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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
In this thread:
"The game is all shooting and melee should play a support role."

"But GW released Daemons, that's proof they want melee to be viable."

"Your factual evidence contrary to my position is rejected because I personally disagree with it."

Thats Peregrine for you.

I don't know why people engage in his personal crusade of wanting W40K to be all about guns and squatting Tyranids and Daemons.

I would like to see a differentiation of "assault vehicles" and transports. The rules should allow a unit to either embark into a vehicle or exit a vehicle once per turn. That unit can exit at the end of the movement phase as long as it didn't embark earlier in the turn. If a unit leaves a transport at the end of the vehicle's movement then the unit counts as having moved for all purposes and if the vehicle advanced then the unit is also considered to have advanced. If the transport was an assault vehicle then exiting from the vehicle a unit would not be consider to have moved unless the vehicle advanced in which case the unit is considered to have moved but not advanced.

Assault vehicles would be those transports that have assault ramps and/or assault in their names. Land Raiders and Storm Ravens have had assault ramps in past editions. The Cestus assault ram would also fall under the assault vehicle term.

 Galas wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
In this thread:
"The game is all shooting and melee should play a support role."

"But GW released Daemons, that's proof they want melee to be viable."

"Your factual evidence contrary to my position is rejected because I personally disagree with it."

Thats Peregrine for you.

I don't know why people engage in his personal crusade of wanting W40K to be all about guns and squatting Tyranids and Daemons.

To be fair, it's practically impossible to have melee and shooting be equal. The problem is that melee completely shuts down shooting, and melee can't reach out to touch shooting all the time. This results in one sided fights where either the melee army is being shot off the board OR the shooty army is chopped to pieces in its own corner as it can't escape. GW made a mistake in compartmentalizing armies under either "shooty" or "stabby". Under any ruleset that simulates reality at all, shooting will always be superior. There's a reason people stopped using swords.

Since this game is set in a time where machine guns exist, it would simply be easier to have all armies be shooty as a baseline, with factions having varying degrees of melee. So Orks and Daemons would need good shooting while Tyranid shooting is respectable enough to work. Orks, of course would either need to have more shots, better ballistic skill, cheaper shooting or some special rules to help them out. This leaves Daemons as the only army with 0 shooting elements. For that the only solution I can think of would be to combine them with Chaos Cultists that have ranged options (similar to genestealer cults).

I also think it was a mistake to separate specialized factions like Grey Knights into their own codices since that only encourages mono-build instead of mixing. If Grey Knights had stayed in an inquisition codex, they could have had access to Scions and such.

Now, if the terrain rules were more in depth, then melee would have the honor of being the best way to clear buildings and such because they ignore shooting penalties. This would incentivize players to use both ranged and melee instead of one or the other.

I think a fix for transports would be to allow you to disembark after moving half speed. I think a good fix for most would also to be to bring back fire points on some transports.

Rhinos cannot feasibly go to 30 points, at that point you are basically looking at 2 for the price of one now. Also if other transports are re-costed around that what does a razorback cost? 77 points for a twin assault cannon. After all it is basically a Rhino with a gun on it. I think maybe 60 points at the lowest.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Ok then, not 30, but definitely not 70 either. I'm all well and fine with no deepstrike T1, but they have to give melee armies something. It can't be shooting nerfs because then we just delay the whole game by one turn, and turn 2 just becomes the new turn 1. So it has to be something that will let shooty people shoot and hth-ty people stay alive enough to hth next turn.

If Rhinos go to 60 it'd be nice, but like I said above - is 20 to 40 points really the barrier?

I also think people need to stop trying to make everything turn 1 charge viable. Some armies have tools that let them do that. They get their niche. A rhino gets you a more reliable charge on turn 2 than a deepstrike on turn 1 without abilities/spells ever could. On top of that you get something to block overwatch - the thing gunlines like Tau do very well.

Dandelion wrote:

 Galas wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
In this thread:
"The game is all shooting and melee should play a support role."

