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Question in the title.

Maybe this is just venting, but just like I expected, I am getting quite frustrated by the fall back rules.

When I first heard about it, I thought that perhaps it would be balanced out by the ability to pile in/consolidate into a second unit, and that the unit that fell back couldn't shoot (though the entire rest of the army could).

But now, more and more and more stuff is getting to fall back without any real penalty. Half the tau codex (units that fly). More than half the eldar codex (the same). Potentially, the ENTIRE guard codex (infantry units & get back in the fight orders). And now, all ultramarines base, with a measly -1 to hit modifier. And mork knows what else in the future.

And, honestly, I'm not entirely against the fall back mechanic existing. I get that not everyone has proper orky values, and a tau player may not want to keep his lone fire warrior tied in close combat with meganobz.

But it just seems to me that fall back should be a last resort, not your go-to strategy, and should come with some major penalties that a ton of units don't outright ignore. Something like on a 6+, you lose a model from the unit that fell back, or the unit that you're running from gets another consolidate move/fight phase, or both? Or something? I just hate that everything gets to just waltz out of combat without even being challenged.

I mean, this is getting ridiculous. Between cover not benefiting my army at ALL, and the fact I can never keep anyone tied in close combat, my reward for playing is for my opponent to be shot at across the table, shot at in overwatch, them to fall back, shoot me without penalty, and shoot me again when I charge, until I'm dead. My only recourse is to spam the absolute piss out of wierdboyz with the jump, but that only skips the first part.

And yes, if you completely envelop your enemy they cannot fall back. I've see this occur exactly once so far. It's not that easy to accomplish, at least so far. It's not nearly enough to counter the headache that is falling back (and is 100% useless v. units that can fly).

No.

As an IG player I can tell you that
* Infantry is a meat shield to block your melee units from getting to my tanks and artillery
* when my infantry falls back, I have to get out of melee range. On an open field? sure, no problem - but if those guardsmen are with their backs against my artillery, that's an issue.
* Only my infantry can get back in the fight and shoot after falling back. My tanks and artillery will be useless once you've broken through.
* even for infantry falling back has it's downside - I cant order them to do anything else , eg reroll 1s toHit.

Have you actually played against any of the armies you're complaining about yet? I'm asking because as an IG player it's not easy to keep you off of my guys. I've got no clue what's good in your index, but I know you have transports, I know you have bikes and I know that you have stuff that can deepstrike. It's just no longer the case that once you're within charge range you just tear my guard apart without any opposition.

I played an IG player who spammed like 300 models, and it was honestly a pretty miserable experience.

In addition to being an absurdly long and boring game, the exact problems I mentioned were a problem. I charged. They overwatched. They fell back. They shot without penalty. Repeat.

Hell, even artillery and vehicles is a pain. I charge it, they're unbelievably resilient, and I get locked in a loop where the vehicle falls back, their entire army shoots me, and I charge it again, and it overwatches again. My first game of 8th it took a unit of 20 boyz 3 separate charges to NOT kill a wyvern.

And as for 'ripping apart', IG units, he was able to form then in blocks, and between that and barely making a 9" charge, I was able to get like half my boyz into effective range. I killed maybe a dozen conscripts, out of 50. They fell back, etc, etc.

Ditto for eldar. I charge their vehicles. They overwatch. They fall back without penalty. They shoot. Repeat. Same thing for their jump MCs, warp spyders, even played a game v. a revenant titan with 6D6 auto hitting shots at range and in overwatch. That wasn't much fun.

Admittedly, I haven't played tau, but I know for firsthand fact it's not fun when facing IG and eldar, and I can extrapolate.

Space Wolves melee army, im frustrated about it. I get shot to peices quite brutally.

So i figured, lets celebrate 8th editions "love for close combat" by getting myself a tank division for my space wolves. Well played GW, more money in your pocket.

How is this much different from a CC unit charging in and wiping out a unit? Dedicated CC troops generally evaporate the stuff they charge to the point of uselessness. Two or three guardsmen falling back isn't worth giving an order to shoot if there's any other unit nearby to give that order.

What's really stupid? A lone Terminator charging a unit and hiding from shooting for 2-3 turns, grinding the unit to a fine paste because they can't run away. I'm glad that's over with.

 John Prins wrote:
How is this much different from a CC unit charging in and wiping out a unit? Dedicated CC troops generally evaporate the stuff they charge to the point of uselessness. Two or three guardsmen falling back isn't worth giving an order to shoot if there's any other unit nearby to give that order.

What's really stupid? A lone Terminator charging a unit and hiding from shooting for 2-3 turns, grinding the unit to a fine paste because they can't run away. I'm glad that's over with.

