Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Re-opened in hopes that members will remember the forum rules.

A few things to remember...
1. http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/forum_rules.jsp
2. This is not about the merits of shooting over close combat or close combat over shooting or "shooty style vs assault style armies, it is about specific strategies and tactics to help players better use the assault units that they DO take for whatever reason within their army.
3. Please respect other members and understand that strategies and tactics that are offered are offered to help other players because they have proven themselves to be effective.
4. Understand that not every strategy or tactic will work ALL the time or in EVERY situation and are often counterable through tailering, other tactics and strategies or just pain old bad luck. just because you can poke a possible hole, does not mean it is worthless altogether, it means that you have pointed out a single flaw to take into consideration with it's other flaws and merits.

Now to the nitty gritty...
1. When you do take units that are geared towards assault, how do you use them most effectively? What are some tips and tricks or even general advice that you would give other player that might help them?

Holy textwall batman!

Get some paragraphs in there and people might read this. It is an interesting topic, but I just can`t force myself to even start plowing through that unbroken wall of text

Assult is not dead, I love hearing people say this unitl I crash a Carnifex into your back lines along with other gribbles.

Setting up terrain is where this starts, giving your units cover as they move up is key. Knowing this helps.

My bad. I never was a good typist and sometimes type as I think with stuff running together. I hope its better now.
I understand that I am not the end all be all. I invite others to help in this in order to tutor those who have trouble facing shooty armies. or help assault players in general for that matter. lets just hope it is kept civil so we don't get flamers going crazy like it did in the other thread. lol
Please give exact details if you can as examples.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think I also need to point out that the game is not about just killing the enemy. there are objectives and secondary objectives. I have seen assault armies get the crap shot out of them win because they were able to keep a boy or two alive in hiding to deny a kill point. I have also seen a single boy or gaunt hold an objective at the end of the game for the win when the opposing guard player was cowering in cover with their guns. Singling out a model for first blood or a few extra shots at an hq to make sure the commander dies ir even a remnant squad cowering in a corner out of los to get linebreaker. can win a game.

Much better now.

Close combat is of course not dead, but it has been made less effective. 5th was the era of multicharging, I think my record was 1200pts killed with 5 assault termies on a single charge.

6th has made multicharges much harder, you loose the additional attack, random charge range can screw you over royally, you have to declare all targets at the start of the charge and you have to eat overwatch from everyone involved - which again is likely to put you further out from your target.

So assault has lost A LOT of the devastating potential it had in 5th.

It is also in general harder to get into combat. You can`t charge out of a stationary transport, you have overwatch and random charges and the amount of firepower available has increased. Overwatch even makes some units close to unchargable (wraithguard w. flamers) for many armies/units. Picking casualities from the front makes horde cc units much worse too.

In short, there is no doubt assault got hit hard with 6th ed. However, some units still thrive on assault.

Units which are very surviable and fast:
- Khornedogs, screamers, spawn, wraiths, jetbike autarch, wraithknight, jetcouncil, (bloodcrushers, fiends)

Units which are very fast and hit hard:
- Seekers, deamon princes, (deamonettes), beastpack

I`ve probably left someone out, but to me, it seems like you have to be really fast without relying on a transport to live on close combat in 6th, and preferably, you should also be very resillient.

Of course, there is also merit in simply having some ability to fight. Lots of armies, like space marine bikers can really bully armies without counter-charge units. It is much worse to fight an eldar serpent army that has some counter-charge units than one with no close combat ability at all. The simple threat of being able to counter-attack with local cc superiority (like a laserlance autarch) can deter an opponent from using his overall superior ability in close combat.

Getting there a turn before your opponent expects it helps. Ymgral Genestealers, or stormboyz are pretty good at this.

