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@Unit1126PLL.
Well GW do not appear to have had any clear direction on 40k game play since 2nd ed.
Its just been about upping the models count and pushing larger more expensive kits into the collections of people who do not really care about rules.

There are 3 basic tactical loadings for war games.

Mobility and close combat are prominent, and shooting is used in a supporting role.(Because low tech ranged weapons are not that effective.)
EG Ancient and Napoleonic type games where large block of troops (Regiments and Brigades) are used in close order to intimidate/assault and out maneuver the enemy.

A cannonade killing 80 men , does not really slow regiment of 2000 men advancing.

Mobility and fire power are prominent ,and close combat is used in a supporting role.
EG Naval battles , where close combat is confined to boarding actions against ships that have been crippled by being out maneuvered and shot to pieces.

Waving cutlasses at a ship 100 yards away is not very effective.

Equal balance of mobility fire power and assault.Where mobility is used to take objectives.Fire power is used to control enemy movement.And assault is used to contest objectives.
EG modern /near sci fi land warfare.

This is where 40k should have been 20 years ago.IMO.But GW corporate do not actually understand or care about actual game design.

@SemperMortis.
If the game play is tactically deep enough , lots of factions can have their own style of play that is different to others.Without having to use special rules of nerfing other factions abilities.
40k has been tactically shallow since 3rd ed.It might have heaped on strategic loading to compensate.But the core game play is too restrictive to cover the expectations of the players.

A more tactically diverse core game play would allow simple rules and much deeper tactical game play considerations.
But GW seems to think its core demographic of collectors can not cope with complex tactical loading.

Melee tends to be pretty lethal when delivered by units designed to do it (partly because unlike shooting, melee units can attack during their opponent's fight phase too). When combined with how melee can essentially force the other player to stop playing the game unless they specifically have a way to get out of it, the mechanics of it seem plenty strong. Universal shoot-and-charge means that any unit with a gun and passable melee stats can crank out three phases of attack dice in a single turn.

The only real "weakness" melee has in 8th is they have to pay overhead for a transport, deep strike, or a high movement stat to get there in the first place.

If we made it too hard or excessively costly to escape it could very easily be overpowered.

 ross-128 wrote:
Melee tends to be pretty lethal when delivered by units designed to do it (partly because unlike shooting, melee units can attack during their opponent's fight phase too). When combined with how melee can essentially force the other player to stop playing the game unless they specifically have a way to get out of it, the mechanics of it seem plenty strong. Universal shoot-and-charge means that any unit with a gun and passable melee stats can crank out three phases of attack dice in a single turn.

The only real "weakness" melee has in 8th is they have to pay overhead for a transport, deep strike, or a high movement stat to get there in the first place.

If we made it too hard or excessively costly to escape it could very easily be overpowered.

You also left off the fact that for 1-3 turns they are doing ZERO damage while they get in range to assault, except for those units with Deep strike and other mechanics which give them a less then 50% chance to reach combat in 1 turn. And if the unit fails it gets eviscerated at close range by the enemy.

(You fix melee by fixing the random nerfs to Attacks count that make many melee units unhelpful. If you want to punish falling back out of combat you may also need to do something about Heldrakes, Warptime, and mass Deep Strike, which make falling back out of combat the only thing keeping some lists alive.)

 ross-128 wrote:
Melee tends to be pretty lethal when delivered by units designed to do it (partly because unlike shooting, melee units can attack during their opponent's fight phase too). When combined with how melee can essentially force the other player to stop playing the game unless they specifically have a way to get out of it, the mechanics of it seem plenty strong. Universal shoot-and-charge means that any unit with a gun and passable melee stats can crank out three phases of attack dice in a single turn.

The only real "weakness" melee has in 8th is they have to pay overhead for a transport, deep strike, or a high movement stat to get there in the first place.

If we made it too hard or excessively costly to escape it could very easily be overpowered.

You only force those players to stop playing the game that deploy all of their units on one stack within the bubble of some buffing characters.
IMO stacking all your units in such a small bubble should be punished by the rules, but templates are gone and so is the problem with melee units charging your whole gunline.

