of shootin??? A lot of units can definitely both come on, shoot the enemy up and survive reprisal to charge because doing it this way is less shooting to the face than otherwise they would face.

If you read your rulebook, youll find out I am correct about rhino corners.

Shooting isnt bad. Im just telling you that assault aint bad either because heres the ultimate truth: forces that attack morale are the scariest. And melee attacks morale. It will not be as overpowering as it was in 5e and it shouldnt be. But its no lost cause. The only time the random assaults hurt is when in open terrain, less than 6 inches. Every other charge is potentially better.

Can I ask a question. What happens the turn you disembark from said Rhino? Do they not blow the Rhino up and then shoot at the guys anyway?

Yes you can ask that question. Also the answer is, Yes, they will try. You disembark behind the rhino so if theykill it without exploding it...you're still behind it. And many times thats what happens. And if there are multiple rhinos, sadly, they must not just kill, but explode them, in order to stop me from trying this. And if you are outflanking, this really becomes a nightmare for the enemy.

The fraud on the internet is that the enemy has this "unlimited" hose of shooting it can aim at any tactic. In reality, wreckage, terrain, and other units all conspire to block off avenues of fire, or provide essential cover. So your job as General is to minimize fire on your own forces (which outflanking does for you) and have a plan for what you will do if they do or if they dont get to the correct side...and make sure you include measures in the army, like a Comms relay or Officer of the Fleet, or the Autarch or GrandMaster or WHATEVER to mitigate that risk in the first place.

Heres why it works: They cant kill you on the come like they wanted to...its later in the game when their firepower is lessened... and assaults are ALWAYS more deadly to the assaulted generally. Losing combat and being cut down stinks...and is far more efficient than shooting even though shooting BY VIRTUE OF THE AMOUNT OF TIME IT HAS TO TRY is stronger. By doing the things im talking about, you're eliminating a lot of that TIME advantage the shooting attacks have.

This is a philosophy that guides me all the time in list building and game planning. Mobility and TIMING are WEAPONS.

I am sure you are some tactical genius doing what no one else has mentioned in this thread right. Oh wait, no you aren't because all this stuff was already brought up. Because if you are parked there stuck behind a rhino for a turn, everyone in your threat range just backs up. The reason 8+ inch charge ranges don't really matter is because trying them and failing is bad, and guess what you have a good chance of doing? You have a 30% chance roughly of failing a 6 inch charge. That's pretty god damn high. Remember, they don't have to kill your unit. Only render it flaccid. And each casualty they cause with whatever chunk of their army that can see you puts you even further away from them.

Shooting armies can bring as much shooting as you can assault. There is *always* another unit that can shoot. And they can strip 4 rhinos down to nothing in one turn pretty reliably, before they are even in position.

And that even ignores that there are assault armies that don't actually have rhinos to hide behind.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

JPong wrote:
I am pretty sure both those points have been brought up and debunked on every page at least once.

And they were no more correct now than then.

This is strictly another case of being loud on the internet being equated with being right.

Sweeping generalized statements began with insults?
If hypocrisy was money you could pay off america's national debt

 Jancoran wrote:

 DarthOvious wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Quitter. Just kidding. But seriously.

Here you miss the point. It literaly doesnt matter what the odds of a 8 inch charge is, because no matter what theodds were, they were better than before. Second, youre response assumes i need to choose between shooting and assaulting. It was an 8 inch charge BECAUSE I shot them first.

You dont need FOC for the teeny spam to work.

You mention that i must "deal" with reserve rules and get shot to pieces to pull this off. Are you ignoring me when i said i was avoiding 1-2rounds of shootin??? A lot of units can definitely both come on, shoot the enemy up and survive reprisal to charge because doing it this way is less shooting to the face than otherwise they would face.

If you read your rulebook, youll find out I am correct about rhino corners.

Shooting isnt bad. Im just telling you that assault aint bad either because heres the ultimate truth: forces that attack morale are the scariest. And melee attacks morale. It will not be as overpowering as it was in 5e and it shouldnt be. But its no lost cause. The only time the random assaults hurt is when in open terrain, less than 6 inches. Every other charge is potentially better.

Can I ask a question. What happens the turn you disembark from said Rhino? Do they not blow the Rhino up and then shoot at the guys anyway?

Yes you can ask that question. Also the answer is, Yes, they will try. You disembark behind the rhino so if theykill it without exploding it...you're still behind it. And many times thats what happens. And if there are multiple rhinos, sadly, they must not just kill, but explode them, in order to stop me from trying this. And if you are outflanking, this really becomes a nightmare for the enemy.

The fraud on the internet is that the enemy has this "unlimited" hose of shooting it can aim at any tactic. In reality, wreckage, terrain, and other units all conspire to block off avenues of fire, or provide essential cover. So your job as General is to minimize fire on your own forces (which outflanking does for you) and have a plan for what you will do if they do or if they dont get to the correct side...and make sure you include measures in the army, like a Comms relay or Officer of the Fleet, or the Autarch or GrandMaster or WHATEVER to mitigate that risk in the first place.

Heres why it works: They cant kill you on the come like they wanted to...its later in the game when their firepower is lessened... and assaults are ALWAYS more deadly to the assaulted generally. Losing combat and being cut down stinks...and is far more efficient than shooting even though shooting BY VIRTUE OF THE AMOUNT OF TIME IT HAS TO TRY is stronger. By doing the things im talking about, you're eliminating a lot of that TIME advantage the shooting attacks have.

This is a philosophy that guides me all the time in list building and game planning. Mobility and TIMING are WEAPONS.

So what you're saying is that I should take lots of Rhinos with my Blood Angels and shove assault marines in them. Then when they get blown up I hide behind the rhino? I'm not sure how hiding behind the Rhino in my deployment zone is going to help me get into assault.

 Jancoran wrote:
Heres why it works: They cant kill you on the come like they wanted to...its later in the game when their firepower is lessened... and assaults are ALWAYS more deadly to the assaulted generally. .

60% of the time it works everytime!

First of all, paint on mac sucks and
YOU CANT TELL ME COMBAT ISNT DEAD DOG

Except maybe for the Daemon boys, and their 5 MC creature lists. I am currently 1-7 against those lists. I might just buy a DE mega force because of those lists. And those people who are sitting there like "Dude! I don't run that list with my Daemons! I run plaguebearers.... n stuff.." LOL

Daemons................Alive and well

Khorne....................KIA

Space Puppies......MIA (Thunderwolf)

Blood Angels..........KIA

Black Templars...... KIA

Orks..........................MIA (Green Tide)

Tyranids...................MIA (Flyrant, Nidzilla)

Necron wraith list? cmon people thats no problem just have to consider that the modifier only works on models who are base to base at their initiative step.

I must've skipped some other combat armies, but whatever. Now venting time.


"AHA I have you now Riptide/Wraithknight/Baby-carriage/Iron-Arm Swarmlord/Greater Daemon! You will never survive my onslaught of 60 attacks on the charge! Oh you challenge? I mean I have to decline or I will get insta-killed. Weapon skill what? Excuse me? ....Wait what? Toughness 8? Oh.....well no problem! HA! 5 Wounds! Suck it! He has a 2+ armor save? Wow.... thats really something....." and then proceeds to widdle down the squad, while I get less and less attacks.

No cheap way into assault unless you are orcs.
I mean, furious charge doesn't even give you +1 initiative anymore.
I don't get any bonuses from multi-charging.
Overwatch is a bitch.
Tau get to have hammerheads help them if theyre within 6 in. I MEAN WTF? IS IT NOT ENOUGH THAT YOU CAN OVERWATCH WITH MULTIPLE UNITS?
Eldar have quasi-rending.
Necron gauss my LR to death and dont run away. MIND FUCKIN SHACKLE
DE just rape me.
There are like 4 assault vehicles in the whole game. (exaggeration)
Dark Angel salvo bolters.
Sisters hand flamer squad.
Salamander flamer squad.
Shoota boyz getting a bunch of shots (granted they have horrible aim) then have more attacks than you.
Charging through difficult.
IG: yay I charged a squad and swept them! 30 more to go! (horrible exaggeration)
AP1, AP2, AP3, Ignores cover, GW is like Oprah with its ranged AP.
Lightning claws AP3!!!!
Specialist weapons! Unwieldy! Slow and Purposeful! (more of a 2 way street here but whatever)

"Oh yeah well I got counter charged by some Hammernators/Incubi/Striking Scorpions and they destroyed me!"
Hey buddy guess what that does not mean the army is assault orientated, they are just there to make it virtually impossible to charge anything.

My observation with most assault armies is that the only way to win is to make EVERY SINGLE charge and even with that you could get shot up before you even get there.

Excuse me guys, I have some grieving to do.

In my humble opinion if you do the below assault would make a come back:

1. Make it possible to assault from out of a dedicated transport even if that transport moves as far as possible.

Would fix so much...

bodazoka wrote:
In my humble opinion if you do the below assault would make a come back:

1. Make it possible to assault from out of a dedicated transport even if that transport moves as far as possible.

Would fix so much...

Even if it's counted as a dis-ordered charge if it's not from an assault vehicle, this would help Chaos Melee so VERY much.

bodazoka wrote:
In my humble opinion if you do the below assault would make a come back:

1. Make it possible to assault from out of a dedicated transport even if that transport moves as far as possible.

Would fix so much...

This change would be way more disruptive and game changing then you think, and more than one army would suffer for it. I.e.; Deamons and Tyranids who have no dedicated transport vehicles. These armies would quickly fall to the bottom of the list for playability. The Blood Angels would rise to the top of all armies- because they have fast dedicated transport vehicles. 12" in movement phase (Cruising), +12" in shooting phase (Flat Out), guys jump out within 2", then charge 2d6" for a potential... 28"-38" assault range... yeah, that would be insane. Eldar would become the most powerful army in the game, with the Dark Eldar very close behind them. I'm pretty sure the Dark Eldar would be the king of movement/assault- they just don't have a good unit to back it up (Wytches are good, but not THAT good compared to other assault units out there).

Basically, you would see these fast armies spam their fast dedicated troop transports and pull off first turn charges. If you ever played 3rd edition, you would know how much a first turn assault sucks when your opponent goes first, pulls off a first turn assault, and basically ends the game before you even get a turn. It wouldn't be fair in this edition at all. Your opponent would just have to tie up all your scoring units in your deployment zone, get First Blood, and maybe a couple kill points, keep one of his scoring choices back to grab an objective late game and Bob's your uncle. He wins the game on the first turn because he got to go first. Similarly, you could do the same by winning or seizing the initiative. Not much fun for either player.

No, there is no simple "fix" for this edition. We're just gonna have to play it out for a couple more years and hope 7th changes a lot of things, and given GW's track record, it'll either just tweak this rule set, or it will be a completely different rule set. I bet that they will simply tweak the rule set, as it's a complete overhaul over the previous editions. I don't see GW scrapping this rules set as sales are "booming" for this edition. As much as we all may complain about it, the sales figures tell a different story. This is the "best edition of 40K yet" according to those sales figures.

I actually do think its the best edition.

So do I.

 Tamwulf wrote:

bodazoka wrote:
In my humble opinion if you do the below assault would make a come back:

1. Make it possible to assault from out of a dedicated transport even if that transport moves as far as possible.

Would fix so much...

This change would be way more disruptive and game changing then you think, and more than one army would suffer for it. I.e.; Deamons and Tyranids who have no dedicated transport vehicles. These armies would quickly fall to the bottom of the list for playability. The Blood Angels would rise to the top of all armies- because they have fast dedicated transport vehicles. 12" in movement phase (Cruising), +12" in shooting phase (Flat Out), guys jump out within 2", then charge 2d6" for a potential... 28"-38" assault range... yeah, that would be insane. Eldar would become the most powerful army in the game, with the Dark Eldar very close behind them. I'm pretty sure the Dark Eldar would be the king of movement/assault- they just don't have a good unit to back it up (Wytches are good, but not THAT good compared to other assault units out there).