This is why I started this thread. To help people learn to overcome how close combat has been toned down from being way overpowered to simply awesomely powerful.
A few notes...
1. Random assault range is rarely under six inches so unless you are uncommonly unlucky, it is no worse than before while more often than not, giving you a longer assault range. I will admit that rolling snakeeyes when you are 3 inches away can hurt but face it, Most assaults start well within 6 inches. They even did in 5th edition so overall, random assault range has been a boon to close combat.
2. transports and their proper use is being discussed in this thread and how they can be used to do more than drive across the field. With ramming and overrunning units, they are often even more effective than before as well.
3. aside from tau (their overwatch support fire is simply broken I think), overwatch is usually desultory at best. an occasional flamer can do something but only d3, 3 models getting hit at most plus they get their armor saves. As mentioned, overwatch can be minimized by assault vectors and choosing which unit to assault with first. For example, assault the guard unit with the dreadnought first. Las guns and flamers do nothing and your follow up unit of raptors do even get shot at at all.
Side note, jetcouncil = evil Guy was running our tourneys with that unit combined with the dark elder guy that gave them all stealth. A 2+ rerollable cover save , 3+ rerollable basic save combined with the hard hitting power.... rolled over everything including tau.
I think allies can be broken as in the case of the dark elder joining the jetcouncil but they can also help armies compensate for their weaknesses. For example, giving orks some much needed artillery to support their whaagghhh.

When facing Tau...always multiassault...they all get to overwatch you anyways and defensive grenades are taking away your charge bonus...so you might as well kill more units at once...and more units means hopefully you'll take enough time to win assault in their phase.

We had a guy play chaos use large units of tough spawn. Start in cover with a heavy hitter close combat lord attached and string a few across the field towards the enemy. At best, his opponent was able to kill one or two of the and on turn 2, the rest were able to be in close combat. Of course, the rest of the unit and the Lord were strung across the board and unable to swing until the following turn but they were safe from being shot at and as you cant shoot through an assault, that was one long los blocker. on turn 3, you had a chaos lord and large unit of spawn rampaging around your deployment zone scott free with the rest of his army right behind getting there almost scott free.
So slingshotting your assault HQ hitters in in this way is a valdi way to get there as well.

EVIL INC wrote:
This is why I started this thread. To help people learn to overcome how close combat has been toned down from being way overpowered to simply awesomely powerful.
A few notes...
1. Random assault range is rarely under six inches so unless you are uncommonly unlucky, it is no worse than before while more often than not, giving you a longer assault range. I will admit that rolling snakeeyes when you are 2 inches away can hurt but face it, Most assaults start well within 6 inches. They even did in 5th edition so overall, random assault range has been a boon to close combat.
2. transports and their proper use is being discussed in this thread and how they can be used to do more than drive across the field. With ramming and overrunning units, they are often even more effective than before as well.
3. aside from tau (their overwatch support fire is simply broken I think), overwatch is usually desultory at best. an occasional flamer can do something but only d3, 3 models getting hit at most plus they get their armor saves. As mentioned, overwatch can be minimized by assault vectors and choosing which unit to assault with first. For example, assault the guard unit with the dreadnought first. Las guns and flamers do nothing and your follow up unit of raptors do even get shot at at all.
Side note, jetcouncil = evil Guy was running our tourneys with that unit combined with the dark elder guy that gave them all stealth. A 2+ rerollable cover save , 3+ rerollable basic save combined with the hard hitting power.... rolled over everything including tau.
I think allies can be broken as in the case of the dark elder joining the jetcouncil but they can also help armies compensate for their weaknesses. For example, giving orks some much needed artillery to support their whaagghhh.

I don't think anyone here would agree with you that melee is "simply awesomely powerful".
And on top of that, I would like everybody to know that the OP does not play on a standard size table.

1. If you're under 2" you still get in regardless of snake eyes? Random assault doesn't help as you get overwatched to the face regardless of succeeding or not.

2. Ramming and overruning units? What does that even have to do with Close Combat? Also, lots of Codices don't have assault vehicles.

3. The main problem about overwatch is that it removes from the front, which means that even if you start at 6" away, losing 1-2 models mean you could be 8"+ away.
Yeah, like how you see dreadnoughts in every tournament list? The dreadnought I can say has a zero chance of footslogging across a table and not get blown to bits.

