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Vladsimpaler wrote:[Hmm, 180 Ork boys running at you....done right, that's a wall of troops running at you.

It's like being caught in a room with no windows/doors/any means of escape, and having all of the walls close in on you. It's only a matter of time.

To a party like that you better bring plenty of Pie.

OH jesus save us from pie

anyways, to answer the OP

it's because this:

Dashing through the maelstrom of battle, Alexander toppled as a shell hit the back of his armour with the force of a rocket. Rolling with the force of the impact, Alexander searched for his assailant, and saw a fire-warrior of the cowardly tau lining up another shot. He tensed, and leaped milliseconds before the warrior fired, moving with the preternatural speed that only an astares could achieve. His blessed chainsword roaring in his hand, he charged the rifle-man, who futilely tried to halt the advance of his demise with the barrel of his rail-rifle.

Shearing through gunmetal and armour. Alexander clove through his opponent, exulting in the feeling of xeno blood against his bare face, tasting the delicious last moments of triumph, fear, and pain, that the tau had felt as he died.

His triumph did not last.



That is what I imagine when a melee is joined: unadulterated blood, gore, and violence. Imagining a tank being blown up by some lucky shot with a missile is extremely satisfying, I think that it is somewhat less so than the anarchy of close quarters.

Sure, none of this is actually played out in the realm of tabletop gaming, but in the minds eye, it is just as real.

Which, of course, is what GW wants us to do, hence the focus on CC.

"focusedfire: To a party like that you better bring plenty of Pie.
Shrike78: OH jesus save us from pie"

That might just get sigged.

Shrike78 wrote:OH jesus save us from pie

anyways, to answer the OP

it's because this:

Dashing through the maelstrom of battle, Alexander toppled as a shell hit the back of his armour with the force of a rocket. Rolling with the force of the impact, Alexander searched for his assailant, and saw a fire-warrior of the cowardly tau lining up another shot. He tensed, and leaped milliseconds before the warrior fired, moving with the preternatural speed that only an astares could achieve. His blessed chainsword roaring in his hand, he charged the rifle-man, who futilely tried to halt the advance of his demise with the barrel of his rail-rifle.

Shearing through gunmetal and armour. Alexander clove through his opponent, exulting in the feeling of xeno blood against his bare face, tasting the delicious last moments of triumph, fear, and pain, that the tau had felt as he died.

His triumph did not last.



That is what I imagine when a melee is joined: unadulterated blood, gore, and violence. Imagining a tank being blown up by some lucky shot with a missile is extremely satisfying, I think that it is somewhat less so than the anarchy of close quarters.

Sure, none of this is actually played out in the realm of tabletop gaming, but in the minds eye, it is just as real.

Which, of course, is what GW wants us to do, hence the focus on CC.

Sounds dramatic, sure, but the same can be written about shooting. Ever watch "Gallipoli"? There're always lucky-swings by Tau taking down magnificent beasts too.

I think some people misstake assult armies for horde, they dont have to be the same. There are shooty horde or small assult unit armies.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Multicharges can be downright dangerous now that everyone piles in. NOT multicharging has its own pretty obviou downside.

If this is Space Marine 40000, someone please tell me a good choppy SM build that doesn't involve Assault Terminators and Land Raiders, eh? Doesn't work against gunlines, that's for sure.

You know there are these guys that wear Black and White Power Armor, they're really angry all the time, lots of screaming...Yeah, those guys...

BLACK TEMPLARS, silly. They work great against gunlines. My Necron opponent can attest to that.

CK

I'm mixed on things myself. Yes things like Run and Cover Saves have changed the game some. Close combat is very decisive now, more so (it seems to me) than in 4th. That being said though, the games I've played have been all won or lost in the shooting and movement phases. Sure, I've seen some turnovers in the assault phase, but for the most part, I've seen the assault phase go to almost a clean-up after moving and shooting.

I will admit my take on 5th might not be the purest.

The past 3 months I've rolled about an average of 25-30% under statistics. Even with this I'm just about even with most games going to a draw

It's been so bad that I was gifted with 7 sets of dice from my wife and the guys in the group over the holidays. Rumor has it there are more on the way. A perseverence award was even mentioned.

