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Martel732 wrote:
"Right now assault is far too powerful as it is. "

That is an absurd statement.

". Right now both Assault and Deepstrike are too powerful."

Nope. You to be doing something wrong in list construction because I can cripple deep striking GK with BA's crappy firepower. You only need to kill around 15-20 models and their army falls apart.

Really? Because, you know, I had around 30 plus a tank in their DZ. And I lost all of them in a single turn.

Rather than telling me I am absurd try telling me where I have gone wrong and making a logical and factual arguement. Except you cant because you know I am right.

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Right now assault is far too powerful as it is. "

That is an absurd statement.

". Right now both Assault and Deepstrike are too powerful."

Nope. You to be doing something wrong in list construction because I can cripple deep striking GK with BA's crappy firepower. You only need to kill around 15-20 models and their army falls apart.

Really? Because, you know, I had around 30 plus a tank in their DZ. And I lost all of them in a single turn.

Rather than telling me I am absurd try telling me where I have gone wrong and making a logical and factual arguement. Except you cant because you know I am right.

30 what? And a tank? In the GK DZ? What are you talking about?

First off, when you see GK alpha strike you have to set up a certain way. That way is dependent upon the board, but the point is to protect the units that you most care about and offer up plenty of chaff to get shot at and then assaulted. Units not being able to consolidate into another combat gives shooty lists a plethora of regular firing opportunities on top of overwatch. Use this to your advantage. GK are playing a lot of points to kill units that aren't worth very much. And then getting shot in the face more with melta/plasma. That's basically the worst possible scenario for them ever.

I'm calling your statement absurd because assault has never been weaker in the history of 40K. Ever. It's difficult to get enough units into CC and then there are units like Scatbikes and Riptide that can run away indefinitely until they run out of board. Also, there is an absurdly low number of assault transports in the game, making open topped a DESIRABLE vehicle trait.

I personally think that the IG are much better in the current meta than BA, even if they are technically on the same tier, or only half a tier above BA.

IG certainly aren't placing any better than BA's in most tournaments, at least on any meaningful level. Both are mostly relegated to being "allies" used to plug gaps in capabilities or take advantage of ability synergies for more powerful armies.

That said, as someone who has IG, CSM, GK, Tau, Eldar, Sisters, and Tyranid armies, that there's potentially some truth both ways. The game has never had assault units as powerful, resilient, and fast as exist now. A large number of top level tournament lists routinely are built around close combat. TWC's/Bikers/Wraiths are all very popular and extremely powerful and popular, while the killing power and resiliency of units like Flayed Ones would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago.

The issue is that your more traditional CC units, like Genestealers or mechanized MEQ's and Assault Marines and the like, isn't one of these things that's showing up in these armies. They're too easy to prevent from getting to grips properly. For these, allowing them to assault out of stationary transports or walk on reserve would do a lot to restore utility.

By the same token however, we're also not seeing most armies get much use out of many "mundane" shooting units either like Guardsmen or DE Warriors and the like.

However, assault from Deep Strike isn't going to help many of the units that do need help them, and in the cases where it will, it likely will make them absurdly overcapable.

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Right now assault is far too powerful as it is. "

That is an absurd statement.

". Right now both Assault and Deepstrike are too powerful."

Nope. You to be doing something wrong in list construction because I can cripple deep striking GK with BA's crappy firepower. You only need to kill around 15-20 models and their army falls apart.

Really? Because, you know, I had around 30 plus a tank in their DZ. And I lost all of them in a single turn.

Rather than telling me I am absurd try telling me where I have gone wrong and making a logical and factual arguement. Except you cant because you know I am right.

30 what? And a tank? In the GK DZ? What are you talking about?

First off, when you see GK alpha strike you have to set up a certain way. That way is dependent upon the board, but the point is to protect the units that you most care about and offer up plenty of chaff to get shot at and then assaulted. Units not being able to consolidate into another combat gives shooty lists a plethora of regular firing opportunities on top of overwatch. Use this to your advantage. GK are playing a lot of points to kill units that aren't worth very much. And then getting shot in the face more with melta/plasma. That's basically the worst possible scenario for them ever.