"But GW released Daemons, that's proof they want melee to be viable."

"Your factual evidence contrary to my position is rejected because I personally disagree with it."

Thats Peregrine for you.

I don't know why people engage in his personal crusade of wanting W40K to be all about guns and squatting Tyranids and Daemons.

To be fair, it's practically impossible to have melee and shooting be equal. The problem is that melee completely shuts down shooting, and melee can't reach out to touch shooting all the time. This results in one sided fights where either the melee army is being shot off the board OR the shooty army is chopped to pieces in its own corner as it can't escape. GW made a mistake in compartmentalizing armies under either "shooty" or "stabby". Under any ruleset that simulates reality at all, shooting will always be superior. There's a reason people stopped using swords.

Since this game is set in a time where machine guns exist, it would simply be easier to have all armies be shooty as a baseline, with factions having varying degrees of melee. So Orks and Daemons would need good shooting while Tyranid shooting is respectable enough to work. Orks, of course would either need to have more shots, better ballistic skill, cheaper shooting or some special rules to help them out. This leaves Daemons as the only army with 0 shooting elements. For that the only solution I can think of would be to combine them with Chaos Cultists that have ranged options (similar to genestealer cults).

I also think it was a mistake to separate specialized factions like Grey Knights into their own codices since that only encourages mono-build instead of mixing. If Grey Knights had stayed in an inquisition codex, they could have had access to Scions and such.

Now, if the terrain rules were more in depth, then melee would have the honor of being the best way to clear buildings and such because they ignore shooting penalties. This would incentivize players to use both ranged and melee instead of one or the other.

I disagree with that assesment. I think you can have both work but a number of things need to happen.

1.) Terrain needs to be plentiful and preferably abstract.
2.) Shooting should be more expensive to make up for its increased efficiency over close combat. Orks, Nids, Daemons etc would work just fine as horde assault armies where the expectation is that they get mowed down on the way there in large numbers but if they get there it is an issue. For elite assault armies raise wound counts on models to allow them to soak damage as they advance but some still die. As such even imperial guardsman should cost more than the horde assault troops.
3.) Model count needs to go down (or table size up) to allow for more mobility, so shooting units can try to flee from assaulting armies not get trapped all the time.
4.) Make close combat units more deadly, if they hit non-dedicated close combat troops they should rout them quickly.
5.)Allow shooting into close combat
6.) Make psychology on the battle field meaningful they used to do this a bit with target priority checks, perhaps those need to be a thing again, but altered somewhat, require LD tests (and make the difficult) to target different units if some other units are say within 12" of the firing unit, check to see if there is a break if nearby squads get mauled etc.

I'm not sure how it would all work exactly but that is where I would look to start.

Breng77 wrote:

5.)Allow shooting into close combat

Pls no. Pistols are enough.

I'm all for big, fat terrain. Huge factories, dense forests with trees 10 times the size of a human (we are not fighting through orange-tree fields after all), hive cities. Make it big and large and plenty. Make it so reasonable sized monsters (see carnifex/dreadnought) can actually hide out of LoS of the big hitters if they want to for the first couple of turns.

Oh and edit the stupid cover rule for the monsters.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Pls no. Pistols are enough.

Yeah. That's like the whole point of the pistols...

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

5.)Allow shooting into close combat

Pls no. Pistols are enough.

It might be limited to some extent but if you balance shooting and close combat you cannot have one turn the other off.

I think the main issue I had with transports was when the disembark occurred, allowing disembarkation at the end of the movement is key I think, they minute details around that can be fine-tuned of course. I was never anticipating a drastic price decrease in the transports themselves, though I do think the rhino is over-costed, I think it should probably be 50-60 points, somewhere in there. I also think with the new tactical reserves rule drop pods can surely come down to 60 points or so. As without the guaranteed turn 1 drop they really aren't that attractive.

Breng77 wrote:


I disagree with that assesment. I think you can have both work but a number of things need to happen.

