Having not played in 8th edition how has close combat gotten compared to 7th? Is it better or worse? And how has each army faired in the fight phase? Who got better, who got worse, and who stayed the same? Also what units or models are the kings of close combat now?

Well...in 8th CC Happens...so better? Kings? Khorne Berzerks...no suprise... Genestealers, we're Very good. Then the usuals Blood angels, Orks, etc...

Close Combat is now part of the game (Meaning that you can actually do things as a player and... play), instead of a automatic-mode phase where nobody do anything more than rolling dice.

So, much better.

Melee armies are much better.

Guard will give you problems. But they're giving everyone problems.

CC isn't king, but it's not useless. Shooting armies can actually answer CC-heavy armies that get into assault range by withdrawing from CC and shooting. There's no such thing as being "locked in close combat" anymore.

Transports are a lot tougher this edition, which is good for CC armies as they take a lot of focus fire to take down unless you spend actual points for dedicated anti-vehicle fire. And even then you're not killing everything.

On the flip side, transports are a LOT more expensive too, so you're not going to see entirely mounted armies anymore either.

You can shoot pistols in the shooting phase even if you're locked in close combat.

It's a very even playing field.

In 7th i had a chance against our competetive Tau player with my melee wolves, now they just outright clean up the table.

 Brutallica wrote:
In 7th i had a chance against our competetive Tau player with my melee wolves, now they just outright clean up the table.

Your melee wolves or the Taus?

Mellee has changed. You can't hide in combat now but you can pile in to other squads and recieve no further penalties to multi-charging. So, cc is less sticky, somewhat less damaging - cause of less attacks and more saves vs power weapons - but if placed correctly, you can neuter nearby stuff with pile ins.

Melee is far worse.
Anyone can now just fall back from melee and then the rest of the army shoots you.
When before it was very strong, protective and decisive.
You will need several units or several assaults to kill just one ennemy unit.

 godardc wrote:
Melee is far worse.
Anyone can now just fall back from melee and then the rest of the army shoots you.
When before it was very strong, protective and decisive.
You will need several units or several assaults to kill just one ennemy unit.

Yet assault armies are doing better. HMMMMMMM.

Don't throw assault units into the center of the enemy lines. They will die. Shoot up the center, attack the flanks.

 Galas wrote:
Close Combat is now part of the game (Meaning that you can actually do things as a player and... play), instead of a automatic-mode phase where nobody do anything more than rolling dice.

So, much better.

That's a weird complaint to make considering that assault (or rather getting into assault) was easily the more tactically demanding compared to shooting

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Close Combat is now part of the game (Meaning that you can actually do things as a player and... play), instead of a automatic-mode phase where nobody do anything more than rolling dice.

So, much better.

That's a weird complaint to make considering that assault (or rather getting into assault) was easily the more tactically demanding compared to shooting

It wasn't a complaint...

How has an army like necrons faired since the initiative stat was removed?

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Close Combat is now part of the game (Meaning that you can actually do things as a player and... play), instead of a automatic-mode phase where nobody do anything more than rolling dice.

So, much better.

That's a weird complaint to make considering that assault (or rather getting into assault) was easily the more tactically demanding compared to shooting

Movement was demanding and tactical, but the actual Meele phase was a automatic phase where NO player did anything. With initiatives and 0 actions a played could do, it whas just a full phase of rolling dice without making any decisions. So basically, the meele phase was not part of the game. It was like a cutscene in a videogame where you just wait to play again.

All melee got a buff, really. But IMO the biggest thing I've noticed is that khornate... ANYTHING is now frighteningly effective.

 Melissia wrote:
All melee got a buff, really. But IMO the biggest thing I've noticed is that khornate... ANYTHING is now frighteningly effective.

I can attest to this as well.

I played a game with a daemons player, and his Khorne Daemon Prince was an absolute juggernaut. It was hitting on 2s rerolling 1s, wounding on 2s, with 9 attacks, doing 2 damage each, at AP-3. Yikes. It will smash what it gets into CC with.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
All melee got a buff, really. But IMO the biggest thing I've noticed is that khornate... ANYTHING is now frighteningly effective.

I can attest to this as well.

I played a game with a daemons player, and his Khorne Daemon Prince was an absolute juggernaut. It was hitting on 2s rerolling 1s, wounding on 2s, with 9 attacks, doing 2 damage each, at AP-3. Yikes. It will smash what it gets into CC with.

Not everything in melee got a buff.
Some things got de-buffed, some needed it, some really didn't.

Monstrous Creatures no longer automatically have the ability to ignore all armour, some have no rending value in melee at all.
That's actually good, most of the ones that lost out were long range units anyway.
Tyrannids Monstrous Creatures are actually seeing melee now so it wasn't a relevant loss to them.
Thunderwolf Cavalry lost access to Strength ten attacks, they also lost two inches of mobility.
Wulfen Frost Claws copped a price hike and got debuffed from ap2 to ap-2.
Curse of the Wulfen lost its mobility bonus and only affects a unit once per turn.
Deathwatch Heavy Thunder Hammers are worse than regular Thunder Hammers and cost ten points more.
Thunder Hammer 20ppm, 25ppm for characters, Sx2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces one weapon.
Heavy Thunder Hammer 30ppm, can't be taken by characters, S×2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces two weapons.
Dreadnoughts gained two inches in mobility but lost access to Drop Pods, Murderfang also lost four attacks.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Deathwatch Heavy Thunder Hammers are worse than regular Thunder Hammers and cost ten points more.
Thunder Hammer 20ppm, 25ppm for characters, Sx2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces one weapon.
Heavy Thunder Hammer 30ppm, can't be taken by characters, S×2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces two weapons.

I see the money-grabbing nerfbat is in full swing.

Melee got worse. Everyone leaving combat is awful. I watched a daemon prince get shot by 4 tau units with support fire just to get one round of combat off before the remnant of that unit just walked away, leaving the daemon prince having to do it all over again for a whopping chance to get a round of combat... yay. Shooting is still king, it's even more king now that there's no more wound pool.

 Selym wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Deathwatch Heavy Thunder Hammers are worse than regular Thunder Hammers and cost ten points more.
Thunder Hammer 20ppm, 25ppm for characters, Sx2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces one weapon.
Heavy Thunder Hammer 30ppm, can't be taken by characters, S×2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces two weapons.

I see the money-grabbing nerfbat is in full swing.

He forgot the damage

Thunder Hammer: Damage 3

Heavy Thunder Hammer: Damage D6 Each time you roll a wound roll of 6+ with this weapon, resolve the damage at Damage 6.

Though it'd be alot nicer if it took a small price hike and could be exchanged. The Guardian Spear is really nice but should be able to swap it out.

 Purifier wrote:

 godardc wrote:
Melee is far worse.
Anyone can now just fall back from melee and then the rest of the army shoots you.
When before it was very strong, protective and decisive.
You will need several units or several assaults to kill just one ennemy unit.

Yet assault armies are doing better. HMMMMMMM.

Because they've reduced the number of turns melee armies have to weather enemy firepower before reaching combat from 3 to 0.

Honestly this should tell you everything about the discrepancy between shooting lethality and melee lethality, if falling back and using other units to shoot up the attacker is enough to answer 1st turn charges.

 Crablezworth wrote:
Melee got worse. Everyone leaving combat is awful. I watched a daemon prince get shot by 4 tau units with support fire just to get one round of combat off before the remnant of that unit just walked away, leaving the daemon prince having to do it all over again for a whopping chance to get a round of combat... yay. Shooting is still king, it's even more king now that there's no more wound pool.

Why was he charging a lone Prince against a full Tau army? Did he forget the rest of his army?

Melee takes a bit of Tactical thought. Be prepared for enemies to try and leave combat, plan for it. Hit the line in several places or hard on one side. Use a sacrifice unit to force enemies to fall back losing shooting. Don't send your Melee monster in alone, especially if it is your warlord.

C.Straken wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Melee got worse. Everyone leaving combat is awful. I watched a daemon prince get shot by 4 tau units with support fire just to get one round of combat off before the remnant of that unit just walked away, leaving the daemon prince having to do it all over again for a whopping chance to get a round of combat... yay. Shooting is still king, it's even more king now that there's no more wound pool.

Why was he charging a lone Prince against a full Tau army? Did he forget the rest of his army?

Melee takes a bit of Tactical thought. Be prepared for enemies to try and leave combat, plan for it. Hit the line in several places or hard on one side. Use a sacrifice unit to force enemies to fall back losing shooting. Don't send your Melee monster in alone, especially if it is your warlord.

But that requires thought. I can't get my head around how anyone can prefer the old way of "right, I'm in combat, now we roll dice until one of us dies."

Sticking in combat is now much harder. Paired with the loss of the attack on the charge, your alpha really has to the unit hard or if they don't want to be there they wont and then your free to be shot.

As a Tyranid player, I always get a turn 1 charge which is normally followed by 6-7 turn 2 charges. Armies are MUCH faster now as well.

 Purifier wrote:

C.Straken wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Melee got worse. Everyone leaving combat is awful. I watched a daemon prince get shot by 4 tau units with support fire just to get one round of combat off before the remnant of that unit just walked away, leaving the daemon prince having to do it all over again for a whopping chance to get a round of combat... yay. Shooting is still king, it's even more king now that there's no more wound pool.

Why was he charging a lone Prince against a full Tau army? Did he forget the rest of his army?

Melee takes a bit of Tactical thought. Be prepared for enemies to try and leave combat, plan for it. Hit the line in several places or hard on one side. Use a sacrifice unit to force enemies to fall back losing shooting. Don't send your Melee monster in alone, especially if it is your warlord.

But that requires thought. I can't get my head around how anyone can prefer the old way of "right, I'm in combat, now we roll dice until one of us dies."

But a guaranteed disengage from combat without any chance harm isn't right either.

Eitherway in a scenario against Tau its probably versus a castled up foe with kroots and firewarriors screen. And all the heavy hitters, shield drones and commanders with Kyuon reroll spam is right behind safe and snug. I have a hunch that single demon prince is the remenants of an entire army. Atleast thats the usual case against the Tau player in our club in 8th.

Well my wolves have faced two horde armies and won both times in melee my thunder wolves killed two ork dreadnoughts 5 meganobz the warboss and his pain boy for the loss of two models so really I can't complain.

Wulfen just tore through stuff while buffing my blood claws, really nice to run them again and not have them bounce off stuff.

And my wolf guard termies ate a 30 strong boyz unit and the third ork dreadnought with only two casualties.

All in all I think melee in 8th is fine.

 Crablezworth wrote:
Melee got worse. Everyone leaving combat is awful. I watched a daemon prince get shot by 4 tau units with support fire just to get one round of combat off before the remnant of that unit just walked away, leaving the daemon prince having to do it all over again for a whopping chance to get a round of combat... yay. Shooting is still king, it's even more king now that there's no more wound pool.

Sounds like you just played badly

 Brutallica wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

C.Straken wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Melee got worse. Everyone leaving combat is awful. I watched a daemon prince get shot by 4 tau units with support fire just to get one round of combat off before the remnant of that unit just walked away, leaving the daemon prince having to do it all over again for a whopping chance to get a round of combat... yay. Shooting is still king, it's even more king now that there's no more wound pool.

Why was he charging a lone Prince against a full Tau army? Did he forget the rest of his army?

Melee takes a bit of Tactical thought. Be prepared for enemies to try and leave combat, plan for it. Hit the line in several places or hard on one side. Use a sacrifice unit to force enemies to fall back losing shooting. Don't send your Melee monster in alone, especially if it is your warlord.

But that requires thought. I can't get my head around how anyone can prefer the old way of "right, I'm in combat, now we roll dice until one of us dies."

But a guaranteed disengage from combat without any chance harm isn't right either.

Eitherway in a scenario against Tau its probably versus a castled up foe with kroots and firewarriors screen. And all the heavy hitters, shield drones and commanders with Kyuon reroll spam is right behind safe and snug. I have a hunch that single demon prince is the remenants of an entire army. Atleast thats the usual case against the Tau player in our club in 8th.