Basically, you would see these fast armies spam their fast dedicated troop transports and pull off first turn charges. If you ever played 3rd edition, you would know how much a first turn assault sucks when your opponent goes first, pulls off a first turn assault, and basically ends the game before you even get a turn. It wouldn't be fair in this edition at all. Your opponent would just have to tie up all your scoring units in your deployment zone, get First Blood, and maybe a couple kill points, keep one of his scoring choices back to grab an objective late game and Bob's your uncle. He wins the game on the first turn because he got to go first. Similarly, you could do the same by winning or seizing the initiative. Not much fun for either player.

No, there is no simple "fix" for this edition. We're just gonna have to play it out for a couple more years and hope 7th changes a lot of things, and given GW's track record, it'll either just tweak this rule set, or it will be a completely different rule set. I bet that they will simply tweak the rule set, as it's a complete overhaul over the previous editions. I don't see GW scrapping this rules set as sales are "booming" for this edition. As much as we all may complain about it, the sales figures tell a different story. This is the "best edition of 40K yet" according to those sales figures.

I agree with you when you say that having charges from vehicles that moved flat out is just plain wrong, but I'm not sure if that is what he meant. I think he just meant allowing assault from vehicles who move 6 inches. You could make assault ramps do something else, like getting to re-roll you charge distance or something. Perhaps you could just allow assault from vehicles that haven't moved. Still probably not going to help a lot though.

I think the simplest fix would be to remove three rules, and tweak one.

1) Let casualty removal happen from anywhere in a unit.

This would mitigate both the issue where assault units have further to travel, overall, to get into assault, and the issue of assaults failing simply because overwatch killed the one guy who would have made it.

2) Get rid of challenges. They're a ridiculous attempt to carry over fantasyisms into the far future. We live in 2013 and haven't seen wars where champions do hand-to-hand combat with each other in over 2000 years. Are the soliders 38,000 years in the future so stupid?

Yes, that means the return of 'hidden' powerfists, but that's a good thing. The hidden powerfist was a limiting factor on the power of the MC/herohammer. Sure, the MC might win the fight, but he'd take a few solid hits on the way out. With challenges, heros/monsters can challenge out the one weapon that really threatens them, and then set to work destroying a squad.

3) Reduce the randomess in random charges (or apply randomness to shooting ranges). It's ridiculous that a guy with a gun can know with absolute precision that he needs to take a step to the right to hit a target 48" on the other side of the table, but a guy 3" from a target doesn't know if he's close enough to charge it. Make it 4d3. That gives you a minimum of 4", as well as having more dice forcing the resulting probability curve closer to the average.

4) Allow pop-up assaults. Denying people assaults from infiltration/outflanking/arriving from reserve has no basis in anything over than some developer being pissy that he got assaulted after positioning his guys badly. Seriously, you know what your opponent has in reserve, and where it's likely to come from. There's no reason to make those guys wait.
Allowing these charges would add a threat to static gunlines that they don't have now.

On the original question...

Not Really.

The current addition has just made tactical troops more tactical. The real assault things, bikes, spawn, jump troops are just as assaulty. You need to weigh up the number of troop choices for capturing objectives vs how assaulty you want to be.

There as been mention of pop up assaults not being allowed, I tend to agree with the rule and think it makes you think more and makes some troops stand out which can do this (Can Vanguard Still do this?). I wouldn't want to see the return of pop up attacks, GWcould consider giving outflanking/ deep striking/teleporting troops stealth in the emenies shooting phase after they arrive, to signify a level of surprise or confusion as a way to lower the moans of no pop up attacks.

 Redbeard wrote:
Yes, that means the return of 'hidden' powerfists, but that's a good thing. The hidden powerfist was a limiting factor on the power of the MC/herohammer. Sure, the MC might win the fight, but he'd take a few solid hits on the way out. With challenges, heros/monsters can challenge out the one weapon that really threatens them, and then set to work destroying a squad.

Also get rid of grenades vs MCs. If you're allowing hidden powerfists, krark grenades vs MCs is adding insult to injury.

Are you actually seeing grenades having much of an impact on MCs? I'm not. In fact, in some cases, it's better not to have them. If a biomancied T8 dude attacks my marines, my krak grenades are wounding on 6s, and they're not ap3, so they're bouncing off most MCs. On the other hand, they're still S6, so they -could- hurt the MC, preventing me from using the 'i can chose to fail my morale and try to get away" rule.

Meltabombs, maybe - but there's only one unit in the game that I'm aware of that all have meltabombs (fire dragons) - the rest of them have the same problem as the powerfist - they're on upgrade characters only.

That assumes you get a T8 beasty very often. Many (many, many) times I have to push Tervigons and Tyrants into combat with units with grenades when they don't have IA. Against Marines I typically lose one MC a game to grenades - not that it makes me lose the game, but it's something to think about. I've lost count of the times that I've challenged (and squashed) a PF and then died to grenades the following rounds.

You're also ignoring that Trygon Primes (for example) can challenge-snipe the power fist right now and can never be T8.

But see this is where shooty units also get a buff. A close combat oriented squad with pistols and CCW would have a bunch of attacks, power weapons, etc. but when it comes down to throwing grenades they can each throw one. And if lets say a 10-man bolter squad gets charged by a MC, they would be getting the same number of grenades so really why even bother with assault squads.

 dandadoom wrote:
But see this is where shooty units also get a buff. A close combat oriented squad with pistols and CCW would have a bunch of attacks, power weapons, etc. but when it comes down to throwing grenades they can each throw one. And if lets say a 10-man bolter squad gets charged by a MC, they would be getting the same number of grenades so really why even bother with assault squads.

You can only throw one grenade per unit as a shooting attack.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 dandadoom wrote:
But see this is where shooty units also get a buff. A close combat oriented squad with pistols and CCW would have a bunch of attacks, power weapons, etc. but when it comes down to throwing grenades they can each throw one. And if lets say a 10-man bolter squad gets charged by a MC, they would be getting the same number of grenades so really why even bother with assault squads.

You can only throw one grenade per unit as a shooting attack.

He's talking about in assault. An assault squad gets twice the STR4 attacks of a tac squad, but the same amount of STR6 attacks. It's the STR6 attacks that hurt MCs.

I understand the fluff of why they allowed it, but it's really annoying.

rigeld2 wrote:
That assumes you get a T8 beasty very often. Many (many, many) times I have to push Tervigons and Tyrants into combat with units with grenades when they don't have IA. Against Marines I typically lose one MC a game to grenades - not that it makes me lose the game, but it's something to think about.

I find this incredibly hard to believe. The MCs you mention all either have a lot of offensive power, or 6 wounds, or both. Even assuming an unwounded 10man squad, the expected results of their grenades is less than one wound per combat phase. (10 attacks, 5 hits, 2.5 wounds, .83 unsaved wounds). That's 7 combat phases to deal your 6 wounds, and you're not removing any attacks. At the very least, you should throw something else in to wrap that up sooner.

Now, if you're weathering 10 attacks each phase, then you're not killing any in return.. with a tyrant or trygon? Even a tervigon should kill one guy/turn. If you're losing MCs this way, you're either playing poorly, or rolling very poorly.

 Redbeard wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
That assumes you get a T8 beasty very often. Many (many, many) times I have to push Tervigons and Tyrants into combat with units with grenades when they don't have IA. Against Marines I typically lose one MC a game to grenades - not that it makes me lose the game, but it's something to think about.

I find this incredibly hard to believe. The MCs you mention all either have a lot of offensive power, or 6 wounds, or both. Even assuming an unwounded 10man squad, the expected results of their grenades is less than one wound per combat phase. (10 attacks, 5 hits, 2.5 wounds, .83 unsaved wounds). That's 7 combat phases to deal your 6 wounds, and you're not removing any attacks. At the very least, you should throw something else in to wrap that up sooner.

Now, if you're weathering 10 attacks each phase, then you're not killing any in return.. with a tyrant or trygon? Even a tervigon should kill one guy/turn. If you're losing MCs this way, you're either playing poorly, or rolling very poorly.

The standard Terv's these days is gonna be very unlikely to not have IA or WS, I'm usually not afraid to fight at I1 and have Crushing Claws as well. Next thing you know, , 8 Str 10 AP2 attacks, if 4 marines don't die, we've got bigger problems. I still believe Nids win out the CC war, even against Chaos, but you really need to pick your battles there.

 Redbeard wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
That assumes you get a T8 beasty very often. Many (many, many) times I have to push Tervigons and Tyrants into combat with units with grenades when they don't have IA. Against Marines I typically lose one MC a game to grenades - not that it makes me lose the game, but it's something to think about.

I find this incredibly hard to believe. The MCs you mention all either have a lot of offensive power, or 6 wounds, or both. Even assuming an unwounded 10man squad, the expected results of their grenades is less than one wound per combat phase. (10 attacks, 5 hits, 2.5 wounds, .83 unsaved wounds). That's 7 combat phases to deal your 6 wounds, and you're not removing any attacks. At the very least, you should throw something else in to wrap that up sooner.

Now, if you're weathering 10 attacks each phase, then you're not killing any in return.. with a tyrant or trygon? Even a tervigon should kill one guy/turn. If you're losing MCs this way, you're either playing poorly, or rolling very poorly.

You're assuming that they make it into assault undamaged - poor assumption in this edition. And like I said - I have few issues with leaving them in if we can still snip the power fist... but giving hidden powerfists and free STR6 CC attacks to normal 14 point marines? Sigh...
edited for accuracy.

The inability to get into CC with more than 50% squad strength is what has killed the BA codex in 6th edition. Well, one of the things.

rigeld2 wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
That assumes you get a T8 beasty very often. Many (many, many) times I have to push Tervigons and Tyrants into combat with units with grenades when they don't have IA. Against Marines I typically lose one MC a game to grenades - not that it makes me lose the game, but it's something to think about.

I find this incredibly hard to believe. The MCs you mention all either have a lot of offensive power, or 6 wounds, or both. Even assuming an unwounded 10man squad, the expected results of their grenades is less than one wound per combat phase. (10 attacks, 5 hits, 2.5 wounds, .83 unsaved wounds). That's 7 combat phases to deal your 6 wounds, and you're not removing any attacks. At the very least, you should throw something else in to wrap that up sooner.

Now, if you're weathering 10 attacks each phase, then you're not killing any in return.. with a tyrant or trygon? Even a tervigon should kill one guy/turn. If you're losing MCs this way, you're either playing poorly, or rolling very poorly.

You're assuming that they make it into assault undamaged - poor assumption in this edition. And like I said - I have few issues with leaving them in if we can still snip the power fist... but giving hidden powerfists and free STR6 CC attacks to normal 12 point marines? Sigh...

Who has 12 point Marines?

Typo. I meant 14. Sorry.

rigeld2 wrote:

You're assuming that they make it into assault undamaged - poor assumption in this edition. And like I said - I have few issues with leaving them in if we can still snip the power fist... but giving hidden powerfists and free STR6 CC attacks to normal 14 point marines? Sigh...

See, I think you're misplacing this argument. S6 AP4 grenades aren't the issue, it's that you took 5 wounds before you got into combat. I think letting marines use their grenades against MCs makes perfect sense, and the AP4 on the weapon is what stops them from being horribly effective. S6 grenades against walkers - that's something dreads need to worry about. AP4 grenades against 3+ save MCs, not so much.

