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So, this could just be my current local meta, but it seems to me that melee seems horribly undervalued almost everywhere on the interwebs. Why is it so bad? I'll admit that Overwatch can be a pain, but Close Combat is still a very viable asset if you use it properly. So why the hate?

Because of the casualties melee troops take just getting to assault range due to increased firepower of 6th edition. The overwatch is just insult to injury.

Furthermore, the people where I play know how to game the assault system and feed you a weak unit to assault so then you are just standing around to be shot off the table on their next turn.

I havent played alot since sixth been focusing on painting. The games i have played though with my SW and orks was bad. Im a huge fan of close comba the having to roll for charge distance sucks. I come out over cove get overwatched then fail distance. Now my unit is in the open and screaming blow me up.

The fact that overwatch losses have to come off the front of the unit has made several of my assault fail. Going from say a 5" charge to an 8" charge is non-trivial.

Due to the constantly changing metagame and netlisting...shooting is much easier for the average player to win with by the power of Mathhammer while assault requires more depth of thought and strategy than can be displayed overall, or at least via text on the internet.

I often find that my most difficult and intelligent opponents are playing assault armies.

I'm just wondering what they are going to Orks and their shooting abilities (if anything) when they finally are up for a revision. I hate being overwatched but the rulebook makes a great statement about it: "No army stands idly by while someone is charging in."

The current wound allocation system and overwatch means that surefire assaults may not happen at all because your losses put you out of charge range. Random charge distances only further add insult to injury.

There are many things that have made assault and movement much better than it was before as well. Randomization of wounds, challenges, cover with 25% of a model hidden. An increased threat range on assaults...fleet working for running as well...

I personally believe the biggest/only real downside that assault got in 6th is focus fire.

 ductvader wrote:
There are many things that have made assault and movement much better than it was before as well. Randomization of wounds, challenges, cover with 25% of a model hidden. An increased threat range on assaults...fleet working for running as well...

I personally believe the biggest/only real downside that assault got in 6th is focus fire.

I ultimately think that fleet was nerfed in the long run. I miss my trygons being able to run and assault.

The outflanking nerf was also a colossal hit to my genestealers.

 Kain wrote:
The outflanking nerf was also a colossal hit to my genestealers.

Fair point.

However I find myself now being able to get the charge with all my units...Turn 2.

I don't know if I was the only one in 5th where turn 3 was the biggest turn of the game...but fleet being able to move my units even faster turn one and then boosting my assaults to reliable 8-9" range...its turn 2 almost every game.

Not to mention the amazing effect this has on Slaanesh, Hormagaunts, and Battle Focused Eldar.

I think the meta has certainly shifted towards small hard hitters as opposed to big swampy squads, (EG Nobz over Boys,) but if you use combat right it has loads of benefits. And to a couple of arguments...
'It's too easy too feed you a weak unit to assault...' So don't fall for the bait. You've got some shooting squad somewhere, right?Take care of the weak unit. If they asassault you with the weak squad, then you can kill them. If you're talking about tarpits, well, just make sure you don't walk into the painfully obvious trap.
'Overwatch makes assaults harder/taking models from the front...' If you're losing more than an inch or so from overwatch, something is wrong with your model placement or you are charging Tau and EVERYONE is overwatching. Besides, the average charge range is higher and any true assault unit typically has a rule making it better. (IE fleet.) It's true that bad dice can kill you, but that's true of anything.
'You take casualties from shooting before you even make it into combat...' Well, yeah. You weren't ever exempt from shooting just because you were an assault squad. How is this a new problem?

"However I find myself now being able to get the charge with all my units...Turn 2. "

Your opponents are forgetting to move backwards. I know my BA basically run away now in many of my builds. I surrender all the objectives and then try to shoot people off of them. Given the crappy throw weight of the BA, it's not that great, but its better than sending in gimped ASM to be mulched by pulse rifles and shoota boyz and now guardians.

Martel732 wrote:
"However I find myself now being able to get the charge with all my units...Turn 2. "

Your opponents are forgetting to move backwards. I know my BA basically run away now in many of my builds. I surrender all the objectives and then try to shoot people off of them. Given the crappy throw weight of the BA, it's not that great, but its better than sending in gimped ASM to be mulched by pulse rifles and shoota boyz and now guardians.

I will say that while BA have this advantage with increased mobility, many armies are much more static for full firing effect...or need that dangerous 24" threat range to be effective

No assault from reserves, overwatch, random charges and removing from the front really hurt assault and benefits shooting/gunlines a lot. Assault is still good if you can get there since the armies that do well at shooting generally suck at assault (Tau, IG)

I don't think there's much stopping Tau or Eldar from backing up and firing. The change to rapid fire is also and indirect nerf on assault.

It doesn't help that marine ASM squads aren't the most efficient units ever to begin with. 3 attack on the charge is really bland.