Jetcouncil is strong due to psychic powers making them super survivable, have you seen how easy it is to kill a Jetcouncil with guns(assuming they're in range) if they don't have all their psychic powers up?

While I wrote the following blog for 5th Ed a fair portion of it can still be adapted to 6th.

http://battlebarn.blogspot.com/2011/09/tyranid-horde-movement-tactica.html



Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's more about surviving to get to combat then causing damage.

One of the key elements of assaulting is the combined principles of force concentration and threat overload. The former revolves around using your models where they are capable of doing most damage, by focusing your whole army on a fraction of the enemy, and the latter around simply bringing more stuff than your opponent can kill.

For example, SM assault marines, simply because that's what I'm most familiar with. The best way to get AM into CC is to DS them, as it means that they are likely to face only a single turn of shooting before reaching combat. However, you need to bring them in significant numbers to have any effect. 10 marines will be shot apart, 20-30 will not, especially if you are using them close together. This allows you to limit the firepower they will receive, and forces your opponent to split their fire. There is nothing saying that all the units need to be CC units either, so long as they supply a threat that has to be dealt with. For example, if you pod in a unit of Sternguard, they will often be far more of a priority than the 20 AM you drop next to them. The SG can take out the target that are the biggest threat to the assault marines, while the assault marines will deter charges on the SG (as they can then counter-charge) so both units are of mutual benefit, and should be able to survive long enough to do damage in both their fields.

Another thing to bear in mind is that you should always, if possible, take on foes weaker than yourself. Do not send a dedicated CC units against it's opposition counterpart, as both units are designed for CC. Target units you can easily kill and that will not do damage in return. Bully units are generally more effective that two CC squads duking it out. Basically, pick targets you can beat. Shoot the stuff you can't.

Other things:
Mobility- already mentioned
Charge Order-already mentioned
Equipment- equip the units for a specific role, don't try and make CC units shooty.

Assault is merely limited to dedicated assault units now. Before it was literally always assault if you can, even if you were pitiful Tau, because no overwatch and it denied your opponent the charge benefits.

Now days its not. Overwatch made meh assaulty units kinda pitiful and units with high rate of fire preferring to GET charged than charge you first. Ive shocked some of my opponents because ive shot them with grots that were in the way of them and my lootas and didnt charge them, because why? youre going to wipe them in 1 phase anyway, and i get overwatch if you charge me (which removed anotherSM biker btw lol)

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Assault is merely limited to dedicated assault units now. Before it was literally always assault if you can, even if you were pitiful Tau, because no overwatch and it denied your opponent the charge benefits.

Now days its not. Overwatch made meh assaulty units kinda pitiful and units with high rate of fire preferring to GET charged than charge you first. Ive shocked some of my opponents because ive shot them with grots that were in the way of them and my lootas and didnt charge them, because why? youre going to wipe them in 1 phase anyway, and i get overwatch if you charge me (which removed anotherSM biker btw lol)

Agree with 100%

I tell people all the time...if you're good at assault...you're good at it and you'll have ways to get there or to survive to get there...if your unit shouldn't be assaulting...it wont be.

This holds up for most everything except Banshees which were poorly constructed.

Close Combat can still be lethal, but its not a viable tournament/high competitive strategy because of how risky and more expensive it is configuring for CC compared to configuring for shooting.

Just about the only exception is units like MC's/FMC's and units that have another role/ability that makes them worth taking or adequate shooting ability.

 ductvader wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Assault is merely limited to dedicated assault units now. Before it was literally always assault if you can, even if you were pitiful Tau, because no overwatch and it denied your opponent the charge benefits.

Now days its not. Overwatch made meh assaulty units kinda pitiful and units with high rate of fire preferring to GET charged than charge you first. Ive shocked some of my opponents because ive shot them with grots that were in the way of them and my lootas and didnt charge them, because why? youre going to wipe them in 1 phase anyway, and i get overwatch if you charge me (which removed anotherSM biker btw lol)

Agree with 100%

I tell people all the time...if you're good at assault...you're good at it and you'll have ways to get there or to survive to get there...if your unit shouldn't be assaulting...it wont be.

