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ERJAK wrote:
If you're doing assault right you should be having 3-4 units hitting their lines at the same time, piling into several more units.

This. It becomes much harder to shoot you off the table when there's a lot of yous to shoots ats.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Question in the title.

Maybe this is just venting, but just like I expected, I am getting quite frustrated by the fall back rules.

It's just venting.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Potentially, the ENTIRE guard codex (infantry units & get back in the fight orders).

You do realize that leaves the tanks and other armored vehicles, right? . Whose shooting is the heart of the AM's firepower.

And you do realize that the AM have to have officers to give those orders, and that the Company Commander can order 2 units while Lieutenant's can order one unit, right? So that it's basically impossible for all the infantry units in an army to get that fall back and shoot order in the same turn?

Please, just stop.

I do believe the fall back rules are a bit too lenient on the guys falling back, yes. After trying several lists, any melee unit that doesn't hit like an absolute truck looks worthless to me now. Bland assault marines for example. They were traditionally used to pester shooty units long enough for the other heavier units to do work. Now they just get walked away from after dropping a guy or two then murdered.

My new test for if a melee unit goes in a list is "will you absolutely destroy whatever you make it to?" If the answer is no, it's shelved.

Consequently I've started playing shootier lists, and on the other side of the coin, whenever someone assaults and I just waltz away from them, it feels OP as hell.

I think maybe it should have been a roll off with a +1 to your roll if you have the FLY keyword.

It seems overpowered. But then again I play Orks and play against Eldar/Ynnari and Ultramarines mainly. So it's not like they suffer the negative when falling back (or rather advancing forward if they're space elves).

 niv-mizzet wrote:
I do believe the fall back rules are a bit too lenient on the guys falling back, yes. After trying several lists, any melee unit that doesn't hit like an absolute truck looks worthless to me now. Bland assault marines for example. They were traditionally used to pester shooty units long enough for the other heavier units to do work. Now they just get walked away from after dropping a guy or two then murdered.

My new test for if a melee unit goes in a list is "will you absolutely destroy whatever you make it to?" If the answer is no, it's shelved.

Consequently I've started playing shootier lists, and on the other side of the coin, whenever someone assaults and I just waltz away from them, it feels OP as hell.

How is that going to solve your issues with 8th edition? OK, lets say your uberunit just slaughtered my single unit of guardsmen. Congratulations, you've just invested about 300-500 points into a unit that's able to kill ONE 50 points unit per turn. Your unit is now out in the open. "You'll never guess what happened next!"

What I noticed is that people still don't get how incredibly useful multicharge is now. You are not losing a bonus attack anymore, you trade addition overwatch (YOU pick which model dies IF they manage to kill something) for the ability to force multiple units into fallback.
That Assault Marine squad shouldn't try to wipe out a unit - it should try to force as many units as possible into combat so that your terminator squad can charge through next turn. The game isn't effectively over now once you reach the enemy lines even though you're a melee list and the defender is a gunline list, and that's great. watching your army get torn apart without ANY chance to strike back wasn't fun at all in 7th.

I think perhaps the unit falling back should risk taking mortal wounds, but otherwise I like the mechanic.

- I like that there's finally a reason to want to win combat - since you can no longer rely on being immune to shooting if you're still in combat on the enemy turn.

- I like that shooty units don't just keep fighting in melee when it makes no sense whatsoever.

- I like that units being in combat doesn't prevent me from shooting them (well, technically it does, but I can now have those units fall back).


The current rules aren't perfect but I think they're a definite improvement on 7th.

nekooni wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
I do believe the fall back rules are a bit too lenient on the guys falling back, yes. After trying several lists, any melee unit that doesn't hit like an absolute truck looks worthless to me now. Bland assault marines for example. They were traditionally used to pester shooty units long enough for the other heavier units to do work. Now they just get walked away from after dropping a guy or two then murdered.

My new test for if a melee unit goes in a list is "will you absolutely destroy whatever you make it to?" If the answer is no, it's shelved.

Consequently I've started playing shootier lists, and on the other side of the coin, whenever someone assaults and I just waltz away from them, it feels OP as hell.

How is that going to solve your issues with 8th edition? OK, lets say your uberunit just slaughtered my single unit of guardsmen. Congratulations, you've just invested about 300-500 points into a unit that's able to kill ONE 50 points unit per turn. Your unit is now out in the open. "You'll never guess what happened next!"

