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So Dakka, I'm sure we've all seen a drastic decrease in CC based lists. I'm curious to see what those still hanging on to their CC tactics are doing, and whether it is possible, now that the shock of 6th rule changes has settled down, to make a competitive close combat list.

How many of you have experience with CC heavy armies?

How viable can they be? Do you seriously have a chance against gunline or mech heavy lists in a tournament setting?

What tactics do you use to close in on the enemy, without losing too much of your punch in the process?

Have you made compromises when choosing units to allow for some effective shooting as back up?

How reliant are you on non-troops choices for viability? How important are objectives for your win, at least in comparison to tabling?

Feel free to answer all or only some of the questions.

I'm currently building (as in assembling and painting) a BA DoA list so would be interested in seeing the replies to these questions

I started playing again at the very end of 5th, my army is Tyranids.
I'm into the fluff, but I really didn't like their shooting. So i made an extremely successful 100% close combat list.

But that was 5th.. on to your questions.

1. As far as viability, anything is possible. A perfect player with an un-optimal list will always (IMO) beat an un-optimal player with a perfect list. I, however, had a very hard time against my brothers necrons for a bit. But with the few changes I've made (still extremely CC heavy, about 85%) Ive gotten the hang of shooty armies.

2. I've gone from one blanket plan for everyone, to trying to "read" the table/ player a lot more, and come up with a much more complex plan, which required a much more flexible list. Instead of outflanking a few elite units, and running the rest up the middle, I'll sometimes infiltrate or outflank with the stealers, drop pod the shooty guys in, and tunnel my trygons. I also have ymgarl genestealers and the deathleaper for priority backfield targets. So that by turn three, I'm everywhere on the field and almost everyone is an immediate threat to my enemy. Also there is a lot more "out of phase" shooting going on. Which means for me, I don't know how many turns I'll get out of my bugs. So you have to try harder to create the "perfect" assault unit. That being: don't kill so many enemy models that they all die, or end up running away; but kill enough that they wont be able to hurt you back too bad and you'll be able to kill the rest during --->HIS<--- turn, allowing you to move and assault again your turn. This is very tricky and of course, not even close to an absolute science.

3. I have. Like I said, it went from 100% shooting, so I sacrificed a squad of hormagaunts for a squad of termigants w/ devourers in a spore. And traded a trygon (among other things) for a carnifex with 2x devourers. Still kept my Swarmlord, and two trygons though.

4. I'm extremely reliant on non troops. That's my main way of killing the enemy troops. However I'm very reliant on troops too. For me, it's #1: claim objectives; #2 defend my troops; #3: remove the enemies ability to claim/ contest objectives. So the only vehicles I'll every really go out of my way for are ones that have a high capacity to kill my troops. I would rather get rid of one dude with a flamer than a lascannon predator.

I hope this helped. And if you have any other questions, I'll be very happy to answer them.

Land Raiders are making a comeback for me. People have started spamming Autocannons and Plasma Guns to glance transports to death and to kill foot lists/aircraft with volume of fire. Land Raiders laugh heartily at such silliness.

I think it all depends on your ability to close the gap on shooty armies, The biggest change from 5th to 6th was the inability to assault after leaving a transport.

If you have very fast assault army then I think its still viable provided you and whether a turn or two of shooting.

I find that snipers help a lot with getting into combat and winning.

That might sound strange but if your precision shots are doing their job then you can eliminate key players in the unit you want to target.

Many times this is a sergeant or someone wielding a nasty weapon, and in some cases they even have a nasty rule that makes it tough to assault.

How many of you have experience with CC heavy armies?
I play infantry heavy CSM, Mono-nurgle daemons, and have assault elements in my other two armies

How viable can they be? Do you seriously have a chance against gunline or mech heavy lists in a tournament setting?
They are as viable as you want them to be. Gunline or mech lists are easy to deal with. Gunline doesn't move, making catching them easy, mech isn't a problem since I always rock meltaguns

What tactics do you use to close in on the enemy, without losing too much of your punch in the process?
Large groups of units, deep strikers, having units act as bait, rolling for strategic traits and getting night fight, spreading out as well

Have you made compromises when choosing units to allow for some effective shooting as back up?
Nope, my obliterators do their job, and my nurgle daemons don't shoot. The CSM I run always have the guns they need in their squads

How reliant are you on non-troops choices for viability? How important are objectives for your win, at least in comparison to tabling?
If you run enough CC troops, it normally doesn't matter if some of them die or if your CC monster unit dies, there is always something left

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Land Raiders are making a comeback for me. People have started spamming Autocannons and Plasma Guns to glance transports to death and to kill foot lists/aircraft with volume of fire. Land Raiders laugh heartily at such silliness.

