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Hey dakka, I, like many others of you have kind of experienced close combat and how it isn't the best option for most armies.

It isn't very strong, but why exactly is that?

Don't say overwatch, overwatch doesn't really kill much statistically and I don't believe it to be that.

So why is it bad? Is it because shooty armies are just better or what? Most assaulty armies (orks, tyranids, etc, etc) can either take tons of opened topped vehicles or no vehicles at all so why are we all having trouble playing with fun close combat armies?

Thank you for your input!

~Mikey

Mostly because of formations.

For example if i run a lions blade strike force, which i can fit into a 1850 army, i can fire Over watch at full BS.

+ with all the ranged, very cheap AP 2 on the field, taking those expensive 2+ armor save melee elites get blasted down quickly

Shooting is easy, and more importantly reliable.

There are just a lot of roadblocks in the path of CC.

You need to get across the table. With directional wound allocation, the guys up front die first. So that’s longer you need to run. If you DS, rather then footslog, you have to stand there and eat fire for a turn, while your target potentially runs away from you. Or just guns you down.

Random charge range. Almost make it to your target? Time for the dice to screw you. Nothing like snake eyes on that 4” charge. Sure, you will occasionally make those 11” long shots, but I’d prefer the old reliable distance then the randomness.

Overwatch might not statistically kill much, but it can make a difference. Especially with those first two points. Who dies first on overwatch? The point man. And that might mean you need to charge an extra 2-3” to get into contact.

Those are the major factors in my mind. I’m sure there are more issues. Individually they are not that bad, but overlapping they cause some problems. Especially when I could spend more points on big guns and work on just shooting it out.

And for reference, I still use CC units. They are fun, and I love to field them. Part of a well balanced list IMHO. But I recognize their limitations and adjust my expectations accordingly.

There are many issues with close combat. A few:

1) Devalued Stats.

When a model gets +1 to the following stats, that +1 ALWAYS results in a better chance at success for the action the stat controls: Leadership, Ballistic Skill

When a model gets +1 to the following stats, that +1 USUALLY, with exception, results in a better chance of success: Strength (as long as not higher than Target T+2), Toughness (As long as not lower than Attacker S-2), Wounds (As long as not doubled out), Sv (as long as not AP'd).

When a model gets +1 to the following stats, that +1 in many cases will not make a difference: Weapon Skill (usually only usually matters if Less than, Equal to, or more than enemy WS) and Initiative (only matters if less than equal to or more than enemy). Against a WS4 I2 target, the weapon skill shifts from 5-9 and 2-3 make no difference, and the I shifts from 3+ make no difference.

Unfortunately, in 40k, reliable stats like Ballistic Skill seem to be priced equivalently or close to very unreliable stats like Weapon Skill. For simplified, imperfect example: a Harlequin Trouper and Space Marine's cost are the same. The Space Marine pays for T, S, and Sv, while the Harlequin pays for I and WS. This means that the Space Marine is likely to be more reliable than the Harlequin against a greater range of targets as his stats are more likely to matter.

Potential Solution: Reduce relative cost of unreliable melee stats OR rework the WS/WS table to more closely mirror the S/T table, and grant a bonus to "Overkill" initiative values.

2) Easy Impact Nullifiers.

The ways to reduce the impact of the enemy shooting are to use cover saves, and block line of sight. However, line of sight is an all-or-nothing affair, so blocking it is generally unfeasible, and cover is unreliable against high-ap high-rof shooting you generally see a lot of in the current meta, as it's often not better than your basic save.

How do you reduce the impact of assault? You can use cover to reduce charge distance and if the opponent has no grenades allow you to go first. You can use Overwatch, a rule that was essentially granted for free in 6th with no points cost reconfigurations, to cause damage and reduce charge distance. You can use challenges to deny special weapon attacks by vital characters.

