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I 've heard this said a few times and it seems to match my experience in the games of sixth I've played. My all assault Khorne army got wiped out trying a massed charge; only a handful actually reached cc. Whilst my Tau with the new rules (Shadowsun with Crisis suits is so amazing ), well, I haven't lost with them yet although a few were very close games against a strong Imperial Guard army with 2 vendetta's and an all Ravenwing host.

Just one quick question. Is it right that if you go to ground in area cover you get a 2+ cover save?

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
just one quick question. Is it right that if you go to ground in area cover you get a 2+ cover save?

You get +2 to your cover save if you go to ground in area terrain. Not a 2+ cover save, just a +2 to your current cover save, which for area terrain is a base of a 5+ cover save. (So normally a cover save of 3+ when you go to ground in area terrain).

If you are in cover behind an Aegis defense line you get a +2 to that cover save of 4+ so in that case you will have a 2+ cover save. There are a few more situations where you will have a 2+ cover save as well.

6th favors shooting, as a scifi wargame should. If you're going to assault you need to bring supporting shooting elements and have a plan besides "run forward as fast as possible across open terrain and charge", throwing a mass of models at the enemy and hoping for the best just gives the shooting army exactly what they want.

Well most cover tends to be 4+ anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
6th favors shooting, as a scifi wargame should. If you're going to assault you need to bring supporting shooting elements and have a plan besides "run forward as fast as possible across open terrain and charge", throwing a mass of models at the enemy and hoping for the best just gives the shooting army exactly what they want.

Yeah but technically some armies like orks, nids and khorne armies are meant to charge across the board. Plus, you can't really take full advantage of cover as this would be slowing you down in most cases (ravenwing big exception: coz they are in insane). So if you want to assault an enemy without outflank, transports or deep strike then its really difficult.

Oddly for most of 3rd, 4th and even 5th this basically was my strategy. 3.5 marines and Templars. Get a load of nuttas with chainswords and charge. Tyranids, get some massive monsters and genestealers and charge. Dark Eldar get a ton of wyches in raiders and charge (granted the last one didn't really work that well and in 5th my nid army used trygons and outflanking stealers)

 Peregrine wrote:
6th favors shooting, as a scifi wargame should. If you're going to assault you need to bring supporting shooting elements and have a plan besides "run forward as fast as possible across open terrain and charge", throwing a mass of models at the enemy and hoping for the best just gives the shooting army exactly what they want.

Because wwI tanks, massed infanty, walkers, etc. would make any sense in a future of monstrous spacecraft that could bombard them safely from orbit...

Being scifi has nothing to do with it, it most likely has to do with GW trying to appeal to a generation of kids growing up on FPS games and the fact that gun-heavy and static gunlines are most popular. It's called pandering to your base.

6e is a shooting heavy edition because it got boosted by premeasuring, overwatch and snapfire while melee simultaneously got nerfed with random charges, no assault from reserve, overwatch, etc.

In fairness I would say that most previous editions have been assault focused. Not so much 5th but definetly 3rd n 4th. You could not stop a 3.5 chaos army or 4th ed nidzilla army with the guard or even vanilla marine dexs of the time. So the shift in 6th is a welcome departure.

 DeathReaper wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
just one quick question. Is it right that if you go to ground in area cover you get a 2+ cover save?

You get +2 to your cover save if you go to ground in area terrain. Not a 2+ cover save, just a +2 to your current cover save, which for area terrain is a base of a 5+ cover save. (So normally a cover save of 3+ when you go to ground in area terrain).

If you are in cover behind an Aegis defense line you get a +2 to that cover save of 4+ so in that case you will have a 2+ cover save. There are a few more situations where you will have a 2+ cover save as well.

For reals? My lootas have been taking just +1 and noone thought to say anything...

 60mm wrote:

Because wwI tanks, massed infanty, walkers, etc. would make any sense in a future of monstrous spacecraft that could bombard them safely from orbit...

Being scifi has nothing to do with it, it most likely has to do with GW trying to appeal to a generation of kids growing up on FPS games and the fact that gun-heavy and static gunlines are most popular. It's called pandering to your base.

6e is a shooting heavy edition because it got boosted by premeasuring, overwatch and snapfire while melee simultaneously got nerfed with random charges, no assault from reserve, overwatch, etc.

I though it was just because 5th was a parking lot/ assaulting draigowinging ed and they wanted people to buy new armies. and besides that how else can they make every player buy a ADL

6th edition is the edition of shooting not only because they buffed shooting (better rapid fire, the ability to focus fire and use precise shots, the introduction of salvo weapons, and more stuff that removes cover saves, the addition of overwatch among many other things), but, more importantly it's a relatively more shooty edition given that 6th came by and strung up assault by its thumbs (thanks to new wound allocation, the loss of by-model cover, the inability to charge out of reserves, random charge ranges, the loss of hidden weapon upgrades, the inability to get out of a vehicle at the beginning of the movement phase and still assault, amongst many, many other nerfs).

