One of the Biggest Problems with Tactical Reserve Beta Rule - Big FAQ

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**Arachnofiend**

Because some people think melee combat is fun and cool? Not everyone should get trapped in the static gunline doldrums like most-boring-faction-in-the-game IG is.

**kombatwombat**

I think transports could help out (most) assault armies if you let passengers disembark at the start of the Charge phase. It’d need a few limits such as:

- a unit cannot disembark in this way if it embarked earlier that turn
- a unit cannot disembark in this way if the transport arrived from Reserves that turn
- a unit cannot disembark in this way if the transport moved more than X” (probably 9”?) total that turn

It outright kills shenanigans like Warp Time, MoveMoveMove! and ‘move again’ stratagems that are triggered in the movement, psychic or shooting phases. It prevents crazy fast flying transports moving 60” then disembarking units. The hard cap on total movement in one turn is 9” + 3” + base (so roughly 13”) - meaning that, while a Turn 1 Charge is possible, you’ll need a 10-ish inch charge to pull it off on a standard deployment. It doesn’t help shooting units at all, but provides assault units a bit of a movement boost (about an extra 7” or so movement) over just disembarking in the movement phase and then footslogging.

**Daedalus81**

HMint wrote:

- 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.

I really don't agree here. This differentiates the slow from the fast. It's easy to avoid hostage taking if you're aware. It's less easy if they're jumping over and pinning you from both sides.

Falling back does have a penalty. You can't shoot. Now if you're charging all fliers then, sure, it's a problem. But for the oft maligned AM - they don't fly. There are, however, some ways to claw that back. The next problem is that they only have so many orders in range of their units and if they order it will be without getting FRFSRF. Vox casters help, but I don't see a lot of AM paying 5 points per unit to have that and they'll still lose orders.

So, I think maybe the real problem is people coming down with uber melee units slamming into chaff, leaving nothing left in a small area and calling it a day. It's better to tie up as many units as possible in one go, which are what transports are really really good at.

I don't have anything that lets my regular units shoot after falling back. In fact lots of people don't. Should there be some changes? Yea, but I don't think we have a clear picture of what those changes should be based on this assessment.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

kombatwombat wrote:
I think transports could help out (most) assault armies if you let passengers disembark at the start of the Charge phase. It’d need a few limits such as:

- a unit cannot disembark in this way if it embarked earlier that turn
- a unit cannot disembark in this way if the transport arrived from Reserves that turn
- a unit cannot disembark in this way if the transport moved more than X” (probably 9”?) total that turn

It outright kills shenanigans like Warp Time, MoveMoveMove! and ‘move again’ stratagems that are triggered in the movement, psychic or shooting phases. It prevents crazy fast flying transports moving 60” then disembarking units. The hard cap on total movement in one turn is 9” + 3” + base (so roughly 13”) - meaning that, while a Turn 1 Charge is possible, you’ll need a 10-ish inch charge to pull it off on a standard deployment. It doesn’t help shooting units at all, but provides assault units a bit of a movement boost (about an extra 7” or so movement) over just disembarking in the movement phase and then footslogging.

I'd rather just keep the current rules and charge turn 2 with heaps more reliability.

**Dandelion**

Arachnofiend wrote:
Because some people think melee combat is fun and cool? Not everyone should get trapped in the static gunline doldrums like most-boring-faction-in-the-game IG is.

Nowhere did I imply that melee should not be a significant part of the game, nor did I suggest that gunlines were better for the game.

Since it seems you missed my point, I'll break down my opinion for you:
- In a setting with guns, guns should be the primary means of engagement.
- Despite the existence of guns, many scenarios call for close quarters combat, as such melee should be a powerful support tool for armies. Much like how archers were used to support infantry in antiquity.
- All armies should have access to good shooting and good melee.
- Pure gunlines and pure melee should not be feasible against a balanced force.
- Loads of terrain is required to have an interesting game. A barren field requires no maneuvering to gain firing lanes. If you can clearly see the other deployment zone with most of your units... you need more terrain.

Now, before you say "but IG artillery", there are a few things to note:
- Other factions have artillery. ( and point costs are irrelevant to this discussion.)
- Artillery doesn't do enough damage on its own to win a game and forward elements such as infantry or tanks are required to take objectives.

