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Are there viable assault list? Yes. Screamstar is completely viable to the point that it is incredibly OP, that does not make assault a viable phase in 6th edition. The right amount of terrain makes it better, that is absolutely true, and I play with the right amount of terrain and can pull off wins against IG with my nids. More often than not though when I win against IG it is against my dad, while I love my dad dearly he is not the best 40k player even though he is good enough I know IG well enought to manipulate his weaknesses.

That is what it boils down to from my point of view, I know that if I were playing the army across the table from me I would win the vast majority of the time. I am playing against people who just aren't playing on my level and I can see it. I have played 7 armies in 6th editions and feel like I have a better than most idea of how each army fairs and how the armies stack up against each other. I recently sold off my Tau army, that had no Riptides in it, because I could just feel how easy they are to run. There was no fun going in with a list that used mostly Kroot, Stealth Teams, and an Etheral and still winning almost 100% of games. I know that I am not playing at the highest levels of 40k but it is so easy to break down the math in this game and compare armies to one another, I can look at tournament results and what list were played and compare it to the codex I play. There is very little a Tyranid player could ever do against a Tau list and the best option for the Tyranid player is to try and outshoot the Tau player. That is honestly a failing of the Tyranid codex more than anything but it is partly because of 6th edition, 6th edition is far to balanced in favor of shooting. 5th edition was far more balanced than 6th is between the two phases and I feel that if they had kept assault more or less as it was in 5th with the changes they made to shooting in 6th the game would be far more balanced. Keep overwatch, keep the ability to move and fire rapid fire, hell even keep overwatch and wound removement from the front. But give assault back the ability to assault from outflank. Get rid of random charge lengths...that is such BS because for everyone who claims that you can make a 12" charge ask yourself, with overwatch when are you EVER going to attempt that 12" charge? But how many times are you going to miss your charge with it? The hail mary charge is going to go off a lot less than the "almost guaranteed" charge is going to happen because people wont attempt the hail mary, but you are damned right they are going to go for that 4" charge only to roll snake eyes....

The way my friend plays Orks makes them an extremely viable army, He doesn't have time for tournaments these days due to responsabilities, but the opponents he regularly beats are extremely good tournament players.
I think if you went into a game against him thinking you were going to blow him away because he runs an Ork assault army, you'd have a rude surprise. He doesn't win all of his games, of course, but I'd put his win percentage at easily over 80%.

 Ailaros wrote:
This has been gone over several times, guys. Terrain helps gunlines because it hurts everyone else more than it does gunlines, and 6th edition isn't a game about objectives. It's a game where 2/3rds of your games are practically guaranteed to roll over to secondaries, and it's easy to make any of the remaining one third do the same. Plus, objectives only count at the end of the game, and strolling onto them with token scoring units is easy once you've nearly wiped your opponent off the table. Even if you can't manage a win by this way, you can easily force a draw on primaries, rolling it over to secondaries.

It's first blood: the game once you know what you're doing. Yet another thing gunlines excel at.

Gunlines are FAR from the most competitive builds.

Pretty much EVERY major GT was won by highly mobile and aggressive army skilled at capturing objectives.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
This has been gone over several times, guys. Terrain helps gunlines because it hurts everyone else more than it does gunlines, and 6th edition isn't a game about objectives. It's a game where 2/3rds of your games are practically guaranteed to roll over to secondaries, and it's easy to make any of the remaining one third do the same. Plus, objectives only count at the end of the game, and strolling onto them with token scoring units is easy once you've nearly wiped your opponent off the table. Even if you can't manage a win by this way, you can easily force a draw on primaries, rolling it over to secondaries.

It's first blood: the game once you know what you're doing. Yet another thing gunlines excel at.

Gunlines are FAR from the most competitive builds.

Pretty much EVERY major GT was won by highly mobile and aggressive army skilled at capturing objectives.

This is the truth. I said it earlier, I'll say it again. Static lists will never be top dog, this is why Eldar make Taudar a good combo. Assault is not as easy to use as shooting, and shooty + mobile is deadly, but assault can still turn the game around if its backed up properly.

 jifel wrote:

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
This has been gone over several times, guys. Terrain helps gunlines because it hurts everyone else more than it does gunlines, and 6th edition isn't a game about objectives. It's a game where 2/3rds of your games are practically guaranteed to roll over to secondaries, and it's easy to make any of the remaining one third do the same. Plus, objectives only count at the end of the game, and strolling onto them with token scoring units is easy once you've nearly wiped your opponent off the table. Even if you can't manage a win by this way, you can easily force a draw on primaries, rolling it over to secondaries.

