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How do!

So this thought occurred to me reading Ashiraya’s latest post in the Nutrition thread. I’ll quote the relevant bit.

Ashiraya wrote:It's Final Fantasy, basically. You have people in advanced carbon weave armour wielding steel swords and shields.

Which is of course a classic 40K trope. Other than Tau (even then they’ve the Kroot), everyone has examples of fighty-punchy-eye gougy nutters in their ranks.

Necrons have Praetorians, Lychguard and Ophidian Destroyers to name three. Eldar have Scorpions, Banshees, Wyches, Harlequins and others. Marines have Assault Marines and in the past Destroyers and lots of elite face-punching units. Kin have the Cthonian Beserks, and the Orks have everywun.

Indeed, whilst most Boyz enjoy a good bit of Dakka Dakka? Getting into an actually proper fight where you can dish out actual proper stomping is still preferred. And of course? They’re the most wildly successful and widespread species. And if they are indeed descended from the Krork? May have always been fond of proper fisticuffs over anything fancy and clever.

And it’s that very fact which I think may explain why so many other species have close combat specialists in their ranks. Because sooner or later? You can bet your bottom [insert currency here] that you’ll be mixing it up with Orks. And so they’re the prime mover here. Everywhere humanity, Eldar and anyone else has been? The Orks got their first. So no matter where you go? It’s just a matter of time until you’ll have to deal with someone trying to literally kick your head in.

So your theory is Orks are the main driving force behind CC in 40K, yes?

So it makes you wonder why Orks are driven towards CC that much.
IF Orks were indeed created as a weapon against Necrons/C'tan/Necrontyr it might be part of their genetic programming to like CC because that's especially effective against Necs - think about how We will be back/ Reanimation protocols in some editions was turned off by CC.

I know it's a little wonky on actual fluff (everything about the War in Heaven is quite nebulous) and mixes background with rules, but in the end, why not? So the actual reason for Orks to want CC might be War in Heaven.

Or, and here’s where a pet theory comes in?

The Orks are only kind of the Krork. Kinda like how technically, Domestic Chickens are T-Rexes. All related, but very different.

The Orks could be direct descendants, or a mutated version. Either naturally, accidentally or purposefully.

Perhaps another surviving species of the War in Heaven, also created by the Old Ones, decided to try something to restrain the Krork. Only it all went horribly wrong, and Orks were the end result.

I mean, that’s a whole thread and a whole lot more speculation unto itself.

But whenever Modern Orks first arose? They live for punch ups first and foremost, it being much more fun than just shooting someone, though that’s fun too.

And so, the other major species had to develop their military with inevitable and regular hand to hand in mind.

I don't think it's that complicated. The melee is there for thematic and aesthetic reasons, 40k would lose an enormous amount of its theming if they tried to make it overly realistic.

They often don't really try to justify it in-universe, and even when they do it's paper-thin. Could you imagine how horrifying Harlequins with proper guns would be? Not only can you hardly draw a bead on them due to the holosuits, they're also hiding in cover two hundred metres away and picking off your troops with incredibly advanced precision rifles that they've spent a century mastering.

But they fight in melee instead because that's just what 40k is, and that is fine. It needs no further justification. One must imagine the chainsword happy.

Well, technically irl close combat weapon in army still in use, and in fact, it's used rarely compared to sai wwI but still in use. And in 40k we have all kind of force/refraction/psychic protection fields which stop projectile/laser/nameit but can be passed by ol' good slab of metal. So why not use your choppa if you could get yourself in range. Also it's pretty hard to shoot when enemy zooming up close and trying slash you with chainsaw. So your favorite power shovel would be preferred option

 kabaakaba wrote:
And in 40k we have all kind of force/refraction/psychic protection fields which stop projectile/laser/nameit but can be passed by ol' good slab of metal

This is actually pretty rare. It's really just void shields and their counterparts in other factions (kustom force fields, holo-fields, etc). Refractor fields, iron halos and the like all work perfectly fine against melee attacks.

And I am not saying 40k would not have melee weapons in it, I am just saying that if it wanted to concern itself with such things, it'd need to do a lot more work to justify the existence of things like Assault Intercessors. It doesn't want to concern itself with that, which is fine, but if this was a harder form of sci-fi, it'd definitely need to.

Given the wars the Imperium ends of fighting close combat is not that unrealistic. Trench warfare basically guarantees that you will end up in knife fighting range at some point. There is more than one body cam video out of Ukraine of soldiers ending up knife fighting.

If you have that, plus armor tech being at the point where you can have soldiers who are relatively safe from going down to a couple shots, and it actually makes sense to spec into some dedicated melee soldiers. You can have armored soldiers with melee weapons sneak into enemy trenches and start a stabbing spree. Its WW1 trench raids all over again, and they didn't even have armor that was proof against anything bigger than a pistol. 40k does have armor that is spec'd against rifle rounds and better.

