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http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/ showthread.php?t=119466

I was reading through this thread and thought it would be interesting to bring it over here to see what others have to say about this.

So basically if you wipe out a squad on the assault your squad will get shot to pieces in your opponents shooting phase.

Its best to win the assault but not kill every last thing so that the combat carries on into your opponents assault phase making your assault troops immune to all shooting. You finish them off in your opponents assault phase leaving you free to launch a new assault in your own turn.

So basically if your assault troops are TOO good it will actually end up getting them killed.

Pretty terrible game design?

Edit:hm, i guess you cant link to heresy online

The game has been this way for 10+ years... why are you only bringing this up now

Heresy IS back online...?

And yeah, Assault changes are really the least of our problems in this edition imo

This has been a part of the game design forever...

I agree, it IS terrible game design. Your assault units should be shot to death before they get to charge anything, it's stupid that they don't get shot to death until after they've charged and wiped out a unit.

It was a little different in 4th, since a unit could wipe out an enemy unit then pile into the next unit. This was unfortunately a terrible bit of game design, since the moment one kickass assault unit hit your line it would never leave unless you had something of equal close combat power. It made playing as any shooty army or Guard really tough.

Honestly, with the changes to assault distances and the inclusion of overwatch, I think allowing units to consolidate into combat wouldn't have been as broken as it was in 3rd (or 4th, or whenever it was) and would have been a nice counterpoint to rules that have otherwise strongly favoured shooting builds. A caveat that units consolidating into combat don't get an extra attack would have made sense and further reduced the chances of a single unit rampaging through entire armies.

 Kaldor wrote:
Honestly, with the changes to assault distances and the inclusion of overwatch, I think allowing units to consolidate into combat wouldn't have been as broken as it was in 3rd (or 4th, or whenever it was) and would have been a nice counterpoint to rules that have otherwise strongly favoured shooting builds. A caveat that units consolidating into combat don't get an extra attack would have made sense and further reduced the chances of a single unit rampaging through entire armies.

Unless you play Tau, in which case you're screwed because you'll never win combat and BS 1 shooting isn't going to stop, say, assault terminators from going straight from massacring one unit to massacring the next without ever being exposed to shooting. Consolidating into combat was removed for very good reasons, and it would be an incredibly bad idea to bring it back.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:
Honestly, with the changes to assault distances and the inclusion of overwatch, I think allowing units to consolidate into combat wouldn't have been as broken as it was in 3rd (or 4th, or whenever it was) and would have been a nice counterpoint to rules that have otherwise strongly favoured shooting builds. A caveat that units consolidating into combat don't get an extra attack would have made sense and further reduced the chances of a single unit rampaging through entire armies.

Unless you play Tau, in which case you're screwed because you'll never win combat and BS 1 shooting isn't going to stop, say, assault terminators from going straight from massacring one unit to massacring the next without ever being exposed to shooting. Consolidating into combat was removed for very good reasons, and it would be an incredibly bad idea to bring it back.

There's ways and means around it, and a player has to get very lucky to make it work. It would never be as powerful as it was, and bringing it back might reintroduce some balance towards combat as opposed to shooting.

Besides which, a firewarrior squad costs what, 60 points? An assault terminator unit should be able to trounce a few of them in combat, instead of just pasting one then presenting itself as a target for battlesuits.

 Peregrine wrote:
I agree, it IS terrible game design. Your assault units should be shot to death before they get to charge anything, it's stupid that they don't get shot to death until after they've charged and wiped out a unit.

what is your point? are you saying remove assaulting from the game or make it even worse than it is already?

my point is more about how the turn system interacts with the assault phase. for some reason the game punishes units for being really good in assaulting or rolling well in assault.

the turn system is all around horrible IMO. im surprised GW hasnt switched over to some kind of system where models act in initiative order.

 Peregrine wrote:
I agree, it IS terrible game design. Your assault units should be shot to death before they get to charge anything, it's stupid that they don't get shot to death until after they've charged and wiped out a unit.