It's first blood: the game once you know what you're doing. Yet another thing gunlines excel at.

Gunlines are FAR from the most competitive builds.

Pretty much EVERY major GT was won by highly mobile and aggressive army skilled at capturing objectives.

This is the truth. I said it earlier, I'll say it again. Static lists will never be top dog, this is why Eldar make Taudar a good combo. Assault is not as easy to use as shooting, and shooty + mobile is deadly, but assault can still turn the game around if its backed up properly.

I don't know about Ailaros but I know I am not refering to gun lines, I am talking about the relation to shooting vs assault. Eladr and Taudar are pretty much the best armies for the shooting phase, with IG competing in that department. Referring back to the OP talking about the state of the meta, shooting is far more powerful than assault with Tau/Tau, Tau/Eldar, and Eldar/Tau being the dominate armies outside of Screamstar.

I actually agree with you that a purely static gun line, which is a style of play not a list, isn't the best...but it can still do well, if you wipe the table of your opponents scoring units and have one or two in your deployment you'll win. Typically it is only Tau that can do this regularly but gun lines are still better off than pure assault outside of an extremely few exceptions that are flat out breaking their codex, IE Screamstar. It's not like the CD codex was dominating tournaments until people figured out how stupid the Book of True Names could get with Kairos.

I've heard the speech about terrain over and over on these boards. But GWs methodology is weak for setting up the boards. If the terrain is so critical, there should be rigourous methods for setting up the board.

Arbiter_Shade wrote: I understand that you like shooting but this game has three phases, not just two.

Well, 1.16 phases. You have the shooting phase for five turns and then a quick bit of movement at the very end. Assuming your guns are in range, movement has very little to do in 40k for a majority of the game.

jifel wrote:No offense, but just about everyone is saying the opposite...

Martel732 wrote:Then he needs to go to the big tourneys then.

Relapse wrote:He took 6th place Nationaly in the first 'Ard Boyz tournament.

Relapse wrote:Most people that I've seen who say assault armies are dead usually play on tables with little or no terrain or have never faced anyone that knows how to run a good assault army.

ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:Pretty much EVERY major GT was won by highly mobile and aggressive army skilled at capturing objectives.

Let me help you guys out, here.

There, now that we've cleared the air, what are we left with? Right, armies that focus on delivering a great deal of killing power immediately with long-range weapons being by far, the best. Yes, a STATIC gunline MIGHT have problems, but it's trivial to get the necessary amount of mobility in those few games where objectives really matter. Any mech gunline does this by default, for goodness sake.

And stop saying that terrain makes assault armies better. It makes them worse. They may or may not get cover saves, while terrain will definitely slow them down or redirect them, and assaulting into terrain is always a disadvantage for assaulters compared to shooty defenders.

 Ailaros wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote: I understand that you like shooting but this game has three phases, not just two.

Well, 1.16 phases. You have the shooting phase for five turns and then a quick bit of movement at the very end. Assuming your guns are in range, movement has very little to do in 40k for a majority of the game.

jifel wrote:No offense, but just about everyone is saying the opposite...

Martel732 wrote:Then he needs to go to the big tourneys then.

Relapse wrote:He took 6th place Nationaly in the first 'Ard Boyz tournament.

Relapse wrote:Most people that I've seen who say assault armies are dead usually play on tables with little or no terrain or have never faced anyone that knows how to run a good assault army.

ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:Pretty much EVERY major GT was won by highly mobile and aggressive army skilled at capturing objectives.

Let me help you guys out, here.

There, now that we've cleared the air, what are we left with? Right, armies that focus on delivering a great deal of killing power immediately with long-range weapons being by far, the best. Yes, a STATIC gunline MIGHT have problems, but it's trivial to get the necessary amount of mobility in those few games where objectives really matter. Any mech gunline does this by default, for goodness sake.

And stop saying that terrain makes assault armies better. It makes them worse. They may or may not get cover saves, while terrain will definitely slow them down or redirect them, and assaulting into terrain is always a disadvantage for assaulters compared to shooty defenders.

