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I observe this as a trend. In 8th edition, there were some armies that were still considered shooty armies, and these were weak melee wise. But as more and more 9th edition codexes are rolled out. It simply doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Now, literally every faction can fight.

Look at Necrons. Used to be a mostly shooting army. They are still shooty, but they can definitely fight now if you take certain units.

And as more and more codexes came out. Thats the case. Every faction can fight well now.

Look at Admech. Used to be they are super shooty, but if you got to close combat with them, they didn't really have anything that could fight you. Wow look at admech now. Their close combat units pack a punch!

I am confident that when 9th ed Tau gets released, they are going to be able to fight now. Tau will no longer be just a shooting only faction.

So do you think thats the trend or is it just me? That every faction can fight well now.

One problem I do see of course. If literally every faction can fight well, then what are the melee centric factions left with? Like your blood angels are supposed to be melee specialists. But if every other new 9th edition codex has lethal melee units, then what makes a faction like blood angels different? Because everyone can be lethal in melee now.

It is definitely a change in design.

GW finally understood that mono phase armies are boring and really hard to balance.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I observe this as a trend. In 8th edition, there were some armies that were still considered shooty armies, and these were weak melee wise. But as more and more 9th edition codexes are rolled out. It simply doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Now, literally every faction can fight.

I think you might be overstating how much various factions have "leaned in" to melee. A lot of your examples are basically just cases of bad units finally becoming not bad after several editions of false starts. Plus, the rules of 9th make melee more desirable because it lets you charge in and steal an objective from your opponent for primary purposes.

Look at Necrons. Used to be a mostly shooting army. They are still shooty, but they can definitely fight now if you take certain units.

Wraiths and flayed ones have generally been pretty good at stabbing stuff for a while now. The new melee destroyers and various buffs let them do this a bit better now, but melee 'crons weren't a non-option in 8th. Mostly it was just that your unit choice was limited and your characters existed to make marines look cool.

Look at Admech. Used to be they are super shooty, but if you got to close combat with them, they didn't really have anything that could fight you. Wow look at admech now. Their close combat units pack a punch!

Dragoons have packed a punch since 7th edition; they were just really expensive to collect and thus sort of rare to see. Kataphrons(?) (the big chonky robots) have the potential to be somewhat scary in melee, but their dedicated shooting mode/loadouts have generally been more flexible/reliable. Haven't been following the teasers for them, but I do know that they've also had their cyborg ninja units that have just been on the shelf next to scorpions, assault marines and other melee units that lack the speed or punch to be worth the trade-offs of melee in past editions. So if those guys are finally good, it might just be a combination of 9th edition making them more useful and/or those units finally being "good."

I am confident that when 9th ed Tau gets released, they are going to be able to fight now. Tau will no longer be just a shooting only faction.

Yeah. They'll have to give tau something. Buffed kroot/vespids for melee purposes. Special rules to pretend their guns are swords. Jump-shoot-jump mechanics to let them land on objectives. Something.

One problem I do see of course. If literally every faction can fight well, then what are the melee centric factions left with? Like your blood angels are supposed to be melee specialists. But if every other new 9th edition codex has lethal melee units, then what makes a faction like blood angels different? Because everyone can be lethal in melee now.

Just because other armies are invited to the melee party doesn't mean that they'll out-melee the melee specialists. And if they do, that doesn't mean that melee-flavored marines no longer fill the niche of "marines, but melee flavored." Surely melee marines can retain a sense of identity even if their mechanics don't cause them to autowin melee against orks, etc. The important thing is that each army retain a distinctive playstyle. As long as tau melee doesn't cause blood angels to feel like they're the same army as tau (or whatever), we're probably okay.

