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Only if you imagine the shooting that removes the charging unit next turn as "free". If they fall back and other units shoot a bunch of TH/SS termies off the table with other units, the rest of your army isn't getting hammered as much.

Assault elements do need to be balanced with it in mind. Skirmishers aren't so crazy good when fallback is an option. But mainline assault units - the kind that hit the front lines - don't suffer as much as them.

All assault elements suffer. A lot.

Everything the marines have is expensive. Everything is a significant loss. Those TH/SS terminators are expensive. So what if the rest of my army isn't hit as hard? It's a tiny ineffectual army to begin with. Marines can't trade units like that.

Most lists can easily remove 500 pts of marines a turn. That's 4 turns and then no army left. Or, more importantly, 2 turns and the marines are crippled. It's all about unit costs.

Martel732 wrote:
All assault elements suffer. A lot.

Everything the marines have is expensive. Everything is a significant loss. Those TH/SS terminators are expensive. So what if the rest of my army isn't hit as hard? It's a tiny ineffectual army to begin with. Marines can't trade units like that.

Most lists can easily remove 500 pts of marines a turn. That's 4 turns and then no army left. Or, more importantly, 2 turns and the marines are crippled. It's all about unit costs.

In that case, why use tactical reserves turn 1 as a bandaid when the points cost and durability are the real issue here?

I agree. The tactical reserve thing was a bit of an end-around for the fact that punchy stuff sucks this edition.

I wouldn't necessarily say punchy stuff sucks this edition, I'd say they have the same issue as last edition: the only viable melee units are the ones with special rules allowing them to actually get into close combat effectively. Last edition we had invisible superfriends murdering their way across the board and Skyhammer Assault Marines, this edition we have Bloodletter bombs, infiltrating Berzerkers, and Death Company.

The problem is that this obviously means the base assault rules are busted. If the only way to effectively do something in melee is to be granted an exception to the core rules, any unit that doesn't recieve such an exception is going to be pretty poor in melee. It's part of the reason why Tactical Marines suck, for instance: they're paying for melee stats that they won't ever get to leverage effectively. It's also why there's not a single good melee unit in Codex: Space Marines (Vanguard Veterans are OK, not good, for the purposes of this argument).

The first turn alpha strike garbage was definitely an easy route to addressing an issue:

* should all melee armies be viable
* should the game have standard rules for terrain to help block line of sight
* should the game continue to use true line of sight
* should the game have standard rules for how much terrain is on a standard table
* should GW actually use statisticians to point cost their models instead of their decades old method of hoping things work by guessing

Death company is actually pretty crap post-FAQ.

Martel732 wrote:
Death company is actually pretty crap post-FAQ.

how come?

Their primary job was to clear chaff on turn 1 with a Lemartes-fueled deep strike.

Now that's a turn 2 strike, which is too late, or you takes your chances with forlorn fury. They are also 20 ppm power armor guys. Not very durable.

I've dropped DC from every list.

If the full effect of the beta rules go into effect, blood angels as a theme might as well not exist. Reason being is that the PL of their decent CC units (Death Co, Sang-Guard) is absurd when you add a single extra model. Needing 20PL on the ground to deep strike a 5 man SG squad or 10 DC is insane. Daemons are hurt because unless you are Slaanesh or Tzeench, your max movement for the bulk of your army is going to be about 9" after advancing. That means foot-slogging your double cost conscripts who never get cover bonuses across the board for 3 turns. Greater Daemons and Princes are faster, but generally they tend to get murdered by AT fire (Greater Daemons) or need to hide in/behind the horde so they don't get murdered by AT fire. Nids... well nids are fast and have cheap and effective shooting in their army, so nothing to be afraid of with them. Only change is now you'll see either all Kraken or Kronos.

On all the "oh lel surrounding is ez git gud n00b" stuff, it's a bit more complicated than just lern2charge. With my Swarm style Tyranids (120+ bodies) I generally have to successfully charge in 2 20+ units of gants/gaunts, normally with 9"+ on the dice roll to get a full surround. Against a 10strong unit on 30mm bases. And on the "just take a hostage scrublourde!", WHO THE HECK SPACES UNITS ANYMORE?!?!? Unless you're running ANTI DEEP STRIKE SCREENS there is 0 reason to not be blobbed all together anymore. Use that full 2" coherency and some boyz/gants/cultists might force you to remove two models from a unit! We need more nova/AoE weapons and abilities to get decent spacing again. Wanna talk realism? Want your magic space ninja-star shooter to deny every save forever? Well, the 10 dudes all grouped up in that foxhole should be chunky salsa after you lob 1 grenade (another dumb mechanic) into the group.
Berserkers I'm generally happy if I get to charge, let alone surround anything. My BA basically don't get to play anymore, as I stupidly run a thematic Lamenters army [minimal DC, lots of primaris/VGV/Assaultt squad].

