Assault and Faffery

Taking a bit of time out from Titanicus posts, several recent games have got me thinking about Assault and how it works in 8th Edition, or more accurately, how it often doesn't. The issues with both assault-based armies and the Assault Phase itself are many and complex, so I thought it might help to set them out here.

Character Building
One of the most glaring problems with playing assault is the way Characters presently work in it. I've taken to referring to 8th as the 'counter-assault edition' and nowhere is this more true than with  Characters. In order to build any significant weight of attacks, most Assault armies need to use large units, which is reinforced by the fact that many of those units, like Daemons and Ork Boyz, receive a bonus Attack for having more than 20 models. Now, it is a truth universally acknowledged that in order to not suck an army needs its supporting characters in the correct position (according to Jane Austen, who I hear was quite the Ork player when not running with the 4th St Saints). For a shooting army, this is very simple. Take this example:

So if we assume that the white circles are a shooting unit, say Devastators, and the yellow one is a supporting character like a Lieutenant or Captain, then not only is the Character here able to contribute their ability in safety, but by being near the end of the line he can use a Heroic Intervention to help out if the unit gets charged. Let's add some Orks to this example:

So here, the Orks have got fed up with these Devastators and decided to give them a damn fine krumping. The Boyz (black circles) are supported by a Waaagh banner Nob (red circle) and a Warboss on a Warbike (big red oval). The Boyz and Banner have Advanced and the Warboss has moved up to allow the Boyz to still charge. Immediately this gives the Ork player a headache because the Warboss wasn't quite able to get close enough to the Banner Nob to let him charge as well.

Now, this means that if the Boyz charge, they'll end up more than 6" away from the Banner Nob, meaning they lose his bonus. Additionally, if they charge before the Warboss does, there won't be enough room to fit him in, so the Warboss won't be able to charge at all. But if the Warboss charges first, he gets the full benefit of the Devastators Overwatch which could well mean a Lascannon in the face. The Ork player can mitigate this by charging with the Boyz first, but leaving some of them back within 6" of the Banner, and not lapping around the Devastators to leave room for the Warboss- but doing that reduces the amount of Attacks they'll get to make, negating the advantage of getting the +1 to hit from the Banner in the first place.

(By the way, yes, that many Orks should be able to deal with a bunch of puny Beakies unsupported, I know. This is just a simple example.)

So, what happens if the Orks didn't Advance? Then the Boyz can charge first and just leave a gap for the Banner Nob to charge into. Of course this risks losing the bonus for the entire unit if the Nob then fails his charge.

None of these problems are insurmountable by any means- and it's well worth going back to the Assault rules to see just what you can and can't do about them- but the simple point is that if a Character's role is to enhance shooting units, all he has to do is find somewhere safe to stand nearby. If he improves Assault, he has to move very carefully in order to avoid being prevented from doing his job by the very models he's supposed to be supporting, especially if he needs to Assault himself to keep up with them.

Don't taze me, bro!
Things don't get much easier for support characters even when they do manage to get into position. As we've seen, often in order to keep up with the troops and still use their abilities, which tend to be a 6" aura, the support character has to charge in. For many of them, this is horrifically dangerous. Few have more than 5 wounds between them and death, and once in Assault being a Character confers little protection. If the enemy unit is truly feeble, like Fire Warriors or Guardsmen, fine, but then you probably didn't need the support character anyway. If your Dark Apostle, Exalted Champion or Waagh Banner is trying to help an assault unit take down something dangerous, however, like a unit of Terminators or Custodes, then they're at a very real risk of getting killed in short order.

Now, to be clear, the risk of getting killed is very much part of a support character's life, but when you compare those who support shooting to those who support Assault, a great example being the Marine Lieutenant vs the Exalted Champion, the latter's task is far, far harder to achieve despite both models costing roughly the same- and of course, the Lieutenant can spend his turns plinking away with a bolter whilst the Champion is running about getting into position. (Whilst we're on the subject, one of these two models can have a Jump Pack to move about easier. And it's the Lieutenant!)

What it all boils down to is that at the moment, unless you are the sort of triple-distilled badass Character that's perfectly happy to charge in first and do some of the heavy lifting, properly supporting Assault units is very tricky. But our problems are only just beginning!

Taking the Pistol
Ahh, pistols, how I hate thee. The way Pistols work in 8th Edition almost literally shoots assault units in the foot. Many assault units have them, but they rarely get much use out of them because it's unusual that an enemy unit will hang about to be shot with them in the shooting phase of the turn after the unit armed with them charges. But when carried by the unit that gets assaulted, Pistols can cause all sorts of bother. The unit that suffers most from this is almost certainly Wyches. With their 4++ in assault, Wyches are usually pretty good at surviving in combat, especially against things that have a few hard-hitting attacks, and their Shardnets and No Escape let them lock down infantry better than most units in the game. Or they would, if not for pistols. Most Marines get them, even Tau can have them, and because they count as shooting attacks they kill Wyches in droves. Put them on the same table as Deathwatch with their special-issue ammo for their Bolt Pistols and Wyches die just as fast in combat as they do out of it. Once again, because they get used in the Shooting phase, pistols invariably favour counter-assault. It's particularly galling that Wyches themselves have Pistols, but they don't seem to have considered that the enemy might bring some.

The Counter-Argument
The Counter Assault stratagem is one of the front-runners for the most irritating thing in 8th for the assault player, and that's in a challenging field. Quite a lot of assault units, like Daemons, Wyches, Boyz etc are hard-hitting, but fragile, and rely on attacking first to do their damage. Such units really, really don't like being hit with a Counter Assault, even by a basic unit of Marines or Guardsmen. Worse still- and this is the thing that really gets my goat- because of the way the Stratagem works, if you have a unit in an important fight that's being going on for a turn and you charge somewhere else on the board, once that charging unit attacks the opponent can 'counter assault' with the engaged unit- meaning that by attacking with an unrelated unit, you surrender the initiative in that fight.

