Given that 8th edition is a shooting-centric game, I want to know what are the most important aspects of a good melee unit. What are examples of good melee units, and why do they perform well? Is it a matter of being fast, or having good deployment special rules? Is it better to have more models to cover a larger board footprint?

Likewise, what are the best aspects of assault-focused armies? When are they most and least successful? What support elements are important to successful assaults?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, uh, there are no good assault units or armies?

A good pts cost is essential to the effectiveness of any unit, if you could increase the effectiveness of your army by spending pts elsewhere then some of the pts spent on the unit is wasted. That's really all there is to it. Most effective melee strategies either use M12+ units, deep strike or redeploy their units within 10" of the enemy and then immediately charge, but some rely on amazing defensive stats. There are few effective pure-melee strategies, those usually centre around board-control, if you want to destroy your opponent's units you will most likely want a mix of shooting (or psychic powers) and melee.

Some rules can help make a unit worth a higher pricetag, like being able to move over enemy units, having a good save, maybe even an invulnerable save. A lot of attacks, with a high strength, good AP and high damage can also help justify whether the individual unit is good enough to warrant inclusion in a list. Being both able to shoot (regular or mind bullets) can be another bonus.

A good assault army wins more than it loses, winning a game comes down to getting more VP than your opponent or if you're playing with an older mission set it can be done by destroying the entirety of your opponent's army. Different sets of missions have different ways of awarding VP and depending on that a unit might be more or less valuable. There is no simple formula for separating the bad assault units from the good ones, it all comes down to how effectively they help you get more VP than your opponent over the course of a game. That might include destroying your opponent's units so they cannot hold objectives or destroy your units, getting into melee with enemy shooting units so they have to fall back instead of shooting or just taking up space so your opponent cannot hold objectives.

Here's a list of some units that have been effective assault units in 8th: Knight Gallant, Magnus, Mortarion, Keepers of Secrets, Talos Pain Engines, Daemon Prince with or without wings, Captain with a jump pack, Warboss (with or without bike), Grotesques, Canoptek Wraiths, Custodian Guard, Bullgryn, Shining Spears, Wulfen, Possessed, Plaguebearers, Bloodletters, Ork Boyz, Stormboyz, Genestealers, Tzaangors.

Then you have the units which are good at both assaulting and shooting: Knight Warden/Crusader, Heldrake, Grand Masters in Nemesis Dreadknights, Vertus Praetors, Assault Centurions, Aggressors, DG Terminators, Paladins, Intercessors with a thunderhammer and Catachan Infantry Squads.

Knights, Wraiths and Shining Spears are M12, Vertus Praetors M14, Heldrakes M30. DG Terminators, Paladins, Stormboyz and Captains with a jump pack can arrive T2-3 more than 9" away from enemy models. Bloodletters, Boyz, Shining Spears and Centurions/Aggressors can benefit from Stratagems that let them do the same. Bloodletters and Orks have additional bonuses that makes it more likely they complete their charge. Centurions and Aggressors are mainly used within the Chapters that lets them infiltrate before the game or deep strike T2/3, showing how important this factor can be in determining whether a unit is worth bringing.

Genestealers, Infantry Squads, Talos and Possessed/Magnus/Mortarion can move twice with the ability of the Swarmlord, an order, a Stratagem and a psychic power respectively. Nemesis Dreadknights, Ork Boyz and Tzaangor can be teleported to anywhere on the map more than 9" away T1 with a piece of wargear, a psychic power and a relic respectively. BA Captains with a jump pack have a few more mobility options and have been the most popular Captain with jump pack because of this.

Bullgryn, Custodian Guard, Grotesques, Plaguebearers and Wulfen all have invulnerable saves, Plaguebearers and Wulfen have FNP, Custodian Guard and Bullgryn have great armour saves as well. But they help show that you don't have to be fast to be good, but you probably have to be tough if you're not fast. Warbosses are characters which grants them a degree of safety.

There is no guarantee that a unit is good because it fills these boxes, Necron Flayed Ones can DS, Raveners can move 12" vs Genestealers 8+D6, SM Terminators with stormshields have great saves. None of these units have seen tournament success AFAIK, that is despite being similar to units that have seen some or even a lot of success. Regular Nemesis Dreadknights have mostly the same wargear and abilities as Grandmasters in Nemesis Dreadknight but haven't seen a fraction of the play. Keepers of Secrets have seen more success than Bloodthirsters despite being less mobile. At the end of the day it's the pts cost that matters if you see something that costs 2 pts you can probably throw it up the board and into melee just to hold back your opponent, but the more pts you're paying the more justification you need, you need speed, durability or more punch that is worthy of the price tag you are paying.

Even units that don't have any obvious qualities in terms of mobility or durability can be good enough if their price is low enough.

 DarkHound wrote:
Given that 8th edition is a shooting-centric game, I want to know what are the most important aspects of a good melee unit. What are examples of good melee units, and why do they perform well? Is it a matter of being fast, or having good deployment special rules? Is it better to have more models to cover a larger board footprint?

Likewise, what are the best aspects of assault-focused armies? When are they most and least successful? What support elements are important to successful assaults?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, uh, there are no good assault units or armies?

There are extremely good assault units atm, units that can be slung at opponents extremely easily and just wipe the board with anything, often for alot lower investment then the suicide charger.
(these are smashcaptains.)


Speed is also a keyfactor, entirely irrelevant if they need support ot achieve the speed or if they have it inately. The key is that you atleast by turn 1 can have some things guaranteed in melee, in order to do damage disrupt the enemy.

Toughness is less off a concern, if you want to wipe stuff, and more of a concern if you want to tie down stuff.

Of course you need the pts effectiveness to also work out for such an army and entirely without shooting this will not work.

That beeing said multiple armies do the whole assault stick pretty decent.


For Chaos Space marines, 2 subfactions show up:
A: for Alpha legion, a combination of stratagems, access to sorcerers and special formations make them work, pregame stratagems push your units put at the edge of your deployment allready forward, sorcerers can further increase the movement by a decent margine, survivability is also better due to the flat -1 to hit against them over 12" away. Bonus for neither beeing markbound aswell as defensive stratagems and relics allowing you to change and divert attention of your enemy.

B: A RC rush csm force. RC or red corsairs get probably one of the better inate traits for a melee assault based list, namely the fact that they can Advance + charge. this is extremely worth it in gold for units that you want to slingshot accross the table. F.e. a lord discordant with warptime support is nigh guaranteed to give your enemy a massive headache.
Add in special detachments (raptorial host, soulforged pack) and you get even more units with the potential reach to really hammer in the point. (the issue is however, not all of the units with the speed necessary are really all that effective points wise, take raptors f.e.) Otoh, you get a free relic due to the warlord trait of RC and the relic RC has is also pretty decent. Main issue overall though is the lack of Votwl. Otoh, you will and can abuse the CP / stratagem system better, then any other CSM faction. Not only can you recycle forward a bunch of cultists but also a squad of CSM per turn, making them themselves a nice tie down unit potentially.

what i think are good melee units:
1)units that can double move+advance and first turn charge (like genestealers). the enemy has to deal with them after you did your action, and you can use them in small squads so they're not too big of a point sink. But i don't like suicide charges too much.

