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Hello,

I got rid of all my armies except for my Sisters and I do love them n they good at what they can do which is shooting and They do have jacobus with his kill anything Squad But I do miss Close Combat.

So I was wondering what is the Best Close combat army in everyones opinion?
I would like to avoid super Hordes as my Son is on the way in a few months So my husband wont let me spend too much money.

There isn't a one best army in close combat. Almost every army has the ability to do close combat well. Just pick whichever army you want, and build a close-combat-oriented army from it.

I suppose each army does close combat in a slightly different way from other armies, so if you have a particular type of close combat that you want, then we can help you find that close combat style. Otherwise, the remainder of the posts in this threat are likely people just bragging about armies that they own...

You'll probably get alot of different opinions about which one is the best... I think most people would agree that these armies are all pretty good at close combat:

deathwing terminators with all thunderhammers
grey knights with paladins
grey knights with purifiers
spacewolves with thunderwolf cavalry

until recently I would have included blood angels with assault marines and sanguinary priests, but they're so completely overmatched by greyknights in assaults that I don't think they really qualify anymore. Khornate demons and tyranids are obviously going to be good in assaults too, but I don't think they quite stand up to the other armies. Someone will probably disagree with that but whatever. Hope that helps.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There's also something to be said for just building whatever you like and playing it as best you can. The top tier armies change so rapidly that by the time you have one built it might already be out of fashion. People who really invested in competitive Blood Angels were probably mighty disappointed when the Grey Knights book came out, as people who start playing Grey Knights now might be when 6th comes out. There's always alot of flux in competitive 40k.

A Khrone Beserker Chaos Marine Army. A Death Company Blood Angels army. A Horde Ork army. A Grey Knight Paladin Army. They are all good examples of good CC armies.

Several blob squads with power weapons and a commissar can be a brutal CC army as well.

GreatGunz wrote:You'll probably get alot of different opinions about which one is the best... I think most people would agree that these armies are all pretty good at close combat:

deathwing terminators with all thunderhammers
grey knights with paladins
grey knights with purifiers
spacewolves with thunderwolf cavalry

until recently I would have included blood angels with assault marines and sanguinary priests, but they're so completely overmatched by greyknights in assaults that I don't think they really qualify anymore. Khornate demons and tyranids are obviously going to be good in assaults too, but I don't think they quite stand up to the other armies. Someone will probably disagree with that but whatever. Hope that helps.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There's also something to be said for just building whatever you like and playing it as best you can. The top tier armies change so rapidly that by the time you have one built it might already be out of fashion. People who really invested in competitive Blood Angels were probably mighty disappointed when the Grey Knights book came out, as people who start playing Grey Knights now might be when 6th comes out. There's always alot of flux in competitive 40k.

Blood Angels assault marines with priests are NOT overmatched by most grey knights, even purifiers. Paladins are another story.

The difference is that BA have army wide good assault units, even with no great ones. This means that pound for pound, while we can't match TWC or Paladins, we can beat just about everything else.

I'd go with orks, btw. The sheer number of dice they roll is absolutely absurd. Not even terminators with FNP can take a charge from 30 boyz.

init 6 defeats furious charge. power weapons defeat feel no pain. force weapons defeat mephiston. psycannons defeat the parking lot. Blood Angels consistently come up deuces against Grey Knights. It are fact.

th3maninblak wrote:

Blood Angels assault marines with priests are NOT overmatched by most grey knights, even purifiers. Paladins are another story.

You do realize that Purifiers can get an I6 Power weapon for 26 points? You do also know that FNP and armor saves are completely negated by Power weapons, right?

Okay, good. Now find me a BA that can get an I6 Power Weapon for 26 pts.

th3maninblak wrote:

I'd go with orks, btw. The sheer number of dice they roll is absolutely absurd. Not even terminators with FNP can take a charge from 30 boyz.

A 10 man Purifier Squad w/ Halberds can wipe out a 30 man unit of boyz before they can strike back in the 2nd turn

.5*.83 = .415 * 30 = 12.45

.5*.5*2*10 = 5

.5*.5*.33*4*12.55 = 4.14

.5*.83*4 = 1.66

17.45 - 5.8 = 11.65 * .83 = 9.67

To a man by the 2nd turn

Purifiers are the bane of orks. As for ASM, the common set up for purifiers is 5 dudes with 2 halberds, 1 hammer and 2 psycannons. Even with hammerhand theyll only kill 1-2 dudes at i6 before they get wiped.

th3maninblak wrote:Purifiers are the bane of orks. As for ASM, the common set up for purifiers is 5 dudes with 2 halberds, 1 hammer and 2 psycannons. Even with hammerhand theyll only kill 1-2 dudes at i6 before they get wiped.

