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As is plainly obvious, 7th Edition is a shooty edition. Assault simply doesn't measure up to the overwhelming damage of several rounds of shooting, meaning that assault-based armies have an uphill struggle to win. There are four main problems with the Assault Phase as it currently stands:

1. Random charge distances. This is the utter bane of all assault armies, as a single bad dice roll can cost you the game.

2. The Weapon Skill table. WS is an unusual stat in that it is both offensive and defensive. The current WS table doesn't do enough of either.

3. Vehicle Disembarking. The heavy restrictions on charging after getting out of a vehicle mean that assault vehicles are inferior to bikes and other units with 12" movement and the ability to charge.

4. Overwatch. While I'm not opposed to the concept of overwatch, the fact that a unit can get what amounts to an extra round of shooting is very powerful for certain armies. Coupled with randon charge distances, and overwatch can ruin an otherwise perfect charge.

I have already addressed some of these problems in a previous thread of mine: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/657732.page

Summary: standardized 6" charge move. Difficult terrain forces roll of 2D6 highest and reduces unit to I1. Move Through Cover and Skilled Rider ignore distance and Initiative penalty. Fleet and Jump Infantry that use their jump packs ignore distance penalty and roll extra D6 for charge move. Units can disembark and charge from vehicles that moved no more than 6", but count as making a disordered charge. Assault vehicles can move 12" and let passengers disembark and charge, and don't make a disordered charge.

The problem I was attempting to address with the change to Vehicle Disembarkation rules was the lack of mobility of assault units; currently, only units that can move 12" a turn are truly viable in assault. But to do that, you have to be on the board first, where the opposing player can simply shoot the assault unit off the table. To give units outside of transports/bikes/jump packs more options, I would change the rules to allow for units to charge after coming in on a table edge from reserves (ex: Outflank) as long as they are not in a vehicle.

On to the Weapons Skill table. Currently, the WS table is a mess that is as clear as mud to easily comprehend and doesn't do enough for either offense or defense. As a result, I have set up the following relatively simple rules for the WS table:

Attacker WS = double Target WS: 2+ to hit
Attacker WS = greater than Target WS: 3+ to hit
Attacker WS equals or is 1 less than Target WS: 4+ to hit
Attacker WS = two less than Target WS: 5+ to hit
Attacker WS = half Target WS: 6+ to hit

The resulting WS table would mean that WS above 5 actually means something, and WS 6, 8, and 10 are to be greatly feared.

The final problem remaining is Overwatch. As I stated earlier, I am actually okay with the concept of overwatch. However, I feel that the fact that there is no penalty to it is very unbalanced on favor of shooty armies. Since units that have gone to ground or are pinned cannot fire overwatch, I felt some standardization was necessary:

If a unit chooses to conduct Overwatch, the unit must first pass a Leadership test. If passed, the unit resolves its Overwatch as normal. If failed, the unit counts a having Gone to Ground and therefore may not fire Overwatch. Units that conduct Overwatch may only fire Snap Shots in the subsequent Shooting Phase.

This both increases the risk of performing Overwatch due to guaranteed and potential penalties and gives a buff to units that lack Assault Grenades as they can charge the GtG unit without the Initiative penalty.

I am welcome to any suggestions or ideas about both these proposed rules and how to improve the Assault Phase in general.

Edit: at the suggestion of niv-mizzet, I have refined the rules for Overwatch and allowed for models to charge after Outflanking or Deep-Striking.
Edit: after more feedback, I have removed the ability to charge after Deep-Striking. Instead, units will be able to assault if they come in from a table edge.

I don't think your solutions are perfect, but I think they are an improvement.

Absolutely to standard assault range.

That might be a bit fast on the assault vehicles. Even just going back to assault out of stationary non-assault vehicles would make me pretty happy. We also wouldn't have to remember which units got knocked out of a non-assault vehicle on the following turn.

Absolutely change the ws table. It's pretty bad. Tau still hit most enemies on 4's in the current chart.

For over watch, i wish they'd just make it "you can not fire to gain interceptor until your next turn" instead. But lacking that, yes some kind of penalty is needed for when you overwatch and aren't stuck in combat right after. Snap fire on your shooting phase maybe.

