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 DarknessEternal wrote:
The only time close combat matters is when someone has either brought something good at assault near you, and that isn't Tactical Marines.

The only time close combat doesnt matter is typically the top of Round 1. Failure to see CC for what it is, is a losing strategy.

All the math versus bolter marines is useless in the actual game where you're likely only going to be concerned about fighting Hive Tyrants, Tervigons, Daemon Princes, Flesh Hounds, or any of the other things that are actually intending to be in assault.

If your trying to kill HTs, Tervs, or DPs with your basic troop line, your going to have many unhappy endings.

Fragile wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
The only time close combat matters is when someone has either brought something good at assault near you, and that isn't Tactical Marines.

The only time close combat doesnt matter is typically the top of Round 1. Failure to see CC for what it is, is a losing strategy.

All the math versus bolter marines is useless in the actual game where you're likely only going to be concerned about fighting Hive Tyrants, Tervigons, Daemon Princes, Flesh Hounds, or any of the other things that are actually intending to be in assault.

If your trying to kill HTs, Tervs, or DPs with your basic troop line, your going to have many unhappy endings.

Unless you play GKs.

 Jancoran wrote:
Asurman. Seriously. You really should try him out. =)

Well that's convenient, my friend just bought it to me for Christmas!
I'll have to try him in my next game!

Altough I'm still wondering in which unit will I place him... o_O

Yeah, Asurmen is super tough to kill in cc if he gets the warlord trait to re-roll 1's. I used him to tank a Great Unclean One who had Iron Arm and Warp Speed on himself for 3 rounds. Also having AP2 attacks at initiative means he's got a good chance to kill somebody before they even get to hit him back.

I would like to state for the record I beat two space marine squads to death in melee with a single unit of Dire Avengers with a Power Sword/Shimmershield Exarch and a Farseer w/ Shard of Anaris. I had the Seer, Exarch and 3 DAs left. It was possibly the dumbest thing I have ever seen. Gloating out of the way, Eldar have an extremely robust CC department.

Wraithlord/Knights being MCs rule in CC.

The Striking Scorpion Exarch gets Str 8 hits at initiative with the claw.

DAs with a CC exarch make for a great counter charge unit. Especially against AP4+

Banshees are cheap AP3 bruisers but with a lack of grenades, position will make or break them.

Jain Zar+Harlequins with Shadowseer makes for the most terrifying CC unit we have imo. An enormous number of attacks, Jain Zar gets Hallucination Grenades, the unit benefits from the super mask. Its win-win-win.

 S.K.Ren wrote:
I would like to state for the record I beat two space marine squads to death in melee with a single unit of Dire Avengers with a Power Sword/Shimmershield Exarch and a Farseer w/ Shard of Anaris. I had the Seer, Exarch and 3 DAs left. It was possibly the dumbest thing I have ever seen. Gloating out of the way, Eldar have an extremely robust CC department.

Wraithlord/Knights being MCs rule in CC.

The Striking Scorpion Exarch gets Str 8 hits at initiative with the claw.

DAs with a CC exarch make for a great counter charge unit. Especially against AP4+

Banshees are cheap AP3 bruisers but with a lack of grenades, position will make or break them.

Jain Zar+Harlequins with Shadowseer makes for the most terrifying CC unit we have imo. An enormous number of attacks, Jain Zar gets Hallucination Grenades, the unit benefits from the super mask. Its win-win-win.

I agree, but I'd like to point out that Striking Scorpions get S7 at best. Crushing blow is added after the multiplier, so S3x2=6+1=7.

I had a 3 man unit of fire dragons beat a carnifex in cc. The look on the nid player's face was priceless.
The dice really were against him that day.

 soomemafia wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Asurman. Seriously. You really should try him out. =)

Well that's convenient, my friend just bought it to me for Christmas!
I'll have to try him in my next game!

Altough I'm still wondering in which unit will I place him... o_O

Did you read the link I posted on him?

 Jancoran wrote:

 soomemafia wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Asurman. Seriously. You really should try him out. =)

Well that's convenient, my friend just bought it to me for Christmas!
I'll have to try him in my next game!

Altough I'm still wondering in which unit will I place him... o_O

Did you read the link I posted on him?

So Dire Avengers it is then, ey?
Seems solid

Honestly, in my experience, the best CC threat is a unit of Wraithblades with Ghostaxes in a Serpent. It flies over terrain and all, turbo boosting on turn 1, and landing in the backfield or getting side armour shots set up, and not shooting the shield.
Bottom of turn 1, or top of turn 2 (depending on who went first) the opponent has a hard choice. Either dedicate firepower to removing the Serpent, in which case the Axe's will assault you on Eldar turn 2, or don't shoot the Serpent down, in which case there's a serpent sitting in your deployment zone/backfield/whatever shooting the crap out of your guys and carrying a scoring squad for later.