The fall back rule is fine for things like tanks or monstrous creatures where you could shut it the unit down but had no realistic chance to kill it.
The fall back rule should be something like: If this unit didn't suffer any casualties in the fight phase this turn, it may fall back. (+ maybe: If at least one model in this unit has more than one wound and didn't lose any, the unit may fall back and shoot normally this turn.

Even if the units are spread out, if you manage to get your units into melee and I can't disengage does it really matter that most of my army is still unengaged? They can't shoot into melee, at most they can just try to tempt you away by sitting on an objective (if one is available) and making rude gestures.

And if we're both melee armies neither of us is going to do much past the second turn other than wait for the RNG to determine a winner.

If the only units you can shoot are the one or two that are currently engaged in melee, you probably are winning anyway. Otherwise, you move your units in such a manner that when that combat is over, he can't immediatly charge another unit.

If both players have melee armies, neither will fall back with his melee units.

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:

 Haravikk wrote:
I think melee is fine, but I do agree it should be harder to fall back.

The house rule I'm thinking of giving a try is as follows:

• Units may only Fall Back up to D6".
  
• When a unit Falls Back, all enemy units from the same combat may Pursue D6" if they are otherwise unengaged (i.e- no other enemies in the combat).
  
• If a pursuing unit is still in melee range, it counts as having charged again.
  
• Fast Units (Biker, Jump Pack etc.) roll two D6 for Fall Back/Pursue and choose the highest.
  
• Combat specialists (such as Wyches, replacing their current fall back denial rule) can roll two D6 for Pursuit and choose the highest.
  
• Friendly fire protection is extended to 3", preventing shooting at an enemy within this range of an ally. This means that a pursuing unit that falls an inch or two short of a new charge isn't immediately vulnerable. Pistols ignore this rule.

These changes make lone units fleeing from combat very likely to be immediately reengaged and horribly slaughtered, as they should be. This means that the correct way to fall back is to bring in another unit to prevent Pursue moves, and/or to choose the order of your Fall Back moves carefully in multi-unit combats (i.e- fleet with faster units last, since they have a better chance of escaping a secondary charge).


Other options like "melee overwatch" may be a bit simpler, but I feel that this much better represents what's actually supposed to be happening and is more tactical. Unlike "melee overwatch" though it means that units can still flee without penalty if they are backed up by an ally, but I don't think that's a big problem as they will have already suffered a round of combat, and the enemy remains locked in combat where they're safe(-ish) from shooting, plus it gives a legitimate tactical option for getting your vulnerable units away safely.

Question marks are on distance; D6" isn't much, and I was wondering about factoring in movement speed somehow, but this gets difficult when some units have very high movement (e.g- 14" move bikers).

No way do cc units deserve to move ANOTHER d6. They already get move, sometimes advance without penalty, charge, like in, and consolidate. They do not need more free movement. The overwatch thing is way more streamlined to approximate the people of fleeing.

I'm not sure where you're getting that idea from; it's not a free move, they only get to Pursue if a unit they were fighting flees. Best case they move as far as the enemy fled and get back into combat, worst case they stop short in the open. It's not a free move that they can do anything they like with.

I propose this to fix the Fall Back action:

Units that attempt to Fall Back must first make a successful WS roll. All WS modifiers still apply.

Since WS is the melee action attribute, it makes the most sense to use this attribute. Units with poor WS are less likely to successfully disengage from melee than those with high WS. Melee buffs and debuffs to WS make sense in modifying a unit's ability to Fall Back, in this usage. After a successful WS roll, all regular Fall Back rules apply.

Even those with the FLY keyword. Think about it. If a flyer manages to get engaged in melee by a ground unit, that ground unit is going to do everything in it's power to keep the flyer grounded. Imagine ork boys grabbing onto an Inceptor's legs to weight it down, while other orks pound on the marine. If the flyer is good at melee, it can "fight it's way clear". If not, it gets bogged down and slaughtered.

This can also be used to fix the Vehicle Fall Back problem, when surrounded by enemy models. If it can make a successful WS roll, it can Fall Back through enemy units, so long as it can get 1"+ clear. I have never understood how 4 orks could trap an unwounded Leman Russ Battle Tank.