What really bugs me these days is having my build options so limited. Even when playing friendly games the markerlights are so overworked dropping coversaves in this edition that I don't have the room for some of the other stuff that I used to play.

I'll probably have a better Idea once I'm back to rolling stat/avg or when the IG codex comes out.

Shrike78 wrote:OH jesus save us from pie

anyways, to answer the OP

it's because this:

Dashing through the maelstrom of battle, Alexander toppled as a shell hit the back of his armour with the force of a rocket. Rolling with the force of the impact, Alexander searched for his assailant, and saw a fire-warrior of the cowardly tau lining up another shot. He tensed, and leaped milliseconds before the warrior fired, moving with the preternatural speed that only an astares could achieve. His blessed chainsword roaring in his hand, he charged the rifle-man, who futilely tried to halt the advance of his demise with the barrel of his rail-rifle.

Shearing through gunmetal and armour. Alexander clove through his opponent, exulting in the feeling of xeno blood against his bare face, tasting the delicious last moments of triumph, fear, and pain, that the tau had felt as he died.

His triumph did not last.



That is what I imagine when a melee is joined: unadulterated blood, gore, and violence. Imagining a tank being blown up by some lucky shot with a missile is extremely satisfying, I think that it is somewhat less so than the anarchy of close quarters.

Sure, none of this is actually played out in the realm of tabletop gaming, but in the minds eye, it is just as real.

Which, of course, is what GW wants us to do, hence the focus on CC.

Can you imagine an epic sniper duel, lasting for days between two people, just waiting for one or the other to move for a shot? The tension would be incredible.

Anyway, I think the reason why melee seems more favoured is because there's more risk. If you shoot, your enemy can't return fire in the same turn. You're safe. However, should the enemy assault you in close combat, you get to fight back, and as such, it's possible to do more damage then your enemy does. They're simply giving higher risk a higher reward.

focusedfire wrote:
To a party like that you better bring plenty of Pie.

Yeah too bad it scatters like 6" every time. And there's really no risk. You run, roll a couple 4+ cover saves, roll a bunch of dice and consolidate. That's all there is to it. No real risk.

why is it that the people who are complaining about close combat in this post largely play armies that are awful in close combat, and just shoot shoot shoot?

5th edition doesn't favor shooting or combat they both have equal play in the ruleset.

what it does favor is tossing bucketfulls of dice at a time, it rewards high rate firepower. With the proliferation of cover saves the lascannon and plasma gun become kinda meh weapons, but the heavy bolter and flamer are way way better now, and I don't believe people have realized that yet. A change in tactics and weapon loadouts is pretty important for 5th edition and as soon as people realize that it'll be better.

When you try to shoot units with armor negating weapons and they get a cover save, how good is that ability to negate their armor really? Thats why just making your opponent roll a bunch of dice is better, because he WILL fail some of them and with high rate of fire weapons that happens much more easily since they are typically cheaper and more effective in this edition

close combat armies have to run screaming for at least a few turns headlong into guns just to get into combat where the enemy also gets to swing back, so i'm confused how people can say that close combat is favored over shooting. every army has it's strength and weaknesses, so orks get piles of attacks in close combat SO WHAT!! I'm pretty sure that ork player is complaining about how all the tau guns are str 5 and can ignore cover saves (with markerlights) and how the tau can kill tanks from across a whole table way way better than the orks get to. adapting to your armies strengths and weaknesses is important in the game, and being able to counteract what your opponent did is important too. If you keep getting beaten by close combat armies then there's probably something wrong with your tactics, and you should probably change accordingly.

There is no way close combat armies are more op than any other army, I've seen pretty much every army beat any other army in this game and tau can beat orks just as easily as orks can beat tau. just like guard can beat nids just as easily as nids can beat guard. it's all in how you approach the game, and your tactics.

in almost every case a unit that has guns and could assault it's usally better to shoot than to assault, unless you are going to win without taking losses of note. ie. a space marine unit is usually better off rapid firing a bolter than assaulting since in either case both options give you approximately the same number of attacks, for 2 reasons, 1. you're enemy doesn't get to swing back and maybe kill more of your guys than you thought. 2. typically its easier to hit with a gun than in combat. since marines shooting always need a 3 to hit and in combat they could need 3's (not that common) 4's (pretty much all the time), or 5's (oh crap why are we fighting this!!!!)

hopefully i didnt ramble and this makes sense since it is 4 in the morning when i was typing


vlad how about you make a assaulty army and I'll make a shooty army we'll play and see how much you change your mind. there are piles of units that shoot way, way too good for you to tell me that shooting is ineffectual. (crusader anyone??) and that a combat unit always wins over a shooty unit. Don't forget you have to look at it in equal terms, for example 1 firewarrior will kill 1.66 orks (they're both the same points) before the ork even gets remotely close to the tau dude.