Besides, the "all melee all day" crowd is their own worst enemy since they provoke the "all guns all day" crowd into turtling up and not moving. This then makes melee players more desperate, and ranged players more paranoid.

**Breng77**

Dandelion wrote:
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?

Because if all options are equally useful for every faction then their really is no faction identity. If orks can make a shooting army that is as good as Tau the only reason to Play either becomes I like the models. Ork shooting units should not be terrible but the should be supporting pieces not the main focus of the army like people suggesting shooting be king think is a good idea.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I agree with you that all melee with no guns shouldn’t be a thing, but disagree that shooting should be primary. I think forces with 60-70% melee should be viable. In a list like that shooting is supporting a largely melee force.

**peteralmo**

HMint wrote:
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.

You made some great points here.

**mchammadad**

He is right.

You could say the fall back mechanic made 8th edition a mess.

Out of all the mechanics they have (Damage, Fall Back, 1" Measure, Multiple Overwatch, Detachments,ect.) Fall back has been both the most significant and the most hamstrung of all the rules.

With that one rule, Melee combat went from slugfest or brawl to a one round deathmatch.

Because of that, tactics that were VERY old suddenly became the norm once again.

Because of that, Melee and shooting became even more polarized and even the slightest tweak to the rules spells disaster for either side.

All because of one mechanic that was completely new:

Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the destroyer of 40k

Fall back

**Eihnlazer**

Fixing falling back is pretty hard. Units need to be able to fall back or melee is too strong, but falling back for free makes melee too weak.

Adding attacks of oppertunity is adding more dice rolls which slows the game down.

I would simply add in the caveat that if you fall back and your outnumbered, you suffer 1 mortal wound +1 for every 5 models over.

This means you arent leaving combat for free unless you already have a numerical advantage (which makes sense). It also punish's single model units (who tend to be durable enough to ignore chaff models usually) from being able to just jump around with impunity.

**Earth127**

I wouldn't discard opportunity attacks just beacause it's more dice. Those could be very meaningfull dice.

**Daedalus81**

Falling back isn't free.

**Purifying Tempest**

mchammadad wrote:
He is right.

You could say the fall back mechanic made 8th edition a mess.

Out of all the mechanics they have (Damage, Fall Back, 1" Measure, Multiple Overwatch, Detachments,ect.) Fall back has been both the most significant and the most hamstrung of all the rules.

With that one rule, Melee combat went from slugfest or brawl to a one round deathmatch.

Because of that, tactics that were VERY old suddenly became the norm once again.

Because of that, Melee and shooting became even more polarized and even the slightest tweak to the rules spells disaster for either side.

All because of one mechanic that was completely new:

Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the destroyer of 40k

Fall back

We noticed this too, and put are trying opportunity attacks on a unit unless the unit falling back can fly. A "the unit being fallen back from may fight as if it were the fight phase before the unit falling back can move" style of rule. It doesn't REALLY change a whole lot, just gives the melee squad a chance to finish off the screen or whatever they jumped into before getting blasted off the table. It helps open things up for more melee-oriented units later in the game. Also, it never made sense to us that a squad of skirmishers would just sit there and watch guys walk away from them. In a skirmish, it is A LOT harder to safely move backwards and disengage an opponent than it is to continually move forward and press that engagement.

**DominayTrix**

Eihnlazer wrote:
Fixing falling back is pretty hard. Units need to be able to fall back or melee is too strong, but falling back for free makes melee too weak.

Adding attacks of oppertunity is adding more dice rolls which slows the game down.

I would simply add in the caveat that if you fall back and your outnumbered, you suffer 1 mortal wound +1 for every 5 models over.

This means you arent leaving combat for free unless you already have a numerical advantage (which makes sense). It also punish's single model units (who tend to be durable enough to ignore chaff models usually) from being able to just jump around with impunity.

Falling back isn't free. You cannot shoot the next turn unless you have fly. You are open to charges next turn unless you are significantly faster than the melee unit. You will be forced to shoot via overwatch assuming it isn't one of the units that denies it. You cannot choose your targets for overwatch, you simply have to take them in the order they charge. Rhino made it in? Now all 15 berserkers can get in without any danger. Shooting units will be hitting on 6s unless they have a flamer or another ability that usually only increases it to 5s. Even units that can fly have a drawback since they are now vulnerable to any anti-air. (remember the +1 to hit is usually against units that fly NOT flyers) Now compare this is with the fact that unless I am mistaken there isn't a single ability that can flat out deny you a charge like combat denies shooting. Sure the new charge rules and certain terrain pieces can deny you space to charge, but that is an entirely separate issue that should be fixed as well. Stop trying to make shooting worse, make melee better on its own. The game is more fun when both sides can do cool things.

