How to bring the fight back to 6th?

[TSINI]

I was reading a few gripes about how nerfed the classic assault armies have become.

Nids and Orks in particular. They just can't hold themselves in a fight, massive hordes being beaten in combat by small squads of marines.

I just wondered, looking at the 6th edition rules, and the newer 6th ed codices, what would have to be done to the classic assault grunt to allow it to actually be deadly in assault? Strength boosts? Stat boosts in general? AP# weapons?

Take a hormagaunt for example, he's cheap, has a low armour save, available in large numbers. But in an assault, is he really that much scarier than a guardsman? Re-rolling 1s to hit is nice, but essentially his 'punch' is the same. And a guardsman can use his punch at range 24".

TSINI

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Have to say, a pal at my local store plays Tyranids and only Tyranids, and while he's had some bad times getting shot to pieces before reaching assault (that time against the two Thunderfire Cannon was especially harsh), his stuff never has any problems eating its way through almost anything they end up in combat with.

[daboarder]

Yeah, they may only kill two marines a round, but there is usually enough gants left at the end to eat another squad

[Mr Mystery]

I was reading a few gripes about how nerfed the classic assault armies have become.

Nids and Orks in particular. They just can't hold themselves in a fight, massive hordes being beaten in combat by small squads of marines.

I just wondered, looking at the 6th edition rules, and the newer 6th ed codices, what would have to be done to the classic assault grunt to allow it to actually be deadly in assault? Strength boosts? Stat boosts in general? AP# weapons?

Take a hormagaunt for example, he's cheap, has a low armour save, available in large numbers. But in an assault, is he really that much scarier than a guardsman? Re-rolling 1s to hit is nice, but essentially his 'punch' is the same. And a guardsman can use his punch at range 24".

TSINI

What needs to be done?

Well. That's easy. Those whining need to belt up and apply some tactics, and a little less hyperbole. Huge mobs of Orks being beaten by small squads of Marines? Utter bollocks, barring unfortunate dice.

Gaunts? Traditionally there to interfere and get in the way than do serious amounts of damage.

6th Ed increased charge range on average, and introduced overwatch. That's it. Assaults now just need a little more planning than 'LOLOCOASTERRHINORUSHIRGENIUS'. And rightfully so.

[Kamin_Majere]

Assault units tend to still wreck face pretty well, it's the Force Organization Chart that is messing them up in most cases I think. If they would limit the squad size to say 20 and make each troop choice 1-3 units of hormagaunts or slugga boyz I think a lot of the issues would go away.

The problem comes from the old notion (started in 3rd edition) where every one got 6 troops choices and "horde" armies just got slightly larger squad sizes (usually 20 models) they have upped that number to 32 over the years since, but that still doesn't really make up much as a horde should have target saturation... not just more bodies.

IG have this down with the platoons... they can field so many units that in a horde style army its hard to kill them all even though they fall over against a stiff breeze, where as the true horde armies have exactly as many troop choices as marines or eldar or necrons or tau, that focusing on them 1 on 1 the shooting armies tend to do remarkably well (with the exception of eldar guardians that have the range of spit balls)

[rle68]

""""Huge mobs of Orks being beaten by small squads of Marines? Utter bollocks, barring unfortunate dice.""""

Really? you actually said that? you bring you 30 man ork mob ill bring my 10 man wolfguard or grey hunter units and well see who yells bollocks.. wolves eat orks all day every day. il even be kind and leave the power weapons at home

[Dave Mcturk]

imo.. overwatch fire is a good idea taken too far... shots rounded down to 1/3 total mb ... with all troops minus 2 to BS [but 6's always hit] and no 'illegal' flamer shots [ie ok if they have clear line of fire] and a 12" maximum shot range from the nominated charge target figure. no reason why trained troops shouldnt be better at overwatch... mb even a chance to overwatch at full BS if elite and not fired in own phase... but a metre spread out unit with three flamers all firing at a flank attack is a bit crazy...

[Mr Mystery]

""""Huge mobs of Orks being beaten by small squads of Marines? Utter bollocks, barring unfortunate dice.""""

Really? you actually said that? you bring you 30 man ork mob ill bring my 10 man wolfguard or grey hunter units and well see who yells bollocks.. wolves eat orks all day every day. il even be kind and leave the power weapons at home

Didn't realise 10 man squads counted as small. What with that generally being the biggest size they can be. Silly me.

And you also went straight to two units noted for HTH prowess. Way to clumsily stack the deck.... Seriously. Try working on your debate skills....

[Mr Mystery]

No, I mentioned small units of Marines, which I would define, given the range of 5-10 members, as either 5 or 6 man squads.

Original quote is from the OP, who mentions some claiming 'massiv mobs taken out by small units of marines'.

I repeated the use of the terms massive and small respectively.

Also, in your further (erroneous) example, whilst it's been a while since I looked over the Ork and Space Wolf codecies (I play neither) if I'm right in thinking, a Slugga Boy is....9 points, and even a Grey Hunter is just about double that...

[eldargal]

Yes, if the maximum squad size for a unit of Marines is ten then a small unit has to mean less than that. A mob of 30 boys with a nob is 190 points. For the same money you get a single tactical squad with an extra weapon. You will lose some Orks to shooting but you will have enough to hit the marine squad hard.