2)units that can do something else the first turns and use combat in phases turn 3 or later (thinking about magnus as example). I tried different tactics with maggy and throwing him forwards and deleting whatever he touched almost never gets his points back. When the enemy reacts, he is killed for sure. What works like a charm for me is: let maggy go forwards, do some wizardstuff, retreat with warptime behind own lines (where he's safe from smash captains, obliterator deepstrikes,...) Then, after turn 2 or 3, when all deepstrikes have happened and most of the cp are spent,the board is more open. Now he has the power, mobility and impact to really make a difference in CC.

So you actually have to find a good tactic for the use of a CC beatstick. Just rushing forwards is in my experience almost never a good trade.

It all depends on what role the melee unit is supposed to perform. There are many roles that i see for melee units, and each is evaluated based on different stats:

- Distraction carnifex. This unit must possess a good package of damage, durability and cost effectiveness. It is ment as a turn 2 menace usually, which you have to take care of or the consequences could be dire. At the same time it must cheap cheap enough compared to the fire that it diverts to it, that you must pass on targeting other valuable stuff if you want to take it down.

- Smashers: This kind of melee units have a way to hit hard and be where they want to be. Typical examples are smashcaptains, genestealers and brigthlances. A good smasher is defined by how hard it hits for the cost, and how likely it is to reach its favored target. Durability isn't a requirement. Bonus points if they can avoid overwatch.

- Entanglers: These units want to get on you and jam your shooting and your movement. Typical example are the hormagaunts. A good entangler is cheap, moves fast, has LOW damage and possibly is a troop.

- Deepstrikers: Those units come from deepstrike and hit hard at what they have in front. Boyz, DW Knights and bloodletters are good examples. A good deepstriker is defined by the chances that he has to make the charge from deepstrike, how hard it hits and how hard it is dislodge. Bonus points if they can somehow avoid screens or overwatch.

- Counterchargers/Scarecrows: Those units don't seek the fight, they wait for it to come. A good countercharger has a way to contribute to the fight even without throwing punches, The best examples are Guilliman and most SM characters. Being fast isn't needed, but you need to hit hard and be either a character or be really sturdy for your cost.

I think the posts in this thread have hit the nail on its head.

 DarkHound wrote:
Given that 8th edition is a shooting-centric game, I want to know what are the most important aspects of a good melee unit. What are examples of good melee units, and why do they perform well? Is it a matter of being fast, or having good deployment special rules? Is it better to have more models to cover a larger board footprint?

Likewise, what are the best aspects of assault-focused armies? When are they most and least successful? What support elements are important to successful assaults?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, uh, there are no good assault units or armies?

Melee is really strong in 8e. I actually think its' too strong. If supposedly melee-weak factions like IG and Sisters of Battle were/are building melee death balls [Ogryns, Catachans, Repentia, Zephyrim; especially the Sisters for whom in past editions we basically never saw any of their melee specialists, but now it's like 3x Exorcists and that's it for main-line shooting and everything else is assault or planning to be in assault]. Melee offers a lot of things: it offers excellent board control, it interferes with the enemy's offense very efficiently, and a lot of missions are decided by being able to dominate the mid field which melee does way better than shooting.


Anyway, what makes a melee army: having a melee troop choice. The only army that is actually going to be a melee army, period, is Daemons. Orks & Custodes have melee line troops, but also draw a lot of power from shooting line support, and Tyranids have shooting and melee line troops options and mostly mixed-role or shooting backup units. Neither Orks, Custodes, nor Tyranids have to be melee armies, but they can be, so they're "melee armies".

As for what makes a unit good at melee, you've got to be fast and able to kill almost anything you touch. Being fast is most important, being lethal is second. Being cheap is also a big help, but if you can't be cheap you have to be really, really tough.


And then, of course, a lot of things can be buffed to be good in assault, even if they don't seem to be on paper. Like Guardsmen. Catachan+Straken+Priest can be real scary when it touches you with A3 at S4 on a giant horde of 4 point guys. Or a giant blob of Sisters and Celestians with priests and imagifiers, who can also output A3 [or more] per model at S4 AP1 and a couple of power weapons sprinkled in.

You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

 DarkHound wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

Holding objectives, which shooting units are going to do better in regardless.

Getting into melee is half of it, being able to trap is almost the rest of it. Shooting in this edition is so deadly, and falling back so obvious a choice, that what you do once you're in melee tends to be much less important than whether you can get there and force the enemy to stay there.

If you are getting into melee and trapping stuff (especially if you then wipe on their turn) you're probably winning the game. If you are getting into melee and wiping stuff on your turn, that's nice, but you're probably just getting wiped the next turn yourself, so it'd better have been worth it.

Incidentally, this is why people persistently undervalue how awesome the 6" consolidate is.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

Holding objectives, which shooting units are going to do better in regardless.

No, by controlling the board.

Usually i see a scary (not necessarily speedy) unit hidden behing a LOS blocker in the middle. That unit there, interdicts the center from your opponent if he doesn't have an equal melee contender, or at least a way to stop it for a couple of rounds. Since in this game who controls the center wins, those units can easily be the MVP without inflicting a single damage.

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

Holding objectives, which shooting units are going to do better in regardless.

No, by controlling the board.

Usually i see a scary (not necessarily speedy) unit hidden behing a LOS blocker in the middle. That unit there, interdicts the center from your opponent if he doesn't have an equal melee contender, or at least a way to stop it for a couple of rounds. Since in this game who controls the center wins, those units can easily be the MVP without inflicting a single damage.

That's being a bad player then. Mathematically if the unit isn't scary, like say Ogryns which are SUPER scary under that logic, I'm not going to care. Zone denial only works if you occupy a giant zone.

 DarkHound wrote:
Given that 8th edition is a shooting-centric game, I want to know what are the most important aspects of a good melee unit. What are examples of good melee units, and why do they perform well? Is it a matter of being fast, or having good deployment special rules? Is it better to have more models to cover a larger board footprint?

So the first and probably most important aspect that every successful melee unit needs is a delivery mechanism. Without a delivery mechanism there is always the risk that the unit does nothing except get shot off the board.

This is often a combination of a Deep Strike ability, a way to improve the likelihood of a successful charge, a way to double move, a way to advance and charge, a way to mitigate overwatch damage and/or a way to redeploy.

So to answer the first part of this question it is a combination of being fast/having good deployment special rules and everything in between.

With regards to the footprint of a melee unit, this can be a blessing or a curse. Ork Boyz cover a ton of board which is great for restricting opposition movement. They also find it more difficult to get as many models into combat however, so it is both a positive and a negative, depending on what you want to achieve.

Many successful melee units also have good durability. This can also be achieved in a number of ways including (but not restricted to) - high Toughness, good save, invulnerable save, "feel no pain" save, ability to lock opposing units in combat, a way to avoid getting shot and bodyguard abilities.

Likewise, what are the best aspects of assault-focused armies? When are they most and least successful? What support elements are important to successful assaults?

Generally I'd suggest that the above two elements are most important; a way to get into combat and a way to mitigate damage. A faction that focuses on these elements should be successful but I think a mixed force will always do better than a skew melee only list.

So, uh, there are no good assault units or armies?

Not really armies, no. Competitive assault detachments exist in greater armies, however.

I keep hearing about "keeping the enemy locked in close combat", but what prevents the enemy from falling back on their turn?

 DarkHound wrote:
I keep hearing about "keeping the enemy locked in close combat", but what prevents the enemy from falling back on their turn?

Tripointing.