**Bharring**

Units that fall back from me that don't have Fly tend to have the same effect as having broken and routed from CC. I'm probably multicharging them + something else next turn.

My units that fall back tend to be similarly hosed.

**peteralmo**

DominayTrix wrote:
Eihnlazer wrote:
Fixing falling back is pretty hard. Units need to be able to fall back or melee is too strong, but falling back for free makes melee too weak.

Adding attacks of oppertunity is adding more dice rolls which slows the game down.

I would simply add in the caveat that if you fall back and your outnumbered, you suffer 1 mortal wound +1 for every 5 models over.

This means you arent leaving combat for free unless you already have a numerical advantage (which makes sense). It also punish's single model units (who tend to be durable enough to ignore chaff models usually) from being able to just jump around with impunity.

Falling back isn't free. You cannot shoot the next turn unless you have fly. You are open to charges next turn unless you are significantly faster than the melee unit. You will be forced to shoot via overwatch assuming it isn't one of the units that denies it. You cannot choose your targets for overwatch, you simply have to take them in the order they charge. Rhino made it in? Now all 15 berserkers can get in without any danger. Shooting units will be hitting on 6s unless they have a flamer or another ability that usually only increases it to 5s. Even units that can fly have a drawback since they are now vulnerable to any anti-air. (remember the +1 to hit is usually against units that fly NOT flyers) Now compare this is with the fact that unless I am mistaken there isn't a single ability that can flat out deny you a charge like combat denies shooting. Sure the new charge rules and certain terrain pieces can deny you space to charge, but that is an entirely separate issue that should be fixed as well. Stop trying to make shooting worse, make melee better on its own. The game is more fun when both sides can do cool things.

I think you may not find too many sympathetic ears here. In the context of a gunline the fallback is *nearly* free. OK the unit can't shoot, unless it has the fly keyword or an UM type rule, and that isn't a trivial number of units. But again in a gunline army where every element you have on the table will be able to blast the charging unit off the table the next turn, it basically feels free. The entire gunline is redundant in the sense that they all shoot well in theory. So your charge shut down one or two of my units, who are now forced to fall back, you still have 10-12 other shooty units available. To the melee player this absolutely seems *free*. Please don't try and jump through hoops talking about how getting to seamlessly fall back is this overly detrimental burden on your unit.

**Bharring**

It's basically "free" if you discount the unit itself as lost.

Basically, the CC unit can't hide in CC is what you're complaining about?

Why should charging one or two of my units shut down the rest of my army?

**Daedalus81**

peteralmo wrote:

I think you may not find too many sympathetic ears here. In the context of a gunline the fallback is *nearly* free. OK the unit can't shoot, unless it has the fly keyword or an UM type rule, and that isn't a trivial number of units. But again in a gunline army where every element you have on the table will be able to blast the charging unit off the table the next turn, it basically feels free. The entire gunline is redundant in the sense that they all shoot well in theory. So your charge shut down one or two of my units, who are now forced to fall back, you still have 10-12 other shooty units available. To the melee player this absolutely seems *free*. Please don't try and jump through hoops talking about how getting to seamlessly fall back is this overly detrimental burden on your unit.

Which is why you should rope in as many units as possible instead of always investing in super ultra killy melee units that affect a small section of the army.

And that's why transports are incredibly useful.

**auticus**

Correct - that you can't hide in combat and be immune to shooting for most of the game is what is being complained about.

**peteralmo**

I would like to add, just as a reminder, that I fully advocate a change to allow all units that fall back to still shoot with a -1 to hit modifier, but the trade off would be that assault units get there turn 1 deep strike back.

**HMint**

I am not against the ability to fall back, I think being glued into combat forever is equally bad.
It just should not be 100% reliable. Players build their lists around reliable solutions.