(Are there any MCs that AP4 is relevant against - excepting forgeworld (small squiggoths and great knarlocs come to mind if you include forgeworld). I think all MCs, by the book, are at least 3+, or daemons with no save but an invul in its place)

As for the hidden powerfist, it's there to prevent herohammer. It means you can't send one MC in and expect it to roll through successive squads unharmed. It means you need to support your charging tervigons with some termagants, and make the powerfist guy swing at baby bugs instead of big ones. It makes for more interesting tactical play. Challenges leads to brain-dead tactical play. You charge, you challenge and either dodge the fist or kill it, and then go for the squad.

 Redbeard wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

You're assuming that they make it into assault undamaged - poor assumption in this edition. And like I said - I have few issues with leaving them in if we can still snip the power fist... but giving hidden powerfists and free STR6 CC attacks to normal 14 point marines? Sigh...

See, I think you're misplacing this argument. S6 AP4 grenades aren't the issue, it's that you took 5 wounds before you got into combat. I think letting marines use their grenades against MCs makes perfect sense, and the AP4 on the weapon is what stops them from being horribly effective. S6 grenades against walkers - that's something dreads need to worry about. AP4 grenades against 3+ save MCs, not so much.

(Are there any MCs that AP4 is relevant against - excepting forgeworld (small squiggoths and great knarlocs come to mind if you include forgeworld). I think all MCs, by the book, are at least 3+, or daemons with no save but an invul in its place)

As for the hidden powerfist, it's there to prevent herohammer. It means you can't send one MC in and expect it to roll through successive squads unharmed. It means you need to support your charging tervigons with some termagants, and make the powerfist guy swing at baby bugs instead of big ones. It makes for more interesting tactical play. Challenges leads to brain-dead tactical play. You charge, you challenge and either dodge the fist or kill it, and then go for the squad.

To your parenthetical - Harpies, which are at least partially designed to be in CC (they have grenades after all).
I still think they're overly effective - even not ignoring armor, making you roll lots of saves is how bolters wound MCs in the first place. In CC they can cause more wounds.
I get the fluff - I do. I don't see why they need to be STR6. I guess it's just me though. And yes - I typically do support my MCs with gribbly assaults. I also try and snipe the PF before I get anyone into the unit - but that still doesn't always help.
I think one of my bigger problems with them is that it's a no brainer choice for 99% of the models that have grenades. I dislike no-brainers. Making all grenades Unwieldly would make me feel better about them - at least then it wouldn't be possible to lose a Carnifex before it swings (poor rolls for me, but it happened entirely due to grenades).

 Redbeard wrote:
[ (Are there any MCs that AP4 is relevant against - excepting forgeworld (small squiggoths and great knarlocs come to mind if you include forgeworld). I think all MCs, by the book, are at least 3+, or daemons with no save but an invul in its place)

Krak grenades are pretty effective against Greater Daemons not of the Khorne persuasion. A 5+ invulnerable save is not particularly special.

Rather than doing away with challenges all together (to prevent multiple hidden powerfists), why not just remove the character status from squad leaders? Sure, you'd lose precision shots/hits, but I practically always forget to roll squad leaders separately anyway. That allows one hidden power weapon in a squad, but keeps those Chapter Masters from destroying squads without fear.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

Krak grenades are pretty effective against Greater Daemons not of the Khorne persuasion. A 5+ invulnerable save is not particularly special.

Really?

The Keeper of Secrets goes at I 10 with 6 attacks. I'm assuming it charged, because I know there's no way I'm running 10 tac marines into it, so make that 7. Hitting on a 3+ and wounding on a 2+, you're lucky to have 5 grenades to swing at it and it's WS9, so you're looking at maybe 2 hits, and maybe 1 wound (out of 5). This doesn't factor in any possible gifts or psychic powers. Given that it just ate half your squad, is taking one wound really an unreasonable tradeoff?

The Great Unclean One is the only one that doesn't swing before you, and so you get all your attacks. But with 10 swings, that's 5 hits, and he's T7 without factoring gifts and/or psychic powers, so you're wounding him on a 5+. Again, you're looking at an expected 1-2 wounds, out of 6 in this case. Oh, and that's assuming he didn't use his biomancy for either warp speed (striking you first with more attacks, so you hit him with less), or iron arm (dropping your wounding roll to a 2+).

Lord of Change - again, he's swinging before you, reducing the number of attacks you get. He's the easiest of all of them to actually put wounds on, hitting and wounding on 4+ each, but he's also the most likely to have used spells to reduce your numbers before the combat even began.

Yeah, I'm not seeing it. The only MC in the daemon codex that I'd be concerned with grenades would be Fatey, and I'd not put him in a position to be charged by anything. I'd be concerned with him taking wounds from Tac marines using their fists. All of the rest of them would require significant luck on your opponent's part to take more than a wound to grenades in exchange for wiping a squad. I consider that more than reasonable.

 Redbeard wrote:
The Keeper of Secrets goes at I 10 with 6 attacks. I'm assuming it charged, because I know there's no way I'm running 10 tac marines into it, so make that 7.

You're right, you won't be running your tac marines into the Keeper, so it will get the charge. But it doesn't have any assault grenades, and your marines should be in cover against an army without assault grenades. As a result the Keeper will be striking at I1 and your marines will be getting their krack grenade attacks in at I4.

 Mushkilla wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:
The Keeper of Secrets goes at I 10 with 6 attacks. I'm assuming it charged, because I know there's no way I'm running 10 tac marines into it, so make that 7.

You're right, you won't be running your tac marines into the Keeper, so it will get the charge. But it doesn't have any assault grenades, and your marines should be in cover against an army without assault grenades. As a result the Keeper will be striking at I1 and your marines will be getting their krack grenade attacks in at I4.

Exactly. The question wasn't about charging a MC with tacticals, it was are there any MCs that S6 AP4 is effective against. One S6 AP4 attack is better than two S4 AP- attacks against non-Khorne Greater Daemons.

If death company weren't so expensive...

But they are pretty effective against MCs as an asaulty marine,

So, run tons of tac, or proxy your assault marines as DC (half w/ powerswords)...I've kicked the hell out of nidzilla in 6th with a bunch of 5 man units (get obliterated by eldar, though)

karandras15 wrote:
If death company weren't so expensive...

But they are pretty effective against MCs as an asaulty marine,

So, run tons of tac, or proxy your assault marines as DC (half w/ powerswords)...I've kicked the hell out of nidzilla in 6th with a bunch of 5 man units (get obliterated by eldar, though)

What Nidzilla were you kicking the hell out of with 5 man squads ? Half dead Carnifex ? A Trygon would have 6 attacks hitting on 3s re rolling all misses wounding on 2s re rolling all failed to wound. Unless you've got FNP that 5 man squad dies in 1 turn. So you got one turn to do 6 wounds against that toughness 6 monster !

I run 10 man death companies w/ lermates for reroll hits and wounds on the charge. I never charge the cheese that is a trygon. Just shoot those to death or send in an HQ w/ th/ss terms. But the DC wrecks most other things. WS 5str5 on the. charge.

JPong wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
Looking at it more mathematically and objectively, Overwatch is rarely a significant factor, and while it does tone down assaults, the potential for damage is fairly low. Charge range is now statistically 1" further than before on average, and in you are just as likely to roll 12 as you are 2.

This is more than a bit of a dishonest way of looking at it. A roll of a 12 is less likely to be required (it is however always a success) as a roll of a 2 is likely to screw you over (how many 1-2inch charges are you doing after all?). No one is declaring charges at 11-12 inch charge range, hell, most probably don't declare charges over 7. And overwatch doesn't need to be massive to have an effect. Removing one casualty from the front can, and often will, bump the needed charge roll up a whole number. Going from needing 5 or more to 6 or more is 4 roll possibilities lost. 6 to 7 is even worse, at 5 roll results. Even a 7inch charge is risky with a 41.7% chance of failure. It's not like these dedicated assault units have the means to survive being left in the open after all.

Good point. I have failed charges at 3 inches on a number of occasions. Pretty annoying when they are Terminators charging a warlord. Actually its more than annoying its a gamebreaker. So much to the extent I dont even run terminators anymore let alone set out to assault anyone. I dunno if its just me but those double 1s seem to come up an awful lot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jancoran wrote:
Who cares what the enemy does to the rhino if youre getting out behind it. The issue is, they have to actually explode it and even if successful in not just wrecking it, it means that the enemy has spent a fair amount of effort trying and yet, three more just luke it are in position. Cant kill everything.not fast enough.

As for outflankers, the battlefield viewed from the sides provides a lot of cover,yeah?

I think if you look at the simple truth that we can make the nine inch charges we never could before, and give yourself 3-4 units in position to try, life can be good.

Ehh dude are you serious? You regularly attempt AND succesfully roll 9 inch charges? Frankly I find this a little hard to take.

With Fleet it's not that unusual to make 9" charges regularly.

The way I remember it, assault has been weakening forever.

3rd edition
The edition I started with. Assault armies are generally rhino rush armies, such as Blood Angels (who could assault some crazy distance, I believe it was 12 + supercharged engines 6 + possible D6 from rage + 2 from coming out of the transport + 6 assault... max 32 I believe? Even if I got the details wrong it was still crazy long range assaults) Space Wolves (who had venerable to re-roll who goes first, overpowered to say the least). You could sweeping advance into other units, getting more close combat, this was possibly 2d6. Powerfists were hidden, and mostly the only thing that mattered anyway, you'd win the combat, had maybe some modifier from having more models or whatever, sweeping advance would destroy the fleeing unit. Independent characters were mostly bad because they would be one-shot with powerfists, and special characters had this "ask your opponent if you can play this" thing while also being massively overcosted. Smoke Launchers meant that if the rushing army got to go first, you could only glance their transports, which would only be destroyed if you rolled a 6, and they wouldn't take shaken/stunned because extra armor, and most of the time you'd roll multiple weapon destroyed results or something that did not do anything at all. If the shooting army got to go first, they could decimate the number of transports with penetrating hits, so I remember this edition as the "who goes first wins" edition. Space Marines had lascannon + plasma gun tactical squads for 96 points so of course shooting was pretty strong in a way. Rapid fire weapons were mostly awful, you could shoot on the move once to 12, or twice to 12/once to 24 stationary, but that's what nearly everyone had, however you could assault after shooting your rapid fire weapons. It didn't matter if you had troops other than the minimum, so in a way you could field more specialized CC units, but then again most of those were overcosted and awful compared to what you got as troops. Mostly. Wrecking your transport did almost nothing, you got some wounds you got to save, maybe. You could screen your units with other units hard, you couldn't fire over the other players models at all other than some elevation differences or maybe vehicles (maybe not).

When Tyranids were released (it was 3rd edition right?) they could play some 8 monstrous creatures with 3+ or 2+ saves or something moronic like that, also there was a seeding swarm that could assault from deep strike with genestealers, that was fun. Originally I thought the Speed Freeks released in the armageddon campaign were a pretty swell assault army with their fast ass trucks (unless I'm mistaken that too was one of the "guaranteed second turn assault" armies). Black Templars felt like pretty cheesy because Emperor's Champion could kill off your power fists.

Then trial vehicle rules were released, you couldn't assault out of a Rhino if it moved and you got rooted if your transport was killed, or something like that, really weakened Rhino Rush but didn't entirely kill it I believe, since Rhino's were still pretty durable. I remember Iron Hands being a really good shooty army because they got a venerable dread to re-roll the who goes first roll, the only reason they were played anyway. I believe there was also trial assault rules that removed the sweeping from unit to unit, at least that stuff was gone from 4th edition.