Given that warfare usually requires you to push the enemy off a location, or capture a location with your own troops, you would by necessity end up physically closer to the enemy in order to so.

And given 40k has a combination of very numerous and/or tough and/or fast and/or armoured soldiers, with a lot of blind fanaticism, psycho indoctrination, mindlessness or mental war mask control, I'd say that combat just results in getting physically closer to the enemy that you haven't managed to kill yet with your guns more often than in the real world.


Given 40k has planet destroying weaponry deployable by all factions and orbital bombardment capability is a regularly tool, the only time foot troops appear is when the other things can't be used for whatever reason.

And in the circumstances of a 40k foot troop battle, those aforementioned features found in 40k would statistically lead to enemies within punching distance more often than not.



So orks fulfil l

 Grey Templar wrote:
Given the wars the Imperium ends of fighting close combat is not that unrealistic. Trench warfare basically guarantees that you will end up in knife fighting range at some point. There is more than one body cam video out of Ukraine of soldiers ending up knife fighting.

If you have that, plus armor tech being at the point where you can have soldiers who are relatively safe from going down to a couple shots, and it actually makes sense to spec into some dedicated melee soldiers. You can have armored soldiers with melee weapons sneak into enemy trenches and start a stabbing spree. Its WW1 trench raids all over again, and they didn't even have armor that was proof against anything bigger than a pistol. 40k does have armor that is spec'd against rifle rounds and better.

Trench warfare isn't necessarily the standard in 40k. Yes, if you send in Kriegers they will love WW1 tactics, but Guard in general prefer WW2 tactics otherwise, whereas Tau for example fight like 21st century NATO forces (who don't tend to focus very much on melee, fittingly).

Trenches and Urban fighting both necessarily involve close quarters combat.

It does, but not "spammed troops using a chainsaw as a primary weapon" levels of close quarters combat (which I already said and feel like everyone is ignoring).

But again every faction has methods to force melee combat even against mobile opponents like the T'au. Marines have armor and jump packs. Orks have numbers, fast vehicles, and general disregard for personal safety. Eldar have speed, holofields, etc... Almost everybody has teleportation.

Worth noting that the Imperial Guard doesn't really have a dedicated melee unit, outside of Rough Riders I guess. Officers do get and take melee weapons, but they focus much less on it than factions who can force melee if desired.

And I wouldn't say that marines spam melee troops either. Assault marines and Assault Terminators are definitely a specialist troop. The default equipment for a marine is a bolter and a combat knife/bayonet. The default Terminator loadout is a Storm Bolter and a Power fist(which is a demolition tool that doubles as a melee weapon), so they are still ranged focused.

I guarantee you if we had an analog to power armor with a controllable jetpack today we would see melee troops become a major part of doctrine.

Even in close quarters combat actual hand-hand fighting is a rarity.

If you watch videos of Ukraine 99% of trench clearing is still by assault rifle and grenade (and drones). It's blind firing round corners, throwing grenades around corners, radioing in a drone team to scope/blow out the next stretch, etc. Compared to that actual hand-hand fighting is exceedingly rare. Like so rare I'm only aware of it happening once and that incident is like THE big thing.
Hand-hand fighting in WW1 is as much a symptom of the fact that short/wieldy automatic weapons hadn't really been developed up to that point. A long bolt action rifle isn't good in a trench. But once SMGs and shotguns started hitting the trenches? That was it.

Even at a range at which you can reach out and hit someone with a sword - shooting them is going to be more effective. Even a biologically and mechanically enhanced warrior like an Astartes is going to be able to deliver a deadlier blow, quicker, and from further away with a firearm than they are a melee weapon (and reach is *massive* in hand-hand combat).

The current game zeitgeist of having a special "melee combat" in which units are locked together, protected from outside firepower, and *only* allowed to use hand-hand weapons is incredibly contrived and not at all representative of real life combat.

The Tau are absolutely the only ones doing the "realistic" thing of using shotguns instead of swords.
I wish pulse blasters had a melee weapon profile though, like the new Twin Lance have for their weapons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But responding to the specific idea that melee troops are necessary to counter enemy melee troops (such as the Orks);

There is *some* truth to this.
In the Pacific theatre the Japanese were famous for their 'banzai' bayonet charges. Initially these usually were quite successful if they made contact - US troops were almost entirely untrained in bayonet fighting (rather bayonet drills were used to teach aggression rather than technique) and would panic and run, turning their backs to the Japanese.
Then the US army began to more properly train their troops in bayonet fighting, specifically teaching them to stand and fight. This meant the troops could actually repel a Japanese bayonet charge quite effectively - the Japanese didn't really teach fighting styles much either.