This holds up for most everything except Banshees which were poorly constructed.

You'll get there for 2 times the cost that you need for a shooting unit with the same output.
Please give an example of how Khorne berserkers are supposed to get into CC.
They are good at assault, but not good in getting there.

 ductvader wrote:
I tell people all the time...if you're good at assault...you're good at it and you'll have ways to get there or to survive to get there...if your unit shouldn't be assaulting...it wont be.

This holds up for most everything except Banshees which were poorly constructed.

Genestealers.

Genestealers suffer from the no assault from reserves bullcrap. That is the one and only change about assault in 6th that crippled it the most. overwatch requires a lot of luck in most situations to actually cause the charge to fail, removing wounds from the front really only hurts squishy things like ork blobs in the long run, and Challenges (while stupid) serve a purpose to deal with a big bad guy for a turn. Assault from reserves is the sole reason what like 15 units across the races were designed to do, genestealers being one of them? its dumb. they added a rule that makes a LOT of units null and void.

I can understand Scout since theres some crazy units that could normally get turn 1 assault on a lot of units, but infiltrate and non-deepstrike reserves .... thats just dumb.

Also the whole "cant get there" is a problem a lot of melee units suffered from to begin with. 6th didnt change that, except in the situations mentioned above, the sheer lack of a viable way to get them around did. You can give those Khorne Bersrkers a Landraider but .... kinda pricy lol.

Genestealers are squishier than Orcs overall. Die to bolter fire just as easily and cost 2-3 times as much. It's more than just the assault from Reserves, it's no assault from Infiltrate, losing models from the front, etc.

In 5th an all Stealer army was viable. In 6th I've only won games where I use them to teach people about close combat.

Assault is FAR from dead. Many of the most competitive builds in the game are CC based. Screamerstar, Seer Council, Corndog Rush, FMC spam, Nids Psychic Choir, Wraithwing.

Assault as a concept may have been nerfed, but stronger and stronger assault units have been hitting the table.

Ways to get berserkers into close combat
1. One way to get berserkers into assault is to take them there in a land raider and drop them off on the front step.
2.Another is to make use of cover and area terrain to cross the board while denying the enemy a line of sight to them or at worst, by getting a cover save for those instances when a ap3 or better weapon is actually able to see them.
3. Another is to use more than one unit and intermix them so that they provide cover for one another even out in the wide open.
4. Use rhinos to take them there, deploy into cover using the rhinos to block line of sight to them from the enemy and assault in the following turn
5. make the enemy choose which units are more dangerous, The "lowly" berserkers or the mark of nurgle spawn. Either way, one of them are hitting the enemy.
6. denied flank is always fun. That way, your piling your entire army into half of the enemy force while their other half is scrambling to show up (usually after you have already mopped up their first half)
These are just a few.

Guys, kindly do not come in here posting about how close combat is useless, Take that to a different thread. This one is dedicated to providing tips and tactics for those who think that to assist themj in becoming better players.

A lot of people complaining about the changes seem to be lacking in adaptive thought in a strategic sense. As others have shown it's not ruining units it's just forcing you to think and play a little differently. If you move shooty units up enough to cover your cc ones and help draw fire away from therm, then a lot of times you will successfully reach assaults. Don't leave your cc units hanging out in the open with their toxin sacs (bad metaphor) in the wind! Duh?!

EVIL INC wrote:
Ways to get berserkers into close combat
1. One way to get berserkers into assault is to take them there in a land raider and drop them off on the front step.
2.Another is to make use of cover and area terrain to cross the board while denying the enemy a line of sight to them or at worst, by getting a cover save for those instances when a ap3 or better weapon is actually able to see them.
3. Another is to use more than one unit and intermix them so that they provide cover for one another even out in the wide open.
4. Use rhinos to take them there, deploy into cover using the rhinos to block line of sight to them from the enemy and assault in the following turn
5. make the enemy choose which units are more dangerous, The "lowly" berserkers or the mark of nurgle spawn. Either way, one of them are hitting the enemy.
6. denied flank is always fun. That way, your piling your entire army into half of the enemy force while their other half is scrambling to show up (usually after you have already mopped up their first half)
These are just a few.