4th edition
Rhino rush was buried with more rules preventing you from assaulting out of them, rapid fire was improved, vehicles could be reasonably destroyed because additional "weapon destroyed" results would do something, you could assault out of open-topped vehicles and possibly Land Raiders. Superiority fire meant that massed firepower could take out the hidden fist maybe once in a 100 games or something, not very reliable. Assault Cannons were crazy overpowered, I remember this edition by the way of counting the number of assault cannons. Alaitoc was for a while the most overpowered army of them all because it's hard counter, rhino rush, was gone and this was an army you fought with something like 1/5th of your army because overpowered special rules that took effect before game. You had crazy stuff like flying slaanesh daemon princes that couldn't be shot or assaulted because some broken minor psychic power thing, possible first turn assaults by infiltrating a chaos lord with legs mutation (gave 12" assault and a D6 extra movement IIRC) and Raptors could also pull that off I think. You could consolidate into an another close combat but that was like three inch movement, so it rarely happened. You couldn't assault and fire rapid fire so I have no idea what Blood Angels, Space Wolves and Death Guard were supposed to be doing but whatever. Fearless units could take casualties from losing combats. I have no idea if veteran sergeants with powerfists were still hidden, maybe it was something like independent characters could kill them, or something about how casualties were removed so that they could potentially kill them... At least I remember my chaos lord being shot from a unit by the way of moving two tanks in a specific way to block line of sight to everything else so he could be shot with a lascannon to the face.

Crazy armies like armoured company (that is, IG tanks, no silly guardsmen required) were released, and I witnessed one of the saddest tournament games ever, Sisters of Battle vs. many Leman Russ Tanks, end of second turn not a single SoB alive. Anyway. Other than the few cheesy tricks such as the flying daemon prince that you're not allowed to kill, this edition was about shooting, preferably with Assault Cannons. However since 3rd was such an overly simplistic edition, I remember 4th as a good 40k edition even while my armies kinda sucked. How about going to a tournament with Necrons and finding out that almost everybody has 8 tyranid monstrous creatures? Yeah your slowly walking, short-ranged infantry units aren't going to cut it, then again, neither is anything else in the army.

5th edition

Before fifth came out, I got tired of everybody playing space marines or something equivalent to space marines (necrons, sobs, whatever) and how the game felt like it was centered around how many lascannons etc. you could bring, so I sold my armies. I tried fifth once, seemed pretty fine but I heard things about 20 venom dark eldar lists or something and I didn't bother, sounded like the same thing all over again, minimum units, maximum weapons, maximum range. I also heard something about flying dreadnoughts 13 wounds per turn, so maybe there was some assaulting going on. I was kinda intrested though, because finally footslogging models could move more than 6 inches a turn.

6th edition

I haven't been to any tournaments, but from what I hear Daemons are kinda ok because FMC spam and that's it for assault. From what I gather most armies simply don't have a reasonable way to get to close combat, it's all turn 3, 4 stuff by which point the army is almost entirely destroyed. And apparently Daemons play Plaguebearers as troops, because they don't have to do anything, it's about the toughness value and the cover save. OK.

Actually for chaos it is more along the lines of this. FMC spam, Khornate hounds, and finally either pink horrors or plague bearers. The hounds actually work thanks to scout and being beasts. Also it seems that slaaneshi seekers work pretty well as cavalry with that extra speed! Admittedly there is almost no reason to ever touch Bloodletters.

About no challenges and the hidden power fist... there's an easy answer to why it wouldn't be such a problem - keep precision strikes for characters. That MC only needs to roll a 6 and then a wound to remove that "hidden" weapon - well, depending on whether LoS! is still around or not, I guess.

Of course there can be MCs that aren't characters, like the Riptide, but that stupid thing has more than enough advantages to not cry about a hidden power fist.

From what I have seen the biggest problem with CC are the players. The armies that "use" to be CC were the ones that were on their opponent's side and assaulting turn one or two, which basically means that shooting armies just lost. If they can eliminate/tie up an opponents best shooters, that have no real CC skill, on turn one or two that means at best those units were used for two turns. In the worst case they were never used at all. Sounds a lot like what those with CC were complaining about throughout this thread, no? With the changes to CC it now means those units at least get a chance to do some wounds. Players of CC armies now have to use terrain and plan lines of sight rather than run straight up the middle and break through a gun line. SM armies can't just drop their army in their opponents deployment zone and tie up the entire gun line by turn 2 and wipe them by 3. There is actually a chance to remove vehicles now as opposed to just have 90% of their shots tink off then the ones that get through do nothing thanks to a SR or wargear. All in all it's a better balance then it was. CC is not an easy button against shooting armies, you have to plan and learn target priority now. At the end of the day I see just as many CC armies around as I use to in 5th, what I don't see is CC armies rolling over every shooting army they come against.

I think part of the problem with any edition of 40K, is there is not enough Line of Site blocking terrain.

From what I see, most terrain has you can see your starting edge your opponent from his starting edge and shoot him if you have the range.

Many battles did indeed take place in fields. Ask the Germans and Russians about the eastern front.

As for DC, they are way too inefficient to be considered "good" at anything. Also note, that if you assault *them*, they are little better than ASM.

SCOMMY: youre missing it. There never was a 9 inch charge before. So Idont need to make nine inch charges. "All the time" to point out to you that it will be part of strategy now. Because shooting used to turn 6" charges into 9" charges all the time. And it still does. Difference is I can actually make that now. How is that worse? It isn't.

Melee was roo dominant in 40k leading up to 6E. No one can claim otherwise. BA and GK showed it most clearly but others did too. Glad to see the game got balanced a bit.

 Jancoran wrote:

Melee was roo dominant in 40k leading up to 6E. No one can claim otherwise. BA and GK showed it most clearly but others did too. Glad to see the game got balanced a bit.

See my signature. Razorbacks and Chimeras don't melee stuff to death, trying to claim that melee was dominant in 5th edition, the edition of mechvets, Venom spam, Long Fangs and MSU with as many special weapons as possible is, frankly, insane. The best armies (GK, IG and SW, arguably) where all better at shooting than at CC, two out of three just happened to be decent at CC too (and IG blobs worked too, but they're not the stereotypical mech IG army). Even Blood Angels were good because they got cheap, fast Razorbacks and double Meltaguns in scoring units.

Yes I think it is a screw you to assault but realistically it should be. With such powerful, advanced guns and weaponry how would anybody reach CC?

BaconUprising wrote:
Yes I think it is a screw you to assault but realistically it should be. With such powerful, advanced guns and weaponry how would anybody reach CC?

Teleportation, Drop Pods, Warp Rifts, more bodies than the enemy has bullets etc.

BaconUprising wrote:
Yes I think it is a screw you to assault but realistically it should be. With such powerful, advanced guns and weaponry how would anybody reach CC?

As if 40k is in any shape or form realistic as it is, so in trying to balance fun stuff it's kind of a pointless argument.

If I hated assault why would I play DE and Khorne. No I don't dislike it. It truly is a lost cause trying to make 40k realistic.

 Jancoran wrote:
SCOMMY: youre missing it. There never was a 9 inch charge before. So Idont need to make nine inch charges. "All the time" to point out to you that it will be part of strategy now. Because shooting used to turn 6" charges into 9" charges all the time. And it still does. Difference is I can actually make that now. How is that worse? It isn't.

Melee was roo dominant in 40k leading up to 6E. No one can claim otherwise. BA and GK showed it most clearly but others did too. Glad to see the game got balanced a bit.

Melee was not dominant at all in 5th edition. To claim otherwise is kinda nuts.

 Jancoran wrote:
SCOMMY: youre missing it. There never was a 9 inch charge before. So Idont need to make nine inch charges. "All the time" to point out to you that it will be part of strategy now. Because shooting used to turn 6" charges into 9" charges all the time. And it still does. Difference is I can actually make that now. How is that worse? It isn't.

Melee was roo dominant in 40k leading up to 6E. No one can claim otherwise. BA and GK showed it most clearly but others did too. Glad to see the game got balanced a bit.

3rd: Rhino rush was too powered

4th: Useful assaults, though they failed against vehicles such as Skimmerspam and Fish of Fury preventing them from charging.

5th: Mech ruled the day, razorback spam was king.

Also, before 6th ed, if you didn't want to risk killing yourself out of assault range, you just didn't fire your bolt pistols before you charged in. The only way shooting could prevent you from getting a charge in was if you did it to yourself.

6th ed changed things so that you remove casualties from the front, which means your opponent can shoot you out of assault range bit by bit with every round of shooting they make. That's an enormous difference.

To me it depends on what's trying to assult, for example Orks were hurt cause of te remove front model thing and challenges nerfing our 32 wound nobs, blood angels with jump packs were not since they do pretty much what they did in sixth, jump at you and assult

But didn't they stop being played after helldrakes came ? a power armor army which isn't siting in transports dies to three or four helldrakes very fast.

Answer to the OP, no, not even slightly.

I love that people keep throwing the word competitive around like its the yardstick. The tourney scene is a weird and entirely separate meta which actually has very little to do with what's effective in general play. The scene is dominated by low cover volume and very little LOS blocking terrain (understandably so, providing lots of terrain for so many tables is hard and expensive on the TO) with small elite armies that are easy to transport and can be played and moved rapidly due to ever increasing points levels to be played within a limited time frame.

Tourney play is a sub meta, not a commentary on the state of the game. In a game where tables have the right amount of cover, good chunks of LOS blocking terrain, where there's no clock and so the game will get to turn 5 or higher and where armies like the green tide won't get slow played and thus never see turn 3, melee is doing just fine.

When I say "competitive" I mean, "I won't get tabled every time."
But others may have different opinions. To have a rational discussion, definitions have to be agreed upon.

 MWHistorian wrote:
When I say "competitive" I mean, "I won't get tabled every time."
But others may have different opinions. To have a rational discussion, definitions have to be agreed upon.

That's fine, but in that case assault is very much competitive as myself and many others have said from experience. When it is used as it is by many on these boards to talk about the microcosm that is tourney play however it is simply not so. At that point there are so many factors that have nothing to do with the actual game rules that calling them both 40k is highly misleading.

 Dunklezahn wrote:
Answer to the OP, no, not even slightly.

I love that people keep throwing the word competitive around like its the yardstick. The tourney scene is a weird and entirely separate meta which actually has very little to do with what's effective in general play. The scene is dominated by low cover volume and very little LOS blocking terrain (understandably so, providing lots of terrain for so many tables is hard and expensive on the TO) with small elite armies that are easy to transport and can be played and moved rapidly due to ever increasing points levels to be played within a limited time frame.

Tourney play is a sub meta, not a commentary on the state of the game. In a game where tables have the right amount of cover, good chunks of LOS blocking terrain, where there's no clock and so the game will get to turn 5 or higher and where armies like the green tide won't get slow played and thus never see turn 3, melee is doing just fine.

Why does everyone keep saying that these units are only bad because of potential low cover volume and very little LOS?

Heldrakes don't care much for LoS blocking terrain and cover, Tau don't care for cover and easily use LoS for it's Jump Shoot Jump maneuvers to make it so that they survive easier, Eldar have wave serpant spam that easily bypass it, IG with their multitude of high powered barrage weapons...

No, it's not just the lack of cover, it's the fact that cover and LoS doesn't even matter to the High Powered Shooting Armies.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Why does everyone keep saying that these units are only bad because of potential low cover volume and very little LOS?

Heldrakes don't care much for LoS blocking terrain and cover, Tau don't care for cover and easily use LoS for it's Jump Shoot Jump maneuvers to make it so that they survive easier, Eldar have wave serpant spam that easily bypass it, IG with their multitude of high powered barrage weapons...

No, it's not just the lack of cover, it's the fact that cover and LoS doesn't even matter to the High Powered Shooting Armies.

Heldrakes still have to be able to see their target so the very much do care about LOS blockers and every inch he has to move onto the board to get a shot reduces his options in subsequent turns and increases the odds of getting shot in his AV10 arse.

Tau don't care for cover *saves* if they can see their target they still can't fire, their vehicles are not fast, broadsides don't get JSJ and neither do Fire Warriors. Blocking LOS cuts huge amounts out of any firebases kill power.

