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After a few dozen of games this summer I've noticed one thing. The 6Th edition is a shooting game. It doesn't matter how mobile you are , how do you maintain assault etc. It all comes down to one thing - how much shooting can You get in one phase.
Assault and close quarters army (BA, SW) are no match for any army that can just stand and shoot with tens of shoots per unit.
The vehicle units got nerfed, so all i see on the battlefied are units that stand in cover and shoot.
Playing againts a Tau or CSM gunline can be fun from time to time. But i get the impression, that currently that is the only way to play and win.
Many players around me got bored with beeing shot at, so they switch theirs army to shooting (like dark eldar with 3 ravagers, 5 venoms, and 3 riders with splinter rifle troops inside), or they take a guard detachement.
Is there a way to work around it, or is it just the way it will be this edition, at least till all the new codexes will come up?

I do not entirely agree that this edition is purely shooting, but there are a lot of changes that hit assault armies hard. Changes to rapid-fire and snap-shots made shooting armies better, while nat being able to charge from reserve, loss of +1 attack if you assault multiple targets and overwatch made CC more dangerus. However, assault is not completely dead, especially if you don't play purely competitive armies.

It's also worth noting that none of the real CC armies (orks, nids, BA)have had a codex yet (apart from demons, who seem to rely on shooting/psychic and FMCs), so I imagine they will get something to change them for the better in CC. The best example of a 6th ed CC army is Black Templars as part of C:SM, who gained Crusader (meaning they can SA almost anything that isn't ATSKNF and run better), as well as being cheaper, having the option for true hidden (can't be challenged) power weapons, and this is something I expect to see more of in future CC codexes.

Precision shots can still snipe out your special melee weaponry, and shooting, especially close-ranged, has been buffed a lot, particularly with so much cover-improving wargear around and the responding cover ignoring weaponry spam, which means codex creep has entirely accidentally (not, this sells shooty models) made melee units weak.

Potential changes to melee units in more focused codicies to help them get into combat will swing the balance back, so even most shooty armies will need a counter-assault element.
(I've heard the idea of overwatch prevention, improved saves against shooting, and un-removeable cover saves bandied about. Who knows if any of those will make it into new dexes, and frankly, dropping the cost of melee units would work better, but hey, ideas exist)

I've found it's also a drive your Deff-Rolla over da squishy umies & Tau sort of game too

Shooting is certainly good in 6th Ed. and Overwatch can be effective, but I still love piling in my Orks and will continue to do so.

I don't think it's a shooting only game in the slightest. I think previous editions actually favored assault, and that 6th edition has brought the game back into balance. I run a fairly balanced marines list, and the assault portion of my army hasn't really suffered much at all. I require a bit more foresight in some of my tactical decisions, but that's okay.

6th edition is most often won not in the assault or shooting phase, but in the movement phase.

Orks didn't suffer so much. Large mobs can produce a ton of fire. And with mathhammer - a large mob can kill a lot of an enemy during Overwatch.

SM do well ( even without new dex) because they are flexible and can have a lot of shooting.

Many battles i have seen look the same. Deploy, stand , shoot. Next turn, shoot etc
Many people have a very competitive builds, that consist almost only of shooting units.

Assault got hit *hard*, unless you play Necrons (Wraiths, Destroyer Lords, Chariot Lords, etc.. all pretty much don't care about 6th edition nerfs) or have access to some kind of FMC (preferably two or three).

More than ever, if you want to play an assault army, you have to put *all* your eggs in one basket, in order to have as many threats as possible. If you try to assault with a single squad, or even two or three, you'll get tabled. It's go big or go home.

Another thing that works is counter-assault. Have a strong assault squad wait in cover for ennemy assaulters or close-range soldiers to come near, and assault them.

Btw, most people will tell you "Assault isn't dead ! People just don't use enough LOS blocking terrain !", which is plain stupid. At my LGS, we always use *tons* of LOS blocking terrain and it still doesn't matter : very few assault armies manage to cross the board now that casualties are removed from the front and that mechanised assault has been nerfed.

There is a lot of units immune to LOS blocking. Barrage guns or tau rockets...

It does favor shoting armies ,but there are some armies that aren't pure shoting like FMC demons too. But there are people that still play assault armies . I don't envy them , but I understand that after buying an army in 5th ed it is very hard to switch to something else.