Guys, kindly do not come in here posting about how close combat is useless, Take that to a different thread. This one is dedicated to providing tips and tactics for those who think that to assist themj in becoming better players.

1. As said before, a LR increases a units cost by two folds yet only matches a shooting units damage when hitting the lines. Also, a LR isn't competitive because it is expensive and is not reliable, if someone has a decent anti-tank weapon it's gone almost 90% of the time.
2,3. Cover really doesn't help when the opponent decides to pile wounds up before you can even get there.
4. Rhinos = death traps, if it starts rolling on the pen table chances are your squad won't even be able to move next turn due to shaken/stunned results.
5. There's honestly no reason to Khorne Berserkers when Spawn does a much better job overall.
6. I don't even understand what this means....

No one is saying CC is useless, it's only useful to a handful of units that fit this edition's rules.
1. High toughness
2. High Mobility
3. Combination of the above



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
Assault is FAR from dead. Many of the most competitive builds in the game are CC based. Screamerstar, Seer Council, Corndog Rush, FMC spam, Nids Psychic Choir, Wraithwing.

Assault as a concept may have been nerfed, but stronger and stronger assault units have been hitting the table.

Yeah, but consider how many shooting competitive ones there are out there that these lists can beat.
Necron Flying Circus, Annhilation Barge Spam, Riptide Spam, Commander Blob, Farsight Bomb, Wave Serpent Spam, Drop Pod Sternguard/Wolfguard etc...
Also, the infamous Heldrake from CSM.

Compared to the majority of the assault lists that you see only in 1 codex aka Daemons, there are definitely more shooting than assault oriented lists.

You obviously have not faced a multi-land raider list. HIGHLY effective.
If the enemy is piling wounds on that unit of berserkers, then that means that your other units of berserkers, spawn and other close combat units are reaching enemy lines without even getting shot at.
A rhino CAN be taken out. Before reaching enemy lines.... maybe if the enemy is lucky. Taking them all out before reaching them, no way.
If the spawn are better but cost more, then use the berserkers as the screen
The denied flank is an effective strategy that allows you to spread focus your entire army, shooting and assault on a single flank at one time where you can wipe it out before their other flank even gets to take part in the battle. VERY effective when your using a close combat army.

EVIL INC wrote:
You obviously have not faced a multi-land raider list. HIGHLY effective.
If the enemy is piling wounds on that unit of berserkers, then that means that your other units of berserkers, spawn and other close combat units are reaching enemy lines without even getting shot at.
A rhino CAN be taken out. Before reaching enemy lines.... maybe if the enemy is lucky. Taking them all out before reaching them, no way.
If the spawn are better but cost more, then use the berserkers as the screen
The denied flank is an effective strategy that allows you to spread focus your entire army, shooting and assault on a single flank at one time where you can wipe it out before their other flank even gets to take part in the battle. VERY effective when your using a close combat army.

Uh yes I have? It's a complete rock paper scissor list, win big lose big, TAC lists are what we generally discuss about.
If they were so effective why don't we see tournaments full of LR lists?

Maybe if the enemy is lucky? Every army equipped with a decent balance of anti-tank should be able to take 2-3 Rhinos out in a turn.
Against Tau, with Target Lock and Ignore Cover, good luck getting your Rhinos over there
Also, a Shaken/Stunned result is all the enemy needs anyway, with it he delays your assault for a further turn.
Also, Berserkers aren't cheap if they were cheap then maybe it would be a viable tactic, but unfortunately no.
Why would you use Berserkers to Screen? Then move 6" and Spawn moves 12"?
You are also at a huge disadvantage for VP missions, although not common it means you're losing 1/6th of your games very easily.

So you're spreading focus and focusing at the same time? I'm really confused...
I'm going to assume you just mean focus on one side then the other.
Sorry to break it to you, most gunline armies just buy a Aegis and hide behind it, there's no flanks to it...

Again, CC is only effective for specific units geared for this edition's rules, those units that are assault oriented without the criteria rarely make it into CC.

