Vaktathi wrote:Assault armies were unquestioningly superior in 3rd and 4th over static gunlines with consolidations into new combats and the old area terrain and
LoS rules, armies like
IG certainly didn't dominate games during those editions. 5th probably had the most reasonable parity of the "post 2E" era.
I wouldn't count anything from
RT or 2E in looking at that issue.
In 4th that is gak, as consolidating into fresh combats was easily avoided (whoop,
D6" range, and only
D6" if you destroyed them in combat, not
SA, otherwise it was only 3") and
JSJ Tau and skimmer abuse flying circus - which did have some combat, but only to finish off your army after the skimmers shot you to death all game - were dominant army types. Shooting was much stronger - maybe not static lines, but guard did very well with never moving, as most people played "pitched battle" style missions with no objectives.
Its only really 5th edition and needing to grab objectives where mobile gunlines, or at least those with some mobility, like vetspam
IG, took over fully from static lines.
Assault in 5E was enhanced through the better, more decisive morale rules (4e generally took turns to kill off untis, as you suffered few negatives to your check to break, only if you got massively outnumbered was it an issue) however that led tot he opposite problem,it was now too EASY to kill units on the charge, and with no consolidation into fresh combat eve possible, meant you were happily then situated int he middle of their army,dead next turn.
5E was incredibly shooty, much much much more so than assaulty. Assaults were generally used as final steps in a plan, as opposed to the plan. E.g.
GK psyback spam armies with 1 or 2 untis of assassins ready to finish off the demeched opponent.
20000+ points
5000 