Wave Serpents are only one element of a force and still only move 12" maximum if they want good firepower, meaning their targets remain limited.

IG Barrage? out of LOS your hit odds are just over 1 in 3 and all the armies Battlecannons, Autocannons, Plasma guns and the like are rendered impotent. Good luck stopping a horde of Nids or Orks with a few shells based on pretty flimsy platforms.

Having 1-2 large pieces of LOS blocking terrain makes the world of difference. It makes it an actual game as opposed to 2 sets of troops calling targets from across the board. A beast/cavalry/jump unit 18" from your lines in a wood are target 1 and likely dead before they cause a problem. The same unit 18" from your line behind a hill are a major issue.

A solid quarter of the board should be terrain, if even 1/3 of that blocks some LOS then 1/12 (Thats 2x square foot blocks) of your board is impenetrable to vision. Stop fighting on planet bowling ball and you'll see why 40k still has melee units.

"Having 1-2 large pieces of LOS blocking terrain makes the world of difference"

Counting on this to make a game of it is a poor game indeed.

 Dunklezahn wrote:

Heldrakes still have to be able to see their target so the very much do care about LOS blockers and every inch he has to move onto the board to get a shot reduces his options in subsequent turns and increases the odds of getting shot in his AV10 arse.

Its not difficult for a flyer to see its target. Especially since the Helldrake has a 360 degree rotation. It might only have AV10 at the back but thats not going to mean much when whatever is behind you has been toasted to death.

Tau don't care for cover *saves* if they can see their target they still can't fire, their vehicles are not fast, broadsides don't get JSJ and neither do Fire Warriors. Blocking LOS cuts huge amounts out of any firebases kill power.

Unless Tau are shooting with SMS & Seeker missiles which don't need LOS to shoot. Funnily enough something those Broadsides have in abundance.

Wave Serpents are only one element of a force and still only move 12" maximum if they want good firepower, meaning their targets remain limited.

A 12" move is more than enough to reveal units that were previously blocked into LOS in a lot of instances.

IG Barrage? out of LOS your hit odds are just over 1 in 3 and all the armies Battlecannons, Autocannons, Plasma guns and the like are rendered impotent. Good luck stopping a horde of Nids or Orks with a few shells based on pretty flimsy platforms.

Lol, Its still a third of a chance to hit. I don't really see how an entire armies firepower is rendered usueless just because one of your units is out of sight from one of your enemy's units.

Having 1-2 large pieces of LOS blocking terrain makes the world of difference. It makes it an actual game as opposed to 2 sets of troops calling targets from across the board. A beast/cavalry/jump unit 18" from your lines in a wood are target 1 and likely dead before they cause a problem. The same unit 18" from your line behind a hill are a major issue.

And here is the crutch of the matter. How much LOS blocking terrain as you using? There is nowhere near that amount of LOS blocking terrain in the two places where I play.

A solid quarter of the board should be terrain, if even 1/3 of that blocks some LOS then 1/12 (Thats 2x square foot blocks) of your board is impenetrable to vision. Stop fighting on planet bowling ball and you'll see why 40k still has melee units.

Eh no. If we are assuming you are playing on a 6 foot by 4 foot board then you do not get 2x square foot LOS blocking terrain. You only get what is in your half of the board, within your deployment zone as you make your way up the table. So that is on average 1x square foot and considering that LOS is only two dimenionsal and not 3 dimensional then it doesn't matter how deep your LOS blocking terrain is. It only matters what length sideways it is relative to the direction of what target is shooting at you. So even if you block LOS from one direction, another unit from another direction is most likely still able to see you.

Oh, and there's the BA guy who brings his own huge LOS blocking mountain to put in the middle of the board every game. First off, this is incredibly lame, but even worse, this is still not hacking it in 6th.

As an experiment, I took him on with my shooty BA before the C:SM book dropped and I still won. Maybe Orks or Nids would have done better.

BaconUprising wrote:
Yes I think it is a screw you to assault but realistically it should be. With such powerful, advanced guns and weaponry how would anybody reach CC?

I remember when I first got into 40K, it was about 40K fluff wise. Going into battle, with guns blazing and then stabbing everyone or hacking and slashing the enemy to death.

Even though it made more sense just to shoot everything as you said, it was more dramatic (the word I believe they used at the time, now it's cinematic) to have Assaults to the bloody death.

 DarthOvious wrote:
Its not difficult for a flyer to see its target. Especially since the Helldrake has a 360 degree rotation. It might only have AV10 at the back but thats not going to mean much when whatever is behind you has been toasted to death.

It really is, put a unit behind a 6" wide bunker and see how close you have to get before you can see them. If you want to get that close I'm fine trading a damage to a unit to put a unit like Warp Spiders or a Flyrant in your rear arc.

Unless Tau are shooting with SMS & Seeker missiles which don't need LOS to shoot. Funnily enough something those Broadsides have in abundance.

Woo, you can shoot with a few AP5 shots, that's not enough to damage anything significant, a full volley might kill what, 2 marines or 2 Khorne hounds...
And seeker missiles require LOS because you need a markerlight hit first otherwise they obey normal shooting rules.

A 12" move is more than enough to reveal units that were previously blocked into LOS in a lot of instances

Once again, put a unit behind a piece of LOS blocking terrain and see how far you have to move to hit them, you can't kill what you can't see so best case you maybe prune a single guy off the end, wounds don't carry over anymore.

Lol, Its still a third of a chance to hit. I don't really see how an entire armies firepower is rendered usueless just because one of your units is out of sight from one of your enemy's units.

It's not one unit though, let your opponent set up first and you can very easily use buildings and hills to block large area's of the battlefield from his guns. If you are only hitting with 1/3 of your barrages most armies will easily weather that long enough to get close enough to destroy those flimsy arty chassis.

And here is the crutch of the matter. How much LOS blocking terrain as you using? There is nowhere near that amount of LOS blocking terrain in the two places where I play.

A couple of pieces 1-3 will usually do it, either large ruins or buildings, bunkers or hills, any of those things breaks up fire lanes. That's a failing of where you play I guess (Terrain is always at a premium anywhere where multiple games are played at once) and it breeds a certain kind of meta, if you play on planet bowling ball then naturally races like Tau with long rang cover ignoring weapons will dominate.

Eh no. If we are assuming you are playing on a 6 foot by 4 foot board then you do not get 2x square foot LOS blocking terrain. You only get what is in your half of the board, within your deployment zone as you make your way up the table. So that is on average 1x square foot and considering that LOS is only two dimenionsal and not 3 dimensional then it doesn't matter how deep your LOS blocking terrain is. It only matters what length sideways it is relative to the direction of what target is shooting at you. So even if you block LOS from one direction, another unit from another direction is most likely still able to see you.

6x4 is 24 foot square blocks, 1/4 should be terrain that's 6x foot square blocks, if 1/3 of that is LOS blocking = 2x square foot blocks.

Depth really does matter, put a hill smack dab in the centre of the board, no other terrain, and see just how much it affects your ability to sit and fire with impunity. See how much extra wrangling you have to do to secure lines of sight and think about how much easier it is for your opponent to close or denied flank you. Then add all the rest of the tables terrain, suddenly you aren't lining up two armies and rolling dice, melee units can close much more easily, units have to move.

That's a game of 40k to me, terrain matters and shapes a game, so many folks seem to ignore that then complain it's a list builders shooting game. If lining up troops and rolling dice works for you, more power to you, but I find that kind of game frightfully dull and have no interest in playing it.

Martel732 wrote:
"Having 1-2 large pieces of LOS blocking terrain makes the world of difference"

Counting on this to make a game of it is a poor game indeed.

Counting on terrain to change a game is bad? It's a huge chunk of the rules and shapes any conflict between armed forces, I'm more inclined to say any wargame where terrain isn't the first thing you think about is the poorer.

Terrain is randomly generated and placed. And the terrain pieces themselves are random and based on where you play. Counting on this to save you assault list from Taudar seems pretty silly.

Most tables I've played on don't have that many places to hide. Look at most tournament tables; they aren't very dense. Your solution seems to jam the table with terrain and go "See? There's nothing wrong with assault!".

I don't think I've ever played with 1/3 LOS blocking terrain. Ever. Your assumption there is pretty poor. There might be one piece per table.

Assault has a lot more issues than just getting to the assault phase as well. Remember that your opponent basically chooses what gets assaulted. It is very common to offer up some squad that won't last a single turn and then create a kill zone after the assault unit "wins". And assault lists basically have to take the first opportunity because trying to be choosy means taking another turn of fire. In a game where I've had Eldar remove 24 FNP ASM in a single turn of shooting.... yeah. Terrain is not saving assault from shooting lists in the hands good players.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
SCOMMY: youre missing it. There never was a 9 inch charge before. So Idont need to make nine inch charges. "All the time" to point out to you that it will be part of strategy now. Because shooting used to turn 6" charges into 9" charges all the time. And it still does. Difference is I can actually make that now. How is that worse? It isn't.

Melee was roo dominant in 40k leading up to 6E. No one can claim otherwise. BA and GK showed it most clearly but others did too. Glad to see the game got balanced a bit.

3rd: Rhino rush was too powered

4th: Useful assaults, though they failed against vehicles such as Skimmerspam and Fish of Fury preventing them from charging.

5th: Mech ruled the day, razorback spam was king.

And even in 3rd shooting was still better (5 man las plas marines in razorbacks that you could shoot out of), the only difference was that close combat was viable for a lot of armies.

Martel732 wrote:
Terrain is randomly generated and placed. And the terrain pieces themselves are random and based on where you play. Counting on this to save you assault list from Taudar seems pretty silly.

Most tables I've played on don't have that many places to hide. Look at most tournament tables; they aren't very dense. Your solution seems to jam the table with terrain and go "See? There's nothing wrong with assault!".

I don't think I've ever played with 1/3 LOS blocking terrain. Ever. Your assumption there is pretty poor. There might be one piece per table.

Assault has a lot more issues than just getting to the assault phase as well. Remember that your opponent basically chooses what gets assaulted. It is very common to offer up some squad that won't last a single turn and then create a kill zone after the assault unit "wins". And assault lists basically have to take the first opportunity because trying to be choosy means taking another turn of fire. In a game where I've had Eldar remove 24 FNP ASM in a single turn of shooting.... yeah. Terrain is not saving assault from shooting lists in the hands good players.

well said +1

And even with blocking terrain it doesn't solve the problem- take the mission you are playing into account and then if you have to attack to take objectives then depending on where the markers are placed then a lot of the time it means nothing really.

Also the assault bait situation is one that is all too common, you in effect want a drawn combat to stop the unit getting nuked, and with any luck it wins so you can assault again on your turn

In effect assault has to be done with multiple units at the same time in the same area of the battlefield.

The rules provide a very easy mechanism to avoid lots of LOS blockers in the middle of the table. If you're playing by the 6th ed rules (from page 120), it's almost laughably easy to create decently-large and clear lines of sight.

You're looking at an average of 2 pieces of terrain in each of the two center 2x2 board sections. Assuming your opponent goes first, and wants a big LOS blocker in the middle of the table, he puts down something large right there. Then, you take a non-LOS blocker, like a big crater or lake, and put it 5" or so from his piece. Because he cannot place another piece within 3" from either of those two, you've got the width of your crater, plus about 5" on either side clear.

Combine this with the ability to use up terrain density by putting meaningless pieces in corners of 2x2 sections, and the table can often feel quite empty. If you roll a '1' for any of the sections, putting some minor piece of junk in the corner of it creates close to a 2x2 area with no cover and nothing to hide behind.

So, while 6th ed 40k might play better with loads of LOS blocking terrain, if you do that, you're not actually playing 6th ed 40k, you're playing some derivative house-rules game. 6th ed, by the book rules, encourages large empty spaces.

