Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Jidmah wrote:
Just before the lockdown, I had a game against a World Eaters player who wanted to give his new toys from PA a try.

I wrote a toned-down ork vehicle list, putting more focus on melee so he would get to use his stuff, a Gorkanaut, rokkit koptas, a bunch of buggies, Da Red Gobbo, weird boyz without da jump and a pile of warbikers.
He had a daemon prince, helbrutes, a forgefiend, spawns, a land raider and two rhinos with zerkers, a soul grinder, cultists, a unit of red butcher terminators, Kharn and various support characters.

We tried the new Open War ideas from CA 2019 and got the deployment with no no-mans land inbetween. We also got two twists, one increasing all movement by 2" and charges by 1", and the other one giving everyone +1 attack. WE player was happy. He also used one of the cards to deep strike his land raider.

I was really scared at the prospect of getting hit by a WE army with +1 attack and extremely fast movement, so I deployed all my 60 gretchin as three rows of meat shields, and everything else at least 7" behind them so the zerkers couldn't get through to them.

To say the least... it worked. Too well. The WE murdered 55 out of 60 gretchin T1, as well as four warbikers dying to the daemon prince just flying over the screen. His entire army was standing out in the open 6-8" from my army.

He lost more than half of his army turn one (with the land raider and terminators stuck in deep strike) and was fully tabled by my turn 3, with me having lost nothing but the gretchin, two weird boyz and six warbikers.

Even with those insane buffs, melee simply doesn't work in 8th.

that is the core issue.

Back when doctrines came out for marines we did a small game of like 1.5K and my opponent was running imp fists so no cover for me. he was maxing his CP so he ran a battalion with 3 squads of 10 marines a predator and a dreadnought and some other stuff..IIRC it's been a while. i was trying out a spearhead so i ran with 2X5 hellblasters (rapid fire rifles), venerable dreads, techmarine on bike/conversion beamer, captain, stalker and a storm eagle.

I won the roll to go first and he didn't seize so i obliterated his dread and predator turn 1 and then proceeded to take out most of his intercessors on turn 2, i think i lost like half my hellblasters and took a few vehicle wounds.

He wasn't aware of what hellblasters could do so the AP-4 2 damage chewed through his force pretty quick along with all the autocannons and lascannons. it was basically over on turn 2.


conversely i was on the receiving end of something similar in a 2k game against crimson fists where my opposition ran a large force of intercessors with stalker boltguns, a doredeo, and hellblasters.

that is the core issue.

Funny since GWs doctrine ERRATA specifically was to force marine players into CC because thats how they want you to play your marines.

after T3 no?

but marines are or should feel like a shock and awe army.

unlike orks or other more melee orientated factions.
which don't work...

Had a game early in 8th before the changes to T1 Deep Strike where my Blood Angels were playing against Dark Eldar. He went first but had nothing much to shoot at, then most of my army appeared via Deep Strike and I made literally every single 9" charge. Once the dust settled he had something like 2 damaged Ravagers and a wrapped unit of Kabalites left. I think he even failed his first Shadowfield save and lost his Archon to a random Death Company guy.

Not Online!!! wrote:
after T3 no?

but marines are or should feel like a shock and awe army.

unlike orks or other more melee orientated factions.
which don't work...

Go back and read the preface to the ERRATA they are specifically telling people how they MUST play their marines on the table in 8th because they did a poor job designing the new game mechanics.

particularly this point

Such armies also do not encourage players to collect the ‘typical’ combined arms force Space Marines are famed for. As a result, we are changing how the Combat Doctrines ability works so that your army must progress through all of the combat doctrines over the course of the battle

Who the hell are you to tell me how my space marines typically fight. Its my GD army and i will play it how i like. even in the lore each chapter/legion focuses on different combat doctrines not every marine is a black templar or a khornate berserker.

Whats next? gonna tell my guard they MUST be a gunline with lots of artillery and tanks if i want to bring a force with assault vehicles full of bullgryn for a melee themed army section? .

Its the classic "drive me close so i can hit them with my sword" joke, except GW are actually serious.

 aphyon wrote:

that is the core issue.

Funny since GWs doctrine ERRATA specifically was to force marine players into CC because thats how they want you to play your marines.