I brought up a similar topic here:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/737359.page

I think it's a combination of factors affecting the overall balance of things right now.

#1 - Transports that perform primarily a transport function are much more expensive now (Trukk, Rhino, Drop Pod, Raider, etc.), which means melee armies have an overhead cost.

#2 - Transports don't leave wrecks that can be used to block line of sight.

#3 - Shooting units can split fire with all their models, eliminating tough choices about who to target with a given unit. This is a MASSIVE force multiplier for shooty armies.

#4 - Random charge range, while statistically comparable or better on average, nevertheless adds tremendous uncertainty to charging and melee.

#5 - Cover saves are no longer invulnerable

#6 - Many melee attacking units have less attacks now (no bonus attack on charge and/or for using any two close combat weapons)

#7 - Overwatch fire added

#8 - Units can freely disengage (fall back) from melee exposing melee troops to counter-fire

#9 - Area terrain no longer blocks line of sight by default when shooting entirely through it, as we now use true line of sight

#10 - Vehicles are less easily destroyed by melee units (more wounds, no damage tables, no weaker rear armor)

#11 - Consolidation moves are not very far, so its hard to get back into cover.

Did I miss anything?

Basically, if you look back over the past many editions, melee has been getting stripped further and further back. 8th edition takes the cake.

FWIW, I don't think Melee units have ever really had a problem getting into melee combat. Whether fast moving on their own, being mounted or on bikes, deep striking, riding transports, infiltration, etc... I don't see the fluctuations in that really changing the overall balance too much.

I think most of the key points on this topic have been hit, but I will add this - in 8th a lot of models got additional wounds, but most average CC models did not get a weapon that deals more than 1 damage.

This combined with less attacks, makes them much weaker.

@Mezmorki.
I agree with the list of factors you posted.

And all the issues you posted were extra rules added to nerf or boost melee or shooting to try to correct the lack of fine tuning allowed by the rushed 3rd ed rules.

Good rule sets have the ability to fine tune individual units by simply modifying the unit stats.Rather than having to add on extra rules .

EG if you want a unit to get into close combat more frequently you can,
Increase their movement rate.

Increase their numbers to make them less likely to be suppressed/pinned by enemy fire.(If simple suppression is used ,fire power does not have to compete directly with melee.)

Increase their Stealth value to make them harder to detect/hit.
etc.

A good war game is a simple simulation of a particular warfare type.
If the war game simplifies /abstracts the resolution but not the results.it is a good rule set.

EG roll a D6 to represent the variables in the resolution, rather than roll a D6 to determine the outcome irrespective of all other factors.

EG
If Attacker Stat +D6 is greater than Defender stat, the attacker is successful.
Rather than,
On a roll of 6 the attack succeeds irrespective of the defenders ability or disposition.

40k 3rd ed abstracted too much of the game play in the drive for simplification.And as a result the fine tuning options were replaced with loads of all or nothing special rules that were counter intuitive, leading the more special rules , and massive rules bloat.

Id bring up the fact that in one of my games at a tournament yesterday I faced a parking lot chaos army and I only won because i forced his vehicles into CC by turn 2. He managed to kill like 2 of my squads and I killed 3 of his vehicles but WTF! lol.

I spent 3 turns in CC with non CC vehicles and only managed a handful of kills. That isn't right.

Vehicles got "tougher" in 8th, but not from shooting, they got tougher from CC, and that is ridiculous.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
(You fix melee by fixing the random nerfs to Attacks count that make many melee units unhelpful. If you want to punish falling back out of combat you may also need to do something about Heldrakes, Warptime, and mass Deep Strike, which make falling back out of combat the only thing keeping some lists alive.)

Agreed. Take Honour Guard as an example; they had four attacks with a banner last edition, so five on the charge. Now they have two. Getting a bolt pistol shot if you're in combat on your own turn is blatantly worse than getting a Power Weapon swing every combat phase.

