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I'm slowly dipping my toes into 6th - I get to play a game of Warhams about once every other year or so, so it's more a relaxing modeling hobby than anything, but I like to keep abreast of the rules when I get the time - and it's looking to me like assault units in general may have taken a bit of an overall nerf. I have no idea how you could possibly run a pure DOA list, for example. I've always had an illogical love for assault armies, but is it time to give up the ghost on them and roll over to shooters with a small counter-assault element?

Daemons have been really good at assaulting in my games with them so far. Incredibly fast units getting into melee in turn 2 most times.

I think assault armies aren't dead you just can't do them the same way as in 5th. I know my Necrons are fine. Stormlord Night fighting and Wariths are still good.

Assault isn't dead, its just not as amazing as it was in 5th.

I run a close combat oriented Grey Knights army and I win more than lose. So I wouldnt say they are completely dead.

Assault isn't dead, people just complain about it's nerf more since shooting got a bit of a buff in 6th. Assault it still viable, just not as face palm simple as it was in 5th.

In short, people like to complain, this year's main topic "man my assault army is so nerfed!", right up there with "OMG flyers are so OP!".

They're not so much dead, more they require an actual tactic rather than charging in. They need balance, the trick is to have shooty units to cover and soften up targets, whilst your assault units can tie things up.
I had a few games with my new Dread the other day and has an assault god. If you can soften up a target and then get them in combat, it's game over 80% of the time, you need to charge the right units, choose your targets carefully and always keep your units in a position to outflank and re-engage all enemies you want to get in combat.
CC isn't dead, it's just grown up.

So, you're saying running into hack with a chainsaw while you have a perfectly viable rifle that fires explosive 20mm rounds strapped across your back isn't tactically sound?

But seriously, I agree with the above. In 5e the 1st turn was just time to allow the shooty army player time to admire his figures on the board and feel like he was actually playing a game. By 2nd turn, that illusion was all over. Now, in 6e, charging is more difficult and requires planning and tactics, but still gives very good rewards. It also helps some that AP3 weapons have been becoming less common, and the fact that power weapons no longer negate all saves altogether has helped assault units tremendously.

assault armies dead? HAH! mah orks laff at yeh!

Some assault armies/options are dead due to the change to assaulting out of vehicles.

Howling Banshees in particular have basically no way of reaching combat now, SM/CSM have the same problem with not being able to assault out of Rhinos.

Yeah... the other changes are mostly acceptable (although 2D6" assault range always screws me over with snake eyes), but lack of affordable assault vehicles really, really hurts.

 shamikebab wrote:
Howling Banshees in particular have basically no way of reaching combat now.

But at least the 6th ed Eldar FAQ made their masks work against terrain again. ;-)

No. No. No. Overwatch hits on 6s. You do not need Power Swords to take out terminators. Deal with it

I definitely wouldn't say they are dead. I played my pure khorne daemons (the only shooting I have is a soul grinder and my blood thirsters whip thing) against a shooting heavy eldar army (it also had an avatar and one of those big wraith things with thin limbs(no idea what it's real name is) as counter assault) the other day. I tabled him on turn 4 having only lost 6 bloodletters and 3 bloodcrushers.

Assault armies aren't dead just like mech armies aren't dead - you need to adapt them a little, maybe putting in a bit more support firepower, but it's still possible to play an assault oriented army fairly well.

Some unit's got hit. Which was enough for a vocal minority to scream "Assault is dead!"

But in all honesty, the only real b ig issue for assault armies, was not being able to disembark a non assault, non open topped vehicle then assault. So it has no effect on assaulting with
:

Orks
Daemons
tyranid's
Dark eldar

And very little effect on
Blood angels.
Terminator-heavy assault armies.
on your post, a descent of angels army does not rely on transport's, and should be in assault on turn 2. As long as you focus on having lot's of assault marines, rather than a select few squad's, you will do fine.

People like exaggerating the weakness of their army so that their losses don't feel so bad.

See: Every Tau thread this week. And probably many Sisters threads (even if we Sisters players do have more to complain about than Tau players do, every codex, including our pdf "codex", can still win games) as well.

Assault forces are on par with shooty forces now. A good assualt army player doesn't care and will kill you when he/she gets there. My CSM are assault only, they only have problems with GK.

 juraigamer wrote:
Assault forces are on par with shooty forces now. A good assualt army player doesn't care and will kill you when he/she gets there. My CSM are assault only, they only have problems with GK.

How do you make that work, out of curiosity, with only the one assault vehicle in the codex?

As others have said, assault armies aren't dead. Have been doing very well with my wyches so far.

I feel it would be fine if they'd left transport rules the same as before (so if the vehicle hadn't moved you can disembark and assault) Right now you have to take two rounds of shooting (one normal, one overwatch) before you can get into combat. It doesn't feel fluffy or balanced to shooting (or to open-topped transports)

Just the overwatch change would have been fine.