1.) Terrain needs to be plentiful and preferably abstract.
2.) Shooting should be more expensive to make up for its increased efficiency over close combat. Orks, Nids, Daemons etc would work just fine as horde assault armies where the expectation is that they get mowed down on the way there in large numbers but if they get there it is an issue. For elite assault armies raise wound counts on models to allow them to soak damage as they advance but some still die. As such even imperial guardsman should cost more than the horde assault troops.
3.) Model count needs to go down (or table size up) to allow for more mobility, so shooting units can try to flee from assaulting armies not get trapped all the time.
4.) Make close combat units more deadly, if they hit non-dedicated close combat troops they should rout them quickly.
5.)Allow shooting into close combat
6.) Make psychology on the battle field meaningful they used to do this a bit with target priority checks, perhaps those need to be a thing again, but altered somewhat, require LD tests (and make the difficult) to target different units if some other units are say within 12" of the firing unit, check to see if there is a break if nearby squads get mauled etc.

I'm not sure how it would all work exactly but that is where I would look to start.

1) I already use plenty of terrain and would like more, but not everyone wants to for various reasons.
2) Which is something I believe is impossible in practice. How do you determine how much better shooting is versus melee over the course of any game? You run the risk of making shooting units not worth it. The point of balance is so fine that we would never see it happen. Just compare shoota boys to slugga boys, everything is the same except the shoota boy gets +1 shot usually but the slugga boy gets +1 attack. The shoota boy does less damage in shooting than the slugga boy does in combat so everyone takes slugga boys. Applying a blanket tax for shooting would just make 40k a melee game.
3) You can already do that.
4) Dedicated close combat units are already more deadly than shooting units. Especially with power weapons. They just don't get to hit as often. Allowing them into combat more often would skew the game towards melee even further.
5) Well, you already can with pistols and Fall Back exists so there's that. But allowing shooting units to fire into close combat would just make close combat strictly worse than shooting again no matter what else you do.
6) No thanks.

My problem with all melee or all shooty is the rock-paper-scissors effect it has on the game. How is running a horde of melee units into a gunline fun for anyone? Either you die on the way or you reach their lines and become unstoppable. You end up making hyper desperate melee armies, and super paranoid shooting armies.

Regardless of all the moaning about no more melee units being viable. There are still many ways to get a unit into melee on turn 1. Strategems, psychic powers, some abilities or effects, ridiculously fast movement, with advance and rerollable charge ranges, or just general exceptions like genecults... this change limits first turn assault melee it doesn’t remove it. I like the new rule and I think it needs to stay in some form. I think certain units need a price adjustment afterwards becuase tactical reserves is a lot less useful and I think select few units like drop pods need an entire rework to have reason to exist. But overall this faq limits reserve army based nonsense and limits alpha strikes that cripple most armies.

gungo wrote:
Regardless of all the moaning about no more melee units being viable. There are still many ways to get a unit into melee on turn 1. Strategems, psychic powers, some abilities or effects, ridiculously fast movement, with advance and rerollable charge ranges, or just general exceptions like genecults... this change limits first turn assault melee it doesn’t remove it. I like the new rule and I think it needs to stay in some form. I think certain units need a price adjustment afterwards becuase tactical reserves is a lot less useful and I think select few units like drop pods need an entire rework to have reason to exist. But overall this faq limits reserve army based nonsense and limits alpha strikes that cripple most armies.

I think everyone assumes the rule is here to stay. No one here is just flatly advocating for a repeal of the new rule. Rather we are brainstorming additional new rules changes to go along with the new beta rules that re-prop-up armies that weren't problematic, that were heavily affected by the new rules, and therefore took an undeserved nerf.

1.) GW needs to prescribe the minimum ammount and it needs to be high, or at least prescribe the ammount and type used to balance the game. Without this there can never be balance, if GW said use x % of the table as terrain, and it should be broken down into y types (abstracted) more people would use the right ammount that creates more balance between shooting and assault.