What I noticed is that people still don't get how incredibly useful multicharge is now. You are not losing a bonus attack anymore, you trade addition overwatch (YOU pick which model dies IF they manage to kill something) for the ability to force multiple units into fallback.
That Assault Marine squad shouldn't try to wipe out a unit - it should try to force as many units as possible into combat so that your terminator squad can charge through next turn. The game isn't effectively over now once you reach the enemy lines even though you're a melee list and the defender is a gunline list, and that's great. watching your army get torn apart without ANY chance to strike back wasn't fun at all in 7th.

I wouldn't charge a unit of guardsmen. I'd shoot it out of the way and let the good unit pass by. Use the right tool for the right target. The problem with those cheap melee units armed with combat pillows is that the right target for them doesn't tend to be in the opponent's army.

And you're not telling me anything new with multicharge. I think I've multicharged more than regular charged since the edition started.

Like I said, when I'm playing shooty lists, me walking away from combat with no penalty and no chance of failure feels OP. When I'm running assault forces in the list, them walking away from combat with no penalty and no chance of failure feels OP. After all the shenanigans needed to get to combat in the first place and the damage you take on the way there, dropping a few putzes out of the unit only to watch the special weapons walk away feels like a slap in the face.

I'll add that when I've run shooty lists, I haven't lost to a list that involved any significant (25% or more) amount of melee elements. I haven't even had a close game against them. Complete blowouts. Had close games against other shooting lists though.

I think Fall-Back is fine. It's a really powerful tactical ability that adds a dynamism back to close combat.

However, I think some of the ways to mitigate the draw backs of Fall-Back might be too prevalent and powerful.

Also watched a game the other day of crons v. daemons. The cron list, he made sure every unit had fly. Destroyers, tomb blades, praetorians, doom scythes...it wasn't even a game. Two different times the necrons started their turn with all or almost all of their units in melee...and just all chillax walked backwards and mowed down more dudes while their own guys got back up.

 rollawaythestone wrote:
I think Fall-Back is fine. It's a really powerful tactical ability that adds a dynamism back to close combat.

However, I think some of the ways to mitigate the draw backs of Fall-Back might be too prevalent and powerful.

I generally agree. I mean, I get that it's a viable tool in the toolbox, but the fact that anything can do it guaranteed and free, and that many can do it with little to no penalties really makes it broken to me.

So, I'm perfectly fine with it existing as a mechanic, but I still feel as if its current state is really favoring shooting armies.

 rollawaythestone wrote:
I think Fall-Back is fine. It's a really powerful tactical ability that adds a dynamism back to close combat.

However, I think some of the ways to mitigate the draw backs of Fall-Back might be too prevalent and powerful.

This. I'm not saying fall back is a bad mechanic, but no-penalty fall back is really easy to get and instantly shelves the softer assault units that aren't just going to put them 6 feet under when they connect.

I think I'd be happy with a free single swing from each model you walk away from.

The fact that charging is still random and the charging unit also has to endure overwatch (sometimes from multiple units) only to have the unit they charge waltz away with zero chance of failure is just silly. It's also not terribly cinematic, the humanitarian chaos lord is a real head-scratcher, why just one edition past there would be a chance for him to mercilessly cut down the whole unit he charged as opposed to simply allowing them to walk/fly away at their leisure and half the time shoot because reasons.

There should be a chance of failure in attempting to disengage a unit from combat. Is that too much to ask of a game where combi-plasmas can destroy a vehicle on overheat?

 Crablezworth wrote:
The fact that charging is still random and the charging unit also has to endure overwatch (sometimes from multiple units) only to have the unit they charge waltz away with zero chance of failure is just silly. It's also not terribly cinematic, the humanitarian chaos lord is a real head-scratcher, why just one edition past there would be a chance for him to mercilessly cut down the whole unit he charged as opposed to simply allowing them to walk/fly away at their leisure and half the time shoot because reasons.

There should be a chance of failure in attempting to disengage a unit from combat. Is that too much to ask of a game where combi-plasmas can destroy a vehicle on overheat?

He's not letting them waltz away, assuming he charges again next turn. The battles we're simulating don't take place on a turn by turn basis, they're real-time, so yes, if a Chaos Lord wants to charge into glorious combat with a bunch of guardsmen, then yes, he's gonna have to chase them a bit.

Admit it, you're not bothered by the fact that the enemy can fall back, you're bothered by the fact that reaching close combat is no longer an automatic win for assault units.

Tylendal wrote:
Admit it, you're not bothered by the fact that the enemy can fall back, you're bothered by the fact that reaching close combat is no longer an automatic win for assault units.

