A funny thing happened with the introduction of 7th, and that is that suddenly, assault became a much more important phase of the game. Sure, everybody talks about the boost shooting got in 6th, and few to none of those boosts has gone away, but things have changed in the meantime.
Consider, tournament standard now allows the following, very-hard-to-shoot-dead things:
Consider, tournament standard now allows the following, very-hard-to-shoot-dead things:
- Adamantine Lance (Imperial Knights in general)
- Wraithknights (Grav weapons excepted)
- Wave Serpents
- Warp Spiders jumping in and out from behind walls
- Chaos Spawn
- Flying Nurgle Princes with Iron Arm
- Invisible units
- Thunderwold spam (Usually with White Scars)
- Screamerstars
- Beaststars
- Seer Councils
- Heirodules
- Leman Russ Squadrons
- Objective Secured Land Raiders
- Shrouded Nid armies (especially if President Obama has allowed Malanthopes where you live)
- Any assault-based army that can be in assault with most of it on turn 2 (i.e. Any properly designed assault army)
These days, everybody needs at least one beefy assault unit to hold the line lest they get quickly crushed by the dude who does. Even AM has blob squads. The simplest solution is Imperial Knights, that give just about any army a decent melee threat.
As Daemon players the rise of nasty assault units is a double-edged sword. Some of these units, like Beaststars are stronger than the sorts of units we can field, and so must be avoided or carefully countered with kiting tactics. On the other hand, it means less shooting in most armies so you can get across the board more easily.
I ain't saying shooting is dead. A shooty Wave Serpent army just won NOVA, and there was a Tau list in the top ten, but most of the top 16 had some pretty hefty assault elements incorporated into them. It makes sense. Pure shooting units cannot protect themselves in assault. Models that can fight and shoot like Wraithknights or Dreadknights are very solid. And although pure assault units can't do anything from range, once they get there, the other faction dies quickly since they get to swing every turn. Just something I've been thinking about.