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If I hated assault why would I play DE and Khorne. No I don't dislike it. It truly is a lost cause trying to make 40k realistic.

 Jancoran wrote:
SCOMMY: youre missing it. There never was a 9 inch charge before. So Idont need to make nine inch charges. "All the time" to point out to you that it will be part of strategy now. Because shooting used to turn 6" charges into 9" charges all the time. And it still does. Difference is I can actually make that now. How is that worse? It isn't.

Melee was roo dominant in 40k leading up to 6E. No one can claim otherwise. BA and GK showed it most clearly but others did too. Glad to see the game got balanced a bit.

Melee was not dominant at all in 5th edition. To claim otherwise is kinda nuts.

 Jancoran wrote:
SCOMMY: youre missing it. There never was a 9 inch charge before. So Idont need to make nine inch charges. "All the time" to point out to you that it will be part of strategy now. Because shooting used to turn 6" charges into 9" charges all the time. And it still does. Difference is I can actually make that now. How is that worse? It isn't.

Melee was roo dominant in 40k leading up to 6E. No one can claim otherwise. BA and GK showed it most clearly but others did too. Glad to see the game got balanced a bit.

3rd: Rhino rush was too powered

4th: Useful assaults, though they failed against vehicles such as Skimmerspam and Fish of Fury preventing them from charging.

5th: Mech ruled the day, razorback spam was king.

Also, before 6th ed, if you didn't want to risk killing yourself out of assault range, you just didn't fire your bolt pistols before you charged in. The only way shooting could prevent you from getting a charge in was if you did it to yourself.

6th ed changed things so that you remove casualties from the front, which means your opponent can shoot you out of assault range bit by bit with every round of shooting they make. That's an enormous difference.

To me it depends on what's trying to assult, for example Orks were hurt cause of te remove front model thing and challenges nerfing our 32 wound nobs, blood angels with jump packs were not since they do pretty much what they did in sixth, jump at you and assult

But didn't they stop being played after helldrakes came ? a power armor army which isn't siting in transports dies to three or four helldrakes very fast.

Answer to the OP, no, not even slightly.

I love that people keep throwing the word competitive around like its the yardstick. The tourney scene is a weird and entirely separate meta which actually has very little to do with what's effective in general play. The scene is dominated by low cover volume and very little LOS blocking terrain (understandably so, providing lots of terrain for so many tables is hard and expensive on the TO) with small elite armies that are easy to transport and can be played and moved rapidly due to ever increasing points levels to be played within a limited time frame.

Tourney play is a sub meta, not a commentary on the state of the game. In a game where tables have the right amount of cover, good chunks of LOS blocking terrain, where there's no clock and so the game will get to turn 5 or higher and where armies like the green tide won't get slow played and thus never see turn 3, melee is doing just fine.

When I say "competitive" I mean, "I won't get tabled every time."
But others may have different opinions. To have a rational discussion, definitions have to be agreed upon.

 MWHistorian wrote:
When I say "competitive" I mean, "I won't get tabled every time."
But others may have different opinions. To have a rational discussion, definitions have to be agreed upon.

That's fine, but in that case assault is very much competitive as myself and many others have said from experience. When it is used as it is by many on these boards to talk about the microcosm that is tourney play however it is simply not so. At that point there are so many factors that have nothing to do with the actual game rules that calling them both 40k is highly misleading.

 Dunklezahn wrote:
Answer to the OP, no, not even slightly.

I love that people keep throwing the word competitive around like its the yardstick. The tourney scene is a weird and entirely separate meta which actually has very little to do with what's effective in general play. The scene is dominated by low cover volume and very little LOS blocking terrain (understandably so, providing lots of terrain for so many tables is hard and expensive on the TO) with small elite armies that are easy to transport and can be played and moved rapidly due to ever increasing points levels to be played within a limited time frame.

Tourney play is a sub meta, not a commentary on the state of the game. In a game where tables have the right amount of cover, good chunks of LOS blocking terrain, where there's no clock and so the game will get to turn 5 or higher and where armies like the green tide won't get slow played and thus never see turn 3, melee is doing just fine.

