Is leaving Close Combat TOO forgiving?

[VengefulJan]

The idea stems from this little snippet from this video:

 

https://youtu.be/tVnfqL78wmo?t=7m30s

 

This troubles me as, theoretically, it makes sense.

 

For those who didn't click on the link, let me reiterate:

 

After both players have performed all of their close combat with their units during the Fight Phase, the turn ends and the next turn begins, beginning with the opposing player's Movement Phase. At the beginning of this phase, if I recall, a player may elect to have any of its units engaged in close combat leave said combat at the cost of the unit's ability to move, advance (run), shoot, or charge that turn. The other unit that was engaged with the leaving unit, unless it is entangled with another enemy, is now no longer engaged in close combat and may now be shot that anything that can shoot it.

 

Let me offer up the scenario here:

 

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You have an assault unit, one in particular that you fancy and you've supped up to be pretty tough guys. You move your unit towards a target that you feel has the need to be dealt with, you're not in range yet, but you are on your way, and you've done your best to negate most lines of sight to your unit/acquired maximum cover. Going through the paces of your turn during the opening sequences, now its your opponent's turn.

 

They proceed to shoot at your assault unit and it has, as expected, received some damage, but it is still effective. Turn continues, moral test is passed, turn ends, it's your turn again.

 

Your assault unit moves and is now in a possible range to charge the enemy target. You must now roll 2d6 in hopes that your assault unit can reach the target, if they fail, they have effectively wasted their turn. They don't fail their charge, and get into range, but they must still receive snap shot fire. The target they were assaulting is still at an effective strength and causes minor damage to your unit, they're still quite effective, but damage has been taken non-the-less.

 

Fight phase starts, your unit swings and it swings hard, no enough to wipe the unit, but enough so that come next turn they'll be dead. Moral passed, turn ends, opponent's turn.

 

Movement phase, they pull the target out of combat, can't move, run, shoot, or charge. Ok, but then comes his shooting phase and they turn all that is necessary to wipe your assault unit off the table.

 

-----

 

Now the quam is, in a nut shell, after moving guys up the table getting shot and risking to fail a charge while also getting shot, it seems too easy for you're opponent to punish all of effort that your assault unit(s) when through, just to be left in the dust and be shot at by everybody on his side of the table.

 

What are all of your thoughts on this, I have my opinions on the matter, but I want to hear what you guys say first.

 

Also, whether you like Gamza or not, it is still a valid point. Don't discard the topic simply because you didn't like guy who said it.

[Valerian]

This is 8e related, but seems more appropriate for discussion over here in Amicus, rather than in the News and Rumors subforum.  

[Valerian]

The idea stems from this little snippet from this video:

 

 

What are all of your thoughts on this, I have my opinions on the matter, but I want to hear what you guys say first.

 

 

 

Since I moved the thread over here, I might as well go ahead and respond.  So here are my thoughts:  we don't know enough about the full context of the rules yet to make a determination as to whether life will be too hard for assault units.  We know just enough to be concerned about things that look bad from a 7th edition perspective.  Wait and see.

[VengefulJan]

This is 8e related, but seems more appropriate for discussion over here in Amicus, rather than in the News and Rumors subforum.  

 

Ok, would you be as so kind as to purge this thread so that I may repost it in that forum?

 

EDIT: Oh, I didn't know you could move a thread

[Legionnaire of the VIIth]

Maybe you should have brought more assault units instead of relying on only one, as per the example, to engage more of the gun line to keep them from gunning you down when they disengage?

 

Of course I am in agreement with Valerian, we don't have the entire picture at this point. Wait and see is better.

[VengefulJan]

I'm talking about fundamentals. On a larger scale, you may be right, but when you start to scale it down, it may not be possible.

 

Besides the specifics, I understand your point and feel that your right, we should wait to see the whole rules. I guess I just got a little over eager and jumped the gun a little. I'm a game systems designer, so rules and stipulations in games tickle my fancy.

[HenricusTyranicus]

It totally depends. If assaulting from Rhinos is possible, then Assault becomes super powerful. I'm inclined to say that bringing many assault units will be key, but again, we need more context. 

[the jeske]

 

You have an assault unit, one in particular that you fancy and you've supped up to be pretty tough guys. You move your unit towards a target that you feel has the need to be dealt with, you're not in range yet, but you are on your way, and you've done your best to negate most lines of sight to your unit/acquired maximum cover. Going through the paces of your turn during the opening sequences, now its your opponent's turn.

 

See this is the first and probably the only error you may in your line of thought and 8th ed assault. It should never be, I have this unit and X happens. It should be, so my army consists 6-8 assault units[1-2 of which are characters], and am slaming this whole thing at my opponent as fast as possible, and engaging as many units as possible. If you try to go for the I have one unit of bikers/RAS/vet guard it won't work. They will either counter charge or just feed you msu and then blanket your [probably high cost considering your runing only one of it] assault unit with fire from all units that can shot at it, and do not have to shot at something else.

7th=you build assault units of the deathstar kind

8th=you  are building assault armies, now if those are going to be as msu as shoty/non assault armies remains to be seen and tested.

[Halandaar]

I think Jeske is right on the money here. We aren't going to be playing 8E the same way we played 7E; you're going to be attempting to tie up other enemy units in combat exactly because if you don't, they might be able to shoot you next turn. This means you're probably going to want to take multiple Assault units in an effort to tie up as many enemy units as possible at the same time, rather than focusing in a single unkillable Deathstar.