Ah, so to that point, unless your models are obscenely durable (like Custodes) you want enough bodies that you can reliably get a few in tripoint positioning. That does seem to tip the scales towards larger squads in a lot of cases.

 DarkHound wrote:
Ah, so to that point, unless your models are obscenely durable (like Custodes) you want enough bodies that you can reliably get a few in tripoint positioning. That does seem to tip the scales towards larger squads in a lot of cases.

You can tri-point a model from one squad and put all your attacks into another squad, you can even tri-point a squad you didn't charge. 1 reliable tri-point is all you need, you don't want your opponent being able to fall back in the case of an "unlucky" morale roll.

Until GW nerfs tri-point.

Martel732 wrote:
Until GW nerfs tri-point.

If they were going to do that wouldn't they have done it with this FAQ?

I think the point being made was that if you charge and tripoint, you need enough models to survive the counterattack to keep the model tripointed. This is generally only a problem with 5-man or fewer assault squads or if you're charging something that's actually good in combat.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

Holding objectives, which shooting units are going to do better in regardless.

No, by controlling the board.

Usually i see a scary (not necessarily speedy) unit hidden behing a LOS blocker in the middle. That unit there, interdicts the center from your opponent if he doesn't have an equal melee contender, or at least a way to stop it for a couple of rounds. Since in this game who controls the center wins, those units can easily be the MVP without inflicting a single damage.

That's being a bad player then. Mathematically if the unit isn't scary, like say Ogryns which are SUPER scary under that logic, I'm not going to care. Zone denial only works if you occupy a giant zone.

As long as you control the objective in the middle (CA missions), the game is going in your direction.

Also, there are quite a lot of units that are scary enough for this, from DW knights to Gman.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:
I keep hearing about "keeping the enemy locked in close combat", but what prevents the enemy from falling back on their turn?

Tripointing.

Or playing Night Lords. Warp talons ftw. (Deepstrike? Check. Boosted charge? Check. Ignore overwatch? Check. Stop anything you don't kill from falling back? Check.)

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

Holding objectives, which shooting units are going to do better in regardless.

No, by controlling the board.

Usually i see a scary (not necessarily speedy) unit hidden behing a LOS blocker in the middle. That unit there, interdicts the center from your opponent if he doesn't have an equal melee contender, or at least a way to stop it for a couple of rounds. Since in this game who controls the center wins, those units can easily be the MVP without inflicting a single damage.

That's being a bad player then. Mathematically if the unit isn't scary, like say Ogryns which are SUPER scary under that logic, I'm not going to care. Zone denial only works if you occupy a giant zone.

As long as you control the objective in the middle (CA missions), the game is going in your direction.

Also, there are quite a lot of units that are scary enough for this, from DW knights to Gman.

Except by being scared of those units because you're told to be scared is being a bad player.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Until GW nerfs tri-point.

If they were going to do that wouldn't they have done it with this FAQ?

It's something that is pretty likely to happen in a potential 9th edition. GW has always clamped down hard on these unintended interactions.

In general, I agree that there are no good melee armies. Killing something of worth in melee during turn one is next to impossible against a capable opponent. You always need to have meaningful amounts of shooting to back up your melee units, otherwise you have no chance of winning.

There are powerful melee units, but any dedicated melee unit that has to cross the board for two or more turns might as well not exist in 8th.

Well, I'm not eager to play an assault-based army.
There are too many downsides game-wise.
First, you need a concerted strike to overwhelm and decimate the enemy. Setting up such a strike is however rather difficult to achieve and with some armies its helpless.
Second, even if your units reach cc, the next turn the enemy will withdraw his/her units and your units are left and dry in the open for a round of shooting.
Winning a game heavily based on assault is hard to achieve if you consider the current meta with IH at the top.

It's more the 8th edition rules than anything else. Doesn't really matter what army is at the top right now, the rules are set up in such a way that the only assault units that are successful are the ones that have some way to avoid the basic setup of the game that is so overwhelmingly tilted against combat.

Martel732 wrote:
Until GW nerfs tri-point.

I doubt GW wants assault to feel more pointless. Were almost in full gunline as is, and with tau picking up steam in the meta it's just going to swing further from assault.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

Holding objectives, which shooting units are going to do better in regardless.

No, by controlling the board.

Usually i see a scary (not necessarily speedy) unit hidden behing a LOS blocker in the middle. That unit there, interdicts the center from your opponent if he doesn't have an equal melee contender, or at least a way to stop it for a couple of rounds. Since in this game who controls the center wins, those units can easily be the MVP without inflicting a single damage.

That's being a bad player then. Mathematically if the unit isn't scary, like say Ogryns which are SUPER scary under that logic, I'm not going to care. Zone denial only works if you occupy a giant zone.

As long as you control the objective in the middle (CA missions), the game is going in your direction.

Also, there are quite a lot of units that are scary enough for this, from DW knights to Gman.

Except by being scared of those units because you're told to be scared is being a bad player.

Sorry, i can't understand your comment.

A unit is scary because it is mathematically so, not because i'm being told. If that unit can delete whatever i bring to the middle to contest the objective, i cannot go to the middle. Simple as that.

Spoletta wrote:
A unit is scary because it is mathematically so, not because i'm being told. If that unit can delete whatever i bring to the middle to contest the objective, i cannot go to the middle. Simple as that.

It really isn't though. If Gulliman is holding the middle, I charge him with 20 pox walkers and take him out of the game. DW knights can just be shot off the objective or decimated to a point where they aren't scary. Or I just walk up one grot to within 3" of the objective and take it from them for a turn.

 Jidmah wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
A unit is scary because it is mathematically so, not because i'm being told. If that unit can delete whatever i bring to the middle to contest the objective, i cannot go to the middle. Simple as that.

It really isn't though. If Gulliman is holding the middle, I charge him with 20 pox walkers and take him out of the game. DW knights can just be shot off the objective or decimated to a point where they aren't scary. Or I just walk up one grot to within 3" of the objective and take it from them for a turn.

Considering that you can't do the grot thing in most missions, and that i said that it works if you put them out of LoS, i guess that you are supporting my point.

You either can challenge them with something bigger, or you need to chaff it.

 Jidmah wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
A unit is scary because it is mathematically so, not because i'm being told. If that unit can delete whatever i bring to the middle to contest the objective, i cannot go to the middle. Simple as that.

It really isn't though. If Gulliman is holding the middle, I charge him with 20 pox walkers and take him out of the game. DW knights can just be shot off the objective or decimated to a point where they aren't scary. Or I just walk up one grot to within 3" of the objective and take it from them for a turn.

Good point about Gman. I will never forget a year ago my opponent pinned down my Guilliman with 2 units of 9 Nurglings from Turn 2 till Turn 5. That was the era when Guilliman's weapon are all Dmg3 and shock assault was not exist, which means Gman at most kill 6 bases of Nurglings per battle rounds, combined by the amazing 5++ from my opponent rolling (iirc he rolled 50% or above on the saving throw of the Nurglings), Guilliman was not going anywhere, and he can only watch helplessly when the rest of the Ultramarines got tabled by those Daemon Princes and Deamon Engines.

Now with his fist being Dmg4, and he got 7A when being charged, making him a total 13 attacks for one battle round. He might have a chance to breakout that trap faster, but provided he need to land every attacks, and every hit wounds, and every 5++ saves failed. So realistically, 18 Nurglings should still be able to jam Guilliman for MORE THAN 2 BATTLE ROUNDS .

