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phydaux wrote:

A.T. wrote:
So... balance out your opponent not being able to shoot at the half of the army you have in reserve, by not allowing them to shoot at the half you don't have in reserve?

That doesn't seem practical. Unless you mean nightfighting style 'restrict'.

This. Unless you're playing on a mostly bald table, then there will be cover to hide behind. And you should refuse to play on a mostly bald table.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Make matched play use the Night Fight rules. There, all but 1 of your units is now -3 to hit. Hurts Gunlines, buffs assault and close range firefight armies and lowers first turn alpha strike.

At my FLAGS, for tournament and league games we rolls a d6. On a 1 it's first turn Night Fight, on a 6 it's 6th turn Night Fight. 2-5 means no Night Fight. So this addresses the problem but only "solves" it 1/6 the time. I wouldn't be too keen on the idea of playing EVERY GAME with turn 1 Night Fight rules. I'd flat out refuse games with any Tau player.

Why though? They will do worse under -1 to hit than you will unless you are house ruling the old blacksun filters into existence. Every single argument about deep strike being worthless for assault armies seems to forget shooting armies cannot do anything to harm the deep striking half of your army. That's the tradeoff. Why should you get into charge range, immunity to an entire round of shooting for half your army, and better defense for the things that aren't. All for essentially free. I'd rather see something along the lines of positive incentives for melee armies. The simplest would be that deep strikes on turn 2 can be at exactly 9 inches away. Now you only have to make an 8 inch charge and your odds go up considerably. Especially considering things like charge rerolls and command point rerolls. You can even make it so on turn 3 they can deep strike exactly 8 inches away. If something is bad you don't have to make other things worse to match, you can make the bad thing better instead.

I like that solution. Not a fan of the power level mechanic re: deep strike, though. Holy crap, they just will not let us not use power level.

 DominayTrix wrote:

phydaux wrote:

A.T. wrote:
So... balance out your opponent not being able to shoot at the half of the army you have in reserve, by not allowing them to shoot at the half you don't have in reserve?

That doesn't seem practical. Unless you mean nightfighting style 'restrict'.

This. Unless you're playing on a mostly bald table, then there will be cover to hide behind. And you should refuse to play on a mostly bald table.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Make matched play use the Night Fight rules. There, all but 1 of your units is now -3 to hit. Hurts Gunlines, buffs assault and close range firefight armies and lowers first turn alpha strike.

At my FLAGS, for tournament and league games we rolls a d6. On a 1 it's first turn Night Fight, on a 6 it's 6th turn Night Fight. 2-5 means no Night Fight. So this addresses the problem but only "solves" it 1/6 the time. I wouldn't be too keen on the idea of playing EVERY GAME with turn 1 Night Fight rules. I'd flat out refuse games with any Tau player.

Why though? They will do worse under -1 to hit than you will unless you are house ruling the old blacksun filters into existence. Every single argument about deep strike being worthless for assault armies seems to forget shooting armies cannot do anything to harm the deep striking half of your army. That's the tradeoff. Why should you get into charge range, immunity to an entire round of shooting for half your army, and better defense for the things that aren't. All for essentially free. I'd rather see something along the lines of positive incentives for melee armies. The simplest would be that deep strikes on turn 2 can be at exactly 9 inches away. Now you only have to make an 8 inch charge and your odds go up considerably. Especially considering things like charge rerolls and command point rerolls. You can even make it so on turn 3 they can deep strike exactly 8 inches away. If something is bad you don't have to make other things worse to match, you can make the bad thing better instead.

There is just one small but glaring problem. Most melee heavy armies don't survive the first turn shooting because of the amount of firepower that armies can pour down range. The fact that we take half of our army into deep strike isn't so that we can get into close combat easier, it's more the fact we can use the deep striking part of the army to shield the rest of the army that needs to walk up the field.

I can tell you now, I usually have armies that have upward of 20+ units, I don't deep strike half of my army but rather units that i know are more effective at tying up my opponents shooting. It's the backline that usually gets the job done as my opponent is too focused on my "Distraction Carnifex" units that when they focus on my units that are walking up the table, it's already too late.