Most likely the rest of the forward ranks evaporated under Supporting Fire Overwatch.
Tau get a limited shooting phase in respose to EVERY charge - as long as nothing actually makes it to melee everything is free to overwatch again, they might be hitting on sixes but it's also possible for them to lay down more shots in overwatch than in their shooting phase.
Crazy.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Brutallica wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

C.Straken wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Melee got worse. Everyone leaving combat is awful. I watched a daemon prince get shot by 4 tau units with support fire just to get one round of combat off before the remnant of that unit just walked away, leaving the daemon prince having to do it all over again for a whopping chance to get a round of combat... yay. Shooting is still king, it's even more king now that there's no more wound pool.

Why was he charging a lone Prince against a full Tau army? Did he forget the rest of his army?

Melee takes a bit of Tactical thought. Be prepared for enemies to try and leave combat, plan for it. Hit the line in several places or hard on one side. Use a sacrifice unit to force enemies to fall back losing shooting. Don't send your Melee monster in alone, especially if it is your warlord.

But that requires thought. I can't get my head around how anyone can prefer the old way of "right, I'm in combat, now we roll dice until one of us dies."

But a guaranteed disengage from combat without any chance harm isn't right either.

Eitherway in a scenario against Tau its probably versus a castled up foe with kroots and firewarriors screen. And all the heavy hitters, shield drones and commanders with Kyuon reroll spam is right behind safe and snug. I have a hunch that single demon prince is the remenants of an entire army. Atleast thats the usual case against the Tau player in our club in 8th.

Most likely the rest of the forward ranks evaporated under Supporting Fire Overwatch.
Tau get a limited shooting phase in respose to EVERY charge - as long as nothing actually makes it to melee everything is free to overwatch again, they might be hitting on sixes but it's also possible for them to lay down more shots in overwatch than in their shooting phase.
Crazy.

Standard overwatch can be done against each charge.
For the greater good (former supporting fire) can only be used once by each unit, and when they do they can't even fire normal overwatch anymore.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 godardc wrote:
Melee is far worse.
Anyone can now just fall back from melee and then the rest of the army shoots you.
When before it was very strong, protective and decisive.
You will need several units or several assaults to kill just one ennemy unit.

Yet assault armies are doing better. HMMMMMMM.

Because they've reduced the number of turns melee armies have to weather enemy firepower before reaching combat from 3 to 0.

Honestly this should tell you everything about the discrepancy between shooting lethality and melee lethality, if falling back and using other units to shoot up the attacker is enough to answer 1st turn charges.

Exactly.
Melee is far easier to get, but I still say it is worst. When I need 3 assaults to kill just one death guard squad with my terminator squad, how has assault been made better ?
Movement has been made easier, assault has not been improved.
However, it is indeed more interactive for the players, which is a good thing.

 godardc wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 godardc wrote:
Melee is far worse.
Anyone can now just fall back from melee and then the rest of the army shoots you.
When before it was very strong, protective and decisive.
You will need several units or several assaults to kill just one ennemy unit.

Yet assault armies are doing better. HMMMMMMM.

Because they've reduced the number of turns melee armies have to weather enemy firepower before reaching combat from 3 to 0.

Honestly this should tell you everything about the discrepancy between shooting lethality and melee lethality, if falling back and using other units to shoot up the attacker is enough to answer 1st turn charges.

Exactly.
Melee is far easier to get, but I still say it is worst. When I need 3 assaults to kill just one death guard squad with my terminator squad, how has assault been made better ?
Movement has been made easier, assault has not been improved.
However, it is indeed more interactive for the players, which is a good thing.

That.. sounds like some bad rolling, how did it take three assaults to kill one death guard squad?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:


That.. sounds like some bad rolling, how did it take three assaults to kill one death guard squad?

Never underestimate a DG player's ability to roll 5+'s.

Three hammernators assaulting have only 6 attacks now, hitting on 4+, wounding on 3+.
That's 1 DG killed, instead of 2 or 3 even sometimes.
So now I kill about 50% less models (hammer are especially impacted by the new to wound chart).
But yeah, I must admit DG are really resilient !
And every time he falls back, my poor veterans get shot :(

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Deathwatch Heavy Thunder Hammers are worse than regular Thunder Hammers and cost ten points more.
Thunder Hammer 20ppm, 25ppm for characters, Sx2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces one weapon.
Heavy Thunder Hammer 30ppm, can't be taken by characters, S×2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces two weapons.
Dreadnoughts gained two inches in mobility but lost access to Drop Pods, Murderfang also lost four attacks.

Is this how we do comparisons now? I can just leave off one of the stat values and make things better or worse? That's nifty, let me try.

Wtf storm bolters are identical to regular bolters but they cost more! Regular bolter FREE (WTF GW) S4 Ap- D1, Storm Bolter 2 points S4 AP- D1 how is that fair?

The HTH costs more because it does D6 damage with an extra chance of causing 6 damage outright. It costs 1/3 more, and does 1/3 more damage on average per wound.

Short version, from what I've seen so far - melee is much easier to get into, but is less deadly per turn. It has to be, though: if you could get into melee as easily as in 8e, but with 7e-style Locked In Combat and Sweeping Advance, assault armies would be absolutely dominant.

Disengaging isn't always brutal - non-FLY units that disengage generally can't shoot or charge, so you can charge multiple units (or pile into/consolidate into them) so that an entire flank of a shooting army can't shoot. Even an MSU-spam shooting list has only just so many units, after all. The things to watch out for are units with the FLY keyword. (Tau suits come to mind, but so do things that want to be in assault like Vanguard Veterans or Tyranid Shrikes.)

Folks still cry about Tau overwatch, but unlike in 6/7e, markerlights are rather less helpful. In 7e, I've actually had Overwatch shots hitting at BS5 or better. In 8e, the best you can possibly get is hitting on 5+, rerollable, and that requires both the Counterfire Defense System and an improbable (but not impossible) 5 marker hits.

Flamer overwatch, however, is scary. Think twice before charging lightly-armored assault units into flamer-bearers. I was playing a game against Harlequins with my Sisters, and a Troupe of six Harlequins charged my Seraphim - their four hand flamers evaporated the whole unit.

jade_angel wrote:


Folks still cry about Tau overwatch, but unlike in 6/7e, markerlights are rather less helpful. In 7e, I've actually had Overwatch shots hitting at BS5 or better. In 8e, the best you can possibly get is hitting on 5+, rerollable, and that requires both the Counterfire Defense System and an improbable (but not impossible) 5 marker hits.

I think the problem with Tau overwatch is people are doing more of it than they are allowed.

GodDamUser wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Melee got worse. Everyone leaving combat is awful. I watched a daemon prince get shot by 4 tau units with support fire just to get one round of combat off before the remnant of that unit just walked away, leaving the daemon prince having to do it all over again for a whopping chance to get a round of combat... yay. Shooting is still king, it's even more king now that there's no more wound pool.

Sounds like you just played badly

I wasn't the one playing sport.




Shooting>Combat


And often they're not mutually exclusive, many things are shooting and charging and leaving and shooting and charging now. Either way, even with deepstrike turn one charging, random charge is still a thing and unless you're using a beacon trick to get closer, better be an entire list built to alpha strike. The sheer amount of fire some units can put out combined with overwatch and support fire has risen. Even with warp speed and the ability to stay out of los to a lot of units that could potentially add to suport fire, this thing didn't have a chance and it was facing maybe 200pts worth of fire warriors and missile turrets. Shooting>combat.

 Crablezworth wrote:

GodDamUser wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Melee got worse. Everyone leaving combat is awful. I watched a daemon prince get shot by 4 tau units with support fire just to get one round of combat off before the remnant of that unit just walked away, leaving the daemon prince having to do it all over again for a whopping chance to get a round of combat... yay. Shooting is still king, it's even more king now that there's no more wound pool.

Sounds like you just played badly

I wasn't the one playing sport.

Sounds like the player was playing badly or it was a suicide attack. New players charging all their models to the middle of the board or into the enemy lines brainlessly is coloring a lot of player's opinions on the game. When people in general start to realize you can play a lot slower and more tactically now you'll see a lot more melee armies doing well.

the_scotsman wrote:


Wtf storm bolters are identical to regular bolters but they cost more! Regular bolter FREE (WTF GW) S4 Ap- D1, Storm Bolter 2 points S4 AP- D1 how is that fair?

Stormbolters fire double the regular bolter shots, they're rapid fire 2 instead of rapid fire. 4 S4 shots for only 2 points are really nice.

 Blackie wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:


Wtf storm bolters are identical to regular bolters but they cost more! Regular bolter FREE (WTF GW) S4 Ap- D1, Storm Bolter 2 points S4 AP- D1 how is that fair?

Stormbolters fire double the regular bolter shots, they're rapid fire 2 instead of rapid fire. 4 S4 shots for only 2 points are really nice.

I'm not sure if you noticed the context, but that was his point.
The previous poster had claimed that Heavy Thunder Hammers are just more expensive Thunder Hammers while leaving relevant information out the same way the_scotsman did.

Welp, just so that my only contribution isn't being a smartass, here are my experiences as a BA player:

I have found assaulting from reserves effective, but difficult to pull off.
My friend play Skitarii and he fields MSU Vanguards as a bubblewrap. I can of course shoot them, but that means that I must either DS way too far from my intended target or wait for turn 2-3 to attack.

I have also found that smaller number of attacks in general has made assaults less impressive. And the problem isn't even Falling back in itself, it's more about the fact that less killing power and no sweeping advanced means that wiping the enemy isn't as easy as it has been.

So I cannot kill or tie down my opponent's gunline effectively. Sigh.

MSU might be the way to go.

 godardc wrote:
Melee is far worse.
Anyone can now just fall back from melee and then the rest of the army shoots you.
When before it was very strong, protective and decisive.
You will need several units or several assaults to kill just one ennemy unit.

Spoken like someone who doesn't play 8th.

For some who hasn't played 8th explain why it's better for me then.

I get hit harder and I can't sweep anymore and I have a load of dumb hit penalties. What's better?

Your attacks are happening first, for starters. Meaning that while your hammer's are at a slight penalty to hit they are killing before being struck down.

Also, to the player above who had a bad go against plague marines, remember they need to make a disgustingly resilient roll against every wound lost. So against thunder hammers they would need to roll three dice per unsaved wound. It should definitely kill the model.

S to the topic at hand, melee is alive and well. You just have to realise that your melee weapons will have preferred targets just like ranged weapons do.

I play harlequins, in my games so far I've noticed that the caress does well against marine equivalent units, the embrace does better anti horde, and the kiss is better against monsters/characters because of the extra damage per unsaved wound. Throwing big heavy weapons at massed infantry or even just one wound models is a waste, throwing things like chainswords at monsters hoping to drown them in wounds is also going to be ineffective.

Right tool for the job, and tactical variety are the key with every weapon now. Good luck!

Hitting first because you charge is a massive bonus now, I crippled a dreadnought by charging it with TH/SS wolfguard and taking of 2/3 of it's wounds before it could strike.

As an owner of a melee army i'm more than happy with 8th combat.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Your attacks are happening first, for starters. Meaning that while your hammer's are at a slight penalty to hit they are killing before being struck down.

Also, to the player above who had a bad go against plague marines, remember they need to make a disgustingly resilient roll against every wound lost. So against thunder hammers they would need to roll three dice per unsaved wound. It should definitely kill the model.

S to the topic at hand, melee is alive and well. You just have to realise that your melee weapons will have preferred targets just like ranged weapons do.

I play harlequins, in my games so far I've noticed that the caress does well against marine equivalent units, the embrace does better anti horde, and the kiss is better against monsters/characters because of the extra damage per unsaved wound. Throwing big heavy weapons at massed infantry or even just one wound models is a waste, throwing things like chainswords at monsters hoping to drown them in wounds is also going to be ineffective.

Right tool for the job, and tactical variety are the key with every weapon now. Good luck!

For a turn. If I charge. Whereas before I'd hit first all the time. That's something worse not better.

 Crablezworth wrote:

GodDamUser wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Melee got worse. Everyone leaving combat is awful. I watched a daemon prince get shot by 4 tau units with support fire just to get one round of combat off before the remnant of that unit just walked away, leaving the daemon prince having to do it all over again for a whopping chance to get a round of combat... yay. Shooting is still king, it's even more king now that there's no more wound pool.

Sounds like you just played badly

I wasn't the one playing sport.

