Why is this the 'Edition of Shooting?'

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**ductvader**

Tau don't shoot very much...not like guard with guns tucked under therir guns that are already tucked under their guns.

Tau is all about the S5 weaponry...as opposed to the IG guard blobs of triple shotting lasguns for 4 points or whatever a piece

**Kain**

ductvader wrote:
Tau don't shoot very much...not like guard with guns tucked under therir guns that are already tucked under their guns.

Tau is all about the S5 weaponry...as opposed to the IG guard blobs of triple shotting lasguns for 4 points or whatever a piece

Ever seen how they can get three shots out of dirt cheap fire warriors? Or even more? And the dirt cheap kroot pouring out bolter fire out of their butts? And missilesides having truly absurd amounts of dakka?

Oh the Tau can most certainly bring out more Dakka.

**Martel732**

Tau...... don't shoot very much? I need to pass that memo to all my dead ASMs.

**ductvader**

For sure they have force multipliers...but I have never been impressed by the weight of fire.

Personally I could just land 20 devilgants on Tau and outdo them

Don't get me wrong...I am not saying they don't shoot a lot. They're just easily outdone in number of shots.

**Kain**

ductvader wrote:
For sure they have force multipliers...but I have never been impressed by the weight of fire.

Personally I could just land 20 devilgants on Tau and outdo them

Don't get me wrong...I am not saying they don't shoot a lot. They're just easily outdone in number of shots.

36 S7 AP4 shots, per heavy slot, every turn.

That is an unholy load of high-mid strength shots.

**ductvader**

IG, GKs, DA, Orks, Bugs, can all get guns cheaper...and so they have more

I don't know what the issue is...I am not in any way saying Tau sucks at shooting...they're really good...at mid strength

But they lack number of shots in general...so assault based armies that don't care whether you're shooting a lasgun or a lascannon...work better against them.

**Kain**

ductvader wrote:
IG, GKs, DA, Orks, Bugs, can all get guns cheaper...and so they have more

I don't know what the issue is...I am not in any way saying Tau sucks at shooting...they're really good...at mid strength

But they lack number of shots in general...so assault based armies that don't care whether you're shooting a lasgun or a lascannon...work better against them.

I'm not sure if an Ethereal and fireblade can stack, but if they do, you can toss out 48 shots from a firewarrior squad of 12 for a low price.

And with just the Ethereal, all the Tau near him can also fire an extra shot at rapid fire range. 36 shots per unit at 15'? Crap that's enough to completely wipe out a Gant squad before they can even get close enough to fire with some markerlights.

**Glocknall**

ductvader wrote:
IG, GKs, DA, Orks, Bugs, can all get guns cheaper...and so they have more

I don't know what the issue is...I am not in any way saying Tau sucks at shooting...they're really good...at mid strength

But they lack number of shots in general...so assault based armies that don't care whether you're shooting a lasgun or a lascannon...work better against them.

This is actually wrong. Certain Tau lists might not bring weight of fire, namely plasma/melta crisis lists, but most competitive Tau players are bringing lots of cheap kroot who shoot better than marines w/ markerlights, firewarriors, misslesides, etc.

When thinking within the context of assault, an Ethereal can add an extra shot to all Kroot, FW, and PF units withing 12". Combined with supporting fire makes it nearly impossible to nakedly charge a Tau gunline.

**Purple Saturday**

I primarily played 2nd edition and 3rd edition, but I've played a few games of 6th edition now. I don't believe there is a problem with 6th edition being a shooting edition. 3rd edition was definitely an assault edition (I missed all of 4th and most of 5th, though 5th seemed also to favor shooting).

Random charge range brings back some of the unpredictable fun that used to course through 40k in 2nd edition.

What does bother me, as a prime example of GWs often lazy rules design, is the way they are treating Overwatch so far. The rule itself works fine: units being charged get in a hasty round of fire at incoming opponents--no heavy weapons, very low probability to hit, more a psychological deterrent than anything. But, as in the case with Tau, to show how "shooty" the army is, not only do they get awesome shooting units, they get upgrades to their Overwatch capabilities that are super easy to take full advantage of.

As other "shooty" armies come out, they will no doubt also have ways to bolster their Overwatch capabilities in superior or more cost effective ways. GW will then likely give purer assault armies (Orks and Tyranids) ways to either negate these bonuses or units that can circumvent Overwatch. Each army will in turn be the star of this new sub-phase.

If they had planned ahead, they could have gotten by without having to escalate these capabilities. But that is their MO, always has been to a degree, sometimes it's just much more blatant. And that is frustrating.

**Ailaros**

Time to shake this out again:

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.

And that's just the changes in 6th ed. 5th ed also whacked assaulty armies a lot, what with the introduction of real transports acting as automatic speedbump, the lack of consolidating from one close combat into another, etc.

One could make the argument that close combat was overpowered in 4th edition, but assault needed in that case to be toned down a bit, not had its manhood chopped off with a pair of rusty pliers and being forced to watch romantic comedies.