Taking away that first turn distraction basically makes my advancing army swiss cheese, the amount of firepower needed to take out majority T3/T4 units is hilariously small when you can concentrate all your firepower on things that wont reach you in at least 2 turns. Hense why if there is gonna be a rule to hamstring melee based armies, why is there not a rule to hamper shooting based armies.

Cause at the moment, everyone is perfectly fine with a whole gunline army tabling a melee army turn one without any form of retaliation. That is not fun, that is a disgrace.

Melee is already facing an uphill battle, what with fall back mechanic and whatnot. So adding this rule would just make melee irrelevant in any 40k game that is competitive

I'll have to play some games against deepstrike heavy armies before I can render actual judgement on the new beta rules but as of right now I feel like half the rules are good, the other half maladjusted.

I like the 50% of power level (though it could be changed to points), facing someone who had 6 units of basic cultists on the ground and deepstruck, for all intents and purposes, their entire army wasn't fun.

I like the no warptime/quicken after deepstrike since that was a combo that a lot of armies had no way of countering (if the units had fly and you have no anti-psykers).

But the whole deepstrike within your own deployment zone turn 1 should probably just be changed to units deepstriking turn 1 cannot fire ranged weapons, with no spatial restrictions other than over 9" away from closest enemy units.

Force both player's minimum 25% of army unit's/point's to reserve. Pure gunline's now have less first turn firepower.
Reserve's without DS or similar ability can only be deployed on own deployment zone turn 2+.

There is just one small but glaring problem. Most melee heavy armies don't survive the first turn shooting because of the amount of firepower that armies can pour down range. The fact that we take half of our army into deep strike isn't so that we can get into close combat easier, it's more the fact we can use the deep striking part of the army to shield the rest of the army that needs to walk up the field.

I can tell you now, I usually have armies that have upward of 20+ units, I don't deep strike half of my army but rather units that i know are more effective at tying up my opponents shooting. It's the backline that usually gets the job done as my opponent is too focused on my "Distraction Carnifex" units that when they focus on my units that are walking up the table, it's already too late.

Taking away that first turn distraction basically makes my advancing army swiss cheese, the amount of firepower needed to take out majority T3/T4 units is hilariously small when you can concentrate all your firepower on things that wont reach you in at least 2 turns. Hense why if there is gonna be a rule to hamstring melee based armies, why is there not a rule to hamper shooting based armies.

Cause at the moment, everyone is perfectly fine with a whole gunline army tabling a melee army turn one without any form of retaliation. That is not fun, that is a disgrace.

Melee is already facing an uphill battle, what with fall back mechanic and whatnot. So adding this rule would just make melee irrelevant in any 40k game that is competitive

This is completely correct and runs along the same line of argument I was putting forth when the FAQ first dropped. For many armies the turn 1 deep strikers served the absolutely key role of commanding the opponents attention so that your slow moving other half actually had time to move up the board. By restricting turn 1 deep strike you have now fundamentally changed the entire list building process, regardless of whether the deep striking units themselves are just as "statistically killy" on turn 2 as they are on turn 1. The other half of the army can no longer be built without extreme defense. Where before you could safely move up more fragile units, now you must have units that can either hide and stay stationary, units covered in heavy armor ala transports, or units that can stack -1 modifiers. The change actually stymies and retards list building diversity among assault armies, you're now basically forced into a smaller elite assault force coming in on turn 2 backed up by a gunline of some sort.