But all that's deliberately glossing over the fact that Japanese were already suffering casualties in a ratio like 10-1 just charging into contact in the first place. Bayonet charges rarely achieved more than just making it easier for the enemy to kill them.

Swapping your rifle for a sword may allow you to fight that hand-hand combat better, but you're only doing it on parity (all else being equal). But to do so you've sacrificed a 10-fold advantage you'd have had with a rifle vs a swordsman.

I guess the only possible contrarian point is that power weapons seem to be relatively common in universe and much more effective against say an astartes than a bolter seems to be.
But are they more common than a plasmagun? Old lore suggests they are, but certainly in-game dispositions suggest they're not. The only SMs carrying powers weapons are veterans. Whereas relatively basic squads like Hellblasters all carry plasmaguns - so plasmaguns probably outnumber powerweapons like 2-1 or more in an astartes chapter.

 Grey Templar wrote:
And I wouldn't say that marines spam melee troops either. Assault marines and Assault Terminators are definitely a specialist troop. The default equipment for a marine is a bolter and a combat knife/bayonet. The default Terminator loadout is a Storm Bolter and a Power fist(which is a demolition tool that doubles as a melee weapon), so they are still ranged focused.

Again, Assault Intercessors. Primaris have had en-masse chainsword foot guys for way longer than they have had jump pack models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I guess the only possible contrarian point is that power weapons seem to be relatively common in universe and much more effective against say an astartes than a bolter seems to be.
But are they more common than a plasmagun? Old lore suggests they are, but certainly in-game dispositions suggest they're not. The only SMs carrying powers weapons are veterans. Whereas relatively basic squads like Hellblasters all carry plasmaguns - so plasmaguns probably outnumber powerweapons like 2-1 or more in an astartes chapter.

I'd argue it's not true even in old lore.

In 30k, you have entire battleline squads with plasma guns (TSS, likely the inspiration for Hellblasters both in and out of universe). And while it's true plasma was better understood back then, so were power weapons, and yet they were concentrated in the hands of sergeants and veterans, with power weapons being sprinkled into melee squads rather than being fielded en masse (exception, again, for veterans).

And for the Guard, you see plasma guns in the hands of regular guardsmen. One per squad, maybe, but that's still in guardsman hands, whereas power swords are not used by anyone below sergeant rank. And "one per squad" is itself a new phenomenon, besides. If we're talking older lore, we had Guard Special Weapons Squads where fully half the unit could rock plasma guns. The Special Weapons Squad didn't get booted into Legends until the very end of 9th edition.

Lethal ranged weapons have existed back into prehistory. Bows, javelins, slings, even the humble rock have been able to kill at range.

Yet melee didn't disappear as a common part of warfare until the end of the 19th century at the earliest, and probably the interwar period in practice.

I think it is worth noting that plate armour was developed after firearms appeared in Europe. Essentially, if troops can close to melee range, melee will occur because it is an effective way of breaking enemy troops and pushing them off ground.

That said, with the advent of repeating firearms, the only practical way for melee to return is being tough enough to typically tank a few shots and still be combat capable- speed is no longer enough. For humans, this means armour. For 40k, it can also just be toughness or weird optical effects.

But shooting is still better than stabbing, I hear you say. Not always so. Melee has two chief advantages over shooting if most shots will not penetrate armour- melee attacks are much easier to target at weakpoints in the armour (as seen in renaissance combat between fully-armoured men-at-arms), and melee attacks can defend in a way guns cannot. Guns can only offend by shooting. They can defend if used as melee weapons but often make for poor melee weapons compared to purpose-built ones.

So if you find yourself up-close with an Ork, you can't rely on your lasgun to stop the Ork with shooting, but you can use the gun to parry/block the Ork's blows and try to attack past their guard. It isn't either/or too- shooting with a bayonet fixed is possible. If the Ork has armour, humans are much better at stabbing into the gaps than shooting into them durimg combat.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Given the wars the Imperium ends of fighting close combat is not that unrealistic. Trench warfare basically guarantees that you will end up in knife fighting range at some point. There is more than one body cam video out of Ukraine of soldiers ending up knife fighting.

If you have that, plus armor tech being at the point where you can have soldiers who are relatively safe from going down to a couple shots, and it actually makes sense to spec into some dedicated melee soldiers. You can have armored soldiers with melee weapons sneak into enemy trenches and start a stabbing spree. Its WW1 trench raids all over again, and they didn't even have armor that was proof against anything bigger than a pistol. 40k does have armor that is spec'd against rifle rounds and better.

Trench warfare isn't necessarily the standard in 40k. Yes, if you send in Kriegers they will love WW1 tactics, but Guard in general prefer WW2 tactics otherwise, whereas Tau for example fight like 21st century NATO forces (who don't tend to focus very much on melee, fittingly).