2.) It isn't a blanket tax for shooting it is a higher valuation of things that make shooting better, BS, rate of fire, weapon profiles. Looking at Ork boyz compared to guardsman. They are largely the same in durability, Boyz are better in combat, and guardsman in shooting and are faster, Boyz cost 2 additional points. Why? Because GW values Close comabt ability higher than shooting ability.


3.) Not really meaningfully and still bring different types of units. The only way to reduce model count is points, and when some troops cost 4 points there is not a meaningful point cost which reduces army size, just toys, you can try to find larger tables, but that is also difficult to do for most people.

4.) No they are not. Dark Reapers are as deadly or more than any close combat unit. Take say Sanguinary guard vs Dark reapers look at number of "shots/attacks" how much they hit, wound and damage, and tell me that one is significantly more powerful than the other. I also never said let them get there more often, at least not a full strength. I said when they do get there combat should be over.

5.) Pistols can only shoot into combats when in combat, and at no other time. Fall back (without fly) means those shooting units cannot fire, so only other units can fire, and that assumes they don't get locked in. It doesn't make close combat worse than shooting no matter what you do, it is a matter of points. At current the game comes down to shooting must kill things before they can fight, if you could shoot into combat this would no longer be the case and so the power of shooting could be toned down.

6.) OK, it just means that the only way to effect models is death.

It is only RPS because currently for one to succeed the other must utterly fail. As for running hordes into a gunline ask ork players, if it were at all effective I'm sure they would be fine with it. What you describe is the current state of the game, either you die before you hit their lines, or you hit their lines and win. The only difference now is that largely you never hit their lines, and that what I suggest doesn't end up with a situation where once hit shooting armies auto lose.

#4) "Dark Reapers are as deadly or more than any close combat unit" TH VV are clearly more deadly in CC than Reapers are at shooting. Per model or point. And TH VV are considered terrible.

You are simply quite incorrect at a factual level. At least on that point.

Bharring wrote:
#4) "Dark Reapers are as deadly or more than any close combat unit" TH VV are clearly more deadly in CC than Reapers are at shooting. Per model or point. And TH VV are considered terrible.

You are simply quite incorrect at a factual level. At least on that point.

That entirely depends on the target, against single wound T4 or less infantry Reapers are better dealing 0.8888889 wounds per model vs 0.83333, or 38.25 points per wound vs 38.4. Though against 4+ saves or better Hammers are slightly better against 5+ or 6+ the reapers are better. But they are certainly at least as deadly it is not a big gap so I wouldn't say they are clearly more deadly in CC than reapers are in shooting unless we are talking about things where 3 damage matters, then they have twice the number of attacks so would be better. Against a culexus assassin the comparison isn't. close. It is true though that the ability to apply said damage matters. So if it is that much harder to apply those thunder hammers to the target why are they not significantly cheaper? To allow for some of them dying before they even do anything.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
"But GW released Daemons, that's proof they want melee to be viable."

False. GW releasing demons is proof that they wanted to let people use their WHFB armies in 40k as a way to drive sales. This was a huge mistake, both fluff-wise and rules-wise, and it hasn't been repeated. Every other "melee" faction has shooting units, demons are the lone exception to the rule. The solution is to stop acknowledging demons as an independent army.

Breng77 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
#4) "Dark Reapers are as deadly or more than any close combat unit" TH VV are clearly more deadly in CC than Reapers are at shooting. Per model or point. And TH VV are considered terrible.

You are simply quite incorrect at a factual level. At least on that point.

That entirely depends on the target, against single wound T4 or less infantry Reapers are better dealing 0.8888889 wounds per model vs 0.83333, or 38.25 points per wound vs 38.4. Though against 4+ saves or better Hammers are slightly better against 5+ or 6+ the reapers are better. But they are certainly at least as deadly it is not a big gap so I wouldn't say they are clearly more deadly in CC than reapers are in shooting unless we are talking about things where 3 damage matters, then they have twice the number of attacks so would be better. Against a culexus assassin the comparison isn't. close. It is true though that the ability to apply said damage matters. So if it is that much harder to apply those thunder hammers to the target why are they not significantly cheaper? To allow for some of them dying before they even do anything.