Maybe make it a roll-off 2D6. If the unit falling back rolls higher, it is free and can even shoot.
If it rolls equal or less, it remains in combat and receives a -1 to hit on the following fight phase (something shooty units wouldn't care about, but would penalize CC units trying to switch targets).
Then some units could be better at chasing/falling back, like fly units and fast ones, maybe by adding in their movement characteristics.
Most vehicles are pretty fast, so this would make them somewhat resilant to being tied down in combat. Which I think makes sense, a vehicle being tagged by a grot making it unable to shoot is also one of those mechanics that feel a bit off.

**Bharring**

It's not reliable. If the opponent rolls more than the difference in movement between the two units, it failed to save you for more than your own round of CC.

Why should IG be unable to drop heavy ordinance on you just because private Jim Bob didn't run away? Would their air support care, or even know, that he's still amongst their target?

Would a Helldrake not spew fire across some Banshees just because they're not done cutting up some random Cultists?

If the Guard/Cultists break, the demons or Banshees will just charge them next round. They didn't 'fall back' 'reliably' or 'free'.

And for non-chaff units? If you charge a Reaper squad, tie it up, and they fall back, sans stratagems, they're still 'tied up' for the round in that they're not shooting.

It comes down to how mcuh benefit should succeeding a charge give you? Currently, you strike first, you get the round of CC you wanted, and they can't shoot/move back without sacrificing their entire turn - so what you charged is fully locked down.

What you're asking for is that the benefit of charging being that the entire shooting aspects of the enemy be locked down once you succeed charging anything. Why would that be fair?

**DominayTrix**

Daedalus81 wrote:
peteralmo wrote:

I think you may not find too many sympathetic ears here. In the context of a gunline the fallback is *nearly* free. OK the unit can't shoot, unless it has the fly keyword or an UM type rule, and that isn't a trivial number of units. But again in a gunline army where every element you have on the table will be able to blast the charging unit off the table the next turn, it basically feels free. The entire gunline is redundant in the sense that they all shoot well in theory. So your charge shut down one or two of my units, who are now forced to fall back, you still have 10-12 other shooty units available. To the melee player this absolutely seems *free*. Please don't try and jump through hoops talking about how getting to seamlessly fall back is this overly detrimental burden on your unit.

Which is why you should rope in as many units as possible instead of always investing in super ultra killy melee units that affect a small section of the army.

And that's why transports are incredibly useful.

Yeah it seems like this is turning into more and more of a "git gud" problem then an actual balance problem. If the melee player isn't tying up multiple units or getting significant damage done in their charge it seems like a misplay. If the melee player is charging an area where overwhelming firepower is waiting for them as soon as a single unit falls back that is a misplay. Exactly like you said, transports are great at tying up multiple units since most of them are big blocky and have already served their purpose. Speaking from experience, I have tabled a world eaters player who ran all his berserkers straight at 2 Y'Varhas. Multicharging every time. Leaving his rhinos behind to try to shoot the drones. I have also been tabled by the exact same list and exact same player who learned from his mistakes. While I don't like how 8th lends itself to tabling, the fact that those two matches can go completely opposite directions even against the "anti-melee tau boogeyman" shows that melee can be very useful if done correctly. Literally 0 enemy deep strikes were used by him both times. The biggest difference was charging correctly and using rhinos exactly like you keep advising to.

**peteralmo**

Bharring wrote:
It's not reliable. If the opponent rolls more than the difference in movement between the two units, it failed to save you for more than your own round of CC.

Why should IG be unable to drop heavy ordinance on you just because private Jim Bob didn't run away? Would their air support care, or even know, that he's still amongst their target?

Would a Helldrake not spew fire across some Banshees just because they're not done cutting up some random Cultists?

If the Guard/Cultists break, the demons or Banshees will just charge them next round. They didn't 'fall back' 'reliably' or 'free'.

And for non-chaff units? If you charge a Reaper squad, tie it up, and they fall back, sans stratagems, they're still 'tied up' for the round in that they're not shooting.

It comes down to how mcuh benefit should succeeding a charge give you? Currently, you strike first, you get the round of CC you wanted, and they can't shoot/move back without sacrificing their entire turn - so what you charged is fully locked down.

What you're asking for is that the benefit of charging being that the entire shooting aspects of the enemy be locked down once you succeed charging anything. Why would that be fair?