I find most of the time the opponent feels is worth it to try and shoot the Serpent down, but with the shield still up (and the super cheap holofields), it only goes down around half the time, even then soaking over half the opponents firepower for the turn. If it lives, keep scooting and shooting. If not, Axe meets Face, without much chance of taking Wraith casualties from shooting.

 spycer wrote:
Honestly, in my experience, the best CC threat is a unit of Wraithblades with Ghostaxes in a Serpent. It flies over terrain and all, turbo boosting on turn 1, and landing in the backfield or getting side armour shots set up, and not shooting the shield.
Bottom of turn 1, or top of turn 2 (depending on who went first) the opponent has a hard choice. Either dedicate firepower to removing the Serpent, in which case the Axe's will assault you on Eldar turn 2,

BRB pg 79 - Disembarkation Restrictions - According to this... when the unit disembarks (including from being destroyed - see vehicle damage results) the unit may not assault in their subsequent Assault phase (unless it is an assault or open topped vehicle)

That's true. But if the opponent does wreck/explode the Serpent during their own shooting phase, the subsequent assault phase is the one during their turn. So on Eldar turn 2, the Wraithblades can move, sit for a shooting phase, and then assault without any problems.

Or they laugh at you, surround it, and beat it to death with krak grenades/S4 attacks. Oh look, i didnt explode it? All your wraithblades are dead as they cant disembark. Free kills!

Normally people interpret "their subsequent assault phase" as the controlling player's assault phase, not the next phase that occurs. Therefore the wraithblades would have to skip their own assault phase. It makes little sense to declare charges in the opponent's assault phases.

Y'know my patience is actually beginning to wear thin.

What are we defining as "Good Close Combat"? Because I can think of many different ways close combat can be effective; I even listed quite a few with rudimentary pros and cons.

So then the next set of questions should stem from what you want them to do. Back line protection? Unit sacrifice? Force target priority? We have units that can do those things, some better than others.

Wanna protect back line Reapers, Walkers or Artillery? Have some Scorpions nearby, they're already slow, short-range and non-scoring; might as well have them bubble-protect the stuff that is scoring and, long range.

Got some single unit like Long Fangs throwing to much long ranged crap at you? Shove a WraithKnight down their throats and, force them to shift fire. Oh and yes, the Wraithknight IS beefy in close combat (unless you dumb enough to throw it at ThunderHammers).

What don't Eldar have? (without allies mind you) Land Raiders and Termies, or any rule that allows them to assault out of a vehicle, or that Beastpack hotness. If those are your high benchmarks for what makes or breaks a "close combat unit" of course the Eldar are going to fall short. Eldar are not Orks or whatever flavor of Terminatorwing-Land Raider-Herohammer you want them to be... cuz' in the grim darkness of the far future there is only.... room for named special characters...

 zephoid wrote:
Or they laugh at you, surround it, and beat it to death with krak grenades/S4 attacks. Oh look, i didnt explode it? All your wraithblades are dead as they cant disembark. Free kills!

Normally people interpret "their subsequent assault phase" as the controlling player's assault phase, not the next phase that occurs. Therefore the wraithblades would have to skip their own assault phase. It makes little sense to declare charges in the opponent's assault phases.

True, but the rules for disembarking are usually used in your own turn, and that's where that phrase appears. Right after your own movement phase is the subsequent assault phase, so if you just walked out of a Serpent a second ago, you cannot assault. But if you got out of it last player turn, and can move, or stand still and fire heavy weapons, etc. why wouldn't you be able to assault? They already spent a turn outside the tank, and began the current turn on foot, outside of the tank.

I am preparing to run Howling Banshees in the face of all the odds. I am going to make an Iybraesil army because I like the idea of it. The female Autrarch will be with the Banshees and hopefully I'll be able to distract people from shooting them with all the other things I'll be throwing at them, like the Banshee-esque Wraithknight with Ghostglave. Banshees are very weak, not just because of a lack of grenades though. They are also just low S... and in a world of primarily T4 models, it's going to be rough to rip off wounds.

As was stated, I think Wraithknights are solid CC machines with their high S and T. They may not dish out a lot of pain, but they certainly won't take much back.

 RancidHate wrote:

What don't Eldar have? (without allies mind you) Land Raiders and Termies, or any rule that allows them to assault out of a vehicle, or that Beastpack hotness. If those are your high benchmarks for what makes or breaks a "close combat unit" of course the Eldar are going to fall short. Eldar are not Orks or whatever flavor of Terminatorwing-Land Raider-Herohammer you want them to be... cuz' in the grim darkness of the far future there is only.... room for named special characters...

The expectation is that you have a unit that can/could operate on its own or supported and form a core of an army that is primarily winning through assault. Or, at a minimum, one unit that has the ability to cross the table and deal with units that are shooting based in a relatively short amount of time. Eldar have always had at least one unit that could do this, but with the harlequin nerf this edition there really isnt a 'good assault unit'. Wraithknights are the only thing that comes close. Nothing else has the ability to both survive the firepower this edition has given shooting. Yes, things got cheaper, but so did shooting ability in this edition.

I use the benchmark of 4th Harlequins as to what i wanted in an assault unit. They ignored terrain for movement and were fleet, so had speed. They had an ability to mitigate shooting fire pretty reliably until they closed the distance and were good in melee vs almost any target type (vs orks or demons they were a bit sub-par for the points, but i can deal with that).

