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Since I play an Guard Artillery Park/Gunline, my opinion might be a teensy bit skewed and become the Devil's advocate here. Though Assault did get nerfed, Shooting needed a buff, and it did, and I think its fantastic.

While your complaints are valid, however, I think your aiming a little short on where the nerfs are really hitting you.

Games Workshop did a really poor transition into the 6th Ed with the Codex FAQs. It says in the BRB that units can be exempt from the assault limitations (like units outflanking and charging the turn they arrive) if it's in the units profile, but the units you'd think that would get these exemptions would appear in their appropriate Codex FAQ, but they didn't.

A prime example is the tranferring of flyers from IA. Each army in Imperial Armor has an Anti-Aircraft option (whether or not they're effective/poor is not relevant) and Interceptor Aircraft (Like the Imperial Lightning). But the units that recieved the Skyfire USR were amazingly small. Out of all the armies I believe only three managed to get an anti-aircraft weapon/option (not inlcuding the buyable fortifications), which in my eyes was a poor transition from IA to the Regular Game.

What I'm trying to say is that while some rules did nerf assault (like not being able to assault from a stationary vehicle) are valid (and wanted ), others simply exist because Games Workshop did a very poor job updating the invidual Codex', so we have to wait for 6th Edition versions to come out, for us to buy... *Sigh*

_PK Nob gets challenged by MEQ sergeant : if the Nob declines, he's out. If he accepts, he risks being killed before he gets to strike. If he wins, he only killed 1 model, despite having 4 attacks. It's a lose-lose-lose situation. The same problems exists for our Warbosses, who get to kill a measly sergeant with their 6 S10 attacks, while they should have crushed half the squad. Oh, did I mention that when the Marine Sergeant dies, the squad can choose to run away, and is now free to shoot you in the face ? Even if you sweep them, all you won is another round of combat, without the bonus attack from the charge.

_Boyz get charged by [Wraithlord, Dreadknight, Tervigon, Hive Tyrant, etc...]. [Creature] issues challenge. Now it's the same as above, but you can't even hope to win the challenge. And either way, you're now stuck in CC with something you can't hurt, but since you're Fearless there's nothing you can do but die.

Challenges work both ways, and if you have an assault oriented character that can challenge a Commissar or Tau Shas'ui or even a named character thats weaker, you have the advantage. You can effectively eliminate characters that provide buffs for their entire army (such as leadership value or some other special rule) quite easily.

And let's not forget about Precision Strikes, where if your character rolls a 6 he can place it on a model within reach.A good roll and you can snipe enemy characters before they even get to attack.

_As it's been said before, casualties removed from the front makes them completely useless. It took me 3 turns to move less than 15" in a recent game against Blood Angels, because of a single Baal Predator...

Between moving 6" and running an extra D6 makes me think you're exaggerating about a single Baal Predator. But it makes sense that you would take casualties from the front since you're running at pointed guns screaming at the top of your lungs.

I think they wanted players to try and diversify their armies instead of having straight shoot/assault ones. I don't really know much about Ork Ranged Weaponry, but I'm sure they have units to cover your advance? Sometimes I think you assaulties get sour from the bad experiences, and simply pass over the times your experience was better.

And while the 2d6 charge is a change, isn't the average charge 7" now? Sure you can dote about rolling lower, but what about the times you leap forward 12" like a beast?

Sorry for the rant, I've been shuting my mouth ever since 6th edition came out, but it had to come out eventually...

I think there's more risk/reward for assaulting armies and them maybe having to grab some ranged units to soften up their foes, but outside of that I believe it's the rather poor transferrance from 5th to 6th in the individual Codex FAQs that are causing most of your gripes...

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Daniel - say that to flamers of tzeentch. Ouch.

I play daemons of Chaos Tzeentch, the most shooty of the Chaos daemon army, of course I still take hand to hand units, but the fear of blood letters just means everyone shoots at the Bloodletters instead of my horrors... but my horrors just die when they get charged.