Thunder Hammers are a whole extra model and i'm not quite sure why people consider VV terrible.

A 3 attack CS VV is 48 points per wound done to T4 3+ and 18 points per wound vs T3 5+. A DR is 57 and 38 respectively.

Stop taking all TH/SS. One in a squad is more than enough.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
"But GW released Daemons, that's proof they want melee to be viable."

False. GW releasing demons is proof that they wanted to let people use their WHFB armies in 40k as a way to drive sales. This was a huge mistake, both fluff-wise and rules-wise, and it hasn't been repeated. Every other "melee" faction has shooting units, demons are the lone exception to the rule. The solution is to stop acknowledging demons as an independent army.

That doesn't change the fact that some armies are designed to use melee as their primary means of dealing damage and other armies are designed to be better at shooting. Shooting cannot be the be all end all if some armies are better at it than others.

Fine, there are some targets at which a Dark Reaper shooting edges out a TH VV in CC. But the bulk of the targets go to that TH VV. It's still safe to say TH VV are more deadly in CC than Dark Reapers, if the target is unspecified. And that was jsut the first example.

My point is that saying that Reapers are more deadly at shooting than anything is at CC is clearly incorrect. The example shows that.

Breng77 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
"But GW released Daemons, that's proof they want melee to be viable."

False. GW releasing demons is proof that they wanted to let people use their WHFB armies in 40k as a way to drive sales. This was a huge mistake, both fluff-wise and rules-wise, and it hasn't been repeated. Every other "melee" faction has shooting units, demons are the lone exception to the rule. The solution is to stop acknowledging demons as an independent army.

That doesn't change the fact that some armies are designed to use melee as their primary means of dealing damage and other armies are designed to be better at shooting. Shooting cannot be the be all end all if some armies are better at it than others.

The point is that all armies should be designed around shooting being the mainstay of the game. Melee is a way to shake things up. If guns exist in the game, then they really should be better than swords, because that's why guns exist. Melee is already too skewed relative to guns, a guardsman has the same strength as his gun. Why is a dreadnought fist stronger than a railgun shot?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
#4) "Dark Reapers are as deadly or more than any close combat unit" TH VV are clearly more deadly in CC than Reapers are at shooting. Per model or point. And TH VV are considered terrible.

You are simply quite incorrect at a factual level. At least on that point.

That entirely depends on the target, against single wound T4 or less infantry Reapers are better dealing 0.8888889 wounds per model vs 0.83333, or 38.25 points per wound vs 38.4. Though against 4+ saves or better Hammers are slightly better against 5+ or 6+ the reapers are better. But they are certainly at least as deadly it is not a big gap so I wouldn't say they are clearly more deadly in CC than reapers are in shooting unless we are talking about things where 3 damage matters, then they have twice the number of attacks so would be better. Against a culexus assassin the comparison isn't. close. It is true though that the ability to apply said damage matters. So if it is that much harder to apply those thunder hammers to the target why are they not significantly cheaper? To allow for some of them dying before they even do anything.

Thunder Hammers are a whole extra model and i'm not quite sure why people consider VV terrible.

A 3 attack CS VV is 48 points per wound done to T4 3+ and 18 points per wound vs T3 5+. A DR is 57 and 38 respectively.

Stop taking all TH/SS. One in a squad is more than enough.

Dark reapers are only 38.5 points against T4 3+ saves, and 25.5 points against T3 5+, so the VV is only better against chaff in this case, against anything with a good save or higher T, or FNP reapers come out ahead.
And in that case look at 2 wounds or 3 wound models and points per dead model. It is about target in that instance. Against Primaris T4 3+ 2 wounds, to kill a model takes 96 points of 3 attack VV, and only 38 of Reapers. IF 3 wounds then 76.5 points of reapers and 144 points of VV.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dandelion wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
"But GW released Daemons, that's proof they want melee to be viable."

