Bandwagon of dismissal

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**Teddy183**

I'm not sure what rule mechanics are in place in this edition that makes shooting better than it was or assaulting worse than it was (or at least people seem convinced that shooting is the way to go in 6th edition). Beyond variable charging distances and overwatch/snapfiring, taking casualties from the front, what is there? At the moment, I am still not convinced that assault armies are entirely obsolete as many people have been suggesting, all it means, is that players have to be more protective about using their units. Also, fast attack options help a lot to mitigate the effects of being shot at.

Also, there seems to be a knee jerk reaction that has lead to everyone writing of certain army lists/ styles as being outdated. I cannot be convinced that vehicles are bad in this edition, people tell me that, then i bring in vehicle heavy armies and table them or very nearly table them, even though they bought loads of AT, I also managed to whittle someone down to a squad and a half even though I was being ganged up on, effectively 1500 points against 750... and even then, I realise now that I was using my vehicles poorly, if I had corrected those mistakes I think I would have destroyed at least 1000 or more points worth of enemy. In my opinion, they are still good.

Someone can convince me that a) assualting armies are bad and b) vehicles are bad.

I'm not stubborn or narrow minded, but I just don't want to jump on the bandwagon of dismissal.

**Peregrine**

Teddy183 wrote:
a) assualting armies are bad

Assaulting armies were already bad in 5th, and every change in 6th made them worse.

b) vehicles are bad.

Vehicles are good.

**Teddy183**

Ok, so you agree with me on point b), but you haven't really said anything about a) just blindly said that they are bad...

**juraigamer**

I can't convince you assault armies are bad, what I can convince you of is the fact that certain lists can be run and won by a trained monkey.

Simply taking into account fleet and other rules that allow a re-roll on the charge range actually makes melee better than shooting, since the gap can be closed much faster now. Overwatch isn't something to fear unless you're assaulting flamers.

As for vehicles, heavy vehicles got far better, since a glance no longer inflicts something on the damage table, it's just a glance. No shaken, no stunned and no weapon destroyed or immobilized from a simple glance anymore!

Light vehicles that are skimmers got nice boosts as well, the jink save is wonderful. However light transport vehicles for melee units just went to hell with the rules regarding assaulting from them, but for shooting armies they are just as good as they used to be, only slightly easier to kill with cover getting worse, but cover got worse across the board so no biggy.

Teddy, I can tell you're a smart guy, so don't let the fools fool you, run what you know works, they way you know it works, and crush them with their ignorance.

**Crazy_Carnifex**

Teddy183 wrote:
I'm not sure what rule mechanics are in place in this edition that makes shooting better than it was or assaulting worse than it was (or at least people seem convinced that shooting is the way to go in 6th edition). Beyond variable charging distances and overwatch/snapfiring, taking casualties from the front, what is there?

1) Cannot Assault out of Transports

2) No assaults from reserves at all

3) Cannot Assault Fliers

4) Cannot Run-Assault if fleet

5) Cannot Disembark after moving over 6"

6) Lose 2" of disembarking

7) Shooting was buffed (Snap Fire>Cannot Fire, can avoid moving those heavy weapons while still moving the squad away from you, etc.)

8)Cover saves got Worse

9)Power weapons got nerfed, making assault units more susceptible to tarpits with 2+ saves

I think that covers it.

**CrowSplat**

I think what happened was that shooting became a viable tactic for more armies in 6th rather than being that thing you do before you charge/get charged. Also overwatch and variable assault ranges turned assaulting into more of a tactical decision and less of a get there asap thing.

Also with the change to vehicles, a number of armies no longer had to dedicate as many resources towards anti-tank because their troops could reliable glance a vehicle to death now. When basic guns have a chance of killing a vehicle, more players were willing to take pot shots at transports and thus more vehicles were getting blown up faster.

I actually think that the balance between shooting and assault, as well as vehicles, is pretty even. The only real change is that things got more calculating. I believe what we are seeing is the pendulum swinging to the other extreme right now. Everyone is transition away from what was powerful in 5e to what is perceived as being powerful in 6e, from one extreme to the other.

**Peregrine**

Teddy183 wrote:
Ok, so you agree with me on point b), but you haven't really said anything about a) just blindly said that they are bad...

What is there to say? Just list all of the new assault-related mechanics in 6th and add them to the fact that assault sucked in 5th.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

CrowSplat wrote:
I think what happened was that shooting became a viable tactic for more armies in 6th rather than being that thing you do before you charge/get charged.

Except that was already true in 5th edition. Space Wolves were based around lots of static heavy weapons, Blood Angels were driving around in Razorbacks and shooting everything to death, etc. Shooting was already the dominant strategy and assault-focused armies were the exception to the rule.

Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
I think that covers it.

You missed a few:

10) Random charge length, since you more consistently fail charges at short range but can't count on using charges at longer ranges.

