Very well made points - I'd like to add one more: I believe the... THE main strength of dedicated melee teams is that they are much less dependent on luck than shooting/mixed teams. For the most part shooting can be very swingy. Most ranged weapons require 2-3 dice doing damage for a kill out of 4-5 dice in total usually. Adding in save dice and cover autosaves, one-shot kills are somewhat of a probabilistic luxury for anything that is not an overcharged plasma/melta. Melee is a lot more reliable when you want to remove a piece from the board. Your model is going to get hurt as well most likely, but this is again something you can calculate with, unlike the literal crapshoot that is... shooting. What do you think?
True, that's a very fair point! All 3 teams mentioned have reliable auto-hit mechanics with boosted accuracy, which makes the already deadly melee system even more lethal
Hard agree. The main problems overall is lack of counterplay. If they move fast, have super conceal, score easy and a ton of models we are not left with much options to deal with them. Shooting teams also have the balance of being vulnerable after shooting. If a fellgor charges and doesn't kill the target, as it is engaged you can't really shoot it, fighting back is usually a bad idea, and even if you kill it, now it is in frenzy, your operative is still locked, and probably gonna be dead soon.
This is what I love about Phobos. You've got a ton of hard hitting melee operatives and can really mix it up with some strong shooting, then stop any counterplay with smoke grenades/terror. Sure, it's not Intercession levels of good shooting but it's still great for a mostly melee focused team.
As a new player looking at terrain sets for a local group, Into the Dark doesn't appeal to me because it doesn't allow for a wide variety of playstyles to really shine. From what I've heard, Beta-Decima has the same issue, just on the other side of things. After doing a bunch of looking around, I am almost absolutely certain we will be playing on a homebrewed mix of unofficial terrain so that we can attempt to address this design issue.
To be fair ItD and BD are supposed to be more specialize terrain rules and serve as suplement to open board. From this perspective ItD is doing what it is supposed to do by offering more melee centered, claustrophobic board. Problem is with BD providing zero incentive to do acrobatic stuff.
God damn this was all I feel but dont know how to tell! Epic dive well done as always man! :) Who is your most favorite melee team and who you hate most?
I feel like Tacop balancing overall could bring some spice to the game. I am also in favor of quicker updates to teams. I know GW has their schedules and balance slates, but I am in favor of more small tweaks to bring things into alignment rather than waiting for months while we grind it out.
I think a 3 month period for fixing is fine, it's just GW are really small or sluggish with what they tweak Tac Op balance is a big issue I wish they addressed. Imo I hope faction Tac Ops go next edition
If you mean no more faction tac Ops I strongly disagree. I understand that competitive players want controll and absolute balance, but as a casual fluff player I want diversity in actions and more specialist, fun tac ops ect. If they a bit broken/unbalanced so be itt. Its better, that they exist
You can do what 40k does and keep them for narrative/casual play but remove them competitively While very narrative, faction tac ops have been proven to be generally too good and too hard to balance
Making the game more bland becouse of balance is one of the most game community killing things you can do. Have tournaments whiteout them, but making the game less diverse is not the solution. A game relies on its casual players for survival, they never should come in second. Edit:grammar
Just got back into kill team, picked up the ravagers and I must agree, they are very over powered lol I wrecked my friends Tyranids and only lost four operatives by the end
No TacOp update in S3 was a big let down. Especially considering how strong S&D is for melee teams. I think an interesting article/episode could be an analysis of Win Rate by archetype.
As a fairly new player who started out with Gellerpox Infected, my first thought was that melee is often so *risky* compared to shooting. If a shooting attack fails, you're still a good distance from the enemy and have the freedom to move before/after shooting, and crucially they don't get to shoot back. If you feel like you're positioned right, charge in for a melee attack and get an unlucky roll, you can end up taking more damage than you put out through no fault of your own. This is even more highlighted when both teams are strong in melee like Custodes vs Gellerpox. Could someone with more experience explain why shooting attacks aren't undertaken as a firefight where the target gets to return fire (assuming they're able to), the same as they do in melee? It seems like an odd one-sided ruling that melee is a two-way fight but shooting is one.