I'm pretty sure that if you tailor a Purifier unit so that it's no good at CC it won't do very well

The question was "Best CC Army." Make a Purifier CC unit. It's easy. 10 Halberds. Tada. Find me a unit in the BA codex that can beat that please. At ~260 pts.

IIRC cleansing flame makes everyone in the squad take a hit before they get to do anything. That's half the orks right there, and they haven't even done anything. GK are extremely powerful. There's just no getting around it.

GreatGunz wrote:IIRC cleansing flame makes everyone in the squad take a hit before they get to do anything. That's half the orks right there, and they haven't even done anything. GK are extremely powerful. There's just no getting around it.

I'm not trying to disagree that Purifiers will destroy orks almost every time, that's kinda just the way it is XD

They may not be best, or even good, but daemons.are the most CC dedicated army IMO.

Daemons or Grey Knights, if you don't want a Horde army.

Got one branch of the Inquisition, may as well get the other, eh?

If you are going to build an army on a budget, then I'd go Grey knights. If you don't like the feel of Grey knights, then I would go chaos because a MOK makes any squad feel cc oriented.

Best cc army imo: shooty orks- They whittle down things that can kill them while constantly applying pressure to the enemy with shooting before the charge. Many people that build close combat armies neglect to bring a full toolbox to fit the 'theme' and then don't enjoy their games as much because of getting tabled alot.

I may be biased but Black Templars are pretty good.

whats not to love about furious charge assault terminators re-rolling everything?

ORKS

ghazghull with 7 nobs, eavy armor, cyborg bodies, painboy, banner, combi schorches, 2 x big choppaz n 2 x pk

3 x 3 killa kanz

snikrot poping in with ghazzy and the nobz !!

everything else = slugga boyz

I'd say GK are easily the best all round assault army.
Everything has assault capabilities, Death Cults may very well be the best assault unit in 40k. But when you mix power armour, storm bolters, terminator armour, psycannons and the various CC weapons they have, with maybe Inquisitors with those silly 'nades or a Librarian. I think Gk have the CC punch, and the staying power to be the 'best' CC army...

rodgers37 wrote:I'd say GK are easily the best all round assault army.
Everything has assault capabilities, Death Cults may very well be the best assault unit in 40k. But when you mix power armour, storm bolters, terminator armour, psycannons and the various CC weapons they have, with maybe Inquisitors with those silly 'nades or a Librarian. I think Gk have the CC punch, and the staying power to be the 'best' CC army...

I second that, but I would say best CC army build instead of CC army.
We've all seen shooty orks and CC Tau. Well, maybe not CC Tau.

Agree it's hard to beat GK, with cleansing flame and init 6 power weapons. It would be bad enough if purifiers were elites, but the fact that they're troops? The GW design team obviously lost their minds letting Matt Ward print that. Paladins are also absurdly hard to beat in close combat.

GreatGunz wrote:It would be bad enough if purifiers were elites, but the fact that they're troops?

They are Elite choices.
Furthermore, most of the time they're taken for the number of psycannons they can bring, which they swap their NFW for. The 10-man squad with as many halberds is all but unheard of.
In the end, they are undercosted super-generalists.

Agreed that the codex as a whole has a good array of powerful tools if you want to play a "punch" army. Don't forget the Stormravens : a fast flying assault vehicle with a reputation for getting in your opponent's face very quickly... if he hasn't shot it down even more quickly, that is.

TedNugent wrote:

th3maninblak wrote:Purifiers are the bane of orks. As for ASM, the common set up for purifiers is 5 dudes with 2 halberds, 1 hammer and 2 psycannons. Even with hammerhand theyll only kill 1-2 dudes at i6 before they get wiped.

I'm pretty sure that if you tailor a Purifier unit so that it's no good at CC it won't do very well

The question was "Best CC Army." Make a Purifier CC unit. It's easy. 10 Halberds. Tada. Find me a unit in the BA codex that can beat that please. At ~260 pts.