And to everyone saying some variation of "why should assault armies have all this deference thrown at them," whether it be night fighting or restrictions on shooting into your opponents deployment zone? You people need to have a long look in the mirror and be able to admit to yourselves "shooting is fundamentally stronger and more effective in this game than melee, at a baseline level, and at every subsequent factor thereafter." The one example where melee "feels" stronger than shooting is when you can tie up an expensive tank or shooting unit with a minimal little squad of assaulters, which is completely avoidable via screening. What is assaulting units equivalent to overwatch? Is there a rule called blade deflection or something, when an assault unit gets shot at they roll a D6 for each shot and on a 6 one shot bounces back at the firer? Or some equivalent to flamer auto-hits? Certainly no. There is no draw back or hurdles associated with sitting back and going point-click fire everything at you while remaining stationary, it's the least strategic way of playing 40k. I know because I play all types of armies, from gunlines to pure assault. Guard or Tau gunlines is pure mathhammer, have I built my list in such a way that it can statistically blow my opponent off the table before he ties me up. The strategic wherewithal and frankly sheer luck that goes into being successful with an assault based army is fairly large. For example, if you're an assault based army and you don't "make the charge," many times the game is effectively over. A single charge phase of a few key failed charges and the game is decided. What is the shooting equivalent of that? "Oh shucks, my ideal target is out of range, I guess I'll just shoot at something else." Do assault units have backup plans if they fail the charge? Of course not, they stand there and get shot to pieces. Rant over. So please please please stop the line of rhetoric that shooting armies and melee armies are equally effective and that one deserves no more rules help than the other.

 kadeton wrote:
Making those units actually worth their points, while reducing how hilariously overpowered a basic unit of Boyz is in melee, would essentially fix the Orks' gameplay problems.

I am sorry....what? How are Ork boyz "hilariously overpowered" in melee? As it stands right now, the 30 boyz have to walk up the table, getting blasted for at least 2 turns, and then face overwatch and THEN successfully complete a charge. After they get into CC, assuming they are lucky and dont lose 10 boyz they each get 4 attacks which usually means anywhere from 20-80 attacks, depending entirely upon how many boyz you can get into CC and how many are left alive. Those attacks are S4 NO AP and hit on 3s. they are basically equivalent to Bolter shots. They work wonders against most units that aren't T5 or higher but I don't see how they are "Hilariously overpowered" you will have to explain that to me, especially since if they are so damned good, why aren't they winning events.

SemperMortis wrote:

 kadeton wrote:
Making those units actually worth their points, while reducing how hilariously overpowered a basic unit of Boyz is in melee, would essentially fix the Orks' gameplay problems.

I am sorry....what? How are Ork boyz "hilariously overpowered" in melee? As it stands right now, the 30 boyz have to walk up the table, getting blasted for at least 2 turns, and then face overwatch and THEN successfully complete a charge. After they get into CC, assuming they are lucky and dont lose 10 boyz they each get 4 attacks which usually means anywhere from 20-80 attacks, depending entirely upon how many boyz you can get into CC and how many are left alive. Those attacks are S4 NO AP and hit on 3s. they are basically equivalent to Bolter shots. They work wonders against most units that aren't T5 or higher but I don't see how they are "Hilariously overpowered" you will have to explain that to me, especially since if they are so damned good, why aren't they winning events.

Perhaps he's talking about internal balance? I mean, compared to all Ork's other options they are 'hilarious overpowered'.

But on a serious note, if Ork Boyz are stopping the Ork Codex from getting good gubbins I'm happy to see them toned down a bit.

SemperMortis wrote:
I am sorry....what? How are Ork boyz "hilariously overpowered" in melee? As it stands right now, the 30 boyz have to walk up the table, getting blasted for at least 2 turns, and then face overwatch and THEN successfully complete a charge. After they get into CC, assuming they are lucky and dont lose 10 boyz they each get 4 attacks which usually means anywhere from 20-80 attacks, depending entirely upon how many boyz you can get into CC and how many are left alive. Those attacks are S4 NO AP and hit on 3s. they are basically equivalent to Bolter shots. They work wonders against most units that aren't T5 or higher but I don't see how they are "Hilariously overpowered" you will have to explain that to me, especially since if they are so damned good, why aren't they winning events.

I said "Boyz in melee", not "A single unit of Boyz getting shot by an entire army while they cross the board". For their points, Ork Boyz have the most effective close-combat attacks of any unit in the game. Yes, better than Khorne Berserkers, better than Genestealers, better than... whatever else you're thinking of. Volume of attacks is king under this edition's To Wound chart. Yeah, their attacks are "basically equivalent to Bolter shots" - if Space Marines cost 6 points per model and could fire four bolter shots each, Space Marines would be the strongest army in the game by a vast margin.