Gauss and rail guns are still out there to wreck land raiders with impunity. Then there are dark lances, manticore missiles and medusas to boot. The land raider just seems too expensive with so many ways to take one of commission. Orc battle wagons seem better as you can still assault out of it even if it gets wrecked or exploded due to being open topped.

bogalubov wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Land Raiders are making a comeback for me. People have started spamming Autocannons and Plasma Guns to glance transports to death and to kill foot lists/aircraft with volume of fire. Land Raiders laugh heartily at such silliness.

Gauss and rail guns are still out there to wreck land raiders with impunity. Then there are dark lances, manticore missiles and medusas to boot. The land raider just seems too expensive with so many ways to take one of commission. Orc battle wagons seem better as you can still assault out of it even if it gets wrecked or exploded due to being open topped.

You miss the point about land raiders. Their goal is to deliver the contents safely to the enemy lines. Doesn't matter if it blows up. A landraider can cover a good 20 inches on first turn alone. Furthermore the enemy has to hit before they can blow up the landraider, even then they still have to pen. Chance is everything in a game of dice.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I'm currently building (as in assembling and painting) a BA DoA list so would be interested in seeing the replies to these questions

How do you intend to make a DoA list work in 6th?
I have a 2000 point DoA army and haven't figured out how to make it work at all with the loss of init 5 and fnp against small arms. :/

bogalubov wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Land Raiders are making a comeback for me. People have started spamming Autocannons and Plasma Guns to glance transports to death and to kill foot lists/aircraft with volume of fire. Land Raiders laugh heartily at such silliness.

Gauss and rail guns are still out there to wreck land raiders with impunity. Then there are dark lances, manticore missiles and medusas to boot. The land raider just seems too expensive with so many ways to take one of commission. Orc battle wagons seem better as you can still assault out of it even if it gets wrecked or exploded due to being open topped.

You're in the enemy DZ after turn 1 unless you're playing Hammer & Anvil. You still get Cover Saves. It does help that I play Templars though, as I don't have to care about Lances.

You still get to charge out of a wrecked Land Raider.

 lunarman wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I'm currently building (as in assembling and painting) a BA DoA list so would be interested in seeing the replies to these questions

How do you intend to make a DoA list work in 6th?
I have a 2000 point DoA army and haven't figured out how to make it work at all with the loss of init 5 and fnp against small arms. :/

It doesn't work without init 5. That's a BA specific problem. Just because 6th edition trashcanned us, doesn't address the CC issue overall.

 juraigamer wrote:

bogalubov wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Land Raiders are making a comeback for me. People have started spamming Autocannons and Plasma Guns to glance transports to death and to kill foot lists/aircraft with volume of fire. Land Raiders laugh heartily at such silliness.

Gauss and rail guns are still out there to wreck land raiders with impunity. Then there are dark lances, manticore missiles and medusas to boot. The land raider just seems too expensive with so many ways to take one of commission. Orc battle wagons seem better as you can still assault out of it even if it gets wrecked or exploded due to being open topped.

You miss the point about land raiders. Their goal is to deliver the contents safely to the enemy lines. Doesn't matter if it blows up. A landraider can cover a good 20 inches on first turn alone. Furthermore the enemy has to hit before they can blow up the landraider, even then they still have to pen. Chance is everything in a game of dice.

I think good list building and strategy is aimed at minimizing the role that chance plays in the game. The problem I have with land raiders is that one assault unit is not going to do anything, so you need 2 or 3. That's paying a 230+ point tax per unit to get your assaulters across the board. Your opponent has spent those points on getting guns that he will use to blow your assaulters off the board after they chew through one or two throw away units.

bogalubov wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:

bogalubov wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Land Raiders are making a comeback for me. People have started spamming Autocannons and Plasma Guns to glance transports to death and to kill foot lists/aircraft with volume of fire. Land Raiders laugh heartily at such silliness.

Gauss and rail guns are still out there to wreck land raiders with impunity. Then there are dark lances, manticore missiles and medusas to boot. The land raider just seems too expensive with so many ways to take one of commission. Orc battle wagons seem better as you can still assault out of it even if it gets wrecked or exploded due to being open topped.