Because melee happens in a faster period of time and is more brutal. Generally the reaction to shoot back is when the enemy operative has finished their activation as most operatives have only 2APL Gpox also have the best melee accuracy strat to ensure they rearely fail combats (same with other melee teams)
I think the design is to make the two styles of combat distinct enough to be interesting. The difference between melee and range would be arbitrary if they used the same system. A skirmish game system remains interesting by introducing asymmetry and then balancing through other metrics. Otherwise we would only have checkers.
I'm surprised the melee Aeldari teams (Void Dancers and Blades of Khaine) weren't mentioned at all, at least as a point of comparison. Is it because they have too much shooting to be considered melee?
@@CanYouRollaCritharlequins have 1 model who has something other than a pistol, they definitely do their best work in melee and have the ridiculous mobility you mention.
As a harlequin vet, it's the mix of their shooting and melee, not just melee. Being able to move, dash and shoot with fly using very powerful pistols gives you ranged power dedicated melee teams can't match
Which is why my OOP Armorcast ruined modern (brick) buildings is my new choice for Open Board play. It is similar to Chalnath in size and coverage, but have a bunch of open windows, so address the issue you mention in Octarius. The whole situation of Obscuring when models are too far back from the windows in the building will actually be an issue.
I’m not a good enough player that balance really affects me. That said, for some strange reason, the concept of inter-faction balance is very important to me. I think I equate it to representing the overall quality of the game’s rules set.
I agree with everything you said. The only logic I can think of for why the rules are the way they are is for narrative reasons.. This is obviously not good for a competitive game, but from a narrative perspective the concept of these melee teams is to be terrifying from a narrative perspective. It is the balance between the story and the competitive scene. I know this is sort of dumb if you just want to have a fair game.
I'm glad I'm not crazy and people agree Ravagers are busted. I had people on Reddit saying they'd been nerfed out of the game and I'm over here double-fight trading an intercessor for a goat like "I donno man they seem pretty good."
In 40k you have roll to wound, which is pure math. There's no such thing in KT. You get cover and obscure instead. That seems to be the main problem because it raises from proper terrain placement and player's skill.
@@CanYouRollaCrit yes, you roll to hit, but a poxwalker has "the same" toughness as a space marine. There's nothing to reduce the number of dice that managed to hit.
What about Corsairs, Blades of Khaine, Legionaries, even Blooded to some extent? I don’t hear any complaints about those. Kinda just sounds like those three, not all melee teams. I do agree those three are busted tho
Corsairs have lots of ranged components, BoK aren't a melee dedicated team and Blooded are more of a close-range team than melee one as they only have about 4 melee operatives (:
@@CanYouRollaCrit Yeah, well kinda. Where only if the crit damage is the killing blow, they would be taken off the board right away with no frenzy. It would result in some interesting combat scenarios where you need More crits than the Fellgor in combat, or somehow trick them into not parrying your crit 🤔
Index armies in general are just bad, they were created as a stop gap. Into the dark you can at least go on guard, but even so i think melee teams should shine in a literal boarding action. GW doesn't balance anything on release it drives sells when things are busted.
See the problem is I would prefer a melee heavy meta tone down from what we’re currently dealing with because I’ve been in heavy shooting meta. It’s not fun to get shot off the board turning point one aka pathfinders. At least with melee teams we were both rolling dice turning point 2 and three
I think it's pretty doable, we haven't had a truly broken shooting kill team since Pathfinders. Melee teams are a continuing problem that have regularly broken the game to a worse state for far longer periods
"All new melee teams r broken"
Cries in blades of khaine
They're a weird mix team
But they are...well...
They were intended as mixed but DA suck so much everyone plays them as melee team.
Nah they are ok. True problem is existence of Space Clown Elves.
Not a melee team
As a melee player, I fully agree and support this video. Very well put, I think you thoroughly explained the full problem.
