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No. Not overwatch. Not random charge distance.
DELIVERY METHOD.( Not being able to assault from deep strike, not being able to assault from reserves, not being able to assault from infiltrate, not being able to assault from outflanking....)
Make EVERY vehicle assault vehicle, and allow to assault from reserves, scouting, infiltrating....(and to balance the 10 man hammernator deep strike, allow them to deep strike only if they rolled a to hit on the deep striking, and then they assault as if going through difficult terrain....
Any more ideas on how to make assault a more or less viable option?

I don't think every vehicle needs to be an assault vehicle. Just allow units in stationary non-assault vehicles to assault when they disembark would fix them.

Outflankers should totally be allowed to assault as well.

However not allowing the Infiltrators and Scouts to assault is a balance from First Turn Advantage so I don't think they should get the ability to assault.

The actual problem lies in guns being cheaper and more effective than melee weapons that do the same job; delivery is only part of the issue, worsening the access to cheap AP2/3 flamers/blasts and bringing power weapons back to Ignores All Armour would do at least as much.

I think allowing cover saves to be taken in addition to armor or invuln saves would be a decent fix.

It would make shooting less effective without nerfing it completely or unduly buffing assault(which allowing assault after deep striking or infiltrating would do. GKs and Drop Pod based armies would bone everyone)

 Grey Templar wrote:
I think allowing cover saves to be taken in addition to armor or invuln saves would be a decent fix.

It would make shooting less effective without nerfing it completely or unduly buffing assault(which allowing assault after deep striking or infiltrating would do. GKs and Drop Pod based armies would bone everyone)

Alternatively bring the cover rules in from Fantasy so that it modifies BS to do effectively the same thing: make shooting less effective overall without making it useless.

No. Thats exactly why BS shooting in Fantasy is useless. All the to-hit modifiers.

I think it should remain a save. A BS reduction would be messy when blasts got involved. But that save should be available more often.

Let marines and terminators actually benefit from cover against stuff other than AP2-3.

 Grey Templar wrote:
No. Thats exactly why BS shooting in Fantasy is useless. All the to-hit modifiers.

You're forgetting that the models tend to have far worse BS, and they have an extended chart that can go as low as 6+/6+ to hit.

I have been having great sucess in assault with muh Orks.

 OldSkoolGoff wrote:
I have been having great sucess in assault with muh Orks.

Same here. I guess the solution lies within codexes. Orkses have open topped transports, semi-fleet on the charge and can run+charge once per game. It's enough to make assault viable for us without making it too effective. The only thing i'd do right now is allow charging from stationary vehicles so that sm, csm, eldar and others could finally utisile their assaulty units without bikes or landraiders. Demolition vets in chimeras, anyone?

Maybe allow vehicles to open their doors in preparation for an assault, effectively giving them a weaker form of open-topped?

Like standard open-topped, but still uses fire and access points as normal? Maybe allow firing from access points?

So your proposal would be:

Ready Up!: A transport may opt to Ready Up! at the start of the movement phase. It may then only move up to 6" and can only make 1 pivot for this movement phase. It gains the Open-Topped rule until the following movement phase.

That's actually better than regular open-topped cause you don't suffer from flamers and +1 to damage table. And it's basically an assault vehicle for free.

Note that it actually does become open topped until its following movement phase, and it also looses some mobility.

That would be the trade off for allowing assaults.

It's becoming opentopped when the drawbacks allready don't matter. Might as well give "Assault vehicle" for everything. Bad game design.

Well, perhaps what i would do is, LOWER THE AMOUNT OF TWINLINKED armorbanefleshbaneshredinstantdeath AP2 guns and the aforementioned readyup... any more ideas?

 koooaei wrote:
It's becoming opentopped when the drawbacks allready don't matter. Might as well give "Assault vehicle" for everything. Bad game design.

Well I don't know about that - if "Ready Up" prevented the vehicle from moving then Open Topped vehicles would still have an advantage (namely a 6" move before the passengers would disembark). And, with transports now having Objective Secured, they are very useful even after the cargo has disembarked. Making Rhinos open-topped if you want to assault out of the thing (and it remained stationary) would make them more vulnerable in a strong way.

Models may assault after making a run move.

Problem solved, you're welcome.

So my invisible seekers will be able to assault an enemy in the first round of every single match?

Dope.

ThatSwellFella wrote:
Well, perhaps what i would do is, LOWER THE AMOUNT OF TWINLINKED armorbanefleshbaneshredinstantdeath AP2 guns and the aforementioned readyup... any more ideas?

Pretty sure there are almost no ranged weapons with fleshbane.

 Grey Templar wrote:

ThatSwellFella wrote:
Well, perhaps what i would do is, LOWER THE AMOUNT OF TWINLINKED armorbanefleshbaneshredinstantdeath AP2 guns and the aforementioned readyup... any more ideas?

Pretty sure there are almost no ranged weapons with fleshbane.

