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Why is this a issue?

Shooting armies can destroy armies in one round of shooting. Some times tabling in two rounds. With overWatch they can get 3 rounds at full BS.

The new space Marines power can give assault units first round charges. People say that's unfair and bad for the game.

I don't see how it is different from a nasty shooting army with the combo's they can get with powers and some relic's.

What you guys think?

Because reasons.

Not that BA would be a big threat if they could assault first turn, but hey.

Generally units you cannot do anything to even try to stop aren't particular fun.

tneva82 wrote:
Generally units you cannot do anything to even try to stop aren't particular fun.

Overwatch is a thing. It's a super thing with a D-scythe. On top of interceptor.

Being assaulted locks you into CC. With shooting, the survivors of the barrage can move, shoot back, etc. But if you are assaulted, you basically don’t get to do anything but fight back. It takes the control away from the owner, and that’s not a whole lot of fun. Especially on turn one.

I don’t think it’s game breaking to have a small amount of turn one assaults, or assault from reserves. But it should be a rare and special thing. If it gets too far out of hand, you get the same complaints that you have vs. mega shooty armies: all you do is sit there and remove casualties.

 Nevelon wrote:
Being assaulted locks you into CC. With shooting, the survivors of the barrage can move, shoot back, etc. But if you are assaulted, you basically don’t get to do anything but fight back. It takes the control away from the owner, and that’s not a whole lot of fun. Especially on turn one.

I don’t think it’s game breaking to have a small amount of turn one assaults, or assault from reserves. But it should be a rare and special thing. If it gets too far out of hand, you get the same complaints that you have vs. mega shooty armies: all you do is sit there and remove casualties.

It would be a way to survive Tau and Eldar, though.

Martel732 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Generally units you cannot do anything to even try to stop aren't particular fun.

Overwatch is a thing. It's a super thing with a D-scythe. On top of interceptor.

Not every thing in the game is carrying d-scythe. I'm sure you are aware of that?

 Nevelon wrote:
Being assaulted locks you into CC. With shooting, the survivors of the barrage can move, shoot back, etc. But if you are assaulted, you basically don’t get to do anything but fight back. It takes the control away from the owner, and that’s not a whole lot of fun. Especially on turn one.

I don’t think it’s game breaking to have a small amount of turn one assaults, or assault from reserves. But it should be a rare and special thing. If it gets too far out of hand, you get the same complaints that you have vs. mega shooty armies: all you do is sit there and remove casualties.

Unless you are one big unit your army is not locked in to combat.

As with shooting you will have units able to move shoot back. Some armys can overwatch at full BS. Bubble wrap you rarely see today as people are not use to defending vs it.

Where is the control vs shooting armies that almost never miss and have AP2 at 30 inch threat range with ignore cover.

tneva82 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Generally units you cannot do anything to even try to stop aren't particular fun.

Overwatch is a thing. It's a super thing with a D-scythe. On top of interceptor.

Not every thing in the game is carrying d-scythe. I'm sure you are aware of that?

True, but it certainly seems that way sometimes. People desperate to not get shot off the table will take whatever help they can get.

I think because generally assault is more lethal than shooting. Even the basic tactical squad can get power weapons. If you're just comparing strength and ap, more powerful melee weapons are more readily available than powerful shooting weapons. For space marines, turn 1 assault really isn't a big deal. They have some good assault units but nothing spectacular. KDK getting a turn 1 assault would be pretty OP

My group all but stopped playing because you can pretty much loose the game turn 1 due to shooting. And that was before there was D everywhere and apocalyptic blasts in "normal" games.

First turn charges would actually be less irritating since you can at least hit back, but anything involving you getting hit HARD without a chance to do anything at all isn't all that fun. Imho Warhammer could do with some kind of strategic layer. Give different factions different things to work with, take some of the luck out of the game. They already have a notion of strategic assets n stuff in apocalypse. I just wish they would revamp that and work it into the core mechanics if they're going to merge apocalypse with normal games like they have done.

shadowfinder wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Being assaulted locks you into CC. With shooting, the survivors of the barrage can move, shoot back, etc. But if you are assaulted, you basically don’t get to do anything but fight back. It takes the control away from the owner, and that’s not a whole lot of fun. Especially on turn one.

I don’t think it’s game breaking to have a small amount of turn one assaults, or assault from reserves. But it should be a rare and special thing. If it gets too far out of hand, you get the same complaints that you have vs. mega shooty armies: all you do is sit there and remove casualties.

Unless you are one big unit your army is not locked in to combat.

Generally if you can assault in turn 1 you can do it with more than one unit.

