New Player Question: Are CC Armies Viable?

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**AlmightyWalrus**

EVIL INC wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
What edition would that be, just out of curiosity?

Read through the older rules sets and see for yourself if you were not around for them. However, that is off topic as we are talking about THIS edition.

It's not off-topic because it lets us make arguments from the changes since the editions. For example, in 5th edition (the most recent one) shooting dominated, but melee was still good. You could play a multitude of majority-melee armies and still have a decent chance, even if it wasn't as strong as shooting.

Then 6th edition happened:

Spoiler:

Ailaros wrote:

RELATIVE BUFFS FOR SHOOTING

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

- You can no longer run and assault with Fleet.

- Grenades got nerfed for assaulting through terrain.

- Assault grenades no longer hurt vehicles.

- Overwatch

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

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

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

- Multi-charges were nerfed

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

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

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

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

- Some random objectives half your assault range

- Furious Charge got nerfed

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

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

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

- Addition of focus fire

- Addition of Precise Shot.

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

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

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

- grenades can now be thrown.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- barrage weapons may now fire within their minimum ranges.

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

- artillery units got MUCH more survivable.

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

- vehicles can shoot all weapons at cruising speed.

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

RELATIVE BUFFS FOR ASSAULT

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

- hammer of wrath.

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

- rage rule change

- gets hot now affects those rare vehicles that have it

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

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

6th ed is a shooting edition. End of.

And that's just the changes in 6th ed. 5th ed also whacked assaulty armies a lot, what with the introduction of real transports acting as automatic speedbump, the lack of consolidating from one close combat into another, etc.

One could make the argument that close combat was overpowered in 4th edition, but assault needed in that case to be toned down a bit, not had its manhood chopped off with a pair of rusty pliers and being forced to watch romantic comedies.

**grrrfranky**

Third edition was probably the last edition where assault really was king, so not for quite a while now.

Evil, if you are going to reference past editions by saying that assault was better, you can't then turn around and say that it's off topic to talk about them.

**Jancoran**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

I'm going to keep being grumpy, but if he's paying for Asurmen he's not playing an optimal list. 200+ points for an Infantry beatstick in an army with no delivery options other than either walking or waiting until at earliest turn 3 is... well, bad.

I really cant agree. Asurman is a bad ass beat stick. And who cares if he doesn't strike til turn 3? Trust me, turns 3,4,5,6 and 7 are no fun for the enemy once he's involved. Also, I'm an assault army, so I was coming for him. Obviously his need for a transport is pretty much nil when that happens.

You gotta keep things in perspective. I am never disappointed in the production Asurman brings. he's so undeerrated.

**RancidHate**

Yes CC armies are still viable. There are just less of them due to new rules inside assault, assault from reserve and, assault from NON-assault vehicle rules.

It's just as well, you ever heard "don't bring a knife to a gunfight?"

...of course, even though I don't play Daemons, they really should have better close combat killing potential as befits their nightmarish, unreal nature...

**EVIL INC**

It doesnt matter. Walrus has already conceded the point anyway.

To return to the ACTUAL topic...
To the OP, as you can see, a few posters have taken the thread WAY off topic. You have gtten all the info you need here. CC units canbe usefull in a dark eldar army. I would suggest going to the army list section for advice on details.

**Skyfish**

Tycho wrote:
Lately I've been running a lot of Coven based list and focusing on the CC side of things. I wouldn't say its the most OP list out there but if you can get the Grotesque and HQ's into CC it can be pretty brutal. And on top of that, its really fun.

Here's what I've been running at 1500:

I've been running something similar but with more warriors and fewer Wracks plus a cheaper HQ and additional Grots. How have the Wracks been performing for you?

I've found that DE mobility combined with the fact that almost everyone is loaded onto open topped assault vehicles gives me ways to get into CC a lot more reliably than with my other armies. I still tend to lose my shirt getting there and heaven help me if I'm lined up against a ton of SMS but yeah, it's about the only "CC" list I'm confident in right now (read "confident" as in "sometimes it actually gets into combat ... sometimes ...").

I'd say it does pretty well. We've been running the campaign as kinda "fluffy" so I haven't really been running the list against full Serpent spam and 4 Riptide armies. That said however I don't usually have a problem getting into CC. I usually get to my opponents side of the board with the Grotesques at least turn 1 and then either weather the fire or get assaulted. I terrain is in my favor I can usually launch an assault turn 2 with them. Same for the Wracks. I just focus fire all the venoms until a unit is gone and that usually keeps the venoms alive long enough to deliver them. And like you I often drop a Ravager and a squad of Wracks to up the Warrior squad to a full squad with a Dark Lance and a Raider with Splinter Racks with a 10 man squad just for some more dakka and maybe a 3 man Trueborn squad with 2 Dark Lances. That seems to be a good balance of support fire and CC units to make sure they're delivered safely. Well, relatively safely.

**Jancoran**

Martel732 wrote:
"3. I get to re-roll charge distances with Khorne Raptors. This in no way sucks. So the Marks you use on units is important to their function. With that ability, it's hard to miss even the longer charges. It does happen (and was a source of much sadness as I worked on this list) but not very often. I'll take it. "

Okay. Does this mean you think the Raven Guard chapter tactic has some merit then? Even though the ASM can't benefit from scouting?

RavenGuard are the only Space marine Chapter that interests me. Don't misunderstand that to mean I dont like the other chapters, but none of the other chapters really sound as fun.

