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 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
No one wants mass melee or only-melee armies

Except GW who keeps building and publishing them. And the players who keep buying and playing them.

But yeah, aside from the game designers and the game players, no one wants mass melee armies.

They're like Lucy with the football. Don't worry melee charlie brown, someday you'll kick it!

Martel732 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
No one wants mass melee or only-melee armies

Except GW who keeps building and publishing them. And the players who keep buying and playing them.

But yeah, aside from the game designers and the game players, no one wants mass melee armies.

They're like Lucy with the football. Don't worry melee charlie brown, someday you'll kick it!

Some day we'll get the return of 3E styled mass melee assaults. Someday.

Maybe 11th edition.

I want mass melee armies.

I won't play an army unless it has a strong melee presence.

Thats my primary focus on any army I build.

I want 50/50 balance between combat and shooting at all times.

There's a reason 40K is special, and separates it's self from other futuristic fantasy settings. Melee.

You think Start Wars would have gained the cult following it did without Jedi and Lightsabre battles?

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
I want mass melee armies.

I won't play an army unless it has a strong melee presence.

Thats my primary focus on any army I build.

I want 50/50 balance between combat and shooting at all times.

There's a reason 40K is special, and separates it's self from other futuristic fantasy settings. Melee.

You think Start Wars would have gained the cult following it did without Jedi and Lightsabre battles?

Yea absolutely agree! Many sci fi universes have combat similar to WW2 in space, and that's fine. But what I love about 40K is the premise that after 40,000 years we're almost back to medieval style battles.
The degradation in technology and disregard for human life of a faceless and labyrinthine bureaucracy all feed into that.

The Space Marines are knights in space, clashing in brutal melees and close quater fire fights like the artwork shows. That's not to say every army needs to play that way, but to lose that aspect of the game would leave both the game and the background much poorer.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Brutallica wrote:

No, it should actually just cost a stratagem to fall back.

Cool, so Charging costs a stratagem too. Sounds fair to me!

Fall Back has a penalty. It's not my problem that you chose to bumrush into the middle of a screen with all melee.

Cool, so shooting costs a stratagem too. Sounds fair to me!

Sounds like everything costs stratagems!

But yeah. Fall Back is this big boogeyman that really doesn't come up outside of competitive environments, in my experience. If people cannot understand that this stratagem is actually a fairly big deal? That's on them.

Its because they want to auto win the game because they got a unit into assault.

Oh these 3 units can't shoot thing this turn and you can't shoot me best unit. Might as well just conceded. Shakes hand. GG.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
There's a reason 40K is special, and separates it's self from other futuristic fantasy settings. Melee.

You think Start Wars would have gained the cult following it did without Jedi and Lightsabre battles?

I don't mean to be rude, but... doesn't your last statement kind of contradict your first statement? I mean, Star Wars is likely the biggest futuristic fantasy setting and melee is also a big part of it, so how can melee be the thing that sets 40k apart?

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Brutallica wrote:

No, it should actually just cost a stratagem to fall back.

Cool, so Charging costs a stratagem too. Sounds fair to me!

Fall Back has a penalty. It's not my problem that you chose to bumrush into the middle of a screen with all melee.

Cool, so shooting costs a stratagem too. Sounds fair to me!

Sounds like everything costs stratagems!

But yeah. Fall Back is this big boogeyman that really doesn't come up outside of competitive environments, in my experience. If people cannot understand that this stratagem is actually a fairly big deal? That's on them.

Its because they want to auto win the game because they got a unit into assault.

Oh these 3 units can't shoot thing this turn and you can't shoot me best unit. Might as well just conceded. Shakes hand. GG.

I think its more because you want to autowin, like shooting armys have been doing the last 3 years.

"Oh want to aSsaUlt mE?!?!?!, let me just kill most of your unit overwatch fist! And after that let me just kill your backline support AND rest of your melee unit i have just fallen back from. Yaaay awsome awsome game, win turn 3, VERY exciting game, so so FUN, VERY close"

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
There's a reason 40K is special, and separates it's self from other futuristic fantasy settings. Melee.

You think Start Wars would have gained the cult following it did without Jedi and Lightsabre battles?

I don't mean to be rude, but... doesn't your last statement kind of contradict your first statement? I mean, Star Wars is likely the biggest futuristic fantasy setting and melee is also a big part of it, so how can melee be the thing that sets 40k apart?

I think they meant Cult following like HARDCORE rather than a B grade movie cult following like for Toxic Avenger (which is still the greatest movie ever made by the way).

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Brutallica wrote:

No, it should actually just cost a stratagem to fall back.

Cool, so Charging costs a stratagem too. Sounds fair to me!