Why does everyone keep saying that these units are only bad because of potential low cover volume and very little LOS?

Heldrakes don't care much for LoS blocking terrain and cover, Tau don't care for cover and easily use LoS for it's Jump Shoot Jump maneuvers to make it so that they survive easier, Eldar have wave serpant spam that easily bypass it, IG with their multitude of high powered barrage weapons...

No, it's not just the lack of cover, it's the fact that cover and LoS doesn't even matter to the High Powered Shooting Armies.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Why does everyone keep saying that these units are only bad because of potential low cover volume and very little LOS?

Heldrakes don't care much for LoS blocking terrain and cover, Tau don't care for cover and easily use LoS for it's Jump Shoot Jump maneuvers to make it so that they survive easier, Eldar have wave serpant spam that easily bypass it, IG with their multitude of high powered barrage weapons...

No, it's not just the lack of cover, it's the fact that cover and LoS doesn't even matter to the High Powered Shooting Armies.

Heldrakes still have to be able to see their target so the very much do care about LOS blockers and every inch he has to move onto the board to get a shot reduces his options in subsequent turns and increases the odds of getting shot in his AV10 arse.

Tau don't care for cover *saves* if they can see their target they still can't fire, their vehicles are not fast, broadsides don't get JSJ and neither do Fire Warriors. Blocking LOS cuts huge amounts out of any firebases kill power.

Wave Serpents are only one element of a force and still only move 12" maximum if they want good firepower, meaning their targets remain limited.

IG Barrage? out of LOS your hit odds are just over 1 in 3 and all the armies Battlecannons, Autocannons, Plasma guns and the like are rendered impotent. Good luck stopping a horde of Nids or Orks with a few shells based on pretty flimsy platforms.

Having 1-2 large pieces of LOS blocking terrain makes the world of difference. It makes it an actual game as opposed to 2 sets of troops calling targets from across the board. A beast/cavalry/jump unit 18" from your lines in a wood are target 1 and likely dead before they cause a problem. The same unit 18" from your line behind a hill are a major issue.

A solid quarter of the board should be terrain, if even 1/3 of that blocks some LOS then 1/12 (Thats 2x square foot blocks) of your board is impenetrable to vision. Stop fighting on planet bowling ball and you'll see why 40k still has melee units.

"Having 1-2 large pieces of LOS blocking terrain makes the world of difference"

Counting on this to make a game of it is a poor game indeed.

 Dunklezahn wrote:

Heldrakes still have to be able to see their target so the very much do care about LOS blockers and every inch he has to move onto the board to get a shot reduces his options in subsequent turns and increases the odds of getting shot in his AV10 arse.

Its not difficult for a flyer to see its target. Especially since the Helldrake has a 360 degree rotation. It might only have AV10 at the back but thats not going to mean much when whatever is behind you has been toasted to death.

Tau don't care for cover *saves* if they can see their target they still can't fire, their vehicles are not fast, broadsides don't get JSJ and neither do Fire Warriors. Blocking LOS cuts huge amounts out of any firebases kill power.

Unless Tau are shooting with SMS & Seeker missiles which don't need LOS to shoot. Funnily enough something those Broadsides have in abundance.

Wave Serpents are only one element of a force and still only move 12" maximum if they want good firepower, meaning their targets remain limited.

A 12" move is more than enough to reveal units that were previously blocked into LOS in a lot of instances.

IG Barrage? out of LOS your hit odds are just over 1 in 3 and all the armies Battlecannons, Autocannons, Plasma guns and the like are rendered impotent. Good luck stopping a horde of Nids or Orks with a few shells based on pretty flimsy platforms.

Lol, Its still a third of a chance to hit. I don't really see how an entire armies firepower is rendered usueless just because one of your units is out of sight from one of your enemy's units.

Having 1-2 large pieces of LOS blocking terrain makes the world of difference. It makes it an actual game as opposed to 2 sets of troops calling targets from across the board. A beast/cavalry/jump unit 18" from your lines in a wood are target 1 and likely dead before they cause a problem. The same unit 18" from your line behind a hill are a major issue.

And here is the crutch of the matter. How much LOS blocking terrain as you using? There is nowhere near that amount of LOS blocking terrain in the two places where I play.

