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Hi there,
I've finally crossed the Rubicon and moved into 3rd. I haven't played a single game yet though.
Reading the rules, it seems to me that assault armies are a bit disadvantaged this time :
No more sweeping advance,
Less attacks,
No more Maru Skara for my IIIrd
How are you playing assault armies, if still playing it ? I'm very curious about assault squads for example
They never were the best, but they did work
Nowadays they seem a bit lackluster
Thank you for you attention to this matter !

Basic melee fighters were heavily nerfed. Despoilers are significantly worse, tactical sergeants and assault squads are absolutely destroyed by nerfs, etc.

Chainswords lost wound rerolls in exchange for the new shred (and if a chainsword unit fights something with 2 wounds they're probably flattened regardless), and as you noted they lost sweep and the charge attack, so they're quite likely to be tarpitted by tacticals for the duration of a match. Assault squads were hit worst of all since they lost line in exchange for vanguard that they lack the damage output to actually score.

However.

Elite melee units remain good. Dual lightning claws still give +2A, sparing them a key nerf. Dual lightning claws and hammers on elite units like assault veterans is popular. Dual chainfist contemptors are one of the more dependable ways to kill AV14 now (though they have to cross the board first), but unfortunately the power fist + chainfist build which is what everyone had on their melee dreadnoughts until now has been left largely redundant.

All in all, from a purely performance-based metric, assault took a hit and is now used mainly in the form of a few high-powered elite sweepers. It remains a cool fluff choice however which is what 30k is all about in the end, so don't hesitate to go all in on melee if it's what is cool to you.