Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K Hot Mess – Assault Need Fixing
Goatboy here and 40K’s assault is a hot mess right now. It doesn’t do enough, and is overcosted. Let’s roll up our sleeves and see how it can be fixed.
in 40K’s 10th Edition, Assault just doesn’t feel like it does enough. The units feel over costed, the effects of their weapons are weak, and they just don’t feel like they can get there with overwatch. That is a lot of issues and while we can’t fix them all I do wonder if there were ways to fix some of their punching efforts.
New Assault Keywords
I think the biggest thing we could change is creating more “assault” based keywords. We have a few like Lance, Extra Attacks, and of course the basic ones we all know and loathe like Devastating Wounds and Lethal Hits. What we if we had a few more to help cover some of the issues Assault has right now in just doing damage?
A simple one and a bit pulled from Horus Heresy could be something as simple as a Weapon having a Brutal characteristic. This would be something simple like if this unit charges it gets an extra pip of AP and Strength to help create some really unique weapon types. Heck, you could even set up that these Brutal Weapons might have less attacks than the normal ones a unit might get. But while charging, it would give a much strong punch for your bottom dollar.
I thought another interesting Keyword would be something like Scythe which would let some weapons carry over wounds to each model. Things like a 3-damage weapon that would be able to put all 3 damage into a unit and create another “sweep” like effect that is still tied into how many attacks the unit has. This way you wouldn’t have to have different “weapon” styles and instead it is just a Scythe attack that lets damage flow.
What about another keyword like Heavy but instead of not moving to get a +1 to hit you now get a +1 to hit if you charged in. You could call it like the weapon has Breakthrough as an option that it allows you to take your momentum to do more damage as you swing it around. Heck you could probably still call it Heavy but for close combat it works just if you charge in.
If f few of these things got sprinkled into the game, you all of a sudden would have interesting effects for assault units and helps justify some of their cost. Of course we could all just drop points on these models but if they hit like a wet noodle it isn’t really worth it. It isn’t like the game needs you to get into your opponents side anyway. 10th really rewards area control and long range damage versus getting up close and personal. So let’s add some rules flavor to reward those players willing to take the assault risk.
New Assault Strategems
The other thought on assault to help mitigate things is adding some interesting things like a default Strat allowing the Advance and Charge combo for a unit. If you have two of them in your army you all of a sudden could bring in two units faster to allow for more melee pressure. It is really the lack of fast building pressure as you come in that hurts assault units as they are shot from all over the place and then – they just tickled you as they get closer.
What do you think? Are points increases enough to allow assault armies to have two waves of jerks to get in? Are we needing some fixes to the main game to allow for better chances to get into combat? Are we going to see an assault rebirth with a few tweaks in the coming months? Will my freshly painted World Eaters ever hit the tabletop?
I’ll just be over in the corner oiling my chainaxe.