I love using melee with my Veteran Guardsmen for the Emperor!
Team HAND AXES
Very well made points - I'd like to add one more: I believe the... THE main strength of dedicated melee teams is that they are much less dependent on luck than shooting/mixed teams. For the most part shooting can be very swingy. Most ranged weapons require 2-3 dice doing damage for a kill out of 4-5 dice in total usually. Adding in save dice and cover autosaves, one-shot kills are somewhat of a probabilistic luxury for anything that is not an overcharged plasma/melta. Melee is a lot more reliable when you want to remove a piece from the board. Your model is going to get hurt as well most likely, but this is again something you can calculate with, unlike the literal crapshoot that is... shooting. What do you think?
True, that's a very fair point! All 3 teams mentioned have reliable auto-hit mechanics with boosted accuracy, which makes the already deadly melee system even more lethal
Hard agree. The main problems overall is lack of counterplay. If they move fast, have super conceal, score easy and a ton of models we are not left with much options to deal with them. Shooting teams also have the balance of being vulnerable after shooting. If a fellgor charges and doesn't kill the target, as it is engaged you can't really shoot it, fighting back is usually a bad idea, and even if you kill it, now it is in frenzy, your operative is still locked, and probably gonna be dead soon.
Yup, all spot on. They unintentionally removed all counterplay
This is what I love about Phobos. You've got a ton of hard hitting melee operatives and can really mix it up with some strong shooting, then stop any counterplay with smoke grenades/terror. Sure, it's not Intercession levels of good shooting but it's still great for a mostly melee focused team.
Actually Phobos are a ranged team with some melee
@@CanYouRollaCrit really? Reavers and the the Sergeant options in particular are great melee troops
They're alright melee troops. They get messed up by better dedicated melee operatives. Phobos are a shooting team primarily
As a new player looking at terrain sets for a local group, Into the Dark doesn't appeal to me because it doesn't allow for a wide variety of playstyles to really shine. From what I've heard, Beta-Decima has the same issue, just on the other side of things. After doing a bunch of looking around, I am almost absolutely certain we will be playing on a homebrewed mix of unofficial terrain so that we can attempt to address this design issue.
Ah nice, yeah imo open is the best way to play (S1 style)
To be fair ItD and BD are supposed to be more specialize terrain rules and serve as suplement to open board. From this perspective ItD is doing what it is supposed to do by offering more melee centered, claustrophobic board. Problem is with BD providing zero incentive to do acrobatic stuff.
God damn this was all I feel but dont know how to tell! Epic dive well done as always man! :) Who is your most favorite melee team and who you hate most?
Thanks haha. Favourite is Hive Fleet and HATE is Fellgor 🥲
@@CanYouRollaCrit you dont like 20 model kill team? :D
I feel like Tacop balancing overall could bring some spice to the game. I am also in favor of quicker updates to teams. I know GW has their schedules and balance slates, but I am in favor of more small tweaks to bring things into alignment rather than waiting for months while we grind it out.
I think a 3 month period for fixing is fine, it's just GW are really small or sluggish with what they tweak
Tac Op balance is a big issue I wish they addressed. Imo I hope faction Tac Ops go next edition
If you mean no more faction tac Ops I strongly disagree. I understand that competitive players want controll and absolute balance, but as a casual fluff player I want diversity in actions and more specialist, fun tac ops ect. If they a bit broken/unbalanced so be itt. Its better, that they exist
You can do what 40k does and keep them for narrative/casual play but remove them competitively
While very narrative, faction tac ops have been proven to be generally too good and too hard to balance
Making the game more bland becouse of balance is one of the most game community killing things you can do. Have tournaments whiteout them, but making the game less diverse is not the solution. A game relies on its casual players for survival, they never should come in second.
Edit:grammar
But that change wouldn't affect casual players. 40k did it with 10th and it's the most successful edition the game has ever had
Interesting points, thanks for sharing. Let's see if it gets picked up (somewhat), or the general idea now is "we've moved on to B-D".