I dunno. I think that if a blood angels army got beaten in melee by a faction that traditionally wasn't known to be very good in melee, they would feel rather insulted... lol

Like if a Necron melee army or an admech melee army kicked the butt of a Blood Angels army in melee. I think the blood angels players would feel totally let down by his army. lol

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I dunno. I think that if a blood angels army got beaten in melee by a faction that traditionally wasn't known to be very good in melee, they would feel rather insulted... lol

Like if a Necron melee army or an admech melee army kicked the butt of a Blood Angels army in melee. I think the blood angels players would feel totally let down by his army. lol

Using a Space Marine chapter like Blood Angels doesn't work because Blood Angels, being Space Marines, also have plenty of options for shooting as well as having their special chapter traits and doctrine be focused for melee. So while better than most Marines at melee, they are still Marines and as such still have solid shooting options.

Admech are the opposite, slanted mostly towards shooting but still having options for melee they can tech into.

Armies that have traditionally only been relevant in a single phase of the game, like shooting for Tau, aren't and have not been healthy for the game IMO. Armies need to have more depth than that.

Necron wraiths and Lychguard wiped the floor with melee centric Marine armies (aka CSM) since 6th Edition, so nothing new here .

Thankfully the game has now become deeper than just « shoot army » « melee army ». Took them 9 editions to get there hah hah. Now it is all about which unit gets the jump on which unit, and how to not use a unit stupidly to the counter charge stratagem. I really enjoy that side of the game.

Melee units have three distinctive things they need, two of which are enough: speed, tanky ness, lethal ness (many attacks or multi damage, or both if you area drukhari).

It doesn’t make it any easier to balance armies though, as GW have given drukhari a lot of the above things.

If Blood Angels are not a good example of a melee centric faction because they are space marines, then what should we use? Demons? Khorne demons?

Personally, while blood angels do have the same shooty units that all space marines have, but all their blood angels specific units like death company and sanguinary guard are melee. And if you don't lean into them, are you even a blood angels army anymore? I mean, sure, you could spam 3 squads of max plasma inceptors in your blood angels army and take zero death company, but if you do, why are you even playing blood angels...

Eldenfirefly wrote:

Look at Admech. Used to be they are super shooty, but if you got to close combat with them, they didn't really have anything that could fight you. Wow look at admech now. Their close combat units pack a punch!

I think you've never fought ectro-priests.

ccs wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:

Look at Admech. Used to be they are super shooty, but if you got to close combat with them, they didn't really have anything that could fight you. Wow look at admech now. Their close combat units pack a punch!

I think you've never fought ectro-priests.

Not sure if one unit alone is enough. Because you can only spam a max of three such units. Three units of electropriests doesn't turn your army into a melee army. But yeah, if you have two or three such specialist lethal types of units, then you can have six or nine such lethal units. Then the army becomes much more melee capable.

ccs wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:

Look at Admech. Used to be they are super shooty, but if you got to close combat with them, they didn't really have anything that could fight you. Wow look at admech now. Their close combat units pack a punch!

I think you've never fought ectro-priests.

In 8th they had the slight problem of not being able to reach combat. There is more then a few units in multiple armies, that are like that. And GW over values melee, because they cost it as if the whole unit was in range turn 1 with you starting and the whole thing doing the maximal potential damage, when it is often not the case, be it because the unit hits on +4 or the weapon has a random damage number.

If the army designers can give every army all the options and still make them play differently then more power to them. They seem to be doing a great job with codexes so far. Melee units for Tau? Great. But a word of warning: as recently as 1995 Jervis Johnson was complaining in the pages of White Dwarf about silly requests for things like Skaven Cavalry, so it may no happen.

Eldenfirefly wrote:

ccs wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:

Look at Admech. Used to be they are super shooty, but if you got to close combat with them, they didn't really have anything that could fight you. Wow look at admech now. Their close combat units pack a punch!

I think you've never fought ectro-priests.

Not sure if one unit alone is enough. Because you can only spam a max of three such units. Three units of electropriests doesn't turn your army into a melee army. But yeah, if you have two or three such specialist lethal types of units, then you can have six or nine such lethal units. Then the army becomes much more melee capable.