A solid quarter of the board should be terrain, if even 1/3 of that blocks some LOS then 1/12 (Thats 2x square foot blocks) of your board is impenetrable to vision. Stop fighting on planet bowling ball and you'll see why 40k still has melee units.

Eh no. If we are assuming you are playing on a 6 foot by 4 foot board then you do not get 2x square foot LOS blocking terrain. You only get what is in your half of the board, within your deployment zone as you make your way up the table. So that is on average 1x square foot and considering that LOS is only two dimenionsal and not 3 dimensional then it doesn't matter how deep your LOS blocking terrain is. It only matters what length sideways it is relative to the direction of what target is shooting at you. So even if you block LOS from one direction, another unit from another direction is most likely still able to see you.

Oh, and there's the BA guy who brings his own huge LOS blocking mountain to put in the middle of the board every game. First off, this is incredibly lame, but even worse, this is still not hacking it in 6th.

As an experiment, I took him on with my shooty BA before the C:SM book dropped and I still won. Maybe Orks or Nids would have done better.

BaconUprising wrote:
Yes I think it is a screw you to assault but realistically it should be. With such powerful, advanced guns and weaponry how would anybody reach CC?

I remember when I first got into 40K, it was about 40K fluff wise. Going into battle, with guns blazing and then stabbing everyone or hacking and slashing the enemy to death.

Even though it made more sense just to shoot everything as you said, it was more dramatic (the word I believe they used at the time, now it's cinematic) to have Assaults to the bloody death.

 DarthOvious wrote:
Its not difficult for a flyer to see its target. Especially since the Helldrake has a 360 degree rotation. It might only have AV10 at the back but thats not going to mean much when whatever is behind you has been toasted to death.

It really is, put a unit behind a 6" wide bunker and see how close you have to get before you can see them. If you want to get that close I'm fine trading a damage to a unit to put a unit like Warp Spiders or a Flyrant in your rear arc.

Unless Tau are shooting with SMS & Seeker missiles which don't need LOS to shoot. Funnily enough something those Broadsides have in abundance.

Woo, you can shoot with a few AP5 shots, that's not enough to damage anything significant, a full volley might kill what, 2 marines or 2 Khorne hounds...
And seeker missiles require LOS because you need a markerlight hit first otherwise they obey normal shooting rules.

A 12" move is more than enough to reveal units that were previously blocked into LOS in a lot of instances

Once again, put a unit behind a piece of LOS blocking terrain and see how far you have to move to hit them, you can't kill what you can't see so best case you maybe prune a single guy off the end, wounds don't carry over anymore.

Lol, Its still a third of a chance to hit. I don't really see how an entire armies firepower is rendered usueless just because one of your units is out of sight from one of your enemy's units.

It's not one unit though, let your opponent set up first and you can very easily use buildings and hills to block large area's of the battlefield from his guns. If you are only hitting with 1/3 of your barrages most armies will easily weather that long enough to get close enough to destroy those flimsy arty chassis.

And here is the crutch of the matter. How much LOS blocking terrain as you using? There is nowhere near that amount of LOS blocking terrain in the two places where I play.

A couple of pieces 1-3 will usually do it, either large ruins or buildings, bunkers or hills, any of those things breaks up fire lanes. That's a failing of where you play I guess (Terrain is always at a premium anywhere where multiple games are played at once) and it breeds a certain kind of meta, if you play on planet bowling ball then naturally races like Tau with long rang cover ignoring weapons will dominate.

Eh no. If we are assuming you are playing on a 6 foot by 4 foot board then you do not get 2x square foot LOS blocking terrain. You only get what is in your half of the board, within your deployment zone as you make your way up the table. So that is on average 1x square foot and considering that LOS is only two dimenionsal and not 3 dimensional then it doesn't matter how deep your LOS blocking terrain is. It only matters what length sideways it is relative to the direction of what target is shooting at you. So even if you block LOS from one direction, another unit from another direction is most likely still able to see you.

6x4 is 24 foot square blocks, 1/4 should be terrain that's 6x foot square blocks, if 1/3 of that is LOS blocking = 2x square foot blocks.

