Is Assault Dead In 40K?

3 Minute Read

Oct 10 2013

I keep hearing how 6^th edition is all about “shooting” and that assault based armies are dead and no longer viable- is this true?

We all know GW likes to switch things up each edition to outdate your collection and force you to buy new models, it’s the nature of the beast and the price of admission…

Certainly the assault rules changed from 5^th edition to 6^th edition- random charge lengths, and over watch being the two biggest. Assaults are harder to pull off and easier to defend against for sure.

Add to this the fact that model prices (not actual costs $$$) are getting lower and lower, when combined with the trend for bigger games, it means that more models further tend to favor shooting.

So is the assault dead?

I don’t know about you, but when the internet and 40K gurus proclaim truth, your humble 40K player, yours truly takes notice- not because I personally buy into it, but because of the majority of the players buy into it, they BELIEVE it, and that is something, a hidden angle of sorts that we can exploit on the gaming table.

one somewhat famous assault army out there

And Fritz likes his exploits…

So how do we make the assault work in 6^thedition?

A shift in the understanding of what the assault IS- and in this understanding Fritz is guilty also…

Why is that when I play a non-assault based army I’m all cool and calm, playing the mission and using good tactics…

…but as soon as you put a chain sword in my hand or a harlequin kiss I go bonkers trying to kill everything on the table.

What was the mission again?

What Mission?

Assaults are not about killing opposing units, they are about forcing your opponent to burn game turns– and despite ALL the options in 40K GW has still limited it to a finite number of turns. Force them to spend those turns fighting your assaults, make it a war of attrition and drown the opposing models in a glut of protracted assaults, so your opponent is NOT in a place to get the mission objectives.

“they do the mash – they do the monster mash”

Take this one step further and add another layer over it- at the start of the game, the opposing player’s models are in their deployment zone- assault are about locking them in that deployment zone, keeping them there, so your scoring units, often minimal since the core of your points is dedicated to assault based models can just walk and grab your deployment zone and mid field obejctives.

To lock your opponent in place you need SPEED to get there in two turns MAX, or else they will break out of the deployment zone and the locking tactics of making it work fails, and FORCE to overwhelm them- FORCE can be either in sheer number and model count or high toughness/multi-wound models.

So is It Really Dead?
Assault is FAR from dead, it is just surgical now over brute force virtual butcher, and as ever MORE powerful since so many have dismissed it as non-viable in 40K 6^th edition…

even the sons of Sanguinius aren’t complaining…
~Fritz out, how are your assault armies faring?

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Author: Fred Hansen

Fred Hansens (aka Fritz) is a long time tabletop game player with over a decade of experience. He specializes in Warhammer 40K, both tactics and hobby. He began writing for BoLS in 2009.

Editorials Tactics Warhammer 40k