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I cant figure out if they strengthened or weakened Melee combat

Nerfed.

-Multi charging is extremely difficult to do, and it nerfs furious charge and rage.
-5+ cover average means more effective shooting
-5+ fnp is a nerf that will effect some things
-Wound allocation is from the front
-Overwatch (not huge but still there, losing a marine or 2 can be a big deal)

Long story short, I kill you easier, and you lose inches when I shoot you.

In addition, while 2d6 may seem like an improvement, it's actually close to 1/3 chance of being worse than the old 6". Which means you can whiff a 4" charge in clear terrain. If you were relying on power weapons and such, your ability to kill terminators has also decreased. About the one thing that has improved is assaulting vehicles that have moved. They can't overwatch and get hit on 3+ regardless of how fast they went.

Ravenous D wrote:Nerfed.

-Multi charging is extremely difficult to do, and it nerfs furious charge and rage.
-5+ cover average means more effective shooting
-5+ fnp is a nerf that will effect some things
-Wound allocation is from the front
-Overwatch (not huge but still there, losing a marine or 2 can be a big deal)

Long story short, I kill you easier, and you lose inches when I shoot you.

Yeah furious charge was nerfed

I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.
Feel no pain is not denied by power weapons anymore

You forget that 5+ cover is buffed by the fact that everything involves night missions now, so you have a 4+ chance to have +2 cover (that's 3++) at 24", at 36" they can't shoot you, and at 12" it's +1 to cover.

Wound allocation doesn't matter to most assault units. (Nobz and paladins are one of the few that heavily benefited from this)

Overwatch still grants you cover saves! That's interesting as it means that orks still benefit from this, same with Nids with Venomthropes! And of course a unit can only shoot ONCE at a charging unit, double charge an important unit with chaff, and he'll be forced to fire (and if he doesn't, he's locked in combat and cannot shoot another charging unit)

I'd say its about equal really, people only look at the specifics and not the whole picture.

Massively nerfed.

With the combinations of shooting buffs, straight up melee nerfs, and other external factors like the new deployments and such, I really can't think of a reason to play an assault-based army anymore.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.

I can see people not starting Hormagaunts in synapse range now. It's a good thing now if they fail their instinctive behaviour test. You can still control them, and they get +2 attacks on the charge. In a big enough squad, you won't need to worry too much about breaking either, since they'll need to kill a huge amount to do it. Stick a Venomthrope near them to give them a 5+ cover save all the time, and you have a little nightmare.

Fafnir wrote:Massively nerfed.

With the combinations of shooting buffs, straight up melee nerfs, and other external factors like the new deployments and such, I really can't think of a reason to play an assault-based army anymore.

You'll play an assault army because you like playing assault armies. Assault didn't get gutted, it got brought in line after being blatantly more powerful than shooting since sweeping advance was put into the game to simplify overrunning (barring leaf-blower IG).

Is it perfectly balanced now? I doubt it.
Will shooting be more effective than assault in this edition? Maybe.

However, any case it's just too soon to say. Come back in 3 months and make a new case if you still feel that assault-based armies aren't worth building and we'll discuss it with some perspective.

Talamare wrote:I cant figure out if they strengthened or weakened Melee combat

Yes, or no, whichever is the SKY IS FALLING response.

Let's give the new ruleset some time to sink in... please... before declaring the game has been broken?

Arandmoor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Massively nerfed.

With the combinations of shooting buffs, straight up melee nerfs, and other external factors like the new deployments and such, I really can't think of a reason to play an assault-based army anymore.

You'll play an assault army because you like playing assault armies. Assault didn't get gutted, it got brought in line after being blatantly more powerful than shooting since sweeping advance was put into the game to simplify overrunning (barring leaf-blower IG).

It's funny, because all the top armies in 5th are shooting armies.

Fafnir wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Massively nerfed.

With the combinations of shooting buffs, straight up melee nerfs, and other external factors like the new deployments and such, I really can't think of a reason to play an assault-based army anymore.

You'll play an assault army because you like playing assault armies. Assault didn't get gutted, it got brought in line after being blatantly more powerful than shooting since sweeping advance was put into the game to simplify overrunning (barring leaf-blower IG).

It's funny, because all the top armies in 5th are shooting armies.

Necrons. I'm biased.

But no, to be fair, shooting vehicles and massed template weapons have been strong. below the gimick shooty lists, shooting itself has been below assault in power because of sweeping advance. Unless you had access to massive templates in nigh-impregnable vehicles (which were too survivable in 5th) there generally wasn't much you could do to stop an assault army from running you down if you sacrificed melee power for shooting power.

Nothing the average player was able to figure out at least, and that's with the power of the internet to back him up.

