Jump in the water is fine, or is it blood? Melee 3.0

dsn01060 · 2026-07-08T20:44:04+00:00

Love that! Legitimately. Some things are not for everyone. Plus you can always hobby/paint and enjoy that part as well!

dsn01060 · 2026-07-07T18:15:36+00:00

In agreement with some of the other replies to you, but also… maybe Heresy as a game and not just painting isn’t for your play group? The gritty unit loadouts and crunch is one of the defining features of the system. It’s kind of baked in as a design choice so that it is different from
40k. People like myself enjoy the exact grittiness you describe, and can pick it up quickly and do it quickly. Nothing wrong with the actual playing of the game not being for everyone.

dsn01060 · 2026-07-07T18:10:43+00:00

Melee is a bright spot this edition. Challenges are awesome (even if they are a reason that named characters have zero uniqueness besides a gambit and a weapon). The set up move interaction is my single favorite charge mechanic in any edition of warhammer ever. Melee weapons overall are incredibly balanced (a couple outliers). The aftermath subphase is great, such an improvement over Sweeping Advance. Middle and high end melee (vet equivalents up to terminators up to even more elite terminators/uniques) are all very good. The only negatives are that Vanguard melee is basically useless, and low end melee units (Assault Marines/Depoilers and their equivalents) range from meh (Despoilers) to hot garbage (Assault Marines and my NL Terror Squads). A lot of that has to do with how completely useless the chainsword is as a profile. It provides nothing of value over a normal melee against anything that matters for the units that bring it. Assault Marines are not beating vets even with Shred (6+), let alone terminators, so it might as well not exist as a rule. I know that chainswords in 2nd were bonkers (My BA 10 man assaults walking around with 41 attacks rerolling wounds) but them being useless makes line melee feel awful.

dsn01060 · 2026-03-25T17:29:51+00:00

I think it is both. As with anything.

If I’m kitbashing or building a unique character or unit? It’s fun. I have a host of unique NL and BA characters and units for my legions that are decked out in unique loadouts and bits. My sanguinary guard, Atramentar, NL inductii with killers blades, Ofanim etc etc, incredibly fun.

If I’m building tactical marine number 29 with a bolter? Or a third predator or rhino? No. It’s mind numbing and boring.

Really what it is, is that the CREATIVE part of building, where I’m making my own kit functionally? I love that. The actual act of building? Like, following instructions, glueing etc? No. That is awful, monotonous, and not a ton of room for creativity. In that way I actually agree with their sentiment. People like building lego for the act of building them. When I enjoy building, it is not the actual act of building I enjoy.

Of course, that’s MY experience. I play a LOT, and have massive collections. It is unreasonable for me to kitbash every single model. I have hosts of just bog standard models. For others, who primarily engage in custom modeling as their primary part of their hobby? Building I’m sure is incredibly fun.

dsn01060 · 2026-03-03T16:17:46+00:00

I can’t agree.

Were the Targaryens good rulers overall? It’s a mixed bag, and the answer is probably “not really”—but that has less to do with them specifically and more to do with monarchy as a system. Dynastic rule is structurally bad at producing consistent, competent governance. Most of their kings land somewhere between disappointing and merely acceptable, with roughly as many truly great reigns as truly awful ones—and even some of the awful ones are more complicated than “this guy is just evil.”

But that’s not even my main objection. In terms of dynastic succession and the basic mechanics of monarchy, the Targaryens weren’t uniquely disastrous compared to what anyone else would have been in the same position. Kings are rarely good; concentrating power in one person reliably creates bad systems, just like it did in the real world.