I'm calling your statement absurd because assault has never been weaker in the history of 40K. Ever. It's difficult to get enough units into CC and then there are units like Scatbikes and Riptide that can run away indefinitely until they run out of board. Also, there is an absurdly low number of assault transports in the game, making open topped a DESIRABLE vehicle trait.

I personally think that the IG are much better in the current meta than BA, even if they are technically on the same tier, or only half a tier above BA.

Martel, you may really want to stop before you show yourself up any more than you just have done so.
I had 30 Veterans in the right tile of my deployment zone plus a tank. The Grey Knights (with the exception of the Dreadknight) dropped in there and killed them. All of them. No bloody exceptions. Bear in mind that this was turn one and I only just moved some stuff a little (6") forwards to go after the objective. He dropped in to my deployment area and killed me. And in case you didnt know DZ means Drop Zone.

I was set up in the classic "well, dont let them get close, now bubble wrap the important stuff" Imperial Guard line - no way in hell was anything moving closer than needed.

The chaff units ate stupidly powerful flames and died without saves. Then the assaulty stuff moved in and chipchopped the pricey stuff. My tanks where hammered and grenaded. There was NOTHING I could do.

Overwatch. Dont make me laugh. Overwatching with lasguns has never as far as I know caused a wound. Ever. Melta guns lack the firerate to hit anything on overwatch and plasma is an overpriced joke that kills its user.
Melta is great. At three per unit shooting into a psyker buffed GK unit with 4+ invuns and the like. Really powerful you know (hope your hearing the sarcasm here) and those massive blasts are so powerful.... If they hit anything and wound it and get through its armour/invun.

Your calling my statement absurd? Go look at the top contenders in most tournaments. Look good and hard and tell me how many CC armies you see. A hell of a lot of them. Assault is stupidly easy. There is no downside, overwatch is an utter joke and being in CC effectively negates your opponents shooting in regards to that unit and makes your unit immune to his shooting too. Assault is in no way weak and with dickery like invisibility it is only going from strength to strength.

Not everyone has scatbikes and Tau jumpsuits. In fact only two armies do. Stop trying to lump us all together.

IG are weaker than BA? Have you been venturing into my deepest fetish laden depraved dreams about 40K? Because that is the only place whee BA do not roflstomp Imperial Guard in to the ground.

I thought you meant you were in their deployment zone.

Again, assault is the weakest it has ever been in 40K. There are a few special snowflake units with stat lines that make them a problem. By problem, I mean that they are capable of reaching CC being before shot to tiny little giblets by 7th ed firepower lists. That does not make assault strong. That makes those units strong. There is a difference. Those same units would be strong if they were shooting units as well. They'd probably be better.

If you can't beat BA with IG at around a 55% rate in 7th ed, I don't know what to tell you. This is literally the worst the BA have been arguably since 2nd ed or MAYBE the WD codex. It's an awful codex full of builds that look different, but all achieve terrible (on average) results on the table.

I think around half the BA players consider this codex a NERF from the Warddex that was two editions old. We have no special snowflake units of any importance.

The amount of AP 2 fire that can come from a good guard list is just withering. GK can't stand against it, because they can't stand against the AP 2 fire from a BA list usually.

" Stop trying to lump us all together. "

But you all get an overpowered shooting phase. Some are just more overpowered than others.

 master of ordinance wrote:
(seriously, even with overwatch my Veterans will rarely put more than a single wound on a Tactical Squad).

Amongst everything else, this statement comes across as totally absurd. Veterans have access to 3 special weapons per squad of 10. That's 3 flamers, 3 plasma guns, 3 melta guns... Flamers will let you put a load of wounds on enemies and force armor saves, plasma guns will kill everything they point at, and melta guns... eh, sub par against marines, I guess. That's going to smoke a unit of Grey Knights (as it has to me, many times. My opponent being a Veteran heavy Guard player).