Banshees could have been decent if they were AP3 rending weapons and had an assault transport for cheap.
Scorpions could have been decent if they were 2A base and ignored terrain for moving and charging
Spears could have been decent if they had hit and run base.

But none of these things happened. We are left with units that have to cross large distances without any significant speed boosts and weather the superior anti-inf firepower this edition brought. Then, the surviving whittled down squads must assault through all the disadvantageous rules for assaulting this edition. To top it off, NONE of the eldar assault units are better in assault than last edition (they are cheaper, but not even one is better).


@spycer, the key word here is 'Their'. Otherwise they could have simply said 'the' as with almost every other wording in the the whole book. The opponent's assault phase isn't 'their' assault phase. This was debated through many, many pages when 6th came out and the vast majority have to agree with the interpretations that this is another nerf to assaults.

Asurmen is decent, but struggles from the lack of ability to do damage. 4A S5 is very mediocre for his point cost. Yeah, hes great vs other characters, but he goes down from quantity of fire as easily as 3 terminators for 3x the cost. D3 warlord traits only gives you the 'reroll 's' trait once every 3 games, though that does make him a tank.

 zephoid wrote:

@spycer, the key word here is 'Their'. Otherwise they could have simply said 'the' as with almost every other wording in the the whole book. The opponent's assault phase isn't 'their' assault phase. This was debated through many, many pages when 6th came out and the vast majority have to agree with the interpretations that this is another nerf to assaults.

I never read it that way, but I guess that blows my favorite tactic right out of the game. Oh, well. Thanks.

 spycer wrote:

 zephoid wrote:

@spycer, the key word here is 'Their'. Otherwise they could have simply said 'the' as with almost every other wording in the the whole book. The opponent's assault phase isn't 'their' assault phase. This was debated through many, many pages when 6th came out and the vast majority have to agree with the interpretations that this is another nerf to assaults.

I never read it that way, but I guess that blows my favorite tactic right out of the game. Oh, well. Thanks.

Seriously, otherwise a GK Rhino Rush would be a serious pain.

If it doesnt have 100 wounds and 30 attacks, the internet always poo poo's cc units. they are just out to make a point about 6E. the Reality is, you rarely attack full sized squads, and so many MANY units are good ENOUGH to win a combat when called upon to. The charge itself is a big advantage for any unit. Fire Warriors can do damage on a charge and every now and again, they even win (wouldn't count on it, but sometimes the situation calls for you to charge for the tie at games end and hey... If you gotta you gotta).

Eldar have a lot of close combat. That's a fact. Many of their characters and units can pown a unit that's been whittled...and they will be whittled.

So as good CC units go, Eldar have all you need. Scorpions are probably my all around favorite for price and efficacy but Asurman and other units can do it too.

 Jancoran wrote:
If it doesnt have 100 wounds and 30 attacks, the internet always poo poo's cc units. they are just out to make a point about 6E. the Reality is, you rarely attack full sized squads, and so many MANY units are good ENOUGH to win a combat when called upon to. The charge itself is a big advantage for any unit. Fire Warriors can do damage on a charge and every now and again, they even win (wouldn't count on it, but sometimes the situation calls for you to charge for the tie at games end and hey... If you gotta you gotta).

Eldar have a lot of close combat. That's a fact. Many of their characters and units can pown a unit that's been whittled...and they will be whittled.

So as good CC units go, Eldar have all you need. Scorpions are probably my all around favorite for price and efficacy but Asurman and other units can do it too.

Exalted.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 McNinja wrote:
Also, howling banshees are one of the more units in game. Fleet, combined with their +3" run move, and they're moving quite fast, fast enough to bounce from cover to cover. They will always be striking first in combat, and although only the Exarch will be dealing significant damage by herself, Power weapons on models that hit first are quite good.

Good post McNinja. Of course, people will now counter with the OMG no nades! rebuttal. They won't bother explaining why a good CC unit is sitting there with its thumb up its arse in or behind terrain, or why you have decided that THAT unit, and ONLY THAT unit, are what you are going to send your Shees against, or that the lack of Nades only effect the first round of CC, or any of those other things. They will just scream OMG NADES and the other lemmings will sadly nod along in agreement with out properly putting this apparent weakness into the proper context.

Well to answer the original question, in my not-so-humble opinion, the vague answer is No, Eldar close combat is not dead. Even in this shooting edition, Eldar melee has actually improved:

1) Battle Focus giving many units something to do while they close the distance.
2) Innate and multiple buffs to Scorpions.
3) Scorpion Exarch is AP2 at Initiative Eldar.
4) That 4++ psychic power (I dare say this alone keeps Banshees and Harlequins viable).
5) Default Divination now allows melee hit re-rolls.
6) Wraithknight. Because Wraithknight.
7) Phoenix Lords now confer Fearless to any squad they join, not just their specific Aspect Warriors.
8) Slightly better chances at rolling Invisibility, a huge boost to a unit's melee power.
9) F.

So yea, I'm trying to be positive about this

I approve of Eldar trying to do CC. <BA sharpen their blades>