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It's commonly believed that 6th edition weakened assault while buffing shooting and correspondingly affected the viability of armies that utilize these two phases.
As a fledgling Farsight commander running dual fusion blades, I've come to realize some of the limitations placed upon this aspect of the game. What could be done to help the lot of Assault oriented armies? The following is what I propose to change and why.

Assault from reserves: - This rule change limits reserves and outflankers such as Snikrot and WWP armies.
-Assault from deep strike: - As an addition to the above, it'd help if deep strikers could also assault, using the current Heroic Intervention rules. As for the Vanguards, their rule could give them some other benefit such as immunity to overwatch, additional movement etc.

Overwatch - It is most unfortunate to have your charge fail due to losing too many models before the charge or taking shots even if you failed to make it into combat. I'd like to see overwatch be resolved as part of the assault rather than before it. Overwatch can be resolved at or before I10 and the wounds inflicted would not be added into assault results.

Assaulting through cover - To most armies this is a non-issue due to free assault grenades. However, not all units, or armies for that matter have access to them. Also, I think it's a bit strange that a jetbike that flies above trees or a monstrous creature that smashes through them has its initiative lowered so that's it's striking with hammers and axes. Instead of a flat reduction to I1, a -1I penalty would be more apt.

Are there any other suggestions or criticisms of my suggestions?

As a Nid player, I definitely sympathize with you. However, prior to 6th the game was pretty strongly in favor of melee. Yes the pendulum swung back a little too far, but let's make sure that we give the system a positive dynamic stability (engineer humor snicker snicker.)

Assault from reserves really needs to come back, but not from deep strike. Assaulting from deep strike is much more powerful than shooting from deep strike. Assault units are meant to be in close combat, which offers them protection from retaliation if done correctly. If a shooty unit deep strikes, they do their damage but normally get wiped out pretty hard.

I 100% agree with your idea for overwatch.

Assaulting through cover I've felt should be a -3 to your initiative. If you have move through cover you are instead -1. This applies across the board, because a jetbike would have to put in so much effort to avoid splattering on trees.


The other suggestion that I'd add is to change random charge lengths or eliminate them. If I were to change them (but not eliminate them) I would change it to D6 +3" to try to reel in the possibilities. There's nothing as demoralizing as rolling snake eyes on that critical charge that only needed 4."

 rabid1903 wrote:



The other suggestion that I'd add is to change random charge lengths or eliminate them. If I were to change them (but not eliminate them) I would change it to D6 +3" to try to reel in the possibilities. There's nothing as demoralizing as rolling snake eyes on that critical charge that only needed 4."

That weakens distance on average, perhaps D6+5?

I really, really, really hate how you can fire from Deep Strike (typically with full effect no less) but cannot assault from the same. It's a real double standard.

Assault from outflanking and such definitely needs to come back, and I love the idea of overwatch as part of an assault.

 rabid1903 wrote:
The other suggestion that I'd add is to change random charge lengths or eliminate them. If I were to change them (but not eliminate them) I would change it to D6 +3" to try to reel in the possibilities. There's nothing as demoralizing as rolling snake eyes on that critical charge that only needed 4."

The only reason charge distance is rendom is to make a game less predictable. I'd be totally ok about eliminating all "lolrandom" added by 6e, like random warlord traits, and random psy powers which both can play huge roll and are determined by luck at the start of the game - you can take something superawesome, like Endurance or Objuration, or piece of crap like Haemorrage. Same thing with random charge range - now both assaulter and assaulted feel uneasy - sometimes enemy would get loble sixes when charging on pistol range, sometimes you roll snake eyes and get owned in next shooting phase. To hell with this - i want more constistency - to-hit/wound/save/penetrate rolls and Ld tests provide the game enough random to not be a "Chess in Spess", more is overboard.

I also like the idea of changing Overwatch into crunch-wise I11 attack, so it wouldn't stop charges by killing front models. Though if you turn into the part of close combat, it also should be the part of leadership tests - losing your battle brothers to bolters isn't less demoralizing than losing them to chainswords.

 rabid1903 wrote:
However, prior to 6th the game was pretty strongly in favor of melee.

No. Just no. Look at the strongest armies in 5th. IG were shooty. Space Wolves, while capable of building hard melee units, were mostly shooty. Necrons were mostly shooty. GK were mostly shooty. Every single mechanized list was mostly shooty. Melee was stronger then than it is now, but it wasn't stronger than shooting.