Depends which Death Korps unit, Forgeworld released an entire army list for the DKoK that makes them play how the Steel Legion would be played, heavily mechanised infantry with a lot of mobile artillery and all that

Yeah. By love I mean that it's the specialisation they are famous for, so it's what they will often be sent to handle. They don't literally "love" fighting in the trenches. Indeed in the novel I just read, Ghost Legion, an Inquisitor requisitioned Kriegers among other things to assault a Chaos-held system, and as there was no time for a slow siege grind, they pressed on directly instead (and called down an artillery bombardment on themselves when they believed the Alpha Legion commander and his bodyguard had charged them, but that's rather besides the point).

Echoing Ashiraya in that "Melee doesn't really make sense." Not as a first strategy, at least.

Squad has knives for when the enemy closes? Makes sense.
Squad has nothing but pistols and big, unwieldy chainswords? Less so.

And that's okay! 40k is not a sensible, sober look at what war might be like in the future. It's a gonzo setting where literal daemons from another dimension are here to eat your soul. It's also a game we play for fun.

 Haighus wrote:
Lethal ranged weapons have existed back into prehistory. Bows, javelins, slings, even the humble rock have been able to kill at range.

Yet melee didn't disappear as a common part of warfare until the end of the 19th century at the earliest, and probably the interwar period in practice.

The capabilities of the ranged weapons are very different though;
Bows were relatively slow rate of fire and couldn't be sustained over a long period. They were also relatively ineffective against the best armour of the time. Same for slings and such. Also the lethality difference between a bow and a spear thrust wasn't that substantial.
This slow rate of fire in particular carried right through into the early modern era.
Modern firearms are rapid fire with large magazines and completely change the equation. And these are all factors which continue into 40k. Even the super lethal weaponary like plasma is capable of rapid fire with a large magazine.

Even in medieval/ancient warfare the premier melee weapon was the spear - IE the weapon with the longest range possible. The Roman reformed army was very exceptional in their use of the shortsword, which was a specific combination with their heavy shields and well drilled assault tactics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I guess the only possible contrarian point is that power weapons seem to be relatively common in universe and much more effective against say an astartes than a bolter seems to be.
But are they more common than a plasmagun? Old lore suggests they are, but certainly in-game dispositions suggest they're not. The only SMs carrying powers weapons are veterans. Whereas relatively basic squads like Hellblasters all carry plasmaguns - so plasmaguns probably outnumber powerweapons like 2-1 or more in an astartes chapter.

I'd argue it's not true even in old lore.

In 30k, you have entire battleline squads with plasma guns (TSS, likely the inspiration for Hellblasters both in and out of universe). And while it's true plasma was better understood back then, so were power weapons, and yet they were concentrated in the hands of sergeants and veterans, with power weapons being sprinkled into melee squads rather than being fielded en masse (exception, again, for veterans).

30k isn't old lore, it's like new 'historical' lore
When I referred to old lore I meant more like 2nd ed when it was said an entire regiment might typically only have 1-2 plasma guns with only the very lucky ones having more. Of course, even back then every platoon could have half a dozen plasma guns by rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
And that's okay! 40k is not a sensible, sober look at what war might be like in the future. It's a gonzo setting where literal daemons from another dimension are here to eat your soul. It's also a game we play for fun.

Totally agree on that - but I also do like that the option is there to play more 'realistic' forces without the melee focus.
But I do wish the rules didn't push melee quite so heavily. We should have a way to push a position with closerange firepower, which is currently only possible with melee combat. I think it could be as simple as redefining melee as "CQB" and including in "CQB weapons" pointblank profiles for shotguns, SMGs, and similar weapons.

There’s definitely an in-game limit to the application and adherence to the background.

Close Combat Monster Tau? No, thank you. It’s established they find HTH distasteful and would far rather develop better weapons to prevent you getting close in the first place. It’s also a deliberate, intended weak point in their army.

Imperial Guard having a surprising amount of supposedly rare equipment? Less bothersome. There’s still a strict limit on how many you can field, and it gives basic infantry of usually limited means a chance to have a meaningful role beyond clogging up the enemy. There, that’s player agency.

For more nuanced and subtle issues? I get people wanting random for the random god stuff reduced. But I still feel Orks benefit from some random stuff because that’s just part of their societal thing, and needs some reflection on the board. How much is very much open to discussion, but 3rd Ed more or less excised it entirely (with, if dim memory recalls correctly) was basically just the Zap Gub being S 2D6, rolled every shot. That for me is way too little.

Problem with "Tau are just weak at melee" is when melee is a key and central part of the objective/game structure; which it is now.
This doesn't just apply to Tau, this applies to anyone that doesn't find running into melee and punching someone compelling (so a lot of IG, and can be basically any faction).