Kingsley - my average charge range, in the open, was 6" in 5th edition. It was also the population. I could not miss an assault 5.9" away in 5th, i can in 6th. That loss of reliability is huge, and is a strict nerf.

daniel79 wrote:
Kingsley - my average charge range, in the open, was 6" in 5th edition. It was also the population. I could not miss an assault 5.9" away in 5th, i can in 6th. That loss of reliability is huge, and is a strict nerf.

It's made up for by gains in other areas. For instance, Fleet is now much more reliable an ability because it works while you aren't charging, preventing the "oh, I rolled a 1 for my run move" problem. The benefits of Fleet while charging, of course, should be quite obvious.

I couldnt miss a charge in the open from 6" away in 5th. I can now. That is a huge issue.

@KplKeegan

Now, I'll start with I'm not the most knowledgable when it comes to WH40k.

While I do agree that shooting needed a boost, there's no need to go all the way in scale, in term of game balance, we do have to live with these changes for an entire edition, you know, or until the next wardex that will inevitably have a special character who painted the Sistine Chapel's painting in his enemy's heart while watching a football game and fighting the entire warp on his own, with a fork, then he probably punched the warp so hard he rolled it back several hundred years, causing the CSM codex to not be as powerful as people wished it to be...

The 2D6 charge thing, well, it has been covered many times since 6th ed launch really, and in this thread:

Non-fleet armies gained the potential to charge further, but also the potential to undercharge. Fleet armies, often with poor shooting options(ie none) on their assault units, have actually lost some charge distance and gained the chance to shoot, if they have any guns at all. The ability to reroll run when the unit is too far back only matters for those who don't run them in transports, I can't say how many fleet armies out there don't run transport for their assault units, but I certainly can say DE isn't one of them. The higher end of the 2D6 is nice if your army can afford the free overwatch round you're giving to the opponent. Granted, overwatch hits on a 6 except for specific weapons, but for some armies out there(read: not marines), they take whatever that go through the overwatch net, and I can tell you that, as DE, I'd say the safe assault distance has actually dropped for us, we'd want to be closer to limit the chance of giving free overwatch away, taking damage and failing the charge. If you're charging with TH/SS termies(footslogging for whatever reason!), knock yourself out, charge at 12", try your luck!

As for "making people play a more diverse army", well, is that really the case? The 2 armies I play, DE and necrons, can both be run as pure shooting, I can't really speak for necrons, but DE-wise, pure shooty list definitely are streets ahead of hybrid or assault list for them.

TL;DR version: Shooting buffs is fine and all, but there is no need to nerf assault to this point.

How the hell did shooting need a boost? The top armies of 5th edition were all shooting based. Shooting didn't need any buffs at all. Bad shooting armies needed rebalancing.

Top armies of 5th edition:

Imperial Guard (anything really)
Space Wolf Longfang Spam
Blood Angel Tank Spam
Grey Knight Psycannon/Rifleman Spam
Grey Knight Inquisition Spam
Dark Eldar Venom Spam
Necron Stuff

Oh true, while typing, I forgot DE venomspam was also the top tier of 5th ed(along with all the other pure shooting lists), got distracted by my thoughts on how rapid fire gotten more useful this ed and forgot about everything else. ...

 Fafnir wrote:

 Nym wrote:


Charging after Tank shock / Ram :

_Yeah, no longer possible. It's not like our whole army relied on opening ennemy transport vehicles with Deffrolas before assaulting the content isn't it ?

Well, obviously this was taken out, because a mob of Orkz leaping from their vehicles onto the enemy craft after it's been crippled by a massive blow to finish off the trapped occupants in their sudden and desperate last stand is not cinematic at all, and does very little to build a narrative.

Now, gunlines, that's a story.

LMAO!!! Exalted.

Yeah, as mentioned ^ . . . how did shooting need a boost when shooting was king in 5e? Remember the assault lists taking tourneys in 5e? Neither do I. Remember them taking even half of the tourneys? I don't either. If shooting was weak in your 5e experience, you have a bizarre meta.

6th edition moved to Shooting, bought a condo, joined the local PTA, and does volunteer work at the Wounded Khorne Berzerker ward...

