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The meta of fifth edition fluctuated a ton, we saw a lot of FAQs, codecies, etc etc coming out during that time, but one thing that didn't seem to change was the belief that footslogging was a bad, bad idea. I saw this myself when playing amongst friends, as those who couldn't find a way to move their troops around the battlefield faster suffered more losses than those of us who could.

Now however, I'm starting to see a lot more foot lists bouncing around the forums here, and it seems that fewer people believe that one needs to invest in transportation of some kind, which to me raises some of the following questions:

1) what has changed that has made transports less necessary? were they ever as necessary as people though?
2) In what contexts is footslogging viable? or is it actually viable?

1. Transports die faster now, and do much more damage to some armies when they die (DE and Orks got hurt by opentopped explosions becoming S4 for example) They're no longer the nigh unkillable pillboxes they were in 5th. Only army I've seen that still uses it's transports the same way is IG, and that's because ours are basically medium tanks with a troop hold. Armies that use things like rhinos or other more lightly armored transports seem to be a lot more rare now. Heck, I even saw a DE player running a foot list yesterday.

2. I guess not because footslogging got better, so much as transports are no longer auto takes. Horde orks and nids work the same as they always do, but I've noticed lots of marine armies in my area are running mass hordes of footslogging marines. Space wolves, chaos, even grey knights, they've all been taking lots of power armored troops on foot. Not sure why for them to be honest, I've never played a Marine codex.

Cover got worse, focus fire, and shooting being more deadly in general would make one think footslogging got worse, but I guess it didn't take as much of a hit as mech did. I never really meched up in 5th, so I can't really comment on just how much it changed.

Well the only reason to hold back on big squads of troops was because they couldnt fit in transports.

Now who cares about transports.

6th edition moved to Quantity over Quality in mind set. Sure you can melta the tank to death but its much easier to sit back and rain down auto cannons to shave off HPs.

Everything that had Quality became much less attractive. Power weapons took a hit to their usefulness. Special weapons and Sgts can now be snipped out of a team.

So now there is no reason to run a blob of Space Marines .... hell who wouldnt want a blob of space marines?

35pts is still a price that's totally worth Metal Boxes in 6th Edition. Search Lights and a free 12 - 18" move on the first turn to get near any mid-board objectives are also totally worth it.

If the Rhino actually makes it to an objective, it makes a great movement blocker.

Can't really say for other armies. Might not be as worth it for Blood Angels.

Chimeras are still fine, since they are AV12. I can't imagine why you wouldn't want a raider with it's Dark Lance.

Gives up first blood ....

8/10 times that will be the winning point.

I wouldn't say transports are less necessary, but they are certainly less surviveable. and with destroyed transports giving up first blood, many people feel that bringing units that give up easy VP's is a stupid choice. of course, with transports being easier to kill through glances and penetration, unless you go totally overboard, your enemy can probaly take out most of them in opening turns. you also can't assault out of them, claim objectives from them, and their general utility past moving a unit round a bit faster is gone.

in most battles, troops, and troops alone count as scoring units. so its a good idea to take quite a few troops with you to secure the primary and secondary objectives, pick up relics and so forth. likewise, having lots of units isn't as much of a drawback as it used to be, only 1/6 of the battles have killpoints, so having more boots on the ground to take and hold objectives i sa good thing. so what you are seeing is a combination of people taking more units of troops, and then taking larger units to make them more surviveable. and when you only take a few transports, or none at all, the savings in points can often give you a whole additional squad. Plus, since transports are more vulnerable now, not taking them isn't as much of a drawback, since you can only realistically count on having them for the first couple of turns anyway

Tyrs13 wrote:
Gives up first blood ....

8/10 times that will be the winning point.

I think both of these points are true but I don't think its a reason to not take transports. Mobility is a HUGE issue in 6th because getting scoring units somewhere is 5/6ths of the missions. Line Breaker is the hidden point that is starting to come to light. You're not getting that unless you move some dudes into their deployment zone. Games that I've lost First Blood because of a transport going down can be equalized by playing for line breaker.
I have a significantly easier time figuring out how to win a game when my opponent has limited mobility and I don't. Foot slogging can only get you so far in a game, and you'll notice that real fast when you've got to get to some far off objective in the long-wise deployment game.

Getting off of the soapbox for a second, footslogging is a lot more common but as time evens out the playing field, we'll probaby see it being a viable option but one that is much less common as 6th-shine wears off.
Plus, how many transports do you all own from 5th?! They aren't just going to sit on your shelf, right?

I footslogged in 5th as BA and in 6th it is basically more of the same for me. The big difference for footsloggers was snapfire heavy, new rapid fire rules and change in cover.

However, even considering first-blood transports still have a place in many armies as long as you dont throw them to the wind and hope they will survive, hell vehicles can get better cover saves than infantry sometimes.

35 points for 18" move and cover from 1 round of shooting to MEQ armies is still useful.

* to echo Brymm mobility has and continues to be one of the three keystones to army tactics, mobility/durability/firepower

Well, I play grey knights and have not taken a single transport since my first game this edition, they just die to easy and as above, first blood has decided a lot of games for me.

40 pagk behind an aegis makes a very scary (and quite survivable) gunline.

Mobility gets mentioned, but for this I have a squad of troops in a zooming raven, teleporting dreadknights and interceptors, and its working well so far.

I've always felt that, at least for my marines, they needed some sort of delivery method, other than a 6 inch move, to help them speed them on their way. the d6 run move that we got in 5th helped, but that only adds an average of 3.5 inches, and precludes shooting. I think Brymm brought up a good counter-point to the fact that, against a lot of armies, taking transports can immediately put you down 1 victory point. However, even though transports give you an easier time of getting linebreaker, obviously however you HAVE to get linebreaker in order to break even, forcing your hand. Also, 5-7 turns is plenty of time for any unit to move across the 24" gap that separates deployment zones.