This makes lack of melee extremely problematic for the viability of a faction, and means you either force someone to bring something they don't want to, or means you have to completely up-power the firepower of a faction. But that's unsatisfying because now they're tabling the opponent turn 2/3 (which is pretty much what it takes to score if you can't push in and score the same turn).

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Lethal ranged weapons have existed back into prehistory. Bows, javelins, slings, even the humble rock have been able to kill at range.

Yet melee didn't disappear as a common part of warfare until the end of the 19th century at the earliest, and probably the interwar period in practice.

The capabilities of the ranged weapons are very different though;
Bows were relatively slow rate of fire and couldn't be sustained over a long period. They were also relatively ineffective against the best armour of the time. Same for slings and such. Also the lethality difference between a bow and a spear thrust wasn't that substantial.
This slow rate of fire in particular carried right through into the early modern era.
Modern firearms are rapid fire with large magazines and completely change the equation. And these are all factors which continue into 40k. Even the super lethal weaponary like plasma is capable of rapid fire with a large magazine.

Even in medieval/ancient warfare the premier melee weapon was the spear - IE the weapon with the longest range possible. The Roman reformed army was very exceptional in their use of the shortsword, which was a specific combination with their heavy shields and well drilled assault tactics.

I think you are putting the cart before the horse a bit here. A bow is incredibly dangerous to an unarmoured human without a shield. It also doesn't need to be powerful- a 30Ib draw weight bow is common for hunting and entirely reasonable for inflicting lethal wounds on unarmoured flesh (especially with broad tips). People do hunt with stronger bows but they certainly don't reach late medieval and early modern warbow strengths. A fit person can shoot such a bow all day, and fast. It doesn't take much effort to reach reasonable proficiency with such a weapon.

The reason this didn't dominate warfare alone is effective countermeasures existed- shields, and later armour. Humans without these would not reliably be able to close and combat would be mostly ranged with little melee as it is today. The countermeasures also forced bows to adapt into something more awkward and less useful overall- draw weights went up, arrows got heavier, tips were adapted to penetration instead of injury. Eventually only highly-trained, specialist archers were still useful combatants until demographic changes made that unfeasible at scale.

Today, firearms are indeed very capable, and we don't have the technology to armour infantry against them beyond a few stray shots. 40k does though, and has some very tough creatures that can take a lot of shots naturally too. The logical outcome is that 1) firearms will adapt by becoming larger and more unwieldy to defeat armour and be less useful in CQB (see autoguns firing 8mm calibre bullets), and 2) melee will return as a way to fight armoured foes.

We've actually seen this before with firearms. As plate armour was developed, partly in response to improving ranged weapons like firearms, the firearms got dramatically larger to keep up and still be useful. They then shunk down again once armour stopped being economically viable. A 16th century musket is much heavier and more powerful than an 18th century musket, because it was intended to counter armoured foes. The later musket is much closer in size and weight to the earlier arquebus which fell out of fashion as good armour became widespread for awhile. Now the US Army is switching to a much more powerful infantry rifle supposedly to counter improving body armour- many (including me) think this is premature but the process is the same. The M7 and M8 are obviously going to be harder to use in CQB given they fire a full-sized rifle cartridge at 80000psi on combat loads.

Bodkin tips were also developed. Against a mounted foe, the main aim is to get them unmounted. And if it’s a muddy field? That’s a mucky end.

The remains of English and Welsh Longbowmen show they used it often enough to effect physical changes to their Skellington, and presumably muscle mass associated with shooting a bow.

You get two or three hundred such lads together? Each volley is the same number of arrows in the air, and the sheer mount of practice meant they could get them to land where you needed them to land.

Armour did somewhat reduce the risk, but not everywhere or everyone was armoured.

Agincourt reputedly had between 5,000 and 7,000 archer on the English side, and we all know how that worked out. Though there of course it more notable that the fallen French Knights were murdered, rather than captured for ransom.

Thought Crecy (sp) remains my favourite for sheer daftness and shenanigans.

 Haighus wrote:
...

You're generally correct in this arms vs armour race, although it was very push and pull through history - but it begs the question of is melee deadlier than firearms in 40k?
In the medieval era that was certainly the case - an armoured knight could be wrestled to the floor and gaps found in a way that a bow could not.

But is that true of 40k?
A carnifex may well be fairly resilient to a boltgun - but is a chainsword any better? Almost certainly not. Even an astartes can't slice a chainsword faster than he can a bolt shell. And your bolter has the advantage of being able to tear chunks out of the Carnifex *before* it rips you in half with casual ease.
A plasmagun is more lethal than a powersword.