Depth really does matter, put a hill smack dab in the centre of the board, no other terrain, and see just how much it affects your ability to sit and fire with impunity. See how much extra wrangling you have to do to secure lines of sight and think about how much easier it is for your opponent to close or denied flank you. Then add all the rest of the tables terrain, suddenly you aren't lining up two armies and rolling dice, melee units can close much more easily, units have to move.

That's a game of 40k to me, terrain matters and shapes a game, so many folks seem to ignore that then complain it's a list builders shooting game. If lining up troops and rolling dice works for you, more power to you, but I find that kind of game frightfully dull and have no interest in playing it.

Martel732 wrote:
"Having 1-2 large pieces of LOS blocking terrain makes the world of difference"

Counting on this to make a game of it is a poor game indeed.

Counting on terrain to change a game is bad? It's a huge chunk of the rules and shapes any conflict between armed forces, I'm more inclined to say any wargame where terrain isn't the first thing you think about is the poorer.

Terrain is randomly generated and placed. And the terrain pieces themselves are random and based on where you play. Counting on this to save you assault list from Taudar seems pretty silly.

Most tables I've played on don't have that many places to hide. Look at most tournament tables; they aren't very dense. Your solution seems to jam the table with terrain and go "See? There's nothing wrong with assault!".

I don't think I've ever played with 1/3 LOS blocking terrain. Ever. Your assumption there is pretty poor. There might be one piece per table.

Assault has a lot more issues than just getting to the assault phase as well. Remember that your opponent basically chooses what gets assaulted. It is very common to offer up some squad that won't last a single turn and then create a kill zone after the assault unit "wins". And assault lists basically have to take the first opportunity because trying to be choosy means taking another turn of fire. In a game where I've had Eldar remove 24 FNP ASM in a single turn of shooting.... yeah. Terrain is not saving assault from shooting lists in the hands good players.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
SCOMMY: youre missing it. There never was a 9 inch charge before. So Idont need to make nine inch charges. "All the time" to point out to you that it will be part of strategy now. Because shooting used to turn 6" charges into 9" charges all the time. And it still does. Difference is I can actually make that now. How is that worse? It isn't.

Melee was roo dominant in 40k leading up to 6E. No one can claim otherwise. BA and GK showed it most clearly but others did too. Glad to see the game got balanced a bit.

3rd: Rhino rush was too powered

4th: Useful assaults, though they failed against vehicles such as Skimmerspam and Fish of Fury preventing them from charging.

5th: Mech ruled the day, razorback spam was king.

And even in 3rd shooting was still better (5 man las plas marines in razorbacks that you could shoot out of), the only difference was that close combat was viable for a lot of armies.

Martel732 wrote:
Terrain is randomly generated and placed. And the terrain pieces themselves are random and based on where you play. Counting on this to save you assault list from Taudar seems pretty silly.

Most tables I've played on don't have that many places to hide. Look at most tournament tables; they aren't very dense. Your solution seems to jam the table with terrain and go "See? There's nothing wrong with assault!".

I don't think I've ever played with 1/3 LOS blocking terrain. Ever. Your assumption there is pretty poor. There might be one piece per table.

Assault has a lot more issues than just getting to the assault phase as well. Remember that your opponent basically chooses what gets assaulted. It is very common to offer up some squad that won't last a single turn and then create a kill zone after the assault unit "wins". And assault lists basically have to take the first opportunity because trying to be choosy means taking another turn of fire. In a game where I've had Eldar remove 24 FNP ASM in a single turn of shooting.... yeah. Terrain is not saving assault from shooting lists in the hands good players.

well said +1

And even with blocking terrain it doesn't solve the problem- take the mission you are playing into account and then if you have to attack to take objectives then depending on where the markers are placed then a lot of the time it means nothing really.

Also the assault bait situation is one that is all too common, you in effect want a drawn combat to stop the unit getting nuked, and with any luck it wins so you can assault again on your turn

In effect assault has to be done with multiple units at the same time in the same area of the battlefield.

The rules provide a very easy mechanism to avoid lots of LOS blockers in the middle of the table. If you're playing by the 6th ed rules (from page 120), it's almost laughably easy to create decently-large and clear lines of sight.

