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I watched a game today and it was just super hard to watch. The Orks played amazingly for 2 turns surviving with invulv saves and 6+ FNP! He had used amazing tactics and managed to get off some almost impossible roles. The other player was just in 2 shooting lines and not even doing any tactics or moving. The Orks finally after 2 turns got into the combat line and absorbed every single unit with about 60 boyz in CC (all that was left after two turns of shooting) and then continued to destroy them as the orks 3" moved into the second line behind (very bad positioning from the other player who could have just moved them back to not get that). I thought the Orks had this in the bag and the guy was finally going to get a break (he is a very skilled player but loses a lot). Then everything changed on the other players third turn. The player just pulled out all of his guys and then used a "special ability thingy" that meant they could now fire even after leaving combat.... they then shot up the orks into little pieces.... it was so unfair! The player had 2 whole turns of shooting, used 0 tactics and placed his troops poorly but then just moved out of the combat and chopped the orks up! To me it really highlighted the unbalance found within the game when it comes to CC vs Shooting. Similar games have seen Ork players do very will until the other person just pulls out their guys and shoot them down either with special rules or other guys behind them... Shooting players have a lot of advantages over CC and CC players don't have any tactics or special ability that allow us to keep people in CC. So how would you fix this?

There are tactics that can keep most units in combat, and abilities to get into combat before taking 2 turns of shooting.

IF anything this sounds like an issue of not enough terrain.

Beyond that there is already an entire thread about changes to the fall back mechanic.

Drop overwatch, disallow falling back from combat (mostly this) and price adequately the most effective (overpowered) shooty units. Problem solved.

Gunlines are so boring.

Breng77 wrote:
There are tactics that can keep most units in combat, and abilities to get into combat before taking 2 turns of shooting.

IF anything this sounds like an issue of not enough terrain.

Beyond that there is already an entire thread about changes to the fall back mechanic.

Every single person says this but the game had plenty of terrain.... As I say he survived with almost everything doing really well until the chance he could charge everything in at once but despite all of that the guy just murdered him with over watch, attacking back and the ability to pull out and shoot. Orks got 1 chance to deal damage and they got 3! How does that even seem fair? Sure there are tactics to keep people in combat but it's difficult especially if there is a line so you can't get your guys behind them.... Why should it be so difficult when shooting players can stand still and role dice with ease and get just as many (if not more) kills and damage.

This describes just about every Ork game I've seen in the last few years.

Were it me, I would simply bring back a cover system that gives -1 to hit for shooting through intervening models. That way Boys could get cover for being part of the crowd.

As far as the comparisons with other cc armies go, Orks have no armor save. Other armies get into combat reliably because they have effective transports / deep strike, then 3+ saves, then special rules on top of that which improve their chances to get in there.

The current design of the Ork range makes them into a shooting gallery. The models look great but the rules do little for them on the battlefield. Plus, they are not really that good once they get into close combat. I've watched 30 model Mobs go down to 5 model Eldar units this edition and it should not be that way.

I liked what one of the designers said about rewarding close combat units in 8th edition for getting there. Hoping it's just a matter of time before things improve. I have a ton of Ork models but have never played a game with them since GW started nerfing them so hard around 6th edition.

 lolman1c wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
There are tactics that can keep most units in combat, and abilities to get into combat before taking 2 turns of shooting.

IF anything this sounds like an issue of not enough terrain.

Beyond that there is already an entire thread about changes to the fall back mechanic.

Every single person says this but the game had plenty of terrain.... As I say he survived with almost everything doing really well until the chance he could charge everything in at once but despite all of that the guy just murdered him with over watch, attacking back and the ability to pull out and shoot. Orks got 1 chance to deal damage and they got 3! How does that even seem fair? Sure there are tactics to keep people in combat but it's difficult especially if there is a line so you can't get your guys behind them.... Why should it be so difficult when shooting players can stand still and role dice with ease and get just as many (if not more) kills and damage.

IF the terrain was fine how did this player lose 1640 points of his army in 2 turns to a gun line before getting the remaining 60 boyz into combat? That either means the ork player is a bad player or there was insufficient LOS blocking terrain. IT is not difficult to keep units in combat, it isn't trivial, but with charge + 6" worth of pile in /consolidate moves it is pretty easy to get around enemy models. Maybe my experiences are just different, but It is pretty rare for an opponent to be able to both kill 1640 points of my army without damage themselves for 2 turns, and fall back easily. AS orks I am assaulting every turn of the game.

