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Why is sentiment even a thing that people have?
Why do people believe the idea of a clean war when the common contemporary military doctrine is a complete and utter failure to topple a determined and entrenched asymmetrical foe who is extremely outgunned and has no aerial support and limited supply lines? The taliban for example could be taken out swiftly if our modern taboos were eschewed.

In my mind these people have a doctored view of historical warfare, which has removed the lessons of the last 107 years. This is even removing all the 40k things that can close the distance or even appear out of nowhere and get in your face.

Literally no one thinks that.

Pick one (or more!) of:
1) Even in the context of the use of melee combat in modern warfare having a unit deliberately equipped with swords and pistols on the assumption they'll never be called on to engage in combat outside of melee range is silly.
2) They didn't buy any melee units (or chose to play Tau) and are now irritated that they have to go buy melee units to keep playing, so they go on the Internet and complain about whether they should need to buy melee units.
3) They don't understand the scale limitations of 28mm games, because they have a twelve-by-six table in their basement.
4) They'd really rather be playing Infinity (at least until they run into an Umbra stab-fighting its way through six or seven guys in one big turn, then they'll be right back on the Internet whining about how realism precludes melee combat coexisting with assault rifles).
5) Different peoples' suspension of disbelief gets dinged by different things.

I have no idea what you are saying.

First of all, your ranting about "if we just eschewed our taboos, we would totally wipe out the baddies" is completely wrong. More bombs were dropped on Vietnam by the US than in both theaters of World War 2 combined, and the bombing of north Vietnam remains the largest aerial bombardment in human history.

I'll let you research who actually won the war.

As for melee in 40k... I don't know anyone who thinks it shouldn't be decisive. I know people who think it should be uncommon, bit that is a different discussion

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I have no idea what you are saying.

First of all, your ranting about "if we just eschewed our taboos, we would totally wipe out the baddies" is completely wrong. More bombs were dropped on Vietnam by the US than in both theaters of World War 2 combined, and the bombing of north Vietnam remains the largest aerial bombardment in human history.

I'll let you research who actually won the war.

As for melee in 40k... I don't know anyone who thinks it shouldn't be decisive. I know people who think it should be uncommon, bit that is a different discussion

You're thinking about the wrong taboo.

I'm pretty sure I don't want to know any power fantasy the OP has about killing people in real life.

Concerning 40K? Well, there are people who think Orks, or Daemons, or the Warp or the Tau don't belong to 40K, I guess you can find someone who doesn't like CC. I don't know where these minority views come from, which in my opinion usually take the setting too seriousely and miss it for what it is. Of course you can think Thunderwolf Cavalry or Rough Riders are stupid, but in my opinion you missed what 40K is about completely
but I guess, sticking to the CC question, there's the argument that with the weaponry that 40K has CC shouldn't be a thing. Punching a Titan to Death with your powerfist instead of launching a Death Strike missile does seem odd to them.
I don't know why, as we grew up seeing Luke Skywalker take out an AT-AT in CC, or Data and Worf taking out a horde of Borg with their punches. And that's while Star Trek has more to do with Sci-Fi than 40K ever had.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I have no idea what you are saying.

First of all, your ranting about "if we just eschewed our taboos, we would totally wipe out the baddies" is completely wrong. More bombs were dropped on Vietnam by the US than in both theaters of World War 2 combined, and the bombing of north Vietnam remains the largest aerial bombardment in human history.

I'll let you research who actually won the war.

So was it the vietcong's will to fight that was broken or what lol?

Quasistellar wrote:
Literally no one thinks that.

You are literally wrong on that.

Melee players have been pandered to for decades in this game.
I generally despise melee in my sci-fi games full of guns, bigger guns, crazy sized guns, death rays, lasers, rockets, orbital bombards, & other shooty stuff. I'm not alone.
Melee should rarely happen & units that're any good at it should be the rare & expensive exception outside of anything but the Tyranids.

Instead? Practically everyone (but perhaps the Tau?) have affordable effective melee units & there's NO problem getting things into melee if that's your intent.
The reverse is not true. Those of us who dislike melee practically can't avoid it.
Most recently? The board sizes have been shrunk (now the melee minded have less space they have to navigate!), EVERYONE can get really close via deepstrike/reserves/etc, and we shooty armies sole means of defense (firing overwatch) has been crippled by 1) only hitting on 6's, 2) worse, being turned into a strategim. What kind of sense does THAT make? You're units face multiple charges but only one of them has the sense to unload into the oncoming enemies?