Shooting got a little better, and assault got much, much worse. Therefore, 6th edition is a shooting edition.

 Ailaros wrote:
6th edition is the edition of shooting not only because they buffed shooting (better rapid fire, the ability to focus fire and use precise shots, the introduction of salvo weapons, and more stuff that removes cover saves, the addition of overwatch among many other things), but, more importantly it's a relatively more shooty edition given that 6th came by and strung up assault by its thumbs (thanks to new wound allocation, the loss of by-model cover, the inability to charge out of reserves, random charge ranges, the loss of hidden weapon upgrades, the inability to get out of a vehicle at the beginning of the movement phase and still assault, amongst many, many other nerfs).

Shooting got a little better, and assault got much, much worse. Therefore, 6th edition is a shooting edition.

What even if the vehicle was stationary last turn?

I'd say it's literally a "shooting" edition and not a "shooty armies edition", because forget LoS when most boards are entirely open and/or have porous terrain, forget movement when barrage weapons can hit any point of the map, and forget cover when more and more units can ignore it. All you gotta do is pull the trigger.

It's the game where people line up artillery and roll for first turn =/

 Dakkamite wrote:
I'd say it's literally a "shooting" edition and not a "shooty armies edition", because forget LoS when most boards are entirely open and/or have porous terrain, forget movement when barrage weapons can hit any point of the map, and forget cover when more and more units can ignore it. All you gotta do is pull the trigger.

It's the game where people line up artillery and roll for first turn =/

I wouldn't be so sure. Not every army has artillery. Also at my club we use lots of area terrain which does block line of sight a fair bit. I also think only Tau have cheap access to ignore cover. I actually think the best thing for assault armies to do is load up on jump packs and move through cover that way. The odds of rolling a 1 and failing an armor save are really low; especially weighed against the cover save you get. Just leap from area cover to area cover. What I did with Shadowsun n co loads.

Plus I found with my tau that it was difficult in a slogging match to get my pathfinders close enough to use their markers. This meant I had shadowsun n company struggling to cut down the guard units who made good use of going to ground and cover.

To correct what was said earlier...going to ground normally only gives +1. The ADL's +2 is special that way.

There were a number of minor changes that, combined, make assault much less enviable. Such as:

Overwatch
Units that could previously charge through terrain without penalty now strike at I1
Power weapons either strike at Initiative or at AP2, previously they were both
Random charge range means you can't guarantee making into assault
Furious Charge no longer gives +1I

...I'm sure there's more I've missed.

 Dakkamite wrote:
I'd say it's literally a "shooting" edition and not a "shooty armies edition", because forget LoS when most boards are entirely open and/or have porous terrain, forget movement when barrage weapons can hit any point of the map, and forget cover when more and more units can ignore it. All you gotta do is pull the trigger.

That's not a "6th edition is a shooting edition" problem, it's a "we don't play the game it was meant to be played, with sufficient terrain" problem. Don't blame the rules of the game when the problem is entirely self-inflicted.

As a person who plays both shooty and assault armies: Its balanced.

The pendulum was too far toward assault, now its balanced.

This view is not shared by people who don't have a wide range of experience, or who started using assault as a crutch.

But this is just my view...

davethepak wrote:
As a person who plays both shooty and assault armies: Its balanced.

The pendulum was too far toward assault, now its balanced.

This view is not shared by people who don't have a wide range of experience, or who started using assault as a crutch.

But this is just my view...

You are not alone.
This is what I have been saying since 6th came out.
I have even sucessfuly used Assault Armies like my Blood Angels and Grey Knights.

 Anpu42 wrote:

davethepak wrote:
As a person who plays both shooty and assault armies: Its balanced.

The pendulum was too far toward assault, now its balanced.

This view is not shared by people who don't have a wide range of experience, or who started using assault as a crutch.

But this is just my view...

You are not alone.
This is what I have been saying since 6th came out.
I have even sucessfuly used Assault Armies like my Blood Angels and Grey Knights.

QFT imo

 Anpu42 wrote:

davethepak wrote:
As a person who plays both shooty and assault armies: Its balanced.

The pendulum was too far toward assault, now its balanced.

This view is not shared by people who don't have a wide range of experience, or who started using assault as a crutch.

But this is just my view...

You are not alone.
This is what I have been saying since 6th came out.
I have even sucessfuly used Assault Armies like my Blood Angels and Grey Knights.