11) Cover is now model by model, not for the entire unit, so it's harder to move up fast while keeping everything in cover.

12) Wound allocation from the front can push the front of your unit back away from the enemy faster than you can move it forward.

13) Wound allocation from the front, barrage sniping, and precise shots make the hidden powerfist a lot less effective.

14) Overwatch gives free shots just for attempting to charge.

**juraigamer**

Let's not forget that you no longer take fearless wounds if you lose and are fearless, you simply just stay in melee. Pretty big boon if you ask me.

**Luke_Prowler**

Well, for one thing, by referring it as the "bandwagon of dismissal" you've already shown that you've made a definitive position on the subject. If you actually want an unbiased discussion, you don't make light of the argument from the start.

The problem with assault is that we have less guarantee now than we did in 5th edition. The random charge ranges is the biggest part of it, but also in setting up the assault itself. You can no longer assault out of a closed top vehicles (such as rhinos), you can no long assault out of reserve, such as outflanking and infiltrating (except in the one situation where if you infiltrate when you go second). Fleet has been changed to a reroll rather than letting you assault after running, so where as you at least had a 7" charge a reroll and just as much improve you range as completely make it worse. Being protective of your units simply doesn't work because the longer you're not in assault the more time a shooting army can whittle down your forces, with worse cover and focus fire making cover more of a liability to assault (on top of already being slowed down, hurt by dangerous terrain). You want to get into assault because it's the safest place for them.

Even if you get stuck in, there is also reduction ins damage. Multi-charge takes away many of your bonus including your charge attack. Overwatch, while not doing a lot of damage relative to getting full BS, losing a few models can be devastating for smaller squads such as either eldar armor or trukk boys (and could potentially lose you inch and fail to reach assault either way. In the case of slower armies, the pile in mechanics can reduce the number of your models in base contact by being forced to remove from the front.

Compare this to Shooting who can now measure before they more and shoot so they can always know how far away you are, you can move and still get to five the farthest range on rapid fire weapons, and heavy weapons firing is based on per model rather than the whole unit, so a tactical squad can move away from an assault unit and still be at full damage capacity while denying the assault their range.

Are they "entirely obsolete" as you put it? No, in the same way there is no invincible units in this game. Anything with stats can be killed or used effectively. it is more an answer of comparing the effort required by and assault army over a shooting based one.

Edit:

juraigamer wrote:
Let's not forget that you no longer take fearless wounds if you lose and are fearless, you simply just stay in melee. Pretty big boon if you ask me.

If the unit was already loosing combat, what makes you think any following assault phase will go any better?

**CrashCanuck**

The one point I have to completely disagree with is that the change to Fleet hurt charging, Fleet allows you to reroll one or both dice when charging, so if you roll 1-2, then you can reroll both, if you roll 6-1 and it still wasn't enough you can reroll just the 1.

**Trickstick**

I have come to two main conclusions regarding 6th edition:

1: Everything dies more easily.

2: Everything kills more easily.

Everything has bigger risks associated with it, but bigger rewards when things are done right. Assault units can take a lot of damage on the way in, but they will do loads of damage if they get there. Tarpits seem to be generally less effective these days too.

**Peregrine**

Luke_Prowler wrote:
If the unit was already loosing combat, what makes you think any following assault phase will go any better?

It does change a few situations though. For example, if you have a Tyranid MC and a horde unit in the same combat. In 5th you could throw all your attacks on the horde, win combat by some huge number, and force the MC to take a ton of fearless wounds. In 6th you just stay in combat. Similarly with attrition units like orks, in 5th you could lose a ton of expendable boyz while the power klaw did all the work, and then lose a ton more boyz from fearless wounds. In 6th you just stay in combat and eventually win because you're losing much cheaper models than your opponent.

**Teddy183**

Ok, so maybe I was a bit brash by calling it a 'bandwagon', because obviously people have their reasons. I guess I just want more information before I agree with or disagree with anyone.

I'm sort of half convinced that assaulting armies aren't quite as good, but I feel that all it takes is a slightly different approach. With so many rules and special rules and unit types, with many combinations, I'm sure you could come up with a viable army.

Oh Trickstick, you took the words right out of my mouth, more risk!

Overall though, I like the new edition, it forces you to be more calculating with your units, such as cover and movement and individual models placement within a squad.

**juraigamer**

Risk vs reward!

The question is, players:

Are you risk taking ballers, or cautious little pansy's?

**Teddy183**

Well, I had a game where by the second turn, I had almost half my army in my opponents deployment... would that make me a risk taking baller?

**Peregrine**

Teddy183 wrote:
I'm sort of half convinced that assaulting armies aren't quite as good, but I feel that all it takes is a slightly different approach. With so many rules and special rules and unit types, with many combinations, I'm sure you could come up with a viable army.