Big templates were broken because vehicles were too difficult to kill in numbers.
Shooting was weak the rest of the time.
A single assault model could overpower any number of shooting models with hilarious results if the shooty unit's player failed a single roll at the wrong time.

Regardless, this is my opinion comming from an army that has, in general, completely lacked the gimicks that made the IG leaf-blower and las/plas spam successful. On top of that, it's too soon to tell how assault armies will fare. The book doesn't come out in NA for another hour *if* you happen to live in an area with a business holding a midnight release party (none here so more like 8-9 hours for me).

IMO, calling assault armies worthless is still 3 months premature.

Well, let's see:

Leafblower
Mechvets
Vendetta spam
Longfang spam
Razorspam
Purifier spam
Ravager/raider spam
Whatever the hell it is that necrons do... spam...

There were plenty of viable assault armies and options in 5th, but with contenders like the above, they were nowhere near the shooty stuff.

Fafnir wrote:Well, let's see:

Leafblower
Mechvets
Vendetta spam
Longfang spam
Razorspam
Purifier spam
Ravager/raider spam
Whatever the hell it is that necrons do... spam...

There were plenty of viable assault armies and options in 5th, but with contenders like the above, they were nowhere near the shooty stuff.

Damn...you beat my edit.

Want me to move it down for continuity?

Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

-Loki- wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.

I can see people not starting Hormagaunts in synapse range now. It's a good thing now if they fail their instinctive behaviour test. You can still control them, and they get +2 attacks on the charge. In a big enough squad, you won't need to worry too much about breaking either, since they'll need to kill a huge amount to do it. Stick a Venomthrope near them to give them a 5+ cover save all the time, and you have a little nightmare.

As a Tyranid player, I'm sure GW is gleefully awaiting a chance to beat us with their Next FAQ.

Sasori wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.

I can see people not starting Hormagaunts in synapse range now. It's a good thing now if they fail their instinctive behaviour test. You can still control them, and they get +2 attacks on the charge. In a big enough squad, you won't need to worry too much about breaking either, since they'll need to kill a huge amount to do it. Stick a Venomthrope near them to give them a 5+ cover save all the time, and you have a little nightmare.

As a Tyranid player, I'm sure GW is gleefully awaiting a chance to beat us with their Next FAQ.

I think the FAQs are going to be interesting. It's like everything got reset almost.

Sasori wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.

I can see people not starting Hormagaunts in synapse range now. It's a good thing now if they fail their instinctive behaviour test. You can still control them, and they get +2 attacks on the charge. In a big enough squad, you won't need to worry too much about breaking either, since they'll need to kill a huge amount to do it. Stick a Venomthrope near them to give them a 5+ cover save all the time, and you have a little nightmare.

As a Tyranid player, I'm sure GW is gleefully awaiting a chance to beat us with their Next FAQ.

To be fair, it's broken right now. There's meant to be a drawback to failing instinctive behaviour. At the moment, it's simply a benefit. My guess is they'll simply add 'and much move towards the closest unit' to the feed behaviour.

But then, there's no real benefit to being inside synapse right now either. Fearless on Tyranids is a drawback, since passing the saves simply doesn't happen.

Wow, what a black and white question. There are perks and negatives to CC. Rage rocks, Furious Charge being lost is really only bad for Marines (most other units with it tended to have higher initiative anyway), power weapons are all over the place and MC (especially the winged variety) are better. I'm running a bunch of winged Princes and GDs...and those certainly aren't ranged based. Go ahead...shoot me needing 6s...you don't have many tanks and I have saves. Along with Kairos for re-rolls. Oops...3 GDs of Khorne, Kairos, DP of Slaanesh, Couple PM units for Icons, Nurglings to fill up troops and round out the rest of 2500 in DPs. Let's dance.

-Loki- wrote:

Sasori wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.

I can see people not starting Hormagaunts in synapse range now. It's a good thing now if they fail their instinctive behaviour test. You can still control them, and they get +2 attacks on the charge. In a big enough squad, you won't need to worry too much about breaking either, since they'll need to kill a huge amount to do it. Stick a Venomthrope near them to give them a 5+ cover save all the time, and you have a little nightmare.

As a Tyranid player, I'm sure GW is gleefully awaiting a chance to beat us with their Next FAQ.

To be fair, it's broken right now. There's meant to be a drawback to failing instinctive behaviour. At the moment, it's simply a benefit. My guess is they'll simply add 'and much move towards the closest unit' to the feed behaviour.

But then, there's no real benefit to being inside synapse right now either. Fearless on Tyranids is a drawback, since passing the saves simply doesn't happen.