SemperMortis wrote:
And that isn't even taking into account the special rules armies are getting. Like Ultramarines being immune to the no shooting rule when falling back. Basically CC Needs more bite for CC oriented armies, and one of the ways you do that is to make specialist weapons like PKs and Big Choppas REALLY cheap. It would also help if there was an actual consequence to falling back, like the attacker gets 1 free round of CC against them.

I think this is a fabulous idea. I hate that my opponent can just fall back out of combat and shoot me with no consequence whatsoever. Either a free round of combat or the falling back unit can only hit on 6's the turn it falls back.

Lanrak wrote:
@Mezmorki.
I agree with the list of factors you posted.

And all the issues you posted were extra rules added to nerf or boost melee or shooting to try to correct the lack of fine tuning allowed by the rushed 3rd ed rules.

Good rule sets have the ability to fine tune individual units by simply modifying the unit stats.Rather than having to add on extra rules .

That's true.

But from the standpoint of people willing to house rule their game, it's vastly easier to tweak or add a few overarching rules rather than rework the stats and special abilities of the large number of units in the game.

I started writing up an even bigger list of changes since ~5th edition that has affected the balance in the game. Surprisingly, the point cost for a lot of units really hasn't changed all that much. Take striking scorpions for example. Unit costs are within ~15 points for the whole unit from 5th edition to 8th edition - yet the number of attack that striking scorpions have has been cut in half on the charge. Howling Banshees likewise have half as many attacks and their power weapons no longer out-right negate armor. The used to cost a little more, but their banshee masks guaranteed them a first strike on the charge. Now they are treated no different from other charging units. Similar trends apply across other lists as well.

The one buff to melee (if I'm playing it right) is that units that win in melee can consolidate into other non-engaged units again. Then again, in the large list of changes, that was one that I didn't particularly want back, as the old 4th edition consolidation rules were irritating.

SemperMortis wrote:
Id bring up the fact that in one of my games at a tournament yesterday I faced a parking lot chaos army and I only won because i forced his vehicles into CC by turn 2. He managed to kill like 2 of my squads and I killed 3 of his vehicles but WTF! lol.

I spent 3 turns in CC with non CC vehicles and only managed a handful of kills. That isn't right.

Vehicles got "tougher" in 8th, but not from shooting, they got tougher from CC, and that is ridiculous.

Did your units come equipped with anti-tank weapons?

If not, then expecting to destroy tanks in melee is silly. The Chinese at Chosin Reservoir literally climbed aboard UN tanks, before being swept off by HE and MG fire from other tanks. They just sat there, banging on hatches, trying to break them open (which didn't work, because steel ratchet lock > human strength). They did not stop the retreating convoy, nor did they terribly even inconvenience it (aside from nerves and the expenditure of ammunition).

I'm not sure why you'd think a unit with a bunch of chainsaw swords should easily destroy armoured vehicles in melee.

SemperMortis wrote:
Vehicles got "tougher" in 8th, but not from shooting, they got tougher from CC, and that is ridiculous.

The whole ethos of WH40K feels modeled after WW2 era tactics, and there were plenty of ways for infantry to deal with tanks. In fact, being up close in cramped urban quarters left tanks particularly vulnerable to infantry, who could sneak up and drop sticky bombs on them, use mines, and other tactics.

https://www.quora.com/What-can-infantry-do-against-tanks-without-air-or-artillery-support-Is-infantry-equipped-to-deal-with-tanks-and-if-they-are-what-weapons-and-tactics-are-at-their-disposal

Obviously normal swords aren't going to do much to a tank in WH40k, but bombs/grenades, power fists, chain fists, thunderhammers, etc. should all be a major threat to tanks.

 Mezmorki wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Vehicles got "tougher" in 8th, but not from shooting, they got tougher from CC, and that is ridiculous.

The whole ethos of WH40K feels modeled after WW2 era tactics, and there were plenty of ways for infantry to deal with tanks. In fact, being up close in cramped urban quarters left tanks particularly vulnerable to infantry, who could sneak up and drop sticky bombs on them, use mines, and other tactics.

https://www.quora.com/What-can-infantry-do-against-tanks-without-air-or-artillery-support-Is-infantry-equipped-to-deal-with-tanks-and-if-they-are-what-weapons-and-tactics-are-at-their-disposal

Obviously normal swords aren't going to do much to a tank in WH40k, but bombs/grenades, power fists, chain fists, thunderhammers, etc. should all be a major threat to tanks.

