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Given that 8th edition is a shooting-centric game, I want to know what are the most important aspects of a good melee unit. What are examples of good melee units, and why do they perform well? Is it a matter of being fast, or having good deployment special rules? Is it better to have more models to cover a larger board footprint?

Likewise, what are the best aspects of assault-focused armies? When are they most and least successful? What support elements are important to successful assaults?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, uh, there are no good assault units or armies?

A good pts cost is essential to the effectiveness of any unit, if you could increase the effectiveness of your army by spending pts elsewhere then some of the pts spent on the unit is wasted. That's really all there is to it. Most effective melee strategies either use M12+ units, deep strike or redeploy their units within 10" of the enemy and then immediately charge, but some rely on amazing defensive stats. There are few effective pure-melee strategies, those usually centre around board-control, if you want to destroy your opponent's units you will most likely want a mix of shooting (or psychic powers) and melee.

Some rules can help make a unit worth a higher pricetag, like being able to move over enemy units, having a good save, maybe even an invulnerable save. A lot of attacks, with a high strength, good AP and high damage can also help justify whether the individual unit is good enough to warrant inclusion in a list. Being both able to shoot (regular or mind bullets) can be another bonus.

A good assault army wins more than it loses, winning a game comes down to getting more VP than your opponent or if you're playing with an older mission set it can be done by destroying the entirety of your opponent's army. Different sets of missions have different ways of awarding VP and depending on that a unit might be more or less valuable. There is no simple formula for separating the bad assault units from the good ones, it all comes down to how effectively they help you get more VP than your opponent over the course of a game. That might include destroying your opponent's units so they cannot hold objectives or destroy your units, getting into melee with enemy shooting units so they have to fall back instead of shooting or just taking up space so your opponent cannot hold objectives.

Here's a list of some units that have been effective assault units in 8th: Knight Gallant, Magnus, Mortarion, Keepers of Secrets, Talos Pain Engines, Daemon Prince with or without wings, Captain with a jump pack, Warboss (with or without bike), Grotesques, Canoptek Wraiths, Custodian Guard, Bullgryn, Shining Spears, Wulfen, Possessed, Plaguebearers, Bloodletters, Ork Boyz, Stormboyz, Genestealers, Tzaangors.

Then you have the units which are good at both assaulting and shooting: Knight Warden/Crusader, Heldrake, Grand Masters in Nemesis Dreadknights, Vertus Praetors, Assault Centurions, Aggressors, DG Terminators, Paladins, Intercessors with a thunderhammer and Catachan Infantry Squads.

Knights, Wraiths and Shining Spears are M12, Vertus Praetors M14, Heldrakes M30. DG Terminators, Paladins, Stormboyz and Captains with a jump pack can arrive T2-3 more than 9" away from enemy models. Bloodletters, Boyz, Shining Spears and Centurions/Aggressors can benefit from Stratagems that let them do the same. Bloodletters and Orks have additional bonuses that makes it more likely they complete their charge. Centurions and Aggressors are mainly used within the Chapters that lets them infiltrate before the game or deep strike T2/3, showing how important this factor can be in determining whether a unit is worth bringing.

Genestealers, Infantry Squads, Talos and Possessed/Magnus/Mortarion can move twice with the ability of the Swarmlord, an order, a Stratagem and a psychic power respectively. Nemesis Dreadknights, Ork Boyz and Tzaangor can be teleported to anywhere on the map more than 9" away T1 with a piece of wargear, a psychic power and a relic respectively. BA Captains with a jump pack have a few more mobility options and have been the most popular Captain with jump pack because of this.

Bullgryn, Custodian Guard, Grotesques, Plaguebearers and Wulfen all have invulnerable saves, Plaguebearers and Wulfen have FNP, Custodian Guard and Bullgryn have great armour saves as well. But they help show that you don't have to be fast to be good, but you probably have to be tough if you're not fast. Warbosses are characters which grants them a degree of safety.