Breng77 wrote:

 lolman1c wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
There are tactics that can keep most units in combat, and abilities to get into combat before taking 2 turns of shooting.

IF anything this sounds like an issue of not enough terrain.

Beyond that there is already an entire thread about changes to the fall back mechanic.

Every single person says this but the game had plenty of terrain.... As I say he survived with almost everything doing really well until the chance he could charge everything in at once but despite all of that the guy just murdered him with over watch, attacking back and the ability to pull out and shoot. Orks got 1 chance to deal damage and they got 3! How does that even seem fair? Sure there are tactics to keep people in combat but it's difficult especially if there is a line so you can't get your guys behind them.... Why should it be so difficult when shooting players can stand still and role dice with ease and get just as many (if not more) kills and damage.

IF the terrain was fine how did this player lose 1640 points of his army in 2 turns to a gun line before getting the remaining 60 boyz into combat? That either means the ork player is a bad player or there was insufficient LOS blocking terrain. IT is not difficult to keep units in combat, it isn't trivial, but with charge + 6" worth of pile in /consolidate moves it is pretty easy to get around enemy models. Maybe my experiences are just different, but It is pretty rare for an opponent to be able to both kill 1640 points of my army without damage themselves for 2 turns, and fall back easily. AS orks I am assaulting every turn of the game.

Where are you getting these points from? I never said how much the games points are worth... -_- Turn one he lost about 5-600pts of troops (nobz in a battle-wagon and the rest of the points were the 60 boyz as mentioned and HQ/Elite units like big mek, warboss, painboy.... ) So no idea where you got this other number from.... And when you need to get close to the enemy you obviously can't stay in terrain or block yourself from every single line of sight unless you're outright playing with giant walls and no windows.... And how is it easy when your first 3" can't even make it around the line of enemies that reaches double your blob and your second one barely makes it into the line behind after the only way you could get through was killing enough to make a space...

Do Wyverns, mortars, and manticores care about the terrain? I've lost hundreds of points of marines to these units in 2-3 turns.

 lolman1c wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 lolman1c wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
There are tactics that can keep most units in combat, and abilities to get into combat before taking 2 turns of shooting.

IF anything this sounds like an issue of not enough terrain.

Beyond that there is already an entire thread about changes to the fall back mechanic.

Every single person says this but the game had plenty of terrain.... As I say he survived with almost everything doing really well until the chance he could charge everything in at once but despite all of that the guy just murdered him with over watch, attacking back and the ability to pull out and shoot. Orks got 1 chance to deal damage and they got 3! How does that even seem fair? Sure there are tactics to keep people in combat but it's difficult especially if there is a line so you can't get your guys behind them.... Why should it be so difficult when shooting players can stand still and role dice with ease and get just as many (if not more) kills and damage.

IF the terrain was fine how did this player lose 1640 points of his army in 2 turns to a gun line before getting the remaining 60 boyz into combat? That either means the ork player is a bad player or there was insufficient LOS blocking terrain. IT is not difficult to keep units in combat, it isn't trivial, but with charge + 6" worth of pile in /consolidate moves it is pretty easy to get around enemy models. Maybe my experiences are just different, but It is pretty rare for an opponent to be able to both kill 1640 points of my army without damage themselves for 2 turns, and fall back easily. AS orks I am assaulting every turn of the game.

Where are you getting these points from? I never said how much the games points are worth... -_- Turn one he lost about 5-600pts of troops (nobz in a battle-wagon and the rest of the points were the 60 boyz as mentioned and HQ/Elite units like big mek, warboss, painboy.... ) So no idea where you got this other number from.... And when you need to get close to the enemy you obviously can't stay in terrain or block yourself from every single line of sight unless you're outright playing with giant walls and no windows.... And how is it easy when your first 3" can't even make it around the line of enemies that reaches double your blob and your second one barely makes it into the line behind after the only way you could get through was killing enough to make a space...

I assume 2000 points, as that is what the game seems to be designed around. If you are playing 1000 points then things are very skewed. Yes you should be playing with Giant walls and no windows. for a lot of terrain. I all your terrain is small with no windows you don't have enough LOS blocking terrain. You should be able to hide from enough shooting with enough of your army to avoid dying turn 1. If everything in your opponents army can shoot different things in your army, there is not enough terrain. Especially against an immobile gunline. As for denying fall back it is easy, you position yourself on the end of the line instead of the middle. You never set up to assault the middle of a gunline. You also don't fully kill the first squad on the charge so you can wrap some remaining models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Do Wyverns, mortars, and manticores care about the terrain? I've lost hundreds of points of marines to these units in 2-3 turns.