LIke I said in my OP, I get it from the other end, and I'm ok with falling back existing in some capacity, but being able to do it unchallenged, and having a ton of units that outright ignore its penalties, is starting to become frustrating to me.

I don't understand the issue. When you charge you're killing stuff, and then whhats left over isn't going to contribute much. I can maybe see why someone might be annoyed, but it isn't a big deal.

The issue that my reward for making a successful charge is to immediately be blasted to pieces by the entire enemy army at point blank range, often times by the remainder of the unit that I had charged and fled from combat without challenge or penalty.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
How is this much different from a CC unit charging in and wiping out a unit? Dedicated CC troops generally evaporate the stuff they charge to the point of uselessness. Two or three guardsmen falling back isn't worth giving an order to shoot if there's any other unit nearby to give that order.

What's really stupid? A lone Terminator charging a unit and hiding from shooting for 2-3 turns, grinding the unit to a fine paste because they can't run away. I'm glad that's over with.

LIke I said in my OP, I get it from the other end, and I'm ok with falling back existing in some capacity, but being able to do it unchallenged, and having a ton of units that outright ignore its penalties, is starting to become frustrating to me.

There's a little too much of GW's old all-or-nothing attitude showing through here; it's too easy to get out of combat and still shoot normally for a lot of units, but it's also too easy to get top-of-turn-one charges that your opponent can't do squat about for a lot of units (Deep Strike, Daemon Princes, Heldrakes...). I don't think outright ignoring the penalties is the answer but if you stack on too many penalties you risk making a huge chunk of the game unplayable in the face of the turn-one aggro-melee-rush.

Getting an IG player to waste orders on depleted units is a win. The problem you had was that Conscripts are unbalanced cheese at the moment. IG conscript spam is a known issue.

Forcing a tank to fall back and not be able to shoot is a win.

I can see Jet bikes being a PITA, but they've always been cheese, they're just slightly less cheesy this edition.

Crisis Suits are expensive as heck (50-80 points a pop), so I don't think it's unfair for them to fall back and shoot.

And, to be fair, even though I said half the eldar and tau codex ignore fall back penalties due to fly, it honestly seems fair enough. If you're fast or can fly, it makes sense to quit a fight you don't want to be a part of.

But even the old hit & run rules had a chance to fail, even for things like warp spyders.

I think I'd be happy if falling back was some kind of characteristic or move test, buffed if you can fly. But I think it's just dumb for guardsmen to just simply walk away from a horde of ork boyz unchallenged and get to shoot normally.

Fall back needs to go back to a sweeping advance system. Roll off, +1 if you have more movement than the enemy, +1 if you have FLY

Make Wyches have a +1 on top of that.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
I played an IG player who spammed like 300 models, and it was honestly a pretty miserable experience.

In addition to being an absurdly long and boring game, the exact problems I mentioned were a problem. I charged. They overwatched. They fell back. They shot without penalty. Repeat.

Hell, even artillery and vehicles is a pain. I charge it, they're unbelievably resilient, and I get locked in a loop where the vehicle falls back, their entire army shoots me, and I charge it again, and it overwatches again. My first game of 8th it took a unit of 20 boyz 3 separate charges to NOT kill a wyvern.

And as for 'ripping apart', IG units, he was able to form then in blocks, and between that and barely making a 9" charge, I was able to get like half my boyz into effective range. I killed maybe a dozen conscripts, out of 50. They fell back, etc, etc.

Ditto for eldar. I charge their vehicles. They overwatch. They fall back without penalty. They shoot. Repeat. Same thing for their jump MCs, warp spyders, even played a game v. a revenant titan with 6D6 auto hitting shots at range and in overwatch. That wasn't much fun.

Admittedly, I haven't played tau, but I know for firsthand fact it's not fun when facing IG and eldar, and I can extrapolate.

Don't use conscripts as your judge for 40k new rules, they're overpowered right now. AM in general is undercosted and just crapping all over people.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 John Prins wrote:
Getting an IG player to waste orders on depleted units is a win. The problem you had was that Conscripts are unbalanced cheese at the moment. IG conscript spam is a known issue.

exactly

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
How is this much different from a CC unit charging in and wiping out a unit? Dedicated CC troops generally evaporate the stuff they charge to the point of uselessness. Two or three guardsmen falling back isn't worth giving an order to shoot if there's any other unit nearby to give that order.

What's really stupid? A lone Terminator charging a unit and hiding from shooting for 2-3 turns, grinding the unit to a fine paste because they can't run away. I'm glad that's over with.

LIke I said in my OP, I get it from the other end, and I'm ok with falling back existing in some capacity, but being able to do it unchallenged, and having a ton of units that outright ignore its penalties, is starting to become frustrating to me.

