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I'm pleased to see I was right in my presumption that the BA in 8th would take a page from the Horus Heresy Blood Angel rules. Such an elegant solution, and far more useful, especially being that it works on more than just the charge now.

My new Jump Pack Captain with a (relic?) Death Mask, Inferno Pistol, & Thunder Hammer just jumped to the top of my painting queue.

Give him Death Visions of Sanguinius, and Artisan of War for the Thunder Hammer, Profit.

It's going to be a fun codex. I'm looking forward to it anyway.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

Just saw the post on the GW site, and I have to say it looks solid. I would think BA are going to turn into a formidable army with what they put up on the site.

Now to see what Martel says....

 Karthicus wrote:
Just saw the post on the GW site, and I have to say it looks solid. I would think BA are going to turn into a formidable army with what they put up on the site.

Now to see what Martel says....

garbage. as you know every marine squad can only ever charge 10 guardsmen equivalent models, so in order to be efficient a space marine assault unit will be garbage tier unless they are equal or less points than 10 guardsmen.

Given it says "before moving" not instead of moving, but never says not to move the unit after setting them up, would this technically mean you can then move them after setting them up (I do not believe for a second that it is intended if so)? If so, that is hilarious.

Banbaji wrote:


Given it says "before moving" not instead of moving, but never says not to move the unit after setting them up, would this technically mean you can then move them after setting them up (I do not believe for a second that it is intended if so)? If so, that is hilarious.

It says to set them up at the end of the phase, which as we know means you can't move any further, as there's no time to - the phase is ended

cf any 'deep strike' type units.

Banbaji wrote:


Given it says "before moving" not instead of moving, but never says not to move the unit after setting them up, would this technically mean you can then move them after setting them up (I do not believe for a second that it is intended if so)? If so, that is hilarious.

It says you redeploy them at the end of the phase, pretty sure that would mean they cannot then move as their chance to move has passed once the end of the phase has come. It literally just lets you re-deploy them anywhere more than 9" from an enemy unit just as if they Deep Striked basically.

And that is what I was missing. Reading comprehension, for the lose. Thank you both.

That's not completely terrible, as for 1 cp, you get to re-deploy Jump Pack unit into back-field objective or linebreaker etc...

 Spreelock wrote:
That's not completely terrible, as for 1 cp, you get to re-deploy Jump Pack unit into back-field objective or linebreaker etc...

Oh, I am not saying it is a bad stratagem, I actually quite like it. I'm more upset that I did not read it properly than anything.

Could combine it one a libby with a jump pack and wings of sanguinius though... more or less guarantee he can get into combat with anything

hopefully there will be a blood spear type power... that could be pretty nasty

strat him 9" away
wings him 12" to a possition you like
unleash something nasty

ofc if he has a JP you can forgo the strat and just deep strike him in

That's basically an auto-charge for Vanguard.

What is? Wings? Self cast only...

I really wish there was some sort of rule that let our deep striking units get in easier. It is what we do!

The problem with wanting that is it breaks the game - althought I'm sure it's something we'll start to see more of as 8th edition runs full speed down the path 7th had worn in.

 Elbows wrote:
The problem with wanting that is it breaks the game - althought I'm sure it's something we'll start to see more of as 8th edition runs full speed down the path 7th had worn in.

Yeah, that is true. I am more looking for Rerolls on charges. Nothing much more than that.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
The problem with wanting that is it breaks the game - althought I'm sure it's something we'll start to see more of as 8th edition runs full speed down the path 7th had worn in.

Yeah, that is true. I am more looking for Rerolls on charges. Nothing much more than that.

Same. My whole concern is that we'll get a bunch of neat combat buffs that end up irrelevant because we can't close the distance. I am so discouraged by the performance of CC-oriented Terminators of any variety because they're just not reliable.

 Elbows wrote:
The problem with wanting that is it breaks the game - althought I'm sure it's something we'll start to see more of as 8th edition runs full speed down the path 7th had worn in.

I don’t see how it breaks the game any harder than things that can deepstrike and do massive shooting damage on arrival. From 24” away. No charge roll required. And doesn’t care about bubble wrap less than 14” deep. And shoots twice. Like slaanesh obliterators (a combo coming out of the second book of the edition). But sure; screw over potentially potent melee because why not?

The problem of Warhammer40k is that GW values meele as it values shooting, when shooting has a ton of in-build advantages over meele.

Meele should be just cheaper or be more deadly/powerfull, just like on Infinity the max accuracy for a shooting model is 15, but for a meele model is 30.

 Galas wrote:
The problem of Warhammer40k is that GW values meele as it values shooting, when shooting has a ton of in-build advantages over meele.

Meele should be just cheaper or be more deadly/powerfull, just like on Infinity the max accuracy for a shooting model is 15, but for a meele model is 30.

