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I am a long time chaos player, mainly khorne with some tzeentch daemons, and I love the rush style of play supported by some walking armour...grinders, dreads, maulers whatever.

I have the KDK, CD & CSM codex but was wondering in a tournament environment which codex gives the best close assault options

now before we get started i know the meta at the moment is shooting, but ive never really been interested in that style, so which codex gives the best shot at close assault?

I was just about to reply: Eldar, haha, because they are mostly I5, with WK has I5 D weapons at just 295pts, Banshee masks stop you overwatch and Zain Zar who can reduce her opponent WS, I, Ld by -5, and I5 powerfist everywhere in terms of Scorpian Exarch. Lol.

Jokes aside, for codexes in your list, I think Chaos Daemon may be the best one to have a "rush" assault type army. Give a try to Slaanesh daemons, i think the Daemonette and fiends are your better pick then Khorne. They are faster and cheaper, and rending with lots of attacks is scary to any unit.

thanks for the reply!

I didnt word my question very well because i did mean out of all the codex avail, not just mine, which is the best close assault.

You say eldar, which surprises me as i thought the first answer would he been space wolves and their thunderwolf cav spam.

Will have to have a perusal of the eldar codex

Are you looking for pure assault or mainly assault with shooty and psycher elements?
If pure 100% assauslt, i'd probably go with daemonkin. You're not gona beat deathstars but you're gona chop everything else to bits.
If a combination is acceptable, probably daemons. They've got some nasty melee+psychers combos. Screamer stars, drone stars, seeker stars. As you might notice, they've got a thing for stars.
Csm can bring some decent stuff with allies and forgeworld. Won't go deep into it but i've had some succsess with Cypher+20 strong blobs in 6 and early 7. Not sure if they are still relevant with all those s10 ap1 ignore cover apoc blasts, though.

Other armies can generally put some good fight up close but are also not exclusively assaulty. Eldar, de, harlequins, orks, ig with allies, space wolves, necrons, etc. Probably, sw and necrons can indeed field good pure assaulty lists. Sw have twc and crons have durability.

I also say Chaos Daemons, but like Neophyte, came into this thread thinking you were just asking in general.

If no previous poster convinced me otherwise, I was probably going to say Dark Eldar (specifically, the Covens supplement Dark Eldar).

Basically i'm looking for pure assault, although i have always played with some armour- like grinders or dreds- that can at least provide some threat in the shooting phase.

Having said that if there is a pure assault army out there that can at least compete without any shooting then i am interested!

As an idea for what I like check out these list options...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/673685.page

cheers

While Chaos Daemons and Dark Eldar have some really nasty, powerful units in close combat, the other option is to go horde close combat with Orks or Nids. And both of these codexes also have several powerful, low model count units that will tear things apart in close combat.


Meganobs lead by a mega-armored warboss with da lucky stikk. Hordes of ork boys with powerklaws sprinkled in. Tankbustas all with meltabombs. I mean even your shooty units have 2 attacks base. Also, all of their transports are assault vehicles. and the basic trukk is a fast vehicle as well. at 1000 points I can bring 5 trukks, and on turn one, they can move 24 inches. Oh and now all orks can reroll one of their charge dice when charging. That is one of the hardest things with an assault army, getting in to the assault. So with the ability to reduce that randomness of 2d6, you have a better chance to actually get there.

Nids have some of the nastiest monstrous creatures in the game, and while they can be built to shoot well, the shooting is meant to soften the target up before you charge them and eat them.

I like the idea of orks, having played chaos for so long one thing we really lack is assault vehicles (barring the landraider- which even before the current abundance of high str guns out there i never realy bothered with). I have also seen the lukky stikk in action- bloody hell!

let me give you an example of what an ork assault is like based on something that I did the other day. I often like to put a weirdboy in a unit of regular boys off to the side for some side psychic support. They were able to move up and get the assault on my enemy. I was able to get warpath and force off in the psychic phase.