There is no guarantee that a unit is good because it fills these boxes, Necron Flayed Ones can DS, Raveners can move 12" vs Genestealers 8+D6, SM Terminators with stormshields have great saves. None of these units have seen tournament success AFAIK, that is despite being similar to units that have seen some or even a lot of success. Regular Nemesis Dreadknights have mostly the same wargear and abilities as Grandmasters in Nemesis Dreadknight but haven't seen a fraction of the play. Keepers of Secrets have seen more success than Bloodthirsters despite being less mobile. At the end of the day it's the pts cost that matters if you see something that costs 2 pts you can probably throw it up the board and into melee just to hold back your opponent, but the more pts you're paying the more justification you need, you need speed, durability or more punch that is worthy of the price tag you are paying.

Even units that don't have any obvious qualities in terms of mobility or durability can be good enough if their price is low enough.

 DarkHound wrote:
Given that 8th edition is a shooting-centric game, I want to know what are the most important aspects of a good melee unit. What are examples of good melee units, and why do they perform well? Is it a matter of being fast, or having good deployment special rules? Is it better to have more models to cover a larger board footprint?

Likewise, what are the best aspects of assault-focused armies? When are they most and least successful? What support elements are important to successful assaults?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, uh, there are no good assault units or armies?

There are extremely good assault units atm, units that can be slung at opponents extremely easily and just wipe the board with anything, often for alot lower investment then the suicide charger.
(these are smashcaptains.)


Speed is also a keyfactor, entirely irrelevant if they need support ot achieve the speed or if they have it inately. The key is that you atleast by turn 1 can have some things guaranteed in melee, in order to do damage disrupt the enemy.

Toughness is less off a concern, if you want to wipe stuff, and more of a concern if you want to tie down stuff.

Of course you need the pts effectiveness to also work out for such an army and entirely without shooting this will not work.

That beeing said multiple armies do the whole assault stick pretty decent.


For Chaos Space marines, 2 subfactions show up:
A: for Alpha legion, a combination of stratagems, access to sorcerers and special formations make them work, pregame stratagems push your units put at the edge of your deployment allready forward, sorcerers can further increase the movement by a decent margine, survivability is also better due to the flat -1 to hit against them over 12" away. Bonus for neither beeing markbound aswell as defensive stratagems and relics allowing you to change and divert attention of your enemy.

B: A RC rush csm force. RC or red corsairs get probably one of the better inate traits for a melee assault based list, namely the fact that they can Advance + charge. this is extremely worth it in gold for units that you want to slingshot accross the table. F.e. a lord discordant with warptime support is nigh guaranteed to give your enemy a massive headache.
Add in special detachments (raptorial host, soulforged pack) and you get even more units with the potential reach to really hammer in the point. (the issue is however, not all of the units with the speed necessary are really all that effective points wise, take raptors f.e.) Otoh, you get a free relic due to the warlord trait of RC and the relic RC has is also pretty decent. Main issue overall though is the lack of Votwl. Otoh, you will and can abuse the CP / stratagem system better, then any other CSM faction. Not only can you recycle forward a bunch of cultists but also a squad of CSM per turn, making them themselves a nice tie down unit potentially.

what i think are good melee units:
1)units that can double move+advance and first turn charge (like genestealers). the enemy has to deal with them after you did your action, and you can use them in small squads so they're not too big of a point sink. But i don't like suicide charges too much.

2)units that can do something else the first turns and use combat in phases turn 3 or later (thinking about magnus as example). I tried different tactics with maggy and throwing him forwards and deleting whatever he touched almost never gets his points back. When the enemy reacts, he is killed for sure. What works like a charm for me is: let maggy go forwards, do some wizardstuff, retreat with warptime behind own lines (where he's safe from smash captains, obliterator deepstrikes,...) Then, after turn 2 or 3, when all deepstrikes have happened and most of the cp are spent,the board is more open. Now he has the power, mobility and impact to really make a difference in CC.

So you actually have to find a good tactic for the use of a CC beatstick. Just rushing forwards is in my experience almost never a good trade.