The reasons why people aren't winning high-profile tournaments with Orks are many, but the big one is that fielding 200+ Orks simply isn't feasible in a timed-game environment. Many Ork players also find that style of play dull, and would rather field an army with some other elements, even though that makes it less competitive.

Boyz are what's propping the Ork army up at the moment. They only have one competitive build, which is just to cram in as many Boyz as you can, along with the characters that provide buffs to Boyz. If Boyz were reduced in effectiveness, the weaknesses of every other goddamn thing in the Ork list would become glaringly apparent, and there would be a greater chance for Orks to become an army with more than one competitive choice.

That few are bothering to realize that playing on barren tables is a huge reason why gunlines will dominate you without your turn 1 alpha strike makes me sad.

 auticus wrote:
That few are bothering to realize that playing on barren tables is a huge reason why gunlines will dominate you without your turn 1 alpha strike makes me sad.

This is good and well at a local game, or a home game. But at a major tournament where you can't control every piece of terrain do you really want to show up with an assault based army now? Hoping the terrain works out?

 peteralmo wrote:
You people need to have a long look in the mirror and be able to admit to yourselves "shooting is fundamentally stronger and more effective in this game than melee, at a baseline level, and at every subsequent factor thereafter."

Correct. And that's how it should be in a game full of guns. Objecting to this is like complaining that, in an ancient-era historical game, hitting people with swords is required and shooting units are support elements at best.

The issue is not that shooting is good, or that pure melee armies are bad, it's that players keep making terrible melee armies and expecting them to work. Stop doing this and the "bias" in 40k is no longer a problem. Start taking heavy shooting elements and treat your melee units as support elements like they should be. Failing to make a charge with one of your support elements is not a game-losing failure when the rest of your army is capable of winning the game in other ways.

 Peregrine wrote:

 peteralmo wrote:
You people need to have a long look in the mirror and be able to admit to yourselves "shooting is fundamentally stronger and more effective in this game than melee, at a baseline level, and at every subsequent factor thereafter."

Correct. And that's how it should be in a game full of guns. Objecting to this is like complaining that, in an ancient-era historical game, hitting people with swords is required and shooting units are support elements at best.

I don't object to it at all. Just figure out a way to nerf hive tyrant spam without screwing over every other assault based army that never won a damn thing at a major event.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
The biggest problem is Sly Marbo doesn't have an exception to the beta rules.

He doesn't need one, concealed explosives only requires him to deepstrike onto the board, you can target any unit on the board irrespective of distance. So turn 1 deepstrike him into your deployment zone, detonate concealed explosives on target of choice then send him back into reserves at the start of turn 2 to drop wherever he likes turn 3.

 peteralmo wrote:
This is good and well at a local game, or a home game. But at a major tournament where you can't control every piece of terrain do you really want to show up with an assault based army now? Hoping the terrain works out?

Then stop showing up at tournaments that fail to use adequate terrain. If the TO puts out an empty table then say "no thanks" and go home. Force the tournaments to change or die and they will have to change.

 Peregrine wrote:

 peteralmo wrote:
You people need to have a long look in the mirror and be able to admit to yourselves "shooting is fundamentally stronger and more effective in this game than melee, at a baseline level, and at every subsequent factor thereafter."

Correct. And that's how it should be in a game full of guns. Objecting to this is like complaining that, in an ancient-era historical game, hitting people with swords is required and shooting units are support elements at best.

The issue is not that shooting is good, or that pure melee armies are bad, it's that players keep making terrible melee armies and expecting them to work. Stop doing this and the "bias" in 40k is no longer a problem. Start taking heavy shooting elements and treat your melee units as support elements like they should be. Failing to make a charge with one of your support elements is not a game-losing failure when the rest of your army is capable of winning the game in other ways.

If the game designers build into the core game the concept that pure melee armies cannot and should not succeed there should be some sort of communication to that end. WARNING, include a sizeable shooting element in your armies or you will not succeed. But we both no they don't see it that way. In fact some armies have virtually no shooting at all. No, if they fully expect there to be pure melee armies, then they need to recognize how inferior they are at a baseline level to pure long range shooting armies and not purposely hamper / nerf them.

 peteralmo wrote:
If the game designers build into the core game the concept that pure melee armies cannot and should not succeed there should be some sort of communication to that end.