Shooting>Combat

And often they're not mutually exclusive, many things are shooting and charging and leaving and shooting and charging now. Either way, even with deepstrike turn one charging, random charge is still a thing and unless you're using a beacon trick to get closer, better be an entire list built to alpha strike. The sheer amount of fire some units can put out combined with overwatch and support fire has risen. Even with warp speed and the ability to stay out of los to a lot of units that could potentially add to suport fire, this thing didn't have a chance and it was facing maybe 200pts worth of fire warriors and missile turrets. Shooting>combat.

Don't call people "sport", it's incredibly condescending. In your original comment it wasn't clear if it was you playing or not, so don't go there.

Either case, I do agree with you. For all the years I have been playing 40k (since 5th edition, not that many compared to others, I know) shooting has always been the dominant phase. I am glad that melee is easier to get into now, but the game is still much more in favour of shooting. Even deep striking is better for shooting armies now I feel, since many can get into rapid fire range by plopping down right behind the enemy. This also makes the enemy split their fire, so shooting them from the front with the rest of your army gets even more effective.

I don't really mind since I prefer shooting over melee, but a good mix of both is certainly more effective now than in 7th edition. But I do agree, shooting>combat.

I've won far too many of what would be utterly impossible matchups in 7th with my Wyches in 8th to believe melee is bad.

1) My transports got way more durable. Before, an opponent with decent anti tank in a 2k game could easily kill 2-3 transports, which would then blow up and kill 50% of the occupants (and often just have the remainder run away). Now, generally one or none die, and then the occupants require additional firepower to take out because only 1-2 dies when the transport goes. If you play imperium, try Rhino Rushing someone instead of just sprinting at them.

2) my basic dudes are actually capable of getting where they're going and continuing the fight. 8" move on everyone is HUGE.

3) I have actual control over how much overwatch I take. I can send in a transport first to soak all of it, or I can opt for an 8" charge to avoid all flamer overwatch (8" range baby)

yes, I have played against flamers that can get D6 autohits. Yes, I have played against Tau. Yes, I have played against armored lists that all have Fly. I've only lost once with them so far, and it was against orks, who had the combination of dakka and melee to plow through my wyches.

I've found melee to be very effective as part of a combined arms approach, but I play Dark Eldar. Grotesques, for example, are utterly brutal now and a charge from them will reliably end a lot of otherwise strong units. Other units also seem about the right level of competency in assault. I even assault with my vehicles fairly often to good effect. Sure the enemy can sometimes fall back, but when I have assaulted a large number of their units that neuters their firepower for the most part.

Also with regards to overwatch why not just charge with a character first, if they are even 0.1" further away than the squad they can't be overwatched, then when they are in combat the squad charges in freely. Now I may be seeing charges as more reliable because of my rerolls, but other armies can charge from close range or use command points.

I played Tyranids against Adeptus Mechanicus. I went first. He basically got to shoot some overwatch, and maybe two thirds of his army on his first turn. By the second turn I had managed to engage all units but 2 in close combat. My opponent barely even had a chance to play a game. A lot of his stuff was still alive, but it was never going to get to shoot. Honestly, it left a bad taste in my mouth. There are absolutely counters, bubble wrap being the obvious, but geez is everyone going to have to play with 50 bubble wrap chumps? Not everyone wants to deal with a horde.

Drager wrote:
Also with regards to overwatch why not just charge with a character first, if they are even 0.1" further away than the squad they can't be overwatched, then when they are in combat the squad charges in freely.

Not correct. In the overwatch rule section it specifically says that they shoot at the charging unit. They are not "targeted", they are just shot at.

Word for word: "Each time a charge is declared against a unit, the target unit can immediately fire Overwatch at the would-be attacker".
I would 100% say that this overrides the character shooting restrictions.

 alleus wrote:

Drager wrote:
Also with regards to overwatch why not just charge with a character first, if they are even 0.1" further away than the squad they can't be overwatched, then when they are in combat the squad charges in freely.

Not correct. In the overwatch rule section it specifically says that they shoot at the charging unit. They are not "targeted", they are just shot at.

Word for word: "Each time a charge is declared against a unit, the target unit can immediately fire Overwatch at the would-be attacker".
I would 100% say that this overrides the character shooting restrictions.

Yep. And the restriction on characters is for choosing them as targets during the shooting phase.
Overwatch isn't in the shooting phase, and you don't get to choose your target.

Cool. Missed that, that makes some of my stuff more effective. So don't charge with a character further away than a squad (cause it won't work), charge with one hiding behind a transport. Or charge with the transport.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Deathwatch Heavy Thunder Hammers are worse than regular Thunder Hammers and cost ten points more.
Thunder Hammer 20ppm, 25ppm for characters, Sx2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces one weapon.
Heavy Thunder Hammer 30ppm, can't be taken by characters, S×2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces two weapons.
Dreadnoughts gained two inches in mobility but lost access to Drop Pods, Murderfang also lost four attacks.

Is this how we do comparisons now? I can just leave off one of the stat values and make things better or worse? That's nifty, let me try.

Wtf storm bolters are identical to regular bolters but they cost more! Regular bolter FREE (WTF GW) S4 Ap- D1, Storm Bolter 2 points S4 AP- D1 how is that fair?

The HTH costs more because it does D6 damage with an extra chance of causing 6 damage outright. It costs 1/3 more, and does 1/3 more damage on average per wound.

Vanguard Vets have a grand total of one wound and two attacks, they're rarely going to get to attack a multi-wound model and when they do they'll roll a one just for gaks and giggles.
Don't kid yourself, they'll mostly be facing one wound enemies and they're more likely to die to overwatch than get the big six.
Waste of points.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Vanguard Vets have a grand total of one wound and two attacks, they're rarely going to get to attack a multi-wound model and when they do they'll roll a one just for gaks and giggles.
Don't kid yourself, they'll mostly be facing one wound enemies and they're more likely to die to overwatch than get the big six.
Waste of points.

If you aren't getting to attack multi-wound models that is really on you. Vehicles, Monstrous creatures and multi-wound infantry are all very very common. If you play in a meta where that isn't true don't take Vanguard Vets, but also understand that your meta is not normal.

I play just the starter box of Death Guard and have pretty much won every game so far in 8th by tarpitting my opponent in melee. The Lord of Contagion just murders his way through their army while the pox walkers draw a heap of fire and generally tie up a unit in melee. Even the Plague Marines can survive in melee for a while. I've managed to get Necrons, Marines and Primaris stuck in a melee grind where I've managed to come out on top every time. Generally my Plaguecaster just strolls along the melee, dishing out mortal wounds to finish off strong units while the rest tie everything up and the Lord chews through the army from a flank. For the record, the starter set is only about 800-ish points, while my opponents are on 1000

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
All melee got a buff, really. But IMO the biggest thing I've noticed is that khornate... ANYTHING is now frighteningly effective.

I can attest to this as well.

I played a game with a daemons player, and his Khorne Daemon Prince was an absolute juggernaut. It was hitting on 2s rerolling 1s, wounding on 2s, with 9 attacks, doing 2 damage each, at AP-3. Yikes. It will smash what it gets into CC with.

Not everything in melee got a buff.
Some things got de-buffed, some needed it, some really didn't.

Monstrous Creatures no longer automatically have the ability to ignore all armour, some have no rending value in melee at all.
That's actually good, most of the ones that lost out were long range units anyway.
Tyrannids Monstrous Creatures are actually seeing melee now so it wasn't a relevant loss to them.
Thunderwolf Cavalry lost access to Strength ten attacks, they also lost two inches of mobility.
Wulfen Frost Claws copped a price hike and got debuffed from ap2 to ap-2.
Curse of the Wulfen lost its mobility bonus and only affects a unit once per turn.
Deathwatch Heavy Thunder Hammers are worse than regular Thunder Hammers and cost ten points more.
Thunder Hammer 20ppm, 25ppm for characters, Sx2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces one weapon.
Heavy Thunder Hammer 30ppm, can't be taken by characters, S×2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces two weapons.
Dreadnoughts gained two inches in mobility but lost access to Drop Pods, Murderfang also lost four attacks.

So, Spacewolves lost God mode and cheese ball wolfen cavalry and wolfen are no longer autotake then? Good. Sounds like they got knowcked down a peg to be below tyranids, the original melee army. Sounds about right to me.

To the O.P., melee is really fun now. Forget the hand wringing. Overwatch isn't nearly as bad as it sounds, falling back units are not that big of a deal (they can't shoot, but their friends can), and is only bad if you charge a single small unit into combat with no support. If you do a proper charge, contact a few units, it will not effect you one bit.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Deathwatch Heavy Thunder Hammers are worse than regular Thunder Hammers and cost ten points more.
Thunder Hammer 20ppm, 25ppm for characters, Sx2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces one weapon.
Heavy Thunder Hammer 30ppm, can't be taken by characters, S×2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces two weapons.
Dreadnoughts gained two inches in mobility but lost access to Drop Pods, Murderfang also lost four attacks.

Is this how we do comparisons now? I can just leave off one of the stat values and make things better or worse? That's nifty, let me try.

Wtf storm bolters are identical to regular bolters but they cost more! Regular bolter FREE (WTF GW) S4 Ap- D1, Storm Bolter 2 points S4 AP- D1 how is that fair?

The HTH costs more because it does D6 damage with an extra chance of causing 6 damage outright. It costs 1/3 more, and does 1/3 more damage on average per wound.

Vanguard Vets have a grand total of one wound and two attacks, they're rarely going to get to attack a multi-wound model and when they do they'll roll a one just for gaks and giggles.
Don't kid yourself, they'll mostly be facing one wound enemies and they're more likely to die to overwatch than get the big six.
Waste of points.

Well, with weaponry like that why wouldn’t they? Or more importantly, why would you even kit them with Thunder Hammers if they (as you said) aren't going after multi-wound models? Your comparison is similar to putting Meltaguns on a Sternguard Veterans and complaining how they are not nearly as effective as flamers against Guardsmen, and then claim that this means flamers are superior to Meltas. Insane.

HTHs on Vanguard unit might really make the opponents backfield artillery scared. The fact that this might change his deployment and tie down Infantry is worth 10-15 points alone.

Slave wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
All melee got a buff, really. But IMO the biggest thing I've noticed is that khornate... ANYTHING is now frighteningly effective.

I can attest to this as well.

I played a game with a daemons player, and his Khorne Daemon Prince was an absolute juggernaut. It was hitting on 2s rerolling 1s, wounding on 2s, with 9 attacks, doing 2 damage each, at AP-3. Yikes. It will smash what it gets into CC with.

Not everything in melee got a buff.
Some things got de-buffed, some needed it, some really didn't.

Monstrous Creatures no longer automatically have the ability to ignore all armour, some have no rending value in melee at all.
That's actually good, most of the ones that lost out were long range units anyway.
Tyrannids Monstrous Creatures are actually seeing melee now so it wasn't a relevant loss to them.
Thunderwolf Cavalry lost access to Strength ten attacks, they also lost two inches of mobility.
Wulfen Frost Claws copped a price hike and got debuffed from ap2 to ap-2.
Curse of the Wulfen lost its mobility bonus and only affects a unit once per turn.
Deathwatch Heavy Thunder Hammers are worse than regular Thunder Hammers and cost ten points more.
Thunder Hammer 20ppm, 25ppm for characters, Sx2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces one weapon.
Heavy Thunder Hammer 30ppm, can't be taken by characters, S×2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces two weapons.
Dreadnoughts gained two inches in mobility but lost access to Drop Pods, Murderfang also lost four attacks.

So, Spacewolves lost God mode and cheese ball wolfen cavalry and wolfen are no longer autotake then? Good. Sounds like they got knowcked down a peg to be below tyranids, the original melee army. Sounds about right to me.

To the O.P., melee is really fun now. Forget the hand wringing. Overwatch isn't nearly as bad as it sounds, falling back units are not that big of a deal (they can't shoot, but their friends can), and is only bad if you charge a single small unit into combat with no support. If you do a proper charge, contact a few units, it will not effect you one bit.

Nah sorry to break it to you we still mince nids.

How are berzerkers and other khorne units? Ive seen some talk about them and they seem awesome

Berserkers are absolutely obscene as they get to fight twice per fight phase. It's terrifying to behold a unit of Berserkers charging anything.

 Brutallica wrote:


But a guaranteed disengage from combat without any chance harm isn't right either.