Veterans have way more than enough tools to absolutely punish an enemy deep striking into their midst. I'm only calling this out because you mention it as something currently happening with you, and not something that will happen should assaulting from deep strike be a thing that is implemented. Obviously if you ONLY have overwatch, you're going to kill a lot fewer MEQs, but "even with" overwatch you should be scoring plenty of wounds.

(Someone earlier was going on about how an IG Veteran Section can kill an entire squad in one turn of shooting - someone whom was obviously talking out of their ass and has never faced IG before - even Melta vets will struggle to kill three MEQ's)

3 Plasma guns will annihilate the common Grey Knight squads. Do you... do you take Veteran squads with only lasguns? You keep bringing up lasguns as if they're the only weapons you've got... That's gonna really skew your idea of relative durability of various units...

Deepstriking and assaulting should have its risks. Stop whining and in all honesty deal with it.

Risk of not entering the board
Risk of mishap
Risk of scattering too far from your target

Risk of failing the charge
Risk of dying to overwatch
Risk of killing your target too fast/too slow (too fast and you're in the enemy deployment zone surrounded by their army, too slow and their countercharge units join the fray or their tarpits pile on)

Combing the two... only increases the risks!

I think it's just the case where he has to be given the assault list to really understand.

Vets are not chaff, especially with 3x Plasmas and Carapace. That's a 120pt unit, even before a transport!

Bubble-wrapping with 30 Conscripts would have saved you 250pts and about 2KPs, Bullgryns with T5/3+ and a FNP source might have weathered the flamer assault, and Forewarning/TK Dome/Invis might have helped your Vets hold up longer.

This isn't an assault scenario though. Just T1 drop pods (which is a whole other topic)

 master of ordinance wrote:
Stop whining and in all honesty deal with it.

In fairness, couldn't the same argument be used in response to your feelings about how assault and deep strike are too powerful? I'm not unsympathetic to your plight, but if we're being fair, here...

I don't understand why people say assault isn't powerful in 7th. It's plenty powerful; no other phase of the game lets you destroy entire units with one roll, ignores an entire type of save, and keeps you from being targeted by enemy shooting attacks. Assault is plenty powerful. The problem is how difficult it is to get into assault. There's a reason why most of the assault units people do take tend to be fast and tough; they have to be in order to run across the board and survive multiple waves of shooting. Literally no other method is really effective due to the inability to assault from Infiltrate, table edges, or from most vehicles. Assault from Deep-Strike solves none of these issues, and just makes the game even more imbalanced in favor of units that can assault in that manner vs. units that can't.

I think Assault is powerful, and that it should be mitigated somewhat, but I do think that there needs to be a way for units that do assault *exclusively* to be better able to make it to assault so they can make more of an impact without dying in droves before they even get to do what they're designed to do. Be that wound mitigation by higher toughness, or some other rule such as a special, improved cover save to save for being particularly dodgy/hard to hit, whatever the case may be. (A-la jink).

i also think that certain non-pure close combat squads could have this kind of rule if they are particularly adept at that kind of attacking.

A perfect example would be Vanguard Veterans in previous editions. You paid extra points for them because they had a slightly better stat line in their attack profile, and that they had the glorious intervention rule.

I think that certain elite (and ONLY elite) infantry types should be allowed the opportunity to charge in on the turn they land if they have the following: Jump Packs (not Drop Pods) or equivalent movement increasing equipment, and pass a leadership or initiative test once they successfully land.

Make it somewhat variable, such as they are treated as charging through difficult terrain on the turn they land/arrive from deep strike reserves (so -2 inches to the charge distance) and that they cannot benefit from Hammer of Wrath attacks on the same turn they arrive. Also, add another -1 inch to their charge distance if they roll an arrow on the scatter dice (distance scattered doesn't matter, just that they were off-target).