Tortuga, what armies do you play?

Tortuga932 wrote:why is it that the people who are complaining about close combat in this post largely play armies that are awful in close combat, and just shoot shoot shoot?
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There are several ways in which the rules favour melee and they have been explained in the thread.

For example, widespread cover saves that affect shooting and not melee, much more severe morale effects of melee compared to shooting, and faster movement favouring assault troops rather than shooting troops.

There is no way close combat armies are more op than any other army, I've seen pretty much every army beat any other army in this game and tau can beat orks just as easily as orks can beat tau. just like guard can beat nids just as easily as nids can beat guard. it's all in how you approach the game, and your tactics.

Go look up Blackmoors thread on the 2008 tournament champions and the armies they used. The most commonly recurring army was orcs. By FAR.

in almost every case a unit that has guns and could assault it's usally better to shoot than to assault, unless you are going to win without taking losses of note. ie. a space marine unit is usually better off rapid firing a bolter than assaulting since in either case both options give you approximately the same number of attacks, for 2 reasons, 1. you're enemy doesn't get to swing back and maybe kill more of your guys than you thought. 2. typically its easier to hit with a gun than in combat. since marines shooting always need a 3 to hit and in combat they could need 3's (not that common) 4's (pretty much all the time), or 5's (oh crap why are we fighting this!!!!)

This is not really true, in most cases when you are within rapdid fire range (the optimal range for shooting) for anything thats close combat worthy, its often better to assault it then to let them catch you. This is because if you assault them, you deny them on average one third of their attacks. (Based off of a Two Close Combat Weapon model.) Its even better if they have charge specific bonuses, like the Blood Claws and their 2+ attacks intsead of +1 for charging, cutting their combat utility in half.

While optimally, it is better to be able to shoot at range without threat of close combat, that often doesn't happen in this edition because of the increases in mobility that Melee fighters gained through run.

This is especially troublsome for static gunlines because to maintain peak effiancy they have to remain still, yet the assaulters get closer faster and they will eventually have to pull bakc unless they can unleash the kind of fire power that wipes armies in two or three turns.

This leads to the current kings of close combat fighting, the blood angels, good armour, good stats, and assault marines as troops and elites makes for an incredibly mobile melee force. They even wipe orcs unless they bring the loota spam.

^ last point, several of the close combat lists can actually outshoot the shooty lists. Namely Orcs and dakka fexes.

40K does favor melee, and for good reason. Static gunlines are boring.

Sure, certain armies such as Tau, Necron, and IG favor this tactic. I can totally imagine how exciting a Tau vs. Tau game would be though. :S

We can also bring back Overwatch to remind us of how tedious shooting in 2nd Edition was.

You need better shooting rules then.

"Push your models towards the other guy and squish them together when they touch" isn't really more fun than static gunlines.

Personally, I would love to see some gunline rules that let us play ala 18th-19th century musket battles. That would kick total ass, the problem though is that you don't get the proper negative morale modifiers to use guns correctly in that setting.

Gunlines aren't dead in fifth. The problem is necrons, IG, and Tau are all working off of dated and bad codexes. Torrent of fire eldar still works fairly well, and marine gunlines are fairly cost efficient and able to do fairly well for themselves.

40k favoring melee is a skewed perspective that is based off of the relative inadequacy of the dedicated shooting armies codexes, and the rarity of the small fragile and fast armies (new DE will come out someday, and hopefully we will get a new speed freek listing at some point). The same could have been said of horde armies in fourth edition until the new ork book came out (nid hordes have always been fairly rare, and IG horde was pretty crap even back then). The new IG book should revitalize the gunwall and mix the metagame up a bit. Certainly more than the chaos, eldar, and space marine books did.