False. GW releasing demons is proof that they wanted to let people use their WHFB armies in 40k as a way to drive sales. This was a huge mistake, both fluff-wise and rules-wise, and it hasn't been repeated. Every other "melee" faction has shooting units, demons are the lone exception to the rule. The solution is to stop acknowledging demons as an independent army.

That doesn't change the fact that some armies are designed to use melee as their primary means of dealing damage and other armies are designed to be better at shooting. Shooting cannot be the be all end all if some armies are better at it than others.

The point is that all armies should be designed around shooting being the mainstay of the game. Melee is a way to shake things up. If guns exist in the game, then they really should be better than swords, because that's why guns exist. Melee is already too skewed relative to guns, a guardsman has the same strength as his gun. Why is a dreadnought fist stronger than a railgun shot?

Doing that severly limits the design space for armies as it comes down to cost BS and durability and that is it. Melee fits just fine into a world with guns. IMO it should largely be in the form of alien hordes if you want guns to be the primary for humans sure. Further other games exist where shooting really is the only thing there is. Why should all games be that way when the fluff does not support that idea. I mean in a world where nuking planets from orbit exists why use a gun. As for the strength thing that is a matter of a limited D6 system.

Breng77 wrote:
1.) GW needs to prescribe the minimum ammount and it needs to be high, or at least prescribe the ammount and type used to balance the game. Without this there can never be balance, if GW said use x % of the table as terrain, and it should be broken down into y types (abstracted) more people would use the right ammount that creates more balance between shooting and assault.

2.) It isn't a blanket tax for shooting it is a higher valuation of things that make shooting better, BS, rate of fire, weapon profiles. Looking at Ork boyz compared to guardsman. They are largely the same in durability, Boyz are better in combat, and guardsman in shooting and are faster, Boyz cost 2 additional points. Why? Because GW values Close comabt ability higher than shooting ability.


3.) Not really meaningfully and still bring different types of units. The only way to reduce model count is points, and when some troops cost 4 points there is not a meaningful point cost which reduces army size, just toys, you can try to find larger tables, but that is also difficult to do for most people.

4.) No they are not. Dark Reapers are as deadly or more than any close combat unit. Take say Sanguinary guard vs Dark reapers look at number of "shots/attacks" how much they hit, wound and damage, and tell me that one is significantly more powerful than the other. I also never said let them get there more often, at least not a full strength. I said when they do get there combat should be over.

5.) Pistols can only shoot into combats when in combat, and at no other time. Fall back (without fly) means those shooting units cannot fire, so only other units can fire, and that assumes they don't get locked in. It doesn't make close combat worse than shooting no matter what you do, it is a matter of points. At current the game comes down to shooting must kill things before they can fight, if you could shoot into combat this would no longer be the case and so the power of shooting could be toned down.

6.) OK, it just means that the only way to effect models is death.

It is only RPS because currently for one to succeed the other must utterly fail. As for running hordes into a gunline ask ork players, if it were at all effective I'm sure they would be fine with it. What you describe is the current state of the game, either you die before you hit their lines, or you hit their lines and win. The only difference now is that largely you never hit their lines, and that what I suggest doesn't end up with a situation where once hit shooting armies auto lose.

1) We don't need GW to mandate required terrain. In fact, I think GW doesn't want to mandate anything except the basic gameplay. The most you'll get is GW suggesting a certain amount of terrain for tournaments.

2) Ork shooting is strictly worse than Ork melee. So apparently if you make shooting too expensive it becomes useless. Who's taking flash gitz outside of fun games? As I pointed out earlier, it is practically impossible to properly point melee vs ranged under the current rules.
A shoota boy is about 3-4 times as deadly as a guardsmen in close combat while not being too far behind in shooting. That's why they cost 2 extra points. Though if you wanted to be rigorous, you wouldn't have picked Guardsmen since they are undercosted right now. Compare the shoota boy to a fire warrior and see who's paying more for the privilege of shooting. Heck, an Ogryn is 30 pts to get 3 S 5 shots followed by 3-4 S5 ap -1 attacks in close combat while a crisis suit with a single burst cannon is 50 pts to get 4 S5 shots, give him an ATS and he's 62 pts. Seems like shooting is already more expensive than melee. So it's not as simple as points costs.