You forgot some of the other melee disadvantages as well. One of the main ones being that shooting units can deep strike, outflank, infiltrate, come in from reserve, or get out of a drop pod or non-assault vehicle, and still fire at full efficacy.
Ideally, if shooting units are allowed to suddenly appear on the board and wipe an enemy unit out with no response, assault should be able to do the same. Either that or have them snapshot on arrival and don't let either unit type do it.

Thanks for the feedback niv-mizzet.

You are right about the comparison to Interceptor with Overwatch. While I don't think that Overwatch should have the same penalty as Interceptor i.e. not being able to shoot in the following shooting phase, I do think that an ongoing penalty should be added to Overwatch, like Snap Shots in the next Shooting Phase.

I feel that Assault Vehicles, and armies that rely on them, need some sort of advantage over regular vehicles. Plus, it gives people a reason to take Land Raiders, and the ability to pull off a turn 1 charge if your opponent deploys like an absolute idiot.

I do feel like Assault needs more deployment options. Infiltrate and Scout would give Assault units too much leeway in terms of a turn 1 assault, so I wouldn't support letting units assault after Infiltrating or making a Scout move. However, I can support letting units assault after outflanking or deep-striking, as that has much more of an element of randomness/chance as to whether or not the unit will end up in a good position to make an assault.

Assault moves of 6" is NOT a good idea. With most movement being 6" you will never catch anybody (it was known as kiting in older editions) charge after outflank and ariving from deep strike reserves are legit. Just allowing it from deepstrike is too much because a pile of summoned daemonettes or blood crushers of khorne being able to drop in and start killing immediately is a bit much.

My proposal for overwatch is the hits for it happen immediately before the challenge mechanic, after the unit has succeeded in their charge attempt. If they don't make it into combat, the overwatch never happened because the unit wasn't in danger. It allows shooty armies to still bring their weapons to bear, doesn't count towards combat resolution, but doesn't stop the melee oriented guys from actually getting there.

I like your new weapon skill table, thought of something similar where if you tripple their weapon skill, you hit on a 2+, if you more than tripple it they hit you on a 6+. That way weapon skill 9/10 can hit weapon skill three on a 2+, weapon skill 2 hits 9/10 on a 6+.

Edit: added some stuff

Assaulting out of deepstrike is a bit much in my eyes. It basically makes all melee deepstrikers (daemons assault marines, webway portal units with melee weapons, etc.) into skyhammer variants.

I like most of your ideas. Your melee to-hit formula doesn't quite hold up. A WS 2 unit (tau for instance) would be both "half" a defending marine's WS and also "two less than" his WS. I'm a fan of to-hit rolls working on 2+ or skilled combatants being hit on a 6+ though. Though it potentially makes super killy units super killy-er.

For charges, I like simply letting people choose between a 2d6" charge or a flat 6" charge. It retains the potential for long charges, but it also prevents those crummy moments where you fail a 3" charge.

Having a 2d6 charge, minimum 6" would be pretty cool...


As for assault from deepstrike, you know they are in deepstrike reserves, they can't move after the drop, they can still mishap, be shot with interceptor, rely on dice rolls to be able to come in, can scatter out of assault range, and can still fail the charge. Assault from reserves isn't really that big of a deal...

Some decent ideas here, just some of my thoughts on them:

- I'm really not sure about the idea of a fixed charge range. Sure, failing a 3" charge does suck, but, as was the problem with 7th edition fantasy, there's too much simply standing 1" out of range and you being completely unable to do anything. It results in a lot of edging forward and backward, which really annoys me. I like Wyldhunt's idea of having two charging possibilities, either you charge 6" or you roll 2D6, perhaps with there being some penalty (disordered charge is perhaps a bit harsh, but something along those lines) for the latter. This will stop units failing charges at silly distances, but will also stop people standing all their units 7" away and being 100% safe.

- Assaulting out of deepstrike and/or outflank is a bit too powerful, in my opinion, considering the huge amount of units that can benefit from it. As much as I loved my 5th edition outflanking then charging genestealers (and would love to be able to use them again), I do think that this would simply render many shooting armies useless against armies that have deep strike (especially precision) and lots of good combat units. Such armies simply hold the bulk of their army in reserve then bring it on right next to the enemy shooty units (which have had precious little to fire at for a turn or two) and delete them off the board. I think this combined with bringing back the old "only 50% of army in reserve" and a penalty (such as a disordered charge) for deepstriking/outflanking then charging, would work well, however.