Ratbarf wrote:Personally, I would love to see some gunline rules that let us play ala 18th-19th century musket battles. That would kick total ass, the problem though is that you don't get the proper negative morale modifiers to use guns correctly in that setting.

I'd just like to say that, taking a style of warfare that was basically 2 groups of semi-uniformed soldiers taking turns throwing balls of lead at each other, and transforming it into a game where you Literally take turns pretending to hurl las-bolts, bolt rounds, and other projectiles at each other would remove a LOT from the game.

It would be boring... or at least, I, and people who like movement would find it boring.

The tactics of the game would now be limited to target prioritization, and list buffing. The people with the best list and the best ability to prioritize targets would win barring bad rolls of course.

This may seem similar to what is happening now, where spamming this, and spamming that = "I win ah-hurr.. ah-hurr... ah-durr..." then you're only 60% right. If it was, then people wouldn't be moaning about Nob bikers and dual Lash spam. These two armies are designed to excel in maneuvering, whether it is their own forces or their opponents, and if that weren't a good ability, then no one would be whining.

This may seem like those people who say essentially "shut up and play better" and in a way i guess it is. But here's how I see it: With new rules for cover, and movement, that drastically decrease the time it takes to get to your fragile gun lines, the game has changed, as it always changes with a set of new rules. Perhaps it is time that those people playing static gunlines take a look at the movement and cover rules too, and see how they can exploit them. E.G. manipulating deployment so that the cover your opponent uses bogs down key units unnecessarily, or, exposes others to concentrated fire. When the charge comes, learn to re-orient into a new, or several, firing line.

When the dynamic shifts back into your favor I will give the same advice to CC armies (after having become a gunline army myself of course)

Kilkrazy wrote:Mobility can beat a horde as long as there is room to manoeuvre and time to use shooting to beat it down.

Honestly, horde armies absolutely suffer from being cumbersome, especially orks, since the charge is vital to the horde variant.

I just beat a 180 orks with my 90 ork battlewagon list. I simply strong sided (all my stuff on one side, near the biggest clump of objectives), punched a hole in his two units closest to my tanks in two turns (90 orks can toss a lot of shooting), and got him in a bottleneck by moving my entire list to the right side of the board: I was able to weaken his closest units with a withering hail of dakka, and since I knew I had the advantage in movement I was able to take his units one of a time. I'll probably write a batrep tomorrow.

I think mobility is the biggest factor in the game now since stalling, getting enough shooting to thin out your enemies numbers, and controlling the charges depends on your ability to move. The game seems to favor armies that are more "middle of the road"; lists with solid melee bits bolstered by adequate shooting. This is one reason why I think Orks have suddenly become top tier, since the basic boy is a really versatile model. Tac marines are also pretty good at this, but suffer from their cost. Also, remember the board is supposed to only have about 25% of it covered by terrain; if you go by this number, you should have rounds where you can easily melt the buggers that get near. After this, assault is the second most important phase, since a decisive charge makes or breaks a list. Shooting though can be a integral part of your plan: the ability to weaken powerful assault units means your slightly softer guys will be able to take them on.

Then again, I play battlewagon heavy orks (4 battlewagons and a trukk in 1,500 pts); even though I run my list as mainly shooty (there are times where my boys don't get out of a wagon during the entire game), you can't discredit the assault ability of 90+ orks that can comfortably get a charge on anything in 21" without waaaghing!, especially after said units are softened by said 90+ orks firing.

malfred wrote:You need better shooting rules then.

This here is exactly right.

The big problem with shooting in 40K is that by moving, you drastically decrease your ability to shoot, hence why gunlines in this game are so static. Melee oriented armies are not affected nearly as much by this and can move without losing any effectiveness.

You want to increase shooting in 40k? How about this:

1) Models with heavy and special weapons may nominate targets different than the rest of the squad.
2) All weapons can move and fire.
3) Rapid fire weapons may always fire maximum distance or twice at 12 inches.
4) Pistols may always fire twice at 12 inches.
5) Vehicles may always move maximum distance and fire all weapons.

To compensate melee oriented armies, how about transports that actually move faster than infantry can walk and can actually deliver troops safely without becoming metal coffins?

pombe wrote:

malfred wrote:You need better shooting rules then.