That would allow people to still field drop troops that could *in theory* land and charge, but the odds are against it being an easy place-then-charge.

Again, I reiterate, it would be a select few units that could accomplish this kind of assault on the same turn they land, not every fast-mover under the sun. Standard Marine Assault Squads, or Bike Squads, etc. need not apply. Call it Glorious Intervention and tie it to the Elite slot unit having some form of enhanced movement, be it jetbikes, or jump packs, or whatever mode of locomotion you want beyond walking/running.

I also agree that when a squad or unit comes in off of outflank or scout moves, they shouldn't charge in that same turn. At least not without some other similar rule that requires them to have some penalty (Again, I like -3 inches, but for Outflank you could even say -6 inches and keep it fair) to their charge and only if they make a leadership/initiative test to be able to even attempt that charge in the first place.

Just my opinions on that. I do want to see Assault be more common personally, but I suppose time will tell what we'll see in the near future. Take it easy for now folks.

-Red__Thirst-

Bubble-wrapping with 30 Conscripts would have saved you 250pts and about 2KPs, Bullgryns with T5/3+ and a FNP source might have weathered the flamer assault, and Forewarning/TK Dome/Invis might have helped your Vets hold up longer.

Ill add those bullgryns as soon as they become 0pts and I can fit them in to an IG list and there is no dome invisibility if the GK player goes first, plus you need to have a caster witht he spell not get stoped from casting it, by a GK player who will probably roll 12+dice to stop it.

Call it Glorious Intervention and tie it to the Elite slot unit having some form of enhanced movement, be it jetbikes, or jump packs, or whatever mode of locomotion you want beyond walking/running.

The problem with this is that, even if you make it elite, but the tech works, people will just take dual or triple CADs or formations like the BA one and spam the elite unit. So armies are going to be some msu scouts and a 5 or 6 units of the elite units charging the whole opposing army turn 1.

You can't Deep strike with Jump Packs on turn 1 though. And you have very few options to allow a re-roll of the reserve roll, and only a couple of ways I can think of that modify it in any way. (And one of those can be used to effect your opponents rolls in a negative way when rolling reserves.)

Point being, you're not guaranteed to get your entire force on the table on turn 2, plus you've got to deal with scattering (unless you've got locator beacons, which have to be on the table the turn before the deep strikers land, so blast the drop pods that arrive turn 1/scout squads in cover) and potential deepstrike mishaps as well. It's a very high risk tactic to spam a bunch of these kinds of units in my view.

Let me put it a different way.

What difference is there if you drop a squad of Sternguard in a drop pod and erase an enemy unit with combiweapon fire, versus dropping an identical points value of Vanguard that can charge the turn they land (with reasonable restrictions) and erase the same enemy unit with close combat attacks? Why is one accepted as being ok, and the other decried as being overpowered?

I for one would like both Sternguad & Vanguard to be equally viable and effective instead of Sternguard being head and shoulders better, using marines as an example here.

Hopefully that makes my point a little clearer. Take it easy for now everyone.

-Red__Thirst-

 Red__Thirst wrote:
What difference is there if you drop a squad of Sternguard in a drop pod and erase an enemy unit with combiweapon fire, versus dropping an identical points value of Vanguard that can charge the turn they l

Because Close Combat and Shooting is completely different

Shooting does one basic thing
- Deals damage to a single unit

And shooting erasing a unit isn't unique to deep strike. I can do the same thing by shooting Lascannons at a vehicle or shoot a couple barrages at a squad from a wyvern. Deep strike isn't actually making shooting more powerful it just lets you use different weapons to max efficiency. Shooting already kills units without recourse deep strike doesn't give it anything new.