So, in your opinion, what did my opponent do wrong then?

 aphyon wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
after T3 no?

but marines are or should feel like a shock and awe army.

unlike orks or other more melee orientated factions.
which don't work...

Go back and read the preface to the ERRATA they are specifically telling people how they MUST play their marines on the table in 8th because they did a poor job designing the new game mechanics.

particularly this point

Such armies also do not encourage players to collect the ‘typical’ combined arms force Space Marines are famed for. As a result, we are changing how the Combat Doctrines ability works so that your army must progress through all of the combat doctrines over the course of the battle

Who the hell are you to tell me how my space marines typically fight. Its my GD army and i will play it how i like. even in the lore each chapter/legion focuses on different combat doctrines not every marine is a black templar or a khornate berserker.

Whats next? gonna tell my guard they MUST be a gunline with lots of artillery and tanks if i want to bring a force with assault vehicles full of bullgryn for a melee themed army section? .

Its the classic "drive me close so i can hit them with my sword" joke, except GW are actually serious.

Oh i totaly agree, but the issue is that GW honestly failed at designing doctrines or many factions and sub archetypes in rules and customizability.

Another exemple is daemonengine lists with the discordant suppossedly making them viable.
Yet the failure that the design has inherent (namely the aura) beeing tied to the discordant is a failure because of what the discordant is.
Gw failed quite heavily in design ruleswise and customizability in 8th on multiple cases.

SM beeing just the pinacle because their design in rules customizability failed so hard that it had to be stripped down.

 Jidmah wrote:
J
Even with those insane buffs, melee simply doesn't work in 8th.

So.... you shot him to death with a more melee focused Ork hoard??

ccs wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
J
Even with those insane buffs, melee simply doesn't work in 8th.

So.... you shot him to death with a more melee focused Ork hoard??

yep, somthing occuring quite often really.

If you can't ignore/ remove screens and have access to movement shenaningans, as world eaters don't do really, then your Melee buffs can be as insane as they want you will not see any light at the end of the proverbial gauntlet that is dakka atm.

Shot, and counter-charged after he had to grind through a cheap screen which is impossible to get around.

I was playing my Craftworld Ulthwe vs. Tau and we were playing a Maelstrom from CA2017. He won most of the roll-offs and then chose Hammer & Anvil deployment and put all of his stuff at the back of his deployment zone. This meant, even assuming I was going to deploy at the edge of mine, his opportunities to get in range with his weapons were severely limited since his tau list was mainly things like Ghostkeels, riptides and fire warriors. I of course, deployed most of my stuff outside of range and made no attempt to seize or even go first. Because of setting stuff so far back, he struggled to even claim some objectives in his first turn and did absolutely nothing to my army. In my first turn, with his being forced to come closer, I could move things like wave serpents into firing range and so some extreme range psychic powers, while my Fire Prisms shot far from the back and my Hemlock advanced 60"+ up the board with impunity. It's not like my first turn was especially devastating since I was mostly removing drones, but he had left large gaps in his lines allowing me to sneak a plane between units and also remove a lot of his markerlight support. His 2nd turn was him having to make a choice between dealing with tanky wave serpents or a hemlock all up in his face, with little to no markerlight support left and no velocity trackers on any of his suits. By the end of the 2nd turn the game was practically over. as with no drones, stuff started to die in droves and the leadership malus of the Hemlock was causing tons of fire warriors to run. He actually had plenty of units left on the board by the 3rd turn, but he just had no damage output that could really effect my vehicles.

I think with the way our lists had been set up I certainly had the advantage (and this was before Tau got massive points drops in CA2018) but his deployment decisions absolutely crippled any chance of the game being a contest. Like I said, because of where he chose to set up he even struggled to claim objectives whenever they came up in maelstrom cards. It really felt like he was used to playing his army as a static gunline and had no concept of objective-based play or playing vs. non-CC armies. Super weird game.

I think I didn't even lose a single model either. It's been about 2+ years so maybe one of the vehicles did end up dying in the end, but aside from that I can't recall anything of mine being removed.

 Jidmah wrote:
Shot, and counter-charged after he had to grind through a cheap screen which is impossible to get around.