Mezmerro,

I also prefer outright elminating it, but wanted to give a few options. I also don't think that players should be allowed to pre-measure, but that's a different topic.


AlmightyWalrus,

I respectfully disagree. The big three that dominated in 5th were IG, Space Wolves, and GK. Thing is, they didn't dominate because the rules favored them; instead they dominated because those codices were immensely powerful. Space Wolves weren't shooty, but Long Fangs were dirt cheap and powerful. IG had access to some of the best vehicles in the game in an edition where vehicles were king. GK had Psycannons and Psybolt ammo that pummeled the opponent at range plus Halberds that struck first if you happened to get into close combat with them.

So while the top three armies were shooty, the bloodiest of armies tended to be melee. If your goal was to table your opponent you generally went close combat.

To clarify, I do think 5th edition struck a pretty good balance with shooty vs assault. However, prior to 5th edition it's undoubtedly in favor of assault.

 acekevin8412 wrote:

Assault from reserves: - This rule change limits reserves and outflankers such as Snikrot and WWP armies.
-Assault from deep strike: - As an addition to the above, it'd help if deep strikers could also assault, using the current Heroic Intervention rules. As for the Vanguards, their rule could give them some other benefit such as immunity to overwatch, additional movement etc.

The assaulting from reserves sounds good, as for the assaulting from deepstrike I would probably put in conditions so that Vanguards can still remain special, maybe only flying infantry and jump infantry as well as jetbikes and FMC (pretty much anything that is deepstriking from above, not using a drop pod, and not teleporting) and if they either don't scatter, or they have to state who they will assault during the movement phase before they deepstrike, so if they scatter too far from their target they are out of luck. Think of it as though a unit of guys on jump packs are heading towards the ground, see a target, and resolve to attack them before they hit the ground, if they land too far away they will need to consider what to do next instead of instinctively charging another, closer unit.

Overwatch - It is most unfortunate to have your charge fail due to losing too many models before the charge or taking shots even if you failed to make it into combat. I'd like to see overwatch be resolved as part of the assault rather than before it. Overwatch can be resolved at or before I10 and the wounds inflicted would not be added into assault results.

Even though I play a very shooty army I think overwatch in its current form is counter-intuitive. Maybe the limitations should be (meaning everything below being taken, but if it meets one or more of the criteria it can shoot)
*If you do not move in the preceding movement phase
or
*You did not fire in your last shooting phase or fire any interceptor shots in your opponent's movement phase

to better represent that the guys are prepared to receive the charge, option two might be to take an initiative test, if your guys can react fast enough to gun down the enemy then great, if they are too slow, sucks for them.

Assaulting through cover - To most armies this is a non-issue due to free assault grenades. However, not all units, or armies for that matter have access to them. Also, I think it's a bit strange that a jetbike that flies above trees or a monstrous creature that smashes through them has its initiative lowered so that's it's striking with hammers and axes. Instead of a flat reduction to I1, a -1I penalty would be more apt.

This sounds good

As for my own suggestions, redo the to hit chart in close combat so some people can hit on a 2+ and only be hit on a 6. It is strange that a regular space marine is as good at fighting guardsmen as a chapter master with centuries of service, or Drazhar or Lelith are on par with a random warrior when fighting Tau. My suggestion is that if they are 2 levels or more above an enemy (eg. WS6 vs WS4) they hit their target on a 2+ and get hit on a 6 only. Would make many characters' high WS less redundant, great Lelith has a WS of 9 or whatever, too bad she will probably never assault anything with a WS higher than 7.

If you WS is double or more than the opponent - you are 2= to hit in CC, if its triple you can re-roll faile hits.

The present Lyleth misses Gretchin and worse on a 1or 2 is a disgrace :(

the old 'assault through cover with frag grenades' was the most sensible; it brought the guys you're charging down to I1 as well, making a lot more sense in doing so: you suppress the unit your charging with grenades, making them dive for cover... so the bush you were running through was that much easier. yeah, that makes sense. the essence of offensive grenades is that it hinders the guys you throw it at, they're not magical shrub-clearing devices.

the most important thing i'd change though would be to bring back outnumbering, even as extra hits after I1 for each factor you outnumber the opponent by (1 hit for 2x, 2 for 3x, 10 for 10x), and i'd definitely boost frag grenades to S5 against monsters, so conventional infantry stand a tiny chance against a wraithknight/ wraithlord/ wraithseer/ whatever T8 monster the next army gets.