10 boys, 1 nob, = 50 attacks from the boys, and 5 powerklaw attacks, and the weirdboy got 4 attacks at str6 with instadeath.

imagine charging your enemy with 12 infantry models and then picking up 50 dice and telling him that after this you still have to make 5 S9 ap2 atks

HA! who doesnt like rolling loads of die?

Pure assault competitively is Daemonkin all the way. Orks have green tide, wolves have wolf star, but Khorne wins for assault purity.

Just because the Daemonkin doesn't have any options besides assault, doesn't mean it's the best.

There are more assault builds besides the Green Tide.

Kharn's butcherhorde. SO much fun.

Imperial Guard obviously. Fix bayonets men!

You can do some awesome things mixing Dark Eldar (mainly for the open-topped, fast transports) and Eldar. It enables you to deliver howling banshees/striking scorpians to the enemy line easier. Plus, Haemonculi, Grotesques, Talos, etc. are all quite strong when combined with a rush army and using deepstriking or formations.

While I do think Covens are a strong contender for best CC army, I will say the only time I've lost to a CC army while playing Covens, it was to an Ork army. (Technically, I won because time ran out and it was a competitive event. But if we'd played a full game, he would have tabled me.)

Necrons can make one hell of a CC army. Wraiths are undercost for being a 3++ model that can move 12'' through anything. Scarabs can but used for catching and holding on to enemies. Flayed ones with infiltrate can corner your opponent. And warscyths are just crazy good +2 s ap2 armor bane weapons.

best CC armies are probably built around wraiths/lychguard or thunderwolves.

The thunderwolves will be a bit more "pure" choppy than the necrons but thats only because the necrons can do more than just chop.

Few lucky rolls and you can get a pretty decent CC unit out of renegades and heretics.

50 Mutant Rabble, sure it's WS 2, but add an enforcer with combat drugs and it gets them 4 attacks each on the charge. You have a demagogue Mutant Overlord in there too, give him Covent of Khorne, now they refill to wound too. Throw in a power axe on the enforcer and the champion, plus a fist on the demagogue and you have weight of dice plus some AP goodness. .. oh, and a good roll on the Mutant Rabble (1/3) can get you a HoW attack per Mutant str4. Took out a full squad of striking scorpions and 2 autarchs with this squad in the same game. Magical..

Codex: Wolfstar. Then Daemons.

Blood angels are quite decent. S5 all around. Mobility. Marine durability. No ld problems. And good range support.

" Marine durability"

That's why they are actually a terrible assault army.

" And good range support."

They don't have this, either.

I advice you to play some other codexes before making such statements too. Be it CSM, Orks, KDK, DE or even melee eldar. Marines have a lot to offer. And yes, marine statline is good for the points.

Gotta agree with Martel though. Blood Angels don't have it unless they get Raven Guard Jump Pack rules for starters. They can't maneuver around Bikes, so TWC, Jetbikes and even White Scar and Gorepack Bikes will catch them first and often win the combat unless the BA player has luck and is simply the better player planning two or three turns ahead precisely.

Instant Death is a big issue still since S8+ slaughters DC or Sang Guard like scrawny Cadians. So Battle Cannons and better, which I'm seeing more of lately after Mont'ka.

My Chaos, Dark Eldar, Astral Claws and even Tyranids have been performing better than my melee-oriented Blood Angels. They are losing because of the movement phase and Marine Durability just isn't what it used to be.

For a pure Assault list without armor support... I'd have to give it the Space Wolves. Drop Pods in the back, Thunderwolves in the front, they can do work with their mobility and really do have the durability needed to take shots on the chin.

Because CC armies are great at dying, I would say Daemonkin is the best option -they eventually give you a free bloodthirster for dying!

Seriously though, I think Daemonkin has some really nice tricks for a pure cc army, bonus for dying is just one of them.

This response is based on the request for pure CC capabilities. Point for Point I would go with Harlequins as the #1 choice for these reasons:
Attacks
Each model gets 2 base attacks +1A for two CCWs. It's impossible to accidentally equip your infantry models so they lose the +1A because all wargear options are one pistol and one melee weapon that is not specialized. So on the charge your basic infantry model has 4 attacks... for 15pts.