1) The Admech had other melee centric units/options. If they wanted to go the melee rout they weren't simply relying on 3 units of priests.
2) As a shooting heavy army they often don't need to go melee heavy, just some melee options.
3) It depends upon what pts your playing at wether 3 units of priests turn your admech into a melee force or not. Not all games are 2k pts you know.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Necron wraiths and Lychguard wiped the floor with melee centric Marine armies (aka CSM) since 6th Edition, so nothing new here .

Exactly. Flayed ones have also always been a pure melee unit, although probably not a very good one.

Drukhari, SM of any flavour, Deathguard and Necrons always had strong CC dedicated units. Every faction can fight in melee could be true if also AM, AD Mech and Tau get excellent fighters.

I mean, ogryn can fight reasonably well, but I doubt if AM is considered a melee army just because they have that one Ogryn unit that can fight reasonably well.

So, anyway, I feel that this is a trend which is that every faction can fight well in melee now! Feel free to disagree, but based on this trend, I fully expect AM and Tau to get melee units too when their codexes come out. Admech can definitely fight well in melee now, and so can Necrons. So we only have AM and Tau left really.

I would like to add though that based on this trend, Khorne demons seem to be especially tough to play right now. They gave up all psychic, have very little shooting, and they aren't even the most mobile army around, and yet, every faction seems to have pretty lethal melee units now that can charge and smash a Khorne demon unit to pieces. Khorne demons don't even get first first or inflict fight last. At least Nurgle demons have resilience, Slanaash demons have speed, fight first, mobility and Tzeentch is the master of the warp (supposedly).

Eldenfirefly wrote:
So we only have AM and Tau left really.

Which is something we already had since a decade at least, it's not a 9th edition thing.

9th edition only made CC more relevant, while in older editions pure shooting armies were the most competitive ones, but it doesn't mean that pretty much every faciton didn't have strong dedicated CC units in their rosters. It's something related to core rules, not the codexes. Which, to me, is another point in favor of 9th edition.

 Blackie wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
So we only have AM and Tau left really.

Which is something we already had since a decade at least, it's not a 9th edition thing.

9th edition only made CC more relevant, while in older editions pure shooting armies were the most competitive ones, but it doesn't mean that pretty much every faciton didn't have strong dedicated CC units in their rosters. It's something related to core rules, not the codexes. Which, to me, is another point in favor of 9th edition.

Exactly. Most factions had access to melee units already, but at least since 6th edition melee often wasn't a viable tactic outside of either OP units or deathstars. 8th improved that, 9th even more so.

I really hope that continues. Tau having only 2 phases per turn is too limiting and stupid under 9e rules and the way it is designed to be played.

Give them some auxiliaries with good melee and others with good psychic potential. The Tau units per se can remain a shooty bunch, no probs.

SO, we lower the board size, make manouvre irrelevant which normally would've been needed to pad weaknesses of asymetrically designed factions and now we improve the factions weaknesses to passable...
Am not sure if consequence of the "better" corerules or just abandoning of core design and identity of factions..

ccs wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:

Look at Admech. Used to be they are super shooty, but if you got to close combat with them, they didn't really have anything that could fight you. Wow look at admech now. Their close combat units pack a punch!

I think you've never fought ectro-priests.

Yeah, if anything admech melee has been toned back with the 9th 'dex because melee electropriests are easier to deal with now they no longer have that 3++.

Ruststalkers are up from being awful to being decent, as are punchybots IMO pretty solid (now they can actually use their flamer gun while punching, and they are almost slinging as many attacks as they used to in double fight mode just all the time)

Not sure I'm seeing a lot of melee buffs in the new ad mech book. Their best melee unit got nerfed, some of the bad ones got buffed, but I don't think it works out to all that much better melee.