Meanwhile, over in AoS, where much of the action IS intended to be melee based (but shooting can also be effective)? The units being charged have options! They can stand & shoot (overwatch essentially), they can brace for impact, or even opt to try & fall back.

If I wanted to resolve things in melee I'd play Sigmar. When I'm playing 40k I expect to resolve most combat with assorted types of shooting.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I'm pretty sure I don't want to know any power fantasy the OP has about killing people in real life.

Yeah you'll just leave it as an asinine ad hominem instead.
That's quite the baseless and non-self aware overreaction.

So I have a "power fantasy" of killing people because I see the 40k universe as being attritional and cruel (which it is), and tying it to examples of historical warfare?

Just wow...

Please, god, don't let this be another 'rushing assault rifles with knives would totally work if we just weren't afraid of taking casualties, also swords are more effective than guns in close quarters but everyone's just too blinkered to see the truth' thread. I had to double check that it wasn't the same OP.

There is no taboo on hand-to-hand combat, it's just nearly irrelevant to modern combat, regardless of what weird ideas space fantasy fans have cooked up. It's fine for 40K to have a melee focus because it isn't particularly trying to be realistic to the modern day.

ccs wrote:

You are literally wrong on that.

Melee players have been pandered to for decades in this game.
I generally despise melee in my sci-fi games full of guns, bigger guns, crazy sized guns, death rays, lasers, rockets, orbital bombards, & other shooty stuff. I'm not alone.
Melee should rarely happen & units that're any good at it should be the rare & expensive exception outside of anything but the Tyranids.

Instead? Practically everyone (but perhaps the Tau?) have affordable effective melee units & there's NO problem getting things into melee if that's your intent.
The reverse is not true. Those of us who dislike melee practically can't avoid it.
Most recently? The board sizes have been shrunk (now the melee minded have less space they have to navigate!), EVERYONE can get really close via deepstrike/reserves/etc, and we shooty armies sole means of defense (firing overwatch) has been crippled by 1) only hitting on 6's, 2) worse, being turned into a strategim. What kind of sense does THAT make? You're units face multiple charges but only one of them has the sense to unload into the oncoming enemies?

Meanwhile, over in AoS, where much of the action IS intended to be melee based (but shooting can also be effective)? The units being charged have options! They can stand & shoot (overwatch essentially), they can brace for impact, or even opt to try & fall back.

If I wanted to resolve things in melee I'd play Sigmar. When I'm playing 40k I expect to resolve most combat with assorted types of shooting.

Play something else then my man.

Melee in the way we think of it in 40k is extremely unrealistic and silly in the context of modern firearms. I don't care. Chainsword go brrrr

I'm not going to get involved in a political debate- this is a game forum.

But if you think 9th doesn't value close combat, I'm not sure you've been paying attention.

 catbarf wrote:

There is no taboo on hand-to-hand combat, it's just nearly irrelevant to modern combat, regardless of what weird ideas space fantasy fans have cooked up. It's fine for 40K to have a melee focus because it isn't particularly trying to be realistic to the modern day.

What weird ideas space fantasy "cooked up" that wasn't already shown in the brutal trench warfare where sharpened spades, clubs, maces, knives and even knuckle dusters made a serious comeback?

What's that game which had WW1+WW2 influences eg. land raider, leman russ, savage city fighitng eg eastern front etc.,

What is not normal for us, could very well be normal in the 40k universe. "Modern warfare" is not savage, but 40k is.

No one carried trench clubs or improvised weapons at the start of the great war. The germans never anticipated brutal hand to hand combat on the eastern front in ww2, yet it became a common thing. Those degenerations occurred in the span of a year or two of savage warfare and since 40k is often savage total war all of the time.....why are you projecting ?

 Void__Dragon wrote:

ccs wrote:

You are literally wrong on that.

Melee players have been pandered to for decades in this game.
I generally despise melee in my sci-fi games full of guns, bigger guns, crazy sized guns, death rays, lasers, rockets, orbital bombards, & other shooty stuff. I'm not alone.
Melee should rarely happen & units that're any good at it should be the rare & expensive exception outside of anything but the Tyranids.

Instead? Practically everyone (but perhaps the Tau?) have affordable effective melee units & there's NO problem getting things into melee if that's your intent.
The reverse is not true. Those of us who dislike melee practically can't avoid it.
Most recently? The board sizes have been shrunk (now the melee minded have less space they have to navigate!), EVERYONE can get really close via deepstrike/reserves/etc, and we shooty armies sole means of defense (firing overwatch) has been crippled by 1) only hitting on 6's, 2) worse, being turned into a strategim. What kind of sense does THAT make? You're units face multiple charges but only one of them has the sense to unload into the oncoming enemies?