Melee Upgrades
Every Player in the unit--not "up to 2" or "1 in every 10", but every Player--can get one of three upgrade options. Two of these options are 5pts per model while the third is 8pts per model. One of these options gives d3 S6 HoW attacks, so you get extra auto-hits the turn you charge. Another converts one of your attacks into a S6 AP2. The third makes any 6s To Hit an auto-Wound or an auto-glance against vehicles regardless of AV. Again, this is on the basic unit in the army.

Speed
This is a two-fold advantage. For one, the slowest non-vehicle unit in the army is Init 6. The slowest! You're going to striking before 90%+ of anything else you'll face that isn't also Harlequins. Troop units that go that quickly for that cheaply? Hard to beat.

The other speed factor is Harlequins are the only other army aside from Orks that can Run and Charge starting on Turn 2. Unlike Orks, Harlequins can reroll their Run and entire Charge rolls if necessary thanks to Fleet. Also unlike Orks, Harlequins have access to Eldar Jetbikes that can move 48" on Turn 1 to get into prime charge position on Turn 2 with S5 AP2 hits on the charge if equipped appropriately. This kind of maneuverability is incredibly potent.

No Movement Penalties
Difficult terrain is not in the Harlequin infantry vocabulary. They always get to move 6" through difficult terrain and never suffer the penalties of charging through it. They also don't suffer the Initiative penalty. This means you can hop from ruin to ruin improving your cover save while suffering none of the drawbacks.

Save (Almost) Anything
Harlequins all have 5++ invuls. Power weapons? Who cares! Only D weapons can possibly go through it.

Psychic Support
The basic units can have Psykers added with access to a Primaris power that preserves your units long enough to attack at near full strength on Turn 2. This power makes any enemy unit wishing to shoot at it roll 2d6, multiply it by 2 and have to be within that range to fire; if not, the unit forfeits its Shooting phase. Keep your Troop units 16" away from the nearest shooter's final position after it moves and you've got yourself a reasonable chance the unit won't be able to shoot. What's more, 16" is nothing to cover for you: 6" move + 4-6" Run thanks to Fleet rerolls + 7-9" Charge thanks to Fleet rerolls yields an overall reliable coverage range of 17-21". Only Swooping Hawks are guaranteed to be better.

Super Heavy Killers
Every Troop Sergeant and all infantry characters have the option to get Haywire Grenades. In addition, all three melee options can do damage to AV12. One of them can glance AV13+, so even the normal infantry models can do damage to Super Heavies in melee. Compare this to other armies where a limited number of models in a unit have a chance to do so. Again, this is possible for 23pts per model and 4 attacks each on the charge.

If you want to go loyalist Marines, Dark Angels have some units that do pretty well in CC. Deathwing Knights are solid, as they have WS5, Hammer of Wrath, 2+/3++ saves, and S6 AP3 naturally. At initiative. Plus they can use Smite mode to get even stronger attacks, albeit less of them. Ravenwing Black Knights/Command Squads are pretty nasty in CC, as they have 2 attacks base + two weapons, and their melee weapons have Rending. Dark Angels also have access to the Interromancy psychic discipline, which has powers that can greatly benefit CC.

The best close combat army is not CSM...it is actually tau...

 ZergSmasher wrote:
If you want to go loyalist Marines, Dark Angels have some units that do pretty well in CC. Deathwing Knights are solid, as they have WS5, Hammer of Wrath, 2+/3++ saves, and S6 AP3 naturally. At initiative. Plus they can use Smite mode to get even stronger attacks, albeit less of them. Ravenwing Black Knights/Command Squads are pretty nasty in CC, as they have 2 attacks base + two weapons, and their melee weapons have Rending. Dark Angels also have access to the Interromancy psychic discipline, which has powers that can greatly benefit CC.

company veteran squads can also be made into killing machines pretty easily

ELDAR with
SKYHAMMER