The question is why would you want to? Sure, if you put a lot of work into it and don't play extremely competitive opponents you probably won't lose every game with an assault army, but what's the point? Shooting is simpler and better and with the same amount of effort in list building you could make a much better shooting army instead.

juraigamer wrote:
Are you risk taking ballers, or cautious little pansy's?

In other words, do you take plasma and Medusas, or a gunline?

(Assault armies are for the third option: people who are too stupid to figure out which end of the gun to point at the other guy.)

**TheCaptain**

Peregrine wrote:

In other words, do you take plasma and Medusas, or a gunline?

Both?

**Makumba**

I have one more . With games offten being won by 1 point , assault armies have it a lot harder to gain first blood , while at the same time the whole get near the enemy means they give up both first blood and offten kill the warlord easier.

**Ailaros**

Teddy183 wrote:Beyond variable charging distances and overwatch/snapfiring, taking casualties from the front, what is there?

Well, as I said last time this subject came up.

Ailaros wrote:
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.

**Teddy183**

Ok, so personally, I wouldn't make an army with charging in mind. BUT, and this is a big but, I still think that there are situations where charging is desirable, not only this, but I have yet to be convinced that it is bad, if you would like to disagree with me, that's fine, but know this, I have won due to overwhelming the opposition in close combat with sheer numbers.

Meaning, that if you had an opportunity to avoid taking the full power of melta guns or plasma or loads of other things, I think only a fool would not take that, especially if they could win... though I suppose that's going into a different discussion.

I also have friends who have been highly successful using assaulting as their primary mode of giving damage, if you can cross the board fast enough, you have a really good chance of wrecking your opponent.

Finally, one last thing to add. I run a transport army, and assaulted my opponent, they used shooting (loads of anti tank) and was nearly tabled. Now, apparently, using vehicles is bad and apparently assaulting is bad, because for some reason a lot of people say so.

Yes assaulting is worse in Six edition, but it still remains in my opinion a viable tactic. If applied properly, any strategy can work, I don't bow to the doctrine of shying away from something, for slightly off putting reasons.

**svendrex**

While I do agree that shooting got a lot of bonuses this edition, I would like to add a few more rules to the "buff close combat pile"

1) Not able to kill models out of LOS.

Put an objective where a model can be hidden from LOS and still hold it. It can be difficult to remove that model through shooting.
If you can assault the other members of his unit, you will draw him out, where he can be killed.

2) Units of Marines need to be killed to the last man.

With the changes to ATSKNF, marine units really need to be wiped out to the last man. There is no way to chase marines off of the board anymore. If there is one model remaining from a unit, it will still be able to hold objectives, deny kill points ect.
'Being able to lock up a unit with an assault unit (especially a high INT one) so the marines can not run, hide, or regroup is helpful.

As long as sweeping advance remains in the game, Assault will always be a high risk/high reward venture. Against the armies that are vulnerable to it, Sweeping advance allows for small assault units to deal far more damage than they should be able to.

Shooting a brick of 20 Necron Warriors dead is going to be tough, and take several turns or very high powered shooting.
Assault them, kill a few, take little damage in return, Win assault and Sweep them. Suddenly, you have a very big gain for your assault unit.

40k will never be a "pure" shooting game. Assault will never be "dead". Every good list will have some sort of plan for the assault phase.

"Pure assault" lists are just a gimicky and inconsistent as "pure gunlines".

**Teddy183**

That is a massive boon to assaulting, but Alarios would think that it is only as good as another point...

**DrDuckman**

The assault rules have affected some armies more than others too.

For example, my ork Green Tide army is better off in 6th, because the loss of fearless wounds is a HUGE boon for any horde army. My opponent's Tyranid army have similarly been boosted. My Daemons are kinda 50-50, mostly because of the Hellblade being AP3 nerf.

Where the hurt set in is the marine assault armies, namely the Blood Angels, which focused a lot of the assault out of Rhinos bit, and my Chaos Marines. Now, I personally dont overly mind the chaos marines, because I like running hordes of footslogging bezerkers on foot, and I also do love runing Juggernaught or biker lords. But it IS a significant nerf.

Still, overall, I find that that the xenos melee armies are doing just fine in 6th. The fearless thing kinda outdoes all the new disadvantages, and frankly, given assault armies are generally horde, the snap shot/overwatch rules tend to help them. However, the mech assault army IS dead, and I expect that BA and similar armies will have to focus on jump troops etc to survive.

**AlmightyWalrus**

DrDuckman wrote:

Still, overall, I find that that the xenos melee armies are doing just fine in 6th. The fearless thing kinda outdoes all the new disadvantages, and frankly, given assault armies are generally horde, the snap shot/overwatch rules tend to help them. However, the mech assault army IS dead, and I expect that BA and similar armies will have to focus on jump troops etc to survive.

Tell that to Dark Eldar.