Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Assault Is Good Again – Here’s Why
Nowadays it seems like having decent assault is good in Warhammer 40K. Here’s why that is and what the future of assault looks like for hte Grimdark.
From the initial misgivings of the new 10th Edition – players thought was that Assault was dead, shooting was king, and only losers got close enough to roll that 2d6. Now it seems that having some method of thunder-punching things into oblivion is the way to victory.
40K Assault On the Rise
The latest GW GT World Championship winner was in reality, a CSM pressure assault list with Accursed Cultists, Chosen, and Slaanesh-marked Legionaries whose entire plan was moving in and charging. The sheer design of the army was all about putting pinpoint pressure into the whole MSU design a lot of lists were planning to play. Each of these units can throw out a decent amount of attacks at a pretty good AP. They also did the one thing that seems to be important in any kind of assault-heavy list.
They have the ability to Advance and Charge.
What Changed?
This seems to be the big key to any of these assault armies. All of them have some chance to do this and thus move farther than their normal move stat would normally allow. In fact, all of these armies seem to really pressure the distance in some way. This ability to move so much more means that opponent’s plans get shifted. A few rolls of a 5+ on the advance and all of a sudden, the opposing army no longer has all that room to do all their activities.
World Eaters have been moving up the Meta a bit, and while they are not always at the top tables (unless piloted by the true Chaos Lord of Khorne Mr. Vanella) – they do run rampant in the 4-1 to 5-1 brackets. They can quickly put a ton of pressure on your fast through scout moves, faster movement, and advance/charge. It is pretty nutty to see how this army quickly got decent by a few subtle point shifts and probably the other bigger change to the game…
The other change that helped assault was of course, removing Towering and the ability to overwatch out of LOS. In fact – this is probably the other main part of the punching-to-victory equation. As events start to really move towards GW-style terrain or actual staging battlefields with blocked lanes of death, you are not nearly as dependent on having to go first, moving as fast as you can, and then touching as much of the enemy as you can.
Decent Assault Means 40K 10th is Healing
It’s been a crazy time for Warhammer 40K 10th edition. I don’t think we were really playtesting it, such as as we were – balancing it, and giving GW the masse data needed to polish off its rough edges. Especially as we see Codexes come out like Necrons, with nice shifts in unit rules and just the overall feeling that – new Codexes mean we get new models and cool rules, instead of completely broken and bonkers new rules.
Which of course, leaves me feeling like while Assault seems good, I don’t think we are going to see it wrecked whenever we get more new codexes. Of course, this will be proved when we see the Chaos Space Marines codex. Right now CSM Chosen seems pretty nutty with the best rule for assault, a plethora of sharp weapons, and being able to truly fit in a Rhino.
Do you like Assault being decent? Is the first thing you think about when you imagine the 40K universe is the whirl of the Chainsword as it chews through some Tyranid/Cultist/Enemy of the Imperium? While the Bolter is cool – the chainsaw that rips through the enemy is so much cooler. Or the crackling of a power fist. Or the sheer brutality of the Thunder Hammer.
Long live Assault!