Where the feth have you been for the last 2 editions? Assault wasn't auto win since 4th.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

Tylendal wrote:
Admit it, you're not bothered by the fact that the enemy can fall back, you're bothered by the fact that reaching close combat is no longer an automatic win for assault units.

Where the feth have you been for the last 2 editions? Assault wasn't auto win since 4th.

The fact that, until 8th edition, "Tarpit" was still a relevant word, makes it clear that up until now, CQC was almost always a case of "Two units enter, one unit leaves".

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Fall back needs to go back to a sweeping advance system. Roll off, +1 if you have more movement than the enemy, +1 if you have FLY

Make Wyches have a +1 on top of that.

No. Just, no.

Sweeping advance was the single most unfair rule GW ever came up with.

You want to know what being hit by sweeping advance felt like? Remember what being tabled by IG template spam felt like?

That's what sweeping advance was like for shooty armies. The withdraw move is a wonderful middle-ground. You get to punch us in the face, and we get to shoot you for it. It means that we both get to play the goddamn game, which is what CC, in prior editions, never allowed shooty armies to do.


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Danny slag wrote:

I disagree. You still need to roll a 9 on 2d6, under optimal conditions to first turn charge. So, 1/3rd chance under best circumstances, 2/3rd chance to fail and be expensive cannon fodder.

They really should require some sort of roll to fall back and you lose one guy for every 6+ or something like that. That way it's an actual sacrifice and punishes you for bad positioning instead of punishing melee armies for making it across the field and making that gakky random charge roll.

Sure. But in return, squads you charge can fire overwatch with normal frag grenades at normal WS, since that's...you know...how you'd actually respond to an enemy charging in with melee weapons when you have frag grenades available (no, not "a frag grenade". All the frag grenades). Know what you call a soldier with a bayonet in his chest and a bandoleer full of frag grenades? A suicide.

If you're relying on just a 9+ charge and nothing else, you're either not really taking advantage of a first turn charge, or you should have the numbers and/or armor saves to just tough it out.


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 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
*raises hand*

If ultramarines, a fairly generic chapter, are getting this ability, then it would not surprise me that as more codex come out we'll see similar abilities be more prevalent until pretty much every non-pure assault army has access to it. People get up over arms about turn one assault units and assault unit 'wiping units out" but how much overlap is there of that? Kommandoes infiltrating is for tying down back units and if they can't do that I might as well just saying they're choppa boyz to save points.

You need to surround enemies to trap them now. which is annoying,

Not when you're the one being charged.


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nekooni wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
I do believe the fall back rules are a bit too lenient on the guys falling back, yes. After trying several lists, any melee unit that doesn't hit like an absolute truck looks worthless to me now. Bland assault marines for example. They were traditionally used to pester shooty units long enough for the other heavier units to do work. Now they just get walked away from after dropping a guy or two then murdered.

My new test for if a melee unit goes in a list is "will you absolutely destroy whatever you make it to?" If the answer is no, it's shelved.

Consequently I've started playing shootier lists, and on the other side of the coin, whenever someone assaults and I just waltz away from them, it feels OP as hell.

How is that going to solve your issues with 8th edition? OK, lets say your uberunit just slaughtered my single unit of guardsmen. Congratulations, you've just invested about 300-500 points into a unit that's able to kill ONE 50 points unit per turn. Your unit is now out in the open. "You'll never guess what happened next!"

What I noticed is that people still don't get how incredibly useful multicharge is now. You are not losing a bonus attack anymore, you trade addition overwatch (YOU pick which model dies IF they manage to kill something) for the ability to force multiple units into fallback.
That Assault Marine squad shouldn't try to wipe out a unit - it should try to force as many units as possible into combat so that your terminator squad can charge through next turn. The game isn't effectively over now once you reach the enemy lines even though you're a melee list and the defender is a gunline list, and that's great. watching your army get torn apart without ANY chance to strike back wasn't fun at all in 7th.

They're also quite good at flying over enemy units and charging them from behind so that you can pin them in place.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Also watched a game the other day of crons v. daemons. The cron list, he made sure every unit had fly. Destroyers, tomb blades, praetorians, doom scythes...it wasn't even a game. Two different times the necrons started their turn with all or almost all of their units in melee...and just all chillax walked backwards and mowed down more dudes while their own guys got back up.

And everything you just named is hideously expensive so it's not like he didn't pay for being able to do that.

It's almost as if it was a strategy, or something...


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 vipoid wrote:
I think perhaps the unit falling back should risk taking mortal wounds, but otherwise I like the mechanic.

