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So, I'm not a huge fan of the character rules in general, but I think they especially fall apart in the fight phase because unlike in the shooting phase, characters have nothing to help them survive.

Currently, it is far too easy to pile on high strength/damage weapons to characters. For example, a single terminator can get to base-to-base with a warboss, but because positioning in the fight phase, you can easily have 5+ terminators all pile on that lone warboss, who will die.

And I've done it to enemy characters plenty of times. Charged kharn and berzekers with meganobz, and even with a 4++ kharn was pretty much an instant smear.

Also, heroic intervention is basically useless in its current incarnation. Characters can't move through friendly units to fight (unless you maintain max coherency at all times), and enemy charging models simply have to ensure that they remain out of 4" of enemy characters in the charge phase to prevent any interventions, and then they can pile in and fight as normal.

So, my thought is, change the character rules to include:

"Heroic Reach: Characters with fewer than 10 wounds may direct melee attacks against enemy units in the fight phase if they are within 1" of a friendly model who is in base-to-base combat with an enemy model, as if he were a member of the friendly unit. However, enemy units may not attack the character in the fight phase unless they are in base contact with the character, as normal."

The idea being is that your character can use friendly units as a buffer against enemy chargers, and don't just get fisted/hammered/klawed out of existence. So, you could hide kharn in a swarm of berzerkers, but kharn could still fight through said berzerkers without himself being an easy target. Characters could also far more easily heroically intervene, rather than it being basically useless as it is now.

However, to balance out potential shenanigans with, say, hiding girlyman in a swarm of conscripts and having 30 extra wounds, add the following:

"If a character fights in the fight phase using the Heroic Reach ability, they suffer a -1 to hit for every 10 models in the friendly unit they are fighting through."

So if you did, say, hide a warboss in a group of 30 grots and tried to fight through them, he would have -3 to hit. But you could bring a bodyguard of meganobz and have a useful screening unit. So, the idea is to have greater protection in melee, but suffer a penalty to hit if you hide behind too many models.

Or, I suppose they could keep it simple and just bring back "Look out Sir" rolls.

In any case, I just would like a little extra durability out of characters in melee. Warbossi are happiest in CC, but it's just embarrassing to see them, and other characters, so easily removed.