This here is exactly right.

You want to increase shooting in 40k? How about this:

1) Models with heavy and special weapons may nominate targets different than the rest of the squad.
2) All weapons can move and fire.
3) Rapid fire weapons may always fire maximum distance or twice at 12 inches.
4) Pistols may always fire twice at 12 inches.
5) Vehicles may always move maximum distance and fire all weapons.

To compensate melee oriented armies, how about transports that actually move faster than infantry can walk and can actually deliver troops safely without becoming metal coffins?

1) doesn't sit right with me
2) NO NO NO, (I play tau and I know thats just wrong - nice wish though)
3) This I like, I personally hate how i loose 18" of shooting if i want to put my guys in cover
4) Makes since, bring back the 4th ed pisotls
5) Possibly could work, perhaps up the 12", but Increase vehicle movement to a possible 24", however if they do this troops can't embark/disembark that turn or the turn after (to avoid transport spams)


However I would personally rather see the ability for units to have their moral broken by shooting - perhaps - for every unsaved wound -1 ld, must take a moral check if not fearless?

I don't feel the melee is overly effective vs. shooting. I've added some very shooty units to my current ork list, and I've been happy with the way they've turned out.

I do agree that it would be nice to have a more mobile shooting ability, but I think that it should be fairly toned down. My suggestion would be to allow rapid fire weapons to always fire once at maximum range, but to not allow double tapping. I'd also like to see the ability to split fire between rifles and heavies, and better shooting abilities for tanks.

The morale point is the key thing.

If a target squad that takes casualties had to take a morale check at -1Ld for each casualty, then shooting would be a lot more effective without any other changes.

Kilkrazy wrote:The morale point is the key thing.

If a target squad that takes casualties had to take a morale check at -1Ld for each casualty, then shooting would be a lot more effective without any other changes.

Or a decent compromise might be instead of a regular morale/break test -1LD for each casualty, make it a pinning test (w/-1 each casualty) instead?

Ide rather have it be strait moral tests bc i would like to see something finally break from my shooting. Most armies (outside of Tau and Guard i think) have some way of getting most of their modles ld 10 or fearless. Ide rather see them run the other direction for a turn and then their own turn until they regroup.

Pinning is nice in a KP game but otherwise just gives you time to redeploy. Redeployment is really useful if you play meq or are not on an objective. Lets say your sitting on an objective that doesn't move. Would you really like to redeploy off off it? (assume you've pinned a tough as nails melee unit *assult marienes* if you fail to pin them again your still in the same spot if you didn't redeploy *remmeber sitting on an objective*)

another thing that could be done is make run a d3 instead of d6. That way fleet gets some use back, and vehicles have more time to react you running pk's or pf's.

Mort wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:The morale point is the key thing.

If a target squad that takes casualties had to take a morale check at -1Ld for each casualty, then shooting would be a lot more effective without any other changes.

Or a decent compromise might be instead of a regular morale/break test -1LD for each casualty, make it a pinning test (w/-1 each casualty) instead?

Could be. I wasn't trying to present a fully worked out solution. Just illustrating the point that melee easily causes massive morale breaks and shooting doesn't.

1) Models with heavy and special weapons may nominate targets different than the rest of the squad.
2) All weapons can move and fire.
3) Rapid fire weapons may always fire maximum distance or twice at 12 inches.
4) Pistols may always fire twice at 12 inches.
5) Vehicles may always move maximum distance and fire all weapons.

1) I think this is good and realistic, the anti tank m3ember of the squad should always be able to target enemy tanks, otherwise is just stupid.
2) No, some weapons do really need the time to set up and/or are too powerfull to be made into to assault weapons.
3)I think not, I think that would make them over powerfull, what I would really like to see is run moved to the assault phase instead of the movement phase. It wouldn't alter the mechanic at all excpet allow units to move after they have shot.
4) Sounds decent to me, though the old twice if standing still I think is a better representation.
5) No, but definately up the distance they can currently move, I would prefer 12" move and fire to 6 inch move and fire some. Transports, really, really, really, need to be reworked so that they actually work as transports. Maybe make them with better armour ratings but totally crap to no weaponry?

Making pistols better at shooting helps assault units which are usually the ones carrying pistols.