- I think the current rules for disembarking/charging are absolutely fine. Perhaps the issue is that we need more assault vehicles?

- As for the WS table, I feel like I say this all the time, but I think it makes perfect sense. A melee is an extremely confusing mass of bodies and a tau fire warrior can quite easily hit an assault marine simply because the assault marine happened to be looking the wrong way at that time. I guess it makes more sense in old Fantasy, where there were more models in a combat, but I still think it represents the confusion of hand to hand combat well, and doesn't need a change. Perhaps a USR which gives certain units +1 to hit in combat (or -1 to be hit) would be a good addition to represent how some units (e.g. harlequins) weave through combat with immense skill.

- I also don't have a problem with overwatch as I find that, as it is, a unit hitting on 6s, it actually makes very little difference. I remember when it was first introduced I thought it would be the end of assault altogether but found that, in my first few games, it generally only removed one or two models. The issue with overwatch comes with armies that exploit it, such as Tau being able to overwatch with a silly amount of units and Dark Angels being able to boost the BS at which they fire it. These kind of things is what makes overwatch broken, in my opinion. I do like the idea of having to pass a Ld test to do it though, but I doubt this will make much more of a difference. I'd perhaps suggest incorporating something from 8th edition Fantasy, where stand and shoot could not be fired (usually, anyway) if a unit was charging within its movement value. So, we would say that a unit was unable to fire overwatch if the charging unit was within 6" of it, as the unit being charged do not have enough time to react. Certain weapons (pistols come to mind) and units could also be given a USR to override this restriction.

I do also like the idea someone had of overwatch being unable to stop a charge (short of wiping out the assaulting unit completely), i.e. you'd roll for charge distance and, if the unit made it, it would still assault regardless of how many models were killed in the ensuing overwatch.

As an Ork, Tau, and GK player I gotta say these rules would not be good for the game. This WS table is incredibly punishing to units with lackluster WS (the poor guardsman and Tau would get punched in the junk over this mess) while it will just result in more deathstar super units who can't be hit in CC. Fear would murder armies that aren't immune to it or have high leadership.

-Flat 6" charge is a nerf to assault armies as the average charge distance is 7" and more if you have fleet or some distance reroll. Orks and the like need to attempt 7-9" charges as its the difference between eating a whole extra round of shooting or not. As others have stated having a minimum charge distance (say 5" but still modified by terrain penalty) to prevent point blank charges from failing would be good. Gives reliability but doesn't change the range of long distance charging.

-Overwatch is really not a huge issue except for taking casualties which messes up your charge distance (you can blame models from the front for that) but it only does a few wounds most of the time. Having failed overwatch and triggering gone to ground is incredibly punishing for low leadership armies (this game already smacks around low leadership as it is). Having half of a Tau's gunline go to ground because of this rule and supporting fire would be incredibly dumb. I feel like this is targeted at Tau but it ultimately ends up hurting Orks and other low leadership armies the most. If anything having overwatch deal wounds to models of the charger's choosing would be a fair compromise. Precision shots on overwatch can deal wounds to models by the shooters choosing.

-Assault vehicles can move 6", disembark 6", and then charge so they have the same reach as a bike or other 12" movers. This change will just make assault vehicles even better and increasing the gap between foot sloggers and vehicles even more.

-Assault from deep strike is opening a whole can of worms that will probably destabilize the game and would need some major rules rewriting. Outflank charge is something I think would be more reasonable as it can be played around and doesn't give nearly global assault range.

One thing to consider on the proposed overwatch test is the unit fails and counts as gone to ground then assaulting throug cover for units without grenades becomes a much better proposition.. and a worse one for the unit considering attempting overwatch. Was this intentional?

On assaulting from reserves I find it funny how people always worry about the poor shooty armies. So a unit will arrive and wreck them without much recourse. Isn't that exactly what shooting units do now? Which part of skyhammer is the scary part? Hint its not the assault marines..
Meanwhile red skulls formation can never be allowed to assault from reserve because orks..

I like assaulting from stationary vehicles, might try to adapt that here. However I do agree with Vankraken on nerfing some armies with set assault ranges.