Singing Spears?

That said, ThatSwellFella is on the right track; the problem with assault is that shooting is flat-out better at killing models than assault in most situations. The best way to make assault viable is to tone down the overabundance of cheap low-AP/high-Strength blast/template/high-rate-of-fire guns (or at least fairly price them in comparison to melee weapons that haven't changed in price in four editions) and make assault forces actually capable of doing enough damage to justify their cost.

I did say almost.

Singing Spears and I think one daemonic gift or something has Fleshbane shooting. I seriously can't think of a third example.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I did say almost.

Singing Spears and I think one daemonic gift or something has Fleshbane shooting. I seriously can't think of a third example.

No Daemonic Gift, but Necrotoxin Missiles and the Bane Wolf's Chem-Cannon are Poisoned 2+. If you expand your search to include blast/template weapons with S6+ (enough to wound Marines on 2+) you will find many more weapons.

In 2nd, iirc, there was range; maybe a kind of revamping it might help: half range at bs, full range at bs-1 (in 2nd ed it was a bonus at shorter distances, again iirc) sharpshooters have still an edge at long distances, whereas normal shooters and vehicles' artillery become less accurate at long range.

This should translate in more survivability which in turn produces more models reaching charge distance.

Another thing could be "rigging" overwatch with something limiting the unit, something like 'unit may go OW if stationary'

Yeah didnt 2nd edition do overwatch where the unit couldnt do anything the turn you declared them going on overwatch, but then got to shoot on the enemies turn? Not 100% on that cause its been a decade and change but i think thats how it went.... That would be good IMO...

Edit- Actually thinking on it more, that would be pretty outstanding coupled with this: Reduce rapid fire range to, say, 8 or 9 inches. That way, when its the assaulting players turn and he wants to assault the unit on overwatch, he has a choice to make- get in close for the "guaranteed" charge but eat more overwatch fire, or risk failing the charge but take less fire. Also I would make assault moves not remove models from the front, thats always been kind crappy to me that you can roll far enough to make the charge but still fail the charge because you got shot to bits, THEN have to get shot to bits again the next turn. Not cool at all.

Cambonimachine wrote:
Yeah didnt 2nd edition do overwatch where the unit couldnt do anything the turn you declared them going on overwatch, but then got to shoot on the enemies turn? Not 100% on that cause its been a decade and change but i think thats how it went.... That would be good IMO...

That just resulted in everyone being on Overwatch all the time and the first player to get bored and move forward auto-losing.

I think the key to making assault viable under the current rules is to increase the points cost of all ranged weapons.

I disagree that it's not overwatch or random charge distance. I think those things, combined with delivery method, are all conceptually one half of the problem.

The availability of low AP weaponry is the other half, but that's screwing up the game in general, rather than just screwing up the Assault phase. For example, Space Marines are supposed to be clad in some of the best, most protective personal armor in the galaxy, but it's trivially easy for most armies to field a staggering amount of AP3 weaponry. This makes what are supposed to be 'elite' troops no more valuable than cannon fodder. GW keeps addressing it incorrectly and backwards by making them cheaper, and giving them access to low AP weapons themselves (grav guns, etc), but isn't addressing the fact that the underlying game mechanics aren't reflecting the intent or design of the game universe.


Back to the specific problems with Assault. Overwatch, random charge distances, and the many specific assault prohibitions around delivery methods (no DS assault, no Infiltrating assault, etc) are all game responses to address the IGO-UGO game system (and changing that would be a much deeper alteration of the entire enterprise).

Conceptually, these prohibitions and rules are designed to maintain the 'action and response' system of IGO-UGO in scenarios where it would otherwise disappear. For example, for gameplay reasons, you don't want marines to be able to pile out of a Rhino and assault someone before they can even crack off a shot. You don't want Deep Striking Terminators to magically appear and launch themselves at the opponent before a single guy shoots at them. You don't want orks to emerge from the bushes and run over and bang you on the head before anyone can do anything.

The problems are that there are TOO many ways for the shooting player to intervene in an assault, there are NO downsides to doing so, and there is no corresponding possibility for a melee oriented unit to intervene in an assault.

For examples of these:

Too many ways to interrupt: The Kommandos appear using infiltration. Their opponent can now shoot at them. The kommandos charge. The opponent can again shoot at them, using overwatch. The kommandos could them possibly fail their charge, due to random charge distances. The opponent can shoot at them a third time. The kommandos (assuming any are left) can then try to charge again, but will take a FOURTH set of shots, from Overwatch.

So, the system created to ensure that the opponent gets at least one round of shooting before being assaulted guarantees no less than two rounds of shooting against any assaulter (barring multiple units assaulting them), and can easily give four rounds of shooting (thanks to random charges). This dramatically overcompensates for the problem.