What's more, any shooty player knows this, and since the most common method of dispute resolution is to fall back to the rules, then the shooty player really has to be willing to play on a disadvantageous table in order to let an assaulty player block off too many sight lines.

Seriously, get it out of your head that tourney play is an indicator of the state of the game, it really isn't. It's an oddball little microcosm of backup rules and non-game based rule/composition additions. Randomized terrain and terrain gaming (as Redbeard here advocates) are all crutches for when the people playing have made the game secondary to victory.

 Redbeard wrote:

So, while 6th ed 40k might play better with loads of LOS blocking terrain, if you do that, you're not actually playing 6th ed 40k, you're playing some derivative house-rules game. 6th ed, by the book rules, encourages large empty spaces.

Actually the first terrain deployment method listed in the book is thematic, you and your opponent putting your bias aside and working together to build a cool exciting looking battlefield. That includes LOS breaking terrain and limiting fire lanes because that's part of the game. IE the method that is jumped over so people can get straight to gaming the terrain rules to their advantage

As I said, you wanna play with virtually no LOS blockers and sparse terrain with "competitive terrain placement" to make sure your firepower has reign, go for it, it's your meta. Don't however confuse that with proof that the melee rules are broken and it's "a shooting game". Melee works just fine in my meta and as a result we don't just see the same 4 lists ad nauseam with Tau racking up auto wins.

So as I said, no, 40k is not a "Screw you to assault"

Your meta means nothing to most of us. My play group uses the randomized terrain because it is the method that causes the fewest disputes. Taudar want no terrain and Tyranids/Daemons want 100% terrain. The best compromise is the codified system. Everywhere I have played this game, randomized terrain is the standard. To act like its some kind of outlier is not realistic.

You also didn't address the assault bait issue.

Martel732 wrote:
You meta means nothing to most of us. My play group uses the randomized terrain because it is the method that causes the fewest disputes. Taudar want no terrain and Tyranids/Daemons want 100% terrain. The best compromise is the codified system. Everywhere I have played this game, randomized terrain is the standard. To act like its some kind of outlier is not realistic.

I realize that allot of people I meet like doing it this way, so It throws them off guard when I forbid it. I'm not a complete ass however, so when I forbid random terrain, I also tell them they can setup the table ANY way they want; ususally a person is willing to make some nods towards fairness when they have 100% control given to them.

The one time someone forced me to play random terrain, I made the stupidest table I could possibly do. I went and go a roll of toilet paper, the broken end to a chair. I deployed the ruins on their sides and facing the corners... Its a garbage way to start a game.

Dunklezahn wrote:
Actually the first terrain deployment method listed in the book is thematic, you and your opponent putting your bias aside and working together to build a cool exciting looking battlefield.

Okay, let's think about that for a second.... If I have an army full of long-range weapons, why on earth would I choose to engage in a location that is cluttered with terrain? That's already a failure in theme. If I've got a force that includes a lot of fast-moving flying transports carrying my dying race, why would I choose to park them behind a bunch of buildings instead of flying away to engage somewhere else?

And don't forget fortifications. Ever seen a real fort? They're not built in the middle of dense terrain, they're built at sites with commanding views over the nearby terrain. Because to do otherwise is folly. After a couple of hundred years, sure, maybe some buildings will have gone up around the fort, but by then, the fort isn't being used as a fort anymore, it's more of a curiosity for tourists to wander around.

That includes LOS breaking terrain and limiting fire lanes because that's part of the game.

So which is it, game, or theme, that takes precedence? If it's the game, use the rules in the game book to distribute terrain. If it's theme, acknowledge that thematically, firepower based armies don't spend a lot of time engaging in terrain that limits that firepower. In fact, firepower based forces do strange and terrible things to limit the effectiveness of terrain. Have you heard of Agent Orange?

As I said, you wanna play with virtually no LOS blockers and sparse terrain with "competitive terrain placement" to make sure your firepower has reign, go for it, it's your meta. Don't however confuse that with proof that the melee rules are broken and it's "a shooting game".

It's not that the melee rules are broken, it's that the 6th ed rules, including terrain placement, are broken, and that as a result, it is a shooting game. If your group has diverged from the rules in the rulebook to create your own little private meta where assault armies dominate, good for you, but you're not playing 6th, and your comments are as relevant as someone saying that their house rules don't use overwatch or random charge distances, and therefore assault is still good.

Martel732 wrote:You meta means nothing to most of us. My play group uses the randomized terrain because it is the method that causes the fewest disputes. Taudar want no terrain and Tyranids/Daemons want 100% terrain. The best compromise is the codified system. Everywhere I have played this game, randomized terrain is the standard. To act like its some kind of outlier is not realistic.

Bingo.

Well I guess you wouldn't get many games where I play. Randomized terrain or pre-fabricated layouts designed by neutral parties are the most fair in general.

 davou wrote:

The one time someone forced me to play random terrain, I made the stupidest table I could possibly do. I went and go a roll of toilet paper, the broken end to a chair. I deployed the ruins on their sides and facing the corners... Its a garbage way to start a game.

Random charge distances are a garbage way to play the game too, but they're the rules. Like, I have this here battle cannon with 72" range, and I know, before firing, if I have to move an inch forward to be in range. But when my opponent is 3" away (at 28mm scale, that's roughly 5 yards... ) I might fail to get there.

Martel732 wrote:
Well I guess you wouldn't get many games where I play. Randomized terrain or pre-fabricated layouts designed by neutral parties are the most fair in general.

Id love randomized by a third person! My issue is that the moment placing terrain becomes part of the game, people go right for the advantageous peices.

Ive seen a tau player try to lay a deadly lava river right across the center of the board against an ork player, and a chaos player try to claim that a statue was a shrine to chaos and allowed him to re-roll invulns; its just garbage. Id rather let the other guy set up entirely and go get a coffee, but the neutral third party solution is best by far.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Redbeard wrote:


Random charge distances are a garbage way to play the game too, but they're the rules.

They're also the second option in those rules, the one to go for when the first one don't work. It screams of immediately injecting animosity into a game, before the first turn even.

It's 40K. It's got some animosity build right in. I myself have no problem with strategic terrain placement. It's like a mini-game. If all lists had legitimate counters to other lists (like Starcraft), this wouldn't be an issue.

 davou wrote:

They're also the second option in those rules, the one to go for when the first one don't work.

Okay, let's think on this...

Here's the quote. "If you and your opponent can't agree...."

So, you set up the terrain, and you put something that blocks LOS in the middle of the table. I play a shooty army, and know that I've got at least a 50/50 chance to not have it there if I don't agree. Guess what. I'm suggesting a different narrative that doesn't have it there. Now, you can either let me have a clear line of fire over the middle, or disagree and take your 50/50 chance on getting to place the first piece of terrain.

Yes, this is somewhat antagonistic, and not always how people play, but, logically, if a shooty army and an assault army meet, one wants blocking terrain in the middle and one doesn't. There's inherent disagreement about the center of the table based on this matchup. And, once you have that disagreement, the rules say use the alternating method.

The rules, in this case, are designed to allow either player to force setup to the alternating method. And, the alternating method distinctly favours shooty armies and sparse terrain.

Again, Taudar wants a parking lot and Tyranids want a jungle. And so we randomize.

not true at all, I'm playing tau orks and space marines at the moment.... EVERY time, if someone suggests alternating terrain, I tell them to just set the entire table.

Sure, the game is easier when I can shoot everywhere on the board with tau, or hide everything till I assault with orks.... but its not fun at all if I have to start the game knowing the person on the other end is an ass.

Think on it all you want, but your argument boils down to how people invariably want to game it for an advantage. I don't know about you, but I try and play with friends who can agree most of the time. The games are more fun when both players don't try to screw each other with placement, and look cooler when the desert table don't have a giant iceberg sitting in the center of it.

I often play against rather hostile players because that's whom I get to play with. The alternative is not playing. When 6th came out, it was Vendetta spam. Now it's Taudar. In general, my playgroup is competitive and unrelenting. People are gaming everything in 40K for an advantage.

Thats very unfortunate :( At most Ive got one player who is very quick to netlist, three who play very strongly (with their chosen army) and five or six who are very much the antithesis of WAAC.

The largest problems I have are with maturity, not competition, Only one dude at my club tries to force the alternating terrain thing, and he's dropped it since I started letting him deploy all the terrain (it gets boring fast when you have to roll for it all, and deploy it all solo).

Where-abouts are you? Maybe I can help ya find some cooler opponents? Hell, if your near enough, you can even swing by my city and I'll put you up for some gaming! (but the terrain goes rule of cool at my place )

 davou wrote:

Think on it all you want, but your argument boils down to how people invariably want to game it for an advantage. I don't know about you, but I try and play with friends who can agree most of the time. The games are more fun when both players don't try to screw each other with placement, and look cooler when the desert table don't have a giant iceberg sitting in the center of it.

You know, that's fine and all, and among my friends, we generally play for more cool terrain than gamesmanship terrain. That does not change the nature of the discussion, which is the rules for 6th edition. The rules for 6th edition, terrain placement included, make things difficult for assault armies. Whether your friends are cool or not does not change that fact.

The one time someone forced me to play random terrain, I made the stupidest table I could possibly do. I went and go a roll of toilet paper, the broken end to a chair. I deployed the ruins on their sides and facing the corners... Its a garbage way to start a game.

When you don't get your own way you suddenly decide to be as childish as you can be? You sound like a wonderful player to have a game with.

That's the difference. I enjoy the challenge. I just wish GW would make the system more balanced. I do not want to have to rely on friendly terrain to have a competitive list.

 Redbeard wrote:
rules for 6th edition, terrain placement included, make things difficult for assault armies.

Again, the rules for alternating terrain are the fallback option, not the default one. If someone told me that they were having trouble with making assaults work, and wanted a board that gave them some help Id be all over helping them set that up. Same goes for someone who wanted a bit of buffer against a scary assault army.

When you don't get your own way you suddenly decide to be as childish as you can be? You sound like a wonderful player to have a game with.

I was asked for a game and said yes. He wanted to alternate terrain, I wanted narrative, so I conceded and told him that he could place the entire table. When that devolved into a fight, I conceded again, and we setup terrain. I made two attempts to let him have a table he was happy with (whether or not it favored his army was entirely upto him) and he still insisted I do something I dont enjoy, so he got a garbage table from it. I met malice with malice and he's since been very pleased with setting up the terrain however he likes; the games are more fun, and they look better to boot.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

The one time someone forced me to play random terrain, I made the stupidest table I could possibly do. I went and go a roll of toilet paper, the broken end to a chair. I deployed the ruins on their sides and facing the corners... Its a garbage way to start a game.

When you don't get your own way you suddenly decide to be as childish as you can be? You sound like a wonderful player to have a game with.

I think his point is that if you give your opponent the opportunity to build his own battlefield then you are voluntary running into a minefield. Nothing protects your from some major troll-move like a forest of impassable terrain or the aforementioned impassable river of lava. Of course, you can say that you won't play against such opponent but thing is, it was your idea and not eating what you cooked is a pretty dickish thing.

 davou wrote:

Again, the rules for alternating terrain are the fallback option, not the default one.

And, again, I point out that when you have players who want to win, the fallback option quickly becomes the default. That's fine, you can keep your delusion.

I have never played a game that wasn't using the "fallback" option or designed by a tourney organizer. That makes the "fallback" the "default" in my book.

Yah I suppose you giuys are right. God forbit anyone prioritize fun over winning outside of a tournament.

Fun is subjective. Most players, in my experience, don't consider your terrain system fun. Therefore, most players opt for the randomization procedure.

Also, you are completely neglecting the idea that piling the board full of terrain is not fun for the shooting lists.

The fault, as usual, is with GW's codex balance, or lack thereof. No amount of putting down hedges or hills can make that better.