As for analysing the tactics, they made a big mistake with RavenGuard. Should have just given the army the darn infiltrate rule instead of stealth. Then they wouldn't have had to worry about Bulky or not Bulky. Its dumb. I mean the Vehicles can scout but the jump packs cant? Its absurd. Land Speeder Storms already come with Scout as do scouts. So the Ravenguard list allows you some silly fun things that dont really "fit"

1. 3 Scouting Vindicators. Yes please. totally out of character and totally awesome.
2. NON Jump pack Assault Squads in Rhinos pushing the field hard.

Now these are not sucky things. I'm not a Hyperbole machine like a lot of posters are. But are they really the essence of Ravenguard? an armoured column? These are the two biggest beneficiaries of the rules when you look around a bit.

So the ideal force for Ravenguard is this essentially:
185pts Shadow Captain Shrike

215pts 10 Assault Marines (Vet w/Grav Pistol+Power Weapon +Meltabomb, 2 x Flamers)
45pts Rhino (HK Missile)

215pts 10 Assault Marines (Vet w/Grav Pistol+Power Weapon +Meltabomb, 2 x Flamers)
45pts Rhino (HK Missile)

215pts 10 Assault Marines (Jump packs. Vet w/Grav Pistol+Power Weapon +Meltabomb, 2 x Flamer)

100pts 5 Scouts (Shotguns, Sgt W/ Powerfist+Grav Pistol)
55pts LandSpeeder Storm (Multimelta)

100pts 5 Scouts (Shotguns, Sgt W/ Powerfist+Grav Pistol)
55pts LandSpeeder Storm (Multimelta)

100pts 5 Scouts (Shotguns, Sgt W/ Powerfist+Grav Pistol)
55pts LandSpeeder Storm (Multimelta)

100pts 5 Scouts (Shotguns, Sgt W/ Powerfist+Grav Pistol)
55pts LandSpeeder Storm (Multimelta)

125pts Vindicator

125pts Vindicator

125pts Vindicator

85 Aegis Defense Line w/ Lascannon

**Martel732**

That list has 4 heavy choices.

**Jancoran**

Tactics? Everything is literally within striking distance in round 1. Everyone piles out and takes cover as they can. We bomb the piss out of things with vindicators and multimeltas, Shotgun fire, HK missiles and so on while Shrike and his "bodyguard" provides the threat the enemy needs to focus on if they want to avoid a nasty charge... which protects the otherwise exposed other units from taking as much damage.

Shrikes bodyguard probably becomes not a body guard anymore as the enemy pummels it. And in round two, you're charging with everything that remains. which is a lot of Marines on you. Anything that excapes the attentions of the Marines gets bombed again by Vindicators if they didn't get popped. Tank shocks for everyone.

It sounds like fun.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
That list has 4 heavy choices.

Add an Aegis Lascannon in there instead.

**EVIL INC**

I found that allies helps different armies cover their weak points. No, I'm not talking about cheesy battle brothers combos, I mean in general. For example, I can use guard manticores, a wall with harker's mob in camo and a lord commissar to provide a lot of the 'covering fire while a different army can provide the up ose and personal stuff like short-midrange shooting and close combat. Whereas a grey knight army might not have much effective barrages, I can let both specialize in what they are BEST at. In a lot of mono armies this isnt as possible. Dont know offhand who Dark eldar can ally with beyond normal eldar but that alone can give some options.

I have a few marine scouts that came in a space wolf set I havnt put together yet. I saw you use shotguns. I had someone telling me how effective shotgun scouts were when mounted on the land speeder troop varient. have you tried that? Did it work well?

**koooaei**

Oh, btw i tried running ig mellee. With good results.

That's the core of the army:

Spoiler:

Tigurius buffs them with 4++ or fnp or both when possible so they're durable.
Inquisitor grants grenades that make them frightening in cc. -1 toughness, random debuff goodness with psychostroke nades. + Prescience or hammerhands if needed. Liber heresius gives a free 6' scoutmove on a ld check of 10 for guards or conscripts.
Krak nades help alot vs mc. Those 30 points are well-worth not stucking in a wraithknight for the whole game.
While guards and conscripts are great shooters combined with orders and prescience - i almost alwayz prefer to charge with guards if possible. But mobility is a huge issue. Generally an enemy outmaneuvres them but a 100-man wave slowly marches towards to victory.
This mass is really fearful in mellee even to such strong cc dedicated units like bikers or mc-s. I had a game where they killed Be'Lakor before he struck blows.

Though, it's mostly possible cause of inquisitor's nades and psychic powers abuse.

**winterman**

Jancoran wrote:

3 Scouting Vindicators. Yes please. totally out of character and totally awesome.

You can't scout the Vindicators. They don't have chapter tactics so cannot benefit from it. Only Iron Hands get an exception to that rule on one of their traits.

**AlmightyWalrus**

EVIL INC wrote:
It doesnt matter. Walrus has already conceded the point anyway.

"It doesn't matter that I made up arguments, I made up some more, so I won!"

**Jancoran**

winterman wrote:
Jancoran wrote:

3 Scouting Vindicators. Yes please. totally out of character and totally awesome.

You can't scout the Vindicators. They don't have chapter tactics so cannot benefit from it. Only Iron Hands get an exception to that rule on one of their traits.

Ah. Loop hole. Okay. Too bad. That would be awesome. Most of the rest of the army would still be cool.