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As you all know locking yourself in cc is an important feature for close combat units.
Intended or not when the rules were writen (i think it was not) now it's a core mechanic.

But on the other hand the most dreadfull units in cc alias monsters and cc oriented vehicles can't use this strategy and vastly underperform outside of "characters".

What do you think about a rule to penalyse or prevent retreat against such units?

Here is an exemple.

"Most dreadfull foes"

Infantry units without "character" keyword engaged against a unit with "vehicle "or "monster " keyword equiped with at least one close combat weapon can only declare a retreat if:
there is another friendly unit within 1" of the enemy unit after they retreated or their total wound characteristics value is higher than the wound characteristic of the unit they are desengaging from.


This is an exemple you can totaly imagine free close combat round if you retreat or stuff like that.
But i found this one tricky since you can use heroic intervention/other monsters and vehicles/hordes to free your units.

I don't see a reason why one can't disengage with a Rhino.

There simply needs to be a risk to the fallback mechanic. Implementing a system where melee dudes get an Overwatch equivalent and a way to make units fail fallback would need to both be implemented. I'm a fan that you roll a D6 and compare the LD of both units. If the fallback units wins, they leave and just suffer the Overwatch equivalent. If not, they stay in melee and get those hits regardless.

I agree with you.
But my point is : there is unbalance between cc infantry units and monster vehicles cc units.

If gw want to punish retreat they ll do. But honestly in a game oriented toward shooting the ability to shutdown units in cc and hide yourself from retaliation is already a good benefit.
In fact i doubt they'll give any advantage to close combat further than that.

And in the exemple i gave, you can retreat with your rhino (vehicle keyword).

My concern is for vehicles and dedicaced cc monsters.
To be relevent they need to have so much impact on the charge that they ll be totaly impossible to balance outside if this ruleset meaning the ruleset can't evolve or they'll stay irrevelent forever.
Gw is stuck.

One of the problems is that GW eliminated the stat that would have made sense to compare when disengaging--initiative.

I'm not familiar with what all of the factions have, but there are some models like the Fiends which have rules like Soporific Musk ("Units within 1" of a any enemy models with this ability cannot Fall Back unless they can FLY."). I thought there were some other units where trying to fall back near them required passing a Ld test.

 solkan wrote:
One of the problems is that GW eliminated the stat that would have made sense to compare when disengaging--initiative.

I'm not familiar with what all of the factions have, but there are some models like the Fiends which have rules like Soporific Musk ("Units within 1" of a any enemy models with this ability cannot Fall Back unless they can FLY."). I thought there were some other units where trying to fall back near them required passing a Ld test.

Skarbrand and the Contorted Epitome have the "Roll under your Leadership to Fall Back."

Wyches have No Escape, which only works on Infantry, but requires you to win a roll off to escape.

agony.deluxe wrote:

And in the exemple i gave, you can retreat with your rhino (vehicle keyword).

Pretty sure they meant escaping from a rhino. Not having a rhino retreat. Though technically in your proposed rules escaping from a rhino would be allowed either way because it doesn't have a melee weapon (other than the close combat weapon all models are assumed to have).

My concern is for vehicles and dedicaced cc monsters.
To be relevent they need to have so much impact on the charge that they ll be totaly impossible to balance outside if this ruleset meaning the ruleset can't evolve or they'll stay irrevelent forever.
Gw is stuck.

I feel like automatically locking down enemy units is the wrong solution to the issue. Personally, I don't want raiders and venoms to suddenly be better at locking units in combat than my wyches, nor do I want to find myself unable to fall back from a truk with a wrecking ball.

It sort of sounds like the real issue here is the Fall Back mechanic allowing units reached by dreadnaughts and carnifexes to simply leave combat before the big beasties can do much. Personally, I kind of like the idea of preventing units from shooting enemies that were within 1" of a friendly unit at the start of the turn unless the enemy unit is within X" (let's say 12"). This would make it so monsters and dreads don't have to become sticky paper or clear units in a single turn. Forcing units to fall back would mean that they likely aren't shooting the dread/carnifex, and the rest of your opponent's army has to get danger close to shoot the monsters/walkers that were in combat a moment ago.

Basically, this makes staying locked in combat less important meaning vehicles and vehicles don't really care if infantry are better at wrapping models than they are. Plus, it makes counter-charge and short-ranged dakka units more valuable.

Any solution will fit.
My goal was to give vehicles or Monster with cc weapons ability to lock units under certain circonstances to match infantry.
I wanted too keep a sort of uniformity in the game. The is alrea
For infantry you lock with three points contact and with Monster/vehicles by having higher wound value than the total wound value locked with you (infantry only).
Punishing msu and small chaf units it's just ice on the cake.

But you solution is valid aswell.

Infantry units locking in combat using three points of contact is a pretty obvious "rules written and then not play tested by people trying to exploit them" result. (The same goes for the whole analysis of charge vs. multi charge vs. consolidate into multiple units analysis.). The healthier thing to do would be allow units that want to break off from combat to move through models belonging to the unit they were engaged with. Like it was specified in various previous editions (my hard copies are in storage, I can't remember which edition last had it written this way. But it existed for a reason.)

Otherwise, it's really quite simple. Write a rule that a sufficiently large monster is allowed to place one of the enemy units on its base instead of killing it. Until that model is killed, the unit is trapped (because that model can't move).

Unless the infantry strength value exceeds the vehicles strength that is pinned in combat, there is no reason a vehicle cant disengage with zero penalty

If we're talking 'should', I see no reason why a standard issue dreadnought should ever have a meaningful chance to unilaterally disengage from even a single Harlequin Trouper determined to scratch it's paint, let alone a full unit of Drukhari Hellions.

The Dreadnought is slower, clumsier, and earthbound. Their relative Strength characteristics don't come into it.

No kidding. If you want to use an existing stat to compare ability to disengage, you’re pretty much left with movement speed.

The usual rationale for having units locked in close combat is “If I turn my back to run away, the opponent’s going to attack me from behind.” Which usually leads to the whole thing being leadership driven (successful roll to do deliberately, or it happens due to panic after losing) and/or provoking free attacks against the unit running away.

Reasonably for slow scary monster vs, fast group of attackers, you’d break off at an angle from the single scary monster at an angle, accept the risk of a few attacks, and break off. Or if the single scary monster tried to break off, the group of attackers would just run after it.

Frankly, I think it’s funny arguing that a big scary monster would be able to prevent a huge unit that outnumbers it from running away. It gets funny because then you think about charging a transport, and then having the transport (because it’s faster than whatever it’s fighting) keeping up and wailing ineffectually on its opponents.

Maethbalnane wrote:
If we're talking 'should', I see no reason why a standard issue dreadnought should ever have a meaningful chance to unilaterally disengage from even a single Harlequin Trouper determined to scratch it's paint, let alone a full unit of Drukhari Hellions.

The Dreadnought is slower, clumsier, and earthbound. Their relative Strength characteristics don't come into it.

At this point however, if we're going to acknowledge such overwhelming speed, it should be equally valid to question why a Dreadnought cares about a single Harlequin Trouper, largely incapable of doing anything but scratching its paint, and somehow keeping it engaged in a combat the Dreadnought can pretty actively not care about

I think the entire concept of being "locked in combat" with an enemy is - and has always been - an absolute garbage mechanic and one that badly needs to die.