So which armies can footslog? Or, more importantly, which armies/builds should footslog? And who can still afford to stock up on transports, despite their increased fragility and the fact that they will reliably put you a point behind?

No, transports are still good for BA, especially given their 24" move potential.

Frankly, I don't worry about first blood in the least. It's irrelevant if I can cripple my opponents' troop squads.

I'm tracking that better conditions for footslogging is a plus overall s offor orks, especially if you are into big blobs of byz on foot.

This is why I'm picking up another whirlwind soon Cheap anti foot slogger tech

Power armor increased on foot, becuase they are effecively better armor in this edition than non power armor thanks to the avg. cover save going from 4 to 5.This has improved basic guns a good deal against non-power armor, so getting those shots from troopers is becoming more important than hiding them in a box.

Tyrs13 wrote:
Gives up first blood ....

8/10 times that will be the winning point.

If 8/10 games are decided by First Blood, you are doing it wrong. Besides, if your opponent gets first turn and has any decent long ranged firepower, I'd rather him waste Lascannon shots on a Rhino than a Vindicator, Dreadnought, or anything more valuable. Even if he pens, he has 1/3 chance of actually killing it in the one shot.

In any game with more than one objective each (Emperor's Will), there are multiple Objectives to be taken and held. Rhinos and other transports allow you to get to an objective quickly, twice as fast as a foot slogger would. Getting across the board for line breaker and contesting your opponent's objective is worth it. Heck, if there are 3 objectives, you play for the win by having 6 objective points. 4 or 5, even more. One objective marker is worth all 3 Secondary Objectives combined. On the Relic, those Transports have allowed me to get a pair of Rhinos around the objective, and my men getting the cover as they run the Relic back to my deployment.

Not to mention, 50% of the time you'll have first turn. Even then, if you hide your Rhinos well enough, use cover, line of sight, and the board to your advantage, you should be able to have a decent chance of keeping your tanks alive.

Not to mention, it takes 4 turns for a footslogger to make it 24" across the board, unless you runs, in which case, you are not shooting. Someone in a transport can be across that in 2 turns, disembarked, and shooting at things.

The only time transports are a liability is on Purge the Alien. But even then, they are useful for Night Fighting in lighting up targets, and moving your special weapons / squads into better positions. Heck, they'll even keep the squishy people inside completely safe from small arms fire (S5 and below), and have a reasonable chance of not being killed by S6-7. 50% of the games are Night Fighting turn one, and having a flash light that lets you snipe out targets is a good boon.

The risk of giving up First Blood is a pittance compared to the increased tactical flexibility in 5/6 missions. Maybe a bit of a liability if all you play is Purge the Alien/Kill Points, but, if all you play is that, you aren't really playing 40k now, are you?

Power armor increased on foot, becuase they are effecively better armor in this edition than non power armor thanks to the avg. cover save going from 4 to 5.This has improved basic guns a good deal against non-power armor, so getting those shots from troopers is becoming more important than hiding them in a box.

Getting your troopers close enough to rapid fire, your special weapons like Melta Guns or Flamers into a good position, or just the ability to hide men is worth the price tag on a game which has less cover than before. Not to mention that most (Imperial) vehicles come with Search Lights, which makes night fighting significantly less scary when you are using your long ranged firepower to eliminate things on your first turn. I can't tell you how often Search Lights have enabled me to get an early kill on something scary, just because there was a Rhino there to light it up for my big guns.

Well, mech changed because the incredibly useful and durable things that come with your squad to make them more mobile and reduce the effect of templates and high AP weaponry on them now no longer really work to win the game for you as much in most of the missions. You can't really rely on them like before to get your scoring / contesting in.

It's also just mildly easier to kill stuff with 5+ cover and hull points so now you can't really rely on your lil MSU Mech squad to break off into 2 units and do double duty scoring/contesting or scoring/blocking like you used to in the last turns, though you are sort of forced to rely on that sort of idea these days if you want to use mech. First blood also made things weird.

I guess footslogging was always something that I could only barely make sense of in the last rotation. It seemed like it was a good way to have a lot of extra bodies running around for armies who were fast enough to get stuck in and avoid getting blasted to smitherines/kited/blocked or armies where the cheapness of the bodies just made it seem that they would inevitably be all over the table if they kept the points to fielding lots of bodies and there wasn't much you could do about it. Also doesn't seem like a bad way to squeeze in a couple extra guns or something if your army already has some fast scoring blobs that can go with it's static elements.

It seems like sixth made it hard to rely on dumb MSU units for everything you ever wanted and you have to have something that can stand on it's own two feet against the reduced coversaves and mobility of fliers and great barrage stuff, but I wonder if that has made things just a bit harder for poor foot lists. I guess they have more dumb LOS wackiness but now meltas are much less often the go to gun, we are seeing waaaaaaay more templates and pie plates around here and far away objectives are seeming more like lost causes to folks. I really think that as people start trying to deal with units of 10 marines in cover (etc) a turn instead of 5, you will find that foot units start seeing more of what they don't like popping up.

I think fortifications also play a role in this sort of stuff, but I think MECH MSU might have gotten worse, but there is still a lot of good transports can do for you unless you are sure you need those extra bodies.

Martel732 wrote:
This is why I'm picking up another whirlwind soon Cheap anti foot slogger tech

Oi! Dat ain't fightin fair now!

 Lord PoPo wrote:
And who can still afford to stock up on transports, despite their increased fragility and the fact that they will reliably put you a point behind?

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*coughFLYINGCIRCUScough*