Conclusion? Guilliman is not scary if you understand his weakness and have the tool to deal with him.

Spoletta wrote:
Considering that you can't do the grot thing in most missions, and that i said that it works if you put them out of LoS, i guess that you are supporting my point.

Why wouldn't I be able to do that in any mission? On top of that, if your knights kill 10 gretchin every turn for 4 turns, you'd still have nothing to show for your points.

 Jidmah wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Considering that you can't do the grot thing in most missions, and that i said that it works if you put them out of LoS, i guess that you are supporting my point.

Why wouldn't I be able to do that in any mission? On top of that, if your knights kill 10 gretchin every turn for 4 turns, you'd still have nothing to show for your points.

Moving a troop to a point and deny the objective?

That only works in 2 out of 6 missions, with end of round and start of turn scoring that strategy doesn't work.

Also, i was the one that said that you have to find a way to chaff them to solve the situation, so why is everyone saying "But you can chaff them!!!"? I know that you can if you have the right units, it was my point!

I'm not discussing wheter you can deny the center of the map with a properly positioned assault unit, you can objectively do so, i have seen it done at all levels of play so it's not a matter of discussion, it is a matter of fact. I was just reporting this to you.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Until GW nerfs tri-point.

If they were going to do that wouldn't they have done it with this FAQ?

There's always 9th ed. Or September FAQ. Or any random anything from these guys. Melee hangs on by a gamey unintended thread imo. Tripoint is the only counter to fall back and its a total accident of rules wording.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Punisher wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Until GW nerfs tri-point.

I doubt GW wants assault to feel more pointless. Were almost in full gunline as is, and with tau picking up steam in the meta it's just going to swing further from assault.

I bet they think it's still dominant.

In 9th I can see them letting anyone fall back from anyone, but at the cost of the unit(s) you're falling back from getting a free attack sequence on you as you fall back. If they are really committed to letting units fall back out of melee, this seems the best way to do it. Right now the fundamental problem with balancing melee is that falling back is so automatically the best choice in the vast majority of situations.

This would be a massive change for the better, but it's the sort of thing that fundamentally changes the game and requires rebalancing pretty much every single unit in the game, so you're not going to see it before a new edition comes out.

That won't do a thing to help. All the gunline cares about is being able to target the melee units. The gunline PREFERS their unit to being dead over not being able to target.

It wouldn't solve the issue completely, no. But it'd allow you to wipe their unit on their movement phase, followed by a consolidation move. Thereby guaranteeing the charging unit two rounds of fighting (unless the first one wipes the unit), even if you got shot to pieces afterward.

And it'd change things significantly if you managed to get into combat with something other than a screen. Right now if you tag someone's tank they just fall back; if you got a full new round of fighting against it, you'd at least have more of a chance to make back your points.

If nothing else, it'd force castles to leave more space in-between layers, and it'd stop a lot of the weird skewing that occurs in the current system, where fly units are unintentionally powerful, everything focuses around the wrap-and-trap gimmick, where you actively hope your enemy doesn't fail their morale check, etc etc. You could balance combat much more directly, without all these unintentional skews.

I mean I agree, conceptually I preferred the old days when you couldn't fall back out of combat period. But I doubt those days are coming back.

IMHO most decent meele strats are about an alpha strike that crippels the defender that badly that they can´t recover in propper time.

That said there is an unit that qualifies fairly well for a decent melee unit that hasn´t been named yet.
Khorne Berzerker

to be fair I play Alpha Legion and therefore have multiple tools to make them work but on paper they are what I from a melee unit.
They have the quantity as well as the quality of attacks they need to chew trough most units, can´t attack twice and even have "proper" defensiv stats.
You can even buff them fairly easily with a DA, sorcerer or EC. Even tough buffing Berzerks with warptrickery feels wrong

In a recent game against melee-focused World Eaters, I shot the entire army off the board in two turns without even trying. With orks. Rhinos with champions, zerkers and apostles were the first things to go.

If you can't shoot or have some way to not get shot, you are worthless.

Martel732 wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Until GW nerfs tri-point.

If they were going to do that wouldn't they have done it with this FAQ?

There's always 9th ed. Or September FAQ. Or any random anything from these guys. Melee hangs on by a gamey unintended thread imo. Tripoint is the only counter to fall back and its a total accident of rules wording.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Punisher wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Until GW nerfs tri-point.

I doubt GW wants assault to feel more pointless. Were almost in full gunline as is, and with tau picking up steam in the meta it's just going to swing further from assault.

I bet they think it's still dominant.

I though tripoint was working as intended.

As far as 9th I have to ask if that ws a change they made in AoS 2nd. If they didn't I wouldn't expect it. I imagine that's the direction 9th will follow.

Has anyone mentioned deep-strike charges on turn 1? Because I miss that in competitive games. Being able to throw a mess of Hormagaunts piggy-backing off Trygons was great.

Being able to defeat overwatch is also important though.

And being able to kill stuff (I'm looking at you, hormies).

Tripoint is exactly the kind of thing GW claims to not want in the game.

Zuwi wrote:
IMHO most decent meele strats are about an alpha strike that crippels the defender that badly that they can´t recover in propper time.

That said there is an unit that qualifies fairly well for a decent melee unit that hasn´t been named yet.
Khorne Berzerker

to be fair I play Alpha Legion and therefore have multiple tools to make them work but on paper they are what I from a melee unit.
They have the quantity as well as the quality of attacks they need to chew trough most units, can´t attack twice and even have "proper" defensiv stats.
You can even buff them fairly easily with a DA, sorcerer or EC. Even tough buffing Berzerks with warptrickery feels wrong

If you can provide proof of them doing well in tournaments I'd love to know, the units I mentioned have all made it to top 4 at a 30+ player tournament in 8th. I played a game against a guy who said they were amazing, but I'm not sure if he played them correctly, he wasn't using it in our particular game and I was kind of zoned out after the game and might simply have not listened well enough to understand whether his tactics were genuine.

I wouldn't say berzerkers have good defensive stats.

Martel732 wrote:
Tripoint is exactly the kind of thing GW claims to not want in the game.

I have no idea where they said that. I cut them from most of my social media feed last year do you have anything you could link? I've never read anything about that on the forums prior to today.

And in that case if they get rid of tripoint I am all in favor of a free round of chopping at any unit trying to fall back from combat.

I'm talking about over the years. GW hasn't said anything specifically about tripointing, but it seems like the kind of thing they would get rid of on a whim because they don't like it.

 warhead01 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Tripoint is exactly the kind of thing GW claims to not want in the game.

I have no idea where they said that. I cut them from most of my social media feed last year do you have anything you could link? I've never read anything about that on the forums prior to today.

And in that case if they get rid of tripoint I am all in favor of a free round of chopping at any unit trying to fall back from combat.

Flyer move blocking is one example. I think removing tripoint from matched play would be a mistake, it's an interesting part of the game, it's really poor for thematic play, but nothing is preventing you from creating a house rule that says you can move through enemy units while falling back. In addition, any units you fall back from cannot be targeted by shooting weapons this turn.

 Jidmah wrote:
In a recent game against melee-focused World Eaters, I shot the entire army off the board in two turns without even trying. With orks. Rhinos with champions, zerkers and apostles were the first things to go.

If you can't shoot or have some way to not get shot, you are worthless.