It all depends on what role the melee unit is supposed to perform. There are many roles that i see for melee units, and each is evaluated based on different stats:

- Distraction carnifex. This unit must possess a good package of damage, durability and cost effectiveness. It is ment as a turn 2 menace usually, which you have to take care of or the consequences could be dire. At the same time it must cheap cheap enough compared to the fire that it diverts to it, that you must pass on targeting other valuable stuff if you want to take it down.

- Smashers: This kind of melee units have a way to hit hard and be where they want to be. Typical examples are smashcaptains, genestealers and brigthlances. A good smasher is defined by how hard it hits for the cost, and how likely it is to reach its favored target. Durability isn't a requirement. Bonus points if they can avoid overwatch.

- Entanglers: These units want to get on you and jam your shooting and your movement. Typical example are the hormagaunts. A good entangler is cheap, moves fast, has LOW damage and possibly is a troop.

- Deepstrikers: Those units come from deepstrike and hit hard at what they have in front. Boyz, DW Knights and bloodletters are good examples. A good deepstriker is defined by the chances that he has to make the charge from deepstrike, how hard it hits and how hard it is dislodge. Bonus points if they can somehow avoid screens or overwatch.

- Counterchargers/Scarecrows: Those units don't seek the fight, they wait for it to come. A good countercharger has a way to contribute to the fight even without throwing punches, The best examples are Guilliman and most SM characters. Being fast isn't needed, but you need to hit hard and be either a character or be really sturdy for your cost.

I think the posts in this thread have hit the nail on its head.

 DarkHound wrote:
Given that 8th edition is a shooting-centric game, I want to know what are the most important aspects of a good melee unit. What are examples of good melee units, and why do they perform well? Is it a matter of being fast, or having good deployment special rules? Is it better to have more models to cover a larger board footprint?

Likewise, what are the best aspects of assault-focused armies? When are they most and least successful? What support elements are important to successful assaults?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, uh, there are no good assault units or armies?

Melee is really strong in 8e. I actually think its' too strong. If supposedly melee-weak factions like IG and Sisters of Battle were/are building melee death balls [Ogryns, Catachans, Repentia, Zephyrim; especially the Sisters for whom in past editions we basically never saw any of their melee specialists, but now it's like 3x Exorcists and that's it for main-line shooting and everything else is assault or planning to be in assault]. Melee offers a lot of things: it offers excellent board control, it interferes with the enemy's offense very efficiently, and a lot of missions are decided by being able to dominate the mid field which melee does way better than shooting.


Anyway, what makes a melee army: having a melee troop choice. The only army that is actually going to be a melee army, period, is Daemons. Orks & Custodes have melee line troops, but also draw a lot of power from shooting line support, and Tyranids have shooting and melee line troops options and mostly mixed-role or shooting backup units. Neither Orks, Custodes, nor Tyranids have to be melee armies, but they can be, so they're "melee armies".

As for what makes a unit good at melee, you've got to be fast and able to kill almost anything you touch. Being fast is most important, being lethal is second. Being cheap is also a big help, but if you can't be cheap you have to be really, really tough.


And then, of course, a lot of things can be buffed to be good in assault, even if they don't seem to be on paper. Like Guardsmen. Catachan+Straken+Priest can be real scary when it touches you with A3 at S4 on a giant horde of 4 point guys. Or a giant blob of Sisters and Celestians with priests and imagifiers, who can also output A3 [or more] per model at S4 AP1 and a couple of power weapons sprinkled in.

You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

 DarkHound wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

Holding objectives, which shooting units are going to do better in regardless.

Getting into melee is half of it, being able to trap is almost the rest of it. Shooting in this edition is so deadly, and falling back so obvious a choice, that what you do once you're in melee tends to be much less important than whether you can get there and force the enemy to stay there.

If you are getting into melee and trapping stuff (especially if you then wipe on their turn) you're probably winning the game. If you are getting into melee and wiping stuff on your turn, that's nice, but you're probably just getting wiped the next turn yourself, so it'd better have been worth it.

Incidentally, this is why people persistently undervalue how awesome the 6" consolidate is.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

Holding objectives, which shooting units are going to do better in regardless.

No, by controlling the board.