As long as your codex, no matter how old, can do a shooty build - youre ok.
But wih fast assault armies, like BA - you will get nowhere. Your fast transports just deliver the units faster to be shoot.

Well, the top tier armies Tau and Eldar are mostly shooty. The same holds for Necrons. But they have some cc elements like the Canoptek creatures. In fact, its basically a shooty game.

My Black Templars, Chaos Marines and Orks are all assault-oriented. And yes, assault tends to stink because you get shot to pieces before getting there.

Not exclusively, but shooting is much better off for a variety of reasons that have been covered above.

The best example I have of assault armies getting nerfed is a game I played with a friend recently. He runs an assaulty Khorne army full of Berserkers, Kharn, etc which was charging full-tilt at a gunline of Cultists, Noise Marines and a couple of Vindicators. On the turn where he would have made contact with two of his three Berserker Squads, he rolled snake eyes and a three for their assault ranges (he needed about three and five inches, respectively). Needless to say, they were dust next turn.

While he was extremely unlucky, the fact is that these would have been automatic combats in 5th. That measure of unreliability coupled with the buffs shooting received makes assault armies a lot harder to play.

for every snake eyes you roll in assault, you will also roll a 12, so that argument is a bit silly really. People don't complain that assualt is overpowered because they get to assault 12'' so to argue the opposite because they occasionally roll a 2 is silly.

Assaulters also get a free 3'' pile in at the start of the phase that they simply did not get in fifth, and all models get an attack bonus rather than simply those that are in base contact.

Having said that,, the increase in tne power of shooting, plus the restrictions on assaulting from a transport, have done serious damage to assaulters in fifth. I'd be surprised if the new ork and nid codexes didn't have some tricks that allowed huge powerful assaults.

xruslanx wrote:
for every snake eyes you roll in assault, you will also roll a 12, so that argument is a bit silly really. People don't complain that assualt is overpowered because they get to assault 12'' so to argue the opposite because they occasionally roll a 2 is silly.

Assaulters also get a free 3'' pile in at the start of the phase that they simply did not get in fifth, and all models get an attack bonus rather than simply those that are in base contact.

Having said that,, the increase in tne power of shooting, plus the restrictions on assaulting from a transport, have done serious damage to assaulters in fifth. I'd be surprised if the new ork and nid codexes didn't have some tricks that allowed huge powerful assaults.

Not really, because no-one will ever try an assault at 12" unless they're REALLY desperate and are otherwise losing. Remember that in order to try an assault at that distance, you've given up your ability to run and get closer for next turn, or into cover... You've probably also given up shooting - these days it's usually too dangerous to shoot prior to an assault because enemy casualties means further to charge and more chance of messing it up.

My daemons would have to disagree about the game being a shooting game... there are plenty of abilities, and high ws models to have a satisfying clash. Shooting does take precedent... but melee hasn't been eliminated.

Overwatch, losing bonus attacks for assaulting multiple units, not being able to assault from deepstrike, reserves, or most vehicles, random charge distance, and challenges have pretty much destroyed the assault game in 40K. Throw in flyers and it's incredibly difficult to get any unit into close combat, much less an effective unit that will be able to kill stuff in close combat. When a player is able to make his snap shots/overwatch after the charge is declared but before any models are moved, there is the very real possibility of killing enough models that your charge will fail.

Meanwhile, shooting has increased dramatically with overwatch, precision shots, more and more armies with Ignores Cover style weapons, and the seemingly incomprehensible monstrous creatures that GW has seen fit to give all the armies in 6th so far with the exception of Space Marines. Gotta ally up for that! Throw in hull points and a unfavorable vehicle damage chart that makes taking anything less then AV 12 very risky, and you can see why assault armies right now are suffering. Even if you win the assault, and somehow sweep the enemy unit, your unit is now standing there in front of all the guns of your opponent. Do you think he is going to ignore that threat?

Assault units might as well be called suicide units in 6th edition.

If the Orks and Bugs somehow gain rules to overcome the above disadvantages, and I don't see how they can without breaking the game, then all the armies up to this point will be crying "foul and fail, GW!". They had the best opportunity to try a rule or two with the Eldar codex, as most of the Aspect Warriors are close combat orientated, or the Chaos Space Marine codex with it's funky melee units. GW didn't, thus reinforcing in my mind that 6th Edition is the Shooty Edition, and those armies that can shoot the best/most will win.

