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I don't normally play with large squad armies, but this has come to my attention lately.

I have in the past played with small groups and because I tend to read the big book more often than the rest (mostly on the crapper) and none really questioned my vetoes as lawgiver amongst other friends' games, I wonder if I have been doing this wrong.

With defenders react... at the end of the initial assaulter's assault and any other assault, with pile in(!), that would mean that every squad in an assault would move 6" as close as possible to assault as possible. But from my experience, even from large 40+ mobs of orcs, that pretty much means that as many models as you can pack into the 2" b2b contact as you possibly could at any given time are always fighting. So unless you had a stringed mob of 40, polka-dotted from one end of the board to the other, you would always get the maximum number of models in assault as possible... which in my opinion even makes the 2" specific rule of any concern... am I interpreting this wrong? And if I'm not please tell me the spirit of the law (rules) meant... I mean... what was this rule trying to achieve?

Defenders react and pile in work exactly as you described them. The point is to get as much of the two units into the combat as possible as quickly as possible, so that players end up with two units fighting it out rather than one player charging a unit into one or two models, killing them, and then running down their mates (who at no point actually participated).

Corrode is on the money

I guess you're right. It seems a lot of the rules are designed to end assaults as fast as possible in a game with such short mechanical length. EDIT: I.E., heavy losses making a leadership save all but impossible to make, sweeping advances and no retreat.

Yep, especially as in 4th you could conceivably stay in combat all game - the losses werent significant enough, as a unit of 30 boys could, at MOST, lose by 4 each turn, probably losing 4 boys, until they got below half strength.

Some form of "static" resolution, like WHFB, would have helped here.

diesel7270 wrote: It seems a lot of the rules are designed to end assaults as fast as possible in a game with such short mechanical length.

That's exactly right. As Nos mentioned, it was quite common in older editions of the game for close combats to drag out for the entire game. The 5th edition rules were intended to make close combat faster and more brutal, so that units wouldn't get tied up indefinitely as they could previously. It still happens in some situations (high-armoured troops with no anti-vehicle weapons VS dreadnoughts still being a bit of a bugger to get away from) but mostly works as intended.