I Suppose I'll conceede that some players may enjopy the randomized terrain, but must re-iterate Ive seen far too many 'This river is lava', 'This statue is a shrine to chaos' and 'Im going to put this book down in front of your quad gun' to place any faith in the alternating play-style. The narrative terrain isn't my system, its the first option laid down by the rules (and again, I didn't bring up rules to say that narrative was the goto first choice. I mentioned narrative appearing first, cause someone else mentioned alternating being the rule default)

By far, the best solution so far was the one where a third party sets up the table. I played a game on a table last week that had ongoing sandstorms. Each unit had to roll a 2+ at the start of the turn of be blinded (nightvision doing nothing to prevent it). An iceberg would have been massively unwelcome then.

Narrative is a blast when the outcome of the game does not effect your advancing in a tournament.

Martel732 wrote:

The fault, as usual, is with GW's codex balance, or lack thereof. No amount of putting down hedges or hills can make that better.

Yes. Yes it can. You've been saying it yourself; bigger amount of LoS-blocking terrain is an advantage for melee and vice versa. The fault really is with people refusing to play with enough terrain.

Martel732 wrote:

Also, you are completely neglecting the idea that piling the board full of terrain is not fun for the shooting lists.

25% isn't full, and you'll also have to weigh the fun of someone having a chance of playing his army vs. the fun of completely annihilating the enemy because there's no terrain. If the only way you (not you personally) can have fun is to wipe your opponent off a board with hilariously slanted terrain then more power to you.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

The fault, as usual, is with GW's codex balance, or lack thereof. No amount of putting down hedges or hills can make that better.

Yes. Yes it can. You've been saying it yourself; bigger amount of LoS-blocking terrain is an advantage for melee and vice versa. The fault really is with people refusing to play with enough terrain.

Martel732 wrote:

Also, you are completely neglecting the idea that piling the board full of terrain is not fun for the shooting lists.

25% isn't full, and you'll also have to weigh the fun of someone having a chance of playing his army vs. the fun of completely annihilating the enemy because there's no terrain. If the only way you (not you personally) can have fun is to wipe your opponent off a board with hilariously slanted terrain then more power to you.

A piece of LOS blocking terrain should be plenty for assault lists. But that's not how GW has balanced the game. The whole point of competitive play is to make sure your opponent has as few chances to "play their army" as possible.

By "refusing to play with enough terrain" do you mean not following the randomization procedures, or going above and beyond that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 davou wrote:
I Suppose I'll conceede that some players may enjopy the randomized terrain, but must re-iterate Ive seen far too many 'This river is lava', 'This statue is a shrine to chaos' and 'Im going to put this book down in front of your quad gun' to place any faith in the alternating play-style. The narrative terrain isn't my system, its the first option laid down by the rules (and again, I didn't bring up rules to say that narrative was the goto first choice. I mentioned narrative appearing first, cause someone else mentioned alternating being the rule default)

By far, the best solution so far was the one where a third party sets up the table. I played a game on a table last week that had ongoing sandstorms. Each unit had to roll a 2+ at the start of the turn of be blinded (nightvision doing nothing to prevent it). An iceberg would have been massively unwelcome then.

Narrative is a blast when the outcome of the game does not effect your advancing in a tournament.

It's not "some players". It's every game I've ever played. At the same time, I've never ran into people trying to give terrain abilities above and beyond those in the rule book. I've never seen someone try to place a shrine to chaos.

25% may not be full, but it's certainly reasonable.

Using the d6 alternating method of terrain distribution in the book, this leads to the following:

If you assume all terrain is 6"x6", perhaps a generous assertion, but certainly the size of an official GW bastion, then a 4'x6' table would have an average of 12 6"x6" pieces of terrain on it. That's 3 square feet of terrain, on a 24 square foot table, or 12.5%.

If you rolled really well, and got d3 pieces per 2'x2' board section, you'd have a total of 18 6"x6" pieces of terrain, for a total of 4.5 square feet of terrain, less than 20%.

That means that the best-case scenario, using the rulebook-supplied method for alternating terrain has 5% less tabletop covered than the average distribution of 25% recommended by the 5th ed rulebook.

Maybe we are using too little terrain... but the rulebook then is recommending too little. Almost as if the rulebook is encouraging a shooty edition...

"Maybe we are using too little terrain... but the rulebook then is recommending too little. Almost as if the rulebook is encouraging a shooty edition... "

Gotta sell those Taudar!

Why shouldnt they? Shrine to chaos and deadly terrain are both in the rulebook.

So I'm curious, how did everyone who insists on randomised terrain play games in 5th, you make it sound as if there is no other way to set up terrain.

In my experience with randomised terrian against players who insist on it two things always happen.

1. The randomness ends up with a board that puts my opponent at a massive disadvantage and then they start asking if they can place an extra piece in their half or put less pieces in my half. And I've never played against someone who insists on random terrian to remember that terrain can't be placed within 3 inches of another terrain piece.

2. The table looks boring as gak with both players placing everything just within 12 inches of their deployment zone with an open field in the middle of the board.

Also if 6th wasn't so punishing to 6th why is it that on a regular basis we get threads like these with people claiming their assault armies are no good anymore.

 davou wrote:
Why shouldnt they? Shrine to chaos and deadly terrain are both in the rulebook.

I don't know. I've used mysterious terrain several times, but never the shrine or outright deadly terrain.

 Madcat87 wrote:
So I'm curious, how did everyone who insists on randomised terrain play games in 5th, you make it sound as if there is no other way to set up terrain.

Obviously there are more ways to do it. The thing is that gamers, especially gamers who don't necessarily know each other, such as at a pick-up game at a store, are more likely to fall back on what the rules say than to do something else. In 5th ed, the rules said put about 25% terrain on the table (page 88 of the old rule book, if you're keeping score at home). So that was the fall-back.

In 6th, it says "do a narrative, and if you don't agree, do this other thing with terrain density and random rolls". Well, again, getting two gamers who have just met and are playing for the first time to agree isn't necessarily easy, so they fall back to the more tightly defined method, which happens to suck.

I can't be the only person who just assumed that *every* infantry unit in the game would get a 4+ cover save. Now the default is 5+, plus directed fire, is itself a huge nerf to assualt. Far larger than random charge distances.

It's a package of nerfs and buffs for shooting. Arguing over which one is the worst is pretty fruitless.

 Redbeard wrote:

 Madcat87 wrote:
So I'm curious, how did everyone who insists on randomised terrain play games in 5th, you make it sound as if there is no other way to set up terrain.

Obviously there are more ways to do it. The thing is that gamers, especially gamers who don't necessarily know each other, such as at a pick-up game at a store, are more likely to fall back on what the rules say than to do something else. In 5th ed, the rules said put about 25% terrain on the table (page 88 of the old rule book, if you're keeping score at home). So that was the fall-back.

In 6th, it says "do a narrative, and if you don't agree, do this other thing with terrain density and random rolls". Well, again, getting two gamers who have just met and are playing for the first time to agree isn't necessarily easy, so they fall back to the more tightly defined method, which happens to suck.

And yet the general trend seems to be to completely ignore random objectives, despite them being standard rules.

I think the best way to really approach this issue is to look at 5th edition. The assault lists by the end of 5th were getting mostly hammered even under that rules set.

You talk BA, and the GK and Necrons were taking the BA's lunch money by the end of 5th. IG were leafblowering Orks and Tyranids and Khorne lists off the table.

So assault wasn't that good at the end of 5th's life cycle, and then GW made it *worse*. I don't understand how this is even a debate really.

I make a point of assuming the person I'm about to play with can be amicable, rather than disagreeable. They have plenty of time to proove me wrong later, but I maintain starting with animosity hurts the entire process.

I have found that most of the people that play this are at least somewhat disagreeable to start with.

Martel732 wrote:
I have found that most of the people that play this are at least somewhat disagreeable to start with.

Find better people. I couldn't play 40k with someone who's argumentative.

xruslanx wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I have found that most of the people that play this are at least somewhat disagreeable to start with.

Find better people. I couldn't play 40k with someone who's argumentative.

Those people exist? I guess there must be a few non-gamers that play this.

Martel732 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I have found that most of the people that play this are at least somewhat disagreeable to start with.

Find better people. I couldn't play 40k with someone who's argumentative.

Those people exist? I guess there must be a few non-gamers that play this.

40k is mainly played by people who don't play other wargames. So yeah.

Thank you Davou for essentially continuing my train of thought without me being here, I tip my hat to you sir
Especially since you advocate this stance despite choosing Tau as your forum rank.

So the argument being put forward by Martel and Redbeard is that their opponents and in fact themselves given their predilection to terrain "gaming" cannot be trusted but put aside their bias and create a fair, interesting and exciting battlefield and it skews the game. As said, find better opponents and *be* better opponents .

Random terrain is a crutch included for people who insist on making victory secondary to winning, you ask "why would I agree to terrain that is not beneficial to me?" which means you're already in that "disagreeable" pack of players yourself. A game of 40k is a compact between players to create an enjoyable, fun and hopefully memorable game enjoyed by all.

GW have thrown that kind of player a bone by including randomized terrain rules but it is very much secondary to the primary method and it's own little offshoot. Disagreeable players breed disagreeable players. A large 40k game can take hours to set up and play, I have no intention of wasting my time playing a game against someone who can't even put aside their desperate need to win long enough to agree on a board setup...

You say my meta means nothing to you, the feeling is mutual, from your description however I know which I'd prefer to play in. Either way however using GW's book written primary terrain deployment, assault is alive and well so the answer to the OP's question remains no.

The terrain set up has many different isuues...

At my club at least we attmept to balance it, it tends to mean there are at least a couple of pieces in each deployment zone. And quite a few in the middle to block LOS etc with little ruins scattered around to add flavour...


of course if you roll hammer and anvil deployment things get rather interesting


however at many tournamnents the terrain is set and thats it, henc ewhy the dominace of shooting armies. In 5th it encouraged the shift to mech armies, and that still partly exists now.

However other game systems do things differently, warmahordes for example doesnot have the size of terrian we deal with in 40k. You tend to get walls, trenches and the odd hedge or two (nasty suprises tend to lurk there...). Not to mention that fact that in that game at least shooting and close combat are quite well balanced- far better than any edition of 40k i've ever played.

just my humble opinion

" A game of 40k is a compact between players to create an enjoyable, fun and hopefully memorable game enjoyed by all. "

This is just not my experience with 40K at all. In any tournament setting, you will not have the luxury of designing your own board. And as I said, I have never used anything other than random. Even with "agreeable" people.

I'm not playing your smurf version of the game. It seems most other people aren't, either. That makes insights about assault based on this minority system for terrain rather suspect. "

"why would I agree to terrain that is not beneficial to me?"

Yes, this is the common attitude among the gaming community as far as I can tell. So we randomize to take this out of mix.

Martel732 wrote:
" A game of 40k is a compact between players to create an enjoyable, fun and hopefully memorable game enjoyed by all. "

This is just not my experience with 40K at all. In any tournament setting, you will not have the luxury of designing your own board. And as I said, I have never used anything other than random. Even with "agreeable" people.

I'm not playing your smurf version of the game. It seems most other people aren't, either. That makes insights about assault based on this minority system for terrain rather suspect. "

"why would I agree to terrain that is not beneficial to me?"

Yes, this is the common attitude among the gaming community as far as I can tell. So we randomize to take this out of mix.

Thats really sad to read - the whole point is its supposed to be fun - yeah proper Tournaments are different but pick up games should be fun - at our club quite often one player just checks the terrain out until we have enough for each other and we get on with it - usually no one can be bothered to move from the table edge they put their models down anyway........... We sometimes do it random for a change or if people are practising - they lay it out like a tourney set up - although I will say most of the local ones are way too open IMO ..............

