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A lot of times I hear people complaining about why there is all this melee in a sci-fi universe, and know I have a viable reason why...
Breaching teams. When you are in big urban fights or in spacecraft, explosive breaching of obstacles might not be the best option, or the fastest. However, if you can equip your infantry units with chainsaws and other things like power fists, it wont take long before some smart guy figures that he can sharpen his tools and use them as weapons if he already has to carry them (in the tradition of WW 1 trench warfare using spades). A few hundred/thousand years later, the original reasoning is lost, but all those power swords, chainswords, mauls and other tools are still used to breach bulkheads, tear down walls and cleave skulls with equal ease.

-STS

The correct answer is "Because 40K isn't really a sci-fi setting, it's a fantasy setting with laser guns and spaceships. Think Spelljammer, not Starship Troopers."

Spaceship boarding actions do make a kind of sense as something that would encourage the development of specialised melee weapons, though.

In-universe, a sort of explanation for the preponderance of melee is hinted at. The Chaos Gods 'prefer' melee combat, as (apart from Slaanesh) their current 'personalities' developed during Earth's mediaeval period. Daemons are explicitly described as being easier to kill with swords and spears ("the weapons of eternity") than they are with guns, because those weapons have a psychic significance that guns lack. And the influence of the Warp keeps mortal races (note that Tau and Necrons are the exceptions here, because they have little to no Warp presence) 'addicted' in a sense to relying on melee combat. In the same way that it keeps them 'addicted' to religion and superstition. It all 'feeds' the Chaos Gods.

Makes enough sense to me.

Mostly the Science Fantasy elements.

That's actually Maugan Ra's complaint. All the other students of Asurmen created a melee or short-ranged weapon. Maugan Ra created a BFG to blow away the enemy from as far away as possible, with as much firepower as possible.

Bharring wrote:
Mostly the Science Fantasy elements.

That's actually Maugan Ra's complaint. All the other students of Asurmen created a melee or short-ranged weapon. Maugan Ra created a BFG to blow away the enemy from as far away as possible, with as much firepower as possible.

Source?

History of the 'Maugetar' - I don't have my codexes on-hand, so can't look up which one it's in at the moment.

IIRC, it usually flows from the history of Asurmen and the Aspect Warriors, not from Dark Reaper-specific fluff, if you're trying to find it.

Having a melee weapon is also useful against hoard type enemies such as Orks and Nids. You are going to run out of ammunition fighting them.

That said, the whole "40k is melee heavy" thing is erroneous. Its actually a pretty shooty setting.

Most models have guns, not swords, with the exception of specialists, who tend to have a pistol anyway.

Most artwork has them fighting with guns, again, not swords. Even when they are "charging" in the battle, most combatants have their guns out. The charging thing is just because it looks cooler than sitting in a fox hole, trying to plink off shots at some git some hundreds of meters away.

If you don't like melee in science fiction, don't read Dune. Melee is the primary style of combat in that setting due to how shields work.

Actually the reasons why 40k is keen on meleing are legions: most races have an explanation of their own:

Space marines used it as psychological/fast dispatching means since their strength, toughness and armour allowed them to make the most of that form of combat.

It fits the ork primal brutality and their lust for war, as such they find nowhere more pleasure than in the heart of a bloody fistfight...

Necron lords often follow strict codes of honour which guidelines encourage them to duel face to face...

See other examples in the posts above, and there are many more.

Plus on a more general scale it brings a part of 40k's unique feel that derives from it originating in a fantasy universe.

Let's face it, giant overpoweredly kickass possessed mindwrecked foottanks smashing skulls and crossing blades with space elfs or space hungry bugs is priceless, innit?

A Space Marine thwacking you with their Boltgun (shattering your spine), or pulling out a combat knife and shanking someone when they're up close makes sense.

Nid biomorphs swarming enemies with claws makes sense.

Orkz and Demons make sense, as part of their history.

Guardsmen or other basic troops having some form of bayonette or combat knife makes sense.

Arming Guardians with swords, not so much.

Bharring wrote:


Arming Guardians with swords, not so much.

Lmao so true.


Is there any official explanation to that though?

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Actually the reasons why 40k is keen on meleing are legions: most races have an explanation of their own:

Space marines used it as psychological/fast dispatching means since their strength, toughness and armour allowed them to make the most of that form of combat.

I always chalked that up to the Space Marines being designed primarily for assaulting fortified positions and boarding actions, which typically would involve them fighting in close quarters.
Which makes seeing them fighting on an open battlefield pretty dumb, especially when you consider that they shouldn't have the numbers for that sort of fighting. A chapter deploying for a full scale battle is just asking to get wiped out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

Bharring wrote:


Arming Guardians with swords, not so much.

Lmao so true.


Is there any official explanation to that though?

They're shock troops, like assault marines. They're supposed to be extremely rare though, and are only used if the Autarch really needs troops for close quarters combat, so they are more of an oddity than a mainstay.

In 2nd edition 40K, you could select the close combat weapons Guardians were armed with. I recall purely for aesthetic and fluff reasons having a Guardian unit armed with power swords as bodyguards for the Farseer. It was an expensive and inefficient use of points, but it made the Guardians an actual threat to whatever they could hit with those swords. Of course with WS 3 at the time, landing hits was the hard part.

It was also possible to arm them with power fists. Eldar power fists were smaller than Imperial ones and were only slightly larger sized gauntlets compared to the normal Guardian glove. I handwaved it as the Eldar version relying more on the power field, Imperial ones on a mix of field and impact, while Ork power klaws were more about the mass and impact.

There is also the fact that 40k was deeply influenced by dune. Some of the same reasons for close combat in dune exist in 40k, namely, large-scale void shields on cities, titans, and even smaller units (orks), as well as refractor fields and all that. There is some indication that (at least at some point) the material used to make body armor and vehicle armor was more efficient at dealing with laser weaponry, but kinetic force still worked. At least, once upon a time. But...yeah, as many have said, its fantasy in space.

Iracundus wrote:
In 2nd edition 40K, you could select the close combat weapons Guardians were armed with. I recall purely for aesthetic and fluff reasons having a Guardian unit armed with power swords as bodyguards for the Farseer. It was an expensive and inefficient use of points, but it made the Guardians an actual threat to whatever they could hit with those swords. Of course with WS 3 at the time, landing hits was the hard part.

It was also possible to arm them with power fists. Eldar power fists were smaller than Imperial ones and were only slightly larger sized gauntlets compared to the normal Guardian glove. I handwaved it as the Eldar version relying more on the power field, Imperial ones on a mix of field and impact, while Ork power klaws were more about the mass and impact.

Or you could handwave power gloves as being grabbing and tearing weapons and it not really mattering about impact.