Fall Back has a penalty. It's not my problem that you chose to bumrush into the middle of a screen with all melee.

Cool, so shooting costs a stratagem too. Sounds fair to me!

Sounds like everything costs stratagems!

But yeah. Fall Back is this big boogeyman that really doesn't come up outside of competitive environments, in my experience. If people cannot understand that this stratagem is actually a fairly big deal? That's on them.

Its because they want to auto win the game because they got a unit into assault.

Oh these 3 units can't shoot thing this turn and you can't shoot me best unit. Might as well just conceded. Shakes hand. GG.

Night Lords can do that very thing and if it was an auto win then there'd be a lot more Night Lords being played. Stop being hyperbolic.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Oh these 3 units can't shoot thing this turn and you can't shoot me best unit. Might as well just conceded. Shakes hand. GG.

But the gunline players who can shoot across the board from turn 1, shoot as an automatic reaction when the enemy charges them, and then fall back without penalty and shoot some more- oh, they want a tactical, engaging experience, right?

You've got to give melee some reward for slogging it across the board, eating Overwatch, and getting into combat with an enemy that is allowed to punch back.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
There's a reason 40K is special, and separates it's self from other futuristic fantasy settings. Melee.

You think Start Wars would have gained the cult following it did without Jedi and Lightsabre battles?

I don't mean to be rude, but... doesn't your last statement kind of contradict your first statement? I mean, Star Wars is likely the biggest futuristic fantasy setting and melee is also a big part of it, so how can melee be the thing that sets 40k apart?

Sorry, I got drunk and forgot to add my main point which is that 40K takes a lot from Star Wars in the sense that they are Fantasy Space Operas where war is waged in a very ancient and mystical way.

40K separated itself from the pack by being effectively ancient history and mythology told in the setting of the distant future, just like Star Wars did.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
It's great that it costs the same for everyone. Custodes with 3 models pay the same as orks with 30 models

YEP! Equality!

more like equity.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Oh these 3 units can't shoot thing this turn and you can't shoot me best unit. Might as well just conceded. Shakes hand. GG.

But the gunline players who can shoot across the board from turn 1, shoot as an automatic reaction when the enemy charges them, and then fall back without penalty and shoot some more- oh, they want a tactical, engaging experience, right?

You've got to give melee some reward for slogging it across the board, eating Overwatch, and getting into combat with an enemy that is allowed to punch back.

which in turns brings us back to good melee units being stuff like shining spears pre nerf Inari. or some gimmik stacking of debuffs and being untargetable on characters, or something like a good old smash hammer. A bunch of 10 dudes in a rhino or slogging it through the table is wasted simple, unless it is some sort of abusable combination of being AL, possessed and demon rules interactions and stratagems +auras.

Well, the strat is pretty disappointing. Most of the time it is useless and not worth wasting a CP on. And sure in some edge cases it will have an impact, but I'm not sure that those edge cases are really things that should be happening. Like I don't think that it is a good thing that a horde of gretchin can deal mortal wounds to a falling back dreadnought.

So someone on the Warhammer Competetive subreddit did some math and it looks like the strat may be better than if we had a melee Overwatch: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/gx3fl8/mathhammer_cut_them_down/

Copy and paste doesn't work on the app, but basically in most cases the MWs do more actual damage than melee Overwatch would.

Or we could just remove fallback.

Martel732 wrote:
Or we could just remove fallback.

Or at least add some risk/difficulty to it. It shouldn't be a casual non decision.

Martel732 wrote:
Or we could just remove fallback.

We could be seeing a change to fallback, but we have no idea what it looks like yet.

 Eldarain wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Or we could just remove fallback.

Or at least add some risk/difficulty to it. It shouldn't be a casual non decision.

There is NO risk or difficulty that gunlines won't take in order to blast the assaulting unit off the table. Catbarf already outlined the procedure better than I can. Close range firepower is so nuts in 8th/9th.

Martel732 wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Or we could just remove fallback.

Or at least add some risk/difficulty to it. It shouldn't be a casual non decision.

There is NO risk or difficulty that gunlines won't take in order to blast the assaulting unit off the table. Catbarf already outlined the procedure better than I can. Close range firepower is so nuts in 8th/9th.

Agreed. As far as difficulty I meant more ways for units to keep enemies engaged. Or risks in terms of them engaging new units or a return to morale issues from seeing your soldiers breaking/wiped out etc.

 Eldarain wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Or we could just remove fallback.

Or at least add some risk/difficulty to it. It shouldn't be a casual non decision.

There is NO risk or difficulty that gunlines won't take in order to blast the assaulting unit off the table. Catbarf already outlined the procedure better than I can. Close range firepower is so nuts in 8th/9th.