Godless-Mimicry wrote:Actually they are pretty straight forward; here's a look at what assault lost, and what it gained.

It's actually worse than that. To take your list and expand...

RELATIVE BUFFS FOR SHOOTING

- Your charge distance is at the mercy of the dice. I have seen several assaults that would have been in range in 5th fail in 6th.

- You can no longer run and assault with Fleet.

- Grenades got nerfed for assaulting through terrain.

- Assault grenades no longer hurt vehicles.

- Overwatch

- And, because it really needs to be mentioned twice given the scope of the rule, transported units can overwatch if their transport gets charged, walkers can overwatch, and flamers are overwatch BEASTS. There is now literally no point in attempting to assault a unit of burnaz.

- A unit type that IS IMMUNE TO CLOSE COMBAT was born and became a staple in many lists (fliers)

- You can't assault out of a non-assault vehicle ever and that includes when it is destroyed on you

- Multi-charges were nerfed

- Challenges killed a lot of the potential of combat beast characters

- You can't assault on the turn you come on from reserves

- You can't assault if you Infiltrate or Scout and go first

- The distance from which an assault vehicle brings you closer to the enemy is reduced

- Some random objectives half your assault range

- Furious Charge got nerfed

- Wound allocation forces you to take the models from the front as casualties, this makes an assault unit take an extra turn(s) of being exposed to gunfire before they can get stuck in.

- Wound allocation means that hidden weapons upgrades are no longer hidden. You only need to kill a squad to the point where the upgrade model is the closest to something. This is very easy to achieve with deepstriking.

- Loss of by-unit cover in favor of by-model cover destroys the ability for foot hordes to advance upfield.

- Addition of focus fire

- Addition of Precise Shot.

- Worsening of cover. Intervening units only give 4+, hills no longer area terrain, etc.

- Power weapons got screwed up. Either Ap3, or I1, take your choice...

- You can no longer disembark after moving more than 6" in a transport (killing mech assault units).

- grenades can now be thrown.

- walkers can no longer tie up squads in close combat.

- grenades now work against monstrous creatures in close combat. This hurts dedicated assault units relative to basic infantry that have no desire to be in close combat.

- pre-measuring makes it much easier to make sure shooting weapons are in range, while not helping assault units make it into assault more reliably.

- rapid fire now puts more shots out on the move.

- you can now move and fire heavy weapons. This and the above change to rapid fire mean that you can now back up away from assault units while still shooting.

- parts of a squad can now move without affecting the accuracy of heavy weapons.

- old wound wrapping gotten rid of. I'm glad, but for the purposes of this discussion, it is a boost to shooting more than assaulting.

- pile-in moves reduced to 3" from 6".

- unengaged models in a unit that is locked in close combat must now move closer to the enemy units. Used to capture objectives far away while in close combat with this one in 5th.

- barrage weapons may now fire within their minimum ranges.

- barrage weapons no longer lose strength against vehicles from off-center scatters.

- artillery units got MUCH more survivable.

- models with two pistol weapons can now fire them both.

- vehicles can shoot all weapons at cruising speed.

- in order to charge a vehicle, you must have some way of damaging it.

RELATIVE BUFFS FOR ASSAULT

- hypothetical increase of maximum charge range from 6" to 12". Given that assault range is no longer reliable, I still consider this more of a nerf than a buff. I mean, if you're 12" away, are you really going to attempt to charge? The most likely result is that your opponent will get some free overwatch, and you're still not making it into close combat.

- hammer of wrath.

- assaulting vehicles now gives you much better chance to hit.

- rage rule change

- gets hot now affects those rare vehicles that have it

So, some of these changes are more important than others, and you can uselessly nit-pick them all you like, but the fact is that there were 39 rule changes to make shooting better, and arguably up to 5 rule changes that make assault better.

Put another way, for every rule that made assault better, there were EIGHT rules that make shooting better.

6th ed is a shooting edition. End of.

Seems I forgot a lot, so cheers for that one. Seems my point was more potent than I had thought at the time.