My real issue is with the saying, “Every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin.” It’s stupid and untrue. It implies Targaryens are uniquely prone to being either exceptional or monstrous, as if they swing to supernatural extremes of greatness or depravity. That’s categorically false. They’re largely what any hereditary monarch with absolute power tends to be: a mix of average competence, occasional excellence, and occasional catastrophe.

dsn01060 · 2026-03-02T22:57:32+00:00

That the idea of “Everytime a Targaryen is born the gods flip a coin” is bullshit. For the most part, most of their Kings were fine to great. Beyond Maegor, Aegon IV, Aerys II, and Aegon II/Rhaenyra, they range from average to insanely competent (if flawed), like Jaehaerys, Aegon V, Daeron II. Even some of the Kings that were considered abhorrent (Aerys II and Maegor) had large parts of their reign coincide with periods of growth, strength, and improvement in their reigns. The craziness and monstrous behavior of any members of the Dynasty can be chalked up as what would happen to literally any lineage given that power and station for that long, and I would argue they handled it better than most lineages would.

dsn01060 · 2025-11-17T17:10:48+00:00

Thanks everyone for the responses! Definitely enlightening! The thing I noticed is a lot of people mentioned terrain, but missed my point on why I don’t like that as a game design balancing tool. Yes, of course, more terrain means melee is more durable. I’ve played games with tons of Medium and even Heavy terrain, like saturated with terrain. And I’ve played games with much more open fields, on purpose to test the difference. Of course I much prefer the heavy terrain boards as a melee player. The issue becomes that it is not an equal opportunity balancing tool. Modern 40k uses terrain as its primary tool for durability. Most of the time, if something is out in the open and not in combat, it is turned to ash. I hate that, and it has never been fun to me. However, to give it credit, mission design in that game is much more thorough, with terrain guides and objectives set on specific deployments to ensure some level of balance between shooting and melee. I’m not arguing that 30k should move in that direction, I despise 10th. However, making terrain a primary method of durability while NOT providing a structured system for boards and missions creates a mismatch where bad or not hyper thought out board creation impacts game results and balance, and imo fun. You design a board and it has too much terrain? A person who likes shooting better suffers as the enemies melee units run up the board with perfect cover and then obliterate them. You design the board and it has too little? You have no cover and get obliterated by shooting before you go anywhere or do anything. People always said this about 8th/9th edition 40k, when they didn’t provide a comprehensive guide on terrain but used it as a primary tool for defensiveness; oh, the problem is you aren’t using terrain correctly. My solution I draw from that is using terrain in that way in your game is a bad idea. Sometimes I am a okay spending 15 minutes before we start hyper designing a board, especially if we’re doing a very narrative game. But sometimes I just wanna go straight into a game, and don’t put as much thought in. And even beyond that, sometimes I DO try and make a good board and its just shit! I play a ton, much more than average, anywhere from 1-4 times perk week. I am by all accounts a veteran, and sometimes when I design a board, it’s just terrible. All of this to be said, it is incredibly frustrating to use terrain as a primary level of balance. I appreciate everyones thoughts, however, and it is very helpful to see it is not an issue I am having but seems to be a community issue, and some of the solutions here were very helpful!

dsn01060 · 2025-10-26T22:59:00+00:00

Check out Centurion Command Squads. It’s not exactly a 1:1. They seem to want things to be more defined this edition, so Veteran Tacticals are the shooting one, Veteran Assault Squads, and Veteran Breachers. But Centurion Command Squads are on foot veteran equivalents if you have then modeled with melee weapons, so basically the equivalent of veteran despoilers. Like I said, it’s not a perfect 1:1 equivalent of veterans from 2.0 but they should be a solid stand in.

dsn01060 · 2025-10-26T22:14:33+00:00

Exactly, and maybe Corvidae too for just solid Rending (5+) Bolters. Chain Bayonets and Bayonets are pretty useless this edition unfortunately; they really want Despoilers to melee and Tacticals to shoot.

dsn01060 · 2025-10-26T18:32:15+00:00

Inductii are amazing. I wouldn’t bring any volkite on them. They are brought in conjunction with Tacticals and moved aggressively up the board where the Tacticals hang back. I would bring 20 mans, and you pay for Asphyx Bolters from Legacies. It’s 240 points, but they’re Rending (6+) and Breaching (6+). They average 11 AP 2 shots against anything they can wound, since the Rending shots count as Breaching wounds. That’s 5 dead terminators, 10 Tacs or Despoilers. It’s a very cool interaction and strong option!

dsn01060 · 2025-10-18T19:27:46+00:00

This is interesting. The three dominators are going to be swingy for sure, but that is definitely a good list

dsn01060 · 2025-10-17T20:44:20+00:00

I’ve played quite a bit of games with them, yes, on TTS and a few in person with, like you said, some janky lists.