No one is saying that would be fair, or asking for that. What they are saying is that melee units have one shot to wipe a unit, if they fail to do so, said unit will fall back out of combat, this fall back move goes off automatically and cannot be prevented, and then the melee unit is free to be targeted or counter charged or whatever. Again this cheapens the value of melee again, where you effectively only ever have one round to get your damage off. I'm not saying that the unit should be stuck in combat and not be able to fall back, not only am I not saying that, I'm saying they should be able to fall back and still shoot with a -1 to hit, but that that ability is so inherently strong, the only fair flip side to that is to give assault all there toys back, turn 1 deep strike, turn 1 charging, etc.

**Unit1126PLL**

I remember back in 5th edition when you couldn't break contact for free where I had a bunch of Leman Russ Tanks vs like 40 genestealers.

In 5th edition guard could blob, so I did just that, and had 50 guardsmen in a blob in front of my tanks.

The genestealers charged the guardsman blob, and wiped them all out except for 1 one-wound heavy weapons team (dice, I guess?). I was like "no problem, that heavy weapons team will fail leadership and run away, letting my tanks pound on the genestealers." after the genestealers all piled in and locked themselves up with the heavy weapons team.

Morale check? Snakeyes. Insane Heroism universal rule kicked in, Heavy Weapons Team didn't run.

So because of a single desperate man with a shovel hiding under the slain corpses of his foes, three squadrons of Leman Russ tanks just sat there sucking their thumbs eight feet in front of a gigantic mob of genestealers.

It was the least intuitive, least realistic, least sensible, and least fun I think I've ever had playing a gunline. Watching my tanks just sit there awaiting their inevitable death told me all I needed to know about how stupid the ability to lock things in combat was.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

peteralmo wrote:

No one is saying that would be fair, or asking for that. What they are saying is that melee units have one shot to wipe a unit, if they fail to do so, said unit will fall back out of combat, this fall back move goes off automatically and cannot be prevented, and then the melee unit is free to be targeted or counter charged or whatever. Again this cheapens the value of melee again, where you effectively only ever have one round to get your damage off. I'm not saying that the unit should be stuck in combat and not be able to fall back, not only am I not saying that, I'm saying they should be able to fall back and still shoot with a -1 to hit, but that that ability is so inherently strong, the only fair flip side to that is to give assault all there toys back, turn 1 deep strike, turn 1 charging, etc.

The fall back move does not "go off automatically." I play Slaanesh daemons. We have the speed to get around people. Just lock up a unit by surrounding literally one model with your consolidate move. People act like fall back is automatic, and I play an assault army and routinely prevent the enemy from falling back.

**Bharring**

Except that CC units don't have just one chance to wipe out the unit. They have one chance before the opponent gets their next chance to maybe do something about it.

If you charge a Reaper squad with a Termie squad, and the Reapers fall back after 1 round of CC, the Termie squad is not dead. The CWE player can shoot (and/or charge) the Termie squad, yes. But the Reapers can't shoot. And anything shooting the Termies can't shoot other things. And any surviving Termies can charge the remaining Reapers next round for another round of CC - before the Reapers have had a chance to do anything.

If the CWE player devoted enough firepower to remove the Termies before their second chance at CCing the Reapers, then the Termies soaked a boatload of firepwoer that would have killed other threats - which are now one turn closer / will kill one more turn of stuff unopposed. If they haven't, the Termies eat more Reapers next turn.

What you're asking for is, if your Termies ever make it into CC with Reapers, the Reapers as a whole might as well be removed, and Termies should be allowed to charge into any other units with only overwatch in the way. Does that really make sense?

**Dandelion**

Breng77 wrote:

Because if all options are equally useful for every faction then their really is no faction identity. If orks can make a shooting army that is as good as Tau the only reason to Play either becomes I like the models. Ork shooting units should not be terrible but the should be supporting pieces not the main focus of the army like people suggesting shooting be king think is a good idea.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I agree with you that all melee with no guns shouldn’t be a thing, but disagree that shooting should be primary. I think forces with 60-70% melee should be viable. In a list like that shooting is supporting a largely melee force.