I'm willing to give up t1 deepstrike into the opponent's deployment, if you also aren't allowed to shoot there t1 either. I just hope GW realises that having things too cheap is what killed fantasy in the first place. Needing 500 models to play a 'standard' game was a huge barrier of entry. They need to seriously adjust their cost formula, assuming it exists. Good BS with middle strength long range weapons is way more powerful than a sword. I'll go so far as to suggest this. Many people are saying that a stock tactical marine should be around 11 points. An assault marine with a jump pack should be the same. I also feel they should bring back the old "give up your jump-packs for reduced cost transport" bit they did for a while in 6th.

I understand this is going to come off as super inflammatory, but at this point I'm sick and tired of having to explain to Bobby-G's Used Tank Lot that surviving 2-3 turns of shooting, then having to rely on RNGeezus to take the wheel in the hope that I might get to apply damage after being shot once more in MY turn. Multiple turns where half+ of your army has 0 damage application, followed by random charge, and overwatch. Then to kill half the target only to have them fall back and get your combat units that actually got in murdered even faster than before. I'm honestly suprised no-one has suggested improving AP for shooting attacks against a unit that was retreated from.

/endrant I guess. My group already voted that in we're probably not using the beta rules at all. Maybe if enough people let GW know this idea is hot garbage they'll scrap it.

Thats the thing. Removing the abundance of alpha striking melee armies is one of the things bringing people near me back to the game. Keeping the alpha striking in the game as it stands now is our equivalent of hot-garbage.

Alpha melee was shut down hard by screens.

Alpha melee was mitigated by screens. Not completely shut down. And even so, people tended to not enjoy it as much.

Ideally, all alpha would be toned down.

Last two editions, there were rules that basically amounted to you can't alpha the turn you showed up. A lot of people don't like entire units locked up because one unit shows up from DS and charges, before any counterplay is possible.

OP gunline shooting alpha is a problem, too. But it needs to be OP to the point of remove the unit, not just engage the unit. CC alpha, against most targets, only needs to be able to engage the unit, and it's done it's job.

Well, Drukhari get 15 disintegrator on super fast vehicles alpha now. So, I guess I get to just die now.

Martel732 wrote:
Well, Drukhari get 15 disintegrator on super fast vehicles alpha now. So, I guess I get to just die now.

Why 15 disintegrators? That's only 5 ravagers, a single spearhead can fit 6 for 18 disintegrators lol.

3 ravagers, 6 raiders last time.

Martel732 wrote:
Alpha melee was shut down hard by screens.

It FORCES a playstyle. You HAVE to use screens, which means you HAVE to play an army that has the ability to screen well, and even then screens help mitigate, but alpha strike is still strong enough to roll screens (or it wouldn't be so common). Screens are not a hard counter, they are just the only thing that can even give you a remote chance of having a fun game, and you are forced to do it.

There should never be anything in the game that 100% forces people to have to play a certain way to have a good game. Thats not good game design IMO nor is it something a lot of people enjoy or want to spend money on.

 auticus wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Alpha melee was shut down hard by screens.

It FORCES a playstyle. You HAVE to use screens, which means you HAVE to play an army that has the ability to screen well, and even then screens help mitigate, but alpha strike is still strong enough to roll screens (or it wouldn't be so common). Screens are not a hard counter, they are just the only thing that can even give you a remote chance of having a fun game, and you are forced to do it.

There should never be anything in the game that 100% forces people to have to play a certain way to have a good game. Thats not good game design IMO nor is it something a lot of people enjoy or want to spend money on.