Why? GW provides no list-building advice of any kind and expects players to figure it out.

In fact some armies have virtually no shooting at all.

Which army is that?

Non-Tzeench Chaos Daemons. Nurg/Slaan has soulgrinder (Hot Garbage) and Khorne has that + Skullcannon, which is actually pretty good.

Orks Lets be real here, as much as they technically have guns in their army, against a 1/3 of opponents (CT Raven guard equivilant) they either dont move and are out-shot, or do move and LITERALLY CANNOT HIT THEIR OPPONENT.
In fact, I'm going to say this right now. The DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA stratagem should be a rule tied to all non-pistol/auto-hit ork ranged weapons natively. On top of that, maybe give Lootas/Flash Gitz a rule, lets Call it Luck of Mork. They count all negative hit modifiers as positive. Have your aliotic rangers hiding with the Totally Fair & Balanced stratagem giving them -4 to hit somehow? Guess what.. those Lootas are now hitting on 2's with exploding dice on all shots.

And on the whole "But eeets the fuuuuutuuuuuuure!!!! Only guns should matter!!!!!". Are you saying that armor tech hasn't also progressed substantially? Even in the current day, infantry body armor is advancing almost as fast as weapon technology. To the point I wouldn't be surprised if by 2050 we are reading headlines about USMC Assault Squads with riot shields and long swords charging the enemy whilst being largely impervious to small arms fire. This is a future with 7 foot tall 5 foot wide space orks who can pull the arms off of a genetically engineers post-human demigod wearing a tank. If you could feasibly wear the magic-armor from an Abrams as infantry armor, you too would equip an army of jarheads with chainsaws and tank-suits to go full Evil Dead on the opponent's main force.

I guess what a lot of us Make Melee Great Again folks are saying is... we just want our plastic armydudes be able to hit your plastic armydudes with swords on a relatively equal standing as yours do with magic space elf snowflake guns. Perhaps let our Punch-Tank5000 be able to weather a few turns of fire from your ShootTank30,000. Unfortunately it seems that 40k is going back to 5th edition with IG/Eldar parking lot, BDSM Leafblower and Razorback Spam. Only thing we're missing is the obligatory fan-spank GW will give to spacewolves so we can once again bend knee to our thunderwolf overlords.

StarHunter25 wrote:
Non-Tzeench Chaos Daemons. Nurg/Slaan has soulgrinder (Hot Garbage) and Khorne has that + Skullcannon, which is actually pretty good.

Demons shouldn't exist as a separate army. I'll grudgingly accept that GW has committed to the lunacy of "use your WHFB army on round bases", but I reject the idea that it needs to be considered relevant balance-wise.

Orks Lets be real here, as much as they technically have guns in their army, against a 1/3 of opponents (CT Raven guard equivilant) they either dont move and are out-shot, or do move and LITERALLY CANNOT HIT THEIR OPPONENT.
In fact, I'm going to say this right now. The DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA stratagem should be a rule tied to all non-pistol/auto-hit ork ranged weapons natively. On top of that, maybe give Lootas/Flash Gitz a rule, lets Call it Luck of Mork. They count all negative hit modifiers as positive. Have your aliotic rangers hiding with the Totally Fair & Balanced stratagem giving them -4 to hit somehow? Guess what.. those Lootas are now hitting on 2's with exploding dice on all shots.

IOW, orks have shooting and their biggest problem is a badly-designed system of stacking -1 penalties. Fix that instead of trying to break the game by making them a melee army.

And on the whole "But eeets the fuuuuutuuuuuuure!!!! Only guns should matter!!!!!". Are you saying that armor tech hasn't also progressed substantially? Even in the current day, infantry body armor is advancing almost as fast as weapon technology. To the point I wouldn't be surprised if by 2050 we are reading headlines about USMC Assault Squads with riot shields and long swords charging the enemy whilst being largely impervious to small arms fire. This is a future with 7 foot tall 5 foot wide space orks who can pull the arms off of a genetically engineers post-human demigod wearing a tank. If you could feasibly wear the magic-armor from an Abrams as infantry armor, you too would equip an army of jarheads with chainsaws and tank-suits to go full Evil Dead on the opponent's main force.