Most people aren't playing my version of the game? Based on what?

It's the primary terrain deployment method, there's nothing smurf about it, it's the way the game is meant to be played. Given that doing it properly takes two people to agree and you are so dead set on randomizing and gaming the system has it not occurred to you that you are attracting the very same type of player and putting off the others and creating a vicious cycle?

No offence to you as a person but first time I saw you being the cause of randomized and gamed terrain I'd lose all interest in playing against you and I wouldn't be alone within my group.

It may be me putting on my old man hat but it tends to be the younger players who can't manage this while the older ones who perhaps have less time to play and so want to enjoy the games they have and so have no interest in such games.

Like I say, they are your models and it's your meta to play as you choose but rest assured there are groups out there who are perfectly capable of bringing very "hard" lists when they choose to but can also sit down with their opponent and build a balanced table without placing terrain for advantage and the game is made better for it.

Edit:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Thats really sad to read - the whole point is its supposed to be fun - yeah proper Tournaments are different but pick up games should be fun

I know right? Hell even tournaments should still put the fun first, you are still playing a game together at the heart, but I can at least understand them as a place you can go if you insist on treating the game that way. Odd as that meta is to me, I can't understand why on earth people would want to play 40k like that but it's a way of getting like minded players together.

But at your local club or FLGS, why?

I have no other options within travel distance. It was just like this in Cincinnati, anyway. I have no clue where you are finding people that will agree to this.

In my experience, people don't build Taudar lists to have them stuck behind LOS blocking terrain. They want clear firing lanes and will object to anything that blocks their firing lanes.

Depending on when the game starts, all the LOS blocking terrain might be taken anyway, so at that point, it doesn't matter how much terrain is used for the purposes of making assault more viable.

How is random terrain "gaming the system"?

 Dunklezahn wrote:

It's the primary terrain deployment method, there's nothing smurf about it, it's the way the game is meant to be played.

It's not the primary method, it's one of two methods. Sure, it's first in the book - because something has to be - but there's nothing to indicate that it is in any way the superior or preferred method.

Page 120 wrote:
Next, the players must set up the terrain for the battle. There are two ways you can go about this - narrative or alternating.

See, nothing says the one is preferred over the other.

Furthermore...

If you an your opponent can't agree on a narrative to help you set up the terrain, you should use this method instead.

Note, it's not "if you can't agree on the terrain placement", it's if you can't agree on a narrative. Secondly, it seems clear to me that the game designers put a whole lot more effort into the alternating method, including an entire sidebox that details why it is acceptable to use the alternating method to create a table that benefits your army.


Your entire premise seems to be that only people not worth playing with use the alternating terrain method. I think that's highly unfair. It seems to me that the rulebook gives precedence to the alternating method, and that the narrative terrain is included in case people want to tell a story.

If you an your opponent can't agree on a narrative to help you set up the terrain, you should use this method instead.

Personally I would that as:

Narrative is the standard way but if thats not going to work / your not playing a scenario - use this more formalised method to incorporate different playing and gaming styles for the player.

In my experience, people don't build Taudar lists to have them stuck behind LOS blocking terrain. They want clear firing lanes and will object to anything that blocks their firing lanes.

Surely that works both ways - People don't build a CC army to be stuck on an open plain? It just sounds like one player/s scream louder and longer that they want their way?

I think you guys are getting too hung up on the amount of LOS block terrain, when considering that since most LOS blocking terrain is also impassible then an assault unit hiding behind it is also not advancing towards the enemy, and the shooting armies have no reason to come to you.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
I think you guys are getting too hung up on the amount of LOS block terrain, when considering that since most LOS blocking terrain is also impassible then an assault unit hiding behind it is also not advancing towards the enemy, and the shooting armies have no reason to come to you.

Ruins and hills certainly aren't impassable, and ruins are arguably the most common LoS-blocking terrain. Furthermore, if you're hiding objectives behind them, the shooty enemy will have to do something other than sit around his deployment zone and shoot. Similarly, if you hide bikes, cavalry or something similar behind impassible terrain they'll dodge one turn's worth of shooting and still be on their merry way to the enemy.

 Mr Morden wrote:

If you an your opponent can't agree on a narrative to help you set up the terrain, you should use this method instead.

Personally I would that as:

Narrative is the standard way but if thats not going to work / your not playing a scenario - use this more formalised method to incorporate different playing and gaming styles for the player.

Well, that might be how you'd [sic] it but that's not what it actually says. It never, anywhere, says that narrative is preferred, or standard, or anything of that nature. The very first sentence establishes that there are two equally valid means of setting up terrain, and a following paragraph then adds that, should one method not be agreed upon, then the other method should be used. That's what it actually says. Anyone arguing that narrative is, by the rules, preferred is just wrong. It might yield a more enjoyable game for you and your friends, but it has no preferential status from the rulebook.

Hmm not so sure - but as I actually said in my post we don't really care that much as we use BOTH methods.......

If you are into the semantics etc and looking what you actually posted :

It starts by saying there are two methods and then says if this (the narrative) one does not work for you then use the other (random)?

Also when people start talking about the preferntial status and asking people to "prove things in the rules" thats when I feel the discussion degenerates..........

I am happy to play either way myself.........

 Redbeard wrote:
If you and your opponent can't agree on a narrative to help you set up the terrain, you should use this method instead.

That's pretty clear, if you jumped straight to randomized they wouldn't need the first part of the sentence. It implies that Narrative is the start point and Random is there for when that fails.

Of course there are more rules, it's for when the players can't be trusted to govern themselves and treat their opponent with respect.

Edit:
It occurred to me its very similar to their "Dice off when you can't agree" style ruling, something else I don't think I have ever needed in a single game in 20 years. If neither player is willing to back down and accept an unfavourable result we'll have to force one on you.

The first method is basically "see what's in your terrain box and make a cool battlefield for your armies to fight over". No rules required as at this stage the players are assumed to be trusted not to be thinking purely about the best terrain for their victory.

Sadly it requires the players to put their must win attitudes and biases aside in the name of the game. It saddens me that so many folks cannot do this, worse that some even go further and actively sabotage any attempt by players forced to use this method to build terrain like suggesting in Narrative. If this is how you start your games it's easy to predict how every single close LOS/measurement call is gonna go in the game, it's a horribly unfriendly way to play a game meant to be enjoyed by all participants.

 Dunklezahn wrote:

That's pretty clear, if you jumped straight to randomized they wouldn't need the first part of the sentence. It implies that Narrative is the start point and Random is there for when that fails.

Not at all, it offers two choices, both of which are equally valid. And, it provides the more definitive version as being the go-to method if there is a disagreement. You keep trying to draw implication where none is stated, and back this up with an ad hominem attack stating that people who like the more defined approach must be WAAC gamers who are not fun to play with.

Try again without the personal attacks and maybe we have a discussion. Otherwise, if you're just going to throw mud around, insisting that your way is the only right way and anyone who uses the rules must be a WAAC gamer, there's no point to continuing.

Dunklezahn wrote:So the argument being put forward by Martel and Redbeard is that their opponents and in fact themselves given their predilection to terrain "gaming" cannot be trusted but put aside their bias and create a fair, interesting and exciting battlefield and it skews the game... be better people.

It's possible that people who are disagreeing with you are whiny jackasses who need to learn how to be polite in public and play the game "correctly". My guess is that if you actually read what people were saying, you'd find that the arguments are more sophisticated than that.

You might find, for example, arguments about how lots of terrain can be harmful, not helpful to assault armies. Terrain gives cover, but it also always slows down infantry units, either because you're going through it, or you have to waste movement swerving around it. What you gain in cover saves, you lose in time. Meanwhile, if your opponent is playing a gunline with lots of vehicles or MCs (or units with MSM, or even infantry, who aren't likely moving, and thus aren't likely suffering from being slowed by terrain) don't care about this movement penalty. Once again, mech gunlines will actually like terrain, what with being faster already than infantry, and terrain making them even faster still. A vehicle with dozer blades can move 18", and plow over terrain that's causing assaulting infantry to move effectively D6" through. Or wave serpents that basically completely ignore the rules for cover (and so can zip over and focus-fire against mired infantry) while the other player isn't.

And LOS blocking terrain is really cool... unless your opponent brings barrage weapons, in which case they WANT LOS-blocking terrain. It makes leafblowers BETTER able to dismantle assault armies, not worse.

Your argument that you just need more terrain to make assault work isn't nearly as valid as you think, especially when you then go in and add in rules that explicitly hurt assault units with regards to terrain that don't hurt shooting at all, like needing frag grenades all the sudden, and rolling 3D6 and choosing the lowest two when assaulting into or too close to terrain.

That or everyone else is just playing the game wrong and you're just right so there. Whatever.

"That's pretty clear, if you jumped straight to randomized they wouldn't need the first part of the sentence. It implies that Narrative is the start point and Random is there for when that fails. "

Well, it fails every time in my experience.

To be fair martel, sounds like you haven't given it much chance. You seem deadset on all the players in your local being jerks who only want to win.

Try crafting a table with special interesting rules. Maybe its a spooky haunted forest that weirds out psychers, or a low gravity planet that lets infantry move 6+d3; it's really not the root cannal you're making it out to be.

As said, find better opponents and *be* better opponents .

That would require changing the country for some people . Everyone here plays all games the same way , with the same tournament lists . Terrain is set up the way it is on tournaments , specialy as most of the shops terrains are later used for local and big tournaments .

It's not that important to me, really. But the people I play with are generally interesting in testing lists out. They want the table to approximate competitive conditions. So, yeah, randomization it is.

No one in my area is going to play on a table where infantry move 6+D3. I'd give it a try, though. It's not like C:SM/BA are winning anything anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:

Dunklezahn wrote:So the argument being put forward by Martel and Redbeard is that their opponents and in fact themselves given their predilection to terrain "gaming" cannot be trusted but put aside their bias and create a fair, interesting and exciting battlefield and it skews the game... be better people.

It's possible that people who are disagreeing with you are whiny jackasses who need to learn how to be polite in public and play the game "correctly". My guess is that if you actually read what people were saying, you'd find that the arguments are more sophisticated than that.

You might find, for example, arguments about how lots of terrain can be harmful, not helpful to assault armies. Terrain gives cover, but it also always slows down infantry units, either because you're going through it, or you have to waste movement swerving around it. What you gain in cover saves, you lose in time. Meanwhile, if your opponent is playing a gunline with lots of vehicles or MCs (or units with MSM, or even infantry, who aren't likely moving, and thus aren't likely suffering from being slowed by terrain) don't care about this movement penalty. Once again, mech gunlines will actually like terrain, what with being faster already than infantry, and terrain making them even faster still. A vehicle with dozer blades can move 18", and plow over terrain that's causing assaulting infantry to move effectively D6" through. Or wave serpents that basically completely ignore the rules for cover (and so can zip over and focus-fire against mired infantry) while the other player isn't.

And LOS blocking terrain is really cool... unless your opponent brings barrage weapons, in which case they WANT LOS-blocking terrain. It makes leafblowers BETTER able to dismantle assault armies, not worse.

Your argument that you just need more terrain to make assault work isn't nearly as valid as you think, especially when you then go in and add in rules that explicitly hurt assault units with regards to terrain that don't hurt shooting at all, like needing frag grenades all the sudden, and rolling 3D6 and choosing the lowest two when assaulting into or too close to terrain.

That or everyone else is just playing the game wrong and you're just right so there. Whatever.

Well, there's this, too. The Wave Serpent is just criminally under-costed, and as it pointed out here ,it's dubious how much terrain actually helps against Eldar.


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I'd also like to reiterate that assault wasn't good at the end of 5th, and 6th made it even worse. In fact, it's so much worse that it's a primary reason the BA are currently the worst list in the game.