"unengaged models in a unit that is locked in close combat must now move closer to the enemy units. Used to capture objectives far away while in close combat with this one in 5th. "

You had to do this in 5th, and 4th - a post resolution pile in, following the charge rules.

I really don't see what the problem is with moving towards shooting, even as a Tyranid player. All armies, even Tyranids and Orks, have ample shooting ability. While some armies are able to pile far more effective shooting in, it's not like even those two armies lack for decent shooting.

You didn't actually. In 5th edition it went like:

- those that can reach base contact must move to do so

- those what can't reach base contact, but can move to be within 2" of a unit that is in base contact must move to be within 2" of a unit in base contact.

- those who can't do either simply must stay in coherency.

Which meant that if you had a huge squad (say, 30 sluggas, or a large power blob), you could easily have some number of models that, even after a 6" charge had no way of getting to within 2" of a model in base contact. Those guys could then use their pile-in move to go wherever they wanted, so long as they didn't get too close, and so long as they maintained coherency.

 -Loki- wrote:
I really don't see what the problem is with moving towards shooting, even as a Tyranid player. All armies, even Tyranids and Orks, have ample shooting ability. While some armies are able to pile far more effective shooting in, it's not like even those two armies lack for decent shooting.

That would be great if there weren't units like Hormagants and Genestealers out there.

 Kingsley wrote:
Assault didn't get nerfed across the board like some people think, nor did it get buffed across the board-- there are tradeoffs now.

Between this and other threads, I am convinced that you don't play the same game as the rest of us. Whether assault is dead is debatable, but the fact that it's significantly worse off than in 5th ed is not. Being unable to assault from reserve means that there are entire categories of assault models that used to have a means to get to the fight and no longer can. Flyers means that an assault army either has to fear the skies, or dilute itself with shooty units. Ailaros did a good job breaking down the numerous changes that all slightly weaken assault. The combined effect of these changes is significant.

That's not to say you can never get into assault, or that doing so will not win you a game. It's just a weaker strategy than in 5th.

Archonate wrote:I think assault has been appropriately diminished. This is a sci-fi game. Shooting should be dominant.

Quick, name the most iconic weapon from the most iconic sci-fi franchise ever. If you didn't say lightsaber, you're lying to yourself. The neat thing about sci-fi is that it provides reasons that assault would work. Teleporting. Materializing from the warp. Coming out of a webway portal. Cruising into enemy lines in a flying tank. Arriving from under the opponent in a tunnel. Having enough bodies that your opponent runs out of bullets...

Don't forget that as recently as 1900, hand-to-hand armies defeated modern (for the time) armies equipped with cannon, rifles and rocket batteries. (See Battle of Isandlwana). And the Zulus didn't have teleporters or flying tanks.

 60mm wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
I really don't see what the problem is with moving towards shooting, even as a Tyranid player. All armies, even Tyranids and Orks, have ample shooting ability. While some armies are able to pile far more effective shooting in, it's not like even those two armies lack for decent shooting.

That would be great if there weren't units like Hormagants and Genestealers out there.

You have shooting options in other slots. You've got a unit with a 2 shot krak missile that doesn't need LOS. You've got the only S10 AP1 lance in the game. You've got brainleech devourer toting MCs. Tyranids don't lack for shooting - people just don't like to see the options, because the melee units are more fun.

Personally, I've never seen Tyranids as a melee only army. They've always had ample short-mid ranged firepower to soften up enemies before the assault hits. What they've always lacked is long range firepower and effective anti-tank firepower. 5th edition fixed that somewhat with Hive Guard, 6th edition fixed it further with Hull Points. The amount of short-mid ranged anti-infantry firepower Tyranids can do is quite scary, and they have the means to get them in range with mycetic spores.

Yes, but that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about assault options in general. What about them, why even take them anymore?

Fafnir wrote:why even take them anymore?

As far as I can tell, there are four reasons to bother with assault anymore.

#1 - you can shred the hell out of vehicles once you get over there.

#2 - sweeping advance. Kills them dead.

#3 - once you get stuck in, you get to attack on both your turn AND your opponent's turn. With shooting, you only get to attack during your own.