There's a little too much of GW's old all-or-nothing attitude showing through here; it's too easy to get out of combat and still shoot normally for a lot of units, but it's also too easy to get top-of-turn-one charges that your opponent can't do squat about for a lot of units (Deep Strike, Daemon Princes, Heldrakes...). I don't think outright ignoring the penalties is the answer but if you stack on too many penalties you risk making a huge chunk of the game unplayable in the face of the turn-one aggro-melee-rush.

I disagree. You still need to roll a 9 on 2d6, under optimal conditions to first turn charge. So, 1/3rd chance under best circumstances, 2/3rd chance to fail and be expensive cannon fodder.

They really should require some sort of roll to fall back and you lose one guy for every 6+ or something like that. That way it's an actual sacrifice and punishes you for bad positioning instead of punishing melee armies for making it across the field and making that gakky random charge roll.

I hear you, and yes, this edition is different.
Please remember the game is designed to be a tactical game of strategic maneuvering and match ups. It can be played as a game of I place my models, move forward as fast as they can and charge, but that is not its design. 40k is chess, no checkers, and a big part of this is in buying your army. You will lose to the guy who buys, places, and moves to maximize his if all you do is charge the bulk of his army.
This edition supports lots of models on the table, and damage absorption by units.
This is the constant war between balance and play-ability. On one side, the turn one charge melee army is absolutely doable for most codices. So if they can get in combat and be immune, the game is really a half turn game of who goes first (one of the earlier editions this was basically the case, and games lasted 2 turns at most) We do not want that back.
Now, please keep in mind the balance of the game is on points, meaning, does a unit of 30 orc boyz charge in and kill its equivalent in points before getting zapped dead. That is always your goal as a player: Make your points back. If you expect one unit of boyz to go on a rampage and wipe out 1k of enemy, you are asking too much.
Conscripts ARE a bad example right now, because of the commissar rule.
Otherwise, you mentioned half your boyz reach combat...well that is 45 and possibly more attacks. Without the commissar, that's a dead unit of conscripts( say 14 orcs made it with a banner waver guy (56 attacks, 37 hits, 15 wounds, 15 dead models, 14 removed by morale ( no orc codex so might be slightly off on the 4 attacks each...and I am ignoring any damage from pistols, yes I know, orcs...but that is still a few)) which means he would have shot you with the rest of his army anyway...so the issue here isn't the fall back move...it is the ignore morale move.
Example of use in a game. My friend runs a horde orc army, where he comes in three waves, the first of 60 boyz (2 units of 30), the second 2 of 30. The first get shot to nothing (but still remain because of mob rule). The second tends to hit at near full strength. And the third piles in one turn later almost untouched. That is two turns of 100+ CC attacks against as many units as he can touch. And the cost for all those boyz is 1/3 of his army. So CC can work even with the fall back.
The bottom line is, the balance point in this game right now is that CC units get to charge one unit, wipe them out, and then the game goes on. If I have to finish off that unit on my turn, then other units are being ignored to do their purpose. If your CC units are not making their points up at all, then rethink how you use them, how you buy them, etc.
I run a guard CC army, and generally do fine with it.
The army I see suffering the most from this is the expensive, elite type armies who simply cannot get the bodies on the table to absorb shooting. When my vanguard vets charge, few things survive. then they get shot, yes...but if I wiped out my points and more, I won...
My seraphim never survive CC to fall back...
Get you CC units lined up against a portion of his army. Force him to split his fire up away from them. Don't get frustrated, get better, adapt, change, you will feel so much better when his tactics suddenly prove the weaker. I've been stomped in games myself...
Rethink that 9+...there are far too many ways to re-roll dice now. So 9" charges have become far more viable. There are multiple threads doing the numbers, Anything close to 50% chance is a big deal, and this doesn't count a lot of scout moves. For example, scout sentinels can easily engage in CC turn one...if my opponent has to spend his first turn falling back with 3-4 units and shooting those sentinels. I have already won that game. I dont care what the damage they did was.

 Imateria wrote:
No.

+1 (with the exception of vehicles where I think being able to lock them in CC is just dumb).

 silashand wrote:

 Imateria wrote:
No.

+1 (with the exception of vehicles where I think being able to lock them in CC is just dumb).

"Oh noes, grots. We are totally incapable of running over them." - Baneblade Commander

*raises hand*

If ultramarines, a fairly generic chapter, are getting this ability, then it would not surprise me that as more codex come out we'll see similar abilities be more prevalent until pretty much every non-pure assault army has access to it. People get up over arms about turn one assault units and assault unit 'wiping units out" but how much overlap is there of that? Kommandoes infiltrating is for tying down back units and if they can't do that I might as well just saying they're choppa boyz to save points.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
*raises hand*

If ultramarines, a fairly generic chapter, are getting this ability, then it would not surprise me that as more codex come out we'll see similar abilities be more prevalent until pretty much every non-pure assault army has access to it. People get up over arms about turn one assault units and assault unit 'wiping units out" but how much overlap is there of that? Kommandoes infiltrating is for tying down back units and if they can't do that I might as well just saying they're choppa boyz to save points.