I don't know why saying that I know people who run assault armies that more often than not beats gunline armies is a fallacy. As far as terrain goes, yes, it does make assault armies better, if the person running the assault army is skilled. I've seen it enough times with good players to know that, and feel sorry for you that apparently in your area the game amounts to nothing more than lining armies up on opposite sides of a bare table and rolling dice, if your earlier post is anything to judge by.

Well, I would say that terrain helps out Orks a lot more than Tyranids. Because the cover saves you might get with Tyranids are going to be stripped by Tau which is mostly what we are talking about here and the lack of assault grenades means I1 across the board for bugs...

If we get our spines back in the 6th codex I will die. Just drop dead.

But the reason he is calling what you are saying as a fallacy is because it is an appeal to authority in a way...

You know a guy who runs an assault army, implying that he is an expert in the field of running assault armies, and wins with them regularly against gun lines, which is anecdotal. But I see your point, it is possible to win with assault armies, I know it is true because I win frequently with them too. At the same time I know that I am mostly winning those games because my opponent isn't the best or they just don't care enough to go all the way cheese with their list.

 jifel wrote:
We're playing different games then... If your whole army is dead and they walk onto objectives, you have a whole separate problem. It's very easy for two armies to hold there own and go to secondaries. Gun lines can do that. But gun lines have a harder time winning just on primary, which assault and mobile armies can do. To emphasize, mobility is more important than just assault. That's why Eldar are the better shooting army than Tau. Static armies lose games, because opponents can just late contest/claim.

my local meta has ZERO static tau armies. Just teleporting deathstars of death

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
Well, I would say that terrain helps out Orks a lot more than Tyranids. Because the cover saves you might get with Tyranids are going to be stripped by Tau which is mostly what we are talking about here and the lack of assault grenades means I1 across the board for bugs...

If we get our spines back in the 6th codex I will die. Just drop dead.

But the reason he is calling what you are saying as a fallacy is because it is an appeal to authority in a way...

You know a guy who runs an assault army, implying that he is an expert in the field of running assault armies, and wins with them regularly against gun lines, which is anecdotal. But I see your point, it is possible to win with assault armies, I know it is true because I win frequently with them too. At the same time I know that I am mostly winning those games because my opponent isn't the best or they just don't care enough to go all the way cheese with their list.

That's my point right there. It's easily seen on youtube how well he does and he's playing against fairly good opponents most times. Your point is taken about some not being the best, etc. but Ailaros's blanket statement implying that people might as well shelve their assault armies is most definitely a fallacy.

Can we get a link of this guy's Ork against a non-meq list? Beating meqs in 6th is not exactly a super impressive accomplishment.

How about a sample list?

Martel732 wrote:
Can we get a link of this guy's Ork against a non-meq list? Beating meqs in 6th is not exactly a super impressive accomplishment.

How about a sample list?

Just check the Blue table videos featuring Orks vs whatever. I posted a link earlier with a game of his against a Chaos player.. He doesn't win all of his games, but he wins most.

I will admit tournament results are anecdotal, but seriously, I need an actual rebuttal for why 60% of the top bracket at a tier one GT isn't a solid argument that assault is alive and well.

Let me try this again, at the 11th CO GT, the top bracket was 8 armies. Of those 8 we had

Assault focused
2 Flying Circuses (primarily assault, some shooting of course)
1 Spawntide list (at least 90% assault. He did have a Havoc squad)
Seer Council (primarily assault, but still a lot of shooting with 5 serpents)

Shooting focused with large assault element
Khan Bikers (with Space Wolf allies)
Oseva Star (this unit assaults a lot more than you think it does on paper)

Shooting primary
2 Eldar Armies (but still had WKs, who are major counter assault units)

Definitely anecdotal, but also the most recent snap shot of the "top of the meta"

 anonymou5 wrote:
I will admit tournament results are anecdotal, but seriously, I need an actual rebuttal for why 60% of the top bracket at a tier one GT isn't a solid argument that assault is alive and well.

Let me try this again, at the 11th CO GT, the top bracket was 8 armies. Of those 8 we had

Assault focused
2 Flying Circuses (primarily assault, some shooting of course)
1 Spawntide list (at least 90% assault. He did have a Havoc squad)
Seer Council (primarily assault, but still a lot of shooting with 5 serpents)

Shooting focused with large assault element
Khan Bikers (with Space Wolf allies)
Oseva Star (this unit assaults a lot more than you think it does on paper)

Shooting primary
2 Eldar Armies (but still had WKs, who are major counter assault units)

Definitely anecdotal, but also the most recent snap shot of the "top of the meta"

I'd say if those figures are true, it goes beyond anectdotal as far as proving that assault armies are still viable in this edition.