Honestly assault got hit kind of hard in 6th edition, and overwatch is only a small part of why that is. First of all, I felt like competitive 5th edition was more focused on shooting already, with assault lists really taking a back seat on the higher levels of game play. This is just because there are so many good shooting units, and its easier to focus fire on enemy targets with shooting oriented lists. Lists like the infamous leafblower and razor spam were both shooting centric.

But 6th Edition, far from equalizing assault armies, hit them with sevearl nerfs, which rendered pure assault squads more liabilities than anything else. I will list them off in no order of particular importance.

1) casualties from the front. In 5th when a unit got shot the casualties were generally removed from the back, allowing an assault unit to push forwards despite losses. Now whenever an assault unit gets shot at it must remove its casualties from the front- this pushes the unit further away each time they are shot and requires them to waste valuable movement regaining lost ground if they want to charge

2) Transport nerf. Before you could assault out of a transport that had not moved, or out of a wrecked transport. You can no longer do either meaning only open topped or assault ramp transports can reliably be used to get into assault.

3) random charge distance. If you fail a charge your assault unit will have its balls hanging in the wind, open to the full brunt of your opponents shooting.

4) Overwatch. this isn't too bad on its own, but it is amplified by reason 1, and reason 3. So casualties are removed from the front, meaning each loss from overwatch increases the charge roll needed, and in the case of a failed charge, your unit eats an overwatch, an additional round of shooting, and yet another overwatch.


The end result of this is that dedicated assault units are pretty much delegated to counter assault roles, and assault as a whole will only really happen at moments of opportunity between two primarily shooting focused units. That said, there are some great assault units currently, Spawn with a Chaos Lord are fast enough to catch things quickly, and lay the smack down, Daemons can overwhelm the opponent in melee, and things like Bikers are tough and durable enough to see combat against most foes.

But lists entirely reliant on close combat to win are severely gimped overall.

There's another issue for many assault armies too - the inability to assault out of transports. This hurt all marine armies, especially when combined with hull points turning your rhinos into death-traps.

Add this to overwatch, random charge distances (specially through cover), improved rapid fire weapons, Tau JSJ or Eldar battle focus, and casualty removal from the front of unit, and it all adds up to an edition that very much works against assault armies that aren't extremely fast or incredibly tough.

The casualty removal change in particular is devastating - this effectively pushes you away from the enemy, meaning that it requires more turns to reach them. Bunch up to reduce your 'push-back' distance, and you become very vulnerable to blast templates.

There are several nerfs to assault

Random charge
Over watch
Rapid fire changing allowing kiting to be easier
No assaulting out of reserve
No assaulting out of transports.
Removal of fearless wounds
Change to regroup rules (can't chase people off the table any more)
Essentially there is no way to assault in the game without most enemies getting a minimum of 2 chances to shoot you (shooting phase + over watch). Which means you need durable or multiple assaulting units to get into the fight.

Throw armies like tau into the mix who remove a lot of the anti over watch tactics, cover etc. Makes it very difficult for units charging up the table.

How is the removal of fearless wounds a nerf to assault? It let my Hormagaunts be much better mobile tarpits.

Depends on which side you stand on, Kain, I much enjoyed removing ATSKNF/fearless unit with my I6+ DE in 5th ed. Standing on the DE side, I see it as a nerf. I could totally understand how it's a buff for the other side though!

On that note, ATSKNF denying sweeping advance, being counter-tarpitted by marines is dumb! EDIT: Well, it's not, I can see how marines need ATSKNF, but I hate them, so there's that!

It is really a combination of rules:
The loss of by unit cover and focus fire. This means progressing across most boards will be painful and you will tend to take more casualties in your units than in 5th.

Front line casualties. This means that if you spread out to avoid blasts then I will kill more distance than you move most turns. Tau and IG use this to huge effect as they have a good mix of volume of fire and blasts.

These two points killed horde assault units and are why you do not see power blobbs.

No assault out of transports. This killed almost all CWE assault units and most other assault lists centered around transports. The exception being open topped and assault ramps which many armies don't get.

No assault from reserves. This destroyed DS and outflanking assault lists as they have to eat a turn of fire before even getting a chance to assault. This killed DE webway portal lists and many of the BA lists.

Variable charge distances did increase the overall charge threat range but they make it a much riskier proposition due to...

Overwatch, actually I consider this to be the least of the problems. The reserves, front rank casualties, and transports are much bigger problems for my lists. It can however kill a model or two and leave you outside assault range.

The meta shift to plasma did not help.

This basically leaves uber monsters and units fast/tough enough to get into combat. Unfortunately these things can have their own problems and not all armies have access to them.

I personally would not say assault is dead as is commonly stated on the internet. In the right lists and correct situations it can be extremely useful. You just cannot play solely to assault like you used to be able to do.

Assault is particularly nice against units that rely on cover saves for survivability.