Close combat on the other hand is way more powerful.
- Can't be shot at while locked in combat
- Can attack in both player's turns
- Forces opponent to attack that unit with melee
- Prevents enemy unit from moving or shooting,
- Can sweeping advance even off a single wound
- Can do all of this to multiple enemy units with multi-charging

Assault is way more powerful. Even just multi-charging multiple units and locking them up in close combat is immensely powerful because it effectively removes multiple units from the game for what could be several turns. The counter balance to assault is that it's difficult to engage. Its huge risk to huge reward. Yes in 7ed a lot of assault units don't work because the risk is too great for the reward to pay off. But deep striking assaults isn't an appropriate way to fix CC because it removes almost all of the risk while still maintaining such a huge reward.

What difference is there if you drop a squad of Sternguard in a drop pod and erase an enemy unit with combiweapon fire, versus dropping an identical points value of Vanguard that can charge the turn they land (with reasonable restrictions) and erase the same enemy unit with close combat attacks? Why is one accepted as being ok, and the other decried as being overpowered?

Against sternguard I can use cover, vs an army that charges me am fighting with str 3 t3 verus str4 t4 with +3sv. I can place my plasma or melta in a such a way that at least in theory it should die last. melee doesn't care about that. I can try to wipe out a combat squaded sternguard unit with shoting, if a melee unit is killing my IG dudes, then I can't realy do anything about it. IG doesn't have melee units and we can't shot in to melee.

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Red__Thirst wrote:
What difference is there if you drop a squad of Sternguard in a drop pod and erase an enemy unit with combiweapon fire, versus dropping an identical points value of Vanguard that can charge the turn they l

Because Close Combat and Shooting is completely different

Shooting does one basic thing
- Deals damage to a single unit

And shooting erasing a unit isn't unique to deep strike. I can do the same thing by shooting Lascannons at a vehicle or shoot a couple barrages at a squad from a wyvern. Deep strike isn't actually making shooting more powerful it just lets you use different weapons to max efficiency. Shooting already kills units without recourse deep strike doesn't give it anything new.

Close combat on the other hand is way more powerful.
- Can't be shot at while locked in combat
- Can attack in both player's turns
- Forces opponent to attack that unit with melee
- Prevents enemy unit from moving or shooting,
- Can sweeping advance even off a single wound
- Can do all of this to multiple enemy units with multi-charging

Don't forget automatically attacking tanks on rear armor and at never worst than a 3+ to hit

I'm sure you didn't need those Leman Russ anyway.

 vipoid wrote:
I'm sure you didn't need those Leman Russ anyway.

Nah, not at all, totally expendable

Rihgu wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
(seriously, even with overwatch my Veterans will rarely put more than a single wound on a Tactical Squad).

Amongst everything else, this statement comes across as totally absurd. Veterans have access to 3 special weapons per squad of 10. That's 3 flamers, 3 plasma guns, 3 melta guns... Flamers will let you put a load of wounds on enemies and force armor saves, plasma guns will kill everything they point at, and melta guns... eh, sub par against marines, I guess. That's going to smoke a unit of Grey Knights (as it has to me, many times. My opponent being a Veteran heavy Guard player).

Veterans have way more than enough tools to absolutely punish an enemy deep striking into their midst. I'm only calling this out because you mention it as something currently happening with you, and not something that will happen should assaulting from deep strike be a thing that is implemented. Obviously if you ONLY have overwatch, you're going to kill a lot fewer MEQs, but "even with" overwatch you should be scoring plenty of wounds.

Three special weapons firing overwatch. Three Meltas will rarely inflict a single wound owing to lacking the number of shots, three Plasma Guns will inflict 1 casualty on the assaulting player and will also kill off one Veteran. Flamers are the only way to go for counter assault choices. You will inflict on average 6 hits of which three will wound and, on your average MEQ, one will fail his save and die. Not much bang for your buck IMHO.

(Someone earlier was going on about how an IG Veteran Section can kill an entire squad in one turn of shooting - someone whom was obviously talking out of their ass and has never faced IG before - even Melta vets will struggle to kill three MEQ's)

3 Plasma guns will annihilate the common Grey Knight squads. Do you... do you take Veteran squads with only lasguns? You keep bringing up lasguns as if they're the only weapons you've got... That's gonna really skew your idea of relative durability of various units...