If you read Nick Nanavaty article about whats a strategic mistake and whats a tactical mistake he explains how playing with a ork horde army agaisnt a tau castle of drones and riptides instead of charging everything turn 1 and dying to fire he spent three turns destroying drones with lootas and shooting and he only made charges on turn 3.

Meele is extremely potent in 8th. When you use it wisely, as a tool, and with a cold head. Too many people just charges blindly to kill some screens and then get shoot to shreds without acomplyshing anything. Or to be counter charged. I love word eaters, I play khorne in age of sigmar but in 8th meele is less about doing damage once you reach it and more about actually reaching it.

Heres the article for anyone that wants to read it:
[url]
https://nightsatthegametable.com/how-to-learn-from-your-mistakes/[/url]

I played a Maelstrom game with my Crimson Fists against Orks, shortly after the Ork codex was released (so pre-errata).

Turn one: The Orks mobbed up their Loota squads turn one a proceeded to shoot everything they could see off the table, while Da Jump propelled a mob into my lines. I kill some Gretchin and maul the jumping unit.

Turn two: Most of the rest of my army is killed by the Lootas. The few scraps I have achieve nothing.

Turn three: We have to call it because my opponent's turns took forever and the store is closing. I win because I actually managed to score some objectives.

 Galas wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Shot, and counter-charged after he had to grind through a cheap screen which is impossible to get around.

If you read Nick Nanavaty article about whats a strategic mistake and whats a tactical mistake he explains how playing with a ork horde army agaisnt a tau castle of drones and riptides instead of charging everything turn 1 and dying to fire he spent three turns destroying drones with lootas and shooting and he only made charges on turn 3.

Meele is extremely potent in 8th. When you use it wisely, as a tool, and with a cold head. Too many people just charges blindly to kill some screens and then get shoot to shreds without acomplyshing anything. Or to be counter charged. I love word eaters, I play khorne in age of sigmar but in 8th meele is less about doing damage once you reach it and more about actually reaching it.

Or, in other words, you must dedicate the majority of your army to shooting because melee can't impact the game before turn 3.
Which is exactly the same as "melee doesn't work".

I was using a pretty underwhelming chaos marine army although I thought my trump card would be Abaddon. I faced off against a Tyranid force pretty much exclusively consisting of monstrous creatures. Sadly by the time the dice allowed Abaddon to turn up (turn 4) he and his terminator bodyguard were pretty much all I had left

 Galas wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Shot, and counter-charged after he had to grind through a cheap screen which is impossible to get around.

If you read Nick Nanavaty article about whats a strategic mistake and whats a tactical mistake he explains how playing with a ork horde army agaisnt a tau castle of drones and riptides instead of charging everything turn 1 and dying to fire he spent three turns destroying drones with lootas and shooting and he only made charges on turn 3.

Meele is extremely potent in 8th. When you use it wisely, as a tool, and with a cold head. Too many people just charges blindly to kill some screens and then get shoot to shreds without acomplyshing anything. Or to be counter charged. I love word eaters, I play khorne in age of sigmar but in 8th meele is less about doing damage once you reach it and more about actually reaching it.

Heres the article for anyone that wants to read it:
[url]
https://nightsatthegametable.com/how-to-learn-from-your-mistakes/[/url]

but this more or less means that melee at best is a support thing, and not a valid tactic. Because 8 saw armies that had shot everything up as a valid tactic. saying that someone can start mucking up units on turn 3, when their main part of the army shot stuff up, doesn't really help much someone who plays a melee army. Or helps him in that way, that it tells him to not play a melee army.

also to get the turn 3 charges with mucking up, you still need good melee, resiliance to not get killed by return fire for 3 turns and speed. Some armies and a lot more units don't have those options. ton of the weaker armies when playing vs a good shoting army are dead on turn 3.

This is 40k, not fantasy. Being a meele army doesnt mean you only use meele units. And if you use those they better have a way to get past screens, etc...

The problem is that people mistakes "Some meele units and lists don't work" with "Meele doesnt work in 8th".

 Galas wrote:
This is 40k, not fantasy. Being a meele army doesnt mean you only use meele units. And if you use those they better have a way to get past screens, etc...

The problem is that people mistakes "Some meele units and lists don't work" with "Meele doesnt work in 8th".

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Second, outside of a few select exception, the amount of melee units that don't work vastly outnumber the ones that do.