Frags making assaukted unit I1 may make sense, but it would be way overpowered. The only thing I want to change with frags, is the fact that they work on your whole squad rather than only the guy who have grenades, which is a BS. Well, I lied - the secont I would want to change is a way to throw grenades - not one per unit, but one per five dudes un a unit or so, so big units canthrow moe grenades.

As for S5 against mosters, it is why you have krak grenades, at list as an option.

Oh, and the outnumbering might help, but may also broke the game with lolhuge blocks of conscripts, cultists, gaunts and boyz

As a player of older edition warhammer fantasy, the rules for stand and shoot (overwatch) (when I left many editions ago) was that you were unable to do it if the enemy charging you was withing half of its max charge distance - the charge is just too fast or close to effectively bring firearms to bear against.

One idea of how to do it in 40k would probably be if the enemy is within standard movement range, then they get no stand and shoot. (big buff to bikes and other fast units, though will help other units too)

Just a little change, but I wouldn't mind seeing it.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Just a little change, but I wouldn't mind seeing it.

Not a little. Not even close to little. Most thimgs still charge at 6" as the average charge range is 6.5", so it basically renders overwatch useless 90% time. Mind you, guns in 40k are much faster to arm and aim than in FB. For "really super fast they cannot even turn their guns on us" it should be 3" or maybe a half of standard movement speed (so Jumps and bikes would get 6"). Or maybe even 1/3 of max movement distance (so 2" and 4"). And for extra sauce one extra inch of no-overwatch for fleet and other reroll distance to charge abilities (Jumppack. IoK).

Neither assaulting from reserves nor assaulting from deep strike will actually make melee-oriented armies function properly. It will only make outflanking and deep striking melee units powerful, in my opinion to powerful.

The root of the problem lies elsewhere, most likely the fact that ranged weapons in this game simply have too great range.

 Mahtamori wrote:
The root of the problem lies elsewhere, most likely the fact that ranged weapons in this game simply have too great range.

They had the same range in 5e and in 4e. It's unreliability of charge increased by overwatch killing forward models and stupid changes to frag grenades that make close combat suck in 6e. ANd maybe also new disembarkation system, which prevents using vehicle as shield.

And even then fluff-wise weapon in 40 have horrible range. Like pistols can only be aimed at point-blank range and sniper rifles unable to hit the target 100 meters away, which is ridiculous. And to add even more silliness, trained soldiers could miss giant tank with 50% chance while being five meters away. Ranged weapon is already nerfed to the ground compared to whrer it must be from the point of realism.

IMO they should have made assaulting from deepstrike or outflank one D6 insted of two.
Units that are specalised in this like hammernators kommandos ect should get to roll two and pick the highest.
Some random is fine, but personnely i find warlord traits and psychic powers simply unfair, why should one player get the perfect trait and thye other get to modifiy reserves when they have none?!

OK, lets sum it up:
1) Fix minimum charge distance, snake eyes while rare, sucks a lot.
I suggest set minimum chage distance to:
- 4" for normal units
- 7" for beasts, cavalry, bikes and jump units who use jumppacks to charge
- +1 for fleet
- +1 for IoK, Hormagaunt leap, Banshee acrobatic, WAAAAGH!

2) Nerf owerwatch to stop it from preventing charges:
I suggest Overwatch would be resolved after assault move (basically I11 attack). It prevent assault only if at the start of assaulted unit I step there is no assaulter models within 3" - this would not occur any often even unless the squad is armed wit a load os flamers.
It also could be done that target cannot overwatch if the closest assaulter model is within 1/3 (round up) of charge range (the one they rolled, not the maximum one)

3) Charge from reserves/deepstrike: rather than cut it off entirelly or allowing we may choose the third way: allow chage from reserves/ds with D6 charge range (no minimum) and dangerous terrain test for deep strikers.

4) Charges through terrain. While I think I1 is justified, it could be soften to halving Initiarive (round up) - still harsh but not that harsh

5) Assault grenades: currenly they are worded the way only the models equipped with them get the benefits of no I pennalties, which is silly. Previously they worked for a whole squad, but I can suggest to move it even further:
- allow to throw N/5 (round up) grenades per turn , where N is a number of grenade-equipped models in squad.
- whether those grenades hit enemies or not all squads who would assault this squad at next assault phase would not suffer from I pennalties
This would make more sence and also encourage synergy, like with Tyranids spore-deployed Carnyfex could frag spine nearest enemy squad, allowing hormagaunts to assault them without I penalty - pretty much like daemons do now with skull cannon.