You miss the point about land raiders. Their goal is to deliver the contents safely to the enemy lines. Doesn't matter if it blows up. A landraider can cover a good 20 inches on first turn alone. Furthermore the enemy has to hit before they can blow up the landraider, even then they still have to pen. Chance is everything in a game of dice.

I think good list building and strategy is aimed at minimizing the role that chance plays in the game. The problem I have with land raiders is that one assault unit is not going to do anything, so you need 2 or 3. That's paying a 230+ point tax per unit to get your assaulters across the board. Your opponent has spent those points on getting guns that he will use to blow your assaulters off the board after they chew through one or two throw away units.

This. Now that terminators are actually pretty good, they still have to contend with this problem.

I play Orks and have started playing Nids in 6th.

Speed is a big factor for success with a CC heavy army.

Nob Bikers, and Flyrants are really important to my overall strategy, getting a fast, strong hard hitting unit up in my opponent's face by T2 means that I will have a much easier time getting my other assault troops into combat where they belong.

Disruption units like Trygons, spore pod units, Dakka jets etc really help with this as well.

Overall my armies have both taken well to 6th (the Nids are actually better from what I can tell, not that I played them in 5th). There's been some slight adjustments, I no longer take units of Boyz with Nobz in them, changes to fearless means that Boys alone are more than enough to kill most enemy units.

 More Dakka wrote:
I play Orks and have started playing Nids in 6th.

Speed is a big factor for success with a CC heavy army.

Nob Bikers, and Flyrants are really important to my overall strategy, getting a fast, strong hard hitting unit up in my opponent's face by T2 means that I will have a much easier time getting my other assault troops into combat where they belong.

Disruption units like Trygons, spore pod units, Dakka jets etc really help with this as well.

Overall my armies have both taken well to 6th (the Nids are actually better from what I can tell, not that I played them in 5th). There's been some slight adjustments, I no longer take units of Boyz with Nobz in them, changes to fearless means that Boys alone are more than enough to kill most enemy units.

Tyranids get a big boost with biomancy for being able to survive long enough to charge. That and generally fearless troops that can be pooped out for free by a tervigon. The tervigon alone saves you a bunch of points because you don't need to purchase as many troops before the game starts. The spore pods also allow you to drop a huge chunk of your force on the enemy without ever being shot walking across the board. Although overall I think it's better to pack short range shooting power into the pods. The average tyranid MC is pretty good in assault without having to specialize in it.

Martel732 wrote:

bogalubov wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:

bogalubov wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Land Raiders are making a comeback for me. People have started spamming Autocannons and Plasma Guns to glance transports to death and to kill foot lists/aircraft with volume of fire. Land Raiders laugh heartily at such silliness.

Gauss and rail guns are still out there to wreck land raiders with impunity. Then there are dark lances, manticore missiles and medusas to boot. The land raider just seems too expensive with so many ways to take one of commission. Orc battle wagons seem better as you can still assault out of it even if it gets wrecked or exploded due to being open topped.

You miss the point about land raiders. Their goal is to deliver the contents safely to the enemy lines. Doesn't matter if it blows up. A landraider can cover a good 20 inches on first turn alone. Furthermore the enemy has to hit before they can blow up the landraider, even then they still have to pen. Chance is everything in a game of dice.

I think good list building and strategy is aimed at minimizing the role that chance plays in the game. The problem I have with land raiders is that one assault unit is not going to do anything, so you need 2 or 3. That's paying a 230+ point tax per unit to get your assaulters across the board. Your opponent has spent those points on getting guns that he will use to blow your assaulters off the board after they chew through one or two throw away units.

This. Now that terminators are actually pretty good, they still have to contend with this problem.

Which is where Drop Pods come into the equation. They not only allow you to attack the enemy long-range shooting with a guaranteed Alpha Strike, they let you get multiple threats into the enemy DZ, fast.

I play DE, and to be honest DE can't really build an effective assault list in 6th ed. Mostly shooting with a couple assault units works fine, but Wyche rushing doesn't really work all that well. And Webway Portals just don't work at all anymore (not much point if you can't assault out of them). Plenty of other builds are good though, Beastpacks work great, and Incubi still pull termie killing duties just fine. You just need a large shooting element to support them.

I think Orks have it best when it comes to making effective 6th ed CC lists. Ironically it comes with taking lots of shoota boyz. Very cheap, large numbers so they don't have to worry as much about overwatch, pretty good in assault, and even if they don't get the assault on you they mess you up with the amount of overwatch shots when you assault them (proportionally, snap shots don't hinder their BS as much). Take a good core of Shoota Boyz, then take harder hitting CC units to taste to finish stuff off. IMO 6th treated Orks and Crons the best, and even though my idea of a great Ork CC list has a fair amount of in built shooting, I still think they'll out assault just about everyone.