Played edition where turn 1 assault was possible? I did. You had multiples assaults in turn 1. What's worse most of your units that were assaulted were STILL in CC in your turn, got wiped in CC and he could repeat next turn.

Hopefully you weren't hoping to shoot at those assaulters in your turn? Only newbie assaulter would allow you that short of bad luck.

You don’t need to tie up the whole army, just the really nasty parts.

And if you have a bunch of units doing this, possibly with multi-assaults, you can tie up a lot of units.

But that’s just taking the concept to the extreme.

I honestly thing a -little- first turn assaults would be good for the game. It would help swing the pendulum from shooting dominance back to a middle ground. What I don’t want is a return of CC blenders bouncing from one assault to another, with no real answer.

Shooting is in theory balanced with range, cover, and LOS. In practice, power creep has made a number of those non-issues. But I blame that mostly on the problem units, and not the system.

YMMV.

Assault fundamentally has a lot more power than raw shooting. Shooting cant knock one guy out of a 50 man unit, force a break test, and annihilate the entire unit with a sweeping advance. Shooting does not get to hit tanks automatically on rear armor at a 3+. Shooting has to deal with cover saves. Shooting cannot lock an opposing units actions and movement the way being locked in CC does. Shooting can only very rarely pick out characters (while CC can force challenges to do so).

Thus, to balance all this out, it must be harder to achieve and possible for an opponent to act beforehand with regards to assaults.

Also, things like overwatching at full BS or Dscythe Wraithguard are exceptions, exceptions that often should be addressed and toned down, not excuses for turn 1 assaults to be possible.

shadowfinder wrote:
Why is this a issue?

Shooting armies can destroy armies in one round of shooting. Some times tabling in two rounds. With overWatch they can get 3 rounds at full BS.

The new space Marines power can give assault units first round charges. People say that's unfair and bad for the game.

I don't see how it is different from a nasty shooting army with the combo's they can get with powers and some relic's.

What you guys think?

You need a decent amount of fire power to remove a squad in one turn. Several squads or tanks must combine their actions for a turn to destroy a unit who could avoid destruction by either deploying out of LOS in the first place or going to ground- increasing the effort needed to kill them.

In contrast, a single 5 man squad of basic marines (even red ones!) can shut down practically any guard unit indefinitely just by getting there and waving combat knives around. Even if they don't eventually destroy the unit, they can tie up a disproportionate amount of points and take them out of the game for numerous turns.

They will probably win the first turn of combat meaning the guard will either flee or stay. If they flee- they run off the board.
If they stay, the marines can't be shot at and the guard unit's next next turn is wasted.
If the marines win round 2 or destroy the unit, the guard may flee, leaving the marine unit to move and charge again unmolested. If they stay, they get a third round of combat, possibly a fourth.

Worse still, combats tend to block LOS to other enemy units meaning there's even more opportunities for shooting missed.

TLR-
Melee disrupts the enemy more and requires less resources committed to shut down/destroy units.
Melee units 'hide' in combat, protecting them from retaliation.

Assault fundamentally has zero power right now unless you are a Wraith or TWC.

Martel732 wrote:
Assault fundamentally has zero power right now unless you are a Wraith or TWC.

Poor design and hopeless balance, simply making it easyer for assault won't fix much in the long run.
A sci fi or sci fantasy game should favour ranged combat with anything extreamly close being rare or indoors.
what 40k really needs is a bunch of redesign And, someone actuly thinking about the size of the battle the game represents.

Yeah, the scale issues with 40k are massiv6r. First turn assaults arent really going to fix anything, just add more pain to losing first turn when it matters. The 40k core rules have other problems, and its basically trying to cover three very different scales that dont mesh well.

The game tried to balance the strength of close combat orientated armies, unfortunately they went too far the other way.
Rather than turn one assaults I'd allow units to consolidate from a victorious assault straight into another, if the opponent is silly enough to bunch his army together that is.

tneva82 wrote:
Generally units you cannot do anything to even try to stop aren't particular fun.

How's that different from being able to shoot turn 1?

It's a bit like starting a football match with the penalty shoot-off.

Manoeuvre is supposed to be part of the game.

An auto-win for assaulting without manoeuvring is hardly a very challenging type of game.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It's a bit like starting a football match with the penalty shoot-off.

Manoeuvre is supposed to be part of the game.

An auto-win for assaulting without manoeuvring is hardly a very challenging type of game.

But Eldar and Tau auto-deleting units from across the board is somehow more skillful and involve more maneuvering?

Try adding more LoS-blocking terrain. If you set your board up to be a shooting gallery, you can't be surprised when it turns into one.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It's a bit like starting a football match with the penalty shoot-off.