For example, say one of your characters is fighting an enemy Dreadnought and has nearly killed it, and somewhere else on the board you have a chance to charge some Devastators. Charge them, and as soon as you attack the Dreadnought can use Counter Assault to pulp your Character, even though the Dreadnought wasn't charged. There is no way to prevent this happening other than either not making any charges (a great plan for an assault army!) or using Agents of Vect. As with most of these issues, there's also no equivalent problem for shooting armies- you don't have to worry that once you've picked a unit to shoot, you're suddenly going to get shot back. (Barring things like Ancients and Noise Marines, of course, and those can be avoided with smart targeting)

Overwatch, and the art of temporal distortion
When Overwatch was first added to the game, or more accurately re-added, I was OK with it. There were, and to an extent still are, ways to mitigate its impact and it made some sense. 8th Edition, however, has gone way, way over the top with it. Since units can now Overwatch multiple times if the enemy doesn't get into contact with them, it's no longer possible to 'fake out' Overwatch with a small unit that tries to make the enemy waste their fire on them, or a model like a Dreadnought that can take it but is 11" away. Whereas before the enemy had to choose whether such a charge was worth Overwatching, now they can just do it with no consequences. This makes some units, like Frag Cannon kill-teams or Battlesuits with multiple Flamers., damn near impossible to charge without taking heavy casualties.

Worse, the few ways you can actually charge such units involve rules exploits which whilst legal, make little sense and feel like cheating. Charging a unit that can't see you makes little sense when a unit can Overwatch even against a 2" charge, and as for charging from out of the range of the units weapons... well, you're running towards them, so....? (Try to make the following make any sense: "I couldn't shoot that Ork who was running at me before he reached me with my Flamer because he was too far away.")

Overwatch, as it stands, is dumb. It allows a unit to make multiple shooting attacks- at full effectiveness if it has what used to be Template weapons- in one phase and is prevented only by things that logically shouldn't. (Other than being locked by a successful charger which is about the only thing about it which does make sense.)  Whilst I'm not planning to suggest many rule changes here, Overwatch really, really should be once per phase.

We're still not done!

Success =/= skill
Remember earlier when I was grousing about Counter Assault? One of the reasons why it's so dangerous is also one of the most controversial changes in 8th, that came over from Age of Sigmar- the flat WS stat. Now, the flat BS stat was a great change that speeds things up marvellously, but flat WS was a terrible, horrible, not-very-good Lemony Snicket of an idea. It means that units that previously could defend themselves in combat by being more skilled than their opponents now can't. Daemonettes, for example, used to be WS 5, meaning that models like Ork Boyz or Marines only hit them on 4+ and even a lot of Characters didn't get better than 3+. Now, even a Guardsman can hit someone like Lelith Hesperax, Lucius or Kharn on a 4+. Worse, Character-on-Character fights are now decided almost exclusively on who swings first and who has the best Invulnerable save, because almost every single one is WS 2+. Remember the epic arena duel in Gathering Storm between Lelith and Yvraine? In actual 40k it lasts one turn, more often than not. Of course, there's another reason combat lasts only one turn...

Run away! Run away!
For many people who used to play assault armies, the Fall Back move was the final straw. For successive editions, assault players had got used to the idea of not hitting a target unit too hard, staying locked into the opposing shooting phase and finishing the job in their Assault phase, preventing the attacking unit from just getting shot in the moment of victory. Fall Back has changed all that. Now there's no benefit from not wiping an enemy unit in a single charge, and almost no defence against retaliatory shooting, unless by some miracle another unit is close enough to Consolidate into combat with. Even doing that allows that unit to fight you, and then Fall Back in its own turn for their mates to shoot you. Then of course we have the various Stratagems and special rules that allow units to Fall Back and still shoot or charge.

Thank you and good Knight
Finally, lets talk about Knights. Knights are interesting on this topic because they simultaneously sum up a lot of the problems of playing Assault, and get around them themselves.

For the assault player, seeing Knights opposite you is usually bad, bad news. Even a fully shooting-focused Knight army has enough close-combat ability in its legs alone to make most horde units deeply regret attacking them- units like Wyches feel almost worthless against them (although finishing off a Knight with them is worth bragging points). Only a few models, like 'Smash' characters or Storm Shield Terminators, pose a realistic threat to a Knight that the Knight can't deal with by shooting it from a long way off- something like a double-fisted Dreadnought or a Deff Dread might theoretically be able to do good damage but is unlikely to last a turn if the Knight player has a lick of sense. Add to that durability and close combat power the ability to simply walk out of combat and still shoot, and it's a grim picture.

Conversely, a Knight assault army is one of the few that can work reliably at the moment. Assault Knights are a bit cheaper than their shooting-oriented brethren, get WS 2+ and 5 Attacks (15 if using the feet) and are quite capable of destroying most other Super-Heavies in a single turn of combat, those Attacks potentially resulting in 30 wounds with the basic Reaper. They're fast, durable, and since you're playing with only a few large models any aura abilities will be much easier to use.

They also don't care much about pistols, for the most part.

The Grim Conclusion
Summing up, I think Assault may be weaker in 8th than it has ever been, and this is coming from someone who started with Rogue Trader. Most damningly, its an edition where often assault units can be sitting in front of enemy shooting units knowing that charging them is utterly futile- meaning, by extension, that for that unit to even be on the table is worthless.

That isn't to say Assault can't be used- it certainly can and should remain a part of a player's toolbox- but I fear that the classic Assault army, with large units of troops led by supporting characters, is almost stone dead in this edition- and that seems to be by design.