#4 -

That fourth reason by Ailaros is the reason why I still take assault units
Despite all the nerfs and changes, I dont think assault is dead, because assault can still be a decisive aspect of a game. This was the case in 5th, and that hasnt really changed in 6th. What has changed is that full-on assault armies are going to struggle without the support needed to get them into combat to make a difference.

#5 - Area denial/counter assault. Drop a squad of Deathwing terminators on an objective (in cover) and watch as your opponent is reluctant to bring anything within 12-18" of the squad. It won't win the game alone, but it can do a lot to support a more fragile shooting army (for example, mech vet IG).

#6 - Because sometimes shooting just can't get the job done. Say it's late in the game, and you need another objective. If you have nothing but IG veteran squads or Tau in midfield you have lots of firepower, but if you can't get the job done with shooting (for example, a unit with a few models out of LOS) you aren't going to get that objective. On the other hand, a squad of Deathwing with cyclone missiles and storm bolters is still an adequate shooting unit, but can also advance that last 6" and wipe the survivors off the objective.

#7 - Objective claiming. A unit with decent assault abilities can move up and claim objectives without fear of #6 from your opponent (or at least make them pay enough to do it), while a more fragile shooting-only unit can expect to get charged and wiped out if they move up for an objective too early. This is especially true if, like terminators, they're also durable against shooting and staying at long range probably won't deliver enough firepower to kill them.

Of course pure assault armies are still terrible, but there can be a good reason to include a unit with assault capability in your list, especially if it can also shoot at least reasonably well.

The thing is, the units that could possibly be useful for assault purposes also double as extremely solid shooting units as well. I remember running my Draigowing list a while back, and despite the fact that the unit was packed with close combat kill potential, but in almost every game they were involved in, they would never actually end up in assault.

As with 5th edition, the best assault units will be those that don't have to actually be in combat to be useful.

Which begs the question: why the hell does GW keep pumping out dedicated close combat powerhouses when the game itself heavily discourages their use? If they're going to push the game along this route, I'd rather they take the space spent on dedicated close combat wastes to be used for some more varied and interesting shooting options. Or at least combined-arms options.

 Fafnir wrote:
As with 5th edition, the best assault units will be those that don't have to actually be in combat to be useful.

Exactly. Even if the shooting isn't as good as a dedicated shooting unit, it still does something while waiting for the right circumstances to assault and avoids being dead weight for most of the game like pure assault units.

Which begs the question: why the hell does GW keep pumping out dedicated close combat powerhouses when the game itself heavily discourages their use? If they're going to push the game along this route, I'd rather they take the space spent on dedicated close combat wastes to be used for some more varied and interesting shooting options. Or at least combined-arms options.

Because it's cinematic.

 Peregrine wrote:

Because it's cinematic.

Cop-out buzz word for poor game design.

 Fafnir wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Because it's cinematic.

Cop-out buzz word for poor game design.

You mean excellent game design concept that is necessary if you want to forge a narrative in the grim and dark world of Warhammer (tm) 40k (tm).

 Redbeard wrote:

Don't forget that as recently as 1900, hand-to-hand armies defeated modern (for the time) armies equipped with cannon, rifles and rocket batteries. (See Battle of Isandlwana). And the Zulus didn't have teleporters or flying tanks.

Or did they? *dramatic music*




On a more serious note, your post is excellent and can't be repeated enough. Shooting weapons are, as of 2012, vastly superior to melee weapons because they're much more powerful and they do their stuff from far away. Suppose someone invented some sort of armour (let's call it... Power Armour!) that makes the wearer virtually invulnerable against small-arms fire. Then suppose that the best way to get through that armour is to use a matter-distrupting field (let's call it a Power Weapon) that we don't yet have the technology to put in shooting weapons, but that we CAN turn into a melee weapon. Is melee really such a bad idea all of a sudden, when everyone is effectively immune to everything less than a cannon shell to the face?