My prediction is that the Bugs will gain a super shooty MC, more so then what they already have, and most of the rest of the army will be CC orientated. For the Orks? Who knows. They always seem to be the wild cards in every edition, but again, I bet they stay mostly CC, and they will have a couple "Big 'ins" that will have very strong shooting.

You are right. The assault isn't a good option in the 6th edition.
Besides - clode quarters units, like Space Wolves have lost their main bonus, cause nobody cares to assault if they can shoot.

The game is a shooty game now, as people said. It's the EASY BUTTON for most casual players out there, so they think they are doing good and buy more.

Just look at the tourney scenes, they are mostly shooty armies, so hence the EASY BUTTON for people who need to win.

People who need to win, will buy more. So it looks like 6th edition did what it was suppose to do. Make people buy more stuff when they already have what they want.

Pretty smart move on GW part. Make people buy what they don't need.

How many Tau and Eldar were in the tourny scene before? Not many. Now? Alot. That is alot of sales that GW wouldn't have had before.

Who knows, maybe 7th will be assaulty or at least less shooty just like how 6th is less vehicle spam, just like how 5th was to buy/sell more vehicles.

Don't like it? Adapt. Don't feel like you should adapt and want to play assaulty, then do. Can't make it work? Time to take a break or quit.

Nothing we can do to change it, unless you play with people who HOUSE RULE things.

It comes down to, don't like the way it is, do what they did in Fantasy, 8th edition, and not play/buy. GW will not admit it but it seems people spoke with their money and GW will be changing to get people back to Fantasy again.

The pendulum has, in my opinion, swung too far towards shooting, and away from assault.

The inability to assault after scouting, infiltrating, outflanking, or even using the super special Lucius Drop Pod rules makes it impossible to get into assault the first turn you're on the table, the one exception being if you are the second player to go and you used no special movement abilities such as scouting, and your opponent moved right up to you.

Obviously, against a gunline, no one is moving up to you, meaning that no matter what, you will be subjected to a turn of shooting if you want to get into assault. You might be able to use transports and such to help protect you, but even then your ride can easily get blown up, and even if it doesn't you need assault vehicle on it to be able to get there.

That makes most shooting armies and builds superior to most assault armies and builds, but the one that takes the cake is definitely Tau, and frankly they screwed up the meta so bad that all we can say is GW had no idea what they unleashed on the game with them.

They can sit back and shoot, for one, but also have access to cheap interceptor on plenty of stuff. Markerlights allow you to be fired at with a higher BS, and any cover you're in potentially gets ignored. Add in JSJ, overlapping overwatch, a plethora of high S low AP weapons, and some weapons that can hit from out of LOS, and a proper Tau build can pretty much laugh at anything that comes within 36".

Other armies aren't quite as bad, but thus far in 6th, if you want a competitive TAC list, you likely have to go shooty.

I would like to add one thing. A shooty list should consist of shooting infantry. With vehicles nerfed, the wining combo is shooting infantry and fliers.
Infantry has a save or a cover save at least. Three obliterators with 3 autocannons deliver 6 x s7 ap4 hits. Predator deliveres 2 shoots.

You are very right about tau. Especially with riptide beeing a creature, not a vehicle. Even with Jaws he has 50% chance to survive...

Yes, 6th ed is a shooting game. Do a google search of dakka, and you'll find several threads to this effect.

Is it shooting ONLY? No. You can do shooty armies with a bit of close combat sprinkled in (how I've run my guard army). You can also deliberately decide to play the game on hard mode and just run a bunch of khorne berzerkers anyways.

There's nothing preventing you from using close combat, or even focusing on it. Nothing but your desire to win every game with minimal effort, that is.

Yeah, that's the other thing. Shooty MCs are pretty crazy. A single good shot can kill a tank. A Lascannon, once you pen, has a 1/3 chance of popping a tank. A MM has a 1/2 chance.

A shot against an MC has a 0% chance of killing it if it has more than 1 wound left. Sure, stuff like krak missiles might wound it more easily than tanks, but MCs also have the potential for saves. Say what you will about wraithknights, at least a krak missile can knock a wound off. Riptides, or any other MC with a 2+ save, meanwhile, requires a huge weapon investment, or they just keep saving. And all the while firing incredibly powerful guns.

Grav guns will hopefully make things even out, but even then the problem is you need a delivery platform. Anything coming in from reserve/deep strike is going to get intercepted to death real quick.