The fixes to transports actually helped, but everyone is used to playing gunline for the most part, so they continue to do so. I'm hoping that Tyranids will change the line of thought eventually, and with Daemons soon on the way people might be using more melee to get the opponent first before they can get them.

At least I'm hoping that.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I really wish there was some sort of rule that let our deep striking units get in easier. It is what we do!

This is literally what i've been saying all along, and really since 8th dropped. There is no reliable way, even really with a re-roll, for units to get into CC, and for units like DC, VV, ASMs, SG, etc, they need to be in CC or they die. We need some sort of mechanic that gives us a better chance of charging into CC, certainly from DS, because currently if you drop 3 squads in, only 1 will make it into CC while the other 2 die to weight of fire.

 Elbows wrote:
The problem with wanting that is it breaks the game - althought I'm sure it's something we'll start to see more of as 8th edition runs full speed down the path 7th had worn in.

This is absolutely %100 false. Shooting is so much more powerful than CC in this game it's not even a comparison. Shooting has overshadowed CC for many editions now, probably since at least 5th edition. There is so many mechanics that benefit shooting now, like falling back out of CC, loss of attack on the charge, loss of attack from 2x CCW or pistol/CCW, overwatch, twin link weapons. Even things like armor modifiers and morale tests help shooting more than CC. All this adds up to making it more difficult for CC armies to compete, specially marine CC armies. Sure, CC got a few things, but shooting got more and they were already ahead of CC by a good margin, so they need an edge to compete.

Should pure melee armies be able to beat an army predominately built on shooting though? I mean even the armies that have the most excuses to be melee only, Daemons and Nids, have fire support units to help them get in. There's a reason for that, almost as if relying on pure melee in an environment where other people have guns is a bad idea.

If you build a pure melee army I hate to tell you, but you shouldn't be surprised that it's having a hard time making it into combat without support. Saying that is like a player complaining they brought no anti tank and then got rolled by an IG tank line, or a player brought no way to shut down pyskers then got torn apart in the psyker phase. Even pure shooting armies need something to survive and deal with melee, that's why screens and countercharge things pop up so much, because without it shooting armies would get shut down by assault.

No one strategy in this game should ever be 100% reliable, be it pure shooting, pure assault, pure pyskers, etc. A fine balance should need to be struck with an army if you want it going at max ability. I know I'm going to get some flak for that but I'm always confused why people try to build a pure 100% assault army and yet somehow expect it to make it across the table unmolested and the opponent shouldn't be able to shoot them on the way in.

Melee as it stands will always be a more specialized and situational thing, unless you horrifically nerf shooting into the ground so much certain armies cannot even function, it will always be this way. Assault works best when you've either got shenanigans to get them in or use them as a special part to breakthrough an enemy line, and I think that's a good thing. You shouldn't be able to just line up a bunch of assault units on one side of the board, mindlessly charge across the table, and get a win unless you're just stupid lucky. That'd be like a guard player sitting there all game without moving to gunline being surprised that he keeps losing the objective game (and yes I know the IG codex is strong enough to win this way by tabling right now, I'm talking about in an ideal world where the balance is more fine tuned) Shooting will always be more powerful because logically there are very few situations where a sword beats a gun, even in the far future. Not even 40k can get around that. The main issue is screen units are so available and effective right now. If you go into the tactics section and other areas you'll notice a lot of people actually have a hard time shutting down assault armies without something like guardsmen or cultists to take the assault for them. This hints more to a codex balance issue than assault in and of itself being bad. Other than the random charge distance assault is actually pretty nasty right now, it's just that the most powerful codexes in the game just so happen to also have cheap access to good screens so they have a natural counter to it.

If static gunlines are viable then so too should bumrush assault armies be. Though personally I think both extremes should be relatively weak and more mixing should be necessary to win but the current scenario where gunlines can do basically whatever they want as long as they have cheap chaff available but "assault" armies are required to really be mostly shooting is not the ideal.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If static gunlines are viable then so too should bumrush assault armies be. Though personally I think both extremes should be relatively weak and more mixing should be necessary to win but the current scenario where gunlines can do basically whatever they want as long as they have cheap chaff available but "assault" armies are required to really be mostly shooting is not the ideal.

I agree, which is why I put that gunline play needs to be nerfed as well. I'm not saying that pure shooting should win at all times. There are absolutely balance issues that need to be addressed right now.

I just don't think pure melee should be seen as a viable tactic either.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If static gunlines are viable then so too should bumrush assault armies be. Though personally I think both extremes should be relatively weak and more mixing should be necessary to win but the current scenario where gunlines can do basically whatever they want as long as they have cheap chaff available but "assault" armies are required to really be mostly shooting is not the ideal.