You're looking at an average of 2 pieces of terrain in each of the two center 2x2 board sections. Assuming your opponent goes first, and wants a big LOS blocker in the middle of the table, he puts down something large right there. Then, you take a non-LOS blocker, like a big crater or lake, and put it 5" or so from his piece. Because he cannot place another piece within 3" from either of those two, you've got the width of your crater, plus about 5" on either side clear.

Combine this with the ability to use up terrain density by putting meaningless pieces in corners of 2x2 sections, and the table can often feel quite empty. If you roll a '1' for any of the sections, putting some minor piece of junk in the corner of it creates close to a 2x2 area with no cover and nothing to hide behind.

So, while 6th ed 40k might play better with loads of LOS blocking terrain, if you do that, you're not actually playing 6th ed 40k, you're playing some derivative house-rules game. 6th ed, by the book rules, encourages large empty spaces.

What's more, any shooty player knows this, and since the most common method of dispute resolution is to fall back to the rules, then the shooty player really has to be willing to play on a disadvantageous table in order to let an assaulty player block off too many sight lines.

Seriously, get it out of your head that tourney play is an indicator of the state of the game, it really isn't. It's an oddball little microcosm of backup rules and non-game based rule/composition additions. Randomized terrain and terrain gaming (as Redbeard here advocates) are all crutches for when the people playing have made the game secondary to victory.

 Redbeard wrote:

So, while 6th ed 40k might play better with loads of LOS blocking terrain, if you do that, you're not actually playing 6th ed 40k, you're playing some derivative house-rules game. 6th ed, by the book rules, encourages large empty spaces.

Actually the first terrain deployment method listed in the book is thematic, you and your opponent putting your bias aside and working together to build a cool exciting looking battlefield. That includes LOS breaking terrain and limiting fire lanes because that's part of the game. IE the method that is jumped over so people can get straight to gaming the terrain rules to their advantage

As I said, you wanna play with virtually no LOS blockers and sparse terrain with "competitive terrain placement" to make sure your firepower has reign, go for it, it's your meta. Don't however confuse that with proof that the melee rules are broken and it's "a shooting game". Melee works just fine in my meta and as a result we don't just see the same 4 lists ad nauseam with Tau racking up auto wins.

So as I said, no, 40k is not a "Screw you to assault"

Your meta means nothing to most of us. My play group uses the randomized terrain because it is the method that causes the fewest disputes. Taudar want no terrain and Tyranids/Daemons want 100% terrain. The best compromise is the codified system. Everywhere I have played this game, randomized terrain is the standard. To act like its some kind of outlier is not realistic.

You also didn't address the assault bait issue.

Martel732 wrote:
You meta means nothing to most of us. My play group uses the randomized terrain because it is the method that causes the fewest disputes. Taudar want no terrain and Tyranids/Daemons want 100% terrain. The best compromise is the codified system. Everywhere I have played this game, randomized terrain is the standard. To act like its some kind of outlier is not realistic.

I realize that allot of people I meet like doing it this way, so It throws them off guard when I forbid it. I'm not a complete ass however, so when I forbid random terrain, I also tell them they can setup the table ANY way they want; ususally a person is willing to make some nods towards fairness when they have 100% control given to them.

The one time someone forced me to play random terrain, I made the stupidest table I could possibly do. I went and go a roll of toilet paper, the broken end to a chair. I deployed the ruins on their sides and facing the corners... Its a garbage way to start a game.

Dunklezahn wrote:
Actually the first terrain deployment method listed in the book is thematic, you and your opponent putting your bias aside and working together to build a cool exciting looking battlefield.

Okay, let's think about that for a second.... If I have an army full of long-range weapons, why on earth would I choose to engage in a location that is cluttered with terrain? That's already a failure in theme. If I've got a force that includes a lot of fast-moving flying transports carrying my dying race, why would I choose to park them behind a bunch of buildings instead of flying away to engage somewhere else?