Well, there are no more No retreat saves. Still, Synapse is still a stupid handicap.

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

Glad I kept all my lascannons! I don't want to look through the 200+ page tome...Melta still gives 2D6 pen within half range, right? Still the go-to tank killer up close, but LCs are definitely great now. Marines should be happy, guard should be happier-few HW squads should neuter all Rhino-based tanks, Eldar, DE (okay, so would a spit-wad shooter), Tau and Chimeras. Go las or go home. Hey, I think I made the new Guard slogan...now we just need somebody more motivated than me to do a motivational poster for the guard with that phrase.

timetowaste85 wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

Glad I kept all my lascannons! I don't want to look through the 200+ page tome...Melta still gives 2D6 pen within half range, right? Still the go-to tank killer up close, but LCs are definitely great now. Marines should be happy, guard should be happier-few HW squads should neuter all Rhino-based tanks, Eldar, DE (okay, so would a spit-wad shooter), Tau and Chimeras. Go las or go home. Hey, I think I made the new Guard slogan...now we just need somebody more motivated than me to do a motivational poster for the guard with that phrase.

Melta does indeed give 2D6 Pen within half range.

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

The difference is you now know how much you need to aim at a vehicle to reliably kill it. While before, you could fire your whole army at a tank for 3 turns, only glance it with each weapon, and not do a thing. Now you know how many glances you need to kill it, and you might get lucky on top of that and to it in one hit. I'd say that takes them down a peg.

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

But land raiders were never the problem. It was light vehicles with cheap, powerful guns.

Hull Points place a hard limit to how much fire a vehicle can take before it dies, and if you have an actual anti-tank weapon with low AP to point at the thing you have a much greater chance of taking it out in one shot.

Really, the big nerf was hull points vs. light vehicles with lots of weapons.

Take a las/plas razerback for example: 3 weapons + the ability to move. In a worst case scenario, it took you 5 shots to kill one of them. Now, if it has 3 hull points you kill it in 3 glances. No more stripping off the weapons one-by-one, followed by an immobilized result, followed by finally killing it. That worst-case-scenario improvement does a LOT to fix some of the problems some lists were facing in 5th. Especially where cheap vehicles with no single-main-gun were concerned.

Also, the best case scenario got a lot better. If you're lucky enough to have an AP 1 weapon you explode the bastard on a 4+ if you pen. On top of being able to snap-shot things like multi-meltas.

IMO, the vehicle changes (just these, I get my book tomorrow and then I'll look at the vehicle rules in more depth) make weapons like the missile launcher less desirable (the ML was too good IMO), and bring back the value of the las cannon. Also, autocannons will have surprising value if your opponent is fielding light vehicles because the simple ability to remove Hull Points at a decent rate will be very valuable.

Melee units are holistically stronger IMO

Hammer of Wrath just made many units hit faster/harder

PW dropping to Ap3, just made many of the top tier CC units even better.

Wound allocation and Challenges just made CC heavy IC better

Ability to roll a save for dangerous terrain, also made some CC units more usefull in hopping into combat in and out of cover.

Tarpitting good CC units that can't hurt a walker, doesn't work anymore.

Vehicles are much easier to glance to death in CC.

Some units got better, some got worse, but I'm adding CC units to my lists now due to the new rules, not pulling them out.

timetowaste85 wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

Glad I kept all my lascannons! I don't want to look through the 200+ page tome...Melta still gives 2D6 pen within half range, right? Still the go-to tank killer up close, but LCs are definitely great now. Marines should be happy, guard should be happier-few HW squads should neuter all Rhino-based tanks, Eldar, DE (okay, so would a spit-wad shooter), Tau and Chimeras. Go las or go home. Hey, I think I made the new Guard slogan...now we just need somebody more motivated than me to do a motivational poster for the guard with that phrase.

Multi-meltas aren't going to be valued for the 2d6, but rather the AP 1.

AP 1 give you a +2 to the damage table roll when you pen a vehicle's armor. That turns the 6 = explode result on the table into a 4+ = explode, and pushes the shaken results off of the table completely!

Arandmoor wrote:

timetowaste85 wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

Glad I kept all my lascannons! I don't want to look through the 200+ page tome...Melta still gives 2D6 pen within half range, right? Still the go-to tank killer up close, but LCs are definitely great now. Marines should be happy, guard should be happier-few HW squads should neuter all Rhino-based tanks, Eldar, DE (okay, so would a spit-wad shooter), Tau and Chimeras. Go las or go home. Hey, I think I made the new Guard slogan...now we just need somebody more motivated than me to do a motivational poster for the guard with that phrase.

Multi-meltas aren't going to be valued for the 2d6, but rather the AP 1.

