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What army, in your opinion of the current Meta, is capable of consistently doing well as an in-your-face assault army?

A lot of people say 40k now-a-days is a shooting mans game. What happened to the all out bum rush of old?

Can any armies still do it? Who can bring the speed and power required?

Some feasible choices imho:

Battlewagon Orks- Rush em with your whole army in force-fielded wagons filled with assault troops. Add Gaz and you have an almost guaranteed 2nd turn assault. Problems: Grey Knights just kinda eat your best troops with force weapons/purifiers.

Grey Knights- (of course, they can do anything after all)-3x DC Assassins/Purifiers in Ravens, 2-3x Dread Knights. All boosts in your face turn 1. Hits you turn 2. Ravens can get 3+ cover with a libby. They can assault and destroy anything.

Blood Angels- Mech or a mix of Jump Troop/Mech. They can be on you quick. Mephistion and tons of melta can handle paladins on most things Grey Knights bring.

Dark Eldar Wych Cults/Haemonculus Covens.

Fast dedicated transports to get into close combat as quickly as possible that come with long-rang anti-tank weaponry to bust open transports and then hit them in assault ASAP. Very quick and aggressive army style with lots of durable and killy close combat units in the form of Wyches with their 4++ and power weapons or Wracks with their FnP, T 4 and poisoned weapons rerolls forcing a metric feth-ton of saves on enemy armies.

Ah, the days when the Tyranids would have been at the top of this list... alas.

Have to agree, though. Dark Eldar; the only army who can cross the board in turn one and rip your face off before you can say "Ow, my face". Because, naturally, you'd say that prior to aforementioned face-rip-offage.

EDIT: I do love the DE, by the way. At least, in terms of play style. There's something to be said about the fun of sheer speed.

Consistently? The most consistent CC army is probably orks, as they have lots of options and if you want to get into close combat, you probably will.

Otherwise there are lots of armies that can make it into close combat including basically any stripe of power armor, as well as guard and demons.

As for which army is best in close combat, I really believe there isn't one. Different armies do close combat in different ways, but there isn't necessarily a "better" one than others.

I wouldn't say DE are the best by any stretch of the imagination.

I'll agree with Ailaros that there is no true 'best.' Assault armies do the same thing in different ways, some do some things better than others and some do some things worse.

Tau with aun'va.

No one would Assault FEARLESS Tau. It'd would be suicide, IMO. Only chance of surviving in CC with Aun'Va tau would be a Nurgle Army, but that's because the Beasts of Nurgle get D6 attacks. D6! It's so cheesy it makes Draigo look like a SM Scout.

No one would Dare Assault Aun'Va either, because he has a 4+ cover save.






I would seriously vote for best CC army being one that can just drown the enemy in attacks. Doesn't matter how many wounds(or how good a save) Doom(or any other high wound or good Armor save model) has If you do 65 attacks in CC.

I know you guys love DE, so don't take this the wrong way.

But I just don't see DE surviving long against GK (every list has 2-3 PsyDreads) IG, or certain SW lists.

All of which are prevalent at large tournaments now-a-days. Especially GK.

Also, funny tau comment lur_tae_mont. Although number of attacks don't necessarily cut it either. A 30ork boy squad getting the charge and swinging 120x only do 5 wounds to Paladins (spread out over differing models, without feel no pain, and assuming somehow the orks take no casualties before swinging). They also crumble to purifiers.

Nids can throw that many attacks also, but I don't really need to go into the myriad of examples of why they are gimped against the top armies.

Orks.
Does in your face imply that speed is required? If not, definitely orks with pools of 20-30 boyz under the cover of KFF along with a salad of lootas, kanz and some deff rollas, mebe.

If you want to drive down your opponent's throat with DE, adding Ethersails to your Raiders and Vect to the army are good elements. The other approach is a webway portal army, with big units of wyches with FNP, big units of beasts, and maybe a unit of incubi with Drazhar and an archon with phantasm grenade launcher.

Blood Angels are pretty good with Mephiston, Death Company, Blood Talon Furiosos, and assault terminators with FNP. All of which can be delivered by Stormravens or Land Raiders. I played a 2500pt game the other day with Mephiston and a MM/HFlamer Dread in one Stormraven, DC with Reclusiarch and Furioso in another, and assault marines in LRs including a sang priest. I had around 43 models in total, and beat down a SW list with ~80. Arjac did kill Mephiston after Meph ate around 18 SW, though, including a Runepriest.

Hmmm was gonna say DSing Daemons until read "consistenly " :(

Good thread though, interested in opinons on this one.

Daemons are awesome in assault. Fiends + Crushers + Bloodthirster + Bloodletters for troops (if your priority is pure assault) + optionally FW, or Skarbrand for crazy re-rolls = nasty, nasty.