Usually i see a scary (not necessarily speedy) unit hidden behing a LOS blocker in the middle. That unit there, interdicts the center from your opponent if he doesn't have an equal melee contender, or at least a way to stop it for a couple of rounds. Since in this game who controls the center wins, those units can easily be the MVP without inflicting a single damage.

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

Holding objectives, which shooting units are going to do better in regardless.

No, by controlling the board.

Usually i see a scary (not necessarily speedy) unit hidden behing a LOS blocker in the middle. That unit there, interdicts the center from your opponent if he doesn't have an equal melee contender, or at least a way to stop it for a couple of rounds. Since in this game who controls the center wins, those units can easily be the MVP without inflicting a single damage.

That's being a bad player then. Mathematically if the unit isn't scary, like say Ogryns which are SUPER scary under that logic, I'm not going to care. Zone denial only works if you occupy a giant zone.

 DarkHound wrote:
Given that 8th edition is a shooting-centric game, I want to know what are the most important aspects of a good melee unit. What are examples of good melee units, and why do they perform well? Is it a matter of being fast, or having good deployment special rules? Is it better to have more models to cover a larger board footprint?

So the first and probably most important aspect that every successful melee unit needs is a delivery mechanism. Without a delivery mechanism there is always the risk that the unit does nothing except get shot off the board.

This is often a combination of a Deep Strike ability, a way to improve the likelihood of a successful charge, a way to double move, a way to advance and charge, a way to mitigate overwatch damage and/or a way to redeploy.

So to answer the first part of this question it is a combination of being fast/having good deployment special rules and everything in between.

With regards to the footprint of a melee unit, this can be a blessing or a curse. Ork Boyz cover a ton of board which is great for restricting opposition movement. They also find it more difficult to get as many models into combat however, so it is both a positive and a negative, depending on what you want to achieve.

Many successful melee units also have good durability. This can also be achieved in a number of ways including (but not restricted to) - high Toughness, good save, invulnerable save, "feel no pain" save, ability to lock opposing units in combat, a way to avoid getting shot and bodyguard abilities.

Likewise, what are the best aspects of assault-focused armies? When are they most and least successful? What support elements are important to successful assaults?

Generally I'd suggest that the above two elements are most important; a way to get into combat and a way to mitigate damage. A faction that focuses on these elements should be successful but I think a mixed force will always do better than a skew melee only list.

So, uh, there are no good assault units or armies?

Not really armies, no. Competitive assault detachments exist in greater armies, however.

I keep hearing about "keeping the enemy locked in close combat", but what prevents the enemy from falling back on their turn?

 DarkHound wrote:
I keep hearing about "keeping the enemy locked in close combat", but what prevents the enemy from falling back on their turn?

Tripointing.

Ah, so to that point, unless your models are obscenely durable (like Custodes) you want enough bodies that you can reliably get a few in tripoint positioning. That does seem to tip the scales towards larger squads in a lot of cases.

 DarkHound wrote:
Ah, so to that point, unless your models are obscenely durable (like Custodes) you want enough bodies that you can reliably get a few in tripoint positioning. That does seem to tip the scales towards larger squads in a lot of cases.

You can tri-point a model from one squad and put all your attacks into another squad, you can even tri-point a squad you didn't charge. 1 reliable tri-point is all you need, you don't want your opponent being able to fall back in the case of an "unlucky" morale roll.

Until GW nerfs tri-point.

Martel732 wrote:
Until GW nerfs tri-point.

If they were going to do that wouldn't they have done it with this FAQ?

I think the point being made was that if you charge and tripoint, you need enough models to survive the counterattack to keep the model tripointed. This is generally only a problem with 5-man or fewer assault squads or if you're charging something that's actually good in combat.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

Holding objectives, which shooting units are going to do better in regardless.

No, by controlling the board.

Usually i see a scary (not necessarily speedy) unit hidden behing a LOS blocker in the middle. That unit there, interdicts the center from your opponent if he doesn't have an equal melee contender, or at least a way to stop it for a couple of rounds. Since in this game who controls the center wins, those units can easily be the MVP without inflicting a single damage.