So what you're saying is, you took a competitively optimized shooting ork list against some poor sod playing World Eaters? And do you feel good about that life choice? LMAO

Martel732 wrote:
I'm talking about over the years. GW hasn't said anything specifically about tripointing, but it seems like the kind of thing they would get rid of on a whim because they don't like it.

I was really worried I had missed something important! which would be just like me.

In my own experience assaulting I don't think the unit is as important as how you put that unit into action. I plan my assaults so that I have a 3 to 1 advantage every time if I am playing with assaulting as my heavy hitting goal for that game. This means , being Orks, a large mob trying to tag several smaller opposing units while being supported by several other smaller units to allow me to leverage a lot of options and swing lots and lots of times. So 30 or 40 boys supported by Kommandos, deff koptas, Nobs, a waaaagh banner and what ever else I can coordinate to get in the fight but the fight is planned. It also is dependent on what I am up against. In the early days of 8th the other player was razorbacks and command characters for rerolls. Knowing this my plan was just to bottle them up and give them a thrashing. Tag and surround as many units as I could keep them locked in, taking away their option of retreating and shooting or move forward. while I also brought up my back field to reinforce my assault, take objectives and kill off their other units I wasn't able to bottle up. It's more about the army list I put together than any single unit. It's worked well for me. I have no single best assault unit choice in my lists. I use several low cost units in small size working together for flexibility combine with a wall of meat to take the brunt of the damage.
No idea if that would still work with the Ork codex haven't tried it. Probably would still work.

Sorry, what's "tri-point"?

Nurglitch wrote:
Sorry, what's "tri-point"?

Surrounding one model with three models so that there are three openings but all openings are smaller than the base of the tri-pointed model. This means that unless the model can move through or over enemy units it cannot be moved, which means its entire unit cannot fall back.

 vict0988 wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
Sorry, what's "tri-point"?

Surrounding one model with three models so that there are three openings but all openings are smaller than the base of the tri-pointed model. This means that unless the model can move through or over enemy units it cannot be moved, which means its entire unit cannot fall back.

Thank you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So why aren't stuff like Wyches more popular. They prevented stuff from falling back when 8th started.

 vict0988 wrote:

Zuwi wrote:
IMHO most decent meele strats are about an alpha strike that crippels the defender that badly that they can´t recover in propper time.

That said there is an unit that qualifies fairly well for a decent melee unit that hasn´t been named yet.
Khorne Berzerker

to be fair I play Alpha Legion and therefore have multiple tools to make them work but on paper they are what I from a melee unit.
They have the quantity as well as the quality of attacks they need to chew trough most units, can´t attack twice and even have "proper" defensiv stats.
You can even buff them fairly easily with a DA, sorcerer or EC. Even tough buffing Berzerks with warptrickery feels wrong

If you can provide proof of them doing well in tournaments I'd love to know, the units I mentioned have all made it to top 4 at a 30+ player tournament in 8th. I played a game against a guy who said they were amazing, but I'm not sure if he played them correctly, he wasn't using it in our particular game and I was kind of zoned out after the game and might simply have not listened well enough to understand whether his tactics were genuine.

At the start of 8th whenthe AL / RG base codex stratagem didn't get nefed into the ground, there indeed were lists of AL rellying on zerker blobs infiltrated forward with icons to just smash things.
It was of course, atmost 50 / 50 but there were these lists.

Nowadays, i'd recommend not really to do it, yeah sure you "can " now again shock A unit in as AL. but tbf, why shock in a melee unit, that can't leave and just dies, when i instead can redeploy a nuit instead, save another unit like obliterators, etc.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nurglitch wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
Sorry, what's "tri-point"?

Surrounding one model with three models so that there are three openings but all openings are smaller than the base of the tri-pointed model. This means that unless the model can move through or over enemy units it cannot be moved, which means its entire unit cannot fall back.

Thank you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So why aren't stuff like Wyches more popular. They prevented stuff from falling back when 8th started.

Wyches were bad, because of beeing rather overpriced for what they offered.

Okay. I think it would have been good to see more mechanics like that sprinkled throughout the game, like on Tyranid Lashwhips and so on.

Nurglitch wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
Sorry, what's "tri-point"?

Surrounding one model with three models so that there are three openings but all openings are smaller than the base of the tri-pointed model. This means that unless the model can move through or over enemy units it cannot be moved, which means its entire unit cannot fall back.

Thank you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So why aren't stuff like Wyches more popular. They prevented stuff from falling back when 8th started.

Wyches are squishy and you can get the same effect without paying the Wych premium with the tri-point trick, Wyches did see some top-level success, I forgot to mention those. Wyches are very squishy, that's their main weakness, I still believe you can make still make them work. The Slaanesh HQ that prevents units from falling back has been very popular in top level play and was found in most Chaos soup lists, I'm not sure if they're run as much any longer.

I was thinking wouldn't Tripoint be intentional, I think it is, it is in a way a buff for models with the fly rule which can just leave combat. It helps those models stand out over models that are just on foot. Just a thought.

 warhead01 wrote:
I was thinking wouldn't Tripoint be intentional, I think it is, it is in a way a buff for models with the fly rule which can just leave combat. It helps those models stand out over models that are just on foot. Just a thought.

GW possibly didn't even see the option of piling/consolidating into units you didn't charge, I doubt they saw it coming, before the launch of 8th they said melee hadn't really changed. GW said they didn't see using two flamer Stratagems on the same unit in the same turn coming, I don't know what they actually see coming, except things that aren't coming because it's illegal within their ruleset like charging out of a vehicle after it has moved.

I don't know if it's intentional or not, but it's pretty lame that (unlike shooting units) assault units want to NOT kill too much stuff.

Tripoint is one of the worst 40K mechanics ever, imo. Brought about by the equally terrible fall back mechanic.

Yeah, it's stupid and gimmicky. 8th edition was supposed to simplify things, not make the outcome of assaults rely 100% on an intricate positioning game, where one model being placed half an inch in one direction or the other regularly determines the outcome of games for no reason that makes any kind of sense.


But it's compensating for an even stupider design mechanic. Whoever thought it was a good idea to let units just fall back from melee with no penalty beyond being unable to shoot and charge themselves (unless they have one of the now very common rules that allows you to do one or both of those things anyway) must have been smoking some good stuff at the time.

The whole paradigm has just led to this almost unbearably lame arms race between combat mobility and gunline lethality, which is why we have ended up in this terrible spot where armies get tabled in two turns.

 ultimentra wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
In a recent game against melee-focused World Eaters, I shot the entire army off the board in two turns without even trying. With orks. Rhinos with champions, zerkers and apostles were the first things to go.

If you can't shoot or have some way to not get shot, you are worthless.

So what you're saying is, you took a competitively optimized shooting ork list against some poor sod playing World Eaters? And do you feel good about that life choice? LMAO

No, I took an ork army with a gorkanaut, one of each buggy, a big unit of koptas, two deff dreads, a large unit of warbikers, da red gobbo and one of each generic HQ in the book. And I deployed everything on the table, with no use of the tellyporta and nothing to da jump besides minimal units of gretchin. He also got first turn and plenty of T1 charges on the gretchin.
Try again!

 Jidmah wrote:

 ultimentra wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
In a recent game against melee-focused World Eaters, I shot the entire army off the board in two turns without even trying. With orks. Rhinos with champions, zerkers and apostles were the first things to go.

If you can't shoot or have some way to not get shot, you are worthless.