Honestly why not target units like bikes and ATSKNR while your at it. These things are more unbalancing then most other nuances of the game.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Having a 2d6 charge, minimum 6" would be pretty cool...


As for assault from deepstrike, you know they are in deepstrike reserves, they can't move after the drop, they can still mishap, be shot with interceptor, rely on dice rolls to be able to come in, can scatter out of assault range, and can still fail the charge. Assault from reserves isn't really that big of a deal...

Mishapping is a consideration, though you do have to be at least a little unlucky for it to severely hurt you provided you plan your deepstrike target well. Interceptor doesn't really come up unless you're facing Tau or Coteaz. Relying on dice rolls to come in isn't too bad because A.) If you don't come in, you're just remaining safe until next turn when you probably will come in, and B.) there are warlord traits, fortifications, and other special rules that increase the already good odds that a unit will arrive. Scattering out of assault range is probably the biggest limiter to assaulting out of deepstrike, but anything with Fleet, 'Ere We Go, or similar makes it much more reliable. Even if you don't land in range of your first pick of targets, it's not super unlikely that you'll land within range of another target.

And then there are the combos that make it really scary. Swooping Hawks come in, don't scatter at all, and proceed to haywire whatever vehicle(s) you care about most. Big squads can take out leman russ squadrons without too much fuss. Especially if an autarch is mixed in. Terminators teleport in next to a guy with a teleport homer, charge in, and make the enemy chew on some form of strength 8 low AP weapon. I know terminators are considered subpar right now (escept for TH+SS who would excel with an out-of-deepstrike assault), but letting them land more or less where they want and then punch their first pick of targets out right away seems a bit much. Also, webway portal or corsair prince + wraith blades. Depending on how you handle drop pods with their deepstrike/disembark stuff, you might be looking at dreadnaughts, assault centurions, assault marines, wolf guard, etc. coming out of those.

You can also simply take tons of relatively cheap deepstrikers to lock-down your opponents' anti-infantry and give yourself redundant attempts to assault out of deepstrike. Taking lots of daemonettes and deepstriking them all, for instance, would work pretty well. A 10-strong squad is only what? About 100 points if you don't go over the top on upgrades. For about 600 points, you could have 6 squads of 10 daemonettes coming in from reserves (so about 4 of them on turn two) giving you four attempts to scatter within charge range. Fleet makes their reliably charge range something like 9" if I"m not mistaken, so chances are good one of those squads will land somewhere relevant.

The thing about assaulting out of deepstrike (as opposed to assaulting out of vehicles, normal reserves, or maybe outflank) is that there's really nothing your opponent can do about it unless their list happens to be loaded up with interceptor. If you build your list around assaulting out of deepstrike, you should pretty reliably be able to kill any units your opponent cares about short of maybe deathstars without him getting more than a few overwatch shots against you. You'd see a lot of games where the deepstrike assaulter just denies his opponent any meaningful targets turn 1, then takes out the most dangerous chunks of his opponent's army uncontested turn 2.

It might work for some units that struggle as deepstrike assailants though. Like hellions, storm boyz, or maybe even assault marines.

Assaulting out of outflank was awesome in 5th edition, but I admit it may be too good in certain hands in 7th. The potential for significantly longer charge means it's more difficult to hide in the center of the board than in 5th. Still, a lot of units (like genestealers) just feel like they were built with an outflank assault in mind, and outflank assaults are kind of a perfect answer to shooting armies. I miss having them as an option.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone.

After further consideration, I have decided to remove the option to assault after deep-striking, as it would in fact cause more problems than it would solve. I will, however, preserve the ability for units to assault after coming in from a table edge (as long as they aren't in a vehicle), as this gives outflanking charges and reserves more power.

The proposed new WS table is supposed to punish low WS; the current one doesn't punish it enough. Currently only WS above 7 is where it really starts to make a difference. With this, WS 5 and 6 are suddenly more powerful, not to mention 7-10.

It was intentional to make overwatch more risky, as well as give a boost to units that lack assault grenades (or Move Through Cover or Skilled Rider in the proposed rules).

With the amount of terrain present on the average board, I have found that the average charge range is but 5". I wanted to fix in the 6" charge as a baseline while allowing certain units to get a 7"-12" charge. As far as Orks go, their codex needs a redesign; my suggestion with these rules is to allow them to roll an extra dice on the charge, and take the two highest.