Not at all, once again people forget the psychic dickery that GK can get up too which include such lovelies as invulnerable save buffs. I will kill on average three basic GK's without Invun, Cover or FNP at 12" and also lose a Veteran. That is I will lose a 21 point model owing to overheating.
Lasguns are, for the most part, the only weapons that I have in my Veterans. Sure there are special weapons but those three special snowflakes cost a bomb each and they are only a small part of the overall section. The rest have Lasguns and trust me on this: Lasguns will not be killing GK's much.

Deepstriking and assaulting should have its risks. Stop whining and in all honesty deal with it.

Risk of not entering the board
Risk of mishap
Risk of scattering too far from your target

Risk of failing the charge
Risk of dying to overwatch
Risk of killing your target too fast/too slow (too fast and you're in the enemy deployment zone surrounded by their army, too slow and their countercharge units join the fray or their tarpits pile on)

Combing the two... only increases the risks!

I am going to be frank here: I have only twice in the last year seen a Deepstrike mishap and that was down to the player being an idiot. Not entering the board never happens and scattering is so easily mitigated that it might as well not exist.

The risks of failing the charge is a fair one but if you are dropping in that close then it is vastly reduced.

Dying to Overwatch? When was the last time Overwatch inflicted even a single wound before saves?

Killing them too fast still leaves you close to invulnerable to large blasts unless the enemy was spaced out and the risk is all together dropped by having several DS assault units. Countercharge is rarely if ever a risk.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I'm sure you didn't need those Leman Russ anyway.

Nah, not at all, totally expendable

Aye, and a damn good bargain at 150 points plus upgrades too!

Honestly, I can't help but try to imagine what kind of game are people playing where "assault is too stronk"? A dedicated shooting army will decimate a dedicated assault army 11 times out of 10. There is no single statline more beneficial to a unit than range, period. A shooting unit strikes without caring for retaliation. There is nothing else that needs to be said, if people can't understand how dealing damage without taking damage back is BETTER than the alternative then it can't be helped any longer. I am not even considering the fact that shooting units are useful from the first round of the game whilst assault units are useful from the third round if they are lucky enough to even arrive.

There is a reason the tournament lists are filled with scatbikes and not wraithblades, sternguards and not vanguards, . Necrons are the only army that can do assault decently and that's because wraiths are silly. KDK maybe but depends greatly on their getting their blood tithes up. That's it for assault. BA suck at it, Tyranids suck at it, Orks suck at it. Armies that are supposed to be good at assault completely suck at assault.

I use Skyhammer Annihilation Force. I already do

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Honestly, I can't help but try to imagine what kind of game are people playing where "assault is too stronk"? A dedicated shooting army will decimate a dedicated assault army 11 times out of 10. There is no single statline more beneficial to a unit than range, period. A shooting unit strikes without caring for retaliation. There is nothing else that needs to be said, if people can't understand how dealing damage without taking damage back is BETTER than the alternative then it can't be helped any longer. I am not even considering the fact that shooting units are useful from the first round of the game whilst assault units are useful from the third round if they are lucky enough to even arrive.

There is a reason the tournament lists are filled with scatbikes and not wraithblades, sternguards and not vanguards, . Necrons are the only army that can do assault decently and that's because wraiths are silly. KDK maybe but depends greatly on their getting their blood tithes up. That's it for assault. BA suck at it, Tyranids suck at it, Orks suck at it. Armies that are supposed to be good at assault completely suck at assault.

Spoken like a player whom has never gakked bricks and prayed to the dice gods for lucky rolls when facing down an assault army.
Also look at the tournament listings. There are a lot of higher tier assault armies at the top.

Makumba wrote:
Ill add those bullgryns as soon as they become 0pts and I can fit them in to an IG list and there is no dome invisibility if the GK player goes first, plus you need to have a caster witht he spell not get stoped from casting it, by a GK player who will probably roll 12+dice to stop it.