Yes, those are the antitank weapons I was meaning about.

Curiously, an IG squad, for example, has none of those, while an SM squad, for example, rarely takes them.

I never see people actually bring the AT weapons, such as powerfists, chain fists, or thunderhammers, in their regular melee squads.

Krak grenades should be useable in combat but aren't. I have no idea why.

I do agree that the whole "your entire squad can only throw one grenade regardless of size" thing is silly.

Why am I paying for 5, 10, 20 frags/kraks/melta bombs when I can only throw 1? That just means any unit that has grenades, especially krak/melta grenades, is getting massively screwed with unusable points.

Making grenades great again would probably be great for melee.

By the time we're done patching and house ruling, might as well just go back to 5th. Lol.

 ross-128 wrote:
I do agree that the whole "your entire squad can only throw one grenade regardless of size" thing is silly.

Why am I paying for 5, 10, 20 frags/kraks/melta bombs when I can only throw 1? That just means any unit that has grenades, especially krak/melta grenades, is getting massively screwed with unusable points.

Making grenades great again would probably be great for melee.

To play daemon's advocate, the argument there could be, "We aren't charging you a price that reflects everyone having a krak grenade they can shoot at the same time; we're charging you a price that reflects a weapon that can be fired once per turn that is guaranteed to not go away until your squad is wiped." Plus, we don't know how much a krak grenade actually costs per marine do we? If the option for one guy to throw a krak is costing the squad 5 points per body, then yeah, I think we'd all prefer to swap that option for a price decrease. But if you're paying like... half a point per body (ish) to let every marine in your 30 marine army toss a grenade one squad at a time, that deal suddenly looks much better. I wouldn't mind paying ~15 points in my 2,000 point army to let every infantry squad in my army fling a krak once per phase. I would very much mind paying 150 points for the same.

I just realised: why are Chainswords still the same price as Bolters? The attacks of a Chainsword-wielding model have effectively been cut in half since last edition since your opponent can just back off. Melee has been balanced around getting to swing during both players' turns; this no longer happens. Add on the unneeded nerf to number of attacks on many units and the loss of extra attacks for charging and it's pretty obvious that Chainswords are now overcosted compared to Bolters, despite being free.

@Mezmorki.
The point I was trying to make was,IF the GW devs has written the rules for 40k as a war game.Then the game play would be clearly defined, and the rules could allow finer levels of balance.

This would make it much easier to tweek the game play ,and without having to burden the game with layers of extra rules.(This applies to the game devs , and the players!)

20 years later GW still cant get the 40k battle game to work properly.What makes you think any one can, when the core rules are so inappropriate for the expected game play?
By all means house rule what you want.
But the game as GW sell it is still a comparative mess.

Lanrak wrote:
@Mezmorki.
The point I was trying to make was,IF the GW devs has written the rules for 40k as a war game.Then the game play would be clearly defined, and the rules could allow finer levels of balance.

This would make it much easier to tweek the game play ,and without having to burden the game with layers of extra rules.(This applies to the game devs , and the players!)

20 years later GW still cant get the 40k battle game to work properly.What makes you think any one can, when the core rules are so inappropriate for the expected game play?
By all means house rule what you want.
But the game as GW sell it is still a comparative mess.

Has it maybe hit you yet that GW doesn't get the game right because they make a fortune in rule books and codexs every year? This year they made half the factions buy two books! Gw plans and prints books years in advance, they know exactly what thye are doing. This is why I love and support fan edits and codexs.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I just realised: why are Chainswords still the same price as Bolters? The attacks of a Chainsword-wielding model have effectively been cut in half since last edition since your opponent can just back off. Melee has been balanced around getting to swing during both players' turns; this no longer happens. Add on the unneeded nerf to number of attacks on many units and the loss of extra attacks for charging and it's pretty obvious that Chainswords are now overcosted compared to Bolters, despite being free.