Eitherway in a scenario against Tau its probably versus a castled up foe with kroots and firewarriors screen. And all the heavy hitters, shield drones and commanders with Kyuon reroll spam is right behind safe and snug. I have a hunch that single demon prince is the remenants of an entire army. Atleast thats the usual case against the Tau player in our club in 8th.

Integrate Domination from Total War into your scenarios. Objectives count for points at the end of each turn. Makes for much more interesting battles.

Slave wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
All melee got a buff, really. But IMO the biggest thing I've noticed is that khornate... ANYTHING is now frighteningly effective.

I can attest to this as well.

I played a game with a daemons player, and his Khorne Daemon Prince was an absolute juggernaut. It was hitting on 2s rerolling 1s, wounding on 2s, with 9 attacks, doing 2 damage each, at AP-3. Yikes. It will smash what it gets into CC with.

Not everything in melee got a buff.
Some things got de-buffed, some needed it, some really didn't.

Monstrous Creatures no longer automatically have the ability to ignore all armour, some have no rending value in melee at all.
That's actually good, most of the ones that lost out were long range units anyway.
Tyrannids Monstrous Creatures are actually seeing melee now so it wasn't a relevant loss to them.
Thunderwolf Cavalry lost access to Strength ten attacks, they also lost two inches of mobility.
Wulfen Frost Claws copped a price hike and got debuffed from ap2 to ap-2.
Curse of the Wulfen lost its mobility bonus and only affects a unit once per turn.
Deathwatch Heavy Thunder Hammers are worse than regular Thunder Hammers and cost ten points more.
Thunder Hammer 20ppm, 25ppm for characters, Sx2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces one weapon.
Heavy Thunder Hammer 30ppm, can't be taken by characters, S×2, ap-3, -1 to weapon skill, replaces two weapons.
Dreadnoughts gained two inches in mobility but lost access to Drop Pods, Murderfang also lost four attacks.

So, Spacewolves lost God mode and cheese ball wolfen cavalry and wolfen are no longer autotake then? Good. Sounds like they got knowcked down a peg to be below tyranids, the original melee army. Sounds about right to me.

To the O.P., melee is really fun now. Forget the hand wringing. Overwatch isn't nearly as bad as it sounds, falling back units are not that big of a deal (they can't shoot, but their friends can), and is only bad if you charge a single small unit into combat with no support. If you do a proper charge, contact a few units, it will not effect you one bit.

Space Wolves lost God Mode when they lost access to Hammer Hands, Sanctuary and Invisibility.
Just about every Imperial army felt that.
The rest was just overkill.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Drager wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Vanguard Vets have a grand total of one wound and two attacks, they're rarely going to get to attack a multi-wound model and when they do they'll roll a one just for gaks and giggles.
Don't kid yourself, they'll mostly be facing one wound enemies and they're more likely to die to overwatch than get the big six.
Waste of points.

If you aren't getting to attack multi-wound models that is really on you. Vehicles, Monstrous creatures and multi-wound infantry are all very very common. If you play in a meta where that isn't true don't take Vanguard Vets, but also understand that your meta is not normal.

There is no normal meta in 8th yet.
I'm guessing GMC and MC spam was the regular 7th edition meta where you are?
Tau gunlines, Gladius/skyhammer and Bark Star were the big ones in mine.
Thank the luck that 8th completely stuffed two of them over.
Now the big hitters are Ghostkeels bubblewrapped in Drones, Chaos MCs bubblewrapped by Daemons, GSC/Tyrannids and Guard spam. Oh and - for the very short forseeable future - my Deathwatch.
What was the answer? Ditch the close combat gear that I wanted to use, forget the Wolves and naff the bastards with as much Specialised Ammo as I could afford to field.
I might have less models than just about everybody but nothing organic appreciates being focus fired by 2+ to wound shots - even the Tau learned some respect for another shootie army.

Have a few plays and learn for yourself.

ursusmajor wrote:
Git gud sun!

But yeah, we're a month in. It should be obvious by now that trying to play as if this was 7e is just suicidal.

 Lansirill wrote:
I played Tyranids against Adeptus Mechanicus. I went first. He basically got to shoot some overwatch, and maybe two thirds of his army on his first turn. By the second turn I had managed to engage all units but 2 in close combat. My opponent barely even had a chance to play a game. A lot of his stuff was still alive, but it was never going to get to shoot. Honestly, it left a bad taste in my mouth. There are absolutely counters, bubble wrap being the obvious, but geez is everyone going to have to play with 50 bubble wrap chumps? Not everyone wants to deal with a horde.

There are a couple of options for all Imperial players:

Get 3 IG Scout Sentinels. They get an advance move prior to fist turn. This pushes the line of engagement back 9". They are 45 points in their cheapest alignment. Take three units of one, and spread them out so there is no place to DS and hit your main units. They will also take the first assaults, but it will buy your entire army a turn of shooting.

Get Ratlings. They get to place anywhere on the board after all deployment as long as it is 18" away from the enemy. It has the same effect as above (for 35pts per unit), and now you have snipers!

If your friend wants to play pure admech no exceptions, some cheap vanguard units to take the brunt of the assault will probably be necessary. If he is unwilling to do any of these things then he is just going to have a hard time against dedicated assault armies.

Combat is nice in 8th, more tactical.
Getting tanks and vehicles locked into combat isn't nice as it's hard to get out of it, they need more strength to represent their size or at least some snap shooting when falling back.

 Gendo wrote:
Combat is nice in 8th, more tactical.
Getting tanks and vehicles locked into combat isn't nice as it's hard to get out of it, they need more strength to represent their size or at least some snap shooting when falling back.

I dunno, I feel like if you let a vehicle get locked down in close combat then it' your own fault. If you keep your tanks stationary while a unit of hormogaunts surge towards it and don't try to avoid them or intercept them then you'll get no sympathy from me. Even the slowest vehicles have like a 10" move. Maybe you should just deal with the -1 to hit and get out of the way of units specifically designed to move quickly and engage things so that they can't shoot. It's a good trade off. You can either gamble on staying still and hope you shoot them all to death or play it safe and move away, accepting the disadvantages in order to be able to keep shooting.

I also dislike the assumption that units engaged in close combat with tanks are just sitting in front of it poking at the hull. Why would aforementioned unit of hormogaunts line up under the tracks? They'd be jumping and clambering all over it and clawing at hatches and openings. Marines as well would be climbing on top of it to pry open hatches to chuck grenades in or whatever.

Main issue so far seems to be that CC units aren't cheap enough. At least for SM variants. 13 pts for an ASM with 2 attacks or 16 pts with a JP is terrible. Even the VV or DC are just not dishing out enough hurt once they close. I just don't see the point of trying to get into melee when ranged units deal just as much damage if not more per point, and they get the alpha. Trying to get into melee means losing a significant portion of your army first, by then you aren't even guaranteed to win the melee given that your opponent gets to fight back, fall back, fire with their safe units and then fire overwatch again. Any shooty army worth its salt will cover their big shooty units with a hundred models worth of cheap bubblewrap at 2-5 pts per wound and insignificant morale losses. Your only hope against such armies is to cheese the pile in/consolidate mechanics and pray that you can lock their entire army in melee somehow.

sossen wrote:
Main issue so far seems to be that CC units aren't cheap enough. At least for SM variants. 13 pts for an ASM with 2 attacks or 16 pts with a JP is terrible. Even the VV or DC are just not dishing out enough hurt once they close. I just don't see the point of trying to get into melee when ranged units deal just as much damage if not more per point, and they get the alpha. Trying to get into melee means losing a significant portion of your army first, by then you aren't even guaranteed to win the melee given that your opponent gets to fight back, fall back, fire with their safe units and then fire overwatch again. Any shooty army worth its salt will cover their big shooty units with a hundred models worth of cheap bubblewrap at 2-5 pts per wound and insignificant morale losses. Your only hope against such armies is to cheese the pile in/consolidate mechanics and pray that you can lock their entire army in melee somehow.

Wait so you're upset that assault armies are ineffective against bubblewrap?

I'm upset I have to waste points on bubblewrap to be able to do literally anything at all against assault armies!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

sossen wrote:
Main issue so far seems to be that CC units aren't cheap enough. At least for SM variants. 13 pts for an ASM with 2 attacks or 16 pts with a JP is terrible. Even the VV or DC are just not dishing out enough hurt once they close. I just don't see the point of trying to get into melee when ranged units deal just as much damage if not more per point, and they get the alpha. Trying to get into melee means losing a significant portion of your army first, by then you aren't even guaranteed to win the melee given that your opponent gets to fight back, fall back, fire with their safe units and then fire overwatch again. Any shooty army worth its salt will cover their big shooty units with a hundred models worth of cheap bubblewrap at 2-5 pts per wound and insignificant morale losses. Your only hope against such armies is to cheese the pile in/consolidate mechanics and pray that you can lock their entire army in melee somehow.

Wait so you're upset that assault armies are ineffective against bubblewrap?

I'm upset I have to waste points on bubblewrap to be able to do literally anything at all against assault armies!

You don't have to. There seem to be several options.

1) Use units that don't care about being charged. Namely, units that Fly, most Superheavies, etc. The eldar player in our club is doing quite well with a list that has 2 wave serpents and 2 Shadow Weaver tanks that just survive assault, fall back, and continue to shoot. Tau Suit units or vehicles are another good example.

2) Screen with units like flyers, who both have Fly and can't be assaulted by most things. A couple Valkyries in a Guard list can make themselves a real nuisance blocking up charge lanes, especially if they're transporting something like 4 Bullgryns who are great, hard to remove counter-assault elements.

3) Screen with units that don't give a toss about being denied shooting because they have barely any shooting anyway. See Rhino transports, which you may already be fielding anyway because they protect your troops. This is what I do with my Thousand Sons and Dark Eldar shooty lists.

4) Screen with units that deal the same damage on overwatch as they do shooting because they have Weapons Formerly Known as Templates. The Hellhound is a great example, same as the Heldrake.

All major shooty factions have solutions like this that don't involve taking pure chaff or compulsory melee units if you favor an all-shooting playstyle. The real complaint here is "I can't play precisely the same as I played in the previous edition and enjoy exactly the same level of success" and...yeah, everyone has to figure out how the new edition works.

Sim-Life wrote:

 Gendo wrote:
Combat is nice in 8th, more tactical.
Getting tanks and vehicles locked into combat isn't nice as it's hard to get out of it, they need more strength to represent their size or at least some snap shooting when falling back.

I dunno, I feel like if you let a vehicle get locked down in close combat then it' your own fault. If you keep your tanks stationary while a unit of hormogaunts surge towards it and don't try to avoid them or intercept them then you'll get no sympathy from me. Even the slowest vehicles have like a 10" move. Maybe you should just deal with the -1 to hit and get out of the way of units specifically designed to move quickly and engage things so that they can't shoot. It's a good trade off. You can either gamble on staying still and hope you shoot them all to death or play it safe and move away, accepting the disadvantages in order to be able to keep shooting.

I also dislike the assumption that units engaged in close combat with tanks are just sitting in front of it poking at the hull. Why would aforementioned unit of hormogaunts line up under the tracks? They'd be jumping and clambering all over it and clawing at hatches and openings. Marines as well would be climbing on top of it to pry open hatches to chuck grenades in or whatever.

I was a bit generic, fair enough for tanks, but it's transports I have an issue with (like Razorback/Rhino) as you want to deliver something but now many armies have the capability of charging on turn 1 easily and drop stuff around it.
If I'm mindful enough to not get surrounded I don't see why a vehicle can't fall back and shoot, even at reduced BS, otherwise it's an endless fall back and get charged again.

And IRL example as you mention hormogaunts climbing up, a tank should be able to shoot at a close enemy, maybe not heavy weapons because of the blast being self harming but with my LRC I should be able to shoot the Hurricane bolters and Assault Cannon right? And not something like a Vindicator cannon.
Same in the case of a Rhino, can't see why they guy on top can't shoot its Stormbolter at the advancing foes.