Relapse wrote:

 anonymou5 wrote:
I will admit tournament results are anecdotal, but seriously, I need an actual rebuttal for why 60% of the top bracket at a tier one GT isn't a solid argument that assault is alive and well.

Let me try this again, at the 11th CO GT, the top bracket was 8 armies. Of those 8 we had

Assault focused
2 Flying Circuses (primarily assault, some shooting of course)
1 Spawntide list (at least 90% assault. He did have a Havoc squad)
Seer Council (primarily assault, but still a lot of shooting with 5 serpents)

Shooting focused with large assault element
Khan Bikers (with Space Wolf allies)
Oseva Star (this unit assaults a lot more than you think it does on paper)

Shooting primary
2 Eldar Armies (but still had WKs, who are major counter assault units)

Definitely anecdotal, but also the most recent snap shot of the "top of the meta"

I'd say if those figures are true, it goes beyond anectdotal as far as proving that assault armies are still viable in this edition.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-11th-Company/269398767206

I actually did mess up, there was only one regular Eldar build (Kurt Claus, placed 3rd. I actually beat him at the ATC with an assault based Daemon Army, since we're talking anecdotal). The 8th place Eldar was another Seer Council. So that's 5 of 8 with a bias towards Assault. And two of those shooting Armies are Khan Bikers and Oseva Star, which definitely do some assaulting.

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:

Makumba wrote:
But if assault would be good , that armies that can't do it would automaticly be unplayable .

If anything assault should be rare , just like in real combat . Or am ok with assault getting better , if overwatch gets a suppression rule. Each hit means -1"charge range .

Amen. I don't get how assault was so over powered in other editions.

Well, in previous editions it was easier for transports to get across the table, unload 10 marines and have them charge. Especially fast rhinos from Blood Angels. 40 marines in your face that are protected from shooting ( it was a lot harder to kill transports), unload, then move 6 and then charge 6.....

Couple in various other rules (hidden power fists,hitting on 3's, or wounding on 3's vs WS 4 or T4, things like that) no overwatch, and that you essentially have twice as many assault phases as shooting ( cause you fight in both turns) meant that it was easy to decimate many armies. HTH was king. It was also easier to break an army in assault. I shoot 10 marines and kill 6, they check morale on their base morale. I wound 4 guys, and out number him etc, and he takes leadership at a lower level.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
Are there viable assault list? Yes. Screamstar is completely viable to the point that it is incredibly OP, that does not make assault a viable phase in 6th edition.

Lets look at the criteria for generating a powerful assault army.
- Very fast units (turn 2 assault is desirable)
- Ability to absorb damage before getting into assault (2+ rerollable save, land raider transport, lots of wounds)
- Use of psychic powers/relics/gifts/special rules to maximize effect
- Cheap for the amount of damage they do. (TH/SS termies are to expensive, for example)
These traits are not limited to a single book. Any book that can produce these traits can make an effective assault army.

The problem is that not many books can produce those combos. I've only seen the following on tables.
* Eldar and Dark Eldar allied
* CSM with spawn
* Daemons (calvary spam, FMC builds, screamerstar)

There might be other builds out there. You might be able to make something work with three land raiders full of DCAs, crusaders, and inquisitors. I've not seen them on the table though. The only ones I've seen that are frightening are the ones listed above.

Necron Wraiths are another really dangerous and viable assault unit which is notably missing there. SM Bike lists also seem to be doing pretty well in the assault aspect but they're still pretty new so info on them is erratic. Even Nob bikers pop up from time to time.

I've not seen a wraith build since 2013 adepticon.

How does it hold up to the eldar/tau of today?

General Hobbs wrote:

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:

Makumba wrote:
But if assault would be good , that armies that can't do it would automaticly be unplayable .

If anything assault should be rare , just like in real combat . Or am ok with assault getting better , if overwatch gets a suppression rule. Each hit means -1"charge range .

Amen. I don't get how assault was so over powered in other editions.

Well, in previous editions it was easier for transports to get across the table, unload 10 marines and have them charge. Especially fast rhinos from Blood Angels. 40 marines in your face that are protected from shooting ( it was a lot harder to kill transports), unload, then move 6 and then charge 6.....