The problem with this argument is that any armor that is invulnerable to bullets is almost certainly invulnerable to a pointy stick. The response will be escalating the use of heavy weapons, not creating units with nothing but pointy sticks and hoping they can somehow reach the enemy. This isn't tabletop 40k with its broken scaling that allows units to reach melee range before the game ends.

I guess what a lot of us Make Melee Great Again folks are saying is... we just want our plastic armydudes be able to hit your plastic armydudes with swords on a relatively equal standing as yours do with magic space elf snowflake guns.

And what I'm saying is that this is not an acceptable outcome. Melee should be weaker than shooting, period. It should be a supporting element at best, and designing an entire army around it while neglecting shooting should mean losing every game. Accept that 40k is not an ancient-era historicals game and stop trying to play it like one.

I still stand by the solution is to make melee better, not make shooting worse. What would make melee viable in this scenario without touching shooting? Bonuses to charge? All units start in cover until your first turn? If its just a flat -1 to hit, eldar will still shoot you off the table with hit bonuses and natura bs 3+

 Peregrine wrote:

And what I'm saying is that this is not an acceptable outcome. Melee should be weaker than shooting, period. It should be a supporting element at best, and designing an entire army around it while neglecting shooting should mean losing every game. Accept that 40k is not an ancient-era historicals game and stop trying to play it like one.

Then, if we follow your reasoning, GW should give equal chance in both melee and shooting to all factions, which is not the case today.

Today, some armies are good at shooting, others are good in melee; if the game is not balanced around this FACT, and not your personal wishes, some armies have an advantage, others do not, depending on the FOTM rules.

You sound angry that your gunlines cannot systematically obliterate the opponent, maybe you forgot 40k is just a game.

Siegfriedfr wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

And what I'm saying is that this is not an acceptable outcome. Melee should be weaker than shooting, period. It should be a supporting element at best, and designing an entire army around it while neglecting shooting should mean losing every game. Accept that 40k is not an ancient-era historicals game and stop trying to play it like one.

Then, if we follow your reasoning, GW should give equal chance in both melee and shooting to all factions, which is not the case today.

Today, some armies are good at shooting, others are good in melee; if the game is not balanced around this FACT, and not your personal wishes, some armies have an advantage, others do not, depending on the FOTM rules.

You sound angry that your gunlines cannot systematically obliterate the opponent, maybe you forgot 40k is just a game.

Indeed you are correct. 40k is a game.

In a galaxy of dudes or ladies wearing armour that would shrug rockets, the best way to kill them is to stab them in the weak points of their armour.

Remember people, history has told us that as long as there is a weapon (Bow, Gun, Rocket) there has always been something to try and block it (Chainmail Armour, Cevlar, Compositite reactive armour)

So having people shrug off RPG rounds with futuristic power armour or because they do not actually exist in this dimension is a perfectly resonable reason why that same thing cant just run a sword through you

Half range or -1 to hit for the first player turn seems like an elegant way of redressing the balance between shooting and melee. It doesn't prevent the defensive player from setting out their layers of battleline that shield their army, but that is tactical movement which should be encouraged.

It is fine for shooting to be more effective than melee, but then that should be reflected in the point costs of those units!

 Peregrine wrote:

 peteralmo wrote:
You people need to have a long look in the mirror and be able to admit to yourselves "shooting is fundamentally stronger and more effective in this game than melee, at a baseline level, and at every subsequent factor thereafter."

Correct. And that's how it should be in a game full of guns. Objecting to this is like complaining that, in an ancient-era historical game, hitting people with swords is required and shooting units are support elements at best.

The issue is not that shooting is good, or that pure melee armies are bad, it's that players keep making terrible melee armies and expecting them to work. Stop doing this and the "bias" in 40k is no longer a problem. Start taking heavy shooting elements and treat your melee units as support elements like they should be. Failing to make a charge with one of your support elements is not a game-losing failure when the rest of your army is capable of winning the game in other ways.