**AlmightyWalrus**

I'd argue that it isn't assault that's "dead", but rather MEQ assault that's dead. If you're not a Thunderwolf Cavalry-dude or a Juggerlord/Spawn you just aren't fast enough to get into CC unless you're in a Land Raider, which is likely to cost more than the squad inside. Templars generally aren't fast or durable enough to get into CC with more than a few lucky surviving marines, even with Righteous Zeal, and Blood Angels, while faster, don't have the numbers. The massive proliferation of MEQ-murdering munitions in 6th edition (Heldrakes, Riptides, every shooting unit in the Eldar Codex) further serves to dampen the power of the Templars and Blood Angels. Space Wolves don't really care, they're pretty damn awesome at shooting, get T-wolf Cavalry and 2+ save sergeants to tank stuff and have (arguably) the best Psykers in the game.

**StarTrotter**

I wouldn't say that either. No assault is truly dead. It just arguably isn't as good as simply shooting. Look at orks. Most orks seem to be opting for shooting bar elite assault units (bikers) which are similar to SS/TH hammernators and juggerlords in the fact the rest isn't really worth it.

**anonymou5**

Assault isn't dead. This is a shooting edition, but assault still works. Assault marines may be dead, but that's more a function of marines in general getting a huge nerf

I have run a pack of flesh hounds in at least fifty games now, and only once have they failed to eliminate at least one unit in assault. Which, ironically, was against another daemon player who used his three grinders to dictate my Hound's movement and then killed the squad with a pair of Lords of Change (in assault no less.)

I've had games where they took a gun lines worth of fire and were forces to kill something small and weak (scouts, reave jetbikes, etc), but even then, the fear of assault bought my other units time to maneuever

**rigeld2**

Peregrine wrote:
Madcat87 wrote:
In SC2 it doesn't make sense that a group of marines with rifles can shoot down a battleship in orbit but it works gameplay wise.

No, it's just a stupid gameplay element that only "works" if you completely ignore the fluff behind it. 40k is a game that's supposed to be all about the fluff, so maintaining some degree of realism is important. And the simple fact is that assault only happens in 40k because the game is not true 28mm scale. If you re-design the game so that movement and shooting distances are both at the correct 28mm scale assault will almost never happen.

Most people are aware of your hatred of assault. We're sorry you dislike it. Could you please drop the off topic rants long enough for us to have a real discussion?

**mortetvie**

Assault is still very much alive, it's just different. There is a lot more shooting to worry about so Assault needs to be worked out more carefully and is still very powerful as you can't be shot while in combat and you have a chance at wiping out a whole unit with just a failed morale test and a successful sweeping assault roll..

Simply blindly charging at the first target that presents itself doesn't quite cut it like it did in 3rd/4th so the better players with assault elements in their armies are the ones that successfully maximize the assault phase while the other players cry while they utilize bad tactics or just have bad dice I guess...

**dracpanzer**

To me the biggest problem with overwatch is that "go to ground" still allows a unit to fire it. The biggest problem with assaults is that if you do actually get into it, it isn't usually as effective as you'd like it to be. While they should be hard to pull off, a successful assault should be decisive, that round, One side or the other should get wiped out, or shoved off the terrain they're on. Maybe skip the Leadership check for the loser and just move to sweeping advance? If a unit gets wiped out in your army by a bunch of chain axe wielding maniacs, units close by should take notice, and be afraid. Maybe a successful sweeping advance causes Leadership checks in nearby units?

Take overwatch away from units that have gone to ground, and allow assault type armies ways to pin through volume of fire or special effect.

As it is though, my Daemons are pretty good at assaults even amidst a horde of Tau and Eldar armies. Just wish the ability to do so didn't come with such a huge model increase.

**Seaward**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I'd argue that it isn't assault that's "dead", but rather MEQ assault that's dead. If you're not a Thunderwolf Cavalry-dude or a Juggerlord/Spawn you just aren't fast enough to get into CC unless you're in a Land Raider, which is likely to cost more than the squad inside. Templars generally aren't fast or durable enough to get into CC with more than a few lucky surviving marines, even with Righteous Zeal, and Blood Angels, while faster, don't have the numbers. The massive proliferation of MEQ-murdering munitions in 6th edition (Heldrakes, Riptides, every shooting unit in the Eldar Codex) further serves to dampen the power of the Templars and Blood Angels. Space Wolves don't really care, they're pretty damn awesome at shooting, get T-wolf Cavalry and 2+ save sergeants to tank stuff and have (arguably) the best Psykers in the game.

I think this is the most accurate assessment. There are still assault armies that do well, they're just not under the umbrella of the most popular faction in the game, which makes it seem as though assault in general sucks.

As an SM (and variant) player who enjoys assault, I can admit what I really mean is that I would find it very difficult to run an assault-oriented Marine army in the current edition.