This is all good and well, but it leads to my original premise in starting this post. GW basically brought melee to near equal footing with shooting, ie turn1 alpha strikes. The people who don't care for it complained enough and GW promptly nerfed it into the ground. But now that it's gone the community learned a crucial lesson, turn 1 charges are realistically the only way to play a pure melee army and have it be as competitively viable as a gunline. GW clearly felt melee armies shouldn't be as good as gunline armies, hence they made the change, hence now with these changes melee armies are severely handicapped. It appears the only way to enjoy effective melee units is when tucked into shooty armies in small numbers. A number of people on this thread have applauded that reality. They feel 40k isn't a game in which full melee armies should be both viable and competitive. You appear to be in this same camp. That's fine, but for people in that camp, please at least be intellectually honest and consistent. You're happy with the changes, but they definitely do two things: they render pure melee armies ineffectual in a high-end competitive environment, and they incentivize the competitive scene to lean heavily into robust pure-shooty gunline armies. If you can admit those two basic realities are true, I don't think you'll find much issue with the wider community. They may not like the changes as you do, but at least they'd be forced to find you both honest and consistent. The crux has been people in the community applauding the changes, while criticizing melee-centric players for being upset about it, and also claiming the beta rules don't severely nerf melee armies - please stop doing that. Just own the reality and we can all move on.

Except they didn't. Wraith-heavy CC lists were still garbage. SM CC were still garbage. Only certain units - and only certain armies - could pull off shenanigans that allowed 1st turn Alpha. It didn't generally improve the state of CC across the board.

If you have turn 1 charges, then there needs to be counters for turn 1 charges. It means you have to tune for it. So if CC units can top-of-1 charge, they need to be weak enough where that doesn't mean you auto win. If they're weak enough that they don't auto win if they get there wholly intact, without getting shot at, how can you balance them so going 2nd, or using CC that doesn't get there top-of-1 are going to have a chance?

It makes it so only gimmicks are viable in the game. I'd rather the numbers allow CC to be a component without needing gimmicks.

GW ddidn't bring melee to near equal footing with shooting.

It brought it up to near equal footing with
* extreme gunlines
* with little to no line of sight blocking terrain

If you aren't playing extreme gunlines and aren't playing on tables that are planet bowling ball like Adepticon tables are, then those melee armies are now as busted as the rhino rush days.

Extreme alpha striking FORCES you to field a certain list and FORCES you to play in a certain style if you want a good game.

The same as playing extreme gunlines on planet bowling ball do.

Both of those are extreme garbage and make the game a giant rotten piece of ****. If you want a healthy game then there need not be any extreme builds period that force their opponents to play a certain way or get stomped. Those arent' fun games. Those are the opposite of what a fun game would be. Those are like playing chess and your opponent shows up with nothing but queens.

Extreme anything should be at a disadvantage, either due to scenario rules / scoring or some other mechanic. If you throw all your eggs into one area you should pay dearly for ignoring the other facets of what an army is supposed to be.

IG would beat pre-faq ba in deployment. It's just not efficient chewing through 4 point models.

This change has not really affected flyrants or scions nearly as badly. They can easily afford to wait a turn because the rest of their list is doing work

Wait, how are 7 Flyrants waiting until turn 2 to deploy?

There were other changes applied with it - it wasn't applied in a vaccum.

Also, having a turn before those Scions come in is really helpful. Not as helpful as having a turn before everything I have is tied up in CC, but still helpful.

Not really. I barely notice any difference. Must be the rest of the ig gunline.

 peteralmo wrote:

 auticus wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Alpha melee was shut down hard by screens.

It FORCES a playstyle. You HAVE to use screens, which means you HAVE to play an army that has the ability to screen well, and even then screens help mitigate, but alpha strike is still strong enough to roll screens (or it wouldn't be so common). Screens are not a hard counter, they are just the only thing that can even give you a remote chance of having a fun game, and you are forced to do it.

There should never be anything in the game that 100% forces people to have to play a certain way to have a good game. Thats not good game design IMO nor is it something a lot of people enjoy or want to spend money on.

This is all good and well, but it leads to my original premise in starting this post. GW basically brought melee to near equal footing with shooting, ie turn1 alpha strikes. The people who don't care for it complained enough and GW promptly nerfed it into the ground. But now that it's gone the community learned a crucial lesson, turn 1 charges are realistically the only way to play a pure melee army and have it be as competitively viable as a gunline. GW clearly felt melee armies shouldn't be as good as gunline armies, hence they made the change, hence now with these changes melee armies are severely handicapped. It appears the only way to enjoy effective melee units is when tucked into shooty armies in small numbers. A number of people on this thread have applauded that reality. They feel 40k isn't a game in which full melee armies should be both viable and competitive. You appear to be in this same camp. That's fine, but for people in that camp, please at least be intellectually honest and consistent. You're happy with the changes, but they definitely do two things: they render pure melee armies ineffectual in a high-end competitive environment, and they incentivize the competitive scene to lean heavily into robust pure-shooty gunline armies. If you can admit those two basic realities are true, I don't think you'll find much issue with the wider community. They may not like the changes as you do, but at least they'd be forced to find you both honest and consistent. The crux has been people in the community applauding the changes, while criticizing melee-centric players for being upset about it, and also claiming the beta rules don't severely nerf melee armies - please stop doing that. Just own the reality and we can all move on.