^^ this.

also i played in late 5th and my assault army was monsterous.
now in 6th edition khorne units or upgrades are barely thought of these days. I dont care! I love throwing over 20 ap3 attacks with chosen .

SpikeyBits had a great article today about assault armies. If you need your confidence boosted or another look at tactics, I suggest you read it.


Linkness: http://blog.spikeybits.com/2013/04/the-assault-phase-not-dead-yet.html

 Evileyes wrote:
Some unit's got hit. Which was enough for a vocal minority to scream "Assault is dead!"

But in all honesty, the only real b ig issue for assault armies, was not being able to disembark a non assault, non open topped vehicle then assault. So it has no effect on assaulting with
:

Orks
Daemons
tyranid's
Dark eldar

And very little effect on
Blood angels.
Terminator-heavy assault armies.
on your post, a descent of angels army does not rely on transport's, and should be in assault on turn 2. As long as you focus on having lot's of assault marines, rather than a select few squad's, you will do fine.

Tyranids were affected tremendously by the new assault rules. Genestealers as a unit have become basically unplayable from a competitive standpoint. You cannot assault from reserves (outflank) is a huge impact certain armies. Ork kommando's with snikrot, same thing. That being said assault armies are far from dead. Like everyone is saying, just takes a smart approach and tactics.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Assault isn't dead, its just not as amazing as it was in 5th.

This, a thousand times this.

As someone who played both assault (nids) and shooty (tau and crons) the phrase "assault is dead..." etc. are pure hyperbole, or just players who got used to assault being "THE" thing in 5th are not used to it being balanced now.

Oh, granted, a LOT of old tactics are gone now (boys taking wounds for the power klaw nob forever) but assault is far from dead.

play what you want, pay attention and find someone who plays the army you like well, and learn from them.

 skycapt44 wrote:
Tyranids were affected tremendously by the new assault rules. Genestealers as a unit have become basically unplayable from a competitive standpoint. You cannot assault from reserves (outflank) is a huge impact certain armies.

Let me correct you - Genestealers were affected tremendously by the new assault rules. Genestealers lost their trick - assaulting from nowhere. Run in small squads that aren't tough and have a terrible save, they needed that 'assault from nowhere' trick to actually make it to assault. Tyranids have more units than Genestealers.

Tyranids, as a whole, were never an assault army. They're a close range army. The main idea with them is get close, pummel with short ranged weapons, and assault weakened units. This tactic actually got better in 6th edition simply because of Hull Points. Tyranids were also strengthened by the new psychic powers - the amount of Biomancy weilding psykers they can field is disgusting, some of them Monstrous Creatures who are as useful getting Warp Speed and Iron Arm as they are getting Enfeeble, Hemmorage and Endurance.

The only real hit Genestealers took was not being able to assault from reserves. Yrmgarls can still assault from reserves, kinda.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The only real hit Genestealers took was not being able to assault from reserves. Yrmgarls can still assault from reserves, kinda.

That was the only hit Genestealers needed to knock them out of play. They're not tough, have a terrible save and are expensive to boot. Now you run them up the field, or outflank and hope there's some cover and your opponent ignores them. Either way, they're going to be public enemy number one as soon as they're in range, due to how good they are in assault, and don't have the numbers, toughness or save to help them weather that.

All right, I've got to defend the opposite opinion here. Yes, assault armies really are dead. The only real exception is armies based around the top few assault units like wraiths.

For every rule that they added that could in any way possibly be construed as beneficial to assault, they added eight rules that are strongly in favor of shooting. Add to this the fact that foot hordes really don't work nearly as well, and that you can't move more than 6" and disembark from transports, and you basically kill off any army builds that were seriously good in assault in 5th.

It's not that assault was amazing in 5th, and it's gotten brought down to normal in 6th. It's that assault was reasonably possible, but inferior to shooting in 5th, and anybody who could do assault well then were wiped out.

It is still possible to get into assault in 6th edition, and, as mentioned, there is a tiny pool of units that can still do well here, but for most armies, building a list dedicated to assault is a quick route to a lost game.

It should only take you roughly one game of moving your assault units forward only to lose your cover saves to focus fire, and have casualties taken from the front (thus delaying when you make it in), and rolling poorly on a charge range just to eat overwatch and regular shooting twice just so that you can run into a speedbump (like a transport) and be slaughtered by a third round of shooting for you to realise that assault is pretty much a non-option. At least, nothing to build your army around.

I dunno. From what I saw of you trying to do assault in 6th edition was 'my 5th edition assault tactics don't work anymore. Everyones assault armies are dead'.

I've been having plenty of luck with my Tyranids who aren't shy about assault. Charge ranges aren't as big of a problem as people think when you have fleet or jump packs. Overwatch is grossly overexaggerated in its effect. Assaulting into cover is still a problem if you lack grenades, but there's not much you can do about that.

Assault took some hits, but it's not dead. If you're having so mch difficulty with assault in 6th edition, I feel pretty comfortable saying 'you're doing it wrong'.