Those 2 armies are what I'd like to call a hybrid, they have good assault element, but their shooty side isn't all that bad either. What I'd like to know is how more assault-heavy armies are doing?

My 0.002 penny on this is that I just wish it wasn't so one-sidedly leaning toward standing in line and shooting(rolling dice), surely the game would be better if it accomodates full shooting list(with no assault element) as well as the other end of the spectrum: full assault list, right?

davethepak wrote:The pendulum was too far toward assault, now its balanced.

Tell that to green tide, power blob, footdar, WWP, khorne, or DoA armies.

If you think that leafblower-like armies weren't powerful enough in 5th edition, and that gunlines needed a serious leg-up in order for the game to be balanced, then you have a very strange way of looking at things. If you look at all of the assault armies that have shriveled up and have been replaced by flierspam and consider that balanced, then your definition of balanced must more or less not include close combat at all.

Gutting several fun and viable armies to make the boring, already overpowered ones even better seems like it's made the game less balanced to me, not more.

I really don’t run my Blood Angels as Hybrids, it’s Assault all the way.

Here is a typical List for me with them:



I have done well with them, except for one game were one of my Assault Squads failed a 3” Assault and the Orks successive in a 11” Assault.

 Anpu42 wrote:
I really don’t run my Blood Angels as Hybrids, it’s Assault all the way.

Here is a typical List for me with them:

Spoiler:

2000 Pts - Blood Angels Roster - Imperial Tigers

Captain in Power Armour, 155 pts (Jump Pack; Lightning Claw x2)

Honour Guard, 305 pts (Chapter Banner; Equip with Jump Packs)
1x Blood Champion (Combat Shield; Jump Pack; Bolt Pistol; Chainsword; Power Lance)
1x Sanguinary Novitiate (Jump Pack; Bolt Pistol; Chainsword)
3x Honour Guard (Jump Pack; Lightning Claw x2)

Sternguard Veteran Squad, 325 pts (Bolt Pistol x9; Combi-Plasmagun x7; Plasma gun x2)
1x Sergeant (Combi-Plasmagun; Lightning Claw x1)
Stormraven Gunship, 260 pts (Extra Armour; Twin-Linked Assault Cannon; 4x Bloodstrike Missiles; Typhoon Missile Launcher; Hurricane Bolters (each side))

Sanguinary Priest, 210 pts [One with each Assault Squads]
1x Sanguinary Priest in Power Armour (Blood Chalice; Jump Pack; Infernus Pistol; Power Maul)
1x Sanguinary Priest in Power Armour (Blood Chalice; Jump Pack; Plasma Pistol; Power Sword)

Assault Squad, 255 pts (Bolt Pistol x7; Chainsword x9; Infernus Pistol x2)
1x Sergeant (Melta Bombs; Lightning Claw x2)

Assault Squad, 255 pts (Bolt Pistol x7; Chainsword x9; Plasma Pistol x2)
1x Sergeant (Melta Bombs; Lightning Claw x2)

Terminator Squad, 235 pts
1x Sergeant (Storm Bolter; Power Sword)
3x Terminators (Power Fist x3; Storm Bolter x3)
1x Terminator with Assault Cannon & Chainfist (Assault Cannon; Chainfist)

I have done well with them, except for one game were one of my Assault Squads failed a 3” Assault and the Orks successive in a 11” Assault.

I'm thinking (and I'm not too familiar with the IG codex) that the issue we see here revolves less around assault, and more around assault outside of specific uses, coupled with terrain.

For assault with that BA list, you have a lot more mobility (IIRC) than a blob guard list would have, giving you a greater chance to exploit terrain and effectively use your Assaults. For the IG blob, that just becomes much harder, and as they lack the survivability of orks (in most cases) and they're more fiddly to keep around, they lose their ability to be assaulty. Overall it's more like 6th just made many armies lose the option to go heavily assault, without throwing in some funky allied situations.

Though it's always disappointing for armies to lose builds, I do think that I can understand the appeal, from some point of view, from an army that behaves in a certain way due to specialization. Of course, in a perfect world, the close combat specialists of IG (orgryn, etc.) would be much more viable on the whole, or there would be specific ways to kit out a squad with some form of bayonet set to really increase physical damage, based on an HQ. But I think this might be why there are so many different opinions on assault are on the forum, currently, and why these various arguments over assault's effectiveness still occur.

 Super Ready wrote:
To correct what was said earlier...going to ground normally only gives +1. The ADL's +2 is special that way.

Area terrain and defense lines both give +2 to cover saves for units going to ground.