So what you're saying is, you took a competitively optimized shooting ork list against some poor sod playing World Eaters? And do you feel good about that life choice? LMAO

No, I took an ork army with a gorkanaut, one of each buggy, a big unit of koptas, two deff dreads, a large unit of warbikers, da red gobbo and one of each generic HQ in the book. And I deployed everything on the table, with no use of the tellyporta and nothing to da jump besides minimal units of gretchin. He also got first turn and plenty of T1 charges on the gretchin.
Try again!

Frankly WE, even with the F&F improvent just suck.
Berzerkers in them are a trapo choice, even more expensive then regular marines.
The termites will half the time NOT get a charge off so that CP spent for improving them is wasted half the time.
No psykers also heavy weight around a noose around their necks..

yukishiro1 wrote:
Yeah, it's stupid and gimmicky. 8th edition was supposed to simplify things, not make the outcome of assaults rely 100% on an intricate positioning game, where one model being placed half an inch in one direction or the other regularly determines the outcome of games for no reason that makes any kind of sense.


But it's compensating for an even stupider design mechanic. Whoever thought it was a good idea to let units just fall back from melee with no penalty beyond being unable to shoot and charge themselves (unless they have one of the now very common rules that allows you to do one or both of those things anyway) must have been smoking some good stuff at the time.

The whole paradigm has just led to this almost unbearably lame arms race between combat mobility and gunline lethality, which is why we have ended up in this terrible spot where armies get tabled in two turns.

I predicted this phenomenon due to my experience with 2nd ed. This is really just 2nd ed redux in many ways. The gak GW had to do to marines should have been a red flag. And they still die way too fast.

WE are terrible because they're a melee army focused at being good *in* melee instead of being good at getting *into* melee. They perfectly illustrate the problems with the way the mechanics work right now. It almost doesn't matter how good you are in melee right now, it's all about being able to get there and then survive by trapping. In fact to a large extent you don't *want* to be too good *in* melee, it will just get you killed.

You know something is deeply wrong with a game's rules when people are deliberately not using their weapons in close combat because the only way to win is *not* to kill the enemy.

I take it one step further. I'll charge with DC, but only put a single DC within 1". That way, only one guy fights. But I lose my BA chapter tactic when I do this. I want to take a shower every time I do this.

Nurglitch wrote:
Okay. I think it would have been good to see more mechanics like that sprinkled throughout the game, like on Tyranid Lashwhips and so on.

In the end they did.

In PA there is a stratagem which allows the tentaclefex to stop people from falling back.

Spoletta wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
Okay. I think it would have been good to see more mechanics like that sprinkled throughout the game, like on Tyranid Lashwhips and so on.

In the end they did.

In PA there is a stratagem which allows the tentaclefex to stop people from falling back.

I saw that, but first turn deep-strikes are still out for competitive play, and Toxicrenes are a liability. I would have preferred to see it as wargear rather than a highly situational strategems like most Tyranid strategems. As people are saying, being able to safely murder people in close combat is pointless if you can't get close enough fast enough.

yukishiro1 wrote:
WE are terrible because they're a melee army focused at being good *in* melee instead of being good at getting *into* melee. They perfectly illustrate the problems with the way the mechanics work right now. It almost doesn't matter how good you are in melee right now, it's all about being able to get there and then survive by trapping. In fact to a large extent you don't *want* to be too good *in* melee, it will just get you killed.

This. Any WE model will pretty much tear you in half once it reaches combat. But almost none of them do reach combat, and the few that do can be shot off the board by falling back.

 Jidmah wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
WE are terrible because they're a melee army focused at being good *in* melee instead of being good at getting *into* melee. They perfectly illustrate the problems with the way the mechanics work right now. It almost doesn't matter how good you are in melee right now, it's all about being able to get there and then survive by trapping. In fact to a large extent you don't *want* to be too good *in* melee, it will just get you killed.

This. Any WE model will pretty much tear you in half once it reaches combat. But almost none of them do reach combat, and the few that do can be shot off the board by falling back.

Although not fluffy, I can this might be solved by adding Slaneesh Daemon detachments in. Slaneesh can comfortably make a Turn 1 charge in most of the deployment type and have hundreds of method to not allowing opponents to call back. This will buy time for your Khorne worship marines to move in for the kill. So now it is time for most of the shooting army except Tau or Eldar that will get tabled without doing much

In my game we were using the open war cards and we had the deployment with the deployment zones touching each other (no no-mans land) and the twist +2" movement, +1" advance and +1" charge range.
In turn one, a daemon prince with a daemon weapon, two helbrutes, a mauler fiend, a defiler, one unit of zerkers and three spawns successfully charged, and boy did they collect gretchin skulls for the skull throne. 43 gretchin annihilated in the fight phase, and another 11 followed in the moral phase!
The remaining seven gretchin fell back in my turn and almost everything listed above died.

The game literally couldn't have been set up any better for World Eaters and they still were tabled by a casual fun list, because three rows of gretchin are impossible to get across, even if you fight thrice.

Screens of chaff and fallback mechanics are too powerfull.
Vice versa scenario is also easily possible.
And shooting now requireing no Priorität anymore makes it just superior glatt out.

Yeah screens make combat armies without fly useless, and even ones with fly have a really hard time if you screen competently.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Yeah screens make combat armies without fly useless, and even ones with fly have a really hard time if you screen competently.

I keep trying to explain this to people, but too much theorycrafting imo.

Well, I guess I should amend that a bit: it makes combat armies without good screen clearing abilities useless. Combat can still work, but you need a strong shooting component that can clear out the chaff before your combat units come in.

 Jidmah wrote:
In my game we were using the open war cards and we had the deployment with the deployment zones touching each other (no no-mans land) and the twist +2" movement, +1" advance and +1" charge range.
In turn one, a daemon prince with a daemon weapon, two helbrutes, a mauler fiend, a defiler, one unit of zerkers and three spawns successfully charged, and boy did they collect gretchin skulls for the skull throne. 43 gretchin annihilated in the fight phase, and another 11 followed in the moral phase!
The remaining seven gretchin fell back in my turn and almost everything listed above died.

The game literally couldn't have been set up any better for World Eaters and they still were tabled by a casual fun list, because three rows of gretchin are impossible to get across, even if you fight thrice.

This is why you don't go all-in on melee. A 'melee' army in current 40k is probably, at most, 25% of your list being good in close combat, you need shooting to clear screens or else tricks to bypass them.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
In my game we were using the open war cards and we had the deployment with the deployment zones touching each other (no no-mans land) and the twist +2" movement, +1" advance and +1" charge range.
In turn one, a daemon prince with a daemon weapon, two helbrutes, a mauler fiend, a defiler, one unit of zerkers and three spawns successfully charged, and boy did they collect gretchin skulls for the skull throne. 43 gretchin annihilated in the fight phase, and another 11 followed in the moral phase!
The remaining seven gretchin fell back in my turn and almost everything listed above died.

The game literally couldn't have been set up any better for World Eaters and they still were tabled by a casual fun list, because three rows of gretchin are impossible to get across, even if you fight thrice.

This is why you don't go all-in on melee. A 'melee' army in current 40k is probably, at most, 25% of your list being good in close combat, you need shooting to clear screens or else tricks to bypass them.

That basically makes the BA chapter tactic garbage.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
This is why you don't go all-in on melee. A 'melee' army in current 40k is probably, at most, 25% of your list being good in close combat, you need shooting to clear screens or else tricks to bypass them.