All options should be equally useful. Are you suggesting that flash gitz should always be inefficient simply because they use big guns? And you're attaching too much importance to melee vs ranged as a faction identity. Orks are characterized by excessive violence, (and funny mishaps) which involves both shooting and melee. This forum is even called "dakkadakka". Even World Eaters have access to good shooting, (well, as good as marine shooting is). Tyranids also have solid shooting options. And, considering that most people pick factions they like the look of, why force them into very specific playstyles?
-"Oh, you picked Orks? Well, you're stuck doing melee all the time until you pay $1000 to play Tau."
-"But I don't like Tau"
-"How about Admech?"
-"But I like Orks..."

This isn't a MOBA where you can swap characters out on the fly.

List themes can double down on either shooting or melee, but the army as a whole needs to offer both.
If a player wants to make a 70% shooty Orks then he should not feel hamstrung for doing so. And again, the fluff 100% supports shooting focused Orks (either Bad Moonz or Freebooterz).

Though, keep in mind, I am not asking to nerf melee, just that I believe everyone should have capable shooting as a minimum.

**peteralmo**

Bharring wrote:
Except that CC units don't have just one chance to wipe out the unit. They have one chance before the opponent gets their next chance to maybe do something about it.

If you charge a Reaper squad with a Termie squad, and the Reapers fall back after 1 round of CC, the Termie squad is not dead. The CWE player can shoot (and/or charge) the Termie squad, yes. But the Reapers can't shoot. And anything shooting the Termies can't shoot other things. And any surviving Termies can charge the remaining Reapers next round for another round of CC - before the Reapers have had a chance to do anything.

If the CWE player devoted enough firepower to remove the Termies before their second chance at CCing the Reapers, then the Termies soaked a boatload of firepwoer that would have killed other threats - which are now one turn closer / will kill one more turn of stuff unopposed. If they haven't, the Termies eat more Reapers next turn.

What you're asking for is, if your Termies ever make it into CC with Reapers, the Reapers as a whole might as well be removed, and Termies should be allowed to charge into any other units with only overwatch in the way. Does that really make sense?

This is wholly incorrect. In my scenario, the remaining reapers fall back out of combat and light the terminators up because they can still shoot. The terminators were able to drop in and assault on turn 1 though.

**Arachnofiend**

All options should be equally useful... unless that option happens to be a sword, I guess.

If you just double down on every army needing shooting to be viable rather than fixing melee then the only correct way to play will be an IG-style gunline. Long range shooting needs disadvantages, which it... just doesn't have right now.

**Bharring**

What rule do Reapers have allowing them to fallback and shoot?

I'll give you a hint. They don't. Sans stratagem, they cannot shoot if they fall back.

You could discuss (non-UM/WS) Devs vs Banshees/Spears/etc, and it's the same story.

Melee and shooting should both be viable. You're asking that the balancing point basically be "Can CC units ever get into CC" with the result being they win the entire game if they do, and they lose the entire game if they don't.

A better balance point would be to make getting into CC, durability, and deadliness all matter. To make that happen, getting into CC giving you one round of CC before the opponent gets a chance to shoot you again makes the other factors matter more.

**Arachnofiend**

Reapers can't fall back and shoot, except for the rule that let's them fall back and shoot.

Ok, buddy.

**Dandelion**

Arachnofiend wrote:
All options should be equally useful... unless that option happens to be a sword, I guess.

If you just double down on every army needing shooting to be viable rather than fixing melee then the only correct way to play will be an IG-style gunline. Long range shooting needs disadvantages, which it... just doesn't have right now.

And when did I say swords should suck? I said that guns should be the first means of engagement while swords are there to disrupt enemy lines or clear entrenched positions. The sword should be effective once it gets there, but demanding that an entire army of swords be equal to an army of guns is ridiculous. Shooting is the foil to melee. (see Indiana Jones for an example)

And how exactly do you propose to fix shooting without fundamentally hamstringing it? Either you can shoot something or you can't. You'd have to make up contrivances to keep both equal all the time. The nature of melee vs ranged makes it impossible to balance in practice. There is a reason real armies don't use swords anymore. BUT they still use bayonets. Why? Because shooting is the primary form of engaging the enemy, but sometimes you need to rush a position to clear it. (such as bunkers, or machine nests)

Also, gunlines are a result of insufficient terrain. Charging across No Man's Land in WW1 was a sure way to get killed. If you can see the enemy's deployment zone from your own deployment zone... you don't have enough terrain. Force the gunline to move and all of a sudden you have a game.