Thats some pretty sweet shooting for an assault list though which highlights one of the problems with this debate. Some armies, like SM, can be assault heavy and not hurt much in the shooty department because they have plenty of options. Try to run an assault heavy Tyranid list and try to come close to having any firepower like that. Having some balance between assault/shooty is obviously necessary but Tyranids weren't given good shooting options so the assault nerf really hurts. Thats why Tyranids lists have become so cookie cutter, so few options to remain competitive. This could obviously change with a new codex, but my point is that pointing to a SM army doing well in anything particular doesn't mean anything as they really are the "do anything" army.

Actually Nids scare the holy out of me still. One good turn with the Ymgarl Genestealers can devastate any but my Storm Shield Units. Even the outflanking Genestealers have been giving trouble.
The one Nid player we have brings them out and into cover and then Assaults. Its hard for a 10 man Marine Squad to recover from 8-12 Rending Attacks.

I thinks assault is still viable, as long as you have covering fire, so that the enemy has to stay in cover and cannot bring their full firepower to bear. It takes more support and planning to get into combat, but I find it more gratifying when I make a successfully planned and executed charge, as well as when I counter and/or avoid an enemy's badly prepared and covered charge. In 6th edition, balance is more essential, and, although people will whine, eventually they will just have to revisit their lists from 5th edition and tweak or rewrite them.

60mm wrote:Thats some pretty sweet shooting for an assault list though which highlights one of the problems with this debate.

Exactly, if you can run an all-shooty army that's viable, but you can't run all-assaulty, needing to mix some guns in there to really make it work, then what you've got is a shooty game, despite the existence of close combat.

I have been having sort of the opposite problems than most are having. I spent most of 5th Edition running ground pounding Gunlines and winning. Now in 6th I thought I was going to do great things, but I keep getting chewed up by Assualting Armies and I run Space Wolves and Dark Angels.
I think part of it that I might be overconfident, and this might be causing me to make mistakes. The rest has to do with I keep experimenting with my Dark Angels builds.

Yes I do think the Assault Armies are very viable, it just will take the community to figure out how.

Oh I'm not saying Tyranids don't have some good units, I love Ymgarls. I'm just saying that while the shift between shooting/assaulting may not particularly impact many armies negatively and instead forces new tactics, which i agree with, some armies are designed soley for assault. Like Tyranids. Giving supporting fire, softening targets, etc are all tactics that don't mean much when most of your guns have 12"-18" ranges. By the time most of my stuff gets close enough to shoot, they may as well assault so they don't subsequently get assaulted. We do have a few units that have some ok dakka, but very few, hence why everyone and their mom runs Hive Guard and Dakka Flyrants.

"Planning" assaults is largely a joke when you never know if you'll make it 2" or 12", it's always a huge gamble. Make the distance and go for CC or fail the distance and get wiped by another turn of shooting/overwatch.

Like I said, a new codex could really change things, but I really hope they don't fix things by just making Tyranids more shooty. I fell in love with a swarm of claws and teeth, not a bunch of bugs with guns.

 60mm wrote:
Oh I'm not saying Tyranids don't have some good units, I love Ymgarls. I'm just saying that while the shift between shooting/assaulting may not particularly impact many armies negatively and instead forces new tactics, which i agree with, some armies are designed soley for assault. Like Tyranids. Giving supporting fire, softening targets, etc are all tactics that don't mean much when most of your guns have 12"-18" ranges. By the time most of my stuff gets close enough to shoot, they may as well assault so they don't subsequently get assaulted. We do have a few units that have some ok dakka, but very few, hence why everyone and their mom runs Hive Guard and Dakka Flyrants.

"Planning" assaults is largely a joke when you never know if you'll make it 2" or 12", it's always a huge gamble. Make the distance and go for CC or fail the distance and get wiped by another turn of shooting/overwatch.

Like I said, a new codex could really change things, but I really hope they don't fix things by just making Tyranids more shooty. I fell in love with a swarm of claws and teeth, not a bunch of bugs with guns.

I think our one regular Nid player got lucky in one since I grabbed 3-4 Black Reaches and he got most of the Termagants from that and his Tervigon. He also has a good number of Warriors with Ranged Weapons, that and his Biovores, so he had a pretty shooty Nid list before 6th.
What keeps kicking my as that stupid Doom of Malan’tai in a Pod. This is the closest thing to as broken unit I have seen in the game. One of those can clear a 6”r of a table quick. Of course this might be the fact my opponents have been good at doping it within 2-3 units 80% of time.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Well most cover tends to be 4+ anyway.

No, only ruins, ruined fortifications, and trenches. The bases on ruins are treated as area terrain, so you only get that 4+ is the building itself is blocking you.
At least in my local games this makes a huge difference as while there is plenty of space to have a squad or two on the second floor, a few squads or parts of squads will have to rely on that 5+ from just being on the base.