Horse gak. This isn't a hard sci-fi universe, it's fantasy in space. Khorne Daemons have just as much right to exist as Imperial Guard, and if GW wants to advertise Khorne as an option then they need to make it viable to run.

 Crimson wrote:
It is fine for shooting to be more effective than melee, but then that should be reflected in the point costs of those units!

No, because then melee units become powerful again. They may not be elite anymore, but with that cost reduction you can swarm with hordes of melee troops and still win. Stop expecting pointy sticks to be effective.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Horse gak. This isn't a hard sci-fi universe, it's fantasy in space. Khorne Daemons have just as much right to exist as Imperial Guard, and if GW wants to advertise Khorne as an option then they need to make it viable to run.

Khorne demons can exist. You can take a unit of them as your melee unit in a shooting-focused CSM army. Demons in general should never have been a complete army, and this is demonstrating why.

 Peregrine wrote:

No, because then melee units become powerful again. They may not be elite anymore, but with that cost reduction you can swarm with hordes of melee troops and still win. Stop expecting pointy sticks to be effective.

And you should be able to. Equal points worth of pointy sticks versus laser pointers should make a fair game where both sides have a decent chance of winning.

And this is a fantasy game. Melee weapons exist, melee units exist. These should be usable. If I wanted to play a realistic gunline simulation I could play Bolt Action. In 40K I want my space marines to punch tanks and giant space monsters with their power fists.

 Crimson wrote:
And you should be able to. Equal points worth of pointy sticks versus laser pointers should make a fair game where both sides have a decent chance of winning.

Nope. That's like arguing that an army with no anti-tank weapons should be able to win against tanks. Badly designed lists should not win. Lists that try to do something that is against the design principles of the game should not win. Your pointy sticks should get wiped off the table 100% of the time because it's a stupid and anti-fluffy list.

And this is a fantasy game.

No it isn't. It's a hybrid scifi/WWII game with some superficial fantasy elements in the fluff.

Melee weapons exist, melee units exist. These should be usable.

Sure, and those units/weapons can be usable as long as you treat them as support elements for the shooting core of your army. The issue is not that melee combat exists at all, it's that melee-only armies exist and people expect them to be something other than a joke.

 Peregrine wrote:

Nope. That's like arguing that an army with no anti-tank weapons should be able to win against tanks. Badly designed lists should not win. Lists that try to do something that is against the design principles of the game should not win. Your pointy sticks should get wiped off the table 100% of the time because it's a stupid and anti-fluffy list.

Pointy sticks vs infantry is not no anti-tank versus tanks situation. Stabbing infantry is exactly what the pointy sticks are for.

No it isn't. It's a hybrid scifi/WWII game with some superficial fantasy elements in the fluff.

And those scifi elements include loads of scifi melee weapons! (And I would definitely call it space fantasy rather than scifi.)

Sure, and those units/weapons can be usable as long as you treat them as support elements for the shooting core of your army. The issue is not that melee combat exists at all, it's that melee-only armies exist and people expect them to be something other than a joke.

But currently they're really not that usable, even as support elements. It is usually just better to use your points for more shooty stuff instead of investing in melee.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 peteralmo wrote:
You people need to have a long look in the mirror and be able to admit to yourselves "shooting is fundamentally stronger and more effective in this game than melee, at a baseline level, and at every subsequent factor thereafter."

Correct. And that's how it should be in a game full of guns. Objecting to this is like complaining that, in an ancient-era historical game, hitting people with swords is required and shooting units are support elements at best.

The issue is not that shooting is good, or that pure melee armies are bad, it's that players keep making terrible melee armies and expecting them to work. Stop doing this and the "bias" in 40k is no longer a problem. Start taking heavy shooting elements and treat your melee units as support elements like they should be. Failing to make a charge with one of your support elements is not a game-losing failure when the rest of your army is capable of winning the game in other ways.

Horse gak. This isn't a hard sci-fi universe, it's fantasy in space. Khorne Daemons have just as much right to exist as Imperial Guard, and if GW wants to advertise Khorne as an option then they need to make it viable to run.

Or orks. No h2h armies, no orks.