AP 1 give you a +2 to the damage table roll when you pen a vehicle's armor. That turns the 6 = explode result on the table into a 4+ = explode, and pushes the shaken results off of the table completely!

So...same as was in 5th. Only differences are that a 3->5 goes from stunned to immobilized and a 2-> is shaken to weapon destroyed. For destructive purposes, it remains unchanged. But missiles and autocannons will have a hard time killing vehicles without glancing to death. Weakened missiles, huh? I was wondering how they were going to stop them being the go-to weapons...

Mechanized lists got a fair bit weaker, but flyers in general might end up dominating (this will really take a fiar bit of time to know for sure), and artillery just got ridiculous with the absurdly harsh limitations placed on special deployment like outflank, scouts, and infiltrate (Webway DE are dead). Ranged infantry got a slew of great buffs in the form of overwatch and the buff to rapid fire, the mobility of most assault armies that rely on transports got utterly neutered (Eldar assault armies are dead), and multi-assaults also got nerfed heavily.
What's more, two of the three deployments are strongly catered to ranged play (if I were playing an assault army, and anvil/hammer deployment were rolled, I'd simply forfeit. I've played games with that exact same style of deployment before was an assault army, it's unwinnable).

timetowaste85 wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:

timetowaste85 wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

Glad I kept all my lascannons! I don't want to look through the 200+ page tome...Melta still gives 2D6 pen within half range, right? Still the go-to tank killer up close, but LCs are definitely great now. Marines should be happy, guard should be happier-few HW squads should neuter all Rhino-based tanks, Eldar, DE (okay, so would a spit-wad shooter), Tau and Chimeras. Go las or go home. Hey, I think I made the new Guard slogan...now we just need somebody more motivated than me to do a motivational poster for the guard with that phrase.

Multi-meltas aren't going to be valued for the 2d6, but rather the AP 1.

AP 1 give you a +2 to the damage table roll when you pen a vehicle's armor. That turns the 6 = explode result on the table into a 4+ = explode, and pushes the shaken results off of the table completely!

So...same as was in 5th. Only differences are that a 3->5 goes from stunned to immobilized and a 2-> is shaken to weapon destroyed. For destructive purposes, it remains unchanged. But missiles and autocannons will have a hard time killing vehicles without glancing to death. Weakened missiles, huh? I was wondering how they were going to stop them being the go-to weapons...

Yeah...actually, in this case shooting took a slight nerf.

In specific, Krak Missiles are only about half as effective as they were on a penetrating hit because they will kill a vehicle on a 1/6 rather than a 2/6. The wrecked result was removed from the table completely, and is now specifically caused by reducing a vehicles hull points to zero without making it explode with a penetrating hit.

Of course, AP1 and AP2 weapons got buffed in that, the result that previously make a vehicle wreck, will now make it explode.

So far as I can tell, this is a straight nerf to the ML, the battle cannon, and other high strength weapons with AP3. It was a straight buff to weapons like the autocannon that trade AP for rate of fire specifically (and maybe a bit of strength).

Okay, maybe calling it a ML nerf is a bit harsh. Really, it's a redefinition of it's place in the world. In 5th it was nearly the be-all-end-all heavy weapon. Now, it's a dedicated anti-infantry weapon, rolled up with some anti-vehicular punch. Basically, I'm saying that now the frag missile is why you will buy the ML. If you want AV first, you'll look at either the las cannon for the 1/3 chance to make something explode on a pen, or the autocannon to save a few points and strip light vehicle HP. The krak missile just isn't that groovy in this edition. You might as well buy a las cannon if you need the AP3...

Don't forget fliers. Missiles can use the flakk option to shoot them down (although not confirmed how widespread this will be).

Really, when you consider just how important flyers will be in this edition, it's also important to consider the fact that they cannot be touched by assault troops. Considering you can build entire armies around fliers, that's kind of a big deal.

Well when I get my book tomorrow, I can help you out here but till then who knows...

Fafnir wrote:Don't forget fliers. Missiles can use the flakk option to shoot them down (although not confirmed how widespread this will be).

Really, when you consider just how important flyers will be in this edition, it's also important to consider the fact that they cannot be touched by assault troops. Considering you can build entire armies around fliers, that's kind of a big deal.

I haven't read the flyer rules yet. Not until tomorrow.

However, unless vehicles can hold objectives basing your list around flyers could prove detrimental. From what I've heard, objectives are even more important than they were before. Also, if that flyer is, say, carrying a squad that can hold an objective, if has to hover to drop off the squad. While it's hovering it's vulnerable as any skimmer.

At first glance, they've added a LOT of generalship to this edition. Which I like.