You need to surround enemies to trap them now. which is annoying,

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
*raises hand*

If ultramarines, a fairly generic chapter, are getting this ability, .

It has been confirmed that ultramarines are getting the chapter tactic that they fall back and only suffer -1 penalty to shoot. Can't assault (I think).

I'm rather amused by your annoyance at so many Tau units having Fly. Would you rather go back to 7th edition where their JSJ meant that you couldn't even assault them in the first place?

You've also fallen into the trap of assuming that the battles we're simulating here actually take place in a series of turns. Being able to fall back, and melee units chasing them down and charging again and again represents a rolling fight, or a rout. It's just like a unit that's backpedalling before you reach charge range. The only difference is that once you're in charge range, they're still backpedalling, but this time you keep getting close enough to krump 'em every now and then.

As an ork player I'd say.... no way. I think the fall back rules are very balanced and improves the game. Getting charged is no longer a death sentence, but on the other hand people tend to get charged a lot more. Combat is much easier to get out of, but it is also much easier to get in to. And the game is much better for it.

In 7th edition close combat was a death sentence for shooty units, and that was balanced out by making cc very difficult to get in to, and by making transports blow up by being looked at sternly. I don't miss those times.

The numerous units that can fall back and shoot, generally pays a price for such a powerful ability. Crisis suits are expensive and fragile for example.

A notable exception is conscripts. That 50 conscripts can benefit from a single order is overpowered, and conscripts can be extremely frustrating to play against. Conscripts needs a nerf (and the Leman russ needs a buff), but that is not really related to the fall back rule.

I've seen it work out both ways.

I've played several melee vs ranged matchups from both sides, and I've had instances where fall back was super frustrating and resulted in a one-sided game, and where it was totally useless because the whole army was basically stunlocked.

There have also been games (such as where I played vs an eldar armored list) that it really was just such a constant that I didn't care much about it. I just kind of factored in that the enemy would be shooting to full effect after my attacks, and I made sure I charged with enough stuff to cripple or kill my targets, while leaving others completely alone.

As to getting across the board, yeah it seems orks have two options: Da Jump and just spamming fast stuff. Well, and mek mob. Killa Kanz have proven to be durable as all get out in the games I've played with them. Running a unit of six killa kanz, the worst I've done before they get to swing in combat is 2 casualties - and then they VERY quickly make their points back, because S8 AP-3 3 damage is no joke (just make sure you bring a waagh banner!)

Of my two major ork playstyles, mek mob with a 30-man distraction jump squad has netted me more success than speed freeks so far. trukks living through a turn of firepower is a dicy prospect wheras Kanz Nauts and Dreads are harder to carve through. Trukk boyz seem very underwhelming this edition, but my last game a mostly shooty speed freek did great.

My buddy plays ork and Eldar, and I play Admech, Tyranids and Guard (in 8th thus far, I have too many armies to play them all right now, too much to focus on) and I have never encountered any scenarios like the ones you're posting.

Just to be clear, make sure you and your buddy are playing correctly. He only gets to fall back on his turn, after you have resolved melee the melee phase and it switches to his turn. Your orks should be having little to no trouble mopping up Eldar, IG or really anyhting for the matter in close combat. If so, you may have just been rolling poorly, cause a 30 ork boy squad should be throwing about 120 dice at your charge target.

A couple questions if I may. Are you using transports? Are you playing varied game modes? Such as different mission types not just kill points. Are you and your buddy list tailoring? Have you tried combined arms yet?

My buddy who has been playing orks has had no trouble getting into melee with me after turn 2 and has had no issues with his ork boys, nobz and killa kans nearly wiping any squad they get into melee with. Even beating out my Tyranids in melee often, (unless I get the charge off or use a stratagem to interrupt his attacks).

It's a terrible mechanic as it stands. It should at very minimum tied to a stat and not automatic. As others have pointed out, even hit and run could fail.

There are a few units which can prevent units from falling back in combat so I think we are just not used to minutia from codex yet

If you're doing assault right you should be having 3-4 units hitting their lines at the same time, piling into several more units.

I use this stuff all the time with just Saint Celestine. A good charge by her can stop 3-4 units from shooting next turn by herself. The support units of seraphim neuter the opponents shooting for an entire turn.

What are the points levels/lists involved in your example battles, OP?

I would like it more if it required a Ld check to do but it's not terrible.