There's a time and place for everything, even balls-out crazy bayonet charges. IIRC a British patrol had to resort to it in Afghanistan just a couple years ago. They were pinned down in a ditch by small arms fire from close by and the only thing that would allow men to put their heads up and shoot back was giving the enemy something else to worry about. The sarge and a few men fixed bayonets and charged, thus saving the day.

A move of desperation to be sure but sometimes it's still the best you can do.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:
Honestly, with the changes to assault distances and the inclusion of overwatch, I think allowing units to consolidate into combat wouldn't have been as broken as it was in 3rd (or 4th, or whenever it was) and would have been a nice counterpoint to rules that have otherwise strongly favoured shooting builds. A caveat that units consolidating into combat don't get an extra attack would have made sense and further reduced the chances of a single unit rampaging through entire armies.

Unless you play Tau, in which case you're screwed because you'll never win combat and BS 1 shooting isn't going to stop, say, assault terminators from going straight from massacring one unit to massacring the next without ever being exposed to shooting. Consolidating into combat was removed for very good reasons, and it would be an incredibly bad idea to bring it back.

maybe dont put your units so close together then? I think the sweeping advance into combat was good, i used to really like it. Honestly, who in their right mind is going to charge into a unit, absolutely massacre them, and then stand around waiting to get shot by the guys that were standing behind the first unit... bit silly.

An inititave based turn system is one of the worst ideas i have ever heard

kb305 wrote:
what is your point? are you saying remove assaulting from the game or make it even worse than it is already?

Make it worse. Assaulting should be the final attack to finish off the remains of a dug-in unit that you have crippled through shooting. You should not have entire units (and armies!) dedicated to assaulting, because the vast majority of the time they would just be shot to death uselessly.

Spetulhu wrote:
There's a time and place for everything, even balls-out crazy bayonet charges. IIRC a British patrol had to resort to it in Afghanistan just a couple years ago. They were pinned down in a ditch by small arms fire from close by and the only thing that would allow men to put their heads up and shoot back was giving the enemy something else to worry about. The sarge and a few men fixed bayonets and charged, thus saving the day.

Which is fine. I have no problems with desperation charges, or similar rare events. What I have a problem with is assaulting being considered as important as shooting and an equally valid method of winning the game (along with dedicated assault units/armies). The assault phase can stay, assault terminators and planning your strategy around assaulting without lots of shooting first should be removed.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nerm86 wrote:
maybe dont put your units so close together then? I think the sweeping advance into combat was good, i used to really like it. Honestly, who in their right mind is going to charge into a unit, absolutely massacre them, and then stand around waiting to get shot by the guys that were standing behind the first unit... bit silly.

Except that when you have multiple charging units on a finite table "don't stand so close together" becomes difficult to impossible. We've already tried it in 4th and the results were exactly what I said, so your hypotheticals about how it "shouldn't happen like that" don't matter.

An inititave based turn system is one of the worst ideas i have ever heard

Actually it's a great idea. Make both players do their turns simultaneously with alternating unit activations and initiative rolls/bonuses/etc to determine who gets to act first. The problem is that it would require a complete re-write of the rules, and GW won't ever do that.

Nerm86 wrote:
maybe dont put your units so close together then? I think the sweeping advance into combat was good, i used to really like it. Honestly, who in their right mind is going to charge into a unit, absolutely massacre them, and then stand around waiting to get shot by the guys that were standing behind the first unit... bit silly.

Thing is unless you were playing a really small game there was bound to be a unit pretty close. And silly? Silly is Dark Eldar Wyches that run around in leather straps and little else, and the way they used to roll up whole flanks in CC before you lost the ability to consolidate into the next unit. Turn based or not, I don't see why assault units should be able to move faster than a hail of bullets/lasbeams coming straight at them.

Make it worse. Assaulting should be the final attack to finish off the remains of a dug-in unit that you have crippled through shooting. You should not have entire units (and armies!) dedicated to assaulting, because the vast majority of the time they would just be shot to death uselessly.