Overwatch is supposed to enable the chance to eliminate a charge if you get lucky enough, so I don't think the order of the Assault Phase itself needs to be changed. And with a 6" charge, units that do get overwatched will more reliably get into combat.

These fixes are pretty nice man, but have you considered adding tactical elements to close combat? At the end of the day, even with these changes its still "get close to something, charge it".

For example, in the fake 6th edition that came out before the real thing, you could gain INT 10 by charging a unit that was tied up in combat at the beginning of the phase. Rules like that would reward players who can use their close combat units in an intelligent fashion

Regarding assault from deep strike, I agree that it should not be a thing, but at the same time I feel that shooting units should not be able to fire in the turn they arrive either. Barring assault but allowing flamers and meltas is a poor double standard that allows one kind of no skill auto-kill removal and not another.

Assaulting from outflanking is something I would usually be all for, however if you can outflank a bike, jetbike, or cavalry unit, its threat range is simply too great

Perhaps you could implement a system where Initiative modifies the chance to be hit in overwatch?

Maybe you could assault out of deepstrike but have your Initiative halved. It'd make sense - you need to gather your surroundings before you jump into the fray so you're a bit off guard. No matter how elite you are, jumping out of a pod into an active firefight close to enemy lines, you're going to need to see the enemy, form a plan, and execute it. No idea, just throwing out suggestions.

Dakkamite wrote:These fixes are pretty nice man, but have you considered adding tactical elements to close combat? At the end of the day, even with these changes its still "get close to something, charge it".

For example, in the fake 6th edition that came out before the real thing, you could gain INT 10 by charging a unit that was tied up in combat at the beginning of the phase. Rules like that would reward players who can use their close combat units in an intelligent fashion

Regarding assault from deep strike, I agree that it should not be a thing, but at the same time I feel that shooting units should not be able to fire in the turn they arrive either. Barring assault but allowing flamers and meltas is a poor double standard that allows one kind of no skill auto-kill removal and not another.

Assaulting from outflanking is something I would usually be all for, however if you can outflank a bike, jetbike, or cavalry unit, its threat range is simply too great

Fun fact: if the unit you are charging is locked in combat, you already don't get the Initiative penalty for charging through difficult terrain.

I was under the impression that, since everything in 40k is done unit-to-unit, the only real assault could be "get close and hit something". The tactics some into the interations with terrain, movement shooting, and positioning.

You could argue that shooting after Deep-Strike is OP, but there are already plenty of variables that go into it: how close you are to the target, mishaps, etc. If you can shoot after DS, your opponent can respond in the next turn. If you assault after DS, your opponent might simply be completely unable to counter it. What about armies that don't have strong CC and need the mobility, like Tau? Besides, this is more of a question about the shooting phase; this thread is more focused on improving of fixing assault.

Ferros wrote:Perhaps you could implement a system where Initiative modifies the chance to be hit in overwatch?

Maybe you could assault out of deepstrike but have your Initiative halved. It'd make sense - you need to gather your surroundings before you jump into the fray so you're a bit off guard. No matter how elite you are, jumping out of a pod into an active firefight close to enemy lines, you're going to need to see the enemy, form a plan, and execute it. No idea, just throwing out suggestions.

That's a good idea, but there's one problem: Unwieldy weapons. Power Fists and Thunder Hammers don't care if the bearer's Inititive is reduced.

I intended the "Assault from Deep Strike" as a means of improving assault potential and a s a throwback to previous editions, where I understand that it was possible. I now realize that it was a mistake, which is why I have removed it but allowed for assaults from Outflank and reserves coming in from the table edge.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

You could argue that shooting after Deep-Strike is OP, but there are already plenty of variables that go into it: how close you are to the target, mishaps, etc. If you can shoot after DS, your opponent can respond in the next turn. If you assault after DS, your opponent might simply be completely unable to counter it. What about armies that don't have strong CC and need the mobility, like Tau? Besides, this is more of a question about the shooting phase; this thread is more focused on improving of fixing assault.

Considering how much better shooting currently is than melee, putting the fear of getting punched back into some shooty armies might not be a bad thing.