Don't get me wrong - assault isn't fundamentally flawed. The bulk majority of units who are unviable for assault are those whose design hasn't changed since the dawn of 6th, when most of the assault rules present in 7th swung the pendulum so hard against assault units. Ork boyz, wyches, terminators, assault marines, all these once bread-n-butter units are still designed for fifth. Newer assault units, like Wulfen and Necron/Eldar melee options, did see that necessary redesign that enabled them to push back into the picture. Assault units can now make themselves effectively invulnerable with psychic support or stacking rules, heavily curtailing that counterplay. These units are strong.

Because it takes time to get into assault. Turn two minimum, with a handful of exceptions. That's quite possibly two shooting phases you need to weather. More if your delivery gets compromised or your opponent is mobile.

Over the last couple of editions, the options to mitigate this have been slowly eroded, no DS, no Outflank, only premium cost transports or paper armoured ones carrying assault vehicle (and non-assault vehicles are now a liability.)

Random threat range vs consistent and set threat range.

ATSKNF being so common on the table negates the big advantage of engaging HtH vs shooting (ie a decisive a total removal of the unit if you win.)

Overwatch may not do much damage, but combined with wound allocation and random assault ranges, one or two casualties can be all it takes to completely negate a charge.

Charging into cover is punitive to many specialist units that lack assault grenades - often the only thing that limits a specialist assault unit's utility.

Introduction of extraordinary shooting units has just made shooting flat out more efficient for several factions.

Superfriends are a competitive CC build.
Stomp is pretty good.

I play Harlequins. While they're not top dogs, they're not bad at all, and it's not because of their shooting.

I think people say that CC is bad is because, in a weak codex, most of the melee units will die before making it into combat, therefore not killing anything. On the other side, the shooting units will kill a few things before dying.
When you're seriously outpowered by another codex, shooting (and scoring VP) is the only way to have any impact on the game.

 Nevelon wrote:
Shooting is easy, and more importantly reliable.

There are just a lot of roadblocks in the path of CC.

You need to get across the table. With directional wound allocation, the guys up front die first. So that’s longer you need to run. If you DS, rather then footslog, you have to stand there and eat fire for a turn, while your target potentially runs away from you. Or just guns you down.

Random charge range. Almost make it to your target? Time for the dice to screw you. Nothing like snake eyes on that 4” charge. Sure, you will occasionally make those 11” long shots, but I’d prefer the old reliable distance then the randomness.

Overwatch might not statistically kill much, but it can make a difference. Especially with those first two points. Who dies first on overwatch? The point man. And that might mean you need to charge an extra 2-3” to get into contact.

Those are the major factors in my mind. I’m sure there are more issues. Individually they are not that bad, but overlapping they cause some problems. Especially when I could spend more points on big guns and work on just shooting it out.

And for reference, I still use CC units. They are fun, and I love to field them. Part of a well balanced list IMHO. But I recognize their limitations and adjust my expectations accordingly.

Let me add, charging into a tau unit sitting in terrain with pathfinder in supportive fire range, terrain gives you -2" on the charge distance, reduces your initiative to 1 so they go first, the occasional markerlight snapshots will hit if the pathfinders are lucky enough, making the incoming fire from the other units more severe. Also say goodbye to your extra attacks on the charge from things like Rage because of photon (defensive) grenades.

Also, because if you absolutely murder a unit in CC, generally you have to sit there until your next turn. That plus Overwatch, gives them two rounds to kill your CC unit. This is worse if you Outflank or Deepstrike a CC unit

Delivery is harder, you don't give the other guy a chance to get an out-of-sequence attack by shooting him, and power creep keeps making the guns bigger without making melee bigger.

Back in 4e (when close combat was pretty good) my Banshees over in Eldar were a solid choice at 16ppm with two S3 ignores-all-armour attacks apeice, counterattack, and masks that made them strike first in the first round of combat, today they're 13ppm, AP3 instead of AP2, and slightly faster. All in all not that different.

By comparison my Dark Reapers back then were 35ppm for the same statline, the same gun, and nothing else; today they're 10ppm cheaper, reduce or ignore the defenses Skimmers have gained since then, and can move and fire.

