COMBAT IS DEAD, LONG LIVE COMBAT

Hey there everyone, welcome back to my flurry of posts that I've been pumping out.  This one, as the title indicates, is going to cover some of the changes that combat units are going to have to deal with in the new edition.  I won't stop there though as I will delve into a couple other areas of the game where I have noticed some "interesting" interactions.

Lets start with a change that I particularly dislike, which is the change to the "support" range for the "second rank" of models in combat.  This has been change from 1" to 1/2".  This means that you could get a model in ENGAGEMENT RANGE and not have any supporting models make any attacks.  Now of course you can just PILE IN so you can get more models in range, but all in all you will not get as many models in range of making attacks which greatly lessens the effectiveness of combat.  As you can see by the visual I have provided, the Black Legion models in ENGAGEMENT RANGE have a red bubble which represents the 1" "support range" from 8th while the Red Corsairs have a blue bubble which represents the 1/2' "support range" of 9th.  Surprise, I can fit more models in the 1" bubble than the 1/2" bubble.

Now I can only guess as to why exactly they did this, but I'm going to assume it might have something to do with models with 25mm bases being able to fight in "4 ranks" so to speak.  Not only is this a hit against assault armies, it's a hit against horde armies who typically look for those overwhelming numbers of dice in order to make up for lackluster stats.  Combat is supposed to be brutal and decisive, this change is going to draw out combats and make them less conclusive.

There are some shenanigans you can pull with this and Heroic Intervention.  Now that you have to be able to get into ENGAGEMENT RANGE with the target of a charge, or the charge fails, you can hide Characters behind the front line, 3" away from the edge of a friendly model's ENGAGEMENT RANGE and even make it impossible with model placement for the enemy unit to make it to the Character's ENGAGEMENT RANGE.  Then you can HI the Character forward into the opponent's ENGAGEMENT RANGE or into a position that forces him to move a certain way.  This could be either because he wants to try to avoid your Character, because your Character is now the closest enemy model, or because your Character made base contact with enemy models preventing them from moving further.  All the while your Character is safe from being attacked that round.

In the below visual the Black Legion charged the Red Corsairs and just made it into ENGAGEMENT RANGE with one model.  The RC character HI out front and made base contact with the BL model, preventing that model from getting into the 1/2" range required for supporting models to make attacks.  After piling in only a few BL models will be in range of making any attacks and none are close enough to get the second rank to fight.

EDIT: Something has been pointed out to me on one of my Facebook posts that I missed.  Charging units CAN attack a model that has performed a Heroic Intervention.  So keep that in mind as this is still a valid tactic, but you are now putting your character at risk of being attacked.

Keep in mind all of the above needs to be accomplished while your models stay in unit coherency, and now that your models have to be within 2" of two different models in a unit of 6+, this gets trickier to do.

The easiest way to maintain COHERENCY with larger unit is to keep them all in a ball, but if you need to keep them stretched out then you can keep them close enough together so that the model on the end is 2" away from the 3rd model in line, then it gives you options from where to take casualties from as the pics show.

There is a way to use the UNIT COHERENCY CHECKS to your advantage, if you DON'T want to stay in combat.  As you pull models, leave at least one model deep in the enemy unit.  In the example below, the Black Legion unit has charged the Red Corsairs and killed 2 of them.  As you can see there is one model left that the Black Legion can surround, it is also the closest enemy model for when the Black Legion consolidate.  Further more it is also preventing the Black Legion from getting within ENGAGEMENT RANGE of the other 2 Red Corsair models, which means in the Morale Phase the surrounded Red Corsair model will be removed due to it being out of COHERENCY.  This will leave the last 2 models completely free in their movement phase.

Lastly, I have to complain a little bit, I don't really like the new COMBAT ATTRITION TEST.  There is a weird bell curve that makes the test more deadly to units that lose fewer models and fail their MORALE TEST.

Lets compare Cultists to Marines, them taking casualties, and how they respond to a failed MORALE TEST.  Lets start with the Cultists, who will almost automatically fail a MORALE TEST (a roll of 1 is auto pass) after losing only 6 models.  Assuming you have a unit of 30 that means the COMBAT ATTRITION TEST will likely cause 4 to flee.  Yet if you compare that to the same unit of Cultists losing 25 models, they will likely only lose 1 to COMBAT ATTRITION TEST.  A far more devastating volley of firepower which, you would think, would have a far more devastating affect on Morale actually has a less devastating affect.  Compare those to the same unit losing 15 models, which would result in around 5 models fleeing from COMBAT ATTRITION.

Now Marines are a little different in that it takes more initial casualties for them to fail a morale test, but once they do they lose a similar number of models compared to any other unit.  If a unit of 10 Marines loses 5 models and happens to fail their MORALE, they are looking at losing 1-2 more models, however there is a chance that all 4 of the remaining models will flee.  From only losing half of the unit from actual casualties.  Going back to the Cultists, when they lose half of their unit, 15 model, they are very likely to fail their MORALE TEST, but far more likely to survive the COMBAT ATTRITION TEST with their remaining 14 models.

The fact that there are better odds of a unit of 10 Marines being wiped out from suffering 5 casualties than there is of a unit of 30 Cultists suffering 24 casualties is just plain wrong.  Man I hope my math holds up to that statement, I had to do some number aerobics 

Thanks for reading, and as always feel free to leave a comment.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.