Does close combat suck?

So I've just had a 2000 point game, 1000 DE + 1000 Necrons (don't ask how that alliance happened) vs Tau, we did win very convincingly but...

I had Wyches and a Succubus and both did sod all, the lack of bonus attacks on the charge, the lack of sweeping advance, the lack of high AP melee weapons, overwatch still being a thing...

Is there any reason to use CC units at all? Other than to pick off the occasional piece of artillery or lone character? Is it really viable to use multiple squads of Wyches and hope to achieve anything?

Veragon Saan wrote:

So I've just had a 2000 point game, 1000 DE + 1000 Necrons (don't ask how that alliance happened) vs Tau

Usually, we team up with the Tau before backstabbing them. Your game is merely the aftermatch of the first battle.

Maybe they're more of a tar pitting unit now? Maybe they didn't wipe anything out, but were they tying up Tau shooting units? Could have been a bigger factor in your win than it seems at first glance. Just speculating - as I haven't played any CC DE yet.

Personally I think CC is very strong this edition and wyches are terrible at it.

For cc we have incubi, grots, and beasts.
We also have some mixed cc units like reavers, hellions and mandrakes (all of which hit way harder in cc than wyches but fill other roles as well).

In the pan eldar view I think a troop master + troop is more amazing than incubi for just a few more points (21 points for 4 str 4 ap -3 attacks! with 4+ invuls and ignore terrain). EDIT: oh yeah they have guns to.

Hopefully wyches will be fixed with our codex, right now I would say they are worth about 5 points each but cost 9 and the cc tarpit thing is a joke, if you charge a tact squad with a 10 woman squad of wyches it will completely disappear before your next turn and the tact squad will still be close to full strength. That's not a tar pit, it's hardly a speed bump.

The strange thing with wyches is that the normal wyches don't do anything at all. It's all on the Hydra Gauntlets and the Agonizer lady. So i actually find them more efficient in a squad of 10 without Succubus than in a squad of 9+succubus (and a lot cheaper, obviously). With 3 hydra gauntlets they really start to hurt (in my experience).
9 attacks, 7-8 hits, 5-6 wounds on T3, at -1 PA. That's almost 2 kills per Hydra Gauntlet.
So far i enjoy running 10 in raider as a guards/T'au/eldar mowing platform that doesn't cost too much, doesn't draw that much attention but buys itself more often than not, but putting a succubus is expecting too much from them. They cannot turn into a deathstar :'(

Back to topic : as an ork player, i can tell you : there is nothing wrong with cc in 8th edition. Or rather, there is something horribly wrong, but it's not what you think

I've had really solid success with a wych list in 8th. My most recent game I had 6 5-wych squads in 3 raiders.

Don't take overwatch: charge with transports. Do take as many Hydra gauntlets and agonizer/blast pistols hekatrixes as you can. Those units, plus plenty of other cult units were able to take on and beat 2500 points of nothing but khorne bezerkers in rhinos and kytans. Against shooty lists, especially the Tau lists I've faced, they've been absolutely indispensable because they lock down units with Fly.

the_scotsman wrote:

...they've been absolutely indispensable because they lock down units with Fly.

Only if those units are Infantry. It doesn't work with Suits.

In response to the title: No, absolutely not.
The charge and fight phase might actually be the most important when it comes to battlefield control. Close combat in 8th edition seems simplified, yet it's actually quite complex; not easy to master, but potentially more effective than ever. And Dark Eldar are certainly not bad at it.

I have to agree that close combat is very important this edition and dark eldar are better equipped then most in that our army wide ability makes us progressively better at cc as the game goes on. However DE have always been a specialist army, not an "all comes" army where anything in the army can single handedly kill anything else. So picking the right target is important. Using the previously stated Tact marines. Tact Marines are not the target of wyches, Incubi are better for that, wyches wanna charge guardsmen, fire warriors, heavy weapons teams, basically anything that doesn't have a pistol as standard equipment and generally are cc specialists. So then the best use for wyches is to keep gun lines from operating the way your opponent wants them to, sure they aren't going to cause that much damage but they, thrive and survive only while in cc, keeping the enemy for shooting your other units freeing them up to take objectives. Wyches aren't built on the idea of "kill this unit, weather a round of shooting then charge the next one" they are built on "stay in cc as long as possible with infantry" thus their ability "no escape". Also tying up hoards of models and taking the burden of hoard clearing off the shooting units allowing them to choose better tougher targets where poison is better than cc. Or you have coven cc which is weird in that the big monster is better at killing mobs of weak troops and the troops are better at killing the bigger monsters cause of poison attacks that the talos and cronos lack. And, to top it off, getting into cc is so easy for us this edition because of our speed a T1 or T2 charge is so easy to do. That's enough from me.

Okay so it seems I approached CC the wrong way this game, although I'm getting mixed feedback on the use of Wyches.

I don't own Incubi (partly because I hate resin) but also because I thought they were very expensive points wise for something with 1 wound and T3 and only a 3+ armour. Although I am a little tempted to get some grotesques. What would you all deem the best CC unit is to mount on a raider and use to kill enemy commanders/tougher stuff?