Thanks! Hopefully not as open is the main way to play imo
Well put, totally agree. Waiting for more bat reps!
Just got back into kill team, picked up the ravagers and I must agree, they are very over powered lol I wrecked my friends Tyranids and only lost four operatives by the end
Yeah that's very rough 😅
To be fair, Tyranids suck
@@LordCrate-du8zm to be fair, we both suck lol pretty amateur KT players, but love the game
No TacOp update in S3 was a big let down. Especially considering how strong S&D is for melee teams.
I think an interesting article/episode could be an analysis of Win Rate by archetype.
Yeah no tac op changes sucks ):
I would love to but unfortunately no way to track that reliably ):
As a fairly new player who started out with Gellerpox Infected, my first thought was that melee is often so *risky* compared to shooting. If a shooting attack fails, you're still a good distance from the enemy and have the freedom to move before/after shooting, and crucially they don't get to shoot back. If you feel like you're positioned right, charge in for a melee attack and get an unlucky roll, you can end up taking more damage than you put out through no fault of your own. This is even more highlighted when both teams are strong in melee like Custodes vs Gellerpox.
Could someone with more experience explain why shooting attacks aren't undertaken as a firefight where the target gets to return fire (assuming they're able to), the same as they do in melee? It seems like an odd one-sided ruling that melee is a two-way fight but shooting is one.
Because melee happens in a faster period of time and is more brutal. Generally the reaction to shoot back is when the enemy operative has finished their activation as most operatives have only 2APL
Gpox also have the best melee accuracy strat to ensure they rearely fail combats (same with other melee teams)
I think the design is to make the two styles of combat distinct enough to be interesting. The difference between melee and range would be arbitrary if they used the same system.
A skirmish game system remains interesting by introducing asymmetry and then balancing through other metrics. Otherwise we would only have checkers.
I'm surprised the melee Aeldari teams (Void Dancers and Blades of Khaine) weren't mentioned at all, at least as a point of comparison.
Is it because they have too much shooting to be considered melee?
Yeah, both teams have more dedicated shooting elemens so they aren't really melee dedicated teams
@@CanYouRollaCritharlequins have 1 model who has something other than a pistol, they definitely do their best work in melee and have the ridiculous mobility you mention.
As a harlequin vet, it's the mix of their shooting and melee, not just melee. Being able to move, dash and shoot with fly using very powerful pistols gives you ranged power dedicated melee teams can't match
Which is why my OOP Armorcast ruined modern (brick) buildings is my new choice for Open Board play. It is similar to Chalnath in size and coverage, but have a bunch of open windows, so address the issue you mention in Octarius. The whole situation of Obscuring when models are too far back from the windows in the building will actually be an issue.
Oooh nice, sounds like great terrain!
I’m not a good enough player that balance really affects me. That said, for some strange reason, the concept of inter-faction balance is very important to me. I think I equate it to representing the overall quality of the game’s rules set.
Yeah I get you, a good game has equal balance across its factions
It seems gw makes no effort to play test. They rely on the meta to unearth problems. It’s frustrating because the game itself is very good.
I'm not sure about genestealers. I really struggled using them against hierotek with all their shenanigans...
Hierotek is the anti melee team 😅
I agree with everything you said. The only logic I can think of for why the rules are the way they are is for narrative reasons.. This is obviously not good for a competitive game, but from a narrative perspective the concept of these melee teams is to be terrifying from a narrative perspective. It is the balance between the story and the competitive scene. I know this is sort of dumb if you just want to have a fair game.
Ideally it should be more competitive focussed but the teams generally feel like how they should play narratively
The solution is simple: play kommandos! 😅
More dakka iz da whey
I know a pathfinder lover when i heard one! I think the same fellow pathfinder lover
Actually PF do quite well into melee teams as they have mobility and shooting into combat skills
Im curious Blades of khaine dont feel broken in fact they feel weak. Whats the take?