I don't see how melee robots will ever be realistically usable no matter how punchy they get, it's just wasted trading most of the time. A unit that costs 100 points per model and doesn't have fly or another good delivery mechanism is always going to struggle to trade up into literally anything. And single robot unit don't seem attractive either as they're basically just bad dreadnoughts.

GW: makes an edition where you can actually use 1/2 of the units and weapons in the game effectively

GW: Fixes the units within codexes that had been kept arbitrarily gakky for no reason because "durrr thems a shooting army (even tho we made 1/2 of their units melee units)"

The Players: "oh no, this is terrible!"

yukishiro1 wrote:
A unit that costs 100 points per model and doesn't have fly or another good delivery mechanism is always going to struggle to trade up into literally anything.

1 slight caveat: in Lucius, they can be 'Veil of Darkness'-ed. Swap to 2+ WS and reroll charges, use 3D6-drop-the-lowest for charges Canticle, profit. Niche ploy but something to be aware of.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Not sure I'm seeing a lot of melee buffs in the new ad mech book. Their best melee unit got nerfed, some of the bad ones got buffed, but I don't think it works out to all that much better melee.

I don't see how melee robots will ever be realistically usable no matter how punchy they get, it's just wasted trading most of the time. A unit that costs 100 points per model and doesn't have fly or another good delivery mechanism is always going to struggle to trade up into literally anything. And single robot unit don't seem attractive either as they're basically just bad dreadnoughts.

Give the Cybernetica Datasmith the Lucius Solar Flare and you can deep strike them straight into the enemy lines. Use the stratagem to give them Invocation of Machine Might in addition to whatever canticle is on them atm, and you've got a super easy charge (roll 3d6 take the two highest and nothing stops you from rerolling that).

From there, if you want, you can use Electro-Shocked to give a unit fight last, you can use Crushing Weight for mortal wounds, whatever you like.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also worth noting that, to me at least, Ruststalkers look to be the absolute bomb. 5++ invuln and extra +1 to sv in cover (plus numerous other ways to get extra sv from various forgeworlds/doctrina) fixes the major problem theyve always had, which is being a very juicy w2 target for people to just pop the first turn theyre on the board.

It's a weird misconception that certain armies aren't meant to fight in melee. Different armies have different amounts and quality of dedicated melee units, but every army, since at least 2nd edition, has had tools to fight in melee. Not always to win with a melee focused army, but to still use the fight phase in a positive, not a negative, for their army.

If anything, 8th/9th took AWAY combat options for IG and Tau, the former losing Rough Riders completely while the latter saw kroot go from medium weight combat threat to chaff.

 Polonius wrote:
It's a weird misconception that certain armies aren't meant to fight in melee. Different armies have different amounts and quality of dedicated melee units, but every army, since at least 2nd edition, has had tools to fight in melee. Not always to win with a melee focused army, but to still use the fight phase in a positive, not a negative, for their army.

If anything, 8th/9th took AWAY combat options for IG and Tau, the former losing Rough Riders completely while the latter saw kroot go from medium weight combat threat to chaff.

....I've been playing since the end of fourth, and the very first game I saw played Kroot were a total embarrassment in melee. Also Rough Riders were widely considered the single worst unit in the entire game even when Guard was the best army.

I call bs. Especially on Guard. Bullgryns and now Death Riders are vastly better dedicated melee units than rough riders ever were in 5th-7th, and while you can't make a super competitive guard melee thing, you can make basic Catachan infantry A3 S4 with two pretty cheap characters.

 the_scotsman wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
It's a weird misconception that certain armies aren't meant to fight in melee. Different armies have different amounts and quality of dedicated melee units, but every army, since at least 2nd edition, has had tools to fight in melee. Not always to win with a melee focused army, but to still use the fight phase in a positive, not a negative, for their army.

If anything, 8th/9th took AWAY combat options for IG and Tau, the former losing Rough Riders completely while the latter saw kroot go from medium weight combat threat to chaff.