- I like that there's finally a reason to want to win combat - since you can no longer rely on being immune to shooting if you're still in combat on the enemy turn.

- I like that shooty units don't just keep fighting in melee when it makes no sense whatsoever.

- I like that units being in combat doesn't prevent me from shooting them (well, technically it does, but I can now have those units fall back).


The current rules aren't perfect but I think they're a definite improvement on 7th.

While I'm a huge fan of the fallback move, I do think there is definite room for assault-army-specific ways to mitigate it. What I don't think the game needs are general methods for every army to mitigate CC, considering that some of the armies in the game are very, very shooting-focused.

Should you be heavily punished for withdrawing from melee with Tau Firewarriors? How about Necron Warriors? Imperial Guard Infantry? I think these armies have enough benefits already.

World Eaters? I'd vastly prefer it if they got a way to penalize you from attempting to flee that was unique to them.


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Tylendal wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

Tylendal wrote:
Admit it, you're not bothered by the fact that the enemy can fall back, you're bothered by the fact that reaching close combat is no longer an automatic win for assault units.

Where the feth have you been for the last 2 editions? Assault wasn't auto win since 4th.

The fact that, until 8th edition, "Tarpit" was still a relevant word, makes it clear that up until now, CQC was almost always a case of "Two units enter, one unit leaves".

Lets also not forget that one of the big changes this edition was the removal of deathstars. They were a thing in 7th.

If the game was so one-sided that even glorious rolls couldn't make it close, (seriously he yahtzee'd some disgusting resilience rolls,) then either those units aren't paying enough for the ability, or the ability needs to be toned.

Are you really trying to say that you think they nailed fall back and point costs relevant to it exactly game wide?

Everything I've seen in the game so far has me convinced that fall back is not penalized enough, including playing with it myself on both sides of the line. Sorry but random people posting "nah it's good brah" isn't changing my opinion.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
If the game was so one-sided that even glorious rolls couldn't make it close, (seriously he yahtzee'd some disgusting resilience rolls,) then either those units aren't paying enough for the ability, or the ability needs to be toned.

Are you really trying to say that you think they nailed fall back and point costs relevant to it exactly game wide?

No quote?

Who are you replying to?

Funny, they didn't remove any of the things that made shooting powerful, or make it any more tactical or strategic. Shooting is a braindead as it's always been, and any expectations on intelligent unit use are being front loaded on assault armies.

 Arandmoor wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
If the game was so one-sided that even glorious rolls couldn't make it close, (seriously he yahtzee'd some disgusting resilience rolls,) then either those units aren't paying enough for the ability, or the ability needs to be toned.

Are you really trying to say that you think they nailed fall back and point costs relevant to it exactly game wide?

No quote?

Who are you replying to?

You, I'm on my phone and specific quoting on here out of a big post takes forever to fix up. It was in response to pointing out the extra cost of the fly shooty units, which I believe, against assault elements, the combination of the fall back and fly is giving them a ridiculous advantage not in line with the points.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
I played an IG player who spammed like 300 models, and it was honestly a pretty miserable experience.

In addition to being an absurdly long and boring game, the exact problems I mentioned were a problem. I charged. They overwatched. They fell back. They shot without penalty. Repeat.

Hell, even artillery and vehicles is a pain. I charge it, they're unbelievably resilient, and I get locked in a loop where the vehicle falls back, their entire army shoots me, and I charge it again, and it overwatches again. My first game of 8th it took a unit of 20 boyz 3 separate charges to NOT kill a wyvern.

And as for 'ripping apart', IG units, he was able to form then in blocks, and between that and barely making a 9" charge, I was able to get like half my boyz into effective range. I killed maybe a dozen conscripts, out of 50. They fell back, etc, etc.

Ditto for eldar. I charge their vehicles. They overwatch. They fall back without penalty. They shoot. Repeat. Same thing for their jump MCs, warp spyders, even played a game v. a revenant titan with 6D6 auto hitting shots at range and in overwatch. That wasn't much fun.

Admittedly, I haven't played tau, but I know for firsthand fact it's not fun when facing IG and eldar, and I can extrapolate.

Don't use conscripts as your judge for 40k new rules, they're overpowered right now. AM in general is undercosted and just crapping all over people.


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 John Prins wrote:
Getting an IG player to waste orders on depleted units is a win. The problem you had was that Conscripts are unbalanced cheese at the moment. IG conscript spam is a known issue.

exactly

I suspect part of the problem is AM may HAVE their form of "chapter tactics" already. I'd not be suprised to see when AM gets their new codex if they instead of a blantet tactics set up, instead got differant order lists

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Funny, they didn't remove any of the things that made shooting powerful, or make it any more tactical or strategic. Shooting is a braindead as it's always been, and any expectations on intelligent unit use are being front loaded on assault armies.