Absolutely Manna, agreed but OP said "consistently" :(

No way we can guarantee a 1st wave Daemon alpha stikre each game :(

DARN YOU GW! :p

I gotta say that Abaddon + Kharne + Termi's with MoT with a mix of LC's and CF's + Khorne Berzerkers + Rhino's to transport Zerker's and Kharne + Bikers with any specific god mark (I think MoT and MoN are perhaps the better choices + Land Raiders to transport 2 squads of Termi's and Abaddon + Personal/Squad Icon(s) somewhere in there + Deepstriking Termi Squad = A Fairly scary CQC army

Mannahnin wrote:Daemons are awesome in assault. Fiends + Crushers + Bloodthirster + Bloodletters for troops (if your priority is pure assault) + optionally FW, or Skarbrand for crazy re-rolls = nasty, nasty.

Why only one (FW and Skarbrand)? If I'm taking one, I'm taking the other. In for a penny.

I like the regular BT for the collar. Big FU to Grey Knights. Plus with the +1S upgrade he's a reasonably reliable way to pop landraiders; which are a bit of a problem for daemons.

King Pariah wrote:I gotta say that Abaddon + Kharne + Termi's with MoT with a mix of LC's and CF's + Khorne Berzerkers + Rhino's to transport Zerker's and Kharne + Bikers with any specific god mark (I think MoT and MoN are perhaps the better choices + Land Raiders to transport 2 squads of Termi's and Abaddon + Personal/Squad Icon(s) somewhere in there + Deepstriking Termi Squad = A Fairly scary CQC army

The dual lash list is a lot easier to actually get into combat. A couple three squads of berzerkers in rhinos, a couple winged slaanesh princes, some heavy support...can pretty reliably pull off a turn 2 charge, sometimes turn 1 depending on your opponents movement if you go second. You don't lose that much dropping Abby/Kharn for princes, and you gain tons of mobility and tactical flexibility.

Well, you said consistently. There is no cc unit that can come on top against every other cc squad of comparable size.

This one does pretty well for me most games:

Logan Grimnar
Njal Stormcaller in Runic Terminator Armor
Ragnar Blackmane
7x Wolf Guard in power armor, Wolf Claw, Storm Shield, Melta Bombs.

They ride in a Land Raider Redeemer with Hunter Killer Missile, Multi Melta and Extra Armour.

Yes, it is expensive, but it gets the job done.

also, you've got to remember that being a unit that is best in assault is less of a pertinent question than you'd think. There are lots of good CC units out there that can be flatly beaten by units that are slightly worse in CC, but are much better at shooting.

A great example of this is a squad of THSS termies vs a squad of combi-plasma CSM termies. The THSS are certainly better in close combat, but I'd put my money on the plasma CSM every time.

At some point, in order to get a little better at close combat, you start losing out too much on other things as you break through a diminishing return barrier for quality in CC. For most serious CC units, there is a point where in order to be a better CC unit, you have to be a worse unit over all.

Blood Angels have fast, painfully cheap transports, army-wide FNP and FC, on top of Mephiston and Death Company.
Others may be more powerful but they're best and rushing up and getting in the enemy's face very quickly.

Tyranid swarm and I mean a proper swarm of Hormagaunts take only a prime and let heir instincts take over! broooohahahaha

Daemons. Not much holds up to crushers...

Kevlar wrote:

King Pariah wrote:I gotta say that Abaddon + Kharne + Termi's with MoT with a mix of LC's and CF's + Khorne Berzerkers + Rhino's to transport Zerker's and Kharne + Bikers with any specific god mark (I think MoT and MoN are perhaps the better choices + Land Raiders to transport 2 squads of Termi's and Abaddon + Personal/Squad Icon(s) somewhere in there + Deepstriking Termi Squad = A Fairly scary CQC army

The dual lash list is a lot easier to actually get into combat. A couple three squads of berzerkers in rhinos, a couple winged slaanesh princes, some heavy support...can pretty reliably pull off a turn 2 charge, sometimes turn 1 depending on your opponents movement if you go second. You don't lose that much dropping Abby/Kharn for princes, and you gain tons of mobility and tactical flexibility.

True, that's another pretty viable CC list for CSM. Gotta say that CSM don't really suck as much as many players whine about even with the FAQ nerfs and what not. There are good strong builds, just gotta look for them.

To be honest, Mech'dar

If the list focused in Banshees and DA in serpents,
backed by a combo of Prisms/Spinners/Falcons, with Eldred and a spare Seer

Such a list would relibly 'catch' and wreck things in assault. Being able to choose
who and when is probably the best way to reckon' the 'King'...and the Eldar being
able to reliably hose a target before crushing them in melee while also blocking
any other unit's counter-charge/ rescue attempt has to rate highly.

Not saying said army couldn't/wouldn't be cheaply countered, but as far as getting
to rule the day in melee, surely they could do it!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I would also have to rate the IG's powerblobs highly....

not too many units can handle that sort of volume of bodies and attacks, period.

King Pariah wrote:
True, that's another pretty viable CC list for CSM. Gotta say that CSM don't really suck as much as many players whine about even with the FAQ nerfs and what not. There are good strong builds, just gotta look for them.

Codex: Chaos Space Marines is basically five armies in one book and people tend to want all five of those armies to not suck and be viable. It's like if Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Black Templars were all rolled back into Codex: Space Marines and all of them were balls, but the book still had viable builds. The book wouldn't 'suck' in tournaments but people would be pretty dissatisfied.