 Mr Morden wrote:
If you WS is double or more than the opponent - you are 2= to hit in CC, if its triple you can re-roll faile hits.

The present Lyleth misses Gretchin and worse on a 1or 2 is a disgrace :(

That would work, chapter masters hit guardsmen on a 2+ and reroll and hit on a 2+ against Tau. They are practically gods of warfare with centuries of combat experience, yet a small band of guardsmen have a good chance of surviving against him simply because 1/3rd of his attacks miss.

Models are oddly capable of moving extreme distances when assaulting, but no distance at all if they can't reach as well as shoot perfectly fine prior to assaulting.

Add to this that once in melee, you are typically left with a less powerful weapon than should you choose to shoot, unless you are strongly melee-oriented in which case your melee weapon is godlike in prowess making the melee game completely uninteresting and one-sided.

GW simply hasn't reviewed their own cinematics (or abstraction) properly. Just about everything is off with this game system.

Bottom line, though, is that you're complicating things. Also, you're removing shooting units' only defenses against melee units. If I had my way, then assaults would happen in movement phase, assault weapons would shoot at same time as overwatch instead of attacks (and none of this snap fire nonsense). Models that weren't able to make base to base would run and forfeit their melee attacks. And so on.
Essentially cap the distance a normal infantry could move at 12".

P.S. Initiative 1 isn't a penalty. It's a situational modifier that may sometimes be beneficial and sometimes detrimental. It really depends on equipment and model position whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

Mahtamori, close combat was never supposed to be a good way of killing things for the basic all-rounder "squads with assault rifles". Not in fluff, neither in crunch. For the tactical marines or, say, dire avengers it is always more of a tactical tool, like charging an enemy shooty squads or holding enemy close combat specialists, while your own shooty squads regroup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mahtamori wrote:
Add to this that once in melee, you are typically left with a less powerful weapon than should you choose to shoot, unless you are strongly melee-oriented in which case your melee weapon is godlike in prowess making the melee game completely uninteresting and one-sided.

Unlike shooting, melee is always a gamble, as usually most things happen on 4+ or 3+ and both sides deal their strikes. Even the most one-sided engagement can turn against you - i once charged 5 fire warriors with my 4 thousand sons and all of my rubric marines died in the first turn, and Sorcerer followed them next turn, while tau only lost their ShasUi

You're leaving out one of the most major fixes: I want to be able to assault out of stationary vehicles again.

 Mahtamori wrote:
P.S. Initiative 1 isn't a penalty. It's a situational modifier that may sometimes be beneficial and sometimes detrimental. It really depends on equipment and model position whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

When is Initiative 1 ever beneficial?

Waaaghpower wrote:
I want to be able to assault out of stationary vehicles again.

I never saw anyone doing it in 5E - most assaulty squads, like Berzerkers or Banshee move 12" intheir transport, disembark behind it and use it as a shield, charging at the next turn.
6e rendered this tactic useless, as you cannot disembark if the transport moved more than 12".

I want to be able to assault out of stationary vehicles again.

Yeah this is quite a common wish and I agree. Failing this, certainly more vehicles should gain the assault vehicle rule, or the option to buy it as an upgrade.

Many melee units in many codices have been nerfed in 6 due to the fact that they must take a round of shooting before they get into cc, as they can't charge out of a vehicle.
Howling banshee's are almost always inferior to scorpions as that 4+ save is useless when they are dumped into rapid fire range waiting that assault next turn.

Khorne berserkers cannot charge out of their rhino anymore, why not allow an assault doors upgrade for 5 pts, or merge the assault vehicle rules with demonic possession.

How about this:
If vehicle doesn't move, disembarked models can assault.
If vehicle move up to 6" disembarked models cannot assault unless it is assault vehicle.
If vehicle move up to 12" disembarkation move is capped at 2" instead of regular 6", disembarked models can only shoot snapshots and cannot run or assault no matter what.