Alright.

Conscripts? You didn't mention them so I guess that has potential.

Psykers? If the entire GK army is Null Deployed, those dice aren't in play to deny. You will still face issues if the GK army gets the first turn, so you probably want something to disrupt reserves and manipulate seize rolls.

Bullgryns? They're definitely not a hot meta unit but people ocassionally use them. In fact, I've even read an anecdote where one guy killed a WK using Maulgryns backed by a Priest and Hammerhand.

Either way, I think we can establish that Vets don't tank Heavy Flamers too well solo. And once the bubblewrap is gone, that LR tank isn't too hot in assault against a Dreadknight either.

IG's issues in tournaments go above and beyone alpha strike pods but I'm sure there's a way to tailor to beat this strat.

This guy gets it.

Go take a look at the army list section, or better yet, go take a look at any major tournament participant's list and tell me how many dedicated close combat units you find. I'm talking units that are designed to do the majority of their damage in melee and then compare that to units that are designed by-and-large to shoot and do their damage output via ranged weapon attacks.

Compare those numbers, and then tell me assault is broken and doesn't deserve some kind of buff/aid to allow some semblance, or even a slight increase, in effectiveness versus shooting.

I'm not saying we go whole-hog in the opposite direction, far from it. I play Guard for crying out loud and have been a staunch guard player for more than 5 years now. That said, I want to see close combat units have more than a dim, distant hope that they'll actually be able to make it to assault with *at least* half of their starting strength, or a little more. I'd like to see useful assault elements in armies.

For example. The lowly space marine assault squad. Let's try this out as a thought experiment.

Jump Pack Expertise: Space Marines are trained to fire the jump packs in rapid blasts as they land to both cushion their landing and to kick up a large cloud of dust and debris to give them temporary cover and obscure them from enemy fire. These marines are also adept at using their jump packs to close on enemies quickly, allowing them to break through enemy lines with swift and vicious effect.

-On the turn an Assault Squad that is equipped with jump packs arrives from deep strike, the squad is considered to have the Stealth and Shrouding Universal Special Rules on the turn they arrive (4+ cover save in the open). On any following turns after this unit arrives from deep strike, these two Universal Special Rules are no longer in effect.

-In addition, space marines that use their jump packs in the movement phase may choose to jink, and follow all the rules for jinking if they do so. Note: This means the marines may not choose to jink if they use their jump packs in the assault phase instead of the movement phase. (Gives Raven Guard a nice additional buff since their CT allows for using the JP in both the movement and assault phases)

There. That gives assault marines some added oomph to survive the turn they land, or start on the board and be able to weather some shooting while they advance with jink saves giving them a save when their armor might not be enough. So what if they snap fire only, they're mostly armed with pistols anyway and jinking doesn't effect close combat, so why not give them the opportunity to do what they're supposed to do a little more effectively?

Just thoughts to ponder upon. Take it easy everyone.

-Red__Thirst-

I know what you're saying but I like the idea that cover saves could be supplied by cover.

If every unit needs to have a Jink save to stand some small chance of survival, isn't that an indication of something?

Every unit doesn't need a jink save to gain a chance of survival.

Assault marines don't necessarily *need* it, but if bikes get Jink, and Relentless, in addition to the +1 toughness for being on a bike, it stands to reason that a guy with a rocket pack strapped to him would be trained enough to do some even more haggard mid-air shenanigans/maneuvers to help avoid incoming fire than a guy on an armored motorcycle could pull, yes?

I look at it like this, lets give some incentive to play more than one choice in a force organization slot. Fast Attack, in this instance.

Bikes cost more per model, but they get +1 toughness, are relentless, and also gain the jink option when taking fire.