No they don't, the are IMO an issue, but that is 1 army (or all the imperium depending on how you look at things), so we should fix them and not screw other shooting armies.

If we were to get back to the point, the problem with CC in the game's 8th iteration is that while GW certainly made CC more powerful (i.e. changes to chainswords, removal of initiative, etc), they did little to, or less than they had thought, to make assault more viable.

The new fall back mechanism was put in place of combersome morale at end of each phase and to counter balance the gain in assault. However, the mechanism punishes assault oriented units by no longer giving them the ability to lock down opponents to prevent them from shooting.

As above first few commenters pointed out, there needs to be some revisio s in fall back.

Being able to leave combat at will is killing cc.

To me this sounds like orks fought imperial guard with the IG guard having their reduced points, stratgems, and tactics.

This should be fixed when orks get a codex with reduced prices, stratgems, and tactics.

But it won't be. People have been blaming the dominance of shooting over melee on everything but shooting being too strong relatively speaking for four editions now. It's a core-rule issue.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
But it won't be. People have been blaming the dominance of shooting over melee on everything but shooting being too strong relatively speaking for four editions now. It's a core-rule issue.

I'm of mixed opinion. Shooting is stupidly strong... I played a game once where the guy had 5 scion plasma squads that were only half his army and the rest were guards men. I played an Ork mech force.... Turn one he just deep struck all the squads in (one of the objective he wanted) and then preceded to overcharge, reroll ones and get extra hits in on 6s.... safe to say the entire army even with 5++ did not survive. Many armies can do this....

But at the same time shooting has to be still a viable option. You should still be able to kill anything on a 6 but you should not be able to take out entire armies turn 1! Really, what it has come down to is GW getting silly and just giving everything cheap like 20-60 shots with BS3+. You don't see any single melee model for less than 200pts doing that much damage from across the table and still being tough as nails (when i say single I mean model... I would love a tough model with a 3+ save being able to charge in by itself and do 40 attacks!)

Shooting was manageably overpowered until apoc units got merged into the game as LOW IMO.

Deep strikes with mishap rewarded the dedicated assault units' risk with the ability wipe the floors with their target nefore 5th ed I believe. It was all about positioning and outmanuvering.

Without going into details, CC should be fixed in a way that it is difficult to enter assault/fight but when they do they absolutely wreck sheets. I would love to see mechanics like sweeping advance returning or the hit and run slingshot maneuver.

 skchsan wrote:
Shooting was manageably overpowered until apoc units got merged into the game as LOW IMO.

Deep strikes with mishap rewarded the dedicated assault units' risk with the ability wipe the floors with their target nefore 5th ed I believe. It was all about positioning and outmanuvering.

Without going into details, CC should be fixed in a way that it is difficult to enter assault/fight but when they do they absolutely wreck sheets. I would love to see mechanics like sweeping advance returning or the hit and run slingshot maneuver.

This all or nothing offers no counterplay. It would be like playing tau pre decurions in 7th. If you stay out of melee you win. If you end up in melee you loose. Thats not fun for anybody.

I think 8ths melee rules are a huge step forward over 7th. I have seen melee do some really great things and cause some massive disruptions and tear apart some players strategies before it even gets started.

Right now the melee heavy forces don't have a codex. Next month we will get nids. I say lets wait and see what nids can do with stratgems, tactics, relics, and codex price points and then decide if melee as a core mechnic needs fixing or if it really is just BA and Orks needing their update.

 skchsan wrote:
Shooting was manageably overpowered until apoc units got merged into the game as LOW IMO.

Deep strikes with mishap rewarded the dedicated assault units' risk with the ability wipe the floors with their target nefore 5th ed I believe. It was all about positioning and outmanuvering.

Without going into details, CC should be fixed in a way that it is difficult to enter assault/fight but when they do they absolutely wreck sheets. I would love to see mechanics like sweeping advance returning or the hit and run slingshot maneuver.

Apoc units have nothing to do with this. It's all about the underpriced shooter units present in every edition of 40K.

So, he locked the enemy in his deployement zone for 3 whole turns. Must have won via maelstorm unless he was very unlucky. The way to win with orks is to pressure as hard as you can (which he did good enough) score as much as possible and than around 3-4 turn when you have almost everything dead just hide and wait till the game ends. Gunlines will often not have time to get enough maelstorm points by the end of the game if they;ve been locked for the first half.