In other words, there are no good assault armies, which is exactly my point.

An army that only uses 25% assault units is not an assault army. That's combined arms with a focus on shooting.

Martel732 wrote:That basically makes the BA chapter tactic garbage.

Yet people still do well with them even at very competitive tournaments. Maybe you're just bad at the game and either building or playing your lists wrong...

Jidmah wrote:In other words, there are no good assault armies, which is exactly my point.

An army that only uses 25% assault units is not an assault army. That's combined arms with a focus on shooting.

Is the list below an assault list?



It has 453 points devoted to either melee units or units purely devoted to getting a melee unit into combat. Dark Angels have no dedicated melee option as a troop choice and to get two battalions I have to spend a minimum of 330 points on scouts, my list spends 425 points to get more effective objective holding options. Then there are the RWBKs which are shooting units but which can, due to their Corvus hammers hold their own in melee, are they a melee unit?

There are a number of competitive armies that can put a majority of their points into combat-focused units. But you really do need shooting to clear screens. I guess maybe GSC or Harlequins come closest to having the tools to succeed without using shooting to clear screens, but mono quins isn't particularly competitive and even GSC these days seems to work a lot better with a strong neophyte spam shooting portion.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Is the list below an assault list?

Are you serious? That's literally one assault unit plus support characters.

And no, those silly hammers don't make raven wing knights an assault unit.

"Yet people still do well with them even at very competitive tournaments. Maybe you're just bad at the game and either building or playing your lists wrong..."

Doesn't make the chapter tactic not garbage. BA community is very split on how to play, btw.

+1 to wound and bonus to charge rolls is such a good tactic that even if applied only to part of the list, still makes it quite good.

Can you imagine how OP that tactic would be if it was a shooting tactic? +1 to wound and i guess +3" range on shooting?

It is a tactic which would be much more powerful than any other marine trait (yes, even IH traits), so it is limited by the fact that it only applies to a part of the army and not all of it. It would be seriously OP otherwise.

This doesn't make it garbage, it just doesn't make it OP. This is demonstrated by the fact that BA are doing really well at the moment.

Spoletta wrote:
+1 to wound and bonus to charge rolls is such a good tactic that even if applied only to part of the list, still makes it quite good.

Can you imagine how OP that tactic would be if it was a shooting tactic? +1 to wound and i guess +3" range on shooting?

It is a tactic which would be much more powerful than any other marine trait (yes, even IH traits), so it is limited by the fact that it only applies to a part of the army and not all of it. It would be seriously OP otherwise.

This doesn't make it garbage, it just doesn't make it OP. This is demonstrated by the fact that BA are doing really well at the moment.

LOL Blood Angels doing well, good one

Range 0 is the kiss of death in 8th ed. A lot of BA victories have nothing to do with the trait and everything with critical tricorners.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:
+1 to wound and bonus to charge rolls is such a good tactic that even if applied only to part of the list, still makes it quite good.

Can you imagine how OP that tactic would be if it was a shooting tactic? +1 to wound and i guess +3" range on shooting?

It is a tactic which would be much more powerful than any other marine trait (yes, even IH traits), so it is limited by the fact that it only applies to a part of the army and not all of it. It would be seriously OP otherwise.

This doesn't make it garbage, it just doesn't make it OP. This is demonstrated by the fact that BA are doing really well at the moment.

Yeah, those two surviving marines that stagger up to the gunline are sure gonna tear it up with their +1 to wound. Never mind the fact that you don't WANT to kill when you need to tricorner.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BA currently sit at 52% after all the crap they gave us. That's actually about right for a decent army, but I think its spite of the terrible chapter tactic, not because of it. It's a derivative of all the crap they gave marines in general.

Martel732 wrote:
Range 0 is the kiss of death in 8th ed. A lot of BA victories have nothing to do with the trait and everything with critical tricorners.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:
+1 to wound and bonus to charge rolls is such a good tactic that even if applied only to part of the list, still makes it quite good.

Can you imagine how OP that tactic would be if it was a shooting tactic? +1 to wound and i guess +3" range on shooting?

It is a tactic which would be much more powerful than any other marine trait (yes, even IH traits), so it is limited by the fact that it only applies to a part of the army and not all of it. It would be seriously OP otherwise.

This doesn't make it garbage, it just doesn't make it OP. This is demonstrated by the fact that BA are doing really well at the moment.

Yeah, those two surviving marines that stagger up to the gunline are sure gonna tear it up with their +1 to wound. Never mind the fact that you don't WANT to kill when you need to tricorner.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BA currently sit at 52% after all the crap they gave us. That's actually about right for a decent army, but I think its spite of the terrible chapter tactic, not because of it. It's a derivative of all the crap they gave marines in general.

Lol sure, they are good despite the chapter trait being bed, yet they are one of the best marine factions at the moment. Have you read that same data you are using for your argument?

Right now there are ravenguards at the top of the marine curve, then there are IH and BA at pretty much the same win rate, and then everyone else. Your decent results means being tied or almost tied for second place?
So please explain me how that 52% is a derivative of marine goodness mitigated by a bad chapter tactic, if BA are at the top of the marine meta? If your chapter tactic is bad, why are you tied in results with the marine faction with the best chapter trait?

And that's ITC data, where BA storically suffers.

I don't know, but it's not likely because of a range 0 chapter tactic that is turned off by cheap models. In practice, it's a garbage chapter tactic because assault is a joke no matter how many attacks they stack on marines. I've read many of the battle reports for BA and the chapter tactic is rarely useful. It's flabbergasting that they aren't the bottom marines. Give it time. The results truly don't make sense given how much better shooting is in the game. IF should be far more effective than BA.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Martel732 wrote:That basically makes the BA chapter tactic garbage.

Yet people still do well with them even at very competitive tournaments. Maybe you're just bad at the game and either building or playing your lists wrong...

Jidmah wrote:In other words, there are no good assault armies, which is exactly my point.

An army that only uses 25% assault units is not an assault army. That's combined arms with a focus on shooting.

Is the list below an assault list?

Spoiler:

-HQ-

Ravenwing Talonmaster - 188 pts.

Master w/ Jump Pack, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield - 143 pts.

-Troops-

Infiltrator Squad w/ Helix Adept - 120 pts.

Scouts w/ Camo Cloaks - 70 pts.

Scouts w/ Camo Cloaks - 70 pts.

+++Battalion - 1,409 pts. +5 CP, -1 CP for Attack Squadron+++

-HQ-

Ravenwing Talonmaster - 188 pts.

Sammael in Sableclaw - 200 pts.

-Troops-

Scouts - 55 pts.

Scouts - 55 pts.

Scouts - 55 pts.

-Elites-

Deathwing Knights - 175 pts.

Deathwing Ancient w/ Lightning Claws - 75 pts.

Ravenwing Apothecary - 60 pts.

-Fast Attack-

Ravenwing Black Knights x6 - 204 pts.

Ravenwing Black Knights x6 - 204 pts.

Ravenwing Darkshroud - 138 pts.

+++++Total Points 2,000 - 12 CP+++++

It has 453 points devoted to either melee units or units purely devoted to getting a melee unit into combat. Dark Angels have no dedicated melee option as a troop choice and to get two battalions I have to spend a minimum of 330 points on scouts, my list spends 425 points to get more effective objective holding options. Then there are the RWBKs which are shooting units but which can, due to their Corvus hammers hold their own in melee, are they a melee unit?