EDIT: The way i see it i rather give away overwatch assuming a fast sudden charge but then being able to shoot whilst in combat, vehicles should be different from infantry.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

sossen wrote:
Main issue so far seems to be that CC units aren't cheap enough. At least for SM variants. 13 pts for an ASM with 2 attacks or 16 pts with a JP is terrible. Even the VV or DC are just not dishing out enough hurt once they close. I just don't see the point of trying to get into melee when ranged units deal just as much damage if not more per point, and they get the alpha. Trying to get into melee means losing a significant portion of your army first, by then you aren't even guaranteed to win the melee given that your opponent gets to fight back, fall back, fire with their safe units and then fire overwatch again. Any shooty army worth its salt will cover their big shooty units with a hundred models worth of cheap bubblewrap at 2-5 pts per wound and insignificant morale losses. Your only hope against such armies is to cheese the pile in/consolidate mechanics and pray that you can lock their entire army in melee somehow.

Wait so you're upset that assault armies are ineffective against bubblewrap?

I'm upset I have to waste points on bubblewrap to be able to do literally anything at all against assault armies!

You don't have to. There seem to be several options.

1) Use units that don't care about being charged. Namely, units that Fly, most Superheavies, etc. The eldar player in our club is doing quite well with a list that has 2 wave serpents and 2 Shadow Weaver tanks that just survive assault, fall back, and continue to shoot. Tau Suit units or vehicles are another good example.

2) Screen with units like flyers, who both have Fly and can't be assaulted by most things. A couple Valkyries in a Guard list can make themselves a real nuisance blocking up charge lanes, especially if they're transporting something like 4 Bullgryns who are great, hard to remove counter-assault elements.

3) Screen with units that don't give a toss about being denied shooting because they have barely any shooting anyway. See Rhino transports, which you may already be fielding anyway because they protect your troops. This is what I do with my Thousand Sons and Dark Eldar shooty lists.

4) Screen with units that deal the same damage on overwatch as they do shooting because they have Weapons Formerly Known as Templates. The Hellhound is a great example, same as the Heldrake.

All major shooty factions have solutions like this that don't involve taking pure chaff or compulsory melee units if you favor an all-shooting playstyle. The real complaint here is "I can't play precisely the same as I played in the previous edition and enjoy exactly the same level of success" and...yeah, everyone has to figure out how the new edition works.

I was being a bit sarcastic. Bubble-wrap is a tried and true solution to the problem of being assaulted, so to say that assault is bad because it has a solution is silly.

That's all.

sorry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
OH! Sorry for the double post, but...

... one thing I'm kind of sad (and have been in every edition of 40k) about that is missing is the ability for tanks to 'scratch eachother's backs'.

In the Korean War, tanks that were swarmed by infantry without adequate antitank weapons to kill them (e.g. hormagaunts, frag-grenade guardsmen in 40k, whatever) could be engaged by friendly tanks firing high-explosive shells and machine-gun bullets. These would fail to penetrate the assaulted tank's armour, but would obviously clear the assaulting infantry away rather rapidly.

Why can't friendly tanks fire high-explosive or small-arms fire shoot at units that are 'locked' in assault with other friendly tanks to represent this 'back-scratching' ability?

I know it would make assault worse and has a whole TON of balance issues but it would be neat to see.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

sossen wrote:
Main issue so far seems to be that CC units aren't cheap enough. At least for SM variants. 13 pts for an ASM with 2 attacks or 16 pts with a JP is terrible. Even the VV or DC are just not dishing out enough hurt once they close. I just don't see the point of trying to get into melee when ranged units deal just as much damage if not more per point, and they get the alpha. Trying to get into melee means losing a significant portion of your army first, by then you aren't even guaranteed to win the melee given that your opponent gets to fight back, fall back, fire with their safe units and then fire overwatch again. Any shooty army worth its salt will cover their big shooty units with a hundred models worth of cheap bubblewrap at 2-5 pts per wound and insignificant morale losses. Your only hope against such armies is to cheese the pile in/consolidate mechanics and pray that you can lock their entire army in melee somehow.

Wait so you're upset that assault armies are ineffective against bubblewrap?

I'm upset I have to waste points on bubblewrap to be able to do literally anything at all against assault armies!

You don't have to. There seem to be several options.

1) Use units that don't care about being charged. Namely, units that Fly, most Superheavies, etc. The eldar player in our club is doing quite well with a list that has 2 wave serpents and 2 Shadow Weaver tanks that just survive assault, fall back, and continue to shoot. Tau Suit units or vehicles are another good example.

2) Screen with units like flyers, who both have Fly and can't be assaulted by most things. A couple Valkyries in a Guard list can make themselves a real nuisance blocking up charge lanes, especially if they're transporting something like 4 Bullgryns who are great, hard to remove counter-assault elements.

3) Screen with units that don't give a toss about being denied shooting because they have barely any shooting anyway. See Rhino transports, which you may already be fielding anyway because they protect your troops. This is what I do with my Thousand Sons and Dark Eldar shooty lists.

4) Screen with units that deal the same damage on overwatch as they do shooting because they have Weapons Formerly Known as Templates. The Hellhound is a great example, same as the Heldrake.

All major shooty factions have solutions like this that don't involve taking pure chaff or compulsory melee units if you favor an all-shooting playstyle. The real complaint here is "I can't play precisely the same as I played in the previous edition and enjoy exactly the same level of success" and...yeah, everyone has to figure out how the new edition works.

I was being a bit sarcastic. Bubble-wrap is a tried and true solution to the problem of being assaulted, so to say that assault is bad because it has a solution is silly.

That's all.

sorry.

Taking a hundred conscripts isn't just a solution to the problem of being assaulted. They're good vs deepstrike ranged units, a great way to hold ground/objectives and bring decent shooting for their price. 100 conscripts costs 360 pts with support staff. Their combined shooting does about 7-8 MEQ wounds per turn without rapid fire, there's almost no way to make your points back by trying to kill them in return. An AC with 3+ BS kills about 2-3 conscripts per turn.

Their "decent shooting" is inferior to the shooting of a tactical squad of the same price, before special weapons. Not exactly impressive.

 Melissia wrote:
Their "decent shooting" is inferior to the shooting of a tactical squad of the same price, before special weapons. Not exactly impressive.

No, you need reroll to hit and wound if you want 30 tac marines to deal almost as many wounds vs MEQ.

sossen wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Their "decent shooting" is inferior to the shooting of a tactical squad of the same price, before special weapons. Not exactly impressive.

No, you need reroll to hit and wound if you want 30 tac marines to deal almost as many wounds vs MEQ.

Ah, you're one of those people that attempts to pretend that conscripts will always get all 50 models in range to do rapid fire every time.

Please. Try playing the real game instead of wallowing in the cesspit of mathhammer.

 Melissia wrote:

sossen wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Their "decent shooting" is inferior to the shooting of a tactical squad of the same price, before special weapons. Not exactly impressive.

No, you need reroll to hit and wound if you want 30 tac marines to deal almost as many wounds vs MEQ.

Ah, you're one of those people that attempts to pretend that conscripts will always get all 50 models in range to do rapid fire every time.

Please. Try playing the real game instead of wallowing in the cesspit of mathhammer.

No, the math is all without rapid fire. You get 2 shots per conscript thanks to orders.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
...As to the topic at hand, melee is alive and well. You just have to realise that your melee weapons will have preferred targets just like ranged weapons do.

...Right tool for the job, and tactical variety are the key with every weapon now. Good luck!

I've only played a few games prior to 8th, my love for the game has always been the modeling and painting. But these statements pretty much sum up my play experience in 8th and the games that I've watched.

You have to pay attention to what shoots before you can get into melee, what is close by that can shoot if this takes extra turns, what this unit you're attacking can do in movement in case it doesn't die turn 1 and then what support you should be bringing along to make sure your charge and subsequent melee works out in your favor. Melee just feels more tactical in nature to me. And some players seem to be struggling with the idea that their targets aren't dying in the first round of melee and that the target then has the chance to pull away to a better tactical position and shoot back at them.

The game has changed a little. Change with it, maybe.

sossen wrote:
No, the math is all without rapid fire. You get 2 shots per conscript thanks to orders.

If you're using conscripts to block assault or to bubblewrap, even getting all fifty to fire at max range is iffy. But still not impressed. Two shots per conscript, hitting 1/3rd of the time, wounding 1/3rd of the time, getting through armor only on 1s (assuming cover, because it's trivially easy for marines to find cover compared to a 50 man conscript squad). Result? Less than two wounds on average for each 100 shots. Is killing a single tactical per round supposed to be impressive again? And that's WITH an Order, too! Really, all you're doing there is wasting an order that could be better spent elsewhere.

A five-man tactical squad with plasma and combiplasma does better against MEQ than this, without wasting any precious resources like Orders or Command Points. Hell you could even toss in a barebones Captain to let the squad reroll 1s making you able to near-safely use overcharge-- making them even better against MEQ-- and it'd cost about as much as 50-man conscript squad iwth a platoon leader to give orders. But be far more effective against MEQ.

Which is why you don't take conscripts to kill MEQ, and if you do, you're just gonna get wrecked. They won't kill much of anything for that matter without a lot of luck or your opponent making bad decisions. You take them as meat shields.

 Melissia wrote:

sossen wrote:
No, the math is all without rapid fire. You get 2 shots per conscript thanks to orders.

If you're using conscripts to block assault or to bubblewrap, even getting all fifty to fire at max range is iffy. But still not impressed. Two shots per conscript, hitting 1/3rd of the time, wounding 1/3rd of the time, getting through armor only on 1s (assuming cover, because it's trivially easy for marines to find cover compared to a 50 man conscript squad). Result? Less than two wounds on average for each 100 shots. Is killing a single tactical per round supposed to be impressive again? And that's WITH an Order, too! Really, all you're doing there is wasting an order that could be better spent elsewhere.

A five-man tactical squad with plasma and combiplasma does better against MEQ than this, without wasting any precious resources like Orders or Command Points. Hell you could even toss in a barebones Captain and let them reroll 1s making you able to near-safely use overcharge.

So, you're tweaking the math and variables to create an extremely unfavorable situation for the conscripts, and a perfect situation for the marines player.

Fact of the matter is AM is absolutely dominating right now, regardless of theorycraft, and space marines aren't. Conscripts are a big part of that. Their purpose isn't to deal insane damage, it's to provide an impassable wall to get to the tanks which are ripping things up without requiring any LOS, firing at near marine accuracy for a tiny pittance of points per tank.

 Marmatag wrote:
So, you're tweaking the math and variables to create an extremely unfavorable situation for the conscripts, and a perfect situation for the marines player.

No, I'm not. Actually I'm giving Conscripts a huge advantage by assuming they can all fire.

I got a better question-- why are you assuming Marine players don't use cover? Is it because you think Marine players lack skill?

 Marmatag wrote:
Fact of the matter is AM is absolutely dominating right now, regardless of theorycraft, and space marines aren't.

Many varieties of Space Marines are actually doing quite well right now (most notably, Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Thousand Sons, and World Eaters). Generic marines are being hit hard, but that's because in the current index, a good portion of marine power is in their chapter-specific character buffs-- a fact which I would certainly argue is a bad situation for Marines to be in.

 Melissia wrote:

sossen wrote:
No, the math is all without rapid fire. You get 2 shots per conscript thanks to orders.

If you're using conscripts to block assault or to bubblewrap, even getting all fifty to fire at max range is iffy. But still not impressed. Two shots per conscript, hitting 1/3rd of the time, wounding 1/3rd of the time, getting through armor only on 1s (assuming cover, because it's trivially easy for marines to find cover compared to a 50 man conscript squad). Result? Less than two wounds on average for each 100 shots. Is killing a single tactical per round supposed to be impressive again? And that's WITH an Order, too. Really, all you're doing there is wasting an order that could be better spent elsewhere.

If an order kills a single tac marine then it has almost earned back its initial cost. The commander only costs 30 pts and gives out two orders to two units of 50 conscripts.

I never said that it was impressive, I said that it was decent. Which it clearly is, 390 pts put into 30 tac marines without support deal less wounds to MEQ (with or without cover) than 50 of these conscripts while they have the rapid fire 2 order, that is to say half of the conscripts in the 360 pt combo deal more damage than 390 pts of tac marines with bolters. Not that they are the golden standard of shooting, but it's telling.

sossen wrote:
I never said that it was impressive, I said that it was decent. Which it clearly is, 390 pts put into 30 tac marines without support deal less wounds to MEQ

That's not even close to being true. I can spend barely over half as many points on tacticals as you did on conscripts+commander and yet STILL deal as much or more damage per round to MEQ.