Exactly. A game set in a world with spaceships, apocalyptic weapons, and Titans striding the battlefields shouldn't have entire forces who specialize in sword-fighting, no matter how high-tech the swords. This isn't Star Wars with Jedi- a bayonet charge across a battlefield against a healthy unit with ranged weapons should be considered nearly suicidal without the proper precautions and the accompanying tactics to misdirect fire away from the assaulting unit.

Although, what would the harm be in allowing a SINGLE consolidation move (which also loses the +1 attack for charging) after that first successful assault? That way, units that are especially good at hand-to-hand can get the benefit that if they can overrun a unit, they can essentially "take cover" from ranged reprisals by their enemy by sweeping into another unit.

 Peregrine wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:
There's a time and place for everything, even balls-out crazy bayonet charges. IIRC a British patrol had to resort to it in Afghanistan just a couple years ago. They were pinned down in a ditch by small arms fire from close by and the only thing that would allow men to put their heads up and shoot back was giving the enemy something else to worry about. The sarge and a few men fixed bayonets and charged, thus saving the day.

Which is fine. I have no problems with desperation charges, or similar rare events. What I have a problem with is assaulting being considered as important as shooting and an equally valid method of winning the game (along with dedicated assault units/armies). The assault phase can stay, assault terminators and planning your strategy around assaulting without lots of shooting first should be removed.

True that. The reason the Brits could do it was that it was a small force against them, and it consisted of idiots that think shouting "I'll kill you, God willing" is somehow better than practicing marksmanship.

Nerm86 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:
Honestly, with the changes to assault distances and the inclusion of overwatch, I think allowing units to consolidate into combat wouldn't have been as broken as it was in 3rd (or 4th, or whenever it was) and would have been a nice counterpoint to rules that have otherwise strongly favoured shooting builds. A caveat that units consolidating into combat don't get an extra attack would have made sense and further reduced the chances of a single unit rampaging through entire armies.

Unless you play Tau, in which case you're screwed because you'll never win combat and BS 1 shooting isn't going to stop, say, assault terminators from going straight from massacring one unit to massacring the next without ever being exposed to shooting. Consolidating into combat was removed for very good reasons, and it would be an incredibly bad idea to bring it back.

maybe dont put your units so close together then? I think the sweeping advance into combat was good, i used to really like it. Honestly, who in their right mind is going to charge into a unit, absolutely massacre them, and then stand around waiting to get shot by the guys that were standing behind the first unit... bit silly.

An inititave based turn system is one of the worst ideas i have ever heard

care to explain why it's bad?

many turned based strat games use an initiative system. units that are faster and more agile get to act first. wow what a concept. for negatives, it would result in a complete rules overhaul. You would need to redo and rebalance everything around it.

the worst idea iv ever heard is what i explained in the first post. terrible backwards counter intuitive nonsense.

 Peregrine wrote:
I agree, it IS terrible game design. Your assault units should be shot to death before they get to charge anything, it's stupid that they don't get shot to death until after they've charged and wiped out a unit.

You are arguing for realism in the game, in a game world where sentient fungus that ignore the laws of physics and power their guns with belief poses a deadly threat to every other race in the galaxy. Besides, how boring would the game be if every game consisted of both sides deploying their static gunlines and then rolling dice at each other?

PrinceOfMadness wrote:
You are arguing for realism in the game, in a game world where sentient fungus that ignore the laws of physics and power their guns with belief poses a deadly threat to every other race in the galaxy. Besides, how boring would the game be if every game consisted of both sides deploying their static gunlines and then rolling dice at each other?

Yeah, because having a shooting-dominated game means you never have movement. Maybe if you're a bad game designer, but lots of people have no problems making enjoyable shooting-focused games that don't consist of nothing but static gunlines and mindless dice rolling.

Also, it's not about fluff realism, it's about scaling. Assault in 40k only "works" because distances are not 28mm scale. If you play with distances that match the scale of the models assaulting will simply never happen, and units will almost always be shot to death long before the idiot with a sword gets anywhere near close enough to use it.