In a word? No. That's not an assault army.

Agree. That's a shooting/assault hybrid. 2 dedicated ranged threats, 2 dedicated melee and 3 general purpose (assuming that a talonmaster gets the sword, if not there is one more ranged threat).

Fun list, but i don't like the darkshroud in there.

BAs are good because they have points-competitive, decently strong combat infantry with the fly and infantry keywords, meaning you can bypass screens unless the enemy castles up, get T1 charges, and often avoid overwatch by charging from out of LOS. This gives you board control, letting you win on points even if they table you.

The combination of fly and infantry is very powerful on combat units, and BAs are the only faction that really has the tools to fully make use of it.

Spoletta wrote:
Agree. That's a shooting/assault hybrid. 2 dedicated ranged threats, 2 dedicated melee and 3 general purpose (assuming that a talonmaster gets the sword, if not there is one more ranged threat).

Fun list, but i don't like the darkshroud in there.

I've been considering cutting the darkshroud but I also like the idea of it ensuring that my speeder HQs or units on an objective get a nice -1 to hit. It's probably my first cut if the list is struggling.

Good players can negate or at least severely limit fly. I do it all the time in mirror matches. By passing screens is hard when your foes realizes that they can clog up your landing spots, too. T1 charges usually get you a poor return as well. Unless you tricorner.

I personally hope that we will see a 9th edition or at least 8th ed 2.0 this summer because the way the game is set up, melee armies are at an inherent disadvantage.

Now, you can alwaysbuff melee centered units an armies and that is most likely what GW will do if they even try to fix anything, but where does it end?
You can't solve underlying issues of the ruleset with constant power creep.

GW gonna get rid of tricorner I bet.

Martel732 wrote:
Good players can negate or at least severely limit fly. I do it all the time in mirror matches. By passing screens is hard when your foes realizes that they can clog up your landing spots, too. T1 charges usually get you a poor return as well. Unless you tricorner.

So how are those players getting a 52% win rate managing it?

Martel732 wrote:
Good players can negate or at least severely limit fly. I do it all the time in mirror matches. By passing screens is hard when your foes realizes that they can clog up your landing spots, too. T1 charges usually get you a poor return as well. Unless you tricorner.

Well sure, you can...but as I said, that involves castling. Few armies have enough models that they can maintain good board presence while also screening against flying chargers by not leaving any space to land and/or trap. And you can generally only do it for one turn, because after that you're so compressed that your screening unit can't fall back any more because it's pressed up against the unit it's screening, if it's still alive. Meanwhile while you are being pushed into a tighter and tighter castle, the BA player is free-scoring on the rest of the board.

I'm not saying fly cures all the problems with combat armies or that BAs are unbeatable or anything like that. Just that the reason BAs work as well as they do is they have fly and infantry on points-effective combat units, something no other army really has (except Harlequins, and they have too limited a roster to be top-tier competitive run mono). This allows them to mitigate the worst problems with 8th edition melee combat, making them the closest thing to a combat army that actually works in combat. But the fact that to do that they need flying infantry shows you how messed up the game is. They and Harlequins are literally the only factions in the game that have flying infantry (ok, harle is not technically fly, but it's the same thing for combat purposes). You shouldn't need flying infantry to make combat vaguely viable.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Good players can negate or at least severely limit fly. I do it all the time in mirror matches. By passing screens is hard when your foes realizes that they can clog up your landing spots, too. T1 charges usually get you a poor return as well. Unless you tricorner.

So how are those players getting a 52% win rate managing it?

I don't think that's how they are winning. Or their opponents are just making mistakes. I almost never lose to another BA player. Been like that since 3rd ed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Good players can negate or at least severely limit fly. I do it all the time in mirror matches. By passing screens is hard when your foes realizes that they can clog up your landing spots, too. T1 charges usually get you a poor return as well. Unless you tricorner.

Well sure, you can...but as I said, that involves castling. Few armies have enough models that they can maintain good board presence while also screening against flying chargers by not leaving any space to land and/or trap. And you can generally only do it for one turn, because after that you're so compressed that your screening unit can't fall back any more because it's pressed up against the unit it's screening, if it's still alive. Meanwhile while you are being pushed into a tighter and tighter castle, the BA player is free-scoring on the rest of the board.

I'm not saying fly cures all the problems with combat armies or that BAs are unbeatable or anything like that. Just that the reason BAs work as well as they do is they have fly and infantry on points-effective combat units, something no other army really has (except Harlequins, and they have too limited a roster to be top-tier competitive run mono). This allows them to mitigate the worst problems with 8th edition melee combat, making them the closest thing to a combat army that actually works in combat. But the fact that to do that they need flying infantry shows you how messed up the game is. They and Harlequins are literally the only factions in the game that have flying infantry (ok, harle is not technically fly, but it's the same thing for combat purposes). You shouldn't need flying infantry to make combat vaguely viable.

After a turn or two, the BA player is dead. That's the problem. They're still super glass cannons despite having a tremendous number of meaningless melee swings.

I think this is one of those cases where talking back and forth isn't very useful.

Here is an example of high-level competitive players (not Nick Nanavati-level people, but solid tournament players) playing BA vs IH that shows you how BA can succeed against one of the most ridiculous factions the game has ever seen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dQIxqMkvKQ

Now admittedly this game would play out totally differently if BA goes second...but Stephen Box still could have won by playing the board control game instead of going for the alphastrike.

Incidentally this is one of the best competitive battle reports that's ever been posted on youtube. Well worth the watch for anyone interested in competitive play, whether they play BA or not.

The enclosed ruins can't be relied upon imo. Especially with folks insisting on CA missions.

Relying on forlorn fury is pure insanity in my mind.

This report was nausea inducing with all the tricornering. It's such a dumb mechanic.

IH guy needed to space better.

I agree it's a stupid mechanic, but it's how combat works. You can't complain that combat armies aren't viable while ignoring the thing that makes them viable. I obviously agree that combat armies are only viable when you make the most of the rules, including wrap-and-trap...but that's true of any army.

IH player makes one significant mistake, at the bottom of turn 2 when he leaves his impulsor close enough to be consolidated into. Game might well have gone differently if that hadn't happened. But the point isn't that BA is unstoppable, just that it actually is a viable combat army that can succeed at a competitive level.

I don't think that's what killed him. I think he was bunched up too much at the start. Spreading out is how you kill BA dead. It short circuits all the fight twice shenanigans. Auras be damned. BA want to crush people in a corner to hog up VP even if they all die. The trick is making the BA kill your cheap crap while blasting their valuables off the table easily.

This video showed me nothing I don't already try to do every game. The IH guy just sat there and let him win in my view.

Probably hating tripointing is affecting my play, though. I've also been physically threatened over the mechanic. From someone who owned firearms.

Well, that's the big question. Would it have been better to go wider in deployment? Maybe, but it would have made it way easier for the BA player to wrap and trap, or even to just bypass the chaff entirely with fly, and it would have totally neutered what makes the list work, the overlapping auras. He's really damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

Which is again what makes BAs work as a combat army in 8th. The point isn't that BA can't be beat, just that they perform competitively against competent players playing top-tier competitive lists like IH.

The way things went illustrates why BA are good right now, though: they are really good against IH and other elite castles, which had been at the top of the meta. It'll be interesting to see how BA fare in the next couple months as the meta likely moves away from the builds BA are best against. A list like that would probably struggle hard against something like GSC.