As far as marine armies go, taking Landraiders and gambling against the meta (hope for few Tau/Necrons/Dark Eldar) might be the best way to go. I've have seen some armies that literally only have 1-2 weapons in the entire list that can touch AV14, I think those lists are a horrible idea, but I'm sure there will be some players out there that will capitlize on that.

My favorite CC army in 6th has to be my Speed Freaks army.

It has a big unit of Nob Bikers and a Biker Warboss, 5 Trukk boy units, a units of boys on foot, 2 units of lootas and an ADL Guad gun and two units of Lobbas. The Lobbas, Lootas and Bikes all run interference for the trukks.

The trukks start 24 inches away from the enemy in most case. The first turn they move 12 in the movement phase and 12 in the shooting phase. Half the time Ill go first. Half of the other half of the time, it will be night fight. So in turn two, Im across no mans land with nob bikers, a biker warboss and 5 trukk boy units. By then, I dont care if the trukk are destroyed.

I use the lootas, warboss and lobbas to isolate a portion og his line and I assault the piece of his I want with the bikers and trukk boyz.

It can be hit or miss but in 75% of the games, the game begins on my terms which gives me the edge I need with Trukk Boyz.

This is all very interesting, but I'm not seeing much other than the equivalent of 5th ed tactics, or simply throw enough gak against the wall: something'll stick.

 kaiservonhugal wrote:
Half of the other half of the time, it will be night fight.

lol so you mean 1/4 of the time?

Yes thats what I mean.

Its a tribute to the Ork Codex that I can use the army almost unchanged from way back in 4th Edition. I can only hope the new dex is nearly as good. I added a Quad gun and put the KFF on the shelf.

20 harleqins, eldrad, yriel, Barron. Melee army that cannot be shot to death and can match nearly any other deathstar in cc.

All of this is I6 or higher and rerolling wounds
80A WS5 S4 rending
5A WS7 wounds on 2+ ignores armor
3A WS5 wounds on 2+ ignores armor
4A WS6 S6

VS shooting i have stealth, shrouding(often means 2+ cover save), 3+ armor save on yriel, 3+ inv save on eldrad, and a 2+ inv on barron. All of it rerolls You cannot shoot down 2+ rerollable cover saves and either 2+ or 3+ in melee means most wounds are not going through.

That's a lot of points in 2 units which can be outflanked and shot to pieces (if you're caught in the open it's only 4+ re-rollable) or beaten with templates.

They work, but it's a gamble against some armies that don't sit static and shoot.

 Griddlelol wrote:
This is all very interesting, but I'm not seeing much other than the equivalent of 5th ed tactics, or simply throw enough gak against the wall: something'll stick.

Considering Melee didn't get any significant buffs or new ways to fit in, that's not very surprising TBH.

 lunarman wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I'm currently building (as in assembling and painting) a BA DoA list so would be interested in seeing the replies to these questions

How do you intend to make a DoA list work in 6th?
I have a 2000 point DoA army and haven't figured out how to make it work at all with the loss of init 5 and fnp against small arms. :/

I've not played 6th at all yet, so am just fishing for any information about how the army might work myself

The first problem with DoA in 6th is the deployment rules. BA using DoA dont' get the drop pod "waiver" for deployment since they are in no way required to deep strike.

I find that trying to use DoA actually backfires more often than it provides any kind of advantage. The combination of a) armies you don't want to be close to b) the occasional mishap c) the "dead turn" where enemy armies can react and d) self-piecemealing has never made DoA seem very useful to me.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Considering Melee didn't get any significant buffs or new ways to fit in, that's not very surprising TBH.

Quite right. However, there were changes, even if they came in the form of nerfs. I assumed people might switch things up to counter balance those nerfs.

To me the big winners of CC lists are tyranids. They seem to thrive with the new psychic powers. Similarly, I'm seeing FA choices everywhere, that I didn't see so much of a few months ago.

Tyranids are much improved in 6th edition. They are now more like their 2nd edition incarnation than ever before, with their fearsome psychic buffs and maledictions. Anyone remember catalyst from 2nd? Yeah, I want to forget too. Not that I'm saying that they are anywhere near that broken. It's a thematic comparison.

Terminators got stronger in close combat. 2+ saves are only affected by initiative 1 swings, which are prohibitively expensive for MEQs. I think CC is the domain of Terminators now.