Variety is the spice of life. I like that it's possible to make an army assault-based. It's maybe not realistic, but I don't play 40k for realism. I play it because it has a lot of cool stuff. I could wish that the rules were better written (making the majority of gunline armies a little more flexible and less mind-crushingly dull) but I've got to work with what I've got.

kb305 wrote:

Nerm86 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:
Honestly, with the changes to assault distances and the inclusion of overwatch, I think allowing units to consolidate into combat wouldn't have been as broken as it was in 3rd (or 4th, or whenever it was) and would have been a nice counterpoint to rules that have otherwise strongly favoured shooting builds. A caveat that units consolidating into combat don't get an extra attack would have made sense and further reduced the chances of a single unit rampaging through entire armies.

Unless you play Tau, in which case you're screwed because you'll never win combat and BS 1 shooting isn't going to stop, say, assault terminators from going straight from massacring one unit to massacring the next without ever being exposed to shooting. Consolidating into combat was removed for very good reasons, and it would be an incredibly bad idea to bring it back.

maybe dont put your units so close together then? I think the sweeping advance into combat was good, i used to really like it. Honestly, who in their right mind is going to charge into a unit, absolutely massacre them, and then stand around waiting to get shot by the guys that were standing behind the first unit... bit silly.

An inititave based turn system is one of the worst ideas i have ever heard

care to explain why it's bad?

many turned based strat games use an initiative system. units that are faster and more agile get to act first. wow what a concept. for negatives, it would result in a complete rules overhaul. You would need to redo and rebalance everything around it.

the worst idea iv ever heard is what i explained in the first post. terrible backwards counter intuitive nonsense.

When i said "worst idea i have ever heard" it wasnt a reference to every table top wargame out there, i used to play inquisitor which is initiave based and it works pretty well in that. the statement "the worst idea i have ever heard" was solely in relation to having it in 40k. I3 guardsman ALWAYS act after everyone bar orks may well be fluffy but would seriously destroy any sence of balance of fairness in the game. Yes you mentioned that it would require a rewrite of the rules but that was not mention before. If you dont like the rules go play a different system, there are plenty of them out there.

And in regards to the statement about getting rid of assault terminator etc because "they would get shot to piece before they got there", have you not heard of teleport attacks, deep striking, drop pods? This is a MAKE BELIEVE game based on a MAKE BELIEVE universe and if you have ever read any of the fluf there is a bloody aweful lot of hand to hand combat. the 40k universe seems to revolve around a theme of 'de-evolution' of technology and i guess with it would go things like tactics, look at the Death Korps of Krieg for example, the warfare they specialised in was obsolete almost 100 years ago. who is to say hand to hand combat wont 'come back around' in the 40k future

Assault has been a core part of 40k for awhile now. It's science fantasy, so things don't have to be realistic. If shooting is what you want, go play flames of war. I don't play myself, but I hear it can be quite fun. As an ork player, assault is pretty core to me. I don't care about realism in this game. It wasn't made with that in mind. There are plenty of wonderfull sci fi games that follow conventional tactics and strategy, and 40k is not one of them. That's why (for me) it's special and unique.

Nerm86 wrote:
And in regards to the statement about getting rid of assault terminator etc because "they would get shot to piece before they got there", have you not heard of teleport attacks, deep striking, drop pods? This is a MAKE BELIEVE game based on a MAKE BELIEVE universe and if you have ever read any of the fluf there is a bloody aweful lot of hand to hand combat. the 40k universe seems to revolve around a theme of 'de-evolution' of technology and i guess with it would go things like tactics, look at the Death Korps of Krieg for example, the warfare they specialised in was obsolete almost 100 years ago. who is to say hand to hand combat wont 'come back around' in the 40k future

And, once again, it only "works" because the distances are not to scale with the model sizes. If you scale all of the movement distances/shooting ranges/etc up to the same 28mm as the models instead of a random mix of incompatible scales then weapon ranges and table sizes become so large that assault will rarely happen.