I think you missed his point. He ran the numbers against a typical squad of Purifiers, ie what you normally will find in a game. But since you mention it, a Fire Dragon in Serpant will nuke most of that squad in one turn of shooting, esp if the squad is guided and doomed.

Hyd wrote:

GreatGunz wrote:It would be bad enough if purifiers were elites, but the fact that they're troops?

They are Elite choices.
Furthermore, most of the time they're taken for the number of psycannons they can bring, which they swap their NFW for. The 10-man squad with as many halberds is all but unheard of.
In the end, they are undercosted super-generalists.

People who play purifier armies take Crowe for their HQ, making purifiers into troops choices. Four out of ten can swap their NFW for a psycannon, and those psycannons will shred through almost anything, weakening a unit, before any assaults happen. So losing four of ten possible halberds for psycannons is not a bad thing. To say that purifiers are super-generalists is wrong in my opinion, because they excel at both shooting and CC. They have the best of both worlds, like paladins, but without as much staying power.

Purifiers die like normal marines. 30 ork boyz with shootas will clear a majority of the squad. 30 boyz letting a purifier squad get close is bad tactics. I think a lot of people forget that tactics is a major part of the game. I run a purifier army, and have been beat by orks a few times because of the sheer amount of guns they have.

thecapn226 wrote: I think a lot of people forget that tactics is a major part of the game.

People forget that the game is not played on a unit by unit case in a vacumn. A good CC unit will have some type of fire support backing them up. BA assault marines are great because they can normally make it to their target in one piece thanks to FNP, even thought it is of no use once they face GK's in Close combat. While those same Grey Knights are getting shot up as they march accross the board.

Purifiers die like normal marines. 30 ork boyz with shootas will clear a majority of the squad. 30 boyz letting a purifier squad get close is bad tactics. I think a lot of people forget that tactics is a major part of the game. I run a purifier army, and have been beat by orks a few times because of the sheer amount of guns they have.

Purifiers should be able to outshoot orks. Those shootas don't have as much range as the psycannons, which means you should get at least two rounds of shooting before the mob can assault you, and one round before they can shoot you.

Even if the entire mob shoots first, that's 29x2 shots at BS2 for 19 hits, 10 wounds, and 7 saves for three dead marines. The remaining seven marines shoot back with 16 S7 AP4 rending shots and 6 S5 (psybolt ammo is a given) AP5 shots. Psycannons hit 11 times, wounding 9, and storm bolters hit 4 times, wounding 3.

If the purifiers shoot first, which is the more likely scenario, we would see the same results from the psycannons, for 9 dead, but an extra 3 dead boyz from the three extra storm bolter marines in the squad, for a total of fifteen dead orks. So we have 14 shootas returning fire, 28 shots, 9 hits, 3 wounds, 1 dead purifier.

If I were a purifier player, I don't think I would be too worried about shooting it out with mobs of shoota boyz.

Um sorry but paladins don't out assault those black templar termies with lc, th ss mixes.. Those buggers don't care if you have 2 wounds and laugh at their typical 4-5++.

As far as purifiers a smart opponent will just shoot their transports and then kill them as they walk across the board. Outside of 3 options purifier grey knights can be outranged easily. Spearhead and DoW don't help purifier armies either.

3 Penitence Engines. 6 heavy flammers 3d6 plus 6 Attacks on the Charge I3 Str 10 second round of attacks on unsaved wounds...

If you Max everything thing out hits and wounds your looking at and second round of attacks, thats 48 str 10 wounds you can cause lol.

Spidey0804 wrote:3 Penitence Engines. 6 heavy flammers 3d6 plus 6 Attacks on the Charge I3 Str 10 second round of attacks on unsaved wounds...

If you Max everything thing out hits and wounds your looking at and second round of attacks, thats 48 str 10 wounds you can cause lol.

That isn't fleet, can be kited and is AV 11 open topped.. Good luck getting there.

Draigo wrote:

Spidey0804 wrote:3 Penitence Engines. 6 heavy flammers 3d6 plus 6 Attacks on the Charge I3 Str 10 second round of attacks on unsaved wounds...

If you Max everything thing out hits and wounds your looking at and second round of attacks, thats 48 str 10 wounds you can cause lol.

That isn't fleet, can be kited and is AV 11 open topped.. Good luck getting there.

Yep but sure is funny when they do.