 Lance845 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Shooting was manageably overpowered until apoc units got merged into the game as LOW IMO.

Deep strikes with mishap rewarded the dedicated assault units' risk with the ability wipe the floors with their target nefore 5th ed I believe. It was all about positioning and outmanuvering.

Without going into details, CC should be fixed in a way that it is difficult to enter assault/fight but when they do they absolutely wreck sheets. I would love to see mechanics like sweeping advance returning or the hit and run slingshot maneuver.

This all or nothing offers no counterplay. It would be like playing tau pre decurions in 7th. If you stay out of melee you win. If you end up in melee you loose. Thats not fun for anybody.

I think 8ths melee rules are a huge step forward over 7th. I have seen melee do some really great things and cause some massive disruptions and tear apart some players strategies before it even gets started.

Right now the melee heavy forces don't have a codex. Next month we will get nids. I say lets wait and see what nids can do with stratgems, tactics, relics, and codex price points and then decide if melee as a core mechnic needs fixing or if it really is just BA and Orks needing their update.

The BA codex is not going to help. I'm calling it now. The problems are too fundamental, and they aren't going to make melee power armor cheap enough to compensate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 koooaei wrote:
So, he locked the enemy in his deployement zone for 3 whole turns. Must have won via maelstorm unless he was very unlucky. The way to win with orks is to pressure as hard as you can (which he did good enough) score as much as possible and than around 3-4 turn when you have almost everything dead just hide and wait till the game ends. Gunlines will often not have time to get enough maelstorm points by the end of the game if they;ve been locked for the first half.

They kill specific sectors and score where you are locally tabled.

The game is obviously designed to mainly be a shooting game, which makes sense in the sci-fi universe where it's set. With the kind of weaponry that's wielded in 40k, it's a bit strange that close combat is even a thing.

Close combat is much better than it was in 7th, both smoother and more powerful.

Also, the disparity in power level between different factions is much greater when it comes to close combat than shooting. If close combat was to be made as much more important as some seem to want, quite a few factions would require a complete overhaul.

I think CC is much worse, actually. Invis deathstars were wonderful CC in 7th. No such thing exists in 8th, and the walk out of combat for free rule just ruins CC.

I'm not seeing how it's smoother or stronger. 7th was far better.

Instead of Initiative I have to endure an awful alternation mechanic and instead of sweeping units away I get to watch them lose some models and exit combat at will.

 Cream Tea wrote:
The game is obviously designed to mainly be a shooting game, which makes sense in the sci-fi universe where it's set. With the kind of weaponry that's wielded in 40k, it's a bit strange that close combat is even a thing.

Close combat is much better than it was in 7th, both smoother and more powerful.

Also, the disparity in power level between different factions is much greater when it comes to close combat than shooting. If close combat was to be made as much more important as some seem to want, quite a few factions would require a complete overhaul.

40k isn't sci-fi, it's fantasy in space. The chainsword has just as much of a place here as the bolter.

As long as falling back remains as broken as it currently is, CC will never be fixed. Especially when entire armies can effectively ignore the falling back penalties.

It's a pity, as falling back COULD be a good an interesting mechanic. But doing it for free, unchallenged, and often without penalty, is absolutely game breaking.

 Cream Tea wrote:
The game is obviously designed to mainly be a shooting game, which makes sense in the sci-fi universe where it's set. With the kind of weaponry that's wielded in 40k, it's a bit strange that close combat is even a thing.

Close combat is much better than it was in 7th, both smoother and more powerful.

Also, the disparity in power level between different factions is much greater when it comes to close combat than shooting. If close combat was to be made as much more important as some seem to want, quite a few factions would require a complete overhaul.

Then why not make cc armies have the option to be good at shooting? As Orks I would love a shooting army but why would I ever give up 30boyz for like 10 Lootas? The Lootas are unreliable, fragile (1 wound 6+ save) and can't move (or they will be hitting on 6s!)... (we could go into an argument about how orks should be bad at shooting by as many threads have already shown the lore does not support this. Many orks specialise in shooting we just don't ever see it in the table top game). So GW is forcing players to go for boyz or we fall behind rapidly...

I played a few objective games and really I feel like I need more gretchin. I had about 10 gretchin on each point but the scions just dropped in, killed them then I would lose the point.... I would have mobs of 30 gretchin but then I feel I'm wasting £30 on something when the money could buy me something I actually want like a deff dread. XD


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
As long as falling back remains as broken as it currently is, CC will never be fixed. Especially when entire armies can effectively ignore the falling back penalties.