Couple in various other rules (hidden power fists,hitting on 3's, or wounding on 3's vs WS 4 or T4, things like that) no overwatch, and that you essentially have twice as many assault phases as shooting ( cause you fight in both turns) meant that it was easy to decimate many armies. HTH was king. It was also easier to break an army in assault. I shoot 10 marines and kill 6, they check morale on their base morale. I wound 4 guys, and out number him etc, and he takes leadership at a lower level.

Yep, assault in third was unbelievably strong. In a tournament, I ran thirty Blood Angels, using super charged Rhinos, into an Ork army. By the end of the second turn, there were only 18 Orks left on the board.

My BA can shoot wraiths to pieces. I don't think they are viable.

 Ailaros wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote: I understand that you like shooting but this game has three phases, not just two.

Well, 1.16 phases. You have the shooting phase for five turns and then a quick bit of movement at the very end. Assuming your guns are in range, movement has very little to do in 40k for a majority of the game.

jifel wrote:No offense, but just about everyone is saying the opposite...

Martel732 wrote:Then he needs to go to the big tourneys then.

Relapse wrote:He took 6th place Nationaly in the first 'Ard Boyz tournament.

Relapse wrote:Most people that I've seen who say assault armies are dead usually play on tables with little or no terrain or have never faced anyone that knows how to run a good assault army.

ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:Pretty much EVERY major GT was won by highly mobile and aggressive army skilled at capturing objectives.

Let me help you guys out, here.

There, now that we've cleared the air, what are we left with? Right, armies that focus on delivering a great deal of killing power immediately with long-range weapons being by far, the best. Yes, a STATIC gunline MIGHT have problems, but it's trivial to get the necessary amount of mobility in those few games where objectives really matter. Any mech gunline does this by default, for goodness sake.

And stop saying that terrain makes assault armies better. It makes them worse. They may or may not get cover saves, while terrain will definitely slow them down or redirect them, and assaulting into terrain is always a disadvantage for assaulters compared to shooty defenders.

Clearly you haven't played against a seer council or any Daemon list worth it's salt.

Whats this? A mad IG player talking about assault being dead? Say it isn't so!

In terms of top tier armies, Daemons with FMC and the silly 2++ trick are melee based. Bike armies have massive melee potential, and are common again, and so forth.

But really now, whats the best way to beat a shooty army? You're not going to beat a tau force with a marine force by shooting it, you beat it by getting into melee so you can't get shot at. That's basic tactics. Having a few support elements to shoot at things that would kill your assault force is also very sound.

Why are tau hated so much? Tau are a completely shooting focused army. Unless you're tailoring your lists just for tau, it's hard to out shoot them. Stop shooting tau, melee them instead.

 juraigamer wrote:
Whats this? A mad IG player talking about assault being dead? Say it isn't so!

In terms of top tier armies, Daemons with FMC and the silly 2++ trick are melee based. Bike armies have massive melee potential, and are common again, and so forth.

But really now, whats the best way to beat a shooty army? You're not going to beat a tau force with a marine force by shooting it, you beat it by getting into melee so you can't get shot at. That's basic tactics. Having a few support elements to shoot at things that would kill your assault force is also very sound.

Why are tau hated so much? Tau are a completely shooting focused army. Unless you're tailoring your lists just for tau, it's hard to out shoot them. Stop shooting tau, melee them instead.

Well run Orks do well against Tau also. This game is pretty indicitive of how an Ork army can work Tau. The guy playing Orks has never lost to a Tau army that I know of.



http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YgTYnRmHf0M

 juraigamer wrote:
Whats this? A mad IG player talking about assault being dead? Say it isn't so!

In terms of top tier armies, Daemons with FMC and the silly 2++ trick are melee based. Bike armies have massive melee potential, and are common again, and so forth.

But really now, whats the best way to beat a shooty army? You're not going to beat a tau force with a marine force by shooting it, you beat it by getting into melee so you can't get shot at. That's basic tactics. Having a few support elements to shoot at things that would kill your assault force is also very sound.

Why are tau hated so much? Tau are a completely shooting focused army. Unless you're tailoring your lists just for tau, it's hard to out shoot them. Stop shooting tau, melee them instead.

It's pretty hard to get to assault against a good Tau player. I don't find bikes that hot in melee, but maybe my standards are too high. Those few support elements you are talking about, due to marine pricing, are unlikely to significantly degrade the shooting potential of a good shooter list. Yeah, there's the TFC, but that's about it.