....I've been playing since the end of fourth, and the very first game I saw played Kroot were a total embarrassment in melee. Also Rough Riders were widely considered the single worst unit in the entire game even when Guard was the best army.

I call bs. Especially on Guard. Bullgryns and now Death Riders are vastly better dedicated melee units than rough riders ever were in 5th-7th, and while you can't make a super competitive guard melee thing, you can make basic Catachan infantry A3 S4 with two pretty cheap characters.

There, um, were editions prior to 5th, I guess is my point. Seriously, look up old tactics on here. Lot of people ran Rough Riders in 4th edition because the could hide behind area terrain and wipe out a beat up marine squad. Kroot were decent in the original 3rd edition coded, but haven't been a heavy hitter.

 the_scotsman wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Not sure I'm seeing a lot of melee buffs in the new ad mech book. Their best melee unit got nerfed, some of the bad ones got buffed, but I don't think it works out to all that much better melee.

I don't see how melee robots will ever be realistically usable no matter how punchy they get, it's just wasted trading most of the time. A unit that costs 100 points per model and doesn't have fly or another good delivery mechanism is always going to struggle to trade up into literally anything. And single robot unit don't seem attractive either as they're basically just bad dreadnoughts.

Give the Cybernetica Datasmith the Lucius Solar Flare and you can deep strike them straight into the enemy lines. Use the stratagem to give them Invocation of Machine Might in addition to whatever canticle is on them atm, and you've got a super easy charge (roll 3d6 take the two highest and nothing stops you from rerolling that).

From there, if you want, you can use Electro-Shocked to give a unit fight last, you can use Crushing Weight for mortal wounds, whatever you like.

I mean...sort-of? They've got a massive footprint and can't kool-aid man through terrain, so your opponent would have to be pretty terrible at screening to let you DS a squad of bots into anything they'll trade up into. And that's still only a 76% chance at successfully charging, even assuming you have a good target, so although it's reliable, you'll still fail it 1 in 4 games.

Don't get me wrong, I can envision theoretical scenarios they'd be good in...but it all seems pretty niche. Most of the time it seems like they'll just struggle to get into anything they can earn their points back against.

I think it's important to seperate "GW being bad at designing Melee units" from "GW doesn't want certain armies to even have melee units."

yukishiro1 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Not sure I'm seeing a lot of melee buffs in the new ad mech book. Their best melee unit got nerfed, some of the bad ones got buffed, but I don't think it works out to all that much better melee.

I don't see how melee robots will ever be realistically usable no matter how punchy they get, it's just wasted trading most of the time. A unit that costs 100 points per model and doesn't have fly or another good delivery mechanism is always going to struggle to trade up into literally anything. And single robot unit don't seem attractive either as they're basically just bad dreadnoughts.

Give the Cybernetica Datasmith the Lucius Solar Flare and you can deep strike them straight into the enemy lines. Use the stratagem to give them Invocation of Machine Might in addition to whatever canticle is on them atm, and you've got a super easy charge (roll 3d6 take the two highest and nothing stops you from rerolling that).

From there, if you want, you can use Electro-Shocked to give a unit fight last, you can use Crushing Weight for mortal wounds, whatever you like.

I mean...sort-of? They've got a massive footprint and can't kool-aid man through terrain, so your opponent would have to be pretty terrible at screening to let you DS a squad of bots into anything they'll trade up into. And that's still only a 76% chance at successfully charging, even assuming you have a good target, so although it's reliable, you'll still fail it 1 in 4 games.

Don't get me wrong, I can envision theoretical scenarios they'd be good in...but it all seems pretty niche. Most of the time it seems like they'll just struggle to get into anything they can earn their points back against.

Large footprint, monster without fly, if your table has craters (as many wtc tables have) or other slowing terrain, then that -2 on the charge will make your charge fail. I agree with yukishiro, that doesn’t seem very good