Guns keep getting better, melee weapons stay the same.

It's just how it is, GW rotates from CC to Shooting ever so often depending on the edition and what can make them money. They don't want a balanced rule book cause it would cut into monetary gains. I guess being a codex writer is important too. But basically it isn't a time to invest in CC for rule / company reasons. Maybe 9th will be CC op, shooting will be nerfed and our attention will be put toward a new shiny CC codex that hasn't been updated in years(Blood Angels?).

It isn't.

There is plenty of empirical evidence showing assault based armies in the top-tier of play.

But those assault armies are exceptions to a general trend.

I don't think shooting attacks are more powerful than CC attacks, the way I see it CC attacks are often a lot more damaging to make up for the fact that the first couple of game turns they usually aren't being used. The most basic Meq unit leader with a power fist can attack 3 times on the charge and then another 2 times in the opponent's turn. A marine with a plasma gun, lascannon, meltagun etc. needs several game turns to reach that kind of output. There are plenty of advantages CC has over shooting

CC ignores cover (and you can't jink in combat)
A unit locked in combat can't be shot at
CC attacks hit rear armour of vehicles, except walkers
You can attack the enemy in their turn
Cheap bodies can be sent into combat against a powerful shooting unit and keep them tied up doing nothing

Of course similar lists can be made to show the advantages shooting has. I don't think we're at a point where shooting is far and away superior to assault though, it's just a different way to remove enemy models

 jreilly89 wrote:
Also, because if you absolutely murder a unit in CC, generally you have to sit there until your next turn. That plus Overwatch, gives them two rounds to kill your CC unit. This is worse if you Outflank or Deepstrike a CC unit

True, but that also highlights a strength of assault units- getting to hide in close combat. Sometimes you'll wipe out the enemy unit on the charge and have to take a turn of shooting, but the other way of looking at that is... you did just wipe out an enemy unit.

Assault army is the meta right now in ITC.

The issue is with entirely footslogging CC units that don't have good transport options to mitigate that. Things like Berserker Marines and Howling Banshees and Chosen and such get shot up too easily. Rules making them faster help but don't fix the core issue with not being able to charge out of at least stationary vehicles.

To top it all off, both eldar and tau have superior movement options to non cheesed out assault armies. Assaulting something that moves faster than you do while it is shooting at you is not easy ; )


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 Gamgee wrote:
Assault army is the meta right now in ITC.

yeah but the lists that are used at the ITC are noting like the list used on most table tops.
Sure there are some viable assault lists but all of them are beast/bike or monster stars. That doesn't make assault good that makes bikes and beasts and monster unit shenanigans good.

Easy answer is they made close combat worse or harder to do, and made shooting even easier.

Assault into terrain, initiative 1. Not giving Tyranids "grenades" so they don't assault ant I1.

Random 12" charge.

Overwatch when it wasn't there before. While it maybe "statistically" irrelevant as you say but it seems you are math hammering and not talking from experience. From my experience, over watch hurts. It kills a mini or two, but that mini or two means I can't reaching into assault now and just lost 2 minis and can't assault now and they will get picked off next turn.

So much more how assault was nerfed, maybe someone else will take over.

 Gamgee wrote:
Assault army is the meta right now in ITC.

That's because you can build near-immortal units. That makes immortality good, not assault in general.


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 Snake Tortoise wrote:
I don't think shooting attacks are more powerful than CC attacks, the way I see it CC attacks are often a lot more damaging to make up for the fact that the first couple of game turns they usually aren't being used. The most basic Meq unit leader with a power fist can attack 3 times on the charge and then another 2 times in the opponent's turn. A marine with a plasma gun, lascannon, meltagun etc. needs several game turns to reach that kind of output. There are plenty of advantages CC has over shooting

CC ignores cover (and you can't jink in combat)
A unit locked in combat can't be shot at
CC attacks hit rear armour of vehicles, except walkers
You can attack the enemy in their turn
Cheap bodies can be sent into combat against a powerful shooting unit and keep them tied up doing nothing