Martel732 wrote:It's pretty hard to get to assault against a good Tau player. I don't find bikes that hot in melee, but maybe my standards are too high.

I've seen a tau player table a ravenwing down to just sammael before the ravenwing player got to turn 2, a result that is easily predictable. The combination of bikes being expensive, and relying on cover saves that tau just ignore (or the huge volume of S5+ fire at +BS against only Sv3+), and the bikes meeting army-wide overwatch if they get there at all means that they're going to take absurd damage even before the bike player hits their first speed bump, only to rinse and repeat over the subsequent turns.

Relapse wrote:I don't know why saying that I know people who run assault armies that more often than not beats gunline armies is a fallacy.

It isn't.

Relapse wrote: It's easily seen on youtube how well he does and he's playing against fairly good opponents most times.

Relapse wrote:I've seen it enough times with good players to know that

But these are.

Relapse wrote:Ailaros's blanket statement implying that people might as well shelve their assault armies is most definitely a fallacy.

And this isn't. Spend some time with that link I sent you to. It will help make things clearer if you understand what is and what isn't a fallacy.

Relapse wrote:As far as terrain goes, yes, it does make assault armies better

Reason through it.

How does terrain help assault armies? Sometimes it gives them a cover save. It doesn't always matter if there's an invul save involved, and it doesn't always work if there's focus firing involved, and it doesn't work at all against tau, and it often doesn't work against barrage weapons, and it's of much less use against highly mobile armies (not that you were going to catch them anyways). This one benefit has a lot of contingencies. Lots of flaws and weaknesses to be exploited.

Meanwhile, how does terrain hurt assault armies? It makes them take longer to get into close combat - a fatal problem in general, but especially in a take-casualties-from-the-front world. You have to run units around terrain, which means a less direct route, which means it takes longer to get there. Or you can try and go through the terrain, which means difficult terrain tests, which means you're slower, which means it takes longer to get there. Worse, you could be stuck taking a few turns of it on larger terrain pieces or with worse die rolling. Assaulting a unit that's in terrain means that you roll 3D6 and pick the lowest for charge range, which very likely means that you're spending another turn not charging, and you get to eat a free round of overwatch to add insult to injury. Assaulting a barrage unit that's hiding out of LOS behind terrain is literally impossible, which means now you need to spend more time just trying to get into LOS for a charge. Assaulting units with MSM gives you all the penalties of assaulting through terrain without even the benefit of getting a cover save. Attacking units up in a ruins means that you're going to have to spend lots of time crawling through terrain, and might still even have LOS issues when you get there, AND your opponent gets to use a height advantage to shoot over terrain, making it so that you don't get a cover save.

One sometimes-sometimes-not advantage, with numerous disadvantages.

More terrain is bad for assault armies.

anonymou5 wrote: but seriously, I need an actual rebuttal for why 60% of the top bracket at a tier one GT isn't a solid argument that assault is alive and well.

Firstly, as you say, it's anecdotal. A few people playing a couple of dice games. The question isn't why someone should be skeptical with this data, but why someone would bother to believe in it.

Secondly, an appeal to "your betters" is a fallacy. If we're letting fallacies in, then I can claim that assault armies are dead because the invisible purple unicorn in the sky told me they were, and it knows all... and sees all...

ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:Clearly you haven't played against a seer council or any Daemon list worth it's salt.

Firstly, I did mention that demon list as an exception.

Secondly, an argument based on nothing but "you're insufficient" is a fallacy. If we're letting fallacies in, then I can claim that assault armies are dead because the invisible purple unicorn in the sky told me that you're a loser and nobody likes you, and so I shouldn't trust you because you're missing what's needed to have reasonable opinions.

 Ailaros wrote:

Martel732 wrote:It's pretty hard to get to assault against a good Tau player. I don't find bikes that hot in melee, but maybe my standards are too high.

I've seen a tau player table a ravenwing down to just sammael before the ravenwing player got to turn 2, a result that is easily predictable. The combination of bikes being expensive, and relying on cover saves that tau just ignore (or the huge volume of S5+ fire at +BS against only Sv3+), and the bikes meeting army-wide overwatch if they get there at all means that they're going to take absurd damage even before the bike player hits their first speed bump, only to rinse and repeat over the subsequent turns.