That's being a bad player then. Mathematically if the unit isn't scary, like say Ogryns which are SUPER scary under that logic, I'm not going to care. Zone denial only works if you occupy a giant zone.

As long as you control the objective in the middle (CA missions), the game is going in your direction.

Also, there are quite a lot of units that are scary enough for this, from DW knights to Gman.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:
I keep hearing about "keeping the enemy locked in close combat", but what prevents the enemy from falling back on their turn?

Tripointing.

Or playing Night Lords. Warp talons ftw. (Deepstrike? Check. Boosted charge? Check. Ignore overwatch? Check. Stop anything you don't kill from falling back? Check.)

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

Holding objectives, which shooting units are going to do better in regardless.

No, by controlling the board.

Usually i see a scary (not necessarily speedy) unit hidden behing a LOS blocker in the middle. That unit there, interdicts the center from your opponent if he doesn't have an equal melee contender, or at least a way to stop it for a couple of rounds. Since in this game who controls the center wins, those units can easily be the MVP without inflicting a single damage.

That's being a bad player then. Mathematically if the unit isn't scary, like say Ogryns which are SUPER scary under that logic, I'm not going to care. Zone denial only works if you occupy a giant zone.

As long as you control the objective in the middle (CA missions), the game is going in your direction.

Also, there are quite a lot of units that are scary enough for this, from DW knights to Gman.

Except by being scared of those units because you're told to be scared is being a bad player.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Until GW nerfs tri-point.

If they were going to do that wouldn't they have done it with this FAQ?

It's something that is pretty likely to happen in a potential 9th edition. GW has always clamped down hard on these unintended interactions.

In general, I agree that there are no good melee armies. Killing something of worth in melee during turn one is next to impossible against a capable opponent. You always need to have meaningful amounts of shooting to back up your melee units, otherwise you have no chance of winning.

There are powerful melee units, but any dedicated melee unit that has to cross the board for two or more turns might as well not exist in 8th.

Well, I'm not eager to play an assault-based army.
There are too many downsides game-wise.
First, you need a concerted strike to overwhelm and decimate the enemy. Setting up such a strike is however rather difficult to achieve and with some armies its helpless.
Second, even if your units reach cc, the next turn the enemy will withdraw his/her units and your units are left and dry in the open for a round of shooting.
Winning a game heavily based on assault is hard to achieve if you consider the current meta with IH at the top.

It's more the 8th edition rules than anything else. Doesn't really matter what army is at the top right now, the rules are set up in such a way that the only assault units that are successful are the ones that have some way to avoid the basic setup of the game that is so overwhelmingly tilted against combat.

Martel732 wrote:
Until GW nerfs tri-point.

I doubt GW wants assault to feel more pointless. Were almost in full gunline as is, and with tau picking up steam in the meta it's just going to swing further from assault.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You haveto make it to melee. No matter what. That's why White Scars and Black Templars are actually better melee armies than say World Eaters or most Tyranid builds or Custodes.

Not necessarily true, i have seen melee units win games without ever touching the opponent.

I could guess, but would you mind expanding on how?

Holding objectives, which shooting units are going to do better in regardless.

No, by controlling the board.

Usually i see a scary (not necessarily speedy) unit hidden behing a LOS blocker in the middle. That unit there, interdicts the center from your opponent if he doesn't have an equal melee contender, or at least a way to stop it for a couple of rounds. Since in this game who controls the center wins, those units can easily be the MVP without inflicting a single damage.

That's being a bad player then. Mathematically if the unit isn't scary, like say Ogryns which are SUPER scary under that logic, I'm not going to care. Zone denial only works if you occupy a giant zone.

As long as you control the objective in the middle (CA missions), the game is going in your direction.

Also, there are quite a lot of units that are scary enough for this, from DW knights to Gman.

Except by being scared of those units because you're told to be scared is being a bad player.

Sorry, i can't understand your comment.

A unit is scary because it is mathematically so, not because i'm being told. If that unit can delete whatever i bring to the middle to contest the objective, i cannot go to the middle. Simple as that.