The only exception I can possibly think of is the thunderhammer. Especially now that with newer models/lore a thunderhammer is wieldy enough for even a power armoured astartes to wield one one handed - it offers them a level of punch greater than a plasmagun. Of course there's still inferno pistols (which are apparently rare as hens teeth) and meltaguns (which are probably fairly slow RoF) which both provide more stopping power than a thunderhammer at much greater range but there's a conceivable niche for something like your thunderhammer/stormshield units. The stormshield being very important for providing protection into range - you're basically fighting in the late Roman style here.

But what's an Assault Intercessor seriously bringing to the table that wouldn't be done better by a boltrifle?
Of course, on the tabletop what the Assault Intercessor gains is the ability to get 2d6 free bonus movement with their attack, plus pilein/consolidate (basic infantry can run faster than jet fighters!) through a wall, as well as an unrealistically boosted attack profile (could luck swinging a chainsword faster than you can magdump a rifle), and yet more besides.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
...

You're generally correct in this arms vs armour race, although it was very push and pull through history - but it begs the question of is melee deadlier than firearms in 40k?
In the medieval era that was certainly the case - an armoured knight could be wrestled to the floor and gaps found in a way that a bow could not.

But is that true of 40k?
A carnifex may well be fairly resilient to a boltgun - but is a chainsword any better? Almost certainly not. Even an astartes can't slice a chainsword faster than he can a bolt shell. And your bolter has the advantage of being able to tear chunks out of the Carnifex *before* it rips you in half with casual ease.
A plasmagun is more lethal than a powersword.

The only exception I can possibly think of is the thunderhammer. Especially now that with newer models/lore a thunderhammer is wieldy enough for even a power armoured astartes to wield one one handed - it offers them a level of punch greater than a plasmagun. Of course there's still inferno pistols (which are apparently rare as hens teeth) and meltaguns (which are probably fairly slow RoF) which both provide more stopping power than a thunderhammer at much greater range but there's a conceivable niche for something like your thunderhammer/stormshield units. The stormshield being very important for providing protection into range - you're basically fighting in the late Roman style here.

But what's an Assault Intercessor seriously bringing to the table that wouldn't be done better by a boltrifle?
Of course, on the tabletop what the Assault Intercessor gains is the ability to get 2d6 free bonus movement with their attack, plus pilein/consolidate (basic infantry can run faster than jet fighters!) through a wall, as well as an unrealistically boosted attack profile (could luck swinging a chainsword faster than you can magdump a rifle), and yet more besides.

I don't think that really changes anything. Melee attacks weren't better at defeating plate armour, it is just easier for a human to stab a weakpoint than shoot it. Volume of fire can substitute the latter (and why many think the M7/M8 is a premature development compared to just sticking with intermediate cartridges like in Ukraine). To use the longbow example- longbows did not stop being effective when plate armour became widespread that could reliably stop arrows... because enough arrows would still find gaps and manufacturing defects and thinner plates eventually. The problem is they couldn't do it quick enough to prevent men-at-arms from closing in many cases. There is an interesting example in the Battle of Vernueil in 1424. The English won the battle overall, but there was a contingent of fully-barded Milanese cavalry that was able to break part of the English force for minimal casualties by attacking before they'd had chance to build anti-cavalry defences. The combination of good armour and speed utterly countered the advantages of the bowmen without defensive preparations.

Is a chainsword better at hurting a carnifex than a boltgun? No. But if the carnifex has made it into melee anyway you don't have much choice, and the chainsword has more options than the boltgun and is probably a little easier to stab into eye sockets and joints and so on (ironically never represented in 40k rules). Can someone parry a carnifex? I imagine it is extremely difficult but parrying can only require a slight deflection to work. Blocking is almost certainly out for basically everyone except other monstrous creatures and the like. That said, neither weapon is a good counter to carnifexes.

I think a better question is what happens if a unit of Marines with chainsword/bolt pistol engages a unit with boltguns. The latter has an advantage in open terrain, but in close terrain the melee marines can close and then a boltgun is not enough to reliably stop a marine before said marine can start engaging with the melee weapon. They can use the chainswprd to bat the boltgun out of aim and suddenly it is a harnessfechten wrestling match where one combatant has a purpose-built melee weapon plus an off-hand weapon that can also take opportunistic shots even in close proximity, and one who has a short block of metal in a shape fairly poorly adapted for melee (bit better with a bayonet) and no off-hand weapon if they can't get their knife out in time. In that situation, you'd expect the marine with the chainsword to usually win because they can control the fight better.

But the boltgun is more useful overall. Marines have always had more ranged than melee troops in most Chapters. There just happens to be a place for dedicated melee troops in situations where closing with the enemy is useful (clearing objectives) and is also possible. We know that in particularly dangerous situations, like storming prepared defences in a siege line, marines prefer to put assault marines inside vehicles like Land Raiders to achieve that. They know that melee only works if the shooting is neutered enough to be able to close with the enemy.

