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I would like to know, to hear from the community, why exactly most lists now a days are ignoring CC.

As I see it there are a minimum 11 rounds of available Assault Phases, and only 6 shooting; which would make CC at least as important as shooting, but then more-so with ignoring Cover saves.

I understand that the humble Power Weapon can no longer slice right through a termie, but a charging assault squad(or equivalent Pistol/CCW units) still puts out more attacks than they do shots(3:1), and even when tied up they put out more attacks than with shooting, often with better or similar chances to hit/wound.

Now, I play Shooty gunlines almost exclusively; but I always add assault elements to my squads(PWs in my PIS gun-line Blobs, SB+PW/PF/Naked Vet Sgts, Grey hunters w/Mark+standard)

When comparing the two you need to consider the ease with which they both output damage. Yes Assault can put out more damage quicker in some cases, but getting there is much harder than pointing at a unit and shooting it.

This thread sums up most of the discrepancies and I found it to be an interesting discussion.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/554117.page

Eldarain is correct, it ultimately comes down to simply being easier to point and shoot. Unfortunately, the rise of the gunline makes for a very boring game.

I still run close combat units. I think the dearth of close combat lists is a bit of an over-reaction to the strengthening of shooting units. My CC units haven't been having a problem, honestly.

Basically when they nerfed cover, random assault distances, challenges, remove casualties from the front (especially hurting tyranids and green tide lists), overwatch and being able to move and shoot rapid fire full distance makes assault just plain not as good as shooting this edition. You take more damage coming across the board and its harder to get there. Makes for some pretty boring games, one of the reasons I really dislike tau.

I think that assault is on life support right now. It's not 'dead,' in that it's still possible to get into close combat and succeed during the course of a game. In fact, that's still quite expected for some armies: Screamerstar, Jetseer Council, BT Swarm, Blob Guard, etc. all can have successful assault phases.

The problem with assault right now is that the whole assault army type, that wins by assaulting and killing your opponent's dudes in large quantities, is really not competitive right now in any meta beyond certain regional metas. Running your opponent down with units of Khorne Berserkers, Genestealers, Howling Banshees, Slugga Boyz, Repentia, Assault Terminators, Assault Marines, Blood Claws, Assault Centurions, Mutilators, Melee Dreadnoughts, Vanguard Veterans, Storm Guardians, and all the others that I'm forgetting, is not successful as a primary strategy.

The armies that succeed on the large-scale meta right now enter close combat mostly to ensure that they aren't pushed off objectives (most blob armies park themselves in the middle of the board, and getting into CC will prevent some shooting to try and stay alive till the end of the game). Even the ones that enter CC and can kill the enemy aren't doing that as a primary objective -- the Screamerstar and the Jetseer council has that kind of offensive power as a side effect of their being resilient against the firepower of Wave Serpent Spam. Deathstars do very well in CC, but the deathstars in the game right now are there because Wave Serpent spam doesn't kill them quickly enough if they got their psychic powers off. So while deathstar armies are CC armies, they're not the type of CC armies that used to be prevalent throughout the meta of 40k, and they win in an entirely different way than most Khorne armies want to win the game.

People used to win games by charging with many units of Khorne Berserkers and Genestealers. Those units simply aren't effective in the same ways that they were before. You don't see people arming their tactical sergeants with CC weapons anymore, because 15 points for a power weapon just doesn't cut it when the sergeant will either die before he reaches CC with a unit that isn't good in CC, or be gibbed by whatever deathstar he got into CC with.

So yeah, assault is 'dead,' not in that you can never ever get to assault, or that it's not still a thing that can help you win the game, but that armies revolving around getting into and winning assaults as their primary strategy (aside from Deathstars) simply aren't on the same level of optimization that most shooty armies are today.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
Eldarain is correct, it ultimately comes down to simply being easier to point and shoot. Unfortunately, the rise of the gunline makes for a very boring game.

Not when you're trying to outgun your opponent. Mobile Tau vs. Drop pod army makes for a rather interesting battle.

Ehh, I still run CC, probably far too much CC now that I think of it. Army would certainly benefit from cutting it back.