Meanwhile, over in AoS, where much of the action IS intended to be melee based (but shooting can also be effective)? The units being charged have options! They can stand & shoot (overwatch essentially), they can brace for impact, or even opt to try & fall back.

If I wanted to resolve things in melee I'd play Sigmar. When I'm playing 40k I expect to resolve most combat with assorted types of shooting.

Play something else then my man.

I play all kinds of games thank you. Why don't you pay attention to my point?
When I play a game focused on every size & type of gun imaginable I'm not looking for nearly every match to be decided by melee, no matter what faction is set up across from me. And often on turn two/somewhere in turn 3.

I'm not saying melee shouldn't be decisive when it occurs. I'm saying that it should be much less common than it is - unless you're willing to play one of only a very few factions where it's a focus (ex; Tyranids).

I was goin to quote the guy who said "nobody thinks that," but apparently there's always someone on the internet who thinks something.

Melee has always been central to 40k, and it always will be, because melee is heroic and dramatic, and 40k is all about heroism and drama. Nothing about this game is realistic, and it really isn't supposed to be. There's a reason the Emperor doesn't defeat Horus by shooting him in the face with a melta lance.

ccs wrote:

Quasistellar wrote:
Literally no one thinks that.

You are literally wrong on that.

Melee players have been pandered to for decades in this game.
I generally despise melee in my sci-fi games full of guns, bigger guns, crazy sized guns, death rays, lasers, rockets, orbital bombards, & other shooty stuff. I'm not alone.
Melee should rarely happen & units that're any good at it should be the rare & expensive exception outside of anything but the Tyranids.

Instead? Practically everyone (but perhaps the Tau?) have affordable effective melee units & there's NO problem getting things into melee if that's your intent.
The reverse is not true. Those of us who dislike melee practically can't avoid it.
Most recently? The board sizes have been shrunk (now the melee minded have less space they have to navigate!), EVERYONE can get really close via deepstrike/reserves/etc, and we shooty armies sole means of defense (firing overwatch) has been crippled by 1) only hitting on 6's, 2) worse, being turned into a strategim. What kind of sense does THAT make? You're units face multiple charges but only one of them has the sense to unload into the oncoming enemies?

Meanwhile, over in AoS, where much of the action IS intended to be melee based (but shooting can also be effective)? The units being charged have options! They can stand & shoot (overwatch essentially), they can brace for impact, or even opt to try & fall back.

If I wanted to resolve things in melee I'd play Sigmar. When I'm playing 40k I expect to resolve most combat with assorted types of shooting.

Not sure if you're living under a rock or not but there's been a ton of savage hand to hand combat on the India-china border this year

An undisclosed number of chinese soldiers were killed in the clashes

Modern enough for you?

 GoldenHorde wrote:
What is not normal for us, could very well be normal in the 40k universe. "Modern warfare" is not savage, but 40k is.

Let's play the 'spot someone with no millitary experience' game...

...or let's not.

It's not normal to only bring a sword to a gunfight. That doesn't work. Melee only works when you have no other option and your opponent doesn't either.

Lammia wrote:

 GoldenHorde wrote:
What is not normal for us, could very well be normal in the 40k universe. "Modern warfare" is not savage, but 40k is.

Let's play the 'spot someone with no millitary experience' game...

...or let's not.

It's not normal to only bring a sword to a gunfight. That doesn't work. Melee only works when you have no other option and your opponent doesn't either.

Let's no shift the goalposts to insult someone?

It's normal to bring a melee weapon in a desperate and savage conflict. That's why maces became a thing again in the trenches of world war one. That's why sharpening your shovel was a thing in stalingrad.

Ride around uselessly in humvees and MRAP's to achieve little to nothing schtick doesn't really apply in 40k

No one said "only bring a sword" that's just something you made up to simplify what I was saying. This returns to what I am saying about this camp of people. They doctor their own views in a weird and irrational way. You just gave a golden example of it. Meanwhile I am constructively giving historical examples of degeneracy in warfare.

Degeneracy is a big theme/tone in 40k.


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Lammia wrote:

 GoldenHorde wrote:
What is not normal for us, could very well be normal in the 40k universe. "Modern warfare" is not savage, but 40k is.

Melee only works when you have no other option and your opponent doesn't either.

Yeah tell that to these guys suffering from a 2020/21 border degeneracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVEHZ5fVzeQ

If you think 40k is comical, then that right there is also on par and its real life. Deal with it - humans are pretty savage and stupid.