It's a pity, as falling back COULD be a good an interesting mechanic. But doing it for free, unchallenged, and often without penalty, is absolutely game breaking.

Yeah.... when i first saw it I was absolutely confused at what GW was doing? Not only did my units have to go through overwatch and being attacked back to get to you but you can now just move back and shoot him as well?

Close combat and ranged attacks could work well together in 40k if they had different tactical roles.(EG if they had the same tactical loading as modern warfare.)

But while its all about killing stuff, 'unmodified to hit 'ranged weapons are at a serious advantage, compared to close combat.

 Lance845 wrote:
It would be like playing tau pre decurions in 7th. If you stay out of melee you win. If you end up in melee you loose. Thats not fun for anybody.

But isn't that precisely why you play Tau? The armies of the grimdark future tend to be balanced between shooting and fighting. Some excel at shooting but mediocre at melee, while some are mediocre at shooting and utter beasts in melee. Some are all about shooting and can't do jack in melee. Obviously some armies happen to excel at shooting AND above average in melee, but I digress.

The OP's main concern here is that an army dedicated to melee wasn't able to properly 'melee-it-up' because of potential game breaking mechanics present in the game currently.

No offense, if you want to just play the game for 'shooting' at stuff you may as well just play games like CS or CoD.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
As long as falling back remains as broken as it currently is, CC will never be fixed. Especially when entire armies can effectively ignore the falling back penalties.

It's a pity, as falling back COULD be a good an interesting mechanic. But doing it for free, unchallenged, and often without penalty, is absolutely game breaking.

We've recently had a long discussion about this over here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/740843.page#9648466

In a nut shell, simply moving fall back to occur at the end of shooting phase resolves many issues that's festering rule right now.

 skchsan wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
It would be like playing tau pre decurions in 7th. If you stay out of melee you win. If you end up in melee you loose. Thats not fun for anybody.

But isn't that precisely why you play Tau? The armies of the grimdark future tend to be balanced between shooting and fighting. Some excel at shooting but mediocre at melee, while some are mediocre at shooting and utter beasts in melee. Some are all about shooting and can't do jack in melee. Obviously some armies happen to excel at shooting AND above average in melee, but I digress.

The OP's main concern here is that an army dedicated to melee wasn't able to properly 'melee-it-up' because of potential game breaking mechanics present in the game currently.

No offense, if you want to just play the game for 'shooting' at stuff you may as well just play games like CS or CoD.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
As long as falling back remains as broken as it currently is, CC will never be fixed. Especially when entire armies can effectively ignore the falling back penalties.

It's a pity, as falling back COULD be a good an interesting mechanic. But doing it for free, unchallenged, and often without penalty, is absolutely game breaking.

We've recently had a long discussion about this over here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/740843.page#9648466

In a nut shell, simply moving fall back to occur at the end of shooting phase resolves many issues that's festering rule right now.

pretty much... I am trying to argue that armies have a massive disadvantage because they're geared towards a failing system. Orks was just an example as many cc armies have suffered but take things like conscripts... you could give them good cc and people would never really charge them because their shooting is far better.... but orks don't get this opportunity because our 6+ armour save is basically there because GW thinks we would be under the cover of combat (which is not the case) so we are forced to charge in rather than take it, thus, we have a huge disadvantage.


The whole moving back after the shooting phase is an amazing idea and I love it! It would literally fix everything! CC armies would still have huge negatives but they would at least get a chance... shooting armies could still use pulling back to their advantage by body blocking the CC unit with another unit to help the unit he wants to survive (this would add real tactics for the game and mean a shooting army doesn't just stand there and role dice). And you could also make it where the one charging away can't shoot next turn or can't do over watch to simulate them running away (this is where the strats would come in which would allow them to shoot again).

In all fairness it must be boring to be a shooting army right now... I have seen about 3 games where a shooting army won the game by literally doing nothing but standing still and rolling the dice every shooting phase... At that point you might as well play dice game at a casino because the models are going to waste.

Martel732 wrote:
I think CC is much worse, actually. Invis deathstars were wonderful CC in 7th. No such thing exists in 8th, and the walk out of combat for free rule just ruins CC.

I don't think that's a fair comparison. Invis deathstars were a result of the psychic rules and IC rules of the edition, not of the CC rules. There were plenty of units that were pretty dope in combat but never got there because they couldn't crutch their way to combat using the psychic phase.

(for reference I was a huge cabal player in 7e, so i feel this lol)

They were still a viable CC unit; none of which exist in 8th. That was my point.