Relapse wrote:I don't know why saying that I know people who run assault armies that more often than not beats gunline armies is a fallacy.

It isn't.

Relapse wrote: It's easily seen on youtube how well he does and he's playing against fairly good opponents most times.

Relapse wrote:I've seen it enough times with good players to know that

But these are.

Relapse wrote:Ailaros's blanket statement implying that people might as well shelve their assault armies is most definitely a fallacy.

And this isn't. Spend some time with that link I sent you to. It will help make things clearer if you understand what is and what isn't a fallacy.

Relapse wrote:As far as terrain goes, yes, it does make assault armies better

Reason through it.

How does terrain help assault armies? Sometimes it gives them a cover save. It doesn't always matter if there's an invul save involved, and it doesn't always work if there's focus firing involved, and it doesn't work at all against tau, and it often doesn't work against barrage weapons, and it's of much less use against highly mobile armies (not that you were going to catch them anyways). This one benefit has a lot of contingencies. Lots of flaws and weaknesses to be exploited.

Meanwhile, how does terrain hurt assault armies? It makes them take longer to get into close combat - a fatal problem in general, but especially in a take-casualties-from-the-front world. You have to run units around terrain, which means a less direct route, which means it takes longer to get there. Or you can try and go through the terrain, which means difficult terrain tests, which means you're slower, which means it takes longer to get there. Worse, you could be stuck taking a few turns of it on larger terrain pieces or with worse die rolling. Assaulting a unit that's in terrain means that you roll 3D6 and pick the lowest for charge range, which very likely means that you're spending another turn not charging, and you get to eat a free round of overwatch to add insult to injury. Assaulting a barrage unit that's hiding out of LOS behind terrain is literally impossible, which means now you need to spend more time just trying to get into LOS for a charge. Assaulting units with MSM gives you all the penalties of assaulting through terrain without even the benefit of getting a cover save. Attacking units up in a ruins means that you're going to have to spend lots of time crawling through terrain, and might still even have LOS issues when you get there, AND your opponent gets to use a height advantage to shoot over terrain, making it so that you don't get a cover save.

One sometimes-sometimes-not advantage, with numerous disadvantages.

More terrain is bad for assault armies.

anonymou5 wrote: but seriously, I need an actual rebuttal for why 60% of the top bracket at a tier one GT isn't a solid argument that assault is alive and well.

Firstly, as you say, it's anecdotal. A few people playing a couple of dice games. The question isn't why someone should be skeptical with this data, but why someone would bother to believe in it.

Secondly, an appeal to "your betters" is a fallacy. If we're letting fallacies in, then I can claim that assault armies are dead because the invisible purple unicorn in the sky told me they were, and it knows all... and sees all...

ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:Clearly you haven't played against a seer council or any Daemon list worth it's salt.

Firstly, I did mention that demon list as an exception.

Secondly, an argument based on nothing but "you're insufficient" is a fallacy. If we're letting fallacies in, then I can claim that assault armies are dead because the invisible purple unicorn in the sky told me that you're a loser and nobody likes you, and so I shouldn't trust you because you're missing what's needed to have reasonable opinions.

Interesting you talk about a singular instance that you saw and hold that up as an example of your point, yet say that multiple examples that can be seen on youtube proving my point that assault armies can win against shooting armies are worthless and fallacies.

So one story of Tau tabling Dark Angels is okay, but an entire GT is "just a few people playing dice games?"

96 players over 7 games is 672 games. In the context of sample sizes that's not great, but it's a hell of a lot better than your example. In 672 games, 6 assault based armies found them selves at the top of 96 players. That's a hell of a lot more relevant than "I think assault is completely dead"

Further, if that's still too anecdotal. Out of the thousands and thousands of games tracked on Torrent of Fire, Daemons are currently ranked as the second most successful Army (by percentage of games won). That's ahead of Tau, and below Eldar. You better believe those Daemon armies aren't winning most of those games through shooting.

Further: as mentioned earlier, play against a Seer Council. It's probably the best build in the entire game, and it wins through assaults.

No, the seer council wins through be unkillable and very mobile. Assault is really an afterthought. Bring some more standard CC troops and see how well it goes.

Last time I checked, no imperial list has access to a Screamerstar or Seer Council. People keep pointing out *very* specific assault units that still work, because they are essentially unkillable. That means that being unkillable is really good, not the assault mechanic.