You assuming that this is by design rather than by flawed rules is the only mistake here.

Yeah. If you want to require a combined arms approach, give my Nurgle Daemons guns.

 Jidmah wrote:

Even with those insane buffs, melee simply doesn't work in 8th.

Counter story time:

I was playing Sisters of Battle against Orks for a competitive match in the days of the Beta Codex. I brought some Exorcists, some Seraphim and a bunch of BSS & Doms, plus a squad of Repentia. He had the shokk gun, a bunch of lootas and gretchin, and a lot of boyz.

We set up pretty much just outside of charge threat from each other, and stayed that way for the first turn while he dismantled my stuff and my own shooting killed a small number of boyz and grots. I was out of tanks by the end of turn 2. I moved up a bunch of units, baiting him into a bad charge, and then charge him and tore him to shreds with all my BSS and Doms and Seraphim, and then swept out with all his boyz dead and killed his Grots and Lootas with minimal further casualties, all of it in melee.

My shooting, from an ostensibly strong short-ranged shooting army, killed something like a couple dozen grots and a few boyz. My melee basically eradicated his army.


More seriously, this sounds like a your-opponent problem. Melee is very strong, particularly skirmishers and some hard-hitting resilient pressure "fire magnet" units. Mass Melee, rushing across the battlefield with your whole army without any real sense of strategy or tactics and just charging the first thing you find... is not. And shouldn't be. In fact, it shouldn't ever be even in a not-sci-fi game, because then it would just lead into a mass melee arms race. Close combat and close combat threat are already stupidly strong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Yeah. If you want to require a combined arms approach, give my Nurgle Daemons guns.

They should have.

Daemons with daemon guns would have been so cool. Instead they're just like fantasy models standing around looking stupid and out of place and like someone's playing a completely different game.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Galas wrote:
This is 40k, not fantasy. Being a meele army doesnt mean you only use meele units. And if you use those they better have a way to get past screens, etc...

The problem is that people mistakes "Some meele units and lists don't work" with "Meele doesnt work in 8th".

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Second, outside of a few select exception, the amount of melee units that don't work vastly outnumber the ones that do.

And the amount of shooting units that work great in melee is astounding.



First off, only daemons don't have a core shooting troop, and only Orks and Tyranids after that have the option to have a melee core and can also have a shooting core. And Orks and Tyranids both have strong shooting options, more shooting options than melee options. And Daemons don't even have exclusively melee units, they have a few ranged shooting units to help them out

Oh wait, Horrors exist. But I'll be generous and assume you're mono-god or something.


Being a "melee army" isn't about not being able to shoot well or having an entirely melee army, it's about being able to have a melee battle-line with guns giving cover. Most other armies can't even do that, and only Daemons are actually shooting-weak if they want to field shooting units in support.

 Jidmah wrote:

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Like what armies?

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Like what armies?

Any Daemon army besides Tzeentch.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Like what armies?

Any Daemon army besides Tzeentch.

As Daemons, shouldn't you also be relying heavily on magic? And as Khorne, don't you also have shooting units? Also, that Daemon Defiler thing?

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Like what armies?

Any Daemon army besides Tzeentch.

As Daemons, shouldn't you also be relying heavily on magic? And as Khorne, don't you also have shooting units? Also, that Daemon Defiler thing?

The Soul Grinder is a hybrid melee/shooting unit-and not a particularly good one.

Tzeentch has a decent amount of shooting, but still not as much as a Marine list or such.

Khorne does not get any psychic powers, and has Skull Cannons. But, even with maxed Grinders and Skull Cannons, you aren't a very shooty force.

Slaanesh and Nurgle have a small number of offensive powers, but really rely on Smite to do damage in the psychic phase. They also have some units with incidental shooting-Slaanesh Chariots with whips that have minuscule range, Plague Drones with 12" Deaths' Heads...

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

Even with those insane buffs, melee simply doesn't work in 8th.

Counter story time:

I was playing Sisters of Battle against Orks for a competitive match in the days of the Beta Codex. I brought some Exorcists, some Seraphim and a bunch of BSS & Doms, plus a squad of Repentia. He had the shokk gun, a bunch of lootas and gretchin, and a lot of boyz.