3) There are only 2 ways to adjust model count: smaller games or larger boards. Neither is affected by the main rules. Unless you had something else in mind?

4) I don't actually know the stats of Dark Reapers but they seem to be a problem unit so they're not the best example for averages. However, I have noticed that dedicated melee units tend to get more attacks with higher strength than most dedicated ranged units.

5) If you fall back, everything else can shoot it. Allowing shooting into close combat removes one of the only things melee can do right now, shut down guns.

6) Or morale, which is another way of dying I guess. Though I would like to see a morale rule that doubles the number of models removed for failing a check while in CC.

The way I see it though, 40k is about guns and bigger guns. Guns should be the main focus of the game. Melee is a neat way to shake things up. If we have to break 20 years of Orks being bad at shooting to do it then so be it.

Dandelion wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
"But GW released Daemons, that's proof they want melee to be viable."

False. GW releasing demons is proof that they wanted to let people use their WHFB armies in 40k as a way to drive sales. This was a huge mistake, both fluff-wise and rules-wise, and it hasn't been repeated. Every other "melee" faction has shooting units, demons are the lone exception to the rule. The solution is to stop acknowledging demons as an independent army.

That doesn't change the fact that some armies are designed to use melee as their primary means of dealing damage and other armies are designed to be better at shooting. Shooting cannot be the be all end all if some armies are better at it than others.

The point is that all armies should be designed around shooting being the mainstay of the game. Melee is a way to shake things up. If guns exist in the game, then they really should be better than swords, because that's why guns exist. Melee is already too skewed relative to guns, a guardsman has the same strength as his gun. Why is a dreadnought fist stronger than a railgun shot?

Because the railgun shot isn't covered in a matter-disrupting field, while the Dreadnought fist is.

The assumption that guns are always better than swords assumes that the guns have better hitting power than the swords. If there's some way of making a melee weapon that cannot be replicated at range and the armour/defensive technology is good enough that you need that melee power to reliably break through guns will be much worse than melee.

Breng77 wrote:

Doing that severly limits the design space for armies as it comes down to cost BS and durability and that is it. Melee fits just fine into a world with guns. IMO it should largely be in the form of alien hordes if you want guns to be the primary for humans sure. Further other games exist where shooting really is the only thing there is. Why should all games be that way when the fluff does not support that idea. I mean in a world where nuking planets from orbit exists why use a gun. As for the strength thing that is a matter of a limited D6 system.

Considering that every army has both ranged and melee (aside from demons) I don't see how design would be any different. Orks can keep their melee but their shooting would just be effective for a change.
(nuking something is a way of shooting btw )


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Because the railgun shot isn't covered in a matter-disrupting field, while the Dreadnought fist does.

The assumption that guns are always better than swords assumes that the guns have better hitting power than the swords. If there's some way of making a melee weapon that cannot be replicated at range and the armour/defensive technology is good enough that you need that melee power to reliably break through guns will be much worse than melee.

Matter-disruption is techno-magic to make melee seem like a better idea than it is. The kinetic force of a railgun shot doesn't need help. It has enough force to obliterate anything it wants to. Current rail gun designs suffer from being destroyed each time they fire. Besides, if you can make power swords, you can shoot power swords.

Breng77 wrote:


Dark reapers are only 38.5 points against T4 3+ saves, and 25.5 points against T3 5+, so the VV is only better against chaff in this case, against anything with a good save or higher T, or FNP reapers come out ahead.
And in that case look at 2 wounds or 3 wound models and points per dead model. It is about target in that instance. Against Primaris T4 3+ 2 wounds, to kill a model takes 96 points of 3 attack VV, and only 38 of Reapers. IF 3 wounds then 76.5 points of reapers and 144 points of VV.