For what you pay for assault marines, giving them access to jink at the very least seems fairly reasonable, especially if you specify it can only be used if they used their jump packs in the movement phase the previous turn (To include the turn they land from deepstrike, to make things simple versus trying to give them stealth and shrouding the turn they land. Same net effect, but simpler).

That way cover saves are supplied by cover, as you mention, but they still gain a little something extra against incoming fire while they close in on their target and line up the charge.

Just thinking out loud. Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

I support thought! But look at it this way. There's at least 5 discrete methods of assault to balance.

- Bikes
- Jump unit
- Infantry w/DS
- Regular Transport
- Assault Transport

Jump is now going to be better when measured against bikes, but how does that now affect the relative balance against the other methods above? Like Terminators, or anything in a transport, or whatever.

Meanwhile, how does the addition of yet more multi-save units affect the value of high AP weapons? S6-S7 spam is going to be relatively more useful, while something like an S8 AP3 blast will be less so. You can always adjust costing to achieve "balance", but the greater question is your vision of how you want the game to play out on the tabletop.

I'd rather see more interaction with terrain, than units like bikes and skimmers simply dragging their special rules around with them on the table. If you look at the list above, I personally think the issue is that bikes give out too many benefits when compared to the other choices. Of course, opinions may differ, and I just have my own.

 master of ordinance wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Honestly, I can't help but try to imagine what kind of game are people playing where "assault is too stronk"? A dedicated shooting army will decimate a dedicated assault army 11 times out of 10. There is no single statline more beneficial to a unit than range, period. A shooting unit strikes without caring for retaliation. There is nothing else that needs to be said, if people can't understand how dealing damage without taking damage back is BETTER than the alternative then it can't be helped any longer. I am not even considering the fact that shooting units are useful from the first round of the game whilst assault units are useful from the third round if they are lucky enough to even arrive.

There is a reason the tournament lists are filled with scatbikes and not wraithblades, sternguards and not vanguards, . Necrons are the only army that can do assault decently and that's because wraiths are silly. KDK maybe but depends greatly on their getting their blood tithes up. That's it for assault. BA suck at it, Tyranids suck at it, Orks suck at it. Armies that are supposed to be good at assault completely suck at assault.

Spoken like a player whom has never gakked bricks and prayed to the dice gods for lucky rolls when facing down an assault army.
Also look at the tournament listings. There are a lot of higher tier assault armies at the top.

Go try to play an assault list and after getting zero vp for three or four games, then we can talk. I'm sorry you are having trouble but BA are embarrassingly bad at assault.


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Sounds like with gk maybe you should wall off with tanks not guardsmen. I personally use rhinos for that a lot.

You know, it's starting to get really irritating how detractors of the idea are just talking about how broken it would be without acknowledging any of the restrictions and limitations you can put on it. I made a huge post with all sorts of thing I'm perfectly willing to discuss and refine that apparently only Vipoid could be bothered to read, and I'm not the only one to suggest them either. I KNOW that Assault from DS doesn't HAVE to be broken. Want to know how I know? Because if you piled on every single restriction to it that's been suggesting it would end up embarrassingly risky and unreliable and would probably be a generally weak tactic as a result.

I'm trying to meet the other side halfway by coming up with ways to balance it, but apparently that's not good enough, if you don't join in with the choir then nothing's good enough. That, or these people just want DS armies and numerous units to suck, being completely unable to do the thing they're supposed to do.

Only GW isn't know for their restrictions when they deal with eldar or sm, and those factions deep strike the most. Also even if it had restriction and was a buff to some units, why should people accept it, when their armies will never use it anyway, as GW did not give them any good deep striking units that could do melee.
SM and eldar are good enough with out those things, they don't need another buff and another different way to play their army.


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Go try to play an assault list and after getting zero vp for three or four games, then we can talk. I'm sorry you are having trouble but BA are embarrassingly bad at assault.

But were they ever ment for that? I don't know about the 3ed and times before it. I started in 5th, BAs were always tank walls and msu razorspams that did used melee only as support or int he form of a super killer HQ like mefistor.