Assaulting 101

Taking a break from all the Tyranid Codex review pages I have written recently to look at a key area of the game; Assaulting.

I think there is a common misconception as to what a good assault unit does.  A good unit DOES NOT win in the turn it charges into combat.  This is very bad.

Now you may be thinking why am I saying this.  Surely a unit which can kill pretty much anything on the charge, such as a full squad of Paladins with master crafted weapons, is a great unit.  In a lot of ways you would be correct.  But not all.

In an ideal world you want to leave a couple of enemies left.  This is to stop the enemy offloading a bunch of high powered anti infantry weapons into you.  Melta and plasma weapons enmass will cut through your super expensive Paladin unit before you can say help.  By staying in combat, you force them to come into hand to hand to fight you.  This is where you are strongest, so it is a win win situation.

Once you kill the enemy in their turn, feel free to consolidate then charge into something else in your turn.

The only real problem with this is that you need to be able to kill the enemy in their turn even if they charge you, so it is a fine balance between the two.