Yeah I agree. I feel like melee has always been an issue in 40k. The problem is, shooting can hit a melee army every turn, while melee has to charge across the board for several turns before it starts hurting ranged units. So the only way to balance that is to either make the melee units lightning fast to cause shooting armies to become irrelevant or have them do insane amounts of dmg and turn it into a, "if melee units make it into melee, GG."
It seems like a pretty hard thing to balance, and I wouldn't be too sure as to how you'd balance that. They've allowed ranged units to retreat from melee but aren't able to shoot, which is nice, except for if your whole line gets charged, and then you can pretty much call it, as the cycle of retreating and then being charged ensues. But if they could just keep shooting anyway then melee armies would be doing so much less than shooting armies still.
What's good about a melee marine army is that things like Intercessors can be given auto bolters, so they'll be able to charge at the enemy while still being able to shoot their guns and when they hit melee they're getting quite a lot of attacks (with the right heroes) and will be wounding things easier thanks to our tactic, which is great. Or chucking dudes in rhinos as well. I can actually see BAngels being a pretty good melee army because they have the shooting to back them up. But it sucks that full melee armies struggle, and BAngels will probably struggle to hit melee too really

Looking at the what's out now, I feel that outside of a few units, Blood Angels are a good shooting army because they have melee to back them up. Marine vs marine, I'm being hit on 3's and wounded on 4's. Meanwhile I'm hitting on 3's, wounding on 2's. Even bikes are being wounded on threes by basic infantry. Every battle squad and tac squad can provide it's own counter charge.

This of course assumes that Sanguinary Priests stay the same.

 Mmmpi wrote:
Looking at the what's out now, I feel that outside of a few units, Blood Angels are a good shooting army because they have melee to back them up. Marine vs marine, I'm being hit on 3's and wounded on 4's. Meanwhile I'm hitting on 3's, wounding on 2's. Even bikes are being wounded on threes by basic infantry. Every battle squad and tac squad can provide it's own counter charge.

This of course assumes that Sanguinary Priests stay the same.

Other marine armies have Bobby G so there won't be any tactical squads counter charging :p

I'm still wondering if Blood Angels are getting a detachment bonus like Death Guard have. Not just The Red Thirst on models with the rule but units in a Blood Angels detachment gain X rule. That could still be where the rumored +1" Charge and Advance rule is.

Do you think Brother Corbulo with add a CP? He used to provide a re-roll once a game. +1 CP would do the same basically.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Should pure melee armies be able to beat an army predominately built on shooting though? I mean even the armies that have the most excuses to be melee only, Daemons and Nids, have fire support units to help them get in. There's a reason for that, almost as if relying on pure melee in an environment where other people have guns is a bad idea.

If you build a pure melee army I hate to tell you, but you shouldn't be surprised that it's having a hard time making it into combat without support. Saying that is like a player complaining they brought no anti tank and then got rolled by an IG tank line, or a player brought no way to shut down pyskers then got torn apart in the psyker phase. Even pure shooting armies need something to survive and deal with melee, that's why screens and countercharge things pop up so much, because without it shooting armies would get shut down by assault.

No one strategy in this game should ever be 100% reliable, be it pure shooting, pure assault, pure pyskers, etc. A fine balance should need to be struck with an army if you want it going at max ability. I know I'm going to get some flak for that but I'm always confused why people try to build a pure 100% assault army and yet somehow expect it to make it across the table unmolested and the opponent shouldn't be able to shoot them on the way in.

This. You can'y expect your units to drop in, make an assault, and wipe out an opposing unit without any consequences.It SHOULD be somewhat difficult to get into close combat. The big issues with gunline armies is the whole you go, I go turn sequence. If they changed the game over to alternate unit activations it would remove the whole alpha strike concept altogether. With Shadespire and the new Necromunda they are definitely testing this mechanic. I wouldn't be surprised to see it make it into Chapter Approved next year.

As to getting our units into close combat, I don't have a hard time currently. Bring stuff in from a Storm Raven, Land Raider, or if you don't want to dump so many points a Rhino. For Jump Pack troops just drop them into or behind a piece of LOS blocking terrain on the first turn. The 12" move gets them where they need to go. If you are in terrain, you are rocking a 2+ save. It's difficult sometimes, but not impossible.

So the solution to overpowered shooting isn’t buffing melee, because that would be overpowered? If you buff melee, shooting remains viable, and then mixed/TAC lists become viable too. “Shooting needs to be nerfed”? A melee buff IS a shooting nerf.

Why should melee units drop in and die after a turn when shooting units can fire at will. That’s without taking bubblewrap and the >9” minimum distance into account.

Your solution to getting to melee is spending points on rhinos? When the solution to making shooting more viable is to just spend more points on shooting units? Sounds questionable.