Actually Chainswords are now one of the few weapons giving you an extra attack, so I'd say their cost is fair. Because of them you can now have assault marines with two attacks each plus pistol shooting (so essentially two and a half attacks per turn). I'm still disappointed that Chainswords have no AP value to reflect the fact that they're fricking chainsaw-swords, but in terms of value they're IMO pretty fair, given that there's actually now a trade-off made if you swap the chainsword for something else, as a power weapon for example gives fewer attacks, meaning they're less useful against a horde enemy.

^^ I don't know... I feel every weapon in 40k is built for anti armour but the armour in 40k is so good that it equals out. Anything with AP thoug is like using a sledge hammer to break an egg. Remember, the bullets used in 40k are about the same size as our anti tank rifle bullets .

I am not sure what sort of anti-tank rifle you're thinking about, but modern recoiless rifles that are used to damage tanks fire a much bigger round than any infantry portable bolt weapons.

@lolman1c.
I am aware that GW is just focusing on selling the same stuff to GW collectors over and over again.
And picking the easiest to please customers, is the direction T.Kirby focused GW plc on.(Why bother growing market share when loyal fans will pay any price for anything GW wants to sell them?)

But the reason melee is under powered in 40k is due to lack of actual game development in 40k.
FIxing the game mechanics and resolution methods for 40k rules actually is much simpler than writing pages and pages of special rules retrospectively.
To try to correct an imbalance between shooting and assault that should not exist in the first place.

Why are shooting and assault competing for the same limited tactical goal of killing stuff in 40k?

If you believe 40k should follow the basic tactical loading of modern war, rather than ancient warfare.Shooting has a completely different tactical goal to assault.

Well, let's look at the changes, with The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The good and bad being buffs and nerfs respectively, while the ugly is pulling all the parts together along with other elements that effect assault.

Good:

No longer taking casualties from the front is not just good, it's a godsend. Losing inches from the slow destruction of your units combined with the random movement from running and charging, along with the endless micromanaging, was hands down the most obnoxious part of 6th/7th and I'm glad to see it gone.

Assault from reliable Deep Strike/Infiltrate/Outflank/whatever from first turn is really nice. Sure, you have to make a 9" charge, but compared to being forced to sit for a turn it's a useful tool to make your opponent think about their deployment and when it succeeds you gain an amazing flanking advantage

WS being a flat roll, while not how I wish it was done, it still preferable to how it used to be. Having a good WS mostly just resulted in in going against other units with good WS and you smacked into a ceiling immediately, while having a poor one wasn't even a slap on the wrist. Tau, the quintessential "bad at assault" army, still hit on 4+ except against ws5 units which the number of could be counted on one hand (until the skitarii codex came out) and got hit on 3+ like everyone else that didn't have WS4. They were only as bad as a guardsman in a fight, and were just the worse due to cost effectiveness (because they had guns that could turn your army inside out). Now, good assault units hit on 3+, mediocre ones hit on 4+, bad ones hits on 5+, the best on 2+. No conditions.

Overwatch has gotten weaker, now that range and LoS applies to it. And you can assault

Charging = going first is good for armies that used to be low init and gives a reason to charge first even if you're not likely to win a fight: weakening the unit first before it attacks.
If you can wipe out a squad, you can consolidate into another squad to prevent them from firing (although this doesn't result in another fight phase)

mutlicharging is no longer punished and you can grab other units with pile in (although you can't attack them), This does actually add a tactical element the assault phase did need

Power weapons got cheaper, which they needed

You can assault out of not open top vehicles again

Bad

Almost every assault unit in the game lost an attack, some even loss 2 due to the changes to melee weapons. the idea is that pistols make up for that, but they really dont' for reasons we'll get to

Any unit can now assault after firing. Previously you could only charge if you fired pistols or assault units, but you can charge even with heavy weapons. This means mixed arms units (or even just desperate ones) can assault your units to deny your charge without sacrificing shooting

The changes to cover, ho boy. You only get cover if you're all inside or touching it, your whole unit can be seen if one guy is in LoS. That's great if you're an elite shooty army since you can park your butt in a ruin and shoot without worry, but if you're trying to run across the field? Good luck. In particular if you're playing horde. Getting cover bonus or Blocking line of sight is not only near impossible, it's also not worth it. Running across the field into their guns is actually better than trying to be tactical, because distance is worth more to you than a paltry save.