It's also worth noting that trench raids and stalingrad are distinctly different types of warfare to what is depicted in 40k.

I agree that 40k takes melee combat *waaay* too far as a viable military technique.
But that's not the point. As an earlier poster mentioned, melee is dramatic and heroic, which is basically the definition of 40k.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
It's also worth noting that trench raids and stalingrad are distinctly different types of warfare to what is depicted in 40k.

But 40k has no default depiction, it's a menagerie which includes the two mentioned types of warfare.

There's dozens up dozens of examples I could give you from recent history

I agree that 40k takes melee combat *waaay* too far as a viable military technique.
But that's not the point. As an earlier poster mentioned, melee is dramatic and heroic, which is basically the definition of 40k.

The issue is that these people say it is "not realistic". But is it really? I can give examples eg battle of Kumyangjang-Ni where a Turkish brigade which carried sidearm short swords and held off a chinese force three times the size in a rearguard action where there was close combat fighting where it was short sword on the Turks vs Chinese bayonets

40k largely depicts field battles.

40k melee weapons were introduced in a late 1980s White Dwarf article: It was sci-fi-sounding stuff like power sword, cool crazy stuff like chainsword, and bonkers stuff like power fist. Great science fantasy themes. Simple but effective.

Of course melee should play a part in this regressed, crazy, tongue-in-cheek dark future. 40k is science fiction gone wrong. Mad Max mixed with Star Wars. Childishly fantastic ideas of visually spectacular future melee must be part of it.

Rational reason died with the Dark Age of Technology. Embrace the bonkers spirit of the setting.

Nothing about 40k battles makes any sort of sense at all. They're quite literally absurd in the truest meaning of the word, and intended to be.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
40k largely depicts field battles.

According to what source?
Yet they're suggesting the default a ruined city, not a field lol

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/06/29/metawatch-warhammer-40000-building-beautiful-balanced-battlefields-for-grand-tournament-play/

 catbarf wrote:
Please, god, don't let this be another 'rushing assault rifles with knives would totally work if we just weren't afraid of taking casualties, also swords are more effective than guns in close quarters but everyone's just too blinkered to see the truth' thread. I had to double check that it wasn't the same OP.

That was hilarious; so much wrong headedness I find entertaining especially since it's on a completely irrelevant and non threatening subject unlike let say healthcare debates.

It's fine for 40K to have a melee focus because it isn't particularly trying to be realistic to the modern day.

Plus, in 40K melee works with units strapped with rockets on their back, flying around and jumping down fast moving vehicles (and somehow surviving such stunts), force fields, ridiculously efficient heavy armors, teleportation right into your face and combat in dense terrain.

 GoldenHorde wrote:
Why is sentiment even a thing that people have?
Why do people believe the idea of a clean war when the common contemporary military doctrine is a complete and utter failure to topple a determined and entrenched asymmetrical foe who is extremely outgunned and has no aerial support and limited supply lines? The taliban for example could be taken out swiftly if our modern taboos were eschewed.

In my mind these people have a doctored view of historical warfare, which has removed the lessons of the last 107 years. This is even removing all the 40k things that can close the distance or even appear out of nowhere and get in your face.

Those who have that feeling are mostly people obsessed with guns in real life that just want to play gunlines in 40k. Thankfully they're a tiny minority, here I've never met anyone like that in over 20 years of experience of 40k. Not even tau players.

The moment a soldier in our democratic government tells any civilian official we’re holding them back is the moment they commit treason in my mind. At least in spirit. The laws of war exist for a reason. Contrary to what OP is saying, all war is savage. Whether or not it has a lot of CQC is besides the point.

Surely this is trolling...

Anyway, there were wars/battles where this 'taboo' was utilised, might want to look at well, world war I in general - running at guns basically and the charge of the light brigade.

On a completely side note, you need to look into empathy and the value of human life...

 GoldenHorde wrote:
Why is sentiment even a thing that people have?
Why do people believe the idea of a clean war when the common contemporary military doctrine is a complete and utter failure to topple a determined and entrenched asymmetrical foe who is extremely outgunned and has no aerial support and limited supply lines? The taliban for example could be taken out swiftly if our modern taboos were eschewed.

In my mind these people have a doctored view of historical warfare, which has removed the lessons of the last 107 years. This is even removing all the 40k things that can close the distance or even appear out of nowhere and get in your face.

Their armies are bad at melee, struggle vs melee or the game happens at a time in w40k when melee is powerful and important part of the game, and their armies don't deal with it that way.