Melissia wrote:Their "decent shooting" is inferior to the shooting of a tactical squad of the same price, before special weapons. Not exactly impressive.

Remember that we are discussing this, not the best shooting that tac marines can offer vs MEQ.

Melissia wrote:A five-man tactical squad with plasma and combiplasma does better against MEQ than this, without wasting any precious resources like Orders or Command Points. Hell you could even toss in a barebones Captain to let the squad reroll 1s making you able to near-safely use overcharge-- making them even better against MEQ-- and it'd cost about as much as 50-man conscript squad iwth a platoon leader to give orders. But be far more effective against MEQ.

Melissia wrote:That's not even close to being true. I can spend barely over half as many points on tacticals as you did on conscripts+commander and yet STILL deal more damage per round to MEQ.

What isn't true about it? I specified 30 tac marines. Don't move the goalpost, we're talking about tac marines with bolters. I said decent shooting, not good or incredible shooting.

sossen wrote:

Melissia wrote:Their "decent shooting" is inferior to the shooting of a tactical squad of the same price, before special weapons. Not exactly impressive.

Remember that we are discussing this, not the best shooting that tac marines can offer vs MEQ.

Melissia wrote:A five-man tactical squad with plasma and combiplasma does better against MEQ than this, without wasting any precious resources like Orders or Command Points. Hell you could even toss in a barebones Captain to let the squad reroll 1s making you able to near-safely use overcharge-- making them even better against MEQ-- and it'd cost about as much as 50-man conscript squad iwth a platoon leader to give orders. But be far more effective against MEQ.

Melissia wrote:That's not even close to being true. I can spend barely over half as many points on tacticals as you did on conscripts+commander and yet STILL deal more damage per round to MEQ.

What isn't true about it? I specified 30 tac marines. Don't move the goalpost, we're talking about tac marines with bolters. I said decent shooting, not good or incredible shooting.

Why would tacticals never take a special weapon? That's literally what tactical marine squads do that Conscripts don't.

Of course the tacticals lose when deliberately built to lose...

In fact, I think 1 tactical has better shooting with just his boltgun than a baneblade does if the Baneblade doesn't shoot its guns ever.

Discuss.

Why are we even discussing shooting in a close combat thread? 100 Conscripts overwatch my charging Berzerkers, kill an average of 7, then I kill 30-35 conscripts with the remaining models with both fight phase attacks. Not to mention if I do this particular thing I am also shooting my Kharybdis and charging it as well, potentially soaking up the Conscript overwatch, then keep the Berzerkers within range of the Dark Apostle for full rerolls, then take double lightning claws why not on the champ, you're looking at the entire 100 blob being wiped out in one turn exposing the tanks inside. I guess we also have to mention the Sorcerer with Jump Pack giving Warp Time and Prec to the Berzerkers because why not ensure the absolute complete and utter destruction of anything you charge. Meanwhile the rest of my fast moving army is charging up the board at full speed: Deamon Princes and Juggerlords and Blood Slaughterers and Helbrutes and Chaos Spawn and whatever else I want.

Melee in 8th is fantastic and I love it!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

sossen wrote:

Melissia wrote:Their "decent shooting" is inferior to the shooting of a tactical squad of the same price, before special weapons. Not exactly impressive.

Remember that we are discussing this, not the best shooting that tac marines can offer vs MEQ.

Melissia wrote:A five-man tactical squad with plasma and combiplasma does better against MEQ than this, without wasting any precious resources like Orders or Command Points. Hell you could even toss in a barebones Captain to let the squad reroll 1s making you able to near-safely use overcharge-- making them even better against MEQ-- and it'd cost about as much as 50-man conscript squad iwth a platoon leader to give orders. But be far more effective against MEQ.

Melissia wrote:That's not even close to being true. I can spend barely over half as many points on tacticals as you did on conscripts+commander and yet STILL deal more damage per round to MEQ.

What isn't true about it? I specified 30 tac marines. Don't move the goalpost, we're talking about tac marines with bolters. I said decent shooting, not good or incredible shooting.

Why would tacticals never take a special weapon? That's literally what tactical marine squads do that Conscripts don't.

Of course the tacticals lose when deliberately built to lose...

In fact, I think 1 tactical has better shooting with just his boltgun than a baneblade does if the Baneblade doesn't shoot its guns ever.

Discuss.

Hey man, if we can't use unlikely to the point of comedy situations to claim that 8th is a horrible ruleset, then the terrorists win. Remember: You only need two ten man units of gretchin to charge from either side of a baneblade, get a long enough charge to wrap themselves around the entirety of its length on either side and then not lose enough models to make a hole for it to escape through FOR GRETCHIN TO STOP A BANEBLADE FROM FALLING BACK. I know! I did it myself when playing against myself on vassal!

the_scotsman wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Why would tacticals never take a special weapon? That's literally what tactical marine squads do that Conscripts don't.

Of course the tacticals lose when deliberately built to lose...

In fact, I think 1 tactical has better shooting with just his boltgun than a baneblade does if the Baneblade doesn't shoot its guns ever.

Discuss.

Hey man, if we can't use unlikely to the point of comedy situations to claim that 8th is a horrible ruleset, then the terrorists win. Remember: You only need two ten man units of gretchin to charge from either side of a baneblade, get a long enough charge to wrap themselves around the entirety of its length on either side and then not lose enough models to make a hole for it to escape through FOR GRETCHIN TO STOP A BANEBLADE FROM FALLING BACK. I know! I did it myself when playing against myself on vassal!

It's funny that you chose a Baneblade given that it actually wants to stay in melee. It gets to shoot out of melee, opponents don't get to shoot at it while it is in melee.

I checked the math on decked out tac marine squads, turns out that conscript fire competes well with the best MEQ options.

Point is still that you don't need to face melee armies to get value from your conscripts. Which is why it's not just a bubblewrap unit, and following on that point is why I made my post in the first place - it is very difficult for CC SM armies to deal with these types of hordes efficiently.

sossen wrote:
I checked the math on decked out tac marine squads, turns out that conscript fire competes well with the best MEQ options.

No you didn't.

I don't get the whole "well you won't bring every gun to bear" argument against Conscripts in an edition where no AOEs means you can run them on a WHFB movement tray with relatively little risk.

If you're using a movement tray, how are you bubble wrapping them or spreading them out to make the best use of their ability to stop assualt units from reaching your tanks or artillery?

And if you don't have expensive tanks or artillery that the opponent wants to target, why wouldn't the opponent just dump all their fire and assaults relentlessly in to your conscripts and turn them in to pink mist?

FFS, even basic unupgraded assault marines pose a threat to conscripts in assault.

Melissia wrote:

sossen wrote:
I checked the math on decked out tac marine squads, turns out that conscript fire competes well with the best MEQ options.

No you didn't.

http://www.dice-hammer.com/#!/damage

Try it yourself, conscripts get 100 rapid fire 2 lasguns. Even without bringing all their guns to bear they compete well.

Melissia wrote:If you're using a movement tray, how are you bubble wrapping them or spreading them out to make the best use of their ability to stop assualt units from reaching your tanks or artillery?

And if you don't have expensive tanks or artillery that the opponent wants to target, why wouldn't the opponent just dump all their fire and assaults relentlessly in to your conscripts and turn them in to pink mist?

We're talking about different scenarios here. If you face a ranged army you might want to use your conscripts differently. And no one has said that conscript only is the way to go, it's only meant to be a fraction of your army.

sossen wrote:
I checked the math on decked out tac marine squads, turns out that conscript fire competes well with the best MEQ options.

What the feth am I reading? In what universe will an equal number of points unit of Conscripts deal equal damage to a unit of TAC? And against what target are they firing upon that this comes out equal? Did you account for supporting units? Rerolls on the special weapons? What special weapons were used? This is an incredibly lazy statement thrown out to try and make a point that doesn't exist.

I decided to see what this actually looked like. A full kitted out unit of CSM with double plasma gun and combi-plasma on the champ is 171 points. A 171 point equivalent of conscripts is 57 models split between two units. If all 10 marines are inside rapid fire range, something pretty easy to do with 10 bodies, the damage against MEQ is 4.33. Meanwhile if all 57 conscripts are inside rapid fire rage, something that is not as easy to do and will most likely never happen, they average against MEQ 4.22 damage. So in this fantasy world where conscripts are piled on top of one another yes they deal near equal damage to 10 marines who are far easier to move around the board against MEQ. Against anything tougher or with a better save, conscripts damage fall off spectacularly while marines stay consistent.

Basically: shooting from constricts is a nice thing to do when something is in range because you might put a wound or two on something, but is not the reason you take conscripts and any discussion about their damage output in shooting (or god forbid melee) is completely missing the point of the unit. This thread should be focusing on the overwatch potential and melee counters to conscript blobs, not some absurd idea that they will deal equal damage to a TAC squad.

 andysonic1 wrote:

sossen wrote:
I checked the math on decked out tac marine squads, turns out that conscript fire competes well with the best MEQ options.

What the feth am I reading? In what universe will an equal number of points unit of Conscripts deal equal damage to a unit of TAC? And against what target are they firing upon that this comes out equal? Did you account for supporting units? Rerolls on the special weapons? What special weapons were used? This is an incredibly lazy statement thrown out to try and make a point that doesn't exist.

We're talking about 100 conscripts in 2 squads with 1 Commissar and 1 Company Commander for 360 pts. They receive the FRFSRF order before they fire. They deal 7-8 wounds vs MEQ, assuming no rapid fire.

Compare that to 20 tac marines with 4 plasma guns and 4 combi-plasma guns for 372 pts. They deal about 5 wounds to MEQ or about 9 if the MEQ have multiple wounds, assuming no rapid fire and overcharge.

Vs MEQ in cover they are almost exactly equal at 3-4 wounds.

sossen wrote:

Melissia wrote:

sossen wrote:
I checked the math on decked out tac marine squads, turns out that conscript fire competes well with the best MEQ options.

No you didn't.

http://www.dice-hammer.com/#!/damage

Try it yourself, conscripts get 100 rapid fire 2 lasguns. Even without bringing all their guns to bear they compete well.

Even without?

It can be a challenge to get all ten models in tac squad into rapid fire range.

50? If you're even shooting with all 50 models, your opponent might be a potato dressed up as a human.

sossen wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Why would tacticals never take a special weapon? That's literally what tactical marine squads do that Conscripts don't.

Of course the tacticals lose when deliberately built to lose...

In fact, I think 1 tactical has better shooting with just his boltgun than a baneblade does if the Baneblade doesn't shoot its guns ever.

Discuss.

Hey man, if we can't use unlikely to the point of comedy situations to claim that 8th is a horrible ruleset, then the terrorists win. Remember: You only need two ten man units of gretchin to charge from either side of a baneblade, get a long enough charge to wrap themselves around the entirety of its length on either side and then not lose enough models to make a hole for it to escape through FOR GRETCHIN TO STOP A BANEBLADE FROM FALLING BACK. I know! I did it myself when playing against myself on vassal!

It's funny that you chose a Baneblade given that it actually wants to stay in melee. It gets to shoot out of melee, opponents don't get to shoot at it while it is in melee.

I checked the math on decked out tac marine squads, turns out that conscript fire competes well with the best MEQ options.

Point is still that you don't need to face melee armies to get value from your conscripts. Which is why it's not just a bubblewrap unit, and following on that point is why I made my post in the first place - it is very difficult for CC SM armies to deal with these types of hordes efficiently.

Not arguing about that, or that Conscripts are currently a little too strong. I know most of the suggestions for nerfs are really basic stuff, but if it were me I'd require a LD check to follow an order (still wastes the order if you fail).

The biggest problem with them honestly is the fact that the weapons that are supposed to be used to kill them just aren't points efficient at doing so. Forget "Are they better than tactical marines at shooting", try "what do I take to clear out conscripts?" We're using 360 points as our "Conscripts plus buffers" standard right? What would I take if I, playing marines, wanted to carve them up lickity-split so I could assault stuff they're standing in front of?

Thunderfire cannons, maybe? 360 gets me about 5 of those (too lazy to comb through and figure out what the stupid servo arms cost, exact math is like 5.875 with the base cost so I'll round down to 5.)