While power weapons went down in price, it's because you're losing the extra attack from keeping your normal CCW. in some cases it's a trade off that you're still paying for. And for a similar price you can get a plamasgun/combi-plasma and get far more bang for your buck.

The lost of sweeping advance takes a lot of killing power from smaller units and makes it harder to kill chaft units. I know there's quite a few poeple who hated the mechanic, I feel like the current morale system is not a good replacement

vehicles are no longer weaker to assault. Again, some people disliked that mechanic, I'll explain it's problem in the next section

This doesn't seem so bad, but then let's get to...

The Ugly

Fall Back. Lets just get this out of the way, I ing hate how Fall Back works, much for the same reason I hated Overwatch when it was introduced in 6th (not that I'm a fan of it now): There is no way around it, and shooting units have no reason to not use it. There's one unit that can prevent fall back, Wyches, and they suck. If you don't think you're going to win an assault, you're always going to fall back so you can use the rest of your army's firepower (or even your own assault units) to attack that unit who's now out in the open and at point blank range. It's really a gak show. We can go all day about if that unit losing a turn to shoot is a wroth while cost, but I think a one vs one comparison is actually the worse way to look at it. As a fan of mathhammer myself, this is not where it's useful. On an army to army comparison, to keep Fall Back from sucker punching you more than half of a shooting army's need to be tied up that turn, which means to coordinate several charges at once, complete with flanking to get units hiding in the back.. Obviously that's the kind of tactical element we want in a game, but then you're dealing with the assault unit's bane of existence...

...the random assault charge. I know the argument is that if it stayed at a locked 6", then shooting armies could stay more than 12" away and never get assaulted, but the problem was that shooting units could already do that by not getting into double tap range and I could run to close the gap. Random assault ranges let them have their cake and eat it too (with overwatch and casualties from the front, they were likely to get away with it too). it's particularly funny to consider how much people dislike first turn charges, because with a re-roll you're looking at a 52% chance to get stuck in. Having your infiltrators attack first turn is actually a BAD idea because you need them to tie down back units when the rest of your army gets into position, but luck could very easily leave you with a staggered line. Sure, you can lockdown a few extra enemy units via pile in and consolidation, but...

...there's an increasing number of units and even armies that can ignore the penalty to falling back. Just this week, two more got added with the Graia and Metalica warlord traits. It's easy to point it out as "But that unit is dead if they get assaulted", but it's the pile in and consolidations move where these warlord traits/chapter tactics/orders/fly keyword/whatever become a headache: it makes an actually nice tactical element added to the game and makes it pointless. This also assumed the initial unit gets wiped out. Poor charge rolls or good position can reduce the amount of attacks, and with a reduction in attacks and the lost of sweeping advance wiping out units whole is much harder. Vehicles are a good way to do this, because...

...there's an appalling lack of anti-tank melee weapons an army can take. A power fist used to be pretty dangerous to vehicles because of their back armor, but now you're lucky to kill a rhino with one. and for most units, you can only take one special melee weapon. only the nob can have the shiny choppa, regardless of how many boys are in the mob. Or you can take an elite assault unit and give them all power fists, but the cost for such a unit makes them really cost ineffective for anti-tank. I think a 10 nob squad is almost twice the cost of a land raider and will only put it at 1/3 wounds. So for effective assault anti-tank you need walkers/monstrous creatures. Which are generally weak to ranged infantry anti-big stuff, especially because intervening units are no longer a things so you can't screen them with your infantry. Yikes. Either way, you're going to end up taking ranged anti-tank because transports are a giant abrasive wound for the unit inside and you have to call all charges before attack, so you can't attack the vehicle and the unit inside in the same turn. But they're not helping in the tying units down.

It's a lot of work to make assault good, and while the actually fight phase looks like just a boring roll off that's the END point of getting across the table while weathering attacks, lacking in tools, setting up the big push, and praying to RNG.