The one I did is consistent with my own figures - what is your formula?

Besides that - VV can fight on both turns - DR shoot once (barring abilities). Obviously you need to *get* to combat, but the benefits quickly stack up.

@dandilion - if orks aren’t skewed to melee (yes you can improve their shooting, but the basis of their army is still melee) then they aren’t the same army. If shooting is always better than melee being a melee focused army with average shooting will always lose to a shooting focused force. Daemons actually have some shooting as well, but melee is a primary source of their offense as it should be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:


Dark reapers are only 38.5 points against T4 3+ saves, and 25.5 points against T3 5+, so the VV is only better against chaff in this case, against anything with a good save or higher T, or FNP reapers come out ahead.
And in that case look at 2 wounds or 3 wound models and points per dead model. It is about target in that instance. Against Primaris T4 3+ 2 wounds, to kill a model takes 96 points of 3 attack VV, and only 38 of Reapers. IF 3 wounds then 76.5 points of reapers and 144 points of VV.

The one I did is consistent with my own figures - what is your formula?

Besides that - VV can fight on both turns - DR shoot once (barring abilities). Obviously you need to *get* to combat, but the benefits quickly stack up.

Points cost divided by average wounds caused by the model. Beyond that yes sometimes VV get to swing twice, but sometimes the enemy falls back, or dies in the first round, or kills the vets etc. There is rarely a guarantee that a melee unit will swing on both turns.

GW messed up the balance when they introduced reliably falling back from combat.

It used to be that going 100% shooting army was risky, as you would have no reliable way to break up melees.
It was a good idea to include something with some kind of melee capability in your list just for that.
Now that falling back is the most reliable way to deal with that issue, simply adding more shooting units is a no-brainer.

So melee units (the ones worth taking) are now all balanced for the fact they get 1 round of melee and then die.
Combats used to be slower and last multiple rounds, but obviously that is no longer possible with these rules.
Most good melee units annihilate anything they attack in full force in a single round.

In turn this introduced stupid, contrieved mechanics into the game:
- congalined screens. Without any dedicated counter-melee units standing by, these would have been a liability before, but now are mandatory.
- all those turn 1 charges: arriving at the target with anything less than full force does not cut it, as you only get that one fighting phase. Units that can't do that see zero playtime.
- hostage taking: this is really the worst offender. A completely contrieved way of circumventing the failings in the rules, but again mandatory for most melee units.


Now they are trying to fix things on the wrong end, but the balance between melee and shooting is so messed up in the core rules, it quickly tilts either way with even small changes.
Less choices in list building, contrieved mechanics to play around the rules, bad internal balance with some uints spiking in power with little changes... all stems from that one error with fallback mechanic.

Breng77 wrote:
@dandilion - if orks aren’t skewed to melee (yes you can improve their shooting, but the basis of their army is still melee) then they aren’t the same army. If shooting is always better than melee being a melee focused army with average shooting will always lose to a shooting focused force. Daemons actually have some shooting as well, but melee is a primary source of their offense as it should be.

You're right, they wouldn't be the same army. They'd actually be fun to play for a change...
Orks weren't always melee centric. Back in 2nd they had BS 4+ while Warbosses had BS 3+ (applying 8th translations to it). In 3rd, GW decided to make Orks a melee horde with bad shooting. I believe that was a mistake and it has come back to bite them. (2nd edition also had modifiers btw...) Orks should be able to overrun other armies with either melee or ranged (preferably both at the same time), but still feel like you're being overrun. A tsunami of bullets and shells is incredibly Orky. The Bad Moons clan deliberately sets up gunlines in battle. Why should that be ignored in favor of melee only Orks? Giving Orks better shooting would not change their identity one bit.

Why can't all factions have shooty and stabby units worth their points? Sure Khorne might have more melee options than say Tau but those options should ideally be equivalent in points. Why bother having points if they don't represent actual worth?