Ranged weapons are not per definition superior to melee weapons, there's a reason that knights could exist and be effective on the battlefield despite the bow existing, it's not until technology evolved to counter their defenses that they went out of fashion. The offensive part of the arms race is currently leagues ahead of the defensive part, but if the defensive part overtook the offensive part to the point where you had to get up close and personal to kill your foe then melee would become much more common again.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Is melee really such a bad idea all of a sudden, when everyone is effectively immune to everything less than a cannon shell to the face?

Yes, because then you just start issuing everyone with plasma guns which DO ignore marine armor. Or you just have an army consisting of one spotter and a dozen Basilisks 20 miles away.

 Peregrine wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Is melee really such a bad idea all of a sudden, when everyone is effectively immune to everything less than a cannon shell to the face?

Yes, because then you just start issuing everyone with plasma guns which DO ignore marine armor. Or you just have an army consisting of one spotter and a dozen Basilisks 20 miles away.

What good is that spotter when the guys in Power Armour deploy via teleporters, drop pods or jump packs straight into the Basilisks? Furthermore, Plasma Guns are rare. Like, really rare. That's like saying that we should stop building tanks today, because we could just give every soldier a railgun.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
What good is that spotter when the guys in Power Armour deploy via teleporters, drop pods or jump packs straight into the Basilisks?

"FIRE ON MY POSITION."

*second squad of Basilisks fires*

*battery commander awarded posthumous promotion and medal*


Of course drop pods are a joke, 1950s ABM technology could deal with them easily. Add proper air defense to an army and the only thing drop pods are good for is seeing how fast you can get an entire space marine chapter killed. And jump packs aren't much better, they don't have the range to jump directly into a fight, and deploying from aircraft means exposing your transport to enemy fire (and transports generally don't evade fire very well), or staying at high altitude and turning the incoming marines into practice targets for the nearest Hydra battery.

Furthermore, Plasma Guns are rare. Like, really rare. That's like saying that we should stop building tanks today, because we could just give every soldier a railgun.

More like because we can give every squad an anti-tank missile, which pretty much limits the usefulness of tanks to invading third-world countries which don't have advanced anti-tank missiles.

PS: plasma is only rare if you're IG. Tau/Eldar/DE have no problems building all the plasma they could ever want.

 Peregrine wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
What good is that spotter when the guys in Power Armour deploy via teleporters, drop pods or jump packs straight into the Basilisks?

"FIRE ON MY POSITION."

*second squad of Basilisks fires*

*battery commander awarded posthumous promotion and medal*


Of course drop pods are a joke, 1950s ABM technology could deal with them easily. Add proper air defense to an army and the only thing drop pods are good for is seeing how fast you can get an entire space marine chapter killed. And jump packs aren't much better, they don't have the range to jump directly into a fight, and deploying from aircraft means exposing your transport to enemy fire (and transports generally don't evade fire very well), or staying at high altitude and turning the incoming marines into practice targets for the nearest Hydra battery.

Furthermore, Plasma Guns are rare. Like, really rare. That's like saying that we should stop building tanks today, because we could just give every soldier a railgun.

More like because we can give every squad an anti-tank missile, which pretty much limits the usefulness of tanks to invading third-world countries which don't have advanced anti-tank missiles.

PS: plasma is only rare if you're IG. Tau/Eldar/DE have no problems building all the plasma they could ever want.

Fine, forget the 40k stuff. Suppose someone invents a suit of armour that protects you from all small-arms fire and that allows you to fly across the battlefield at high speeds. No known hand-held anti-infantry weapon does enough damage to reliably damage the wearer of this armour. The armour is easy to manufacture and is issued en-masse to soldiers. Soon after, someone invents a type of device that can cut through the armour without any problem. Due to the unique way this device works, it is too unstable to be fired from a ranged weapon, and as such it is turned into a series of melee devices instead. You're not going to issue anti-tank rockets as standard weapons to everyone in an army, so there you go. Melee is viable again.

 Peregrine wrote:

"FIRE ON MY POSITION."

*second squad of Basilisks fires*

*battery commander awarded posthumous promotion and medal*

"Unable to comply, commander. We are under attack ourselves!"