 Peregrine wrote:

Nerm86 wrote:
And in regards to the statement about getting rid of assault terminator etc because "they would get shot to piece before they got there", have you not heard of teleport attacks, deep striking, drop pods? This is a MAKE BELIEVE game based on a MAKE BELIEVE universe and if you have ever read any of the fluf there is a bloody aweful lot of hand to hand combat. the 40k universe seems to revolve around a theme of 'de-evolution' of technology and i guess with it would go things like tactics, look at the Death Korps of Krieg for example, the warfare they specialised in was obsolete almost 100 years ago. who is to say hand to hand combat wont 'come back around' in the 40k future

And, once again, it only "works" because the distances are not to scale with the model sizes. If you scale all of the movement distances/shooting ranges/etc up to the same 28mm as the models instead of a random mix of incompatible scales then weapon ranges and table sizes become so large that assault will rarely happen.

I dont see what distance and scale have to do with it when the drop pod is smashing into the ground right next to you.

40k clearly doesnt seem to be the game for you if you are worried about "a random mix of incompatible scales" go play Flames of War because that is more REAL.

Damn it, i just realised im arguing with someone over the internet about a tabletop wargame... im embarassed, where did i go so wrong

Nerm86 wrote:
I dont see what distance and scale have to do with it when the drop pod is smashing into the ground right next to you.

Because "right next to you" in 28mm scale should be on the other end of the 6'x4' table, not literally within a 28mm-scale foot or two (close enough that the shock of impact would probably kill you before the marines could even disembark).

 Peregrine wrote:

Nerm86 wrote:
I dont see what distance and scale have to do with it when the drop pod is smashing into the ground right next to you.

Because "right next to you" in 28mm scale should be on the other end of the 6'x4' table, not literally within a 28mm-scale foot or two (close enough that the shock of impact would probably kill you before the marines could even disembark).

On the other hand, if ranges really reflected what a ranged weapon can do we'd need much bigger tables. Rifles today can kill stuff at a thousand meters away, though you might need better sighting equipment to make the shot with any reliability. Artillery, depending on the type, can be used from something like 40 kilometers away from the battle. A four foot by six foot board would just be the place we sent our poor Saving Private Ryan initial assault troops to die.

Spetulhu wrote:
On the other hand, if ranges really reflected what a ranged weapon can do we'd need much bigger tables. Rifles today can kill stuff at a thousand meters away, though you might need better sighting equipment to make the shot with any reliability. Artillery, depending on the type, can be used from something like 40 kilometers away from the battle. A four foot by six foot board would just be the place we sent our poor Saving Private Ryan initial assault troops to die.

Exactly the problem. Assault doesn't "work" because it makes sense, it "works" because GW had to scale down the distances to fit a 28mm-scale army-level game with aircraft/tanks/etc onto a 6'x4' table. And then they made it worse by insisting that all those long-range units had to have models instead of being (more sensibly) represented by off-table support. Assault armies are just an effect of the distorted scaling process, not a reasonable part of the fluff.

 Peregrine wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:
On the other hand, if ranges really reflected what a ranged weapon can do we'd need much bigger tables. Rifles today can kill stuff at a thousand meters away, though you might need better sighting equipment to make the shot with any reliability. Artillery, depending on the type, can be used from something like 40 kilometers away from the battle. A four foot by six foot board would just be the place we sent our poor Saving Private Ryan initial assault troops to die.

Exactly the problem. Assault doesn't "work" because it makes sense, it "works" because GW had to scale down the distances to fit a 28mm-scale army-level game with aircraft/tanks/etc onto a 6'x4' table. And then they made it worse by insisting that all those long-range units had to have models instead of being (more sensibly) represented by off-table support. Assault armies are just an effect of the distorted scaling process, not a reasonable part of the fluff.

Even though it happens in the fluff, all the time.

Otherwise orks wouldn't really have any victories at all.

Games Workshop is a miniatures company first and foremost. They exist to sell models, and tanks happen to be pretty cool models. I would agree that the scaling of the game is all out of whack, but that's honestly going to be a problem with any miniatures game that has technology more advanced than a musket.

We can safely assume that GW will not try to make Assaults a minor part of the game. If they did it they would nerf Lots of armies. How would you feel if Your 3000 point close combat army is no longer even playable in a friendly setting.