I actually do see a lot of land raiders in tourneys and those lists usually place.
You don't take a single rhino. I the enemy has tailered their list to be specifically an anti tank list, they may take 2 or 3 if they are luck, out a turn. That amount of anti tank spam means that the rest of their list is easy pickings for your close assault units afterwards.
We have already agreed that the tau are broken so we will jmot address them.
Your tanks don't have extra armor options. Hmmm
Berserkers cost more points than spawn. I may have to re-read the chaos codex. I could have sworn spawn cost more per model.
We can go back and forth like this all day. However, if you wish to do that, clutter up a different thread. THIS thread is dedicated to teaching players to more effectively use their close combat units. Methinks, you would be better off reading than posting about how close combat is dead.
Research the denied flank. It is only one of many different tactics possible to use.

EVIL INC wrote:
I actually do see a lot of land raiders in tourneys and those lists usually place.
You don't take a single rhino. I the enemy has tailered their list to be specifically an anti tank list, they may take 2 or 3 if they are luck, out a turn. That amount of anti tank spam means that the rest of their list is easy pickings for your close assault units afterwards.
We have already agreed that the tau are broken so we will jmot address them.
Your tanks don't have extra armor options. Hmmm
Berserkers cost more points than spawn. I may have to re-read the chaos codex. I could have sworn spawn cost more per model.
We can go back and forth like this all day. However, if you wish to do that, clutter up a different thread. THIS thread is dedicated to teaching players to more effectively use their close combat units. Methinks, you would be better off reading than posting about how close combat is dead.
Research the denied flank. It is only one of many different tactics possible to use.

Again, a rock paper scissor list is going to win big and lose big, some will win of course if they encounter armies who didn't bring enough to deal with it.

You only need S7 or above to reliably remove a Rhino, armies normally have more than enough S7 to deal with the amount of Rhinos running around.
As I have said, running multiple Rhinos is a bad idea as it means you will very likely lose the game 1/6 of the time.
Extra tank options make what is easy to kill a larger point sink and it doesn't add enough survivability for it.
I never ever said Spawn is cheaper than Berserkers EVER!

Again, I have NEVER ever said that assault is dead, I'm just proving why certain methods of assault don't work.
I have provided some suggestions of viable CC methods too, you seem to ignore it and start random accusations.

Also, denied flank works on the basis that the opponent distributes evenly such that you can focus heavy on a flank.
This is unlikely the case with gunline armies, as I have said before they buy an Aegis and bunch up behind it. Hence, it's more like assaulting a bunker.

If you wish to continue that conversation, do so in a different thread. This one is about discussing ways to effectively use close combat units and armies. Your points have been noted and for the most part negated through tactics and game mechanics.

EVIL INC wrote:
If you wish to continue that conversation, do so in a different thread. This one is about discussing ways to effectively use close combat units and armies. Your points have been noted and for the most part negated through tactics and game mechanics.

Why don't you start an article then?
I'm just providing counter arguments to why such methods would not be an effective way to use CC units.
The forum is used to discuss about such matters.

 ductvader wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Assault is merely limited to dedicated assault units now. Before it was literally always assault if you can, even if you were pitiful Tau, because no overwatch and it denied your opponent the charge benefits.

Now days its not. Overwatch made meh assaulty units kinda pitiful and units with high rate of fire preferring to GET charged than charge you first. Ive shocked some of my opponents because ive shot them with grots that were in the way of them and my lootas and didnt charge them, because why? youre going to wipe them in 1 phase anyway, and i get overwatch if you charge me (which removed anotherSM biker btw lol)

Agree with 100%

I tell people all the time...if you're good at assault...you're good at it and you'll have ways to get there or to survive to get there...if your unit shouldn't be assaulting...it wont be.

This holds up for most everything except Banshees which were poorly constructed.

And bloodcrushers! Why.... why do you cost so much? Oh and berzerkers are generally concidered not worth it. From my observations, the cc units that do it well are super mobile and preferably durable as well. Assault isn't dead... that being said it certainly is at its lowest point.