Blades of Khaine aren't a dedicated melee team
I'm glad I'm not crazy and people agree Ravagers are busted. I had people on Reddit saying they'd been nerfed out of the game and I'm over here double-fight trading an intercessor for a goat like "I donno man they seem pretty good."
Yeah Reddit doesn't make sense imo
I do enjoy shooting into melee with my Arbites shotguns though...😅
Exaction are the heroes we need
@@CanYouRollaCrit They do seem designed to counter fellgor. Lots of extra Fight ploys too.
Melee only tyranids are broken af I love them
Best compendiummm
In 40k you have roll to wound, which is pure math. There's no such thing in KT. You get cover and obscure instead. That seems to be the main problem because it raises from proper terrain placement and player's skill.
Eh? You still need to roll to hit
@@CanYouRollaCrit yes, you roll to hit, but a poxwalker has "the same" toughness as a space marine. There's nothing to reduce the number of dice that managed to hit.
Yeah but it's not really a problem for KT. Math is still involved
If custodes count as melee teams, shouldn't void dancers do as well?
Not really, they mainly ran 4 shields which all had pistols but void dancers run more ranged threat with DJ and Psyker as well as the gunners
I find Fellgor to be super hard to play honestly :(
They can be in general, but at tournament-level play they become incredibly hard to play against unfortunately
"This is out before the latest balance slate."
... what do you know, John?
That it should be out this month as per tradition 🤣
@@CanYouRollaCrit -- Don't you use logic like that. I was hoping for a proper conspiracy.
What about Corsairs, Blades of Khaine, Legionaries, even Blooded to some extent? I don’t hear any complaints about those. Kinda just sounds like those three, not all melee teams. I do agree those three are busted tho
Corsairs have lots of ranged components, BoK aren't a melee dedicated team and Blooded are more of a close-range team than melee one as they only have about 4 melee operatives (:
If you could kill Fellgors with a crit in the first combat, that would be pretty nice.
Like they insta die to crits in general?
@@CanYouRollaCrit Yeah, well kinda. Where only if the crit damage is the killing blow, they would be taken off the board right away with no frenzy.
It would result in some interesting combat scenarios where you need More crits than the Fellgor in combat, or somehow trick them into not parrying your crit 🤔
Sorry, but the fact genestealers cannot charge from conceal but Kommandos can will always be the dumbest thing in kill team.
Nah it's fine
Me going to Adepticon and I only have melee teams and warpcoven painted....guess I'll die 🤷
?
Index armies in general are just bad, they were created as a stop gap.
Into the dark you can at least go on guard, but even so i think melee teams should shine in a literal boarding action.
GW doesn't balance anything on release it drives sells when things are busted.
A lot of index teams are still quite good
There's shining and then there's dominating haha
Maybe with old GW but not with current GW
Honestly, I’m fine with almost anything that helps kill pathfinders. :)
Pathfinders don't really struggle vs melee teams sans Fellgor atm 😅
Let me guess: the problem with melee is that people with guns kill them before they can get close
Nope 🤣
@@CanYouRollaCrit Oh my God
My life is a lie...
See the problem is I would prefer a melee heavy meta tone down from what we’re currently dealing with because I’ve been in heavy shooting meta. It’s not fun to get shot off the board turning point one aka pathfinders. At least with melee teams we were both rolling dice turning point 2 and three
Or just have neither? Melee teams will leave you with no dice rolling TP3 and TP4 too. No excuse for us to have both extremes of toxic metas
@@CanYouRollaCrit I mean ideally, we would have a balanced meta I guess I’m just more suspicious that we can actuallyhave that level of balance
I think it's pretty doable, we haven't had a truly broken shooting kill team since Pathfinders. Melee teams are a continuing problem that have regularly broken the game to a worse state for far longer periods
@@CanYouRollaCrit yeah I’m afraid night lords are going to have the same problem if they have a super concealed thing
I'm praying Nightmare breaks the trend 🤣😭
But then we end up with booty cheeks teams like Blades of Khaine
GOOD 🤣😭