Of course similar lists can be made to show the advantages shooting has. I don't think we're at a point where shooting is far and away superior to assault though, it's just a different way to remove enemy models

 jreilly89 wrote:
Also, because if you absolutely murder a unit in CC, generally you have to sit there until your next turn. That plus Overwatch, gives them two rounds to kill your CC unit. This is worse if you Outflank or Deepstrike a CC unit

True, but that also highlights a strength of assault units- getting to hide in close combat. Sometimes you'll wipe out the enemy unit on the charge and have to take a turn of shooting, but the other way of looking at that is... you did just wipe out an enemy unit.

After losing 4 units of your own to get within assault range. Unless you are using the above immortal units.

It's not worse. There's just a larger proportion of ba cc units than bad shooting units. CC itself is a powerful tool. And it's op when you look at some superfriends. Just like shooting is op when you look at scatbikes.

Close combat can do a lot of damage, you've just gotta get there to initiate it, which is difficult, expensive, or a combination of both. If I'm trying to get my Orks into assault, they have to be in open topped vehicles that are pretty easy to blow up, or they're slow and predictable foot units in a game with Knights, Thunderfire Cannons, Quad Mortars, Wyverns, and plenty of other nastiness. If they're deep striking like Terminators, they come in turn 2, weather fire for a turn, then, if they're positioned right and still alive, can get into close combat.

Also, a close combat unit isn't doing damage until the turn it's in close. A shooting unit can be a threat from turn 1. There's some really lethal assault out there, and tons of deathstars that people build lists around are meant to get in close, but getting from point A to point B can be difficult.

I found from personal experience that CC can be VERY powerful when you have the right units in the right places, and while yes, Ogrewatch doesn't do much damage to a unit before they get into melee in general, losing even one guy adds more distance that you have to go, and with the random charge ranges, it's just not RELIABLE, and I think that is the big issue, it's not that it's actually bad.

 FakeBritishPerson wrote:
I found from personal experience that CC can be VERY powerful when you have the right units in the right places, and while yes, Ogrewatch doesn't do much damage to a unit before they get into melee in general, losing even one guy adds more distance that you have to go, and with the random charge ranges, it's just not RELIABLE, and I think that is the big issue, it's not that it's actually bad.

I Agree, Overwatch is fine and makes sense as long it´s snapshots. I got more fethed over by random charge distances. Let me tell you how disheartning it is to lose a Daemon Knight of Khorne because he failed his 4" charge (rolled 3") to assault a KX139 and got killed by his shooting. The feels man.

I'd like to see them allow charges out of any vehicle, stationary or not.

If it is not an assault vehicle or open topped, then the unit can only perform a disordered charge.

If the vehicle is an assault vehicle, then they re-roll charge distances.

Allow charging from outflank.

Maybe in some circumstances units could have a rule that allows them to charge out of deep strike, but not as a core rule.


For Tyrannids specifically, I wish they would make ripper swarms attachable to units. They would count as assault grenades because they swarm the enemy before the big guys get in. Then they can make their basic attacks in combat.

The most important part of a (mission based) game is to play for the missions. Movement, shooting, cc and tactics are the ways to achieve mission objectives. CC is just one part of the puzzle.

With shooting armies I can shoot and dedicate movement to objective based play, for assault I need to direct all my unit's resources into getting into assault.

Overwatch completely murders my assault units (Harlequins in a meta of flamers, Tau and Dark Angels)

Delivery systems are generally terrible if you are not on a bike/beast/FMC/GMC, it dictates squad sizes and are generally overpriced. (Star weaver can only hold 6 clowns, Craftworlders cannot get any assault transports so good luck using your banshees, marines really only have Land Raiders or FW pods...)

The abundance of opponents using ever more mobile lists (good luck catching jetbikes in cc)


CC isn't dead, it's just reserved for deathstars... at least until assaulting out of reserve/deepstrike becomes a thing.