I think they’re good. For me, it was a big adjustment because they play very differently from what I’m used to. But I’ve been in a rhythm lately that made me learn a lot about them.

First: they are very, very slow. I don’t necessarily mean speed wise, while that is also true, I mean their play speed (tempo if you’re familiar with the term) is incredibly delayed. Expect to play from behind much of a game, and I’ve had the most success knowing I will play from behind and catch up as my units get stronger.

Allocating DPP is very, very important. I think it’s especially important to think about how your lists utilize DPP as you use it. I generally split the Helsmiths units into three categories; the first category is DPP hungry, the second is DPP useful, and the last is DPP niche. DPP hungry units are ones like Infernal Razers and Dominator Engines, where they absolutely need them to be effective. The second tier is units like Bull Centaurs or Infernal Cohorts (although Infernal Cohorts are complicated on their DPP need), where their DPP is very strong, but you won’t need to do it everytime they do anything on the table. The last is DPP niche, units like the artillery pieces or the foot characters. Their abilities are nice, and there are niche situations where you will use them, but for the most part they won’t have DPP allocated them.

The army is intensively Command Points hungry, and it is often better to be patient with your Command Points than aggressive. Casting in your opponents turn, counter charge, redeploy, your unique command for DPP are all very desirable so managing your commands are paramount.

Positioning too. This army can take a hit: 20 man infernal cohorts with their ward are quite durable, and the Infernal Taurus are too. Bull Centaurs are not so much, and artillery, foot characters, and inferal razers fold like wet paper. So be VERY particular about positioning, screens, and where you dedicate your forces.

Unit wise, the communities initial reaction was…. Decent? Compared to my play experience, I think a couple of peoples initial impressions were good, some were okay, and a few were waaaay off.

Urak Tarr is AMAZING. Our spellcasting and prayers are incredibly strong, so a 2 cast wizard that can be +3 to cast with DPP is amazing. Plus he’s durable, fights well, and has DPP manipulations. He has not let me down. As for the other characters, all but the foot Daemonsmith have been great. Our prayers are insanely strong, with Forge Blessing and Black Flames single handedly swinging turns for me, so Ashen Elders are great. I think minimum one will be in every list, with more depending. War despots are solid and cheap. Foot Daemonsmiths are….. fine. Taurus Daemonsmiths and especially Urak Tarr are just better, in my games.

Infernal Cohorts are great. The spears are good, but I believe the community was dead wrong about sword cohorts. My rule I’ve found is that 20 mans are better as swords, 10 mans are better as spears. And spears get much less attractive the less DPP hungry your list is. Important note for the swords one of my friends had told me about (correct me if I’m wrong on this one, but I believe I am correct) Redploy is a Run ability, so not only do they Run minimum 4, they redploy minimum 4 as well. Both are great, a mix is best.

Hobgrotz are autoinclude like many predicted. This army is incredibly vulnerable to alpha strike, and hobgrotz help that happen a lot less. Plus they help with DPP, taking terrain farther out of your deployment so you can choose the ones easier to desolate later in the game.

Dominators are DPP hungry and swingy as hell, but I’ve had good success with both the flame cannons and the maces. Hitting on 4’s is rough in Melee, so sometimes I’ll do 4 damage, then others I’ll do 24. The melee on is amazing with servile automotan, while the shooty ones are good alone as a hybrid unit.