And don't forget fortifications. Ever seen a real fort? They're not built in the middle of dense terrain, they're built at sites with commanding views over the nearby terrain. Because to do otherwise is folly. After a couple of hundred years, sure, maybe some buildings will have gone up around the fort, but by then, the fort isn't being used as a fort anymore, it's more of a curiosity for tourists to wander around.

That includes LOS breaking terrain and limiting fire lanes because that's part of the game.

So which is it, game, or theme, that takes precedence? If it's the game, use the rules in the game book to distribute terrain. If it's theme, acknowledge that thematically, firepower based armies don't spend a lot of time engaging in terrain that limits that firepower. In fact, firepower based forces do strange and terrible things to limit the effectiveness of terrain. Have you heard of Agent Orange?

As I said, you wanna play with virtually no LOS blockers and sparse terrain with "competitive terrain placement" to make sure your firepower has reign, go for it, it's your meta. Don't however confuse that with proof that the melee rules are broken and it's "a shooting game".

It's not that the melee rules are broken, it's that the 6th ed rules, including terrain placement, are broken, and that as a result, it is a shooting game. If your group has diverged from the rules in the rulebook to create your own little private meta where assault armies dominate, good for you, but you're not playing 6th, and your comments are as relevant as someone saying that their house rules don't use overwatch or random charge distances, and therefore assault is still good.

Martel732 wrote:You meta means nothing to most of us. My play group uses the randomized terrain because it is the method that causes the fewest disputes. Taudar want no terrain and Tyranids/Daemons want 100% terrain. The best compromise is the codified system. Everywhere I have played this game, randomized terrain is the standard. To act like its some kind of outlier is not realistic.

Bingo.

Well I guess you wouldn't get many games where I play. Randomized terrain or pre-fabricated layouts designed by neutral parties are the most fair in general.

 davou wrote:

The one time someone forced me to play random terrain, I made the stupidest table I could possibly do. I went and go a roll of toilet paper, the broken end to a chair. I deployed the ruins on their sides and facing the corners... Its a garbage way to start a game.

Random charge distances are a garbage way to play the game too, but they're the rules. Like, I have this here battle cannon with 72" range, and I know, before firing, if I have to move an inch forward to be in range. But when my opponent is 3" away (at 28mm scale, that's roughly 5 yards... ) I might fail to get there.

Martel732 wrote:
Well I guess you wouldn't get many games where I play. Randomized terrain or pre-fabricated layouts designed by neutral parties are the most fair in general.

Id love randomized by a third person! My issue is that the moment placing terrain becomes part of the game, people go right for the advantageous peices.

Ive seen a tau player try to lay a deadly lava river right across the center of the board against an ork player, and a chaos player try to claim that a statue was a shrine to chaos and allowed him to re-roll invulns; its just garbage. Id rather let the other guy set up entirely and go get a coffee, but the neutral third party solution is best by far.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Redbeard wrote:


Random charge distances are a garbage way to play the game too, but they're the rules.

They're also the second option in those rules, the one to go for when the first one don't work. It screams of immediately injecting animosity into a game, before the first turn even.

It's 40K. It's got some animosity build right in. I myself have no problem with strategic terrain placement. It's like a mini-game. If all lists had legitimate counters to other lists (like Starcraft), this wouldn't be an issue.

 davou wrote:

They're also the second option in those rules, the one to go for when the first one don't work.

Okay, let's think on this...

Here's the quote. "If you and your opponent can't agree...."

So, you set up the terrain, and you put something that blocks LOS in the middle of the table. I play a shooty army, and know that I've got at least a 50/50 chance to not have it there if I don't agree. Guess what. I'm suggesting a different narrative that doesn't have it there. Now, you can either let me have a clear line of fire over the middle, or disagree and take your 50/50 chance on getting to place the first piece of terrain.

Yes, this is somewhat antagonistic, and not always how people play, but, logically, if a shooty army and an assault army meet, one wants blocking terrain in the middle and one doesn't. There's inherent disagreement about the center of the table based on this matchup. And, once you have that disagreement, the rules say use the alternating method.

The rules, in this case, are designed to allow either player to force setup to the alternating method. And, the alternating method distinctly favours shooty armies and sparse terrain.

Again, Taudar wants a parking lot and Tyranids want a jungle. And so we randomize.