DogofWar1 wrote:
Yeah, that's the other thing. Shooty MCs are pretty crazy. A single good shot can kill a tank. A Lascannon, once you pen, has a 1/3 chance of popping a tank. A MM has a 1/2 chance.

A shot against an MC has a 0% chance of killing it if it has more than 1 wound left. Sure, stuff like krak missiles might wound it more easily than tanks, but MCs also have the potential for saves. Say what you will about wraithknights, at least a krak missile can knock a wound off. Riptides, or any other MC with a 2+ save, meanwhile, requires a huge weapon investment, or they just keep saving. And all the while firing incredibly powerful guns.

Grav guns will hopefully make things even out, but even then the problem is you need a delivery platform. Anything coming in from reserve/deep strike is going to get intercepted to death real quick.

The thing is, a wraithknight can get decent saves by having so much as a toe in area terrain or by sticking in it in some ruins.

This makes killing them via shooting *even more annoying*.

What exactly made it such a shooting game? The only new thing with shooting is overwatch.... and the only downside to assault is you have to dice for it.. that's it. As far as I know. I haven't gotten horribly screwed because of overwatch or botched charge dice

 tvih wrote:
My Black Templars, Chaos Marines and Orks are all assault-oriented. And yes, assault tends to stink because you get shot to pieces before getting there.

Just like real life.

At least they gave the Templars and CSM a lot of shooting options to make up for it.

 aapch45 wrote:
What exactly made it such a shooting game? The only new thing with shooting is overwatch.... and the only downside to assault is you have to dice for it.. that's it. As far as I know. I haven't gotten horribly screwed because of overwatch or botched charge dice

No more assault from reserves ever, shooting to kill anyone who comes out of reserves. An entire new class of unit that cannot be assaulted period. No more assaulting out of non-assault vehicles period. Transports are now substantially less safe for your assaulty units. Cover is now significantly easier to strip away so your footsloggers are probably going to get shot to pieces. Out of the unholy four top tier armies, Tau, Eldar, Necrons, and Daemons, three are monstrously powerful shooters with devastating counter assault abilities.

 Kain wrote:

 aapch45 wrote:
What exactly made it such a shooting game? The only new thing with shooting is overwatch.... and the only downside to assault is you have to dice for it.. that's it. As far as I know. I haven't gotten horribly screwed because of overwatch or botched charge dice

No more assault from reserves ever, shooting to kill anyone who comes out of reserves. An entire new class of unit that cannot be assaulted period. No more assaulting out of non-assault vehicles period. Transports are now substantially less safe for your assaulty units. Cover is now significantly easier to strip away so your footsloggers are probably going to get shot to pieces. Out of the unholy four top tier armies, Tau, Eldar, Necrons, and Daemons, three are monstrously powerful shooters with devastating counter assault abilities.

The other key change is wound allocation. By forcing you to take your casualties from the front of the unit, this has the effect of pushing assault squads away from the enemy. This in turn causes assault squads to take longer to reach the enemy, subjecting them to more turns of shooting. If you bunch up so you don't lose distance, you're then horribly vulnerable to blast templates. It's worth noting that those assault units that are still regarded as worthwhile are all either really tough (MCs, TH/SS termies) or really fast (spawn), or both (FMCs).

However, people often forget there were also a couple of buffs for assault. Grenades are now much more effective against dreads and MCs in assault, fearless troops don't take additional wounds, and vehicles are much easier to hit.

Is assault dead? No, definitely not. But is it harder to do? Definitely.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I don't think it's a shooting only game in the slightest. I think previous editions actually favored assault, and that 6th edition has brought the game back into balance. I run a fairly balanced marines list, and the assault portion of my army hasn't really suffered much at all. I require a bit more foresight in some of my tactical decisions, but that's okay.

I agree mostly with what you said, it really is getting more balanced withe new armies but as a Tyranid player I think Tau is way too powerful as a shooty army, my armor saves are too low to get past their firing lines and their Suits can pretty easily kill my MCs even with the (underpowered and overpriced) regeneration on them. My Ymgarls (effective against most other armies to the point of usually killing almost twice their value in points) get stopped by overwatch, as does the rest of my army while they're moving up with their stupidly short-ranged weapons (only ones worth taking on terms are 12" and Acid Spray is a 12" template other than that they're all too expensive to take).