This feels true now that I think about it. My shooty lists have largely been winning by just shooting what comes closest. My lists that lean towards assault need coordinated strikes, backfield support, careful positioning of characters, no whiffed charges, and enemy lists that didn't go extreme on fly or speed bump units, and also didn't bother to include any kind of counter-assault unit.

I wonder if an additional consolidation rule if your opponent falls back would help take the sting out of it.

Your opponent can fall back their normal movement, and you can consolidate D6 inches in your opponent's movement phase to represent your units giving chase or re-forming. If your opponent can't get away (because their movement is blocked or a low M characteristic), and you manage to get back within 1", they stay locked in combat for the next round. However, this can't allow you to consolidate into units you're not already in combat with, and can't be used if you're still in combat with at least one unit that's not electing to fall back.

Come to think of it, this feels pretty overpowered, any thoughts?

niv-mizzet wrote:

 Arandmoor wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
If the game was so one-sided that even glorious rolls couldn't make it close, (seriously he yahtzee'd some disgusting resilience rolls,) then either those units aren't paying enough for the ability, or the ability needs to be toned.

Are you really trying to say that you think they nailed fall back and point costs relevant to it exactly game wide?

No quote?

Who are you replying to?

You, I'm on my phone and specific quoting on here out of a big post takes forever to fix up. It was in response to pointing out the extra cost of the fly shooty units, which I believe, against assault elements, the combination of the fall back and fly is giving them a ridiculous advantage not in line with the points.

Those units are hideously expensive, and his army will fold to almost anything that is NOT an assault army.

niv-mizzet wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Funny, they didn't remove any of the things that made shooting powerful, or make it any more tactical or strategic. Shooting is a braindead as it's always been, and any expectations on intelligent unit use are being front loaded on assault armies.

This feels true now that I think about it. My shooty lists have largely been winning by just shooting what comes closest. My lists that lean towards assault need coordinated strikes, backfield support, careful positioning of characters, no whiffed charges, and enemy lists that didn't go extreme on fly or speed bump units, and also didn't bother to include any kind of counter-assault unit.

They removed templates. If you think shooting is bad now, I have to wonder what you thought about previous editions. Large blast weapons and flamers got absolutely neutered in this edition. Flamers auto-hitting makes up for it as far as they are concerned, but everything else just took it in the chin. Especially against horde armies. I've personally seen a battlecannon kill 20+ gaunts with one shot before (to be fair, the player fielded over 120 of the damn things at 1850).

I'm ok with the idea of falling back out of combat myself. The way it works is, like so much of AoS/8th, rather immersion breaking but whatever.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Funny, they didn't remove any of the things that made shooting powerful, or make it any more tactical or strategic. Shooting is a braindead as it's always been, and any expectations on intelligent unit use are being front loaded on assault armies.

This feels true now that I think about it. My shooty lists have largely been winning by just shooting what comes closest. My lists that lean towards assault need coordinated strikes, backfield support, careful positioning of characters, no whiffed charges, and enemy lists that didn't go extreme on fly or speed bump units, and also didn't bother to include any kind of counter-assault unit.

THIS

Pretty much every army that wants to get in to assault can now get in to it on the first turn, and yet you're complaining that you aren't allowed to literally table your opponents every game by having your close combat specialists be invulnerable forever?

Pretty much every army that wants to blows gak up down range can do it from first turn, and yet you're complaining that you aren't allowed to literally table your opponents every game by reducing half their army to sub-atomic ash before they can even touch you, and then be able to continue do that even after units have done the effort to get across the table to even start hurting you?

As a guard player whome came through 6th and 7th "lolz deepstrike" and "Assault lovin" hell I can honestly say that these are much needed rules. I need to be able to shoot you to do anything, and being able to disengage means that I no longer have to worry about my entire army being locked in close combat. Especially given how easy assaulting has become in 8th.

You want a hard time? Play Guard in 4th and watch as assault units role up your line, consolidating into combat after combat. Or Infinity, and try running your mary sue CC monster across the board when the enemy can shoot you back. you still have it relatively easy, dont complain.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Pretty much every army that wants to blows gak up down range can do it from first turn

It's a lot easier to mitigate shooting damage the entire game, than it is to mitigate Fight phase damage after a charge. For example, cover.