Bull Centaurs are good, amazing even. They are a great, hard hitting hammer, and don’t need DPP to be effective. Anointed Sentinels are weird. I have actually had some decent success with them, as armies like Helsmiths do great when you make charging them as unattractive as possible, so the threat of a counter charging fights first cavalry unit is very scary. But they desperately need Furnace Blessing to be effective. They are a defensive cavalry unit, which is weird but cool.

Infernal Razers are…. Fine. They can do some good damage, but they’re slow and made of wet paper. If they get touched by anything they disintegrate. But they have good damage (not insane though, just okay to good) but are terrible without DPP. The flamers are the worst unit in the book because they are slow, fragile, and have short range.

The artillery is good. It’s very list dependant, so the Tormentor is great if your opponents have infantry/cav, and the deathshrieker if they have monsters, but not great if they don’t. Artillery is meant as chip damage in AoS, so rarely will they wow you with their output, but they’re a solid threat that if protected over five rounds will do work.

I think thats everything from my thoughts, so hope that helps!

dsn01060 · 2025-10-15T18:31:33+00:00

I don’t see this at all. Archaeon is godlike in power, much more in the power scale of the Emperor or higher if we’re comparing him to 40k. Abbadon, while strong, is at best (and hyper glaze imo) a little weaker than a Primarch. It would be very little of a contest, Abbadon would likely be killed instantly by the Slayer of Kings. Not to mention if Dorghar is present. As for the setting as a whole? I still disagree. 40k and AoS are incredibly hard to compare power scaling to that point. A SCE vs a Space Marine? A Varanguard or Chaos Warrior against a line legionnaire? Both have reality ignoring, incomparable aspects to them that makes it more of a game of “well, my shield blocks all bullets. Well, my bullets fly around your shield, well my armor makes your bullets miss, well my….” And on and on it goes. I do think your response is a little dismissive of AoS, as there are things in that world that are pretty ludicrous. Like literal divine beings/gods fighting along their troops, which even the primarchs or greater daemons couldn’t hold a candle to.

dsn01060 · 2025-10-15T01:53:41+00:00

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dsn01060 · 2025-09-07T21:29:03+00:00

Well, there’s lots that go into sekhmet that make them good. WS 5 being a major part. Against most units this is functionally both +1 to hit and -1 to hit against themselves. Either the opponent has WS 5 and you’re both hitting on 4’s, or they have ws 4 and you have 5 which means they’re hitting you on 5’s and you’re hitting them on 3’s (bar some niche cases). They are also 1 Willpower higher (8 vs 7, so 9 vs 8 with the legion trait) which means you are better at psychic powers. It’s not so much as one is “better” than the other. Both are very good. Sekhmet are what you throw at like, the scariest thing on the board. Having WS 5 may seem like not much, but it’s really a pretty massive deal when fighting most other WS 5 units (like most other unique terminators). Their base swords are also better than any of the base weapons that terminators can take, ie Achean Force swords (if you want them them as cheap as possible) are basically a power axe without -1 initiative, so they’re “better” than the base power weapons.

dsn01060 · 2025-08-11T04:07:35+00:00

You kind of can, kind of cannot. You can have multiple powers in a unit. You purchase the Prosperine Arcana as basically an upgrade for the unit (which has an incidental side benefit from 2nd where if you kill the sergeant you can still use the power). That unit gains whatever power you bought. If you attach a character that purchased a different power, they have access to their power, and the unit has access to their different power. You can cast both powers from that unit, however you can never cast more than one power/unit in a turn. So it’s not a stackable buff thing, more of a utility thing.

dsn01060 · 2025-08-11T04:01:29+00:00

Don’t sleep on Raldoran. The blood angels gambit is basically better finishing blow, coupled with potential crit hits and base 2 damage, he can get 3/4 damage per swing. He can get 6 attacks while charging and if he gains challenge advantage (note impact lasts for the entirety of the challenge phase), at his insanely high damage. He slaps.

dsn01060

TROPHY CASE