Those now kill 18 conscripts per turn, plus 1 from the commissar. Oof. Maybe Whirlwinds? You get 5 of those (rounding up this time) and they kill 20 with the commissar. Heavy Bolter Devastators get 18. Hey, maybe morale is the problem here, what if we took some snipers to kill the commissar, then used the remainder of the points on 2 Whirlwinds? With morale they kill only 9 of the conscripts.

The latter is probably the best option, but unfortunately even if you do THAT your opponent is just going to spend 2cp to autopass the morale test.

This is the fundamental issue with bubblewrap in 8th: Not that a hard-counter to a lot of melee stuff exists, but that there's no way to bring a counter to get rid of that strategy, which makes it dominant. You can absolutely blow away imperial knights if you take equal points of lascannon devastators. You can slaughter lascannon devastators with equal points of plasma scions. You can wipe the floor with plasma scions with ork boyz. But the weapons that were intended to be taken to remove infantry by the bucketload are now highly ineffective at doing so. a 7-point flamer does not kill over 7 points of conscripts, and the flamer is supposed to be the anti light infantry version of the melta gun: hyper close ranged, but hyper efficient if you get into that range band and use it.

Close combat is so much better this edition. Consistently, I engage in close combat in Turn 1. The whole game sequence has sped up. Where before I had to wait until turn 2 or 3 to get into combat and endure turns of shooting, 8th Ed. has so many ways to get right into the action - from increased speed on units, to new abilities to double-move or charge from deepstrike. It's excellent!

 andysonic1 wrote:
Basically: shooting from constricts is a nice thing to do when something is in range because you might put a wound or two on something, but is not the reason you take conscripts and any discussion about their damage output in shooting (or god forbid melee) is completely missing the point of the unit. This thread should be focusing on the overwatch potential and melee counters to conscript blobs, not some absurd idea that they will deal equal damage to a TAC squad.

I never said that the shooting was the point of the unit, only that using conscript bubblewrap isn't solely about anti-assault - they can be effective units against ranged armies as well given that they have "decent shooting". This was in response to someone who claimed that bubblewrap was the counter to assault, I pointed out that they are certainly competent in other regards than as wounds that you have to assault past. Which is why assault armies are extra screwed by such units, since they both get to shoot and block your advance into the opponent's actual gunline.

Close combat is substantially deeper, stronger, and adds depth to the game without sacrificing time and difficulty.

Some cool differences:
As mentioned people can "walk away" from combat, but what most forget is you have to get 1 inch away, and if your unit cannot fly then by placing your assault models correctly they cannot get away if you surround them intelligently.

Back and forth selection of units and interrupting command points makes selecting, target priority, and game player interactions are all much much higher. One player doesn't just sit there anymore.

Vehicles are actually effective in combat, they can interrupt and provide a strategic opportunity that was not there in 7th.

Overwatch is not overcome by a million "special" rules in 7th.

Fliers are no longer immune to assault.

Pistols got a huge buff by being able to shoot at units in combat.

Striking first in CC when charging is a MASSIVE boost to the effectiveness of dedicated CC armies like orks, nids, etc.

So much faster without worrying about rules, assault grenade nonsense, overwatch modifyers, is it a vehicle or not, etc.

You can get into combat in multiple ways, but none of them are broken. (Most require you to be 9 inches away)

sossen wrote:
Try it yourself, conscripts get 100 rapid fire 2 lasguns.

That chart's wrong, btw. All the charts I've seen, and the WH-Community site, say S3 wounds T4 on a 5+, not a 4+ (the only time you get a 4+ on a to-wound roll is when S=T).

Which means 2*50 conscripts firing a total of 100 shots at a single tactical squad in cover would cause less than two wounds per round, for a total cost of 330 points, and take on average three to five turns to wipe out a single squad of a unit that's generally considered weak and expendable, which costs about a fifth of its points,

Again, is this supposed to be impressive to me? I mean, even equal points of tacticals can do better than that. In fact, I'll demonstrate:

9 boltguns, 3 heavy bolters, 3 combiplasmas on 3 5-man tactical squads, firing at a tactical squad using cover to boost its save to 2+ (as tactical squads should be doing, it's trivial to give a cover bonus to a 5-man squad).
9 BGs: 9 shots, 6 hits, 3 wounds, 0.5 unsaved.
3 HBs: 9 shots, 6 hits, 4 wounds, 1.33 unsaved.
2 PGs: 2 shots, 1&1/3rd hits, 0.89 wounds, 0.3 unsaved.
Total unsaved wounds: 2.13 wounds, or about 1/3rd of a wounds more per turn than your 300 points of conscripts and commanders. And this in spite of being considered a trio of units generally considered to have worthless levels of firepower by a lot of Marine players. This trio of 5-man squads probably would actually do more damage than this, because they'd be launching those 9 heavy bolter shots from longer away than 24", and they could actually be stronger while benefiting from marine character buff auras.

Conscript shooting is really not impressive. So can we get back on topic, and away from your FETHING constant topic-derailing rants about conscripts?

I still will never understand why everyone assumes conscripts get to auto-fallback, it isn't that hard to lock a unit in combat.

I also love that a bubble wrap conscript squad always get to shoot at full effectiveness. Which is a large assumption if they are spread out to defend other things.

 Melissia wrote:

sossen wrote:
Try it yourself, conscripts get 100 rapid fire 2 lasguns.

Which means 2*50 conscripts firing a total of 100 shots at a single tactical squad in cover would cause less than two wounds per round, for a total cost of 320 points, and take on average three to four turns to wipe out a single squad of a unit that's generally considered weak and expendable, which costs about a fifth of its points,

They fire 2 shots each at 24'' meaning 200 shots. This is enabled by the company commander giving them the order FRFSRF.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:
I still will never understand why everyone assumes conscripts get to auto-fallback, it isn't that hard to lock a unit in combat.

I also love that a bubble wrap conscript squad always get to shoot at full effectiveness. Which is a large assumption if they are spread out to defend other things.

If you are using them as bubblewrap against a melee army then you probably don't care that much about the efficiency of their fire, the point of showing their maximum potential while shooting is to demonstrate that they can be reasonably effective units vs ranged armies as well.

sossen wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

sossen wrote:
Try it yourself, conscripts get 100 rapid fire 2 lasguns.

Which means 2*50 conscripts firing a total of 100 shots at a single tactical squad in cover would cause less than two wounds per round, for a total cost of 320 points, and take on average three to four turns to wipe out a single squad of a unit that's generally considered weak and expendable, which costs about a fifth of its points,

They fire 2 shots each at 24'' meaning 200 shots.

Even doubling the result, that's barely 3 wounds against a single tactical squad for 330 points. Assuming EVERYTHING goes right and you can bring all of that 330 points' firepower down on the tactical squad, you're marginally marginally doing more damage than me randomly slapping weapons on a trio of completely unsupported tactical marines. Hell, just have a basic captain stand nearby for rerolls (and he can benefit other units with this aura too, like devastators, so there's no reason not to), and on average those tacticals now do the same amount of damage as you got by doubling the number of conscript shots. And this is hardly the most viable tactical build out there.

tl;dr: stop derailing every thread you come to by ranting about conscripts. The only way you make them as OP as you make them out to be is literally by giving conscripts every advantage and assuming your opponent is an idiot.

I can't believe there are still people trying to insist conscripts aren't good...

Arachnofiend wrote:
I can't believe there are still people trying to insist conscripts aren't good...

Oh look a strawman argument. No one is arguing that conscripts aren't good at what they do-- be meatshields. Learn to read.

Arachnofiend wrote:
I can't believe there are still people trying to insist conscripts aren't good...

Conscripts are fantastic at what they do. Which is die slowly enough that the rest of the army can accomplish a thing.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:
I can't believe there are still people trying to insist conscripts aren't good...

Conscripts are fantastic at what they do. Which is die slowly enough that the rest of the army can accomplish a thing.

Which is why they are conscripts in the first place...

R.I.P

Close combat in 8th edition is awesome. It is not as decisive as it was in 7th, but it is far easier to get into and far easier to get out of. And the fight phase actually requires some player agency rather than just being an accounting and dice rolling phase.

And yes, conscripts make great meatshields. On top of that they spit out massive amounts of shooting damage, can be made immune to morale, has an enormous amount of wounds, and they can fall back and shoot in the same turn. They are quite possibly the best infantry unit in the game right now.

Conscripts don't spit out "massive amounts of shooting damage". Even when you buff them with a commander, they barely match what an equal amount of points in tacticals can manage. Tacticals. The squad almost every marine player seems to love to hate as the weakest troops choice.

Their upper limit is forcing ~22 saves on T5 and lower inside 12". That's pretty terrifying, actually. Even 11 saves at 24" isn't too shabby. That's assuming no access to rerolls of any kind. The key is playing around them so they can quadratap your units. You are also taking a quarter of this damage when you charge them. It sucks having to take 5-6 saves on a charge lol.

 Melissia wrote:
Conscripts don't spit out "massive amounts of shooting damage". Even when you buff them with a commander, they barely match what an equal amount of points in tacticals can manage. Tacticals. The squad almost every marine player seems to love to hate as the weakest troops choice.

They are pretty much equal to tac-marines against T4 and a slightly better against T3 and T5. And that is pretty good for a unit that is also a great meatshield, is probably the best objective camper in the game, has a punishing overwatch, and can fall back and shoot like jump-infantry. I don't think conscripts break the game, but I think they are extremely good. Their only weakness seems to be vulnerability to sniping of the commissar and the sheer effort of painting 100 models for a 300 point unit.

Tac marines do have a chance of getting cover, which these guys won't until they are crippled as a unit.

What I originally wanted to discuss was how to deal with horde units like conscripts, ork boyz or nids with melee-focused SM armies like BA. I really don't want to throw 20 pt DC models at them, it seems unlikely that they will be making their points back that way. I can't find any efficient answer to hordes in the SM list, unless stormraven spam counts.

You can't. At least, not with BA. I've already run all the numbers. The conscripts have to be left for last and played around. Because all your efforts there are wasted.

Have you tried with transports? The trick is to charge with as much as possible, while not spending any time inside his 12". That is difficult. You need to cripple them on your charge, that is also difficult. Orks can pull it off, because 30 boyz will delete 50 conscripts. But it is not easy, and a clever guard player will leave at least four inches between screens so you cannot consolidate into the next unit.

Sniping the commissar also works wonders.

Bizarrely enough it seems like charging rhinos into enemy units is one of the most effective ways to hamper them. Forcing them to fight it in melee or fall back is pretty silly but effective. Plus it's almost necessary in order to tank the overwatch from Kastelan Robots, multiple Tau units etc which will otherwise kill multiple DC.

sossen wrote:
Bizarrely enough it seems like charging rhinos into enemy units is one of the most effective ways to hamper them. Forcing them to fight it in melee or fall back is pretty silly but effective. Plus it's almost necessary in order to tank the overwatch from Kastelan Robots, multiple Tau units etc which will otherwise kill multiple DC.

Yes. But conscripts can fall back and shoot. Crisis suits and waveserpents can do the same.

pismakron wrote:

sossen wrote:
Bizarrely enough it seems like charging rhinos into enemy units is one of the most effective ways to hamper them. Forcing them to fight it in melee or fall back is pretty silly but effective. Plus it's almost necessary in order to tank the overwatch from Kastelan Robots, multiple Tau units etc which will otherwise kill multiple DC.

Yes. But conscripts can fall back and shoot. Crisis suits and waveserpents can do the same.

Yeah but shoot at what? Charge the Rhinos in sideways, create LOS blocking walls of metal so your units can move without being shot at. Only one unit of guard can be told to get up, and units with fly hopping over your Rhinos will be cut off from the rest of their army.

The important bit for me is that tbe Rhino takes the overwatch. Then you just throw whatever at the conscripts. Sure they can fall back, but then what? Kill a couple foot troopers? Oh, heaven help us and lawd have mercy. . .

Theory hammer aside, conscripts handled well are a great unit. They are not great at killing things, orders or not, but are just dangerous enough that you don't want to ignore them either and often can't because that enormous unit is in the way. They are even fine for what they cost... with the exception of the commissars ability.

The only real,issue I have with them is the frustrating amount of time it takes to move, shoot, etc... with them. Coupled with the intentional micro management of individual models placement that is 8th and it's really boring.

IMO 8th is far better in regards to having less of micromanaging models than any previous edition.