Mezmerro wrote:Mahtamori, close combat was never supposed to be a good way of killing things for the basic all-rounder "squads with assault rifles". Not in fluff, neither in crunch. For the tactical marines or, say, dire avengers it is always more of a tactical tool, like charging an enemy shooty squads or holding enemy close combat specialists, while your own shooty squads regroup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mahtamori wrote:
Add to this that once in melee, you are typically left with a less powerful weapon than should you choose to shoot, unless you are strongly melee-oriented in which case your melee weapon is godlike in prowess making the melee game completely uninteresting and one-sided.

Unlike shooting, melee is always a gamble, as usually most things happen on 4+ or 3+ and both sides deal their strikes. Even the most one-sided engagement can turn against you - i once charged 5 fire warriors with my 4 thousand sons and all of my rubric marines died in the first turn, and Sorcerer followed them next turn, while tau only lost their ShasUi

That is largely anectodotal. More often than not it plays out equal or better than 3+ in favour of the assaulties.

A large portion of the problem is that most units do not have a way of escaping melee. Once stuck there they are forced to fight bad or worse odds until they are inevitably obliterated or get more bodies on the pile. Add to this that overwhelming numbers isn't an option unless you are a Loyalist Marine or Orks because more weak souls means larger body count and higher risk of breaking and being run over. And here is the largest risk of allowing melee too much leeway.

But this is all an aside, really. Some assault units need to be improved. I can't say all of them does. Some really don't because they can get around the drawbacks that melee have or simply do not cost enough for the problems to be an issue.

Buttons wrote:

 Mahtamori wrote:
P.S. Initiative 1 isn't a penalty. It's a situational modifier that may sometimes be beneficial and sometimes detrimental. It really depends on equipment and model position whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

When is Initiative 1 ever beneficial?

This has largely to do with positioning your sergeants, allowing them to get into melee, allowing special weapons to get positioned correctly and so on. Playing with high initiative sergeants I've ended up quite a few times with the sergeant blocked when I needed them in closer, they've been forced to get into base to base contact and thus have been forced to be removed as a casualty, and so on. More than this, the way armour (does not) work in GWs 40K means that the meaningful weapons tend to be initiative 1 regardless.

 Mezmerro wrote:
How about this:
If vehicle doesn't move, disembarked models can assault.
If vehicle move up to 6" disembarked models cannot assault unless it is assault vehicle.
If vehicle move up to 12" disembarkation move is capped at 2" instead of regular 6", disembarked models can only shoot snapshots and cannot run or assault no matter what.

I like your idea with a slight change to the second point:
If vehicled moved up to 6" models can assault with the following penalties:
Disorderly Charge, No benefit from assault grenades

In addition I also like the idea to make charges a little less random.
Assuming average rolls a 7-8" charge would be normal, so would 4+d6 sound good?

 acekevin8412 wrote:
I like your idea with a slight change to the second point:
If vehicle moved up to 6" models can assault with the following penalties:
Disorderly Charge, No benefit from assault grenades

It could and would be used to rush "tactical" units across the board and lock enemy shooty units with them - no +1A and I penalty means nothing if your goal is to silence their guns.
So it would brake more things than it fixes.

 Mezmerro wrote:

 acekevin8412 wrote:
I like your idea with a slight change to the second point:
If vehicle moved up to 6" models can assault with the following penalties:
Disorderly Charge, No benefit from assault grenades

It could and would be used to rush "tactical" units across the board and lock enemy shooty units with them - no +1A and I penalty means nothing if your goal is to silence their guns.
So it would brake more things than it fixes.

I think I understand what you're saying about tying up shooting using CC, but how and what does that break? Sorry if I sound stupid, but I'm still kinda new to the assault phase of the game.

 Mahtamori wrote:
Neither assaulting from reserves nor assaulting from deep strike will actually make melee-oriented armies function properly. It will only make outflanking and deep striking melee units powerful, in my opinion to powerful.

The root of the problem lies elsewhere, most likely the fact that ranged weapons in this game simply have too great range.

This is half of the problem, but the other half - the bigger half IMO - is that the simplistic way that BS works makes that long range shooty far too killy

I would love to see some sort of BS penalties for distance added in. I'd have no problem with long weapon ranges if the accuracy went down because of it. I'd also prefer to see range, rather than absolute "WITHIN 24" OR NOT" sort of stuff, to be a steadily decreasing accuracy until you 'run out' of ballistic skill. IE, fire a bolter at 12" on a 2+, 18" on a 3+, 24" on a 4+, 30" on a 5+, 36" on a 6+ or something like that.