 

Remember than in 8E after you've charged, you can use your 3" "pile-in" type move to try and engage other units at the same time, not only the one you initially charged. That means that even if they fall back immediately next turn, they won't be able to fire either. 

[the jeske]

And reservs and flanking assault units will be important, because they will help to engage the second line units, which will either have to move away and engage the stuff on the flanks, or risk that they themself will end up being assaulted, which means the falling back of the first line won't matter much[unless someone is trying to play time of course].

 

It also depends on the army you play with/against. Marines are armored, and have to worry less about battle shock, but if your an orc or a tyranid charing something that has triple flamers inside or support fire may require a totaly different style of engaging stuff in melee.

[Halandaar]

 

It also depends on the army you play with/against. Marines are armored, and have to worry less about battle shock, but if your an orc or a tyranid charing something that has triple flamers inside or support fire may require a totaly different style of engaging stuff in melee.

 

I can see horde armies fielding chaff units purely to take the brunt of Overwatch fire; it doesn't matter if only 1 gaunt survives to complete the charge if the idea was to prevent those flamers hitting Genestealers instead.

[WarriorFish]

As mentioned isn't this - from what we know - more of a problem for the death stars? Arguably that may be the point of the rule! This would mean that assault is more of a strategy to a list, rather than having a single beat stick unit so perhaps also the intent to prevent gun line lists from having their cake and eating it to a degree?

 

Maybe there's mitigation in that you could multi-charge with your unit to try and force more than one unit to get tied up or fall back to be unable to act. Or have some more basic assault units running in support so there's no escape (huzzah for Assault Marines and Raptors?). Even a strong shooty list would struggle if you remove enough of their units from action, so you can press in on them again next turn.

 

We'll have a better idea when we know more of course but the proof is in the pudding so it'd be good to return to this once we've all got some games of 8th under our belt to see how it pans out.

[Wargamer]

As others have said, you're doing it wrong.

 

You're supposed to mass charge in 8th, as proven by the various rules surrounding characters.

 

Let's imagine you want to hurl Dante into combat. Well, you're going to fail. End of. He'll die long before he hits combat, and even if he does make it his victim can fall back and laugh as he gets gunned down.

 

But if you put Dante 2-3" behind an Assault Squad, backed up by two more Assault Squads, then not only is he totally immune to weapons fire (ie: you can't declare him as a target) he probably has a special rule that makes every Assault Squad within 6" get +1 attack per model or something. When that formation hits combat, their victims stay hit.

[Xenith]

It's almost like they are trying to weaken these super suped up close combat units.

 

Imagine a world where more, less powerful cc units were more effective than a death star.

 

Tip: they can't shoot you if they're also tied up in cc. Assault with more than one unit at a time. Support your assaulting unit.

[KiltedMarine]

I think there's also a strong argument to be made here for mixed-unit combined-arms kinds of forces, too.  While you're moving your assault unit forward to shatter the enemy's shield wall and usher in the murder-make, you need to be moving shooting units into position to also present credible threats so your opponent has to make a "no good options" choice whether to shoot the assault unit or return fire on the supporting shooty units.

 

[The fact that I'm imagining a Rhino/Razorback gunline of Grey Hunters supporting a combination of Blood- and SkyClaws *may* influence my line of argument, here...]

 

Seriously, though, we can't speculate based on 7th-ed assumptions, as has already been said by wiser brodyr than I above.

[Xenith]

In summary:

 

Then: running a single unit directly at a gun line is a bad idea.

 

Now: running a single unit directly at a gun line is a bad idea.

[Hellrender]

Also dont forget that there are other rules in 8th helping out:

 

- Piling into other units drawing them into the melee.

 

- consolidating into another unit engaging them.

 

The first allows youo get multiple units in a gunline in combat, forcing them tostay and die, or retreat and do nothing. If you manage to engage 2 units with just 1 assault squad, none of that is shooting anymore.

 

The second rule helps with a hue problem in current and earlier edition, where you wpuld wipe out a squad of something and then be stranded in the middle. Doesnt prevent it total, but certainly helps.

 

And the last point i want to make is that you shouldnt really look at these things in a vacuum. A single squad against a gunline is a bad idea, just like a single shooty squad is against a wave of assault units. We need to keep the perspective here.

 

But yeh, i agree that the deathstar concept isnt as great with the new rules. But imo thats only positive. Rules that promote units supporting each other is only good.

[the jeske]

Well truth be told in 8th the good shoty armies are going to run a XVI century style checker formation or msu chaff [if they can, but if they can't they probably won't be good]. Only instead of pikes and guns your going to have guns and more guns.

I expect a lot more specialisation in 8th then what we saw in 7th[where we could have shoty armies that could stomp in melee or deathstars that had powerful shoting in the form of ally knights or psychic powers]. And in my heart of hearts I hope that GW is going to make one or two tier 2 lists that will be able to break those formations while not being totaly over run by assault armies. Maybe something like a knight army  and some sort other big guy list[could be many things, orcs , tyranids, even marines with their dreads and NDKs].

 

 

Also for those who think that deathstars are totaly dead, look up units that had the numbers and the resilience/hit power efficiency that was high, before invisibility+HQs boosted them in to gamer heaven. Those units unless nerfed by point shifts, are still going to be viable. Only maybe now instead of runing 6-8 HQs and 6 twc+wolfs, your going to be runing 4x6 TWC units and 2 buffer/melee HQs.