"only an idiot gets within 12" of conscripts"

*looks at all those guardians with a 12" range. Cries.*

No no it's cool I kid I kid, most of my army actually has a 24" range (Shuriken Cannons), so as long as I stay over 18" (move+rapid fire range) away from the row of 100 conscripts in the middle of the table, while shooting at the *actually valuable* targets 12" BEHIND the conscripts, I'll be fine.

*looks a the table again. Cries.*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In the last game, I was trying to pick off the last of his special weapons teams with a wave serpent so I pushed right up into his conscripts to get the 24" range shot behind them. He rolled about ~380 dice against it. We didn't get to the last set of 100 because the WS died first.

What's funny is that it only died because I rolled gak for armor saves... but still I think we mathed it out to ~10 expected wounds.

You should have charged him with the wave serpent.

 Deathypoo wrote:
"only an idiot gets within 12" of conscripts"

*looks at all those guardians with a 12" range. Cries.*

No no it's cool I kid I kid, most of my army actually has a 24" range (Shuriken Cannons), so as long as I stay over 18" (move+rapid fire range) away from the row of 100 conscripts in the middle of the table, while shooting at the *actually valuable* targets 12" BEHIND the conscripts, I'll be fine.

*looks a the table again. Cries.*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In the last game, I was trying to pick off the last of his special weapons teams with a wave serpent so I pushed right up into his conscripts to get the 24" range shot behind them. He rolled about ~380 dice against it. We didn't get to the last set of 100 because the WS died first.

What's funny is that it only died because I rolled gak for armor saves... but still I think we mathed it out to ~10 expected wounds.

Use rangers to snipe the commissar. The use psychic powers on a 24-man storm-guardian squad to give them re-rolls on everything. Charge the conscripts, and laugh as they horribly, horribly lose in the moral phase.

Better yet, snipe the commissar, use psychic abilities to give the conscripts -1 to hit in CC, and then assault the conscripts with howling banshees. Laugh as they modify their hit rolls of 6 to a 4 with their -2 hit modifier. Then laugh some more as they fail their moral test and half the survivors run away.

Eldar are very, very capable of dealing with conscripts. Don't even suggest that you have problems with them just because you're playing Eldar.

 Arandmoor wrote:

 Deathypoo wrote:
"only an idiot gets within 12" of conscripts"

*looks at all those guardians with a 12" range. Cries.*

No no it's cool I kid I kid, most of my army actually has a 24" range (Shuriken Cannons), so as long as I stay over 18" (move+rapid fire range) away from the row of 100 conscripts in the middle of the table, while shooting at the *actually valuable* targets 12" BEHIND the conscripts, I'll be fine.

*looks a the table again. Cries.*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In the last game, I was trying to pick off the last of his special weapons teams with a wave serpent so I pushed right up into his conscripts to get the 24" range shot behind them. He rolled about ~380 dice against it. We didn't get to the last set of 100 because the WS died first.

What's funny is that it only died because I rolled gak for armor saves... but still I think we mathed it out to ~10 expected wounds.

Use rangers to snipe the commissar. The use psychic powers on a 24-man storm-guardian squad to give them re-rolls on everything. Charge the conscripts, and laugh as they horribly, horribly lose in the moral phase.

Better yet, snipe the commissar, use psychic abilities to give the conscripts -1 to hit in CC, and then assault the conscripts with howling banshees. Laugh as they modify their hit rolls of 6 to a 4 with their -2 hit modifier. Then laugh some more as they fail their moral test and half the survivors run away.

Eldar are very, very capable of dealing with conscripts. Don't even suggest that you have problems with them just because you're playing Eldar.

I actually though you were joking until the last sentence... Sorry, I didn't have over 500 points custom built to kill under 200 points of guardsmen, I was playing with an all-comers list

(500 points because what you describe is 2 units of rangers, a farseer, a warlock, and a massive unit of storm guardians, all devoted to killing a unit of conscripts and their commissar)

Just FYI, he and I started with the same number of points on the table... so I'm not sure that using 5 points to deal with every 2 of his is really the best idea.

Seriously, I'm not saying conscripts are impossible to beat, but there's a reason the IG are dominating 8th edition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ragnar69 wrote:
You should have charged him with the wave serpent.

That actually gives him the exact same number of attacks. The overwatch only hits on 6's, and he has to do "stand your ground" or whatever it's called instead of frfsrf, so technically, you're making him miss 1/4 of his shooting attacks compared to not charging and just getting frfsrf... but he gains it right back with the close-combat attacks. The few he can't get into close combat range are a gain, I guess, but is it even worth the time it takes to go through all that?

When you charge him there are probably only half the models in rapid fire range and their to hit chance is halved. That equals to 0.75 normal attacks per model. When you charged the flank of his unit he probably only gets half the unit in melee range. So that is an another 0.5 attacks per model. After retreating he can shoot twice , so in total there should be an average of 3.25 attacks per conscript as opposed to 4 for FRFSRF from an ideal position.

You also might kill a conscript on the charge and you force his unit back towards his deployment zone. If they still where in his deployment zone, they might not even have enough room to disengage

Ragnar69 wrote:
When you charge him there are probably only half the models in rapid fire range and their to hit chance is halved. That equals to 0.75 normal attacks per model. When you charged the flank of his unit he probably only gets half the unit in melee range. So that is an another 0.5 attacks per model. After retreating he can shoot twice , so in total there should be an average of 3.25 attacks per conscript as opposed to 4 for FRFSRF from an ideal position.

You also might kill a conscript on the charge and you force his unit back towards his deployment zone. If they still where in his deployment zone, they might not even have enough room to disengage

You're making assumptions about his models being out of range. The point of my comment was that I felt forced to put myself in a situation where I was wholly within his 12" range. Obviously I didn't actually need to do that, I could have backed off to 24" and just shot his conscripts... but that would have left alive the squad of lascannon teams behind them. TBH I haven't done the math over which would have done more damage to my wave serpent on average, but I could at least kill the lascannons, while killing 4 or 5 conscripts felt like a useless gesture.

The game was a rough one for me. The dice compounded some of my own errors in judgement. If I'd played better I think I could have won it... but conscripts are a serious threat and it annoys me to see people brush them off. They can get 4+ to hit from searchlights, frfsrf from officers, immune to morale from commissars, and also have access to "re-roll 1 to hit" auras. The ridiculous number of units going to support them isn't actually ridiculous because each component is so damn cheap and they all add up to so much more than the sum of their parts. Killing them takes too much time and/or points while the long range heavy weapons behind them pummel your army. Avoiding them is nearly impossible due to the size of their threat bubble. Ignoring them (the option I chose in the game in my example) is dangerous because they are a very points-efficient offensive threat. They're not unbeatable but they are the biggest reason why IG wins at least twice as many games as it loses.

 Deathypoo wrote:

Ragnar69 wrote:
When you charge him there are probably only half the models in rapid fire range and their to hit chance is halved. That equals to 0.75 normal attacks per model. When you charged the flank of his unit he probably only gets half the unit in melee range. So that is an another 0.5 attacks per model. After retreating he can shoot twice , so in total there should be an average of 3.25 attacks per conscript as opposed to 4 for FRFSRF from an ideal position.

You also might kill a conscript on the charge and you force his unit back towards his deployment zone. If they still where in his deployment zone, they might not even have enough room to disengage

You're making assumptions about his models being out of range. The point of my comment was that I felt forced to put myself in a situation where I was wholly within his 12" range. Obviously I didn't actually need to do that, I could have backed off to 24" and just shot his conscripts... but that would have left alive the squad of lascannon teams behind them. TBH I haven't done the math over which would have done more damage to my wave serpent on average, but I could at least kill the lascannons, while killing 4 or 5 conscripts felt like a useless gesture.

The game was a rough one for me. The dice compounded some of my own errors in judgement. If I'd played better I think I could have won it... but conscripts are a serious threat and it annoys me to see people brush them off. They can get 4+ to hit from searchlights, frfsrf from officers, immune to morale from commissars, and also have access to "re-roll 1 to hit" auras. The ridiculous number of units going to support them isn't actually ridiculous because each component is so damn cheap and they all add up to so much more than the sum of their parts. Killing them takes too much time and/or points while the long range heavy weapons behind them pummel your army. Avoiding them is nearly impossible due to the size of their threat bubble. Ignoring them (the option I chose in the game in my example) is dangerous because they are a very points-efficient offensive threat. They're not unbeatable but they are the biggest reason why IG wins at least twice as many games as it loses.

Nonsense! They're no better than tac marines! /snark

Back to the topic please, think the conscript argument has been exhausted for now.

 Deathypoo wrote:

 Arandmoor wrote:

 Deathypoo wrote:
"only an idiot gets within 12" of conscripts"

*looks at all those guardians with a 12" range. Cries.*

No no it's cool I kid I kid, most of my army actually has a 24" range (Shuriken Cannons), so as long as I stay over 18" (move+rapid fire range) away from the row of 100 conscripts in the middle of the table, while shooting at the *actually valuable* targets 12" BEHIND the conscripts, I'll be fine.

*looks a the table again. Cries.*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In the last game, I was trying to pick off the last of his special weapons teams with a wave serpent so I pushed right up into his conscripts to get the 24" range shot behind them. He rolled about ~380 dice against it. We didn't get to the last set of 100 because the WS died first.

What's funny is that it only died because I rolled gak for armor saves... but still I think we mathed it out to ~10 expected wounds.

Use rangers to snipe the commissar. The use psychic powers on a 24-man storm-guardian squad to give them re-rolls on everything. Charge the conscripts, and laugh as they horribly, horribly lose in the moral phase.

Better yet, snipe the commissar, use psychic abilities to give the conscripts -1 to hit in CC, and then assault the conscripts with howling banshees. Laugh as they modify their hit rolls of 6 to a 4 with their -2 hit modifier. Then laugh some more as they fail their moral test and half the survivors run away.

Eldar are very, very capable of dealing with conscripts. Don't even suggest that you have problems with them just because you're playing Eldar.

I actually though you were joking until the last sentence... Sorry, I didn't have over 500 points custom built to kill under 200 points of guardsmen, I was playing with an all-comers list

(500 points because what you describe is 2 units of rangers, a farseer, a warlock, and a massive unit of storm guardians, all devoted to killing a unit of conscripts and their commissar)

Just FYI, he and I started with the same number of points on the table... so I'm not sure that using 5 points to deal with every 2 of his is really the best idea.

Seriously, I'm not saying conscripts are impossible to beat, but there's a reason the IG are dominating 8th edition.

First, IG isn't dominating 8th edition.

Second, "Sorry, I didn't have over X points custom built to kill under Y points of Z" is a BS excuse because you don't remove your units from the table once they kill one specific target.

There are a very, very LARGE number of reasons to take storm guardians, howling banshees, farseers, warlocks, and rangers in a TAC list because they're just generally all round good units in many different situations and scenarios.

Q: Why take them specifically to counter conscripts in a TAC list?

A: Don't. Doing that makes you an idiot. Take them because they're generally useful.

The howling banshee/storm guardian + Drain combo should be bog-standard if you take howling banshees or storm guardians because both squads are melee squads, and Enhance/Drain is awesome regardless of scenario.
Similar to a ranger + Conceal combo. You want them to survive, first to prevent your opponent from scoring first blood, but also because rangers are a scary unit and should attract a fair amount of enemy fire. Conceal increases their camo cloak bonus from -1 to -2 which is gigantic (it actually makes them totally immune to ork shooting, except from grots), and Reveal lets them ignore cover against dug-in units. Given their ap 0 rifles, this has obvious uses.

Likewise, with all the aura-bubble spam in this edition, rangers are a no-brainer. Especially if you're having trouble with IG like you suggest, because if you can't handle IG aura spam, there's no way you'll be able to handle marine or nid aura spam. A single unit of rangers, supported by a farseer should be able to get a lot of work done in a deceptively short amount of time. Guide will increase their average wounds per round from 3 to 4, which is not nothing even if you're sniping marines. It's the difference between a bad round of shooting pushing your target's death from turn 2, to turn 3 in the case of a 5-7 wound model.

Any TAC list that can't handle conscripts won't be able to handle orks or tyranids and, therefore, is not a TAC list. You need to be able to handle large infantry blobs. It's an 8th edition requirement for TAC.