No downsides In the previous example, there is no reason for the opponent not to take the overwatch shots. They do not prevent him from shooting the unit in his own turn, nor do they prevent him from shooting another opponent in his turn if the assault fails. Barring special cases with single shot or Gets Hot weapons, there is never any downside to Overwatch. If choosing to fire overwatch had actual negative consequences (such as not being able to fire in your own turn), then it would be a tactical decision. Instead, it is simply extra shooting (with some limitations). Free extra shooting is aways going to benefit Shooters.

No benefits for melee units If, for some reason, the Orks were instead assaulting a melee unit (say, some Hormagaunts), the hormagaunts have no response at all. They wait patiently as the Orks move, shoot, and assault. The only chance a melee unit has to 'interrupt' an assault (and be the ones gaining the benefits of assaulting themselves) is in the movement, hoping that the enemy assaulter's movement is insufficient, and allowing them to assault instead. This is available to all units in the game, but shooting units have an additional opportunity (or more than one) to interrupt an assault, in both the shooting phase, and the Overwatch condition. Giving shooting multiple opportunities to interrupt an assault while restricting melee to only a single scenario to do so will also privilege shooting over assault.

If overwatch was one of many possible charge responses, such as 'countercharging', fleeing, or holding, then it would strike a better balance between strong shooting units and others. As it is, it is the ONLY charge response, so it benefits units directly in proportion to their own shooting power. For example, if a large ork unit could choose between shooting a load of dakka at an oncoming horde, or choose to Countercharge and possibly get the benefits of assaulting instead of the enemy, it might be more advantageous to countercharge.

I think all of these things are fixable, but I think you'd need to address all of them:

1) Properly cost highly effective shooting (low AP, High STR, or otherwise dangerous weapons)

2) Relax assault prohibitions (from DS, from Infiltration, from vehicles) in light of the existence of Overwatch and Random Charge distances.

3)Introduce a slate of charge responses with comparable benefits/penalties such as Overwatch, Counter-charge, Flee, and Hold.

This is a symptom of a larger problem with the core rules.

The core rules are from a game where RANGED ATTACKS are ONLY used in a SUPPORTING ROLE.

40k should have rules that allow an equal balance of mobility fire power and assault.IMO.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I did say almost.

Singing Spears and I think one daemonic gift or something has Fleshbane shooting. I seriously can't think of a third example.

you missed the point: what i wanted to say is that it just isn't funny when you have a 20 man crusader squad with hidden power fist and power weapon sword brother when anything will blow it sky high in one round of shooting. No use in the power weapons and fists if you can't get to melee range. So meaning that the space marines, who are in fluff elite soldiers with one of the best protection, get roflstomped by almost anything(heldrakes, serpents, etcetcetc.... while the former ignores cover and once per game has 2+ to wound with reroll, and is a TEMPLATE. The latter can easily decimate the rhino space marines are in by glancing it to death, while the 2nd serpent continues to rip up the space marines that disembarked, and if someone spams them 3rd glances 2nd rhino 4th rips up the 2nd marines squad... You can't outshoot the wave serpent spam with space marines, nor can you get close to tear them apart... I have 3k points of BT just standing and collecting dust because i assembled them with BP's and CCW's

1.)Properly cost highly effective shooting (low AP, High STR, or otherwise dangerous weapons)

2) Relax assault prohibitions (from DS, from Infiltration, from vehicles) in light of the existence of Overwatch and Random Charge distances.

3)Introduce a slate of charge responses with comparable benefits/penalties such as Overwatch, Counter-charge, Flee, and Hold.

this pretty much,

koooaei wrote:

 OldSkoolGoff wrote:
I have been having great sucess in assault with muh Orks.

Same here. I guess the solution lies within codexes. Orkses have open topped transports, semi-fleet on the charge and can run+charge once per game. It's enough to make assault viable for us without making it too effective. The only thing i'd do right now is allow charging from stationary vehicles so that sm, csm, eldar and others could finally utisile their assaulty units without bikes or landraiders. Demolition vets in chimeras, anyone?

Lanrak wrote:This is a symptom of a larger problem with the core rules.

The core rules are from a game where RANGED ATTACKS are ONLY used in a SUPPORTING ROLE.

40k should have rules that allow an equal balance of mobility fire power and assault.IMO.

I think these are the problems, as described very well by Da Butcha in regards to the amount of firepower a unit can take before being able to assault.

Also, dedicated assault units that are allowed to run in their shooting phase, because, what else would you do with no guns, but not assault because they ran.

Core rule wise, you have random charge distances which are affected by the number of times a unit is shot at prior to, and right before charging (overwatch). Then you have special rules in the form of army Codexes/codices ?sp? that allow wonky things that make it nigh impossible for footslogging/dedicated CC units that don't get access to assault vehicles, Tyranids anyone?, to actually make it into an assault.

So you either need to fix the core rules to make up for the fact that the special rules break the core rules, or make the rules for assault based/themed armies special enough for them to make CC viable.