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I was trying to figure out if there was an advantage to charging but I really can't seem to find one.
Is there an advantage to charging?

Some units get bonuses when they charge and attack in the same turn

i would assume the advantage to charging would be to get into melee combat for your melee troops. and some melee troops get bonuses on the turn that they charge.

Yeah, it was a silly question. I forgot that you can't get within 3 of an enemy unless you charge.
I was trying to figure out the benefit of a clanrats ability that let's them retreat and then charge in the sane turn.

You attack first, so you can manage to negate some of your opponent's attack back at you.

Charging gives you a few advantages.

Some units have rules that benefit from charging (or may be given bonuses for doing so).
You get to dictate your match ups.

You could argue that the benefit to charging hasn't really changed much since 8th edition (Which largely gave the same benefits).

As to the Clanrats retreat and charge. I think this comes down to a more interesting question, which is really - why would you retreat from combat?
One of the problems with the standard fight to the death approach and lack of points is that there aren't many reasons to conserve your units from destruction. You may as well sacrifice them to deal as much damage as possible.

So then you get to the question of, why retreat?
The best reason I can think of is that you want a different unit fighting the unit you're currently engaged with. Maybe you sent your screen unit in, and now you want to make space for your heavy hitters to engage and do their job.
Perhaps you need that unit to re-locate to a different objective, and you need to send in another unit to keep the current enemy unit occupied.
With variable turns, *one* tactic I almost used in a previous game was that I wanted to get my charge bonus back on my Chaos Knights, so one option I could've gone for was to retreat out and hope for the double turn (Alternatively, with more units, you can again, push a screen unit in the way while your Knights do this).

For your clanrats, unless they get a charge bonus from some other ability, then I would see it as : You want your Clanrats to be fighting something different.

The other reason for charging is - depending on how you play pile-ins - you get to dictate (to an extent) how models will move in the combat phase.

Inquisitor Jex wrote:
You attack first, so you can manage to negate some of your opponent's attack back at you.

from what I understand you alternate with your opponent now so a charge really only guarantees you to attack first with one unit right (the first one that you choose)?

thanks for the info all. it reinforces what I thought so that's good

Charging is great for being able to hit things with your hitty-sticks :-p

But yeah, to add to what other people have said - if you have an even number of combats on the board, charging in another unit to make an odd number of combats will allow you to go first in one more combat than your opponent.

It doesn't matter how many 'combats' there are on the table. There is only one Combat Phase, and all units that are within 3 inches of an enemy are involved in it.

In the Combat Phase, all units that have charged or are within 3 inches of an enemy unit can attack. (A unit can only get within 3 inches by charging or being charged.) The order of attacks is:

1. Player whose turn it is picks a unit to attack with.
2. Other player picks a unit to attack with.
3. A unit is not allowed to be picked twice.
4. If all of a players units have been picked, any units remaining not picked by the other player can do their attacks.

This continues until "all eligible units on both sides have attacked once each."

It's clear that the combat phase potentially involves all the units on the table. Even if you have six separate one-to-one match-ups, they are all part of the same combat phase.

Secondly, charging doesn't make any difference at all to the order of attacks. It simply allows a unit to get within three inches of an enemy. A unit cannot execute melee attacks in the Combat Phase unless either it charged into an enemy unit, or an enemy unit charged into it. These charges could have occured in previous game turns.

Units can also get within 3" during the pile-in phase, which doesn't necessitate them having charged or been charged themselves. It is part of the strategy in how you set up your line to receive a charge or charge in a certain way to avoid pile-ins from other units (also in how you remove models, though I find it a bit gamey, but say you're in combat with 2 units, one of them attacks, you can take models off from the part of your unit in combat with the one that hasn't attacked yet, potentially avoiding that 2nd unit completely, even if in mental-image game terms it doesn't make sense).

I think Bottle's point was that you can get more of your units in combat and therefore more activations than your opponent.

Yeah, I meant if you have 4 combats across the board with one unit each from both sides - charging a fresh unit into a fresh enemy unit will mean you get one more combat of attacking first (you will strike first in 3 of them, your opponent in 2).

coldgaming wrote:
Units can also get within 3" during the pile-in phase, which doesn't necessitate them having charged or been charged themselves.

No, they can't unless other combats have bled through.
COMBAT PHASE
"Any unit that has charged or has models within 3" of an enemy unit can attack with its melee weapons in the combat phase."

MOVEMENT PHASE - ENEMY MODELS
"When you move a model in the movement phase, you may not move within 3" of any enemy models."

Unless a charge has happened somewhere, you cannot by definition be within 3" of an enemy model.
It doesn't matter how you measure, the qualifier (within 3") is the same in both rules.
TL: DR - units can't just walk up to each other and start hitting.

RoperPG wrote:

coldgaming wrote:
Units can also get within 3" during the pile-in phase, which doesn't necessitate them having charged or been charged themselves.

No, they can't unless other combats have bled through.
COMBAT PHASE
"Any unit that has charged or has models within 3" of an enemy unit can attack with its melee weapons in the combat phase."

MOVEMENT PHASE - ENEMY MODELS
"When you move a model in the movement phase, you may not move within 3" of any enemy models."

Unless a charge has happened somewhere, you cannot by definition be within 3" of an enemy model.
It doesn't matter how you measure, the qualifier (within 3") is the same in both rules.
TL: DR - units can't just walk up to each other and start hitting.

That's what I meant. I was responding to charging or being charged as the only way to get in combat. If a unit piles in, it can take it within 3" of another unit, who then can pile into them, without having been involved in any charges.

coldgaming wrote:

That's what I meant. I was responding to charging or being charged as the only way to get in combat. If a unit piles in, it can take it within 3" of another unit, who then can pile into them, without having been involved in any charges.

Apologies! Long day...