The gunline list, it seems to be the easy choice. You have easy and cheep access to uncompromising cover to hide your list behind. There are fast accurate ways to deliver scoring units into your opponent’s lines. Big guns get even better. Snap fire makes those lascannons a bit more maneuverable, and the lack of half strength from blasts make those artillery only that much more dangerous.
Now look at your melee armies. A two D6 charge can be very random. It can send you flying down field or it can leave you dead in your tracks. When a dedicated unit fails a charge, you can bet they won’t get a second chance. Even if they make it they will need to push through overwatch shots.
Well folks the charge an’t dead. Your melee army still has a few tricks up its sleeve. The best friend of the assault army is Fleet. The ability to reroll one or both dice is invaluable. Fleet by itself changes your average charge range from 7in to 10in. not more importantly Fleet gives you a more controlled charge range. It’s likely a unit with fleet won’t botch an easy 5 in assault.
Now lets look at transports. It seems they are no longer the friends of the melee unit. Yes its true, rhinos can no longer deliver those Berserkers to your buddy’s frontlines, but the landraider has become much stronger by comparison. Transports with the assault universal special rule can move 6in unload move 6in and then charge the average 7in. giving he average assault range of 18in after taking the base size into account. That’s not so bad.
Last but not least are those new flying monstrosities. bloodthirsters and tyrants can both be relatively easy to deliver, and once there can cause havoc on even the most elite army.
So what about those defensive barricades, how do you deal with them. It’s easy; you just need to get into base contact with it. Don’t waist your time shooting at the units at the other side, unless of course you have little else to shoot at. I’ve found dark elder wyches especially nasty. Load them out with haywire grenades (or nerf bats as I like to call them), and then launch a couple units downfield in raiders.
This only scratches the surface of melee possibilities. It still works, and it still works well. It will be interesting to see what lists people come up with assaults in mind
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