Agreed. As far as difficulty I meant more ways for units to keep enemies engaged. Or risks in terms of them engaging new units or a return to morale issues from seeing your soldiers breaking/wiped out etc.

Okay, that would work.

We know "combat attrition" will be a thing for morale. We don't know what that looks like though.

There are to many unanswered questions to make any real declerations on what 9th will ultimately look like.

That's fair. If they leave in tripoint, though, I don't know how they can do that.

Martel732 wrote:
That's fair. If they leave in tripoint, though, I don't know how they can do that.

We have some rumors from Therion that tri pointing is gone so 9th might look completely different in a lot of ways.

If they didn't get rid of it, that would fly in the face of their policy of "streamlining".

Martel732 wrote:
If they didn't get rid of it, that would fly in the face of their policy of "streamlining".

I do wonder though what melee is going to achieve without tying down capabilities.

Because this stratagem sure as hell isn't the breakeven point for that, as gamey as tripointing was.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If they didn't get rid of it, that would fly in the face of their policy of "streamlining".

I do wonder though what melee is going to achieve without tying down capabilities.

Because this stratagem sure as hell isn't the breakeven point for that, as gamey as tripointing was.

That's honestly their problem, not mine. The people here have suggested MULTIPLE methods to ameliorate this problem. GW has the internet. They could try any of them.

Here is my modest proposal, for people who aren't convinced that falling back needs a greater penalty:

Why not make ranged weapons have variable range, the same way charging has a variable range? A 24" weapon can now become a 17"+2d6 range weapon. We can give warlord traits, faction perks, etc that will give you bonuses to the 2d6 roll (to a maximum of 12), or allow you to reroll that roll, etc. And then we can also give out stratagems that when they hit your unit, halve the range of your weapons, or give you minuses to your range, and the like.

That way everybody can be equal. Sounds great, right?

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If they didn't get rid of it, that would fly in the face of their policy of "streamlining".

I do wonder though what melee is going to achieve without tying down capabilities.

Because this stratagem sure as hell isn't the breakeven point for that, as gamey as tripointing was.

We don't know if there isn't other ways to lock people into combat, but we do know that strats and relics that lock people in Combat still work.

Heck, Wyches with nets seem to be even stronger.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Here is my modest proposal, for people who aren't convinced that falling back needs a greater penalty:

Why not make ranged weapons have variable range, the same way charging has a variable range? A 24" weapon can now become a 17"+2d6 range weapon. We can give warlord traits, faction perks, etc that will give you bonuses to the 2d6 roll (to a maximum of 12), or allow you to reroll that roll, etc. And then we can also give out stratagems that when they hit your unit, halve the range of your weapons, or give you minuses to your range, and the like.

That way everybody can be equal. Sounds great, right?

How about we wait and see what GW does to shooting before we assume anything?

You know, the opposite of what everyone is doing now?

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If they didn't get rid of it, that would fly in the face of their policy of "streamlining".

I do wonder though what melee is going to achieve without tying down capabilities.

Because this stratagem sure as hell isn't the breakeven point for that, as gamey as tripointing was.

We don't know if there isn't other ways to lock people into combat, but we do know that strats and relics that lock people in Combat still work.

Heck, Wyches with nets seem to be even stronger.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Here is my modest proposal, for people who aren't convinced that falling back needs a greater penalty:

Why not make ranged weapons have variable range, the same way charging has a variable range? A 24" weapon can now become a 17"+2d6 range weapon. We can give warlord traits, faction perks, etc that will give you bonuses to the 2d6 roll (to a maximum of 12), or allow you to reroll that roll, etc. And then we can also give out stratagems that when they hit your unit, halve the range of your weapons, or give you minuses to your range, and the like.

That way everybody can be equal. Sounds great, right?

How about we wait and see what GW does to shooting before we assume anything?

You know, the opposite of what everyone is doing now?

No, Wyches are EXACTLY as strong as they are now (barring points changes). Everyone else melee got weaker.

And GW has said that 9th edition will be compatible with everything from 8th. We cannot know the exact details and minute changes. The broad strokes, though, we have a good idea of.

P.S. Where did they say they're removing wrapping?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Or we could just remove fallback.

Or at least add some risk/difficulty to it. It shouldn't be a casual non decision.

There is NO risk or difficulty that gunlines won't take in order to blast the assaulting unit off the table. Catbarf already outlined the procedure better than I can. Close range firepower is so nuts in 8th/9th.

Agreed as to the specific engaged unit. Presumably if, say, falling back allowed the enemy unit to make an immediate new charge into any target within range, that would be the sort of thing that would actually change the calculus.

But yes, as long as the biggest penalty from falling back is "lose every model in the specific unit that is trying to fall back" or less, gun lines will essentially always choose to do it.