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Steelmage99 wrote:One thing to consider is also the desired effect of dealing less wounds in CC and in exchange dealing shooting wounds before the charge.

What the hell is he on about, you think.

I believe the trick in 5th edition is to lose the first round of CC by a small margin. This can be done by a bit of on the fly mathhammer (as Orks almost allways hit last) as we get to see how many casualties are inflicted on us before we remove said casualties. This we do in order to get a second round of CC instead of being rapid fired to Gork and back. The wounds dealt in the shooting phase doesn't count towards the CC resolution (naturally), thus allowing us to thin out the opposition without having to win by a large margin.

This is ofcause limited by the opponents ability to remove shooting casualties and denying the charge, and the rumoured SM Combat Tactics. All in all, it is situational.

Remember also, that the relative killing power of sluggas increases over shootas after the first round. In the first round the additional attack you get from attack reduces the relative advantage of sluggas, as it’s 4 attacks compared to 3. In the next round of combat, when you really want to win, you’re looking at 3 attacks compared to 2, a more significant advantage.

But that's not always going to be a significant advantage, and in many cases the ability to kill a few enemy troops with shooting before you assault is going to be more valuable. It is, as you say, situational.

Something else to consider -- if the current SM codex rumors hold true, SMs will get the Chaos treatment for standard gear. In effect, the standard MEQ will get twice as many attacks when charged...

Also consider that every shoota in a unit can fire at a unit. However, not every boy in a 30 strong mob is going to be engaged with a 5-10 man marines squad unless the marines deployed in a very spread out line, or the orks started their assault very close to the marines or in extremely close line formation. 2" engagement means orks in the 4th row are out of luck. Consider the following:

OOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOO
MMMMMMMMMM

That is pretty much the only way to get full engagement for orks: lining up in a WHFB style formation before or after the charge. Now, if you are doing it before, you are taking scary damage from blast weapons. If after, you are losing movement distance to moving from a spread out formation to a tight formation. If the marines are more clever, they will adopt a 2-3 line approach, limiting which orks can make it in, as they can get engaged without offering more frontage for orks to be in base to base. Such as:

OOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOO
MMM
MMMM
MMM

Every marine is engaged, but perhaps only 14-18 orks make it in.

Now, these obviously are not ideal charts, but you get the idea of what I am talking about. Getting sluggas their full attacks in the first round of combat is not easy. Getting shootas all their shooting attacks before charging is.

In that bottom diagram, the marines which are not in BtB must move 6" to get into BtB with the Orks. This would mean most of the Orks will be engaged in combat.

So even if they are engaged, they have to try and move into base to base? What if they can not make base, but can make engagement, do they still move?
I ask because currently for Pile In, if a model is engaged, it doesn't have to try and be in base to base. Just curious as to how this applies in the new rules.

Yes. After the assualter brings as many into btb and engagement (w/i 2") as possible, the assualtee also has to move up guys until everyone is in either btb or engaged.

CC should be short, bloody and over quickly. And then the winner should be shot to death the following turn...

Ahh, but is it BtB or Engaged, or BtB when possible, and only then Engaged?
If the former, one could have one man in BtB with lots more engaged, leaving fewer total models of the enemy engaged.

As stated multiple times already, it's Base to Base. All models not in Base to Base must move. They must attempt to get into BtB contact (which all models in the lower diagram above will be able to do) with enemy models not already in BtB. Barring that they must move into BtB contact with any enemy models at all. Barring that it must move into engagement.

Thank you, Democratus. It is good to finaly get it confirmed. Like Wehrkind I have been trying to learn the new wording.

(This is all assuming that you are indeed quoting from the 5th edition )