Manoeuvre is supposed to be part of the game.

An auto-win for assaulting without manoeuvring is hardly a very challenging type of game.

But Eldar and Tau auto-deleting units from across the board is somehow more skillful and involve more maneuvering?

With this in the game, it's really hard to see the problem with turn 1 assault. It's not like assaulting a Riptide doesn't hurt pretty bad anyway.

 EnTyme wrote:
Try adding more LoS-blocking terrain. If you set your board up to be a shooting gallery, you can't be surprised when it turns into one.

That's the same with T1 assaults too. It's rarely more than 1 unit that manages it. Even then it probably doesn't manage to charge an optimal unit for it to attack. Saw TWC manage a turn 1 assault on a small squad of Fire Warriors. The SW player was so happy, so was the Tau player when the TWC just chewed through the squad and had to endure a turn's worth of shooting from an entire gun line.

It should not be a surprise that an opponent has the ability to charge turn 1 in any given game. Given that you SHOULD know that it's possible, you can null deploy using bubble wrap, castling, starting further toward your table edge, etc. depending on what the threat is.

Aside from the random SM powers the only unit I can think of that gets a consistent first turn charge is TWC in a deathpack because of the 12" plus run and charge with fleet. If you're worried about that either throw a screening unit out front that will get slaughtered, or move yourself back 6-12" and laugh when they get stranded in the middle of the board.

I don't think it's really a huge problem yet...

 EnTyme wrote:
Try adding more LoS-blocking terrain. If you set your board up to be a shooting gallery, you can't be surprised when it turns into one.

It doesn't help as much as you think. Especially with Eldar and Tau. They have almost all mobile shooting platforms now. Remember that terrain impedes assaults as well.

Martel732 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Generally units you cannot do anything to even try to stop aren't particular fun.

Overwatch is a thing. It's a super thing with a D-scythe. On top of interceptor.

Now you see, if you are openly assaulting the thing with D-scythes you are doing it wrong. I don't see how poor tactical choices justify pushing for a situation that, as has already been explained is exponentially more powerful than its normal counterpart.

'But shooting is broken! Shooting is unfair! Why should I not be able to instant assault turn 1?"

Because assaulting is your tactical answer to these firepower armies. Just as shooting is their answer to your assault army. That means you will both end up moving about and trying to position to maximise your advantage against your opponent. You literally have to think, that is all.

Things like cover hopping, using faster units as decoys or distractions, stacking forces on one flank or another to force your opponents to move into a specific direction...

I mean, unless you want a barren table where everyone deploys 12 inches away and you can just literally push your models across, shouting WAAAAAAGH like some kid in GW on a Sunday morning beginners session.

 EnTyme wrote:
Try adding more LoS-blocking terrain. If you set your board up to be a shooting gallery, you can't be surprised when it turns into one.

This. I HATE THIS! I am sorry to be going off on you specifically EnTyme, but this is the LEAST useful comment to make in regards to the fact that certain armies can delete entire armies in 2 shooting phases.

I understand what LOS block terrain does, I understand how to position my units to minimize exposure, I know basic tactics.

The problem is that Eldar/Tau are the most mobile armies in the game, JSJ is a thing and they love to abuse it. Warp Spiders are a thing and GW and the fanboy who designed them had JSJ in mind, but on Crack.


Assault armies as a rule can not put out much in terms of return fire, so all the ranged combat person has to do is delete enough of the assault army so that by the time he gets close he is to weak to carry out the assault, usually 2-3 turns of shootings.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Generally units you cannot do anything to even try to stop aren't particular fun.

Overwatch is a thing. It's a super thing with a D-scythe. On top of interceptor.

Now you see, if you are openly assaulting the thing with D-scythes you are doing it wrong. I don't see how poor tactical choices justify pushing for a situation that, as has already been explained is exponentially more powerful than its normal counterpart.

'But shooting is broken! Shooting is unfair! Why should I not be able to instant assault turn 1?"

Because assaulting is your tactical answer to these firepower armies. Just as shooting is their answer to your assault army. That means you will both end up moving about and trying to position to maximise your advantage against your opponent. You literally have to think, that is all.

Things like cover hopping, using faster units as decoys or distractions, stacking forces on one flank or another to force your opponents to move into a specific direction...

I mean, unless you want a barren table where everyone deploys 12 inches away and you can just literally push your models across, shouting WAAAAAAGH like some kid in GW on a Sunday morning beginners session.

There are far less tactics in 40K than you think there are. There are huge mathematical advantages at work with Tau/Eldar.