We set up pretty much just outside of charge threat from each other, and stayed that way for the first turn while he dismantled my stuff and my own shooting killed a small number of boyz and grots. I was out of tanks by the end of turn 2. I moved up a bunch of units, baiting him into a bad charge, and then charge him and tore him to shreds with all my BSS and Doms and Seraphim, and then swept out with all his boyz dead and killed his Grots and Lootas with minimal further casualties, all of it in melee.

My shooting, from an ostensibly strong short-ranged shooting army, killed something like a couple dozen grots and a few boyz. My melee basically eradicated his army.


More seriously, this sounds like a your-opponent problem. Melee is very strong, particularly skirmishers and some hard-hitting resilient pressure "fire magnet" units. Mass Melee, rushing across the battlefield with your whole army without any real sense of strategy or tactics and just charging the first thing you find... is not. And shouldn't be. In fact, it shouldn't ever be even in a not-sci-fi game, because then it would just lead into a mass melee arms race. Close combat and close combat threat are already stupidly strong.

Your opponent lost because he charged with a melee army.

And the amount of shooting units that work great in melee is astounding.

Because they can shoot.

First off, only daemons don't have a core shooting troop, and only Orks and Tyranids after that have the option to have a melee core and can also have a shooting core. And Orks and Tyranids both have strong shooting options, more shooting options than melee options. And Daemons don't even have exclusively melee units, they have a few ranged shooting units to help them out

Nice goalpost moving to just troops.
Make list of all dedicated melee units across all codices and see how many of those are objectively worth playing.
Make a list of all melee army traits and see how many of those are objectively worth playing.

It is true that a shooting unit can assault to a great effect, as you keep bringing that up as a false analogy in every thread. But a unit dedicated to melee or even an army dedicated to melee is utter trash unless unless they as much as possible into shooting.

Being a "melee army" isn't about not being able to shoot well or having an entirely melee army, it's about being able to have a melee battle-line with guns giving cover.

Being a "melee army" in 8th mean bringing 1-5 melee units out of the 20-30 units that make up your army.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Like what armies?

Any Daemon army besides Tzeentch.

As Daemons, shouldn't you also be relying heavily on magic? And as Khorne, don't you also have shooting units? Also, that Daemon Defiler thing?

The Soul Grinder is a hybrid melee/shooting unit-and not a particularly good one.

Tzeentch has a decent amount of shooting, but still not as much as a Marine list or such.

Khorne does not get any psychic powers, and has Skull Cannons. But, even with maxed Grinders and Skull Cannons, you aren't a very shooty force.

Slaanesh and Nurgle have a small number of offensive powers, but really rely on Smite to do damage in the psychic phase. They also have some units with incidental shooting-Slaanesh Chariots with whips that have minuscule range, Plague Drones with 12" Deaths' Heads...

And did GW design the book with the intent of only mono-building that codex? You're looking at a pretty niche case for mono-build demons. The next books up in terms of CC focus potential might be Nids, but they sure can bring a crapton of shooting, too.

Made a new thread to address this. Find it here.

Prior to IG nerf with pt increase on plasmaguns, turn 1 deepstrikes and rule of 3 restrictions - army composed of mostly 4x plasma scion CMS embarked in valkyries & deepstriking wiping out my entire army composed mostly of 2W bikes in 1 turn.

Prior to nerf, you could take any number of officer of fleet/commisar to meet the 'one per OFFICER' rule for command squad.

Practice game for my first tourney:

My wraithseer ynnari contingent and custom CWE (all the bells and whistles)vs triple KLOS... It was over after just 1 turn of shooting.

Really made me re-evaluate my choice of a hobby lol.

 skchsan wrote:
Prior to IG nerf with pt increase on plasmaguns, turn 1 deepstrikes and rule of 3 restrictions - army composed of mostly 4x plasma scion CMS embarked in valkyries & deepstriking wiping out my entire army composed mostly of 2W bikes in 1 turn.

Prior to nerf, you could take any number of officer of fleet/commisar to meet the 'one per OFFICER' rule for command squad.

At one point, you didn't even need to have a officer to command them, and just meet your HQ requirements and have a quadrillion plasma scion command squads deep striking in. I faced that one time, and it was pretty silly.