If you charge with a transport, can the stuff inside fight whatever you charge? I've not had the chance to charge with a transport (as they get blown up first)

And yeah, Wyches only tie up infantry, which I didn't realise until too late when it was revealed to me the suits they were fighting weren't infantry and could jet away, however there were only 4 Wyches left alive at this point so it scarecly mattered. Although given the feedback it seems charging suits was a bad move on my part (not that there were any firewarriors to charge mind you)

What would be your overall advice then for using CC? My next game will be against Necrons as I backstab my teammate from this game...


Also fear not, some of my Trueborn survived and we won, so they can drag the corpses of their kin back to my Haemonculi to resurrect the Wyches (in disgrace mind you)!

Veragon Saan wrote:

If you charge with a transport, can the stuff inside fight whatever you charge? I've not had the chance to charge with a transport (as they get blown up first)

Nop. Getting into CC requires to disembark at the beginning of the mvt phase, and charge yourself.

The most powerfull cc unit of the codex is... birds, of course. But appart from that incubi and Claw fiends (or slyths) are strong candidates. I find Grotesques... not that great.

I played some games vs necrons, and i have to say, CC is their greatest weakness : the models resurrected from Reanimation Protocol have to be put more than 1" away from ennemies. If you surround them (wyches or birds), no reanimation protocol.

Mppqlmd wrote:

Veragon Saan wrote:

If you charge with a transport, can the stuff inside fight whatever you charge? I've not had the chance to charge with a transport (as they get blown up first)

Nop. Getting into CC requires to disembark at the beginning of the mvt phase, and charge yourself.

Right yeah that was what I thought, but I guess if you charged the transport first it would take the overwatch then the troops can get in without being hit by it?

Veragon Saan wrote:

Right yeah that was what I thought, but I guess if you charged the transport first it would take the overwatch then the troops can get in without being hit by it?

Yep, if the raider succeeds its charge.

Mppqlmd wrote:

Veragon Saan wrote:

Right yeah that was what I thought, but I guess if you charged the transport first it would take the overwatch then the troops can get in without being hit by it?

Yep, if the raider succeeds its charge.

Makes sense, as I said though, that involves my poor raiders surviving that long! What's the best thing to put on them though?

Here's a handy video on advanced close combat.



One of the most important changes between 7th and 8th edition close combat is that multi-charging can now actually be a good thing to do. There is no more disordered charge!
Another is that piling in and consolidation moves can be used to engage other units - which does not count as charging, so the enemy doesn't get to overwatch, amongst other things.

Veragon Saan wrote:

Makes sense, as I said though, that involves my poor raiders surviving that long!

Are you playing 8th edition ? Raiders are bricks now.

Veragon Saan wrote:

What's the best thing to put on them though?

I would say splinter racks, enhanced aethersails and PGL, if we had ANY option for our raiders. What are you asking exactly ?

Mppqlmd wrote:

Veragon Saan wrote:

Makes sense, as I said though, that involves my poor raiders surviving that long!

Are you playing 8th edition ? Raiders are bricks now.

Veragon Saan wrote:

What's the best thing to put on them though?

I would say splinter racks, enhanced aethersails and PGL, if we had ANY option for our raiders. What are you asking exactly ?

I think he asked what unit to put on the raider to do the CC. To answer, I like wracks and haemy.

Ah, my bad then. I was confused with the "on them" word (but yeah, since they are boats you could say the crew is "on" them and not "in" them).

It know everyone doesn't share my opinion, but i feel all our infantry is viable in 8th. Wyches, Kabalites, Incubi, Wracks... it all comes down to what your army needs/your playstyle.
My advice would be to spam the heck out of kabalites in raiders, but there are maaaany more ways to play DE.

So basically nothing changed for us

CptMetal wrote:

So basically nothing changed for us

Now, I would be really hesitant before fielding grotesques. With multi-wound weapons, they are now a lot easier to kill.

Yeah. That´s sad actually...

Which, fluff wise that makes sense right? They're just giant meat bags and flesh isn't the best at stopping exploding rockets or lasers.

If anything I wish they had a better Feel No Pain roll. Especially since those are applied to each damage taken.

Last week 4 grotesques butchered a dozen boodletters and a bunch of khorn dogs, suffering exactly 1 wound.
Haemy was nearby to buff and I even forgot the chronos rerolls of 1
Sure I'd like a wound more on them, but they wreck faces, 20 S5 attacks in 4 models are brutal.

That's a super good point! Models that pay extra to have S4, good AP weapons aren't worth jack against low armor high toughness models like our grots.

Barrywise wrote:

Which, fluff wise that makes sense right? They're just giant meat bags and flesh isn't the best at stopping exploding rockets or lasers.

If anything I wish they had a better Feel No Pain roll. Especially since those are applied to each damage taken.

Fluff wise, they're supposed to be able to take huge amounts of damage and keep coming. Since everything else got harder to kill in this edition, their performance in this regard, while unchanged, is still lower comparatively.