 FakeBritishPerson wrote:
Ogrewatch doesn't do much damage

Best statement of the thread : D


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 Torus wrote:

CC isn't dead, it's just reserved for deathstars... at least until assaulting out of reserve/deepstrike becomes a thing.

No it hasn't moved, a part of the close combat builds just has been shot down. Those death stars have always been there. We all knew how to make them for years now and they would guarantee a total krumping of your opponent in combat. But you could ignore these unoriginal and game breaking abominations and just play a fun close combat army that actually stood a chance. This on no longer the case, and killed off most close combat armies in casual play.

I'm not arguing that CC is tough, I struggle to get my units in close enough (and recently rolled snake eyes for my 3" charge ), but both CC and shooting have evolved.

In 2nd ed each weapon got one shot. No rapid fire, no "assault 3" weapons etc. And CC was hard to reach because you moved 4" not 6" and (if I remember correctly) charged in the movement phase (need to check that when I get home). So you moved a max of 12" when charging, now it's 18".

So both CC and shooting have improved as stand alone actions. But the improvement of shooting (more high RoF and better AP) has kept CC difficult.

In my opinion I wouldn't want to see CC improved much, but would like to see lower RoF and higher APs (I liked 1st/2nd ed AP which was a reduction on saves - e.g. bolters had -1 so a marine would only get a 4+ - rather than an all or nothing on saves, but I know I'm living in the past ). Nerfing shooting would also boost CC - just need to make sure it's balanced and doesn't go too far the other way.

 SicSemperTyrannis wrote:

I Agree, Overwatch is fine and makes sense as long it´s snapshots.

Overwatch + removal from the front is terrible. Every casualty will likely increase the charge range by at least 1" . Just think of what that does to the charge range you are actually needing to assault something that is most of the time able to move faster than you.

Suppose you are at 6" this would give you a 72,22% chance of a successful assault.
Now lets assume that you lost at least 2,5 " as a result of overwatch casualties. This isn't an unlikely situation vs most shooty armies. You now need 9" to reach the target and only have a 27,77% chance of a successful assault. Changing it to static 6" charge makes it even worse. since you will need to be at 3,5" away from your enemy to be able to take that 2,5" reduction of overwatch.

Don't get me wrong I dislike the random charge distance, but in this case the issue is really front casualty removal due to overwatch.


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 Whittlesey40k wrote:
I
In my opinion I wouldn't want to see CC improved much, but would like to see lower RoF and higher APs (I liked 1st/2nd ed AP which was a reduction on saves - e.g. bolters had -1 so a marine would only get a 4+ - rather than an all or nothing on saves, but I know I'm living in the past ). Nerfing shooting would also boost CC - just need to make sure it's balanced and doesn't go too far the other way.

This so much this, we don't need wulfen proliferation and beast pack shenanigans. Who effectively shrink the gaming area. Just face it they have bigger bases, and move faster. Those things just play on an other scale. What we need normal closecombat dudes to reach close combat again.

The one thing I really don't like is when you fail the charge range, you don't actually move what you rolled --- that just doesn't make sense.

Sure, you 'fail' the charge but it's not like your men fell over and didn't move closer.

Yeah that makes it even more hurtful, it would be no more than fair to add that to the rules when as a compensation for overwatch + front row removal

Lets delve deeper into this to see how bad the current situation really is by looking at some no special rules foot sloggers vs some no special rules shooters.

Starting distance before charge 6"
This would be the end of the shooters in 5th

A likely situation 6th
Starting distance before charge 6"
Distance lost due to over watch 2,5
New distance 8,5" failed that 9" charge.

Next turn.

Shooters move back, new distance 14,5"
Shooters shoot lets assume 1" distance loss.
New distance 15,5

Assaulters turn.
Assaulters move up, new distance 9,5
overwatch 1" distance loss, new distance 10,5
You will now need an 11 in order to make it, this is a 8,33% charge...


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And things get even worse when the assaulter dares to shoot back at the shooter.