Shooting can be mitigated by proper amounts of terrain, whereas melee cannot. Melee ignores cover and intervening terrain. On the other hand, the vast majority of shooting needs line of sight, and being in cover increases durability. If you play Cities of Death rules, cover can even offer +2 to cover saves. The only tricky part is, of course, getting a "proper" board set up. So for me, I can easily set up a balanced board where gunlines are not viable, but I cannot set up terrain in a way to mitigate melee rush at all. So, as far as I'm concerned, the game is in a good spot with the FAQ.

You might not notice a difference. You're one of the armies that did it. But people who play combined arms in factions without decent screens, or who don't function with screens, certainly notice.

Martel732 wrote:
IG would beat pre-faq ba in deployment. It's just not efficient chewing through 4 point models.

This change has not really affected flyrants or scions nearly as badly. They can easily afford to wait a turn because the rest of their list is doing work

So the real problem is that the rest of your codex is garbage? And that guardsmen are too cheap? Those can still be addressed down the road.

 auticus wrote:
GW ddidn't bring melee to near equal footing with shooting.

It brought it up to near equal footing with
* extreme gunlines
* with little to no line of sight blocking terrain

If you aren't playing extreme gunlines and aren't playing on tables that are planet bowling ball like Adepticon tables are, then those melee armies are now as busted as the rhino rush days.

Extreme alpha striking FORCES you to field a certain list and FORCES you to play in a certain style if you want a good game.

The same as playing extreme gunlines on planet bowling ball do.

Both of those are extreme garbage and make the game a giant rotten piece of ****. If you want a healthy game then there need not be any extreme builds period that force their opponents to play a certain way or get stomped. Those arent' fun games. Those are the opposite of what a fun game would be. Those are like playing chess and your opponent shows up with nothing but queens.

Extreme anything should be at a disadvantage, either due to scenario rules / scoring or some other mechanic. If you throw all your eggs into one area you should pay dearly for ignoring the other facets of what an army is supposed to be.

I understand you've thought your position out and explained it clearly, unfortunately it's functionally meaningless because GW doesn't police the game via the individual army rules or BRB rules to accomplish your described ideal scenario of balanced armies with plentiful terrain that all has good LoS blocking rules attached to it. The bottom line is people can still create hyper-powerful static gunlines if they want to, there is no rule to stop them from building armies that way. And although the BRB RECOMMENDS a good amount of terrain, you still can't control it from TO to TO and there will be times when then terrain is minimal. So whether you like it or agree with it, ultra-powerful take-out-half-your-army gunlines are perfectly legal, competitive players do field them, and with the beta rules there are no equivalent melee alpha lists to counter them, so the competitive meta will be gunlines against gunlines. As much as you want well-balanced lists to be mandated, until GW forces the reality by only allowing very strict army compositions, it is what it is.

Of the top 10 at recent tournies, how many of them do you think actually coudl remove 50% of the opposing list in one round from shooting?

I'm guessing it occurred less than 25% of games, but don't have hard data. Anyone here have hard data on that?

Bharring wrote:
Of the top 10 at recent tournies, how many of them do you think actually coudl remove 50% of the opposing list in one round from shooting?

I'm guessing it occurred less than 25% of games, but don't have hard data. Anyone here have hard data on that?

I don't have any hard data on that, I was being hyperbolic. But to speak in all seriousness, Guard, Eldar, Ad Mech, and Mixed Imperium (DA/UM/Sisters/ETC) gunlines can certainly achieve enough kills in there turn 1 alpha shooting to cripple the opponent making it extremely mathematically improbable for them to come back. Does this half to be exactly 50% of their army? Probably not, maybe it's somewhere between 30-50%, but I've seen it too many times to count. A really competitively built and tuned gunline that gets to go first and rolls average to slightly above average completely lays waste to the opponents army to the point that they really can't win beyond that point outside of dumb luck via all the tactical objectives going there way and things like that.

I suppose I did the same thing in one of my posts where I mentioned my entire army being charged top of 1.

Turn 1 alpha has always been nasty and problematic for the game. A good fix has never been done, really.

I don't think the solution to potential T1 shooting alpha is introducing (/retaining) T1 CC alpha, though.