Re. power swords being less common than plasma. I think that is entirely because ranged combat is a preference and generally more useful than melee. Melee is an adjunct that is situationally useful, and sometimes forced by the enemy. A marine tactical sergeant has melee weapons as a contingency for being forced into melee, or for the occasional opportunistic melee assault (to clear a building for example). In the latter, say against orks, the boltguns would probably be a little more effective but also using combat knives and the like does allow for ammo conservation and allows for defense against melee attacks in return when bolt rounds were not enough to down an ork.

Also worth noting that 40k melee has long been stated to include point-blank use of firearms. The gun profiles were not used for a mix of simplicity and to represent how hard it can be to shoot someone who is also engaging you with an attack at the same time. Again, shooting is a purely offensive action, it cannot defend as melee weapons can, and a firearm being used to defend becomes a melee weapon with disadvantages due to having the components that let it be a firearm. That said, I strongly suspect that a typical guard trooper does fire their lasgun throughout melee combat until the laspack runs dry though. There isn't really a disadvantage- no recoil, can still have the bayonet equipped, and can take opportunistic shots instead of or alongside stabbing and hacking. Compare to a boltgun, which seems to have some recoild even for soldiers in power armour, or a large, bulky plasma gun which is going to be very hard to use up-close beyond smoking a single combatant.

Re. speed. Fencing is quick, and marines and eldar etc will be really quick. Humans can do multiple strikes per second. If a soldier comes round a corner and meets another within a couple metres, they can probably get off 2-5 rounds before the melee weapon could strike home. That is a best-case scenario for melee, and would most likely still result in a dead melee fighter and unharmed rifle user today. But a soldier in power armour? Probably just shrugged those shots off and parried the rifle/injured an unarmoured foe, and now it is a melee fight. Obviously as ranges open up this gets harder and harder for melee fighters, and I don't think it is an accident that the vast majority still carry a side-arm to suppress the enemy with on approach.


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Also sword and shield appeared multiple times in history. Broadly speaking, it is equivalent to spear and shield in efficacy for infantry combat (lacks a bit against heavy cavalry, which is part of why legionaries struggled against parthians and ended up adopting cataphractii themselves in response), but swords were hard for nations to produce in much of history so spear and shield was far more common until plate armour and similar heavy armour made two-handed melee weapons the clear winner.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Bodkin tips were also developed. Against a mounted foe, the main aim is to get them unmounted. And if it’s a muddy field? That’s a mucky end.

The remains of English and Welsh Longbowmen show they used it often enough to effect physical changes to their Skellington, and presumably muscle mass associated with shooting a bow.

You get two or three hundred such lads together? Each volley is the same number of arrows in the air, and the sheer mount of practice meant they could get them to land where you needed them to land.

Armour did somewhat reduce the risk, but not everywhere or everyone was armoured.

Agincourt reputedly had between 5,000 and 7,000 archer on the English side, and we all know how that worked out. Though there of course it more notable that the fallen French Knights were murdered, rather than captured for ransom.

Thought Crecy (sp) remains my favourite for sheer daftness and shenanigans.

It takes more than archers to win the battles, you can see that happen in Patay, they attempt to pull a 2nd Crecy/Agincourt, but were caught before they were fully prepared, the result is that the 5000 Englishmen were crushed by 1500 Frenchmen at a frightening ration. Wikipedia states the Frenchmen had 3 men killed for around 2k Englishmen killed, and a good bit captured.

You're still making the assumption that pointblank firing with a firearm is not possible - it absolutely is.

An enemy in arms reach in no way precludes you from shooting them, and parrying a rifle is harder than parrying a sword because just putting a sword in the way is enough to stop another sword reaching you, you can also block a sword swing with a rifle. Whereas to parry a rifle you have to physically push the weapon out of line. A move as simple as taking one step backwards will take you out of range of the sword and allow you full use of your rifle. The range in which a melee weapon is more useful than a potent, automatic, and high capacity firearm is really impossibly short it isn't even the norm in a building or trench network.

When I said speed what I was referring to is how an assault intercessor gets, what, 3 attacks a turn? They can swing their chainsword 3 times. A rifle intercessor gets to fire their boltrifle twice. In no real world can an astartes make more good attacks with a chainsword than they can snap off shots/bursts of a rifle.
Old rules like "if you carry a pistol you get +1 attack with your melee weapon" don't even begin to represent the reality of point blank firearms usage.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
You're still making the assumption that pointblank firing with a firearm is not possible - it absolutely is.

An enemy in arms reach in no way precludes you from shooting them, and parrying a rifle is harder than parrying a sword because just putting a sword in the way is enough to stop another sword reaching you, you can also block a sword swing with a rifle. Whereas to parry a rifle you have to physically push the weapon out of line. A move as simple as taking one step backwards will take you out of range of the sword and allow you full use of your rifle. The range in which a melee weapon is more useful than a potent, automatic, and high capacity firearm is really impossibly short it isn't even the norm in a building or trench network.