I dont understand this thing about Orks having trouble in this edition. I just started this hobby at the beginning of 6th and have been using Orks, and have been having some awesome success.

Before I got my nob biker deathstar list together, a lot of my wins cam from just assaulting boyz out of Battlewagons or trukks. I found the BWs to be much better.

But to the OP. I think shooting should be stronger. You ever heard the "bring a knife to a gun fight" metaphor? Guns should prove strong, and if you charge across a field to an army of people with guns, you will get shot. That's real world warfare.

So if you want to assault, you need to figure out target priority, decoys, transportation, making use of cover/terrain.

You can get there, and you can kill. Just don't charge straight in. Thats what I tried to do with my Black Templars. They didnt make it. blobs got massacred. I am now working on deepstriking termies and drop pods to make the assault for these stronger.

Since 6th hit, none of the true assault armies have had a new codex. It's been all the shooty guys, or shooty/assault capable armies. Im pretty sure that when orks or BA get a new dex they'll have plenty of new tools to help them out.

Generally speaking though, I agree it's harder to assault with any old assault capable unit.

I don't understand this idea that charge distance is random.

It's not random...its probabilities...just like everything else in the game.

If it were truly random you would have an equal chance of assaulting 2" vs 7" vs 10".

Knowing the probabilities and how USRs affect them has in fact increased the assault range and threat of most assault units; meaning units dedicated to assault...this discounts most MEQ


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Look at Hormagaunts in particular...3 dice for run choose the highest...fleet lets you reroll each one individually...that almost a guarunteed 6...crazy movement...then you get to the assault turn and you're very likely to get a 9 or 10 with fleet.

In fairness it should also be pointed out that there are a couple of improvements to assault - you can use grenades against MCs, and vehicles are easier to hit in CC.

Krak grenades for the Emprah!

If anyone here has failed a 5" charge against a unit in the open, you know exactly why this is the shooting edition.

 ductvader wrote:
I don't understand this idea that charge distance is random.

It's not random...its probabilities...just like everything else in the game.

If it were truly random you would have an equal chance of assaulting 2" vs 7" vs 10".

Knowing the probabilities and how USRs affect them has in fact increased the assault range and threat of most assault units; meaning units dedicated to assault...this discounts most MEQ


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Look at Hormagaunts in particular...3 dice for run choose the highest...fleet lets you reroll each one individually...that almost a guarunteed 6...crazy movement...then you get to the assault turn and you're very likely to get a 9 or 10 with fleet.

The probability of making a charge is improved as you get closer, yes, but there is still a random element to it, until the edition where everything from movement distance to shooting distance are measured in dice, I wouldn't quite say it's "just like everything else in the game" because it isn't, if I move my blasterborns within 18", I know for certain that I'll hit, I wouldn't have to move to 12-13" just to get a better chance at landing a shot. The impact of this, however, varies from army to army.

My DE wyches, for example, actually lost some distance compared with 5th ed: due to how fragile they're, they're often deployed on transport and only disembarking for assault, and because I wouldn't want to fail an assault, leaving the unit in the open for a full turn of shooting, likely in the enemy's double-tap/assault range, I'd have to make sure I disembark within a safe distance(8" in the open, according to mathammers, rounded down, but +/- based on your personal taste), in 5th ed however, I'd be able to disembark at 9" and still feel safe(I have 67% chance at making that distance), so for my fragile wyches, I can't really take advantage of this "possible long range charge" even with fleet considered.

On the other hand, let's say Necrons wraiths + d-lord combo, I can say with certainty that I can take advantage of the "possible long range charge", because the unit is a lot tougher, even though it doesn't have fleet, I have no worries on overwatch hurting them, and since they're in the open already...

Now, you may say "but your wyches can shoot this edition!", and I'll reply: so could they last edition, the option to shoot and assault has always been there, but the option to run and assault is taken from us, so it's not like that wyches(or other assault units) have "earned" the ability to shoot and assault, they are just shooting and assaulting because they can no longer run and assault. And of course, there are units that can't even shoot, incubi or.... Hormagaunts...

Which bring us to your appended 2nd post about hormagaunts. You know what else is better than "almost a guarantee 6"? A guarantee 6. Think of 5th ed's static 6" charge as a guarantee 6, sure there is the random of run distance which you don't get a reroll on(unless USR), but you always get a 6, you can never fail a 6" charge, whereas this edition, you can, with or without fleet, if your fleet can "almost guarantee a 6", you're a wizard, a terrible one at that, why learn a spell that only grant a 6 on a reroll, and it's not even 100%? Go back to your wizard school and ask for a refund.

The comment abourt almost guaranteed 6 referred to run alone and how the army is now even faster in the movement phase as well as the assault phase.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And as for the bladestorm comment, you don't know for certain you'll hit...you could miss every shot...just like you could roll a 2 for a charge...unlikely but possible