When I said speed what I was referring to is how an assault intercessor gets, what, 3 attacks a turn? They can swing their chainsword 3 times. A rifle intercessor gets to fire their boltrifle twice. In no real world can an astartes make more good attacks with a chainsword than they can snap off shots/bursts of a rifle.
Old rules like "if you carry a pistol you get +1 attack with your melee weapon" don't even begin to represent the reality of point blank firearms usage.

I'm pretty sure a "shot" in 40k represents a burst for most small arms. I'm not discounting this at all, but a burst from a gun is far less effective if the shots just deflect off a breastplate. CQB shooting aims at centre mass and aimed shooting into less-armoured limbs and joints is just harder and slower. Up-close, a burst into centre-mass is quicker than a melee strike, but only just, and such a burst will not reliably stop power armoured foes, nor will it be likely to constrain their actions. Melee or retreat then becomes inevitable.

I think the Kommandos Kill Team drives the point of Ork's melee lethality home wonderfully. Big 40K only does it with the "buckets and buckets of dice", which isnt nearly as thematic feeling IMHO

As for melees' prevalence in the 40K setting, I have always felt its that "Fantasy In Space" angle GW is going for. Of course Knights In Space Have Swords, Hammers and Axes.. The archetypical swashbuckler (pistol and sword) feels very fitting for 40K, where gaming tables are small parking lots and cover is pretty meaningless in most cases

 Haighus wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
You're still making the assumption that pointblank firing with a firearm is not possible - it absolutely is.

An enemy in arms reach in no way precludes you from shooting them, and parrying a rifle is harder than parrying a sword because just putting a sword in the way is enough to stop another sword reaching you, you can also block a sword swing with a rifle. Whereas to parry a rifle you have to physically push the weapon out of line. A move as simple as taking one step backwards will take you out of range of the sword and allow you full use of your rifle. The range in which a melee weapon is more useful than a potent, automatic, and high capacity firearm is really impossibly short it isn't even the norm in a building or trench network.

When I said speed what I was referring to is how an assault intercessor gets, what, 3 attacks a turn? They can swing their chainsword 3 times. A rifle intercessor gets to fire their boltrifle twice. In no real world can an astartes make more good attacks with a chainsword than they can snap off shots/bursts of a rifle.
Old rules like "if you carry a pistol you get +1 attack with your melee weapon" don't even begin to represent the reality of point blank firearms usage.

I'm pretty sure a "shot" in 40k represents a burst for most small arms. I'm not discounting this at all, but a burst from a gun is far less effective if the shots just deflect off a breastplate. CQB shooting aims at centre mass and aimed shooting into less-armoured limbs and joints is just harder and slower. Up-close, a burst into centre-mass is quicker than a melee strike, but only just, and such a burst will not reliably stop power armoured foes, nor will it be likely to constrain their actions. Melee or retreat then becomes inevitable.

A boltrifle dice may well represent a dice - but we're now still talking about artificial buffs of melee attacks. If a single dice is one chainsword swipe, why is it equally lethal to an entire burst of rifle fire? And it's still being generous to say you can get 3 good swipes in but only 2 good bursts.

You're also under no obligation at all to aim a burst at centre-mass. That's usually what they train because it's easier but you can easily aim it at a head or something. This is even today a trained technique called the Mozambique drill and you see it in real combat footage.
It also assumes that a plasmagun to centre-mass is less effective than a chainsword, which it isn't.
Even aiming a melee weapon is hard - medieval armoured combat was more like wrestling/grappling to then get your rondel out, you're not getting a sword strike straight into an armpit just like that.
We also have the very real question of why aren't astartes more regularly equipped with heavy shotguns or similar? Boltguns are already shown as being [barely] capable of penetrating power armour, a dedicated CQB firearm could do it even more effectively. Instead the only people who wield such weapons are the barely trained initiates


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 tauist wrote:
I think the Kommandos Kill Team drives the point of Ork's melee lethality home wonderfully. Big 40K only does it with the "buckets and buckets of dice", which isnt nearly as thematic feeling IMHO

As for melees' prevalence in the 40K setting, I have always felt its that "Fantasy In Space" angle GW is going for. Of course Knights In Space Have Swords, Hammers and Axes.. The archetypical swashbuckler (pistol and sword) feels very fitting for 40K, where gaming tables are small parking lots and cover is pretty meaningless in most cases

A lot of it also comes from the like renaissance fantasy of the officers carrying swords. Hence sergeants and command staff are often the people using melee weapons (/slash using the fancy melee weapons in a melee squad).