Melee attacks

[LuciusRex (KRALJ)]

What is the significance of melee attacks?
What makes a unit that is capable of dealing melee damage different from a unit firing its ranged weapons point blank?

[Warempel]

Range has got nothing to do with it I guess. So the difference here is only between melee and ranged (i.e. which attack / defense bonuses are applied).

Range 1 firing works over cliffs, melee doesn't. Again, this is actually no range but a weapon type difference I think.

[Stardustfire]

no enviromental dmg reducers, melee deals mostly more dmg than shoots.
downside is no chance to dmg flight units as long only melee weapons are avaible, same for cliffs .

[dexgattaca]

Cities, forests, imperial ruins and void shields are examples of ranged damage reducing traits.

Thus melee units are especially useful at clearing units in such environments.

[~HaY~]

Melee also cannot overwatch right?

So if a unit has both range and melee, only the ranged weapon will get triggered.

Someone correct ne if I am wrong.

[TemplarGR]

Some melee can overwatch, Tyrannid Lictors for example.

As for melee, yeah there are some differences:

1) It ignores cover damage reduction and ranged damage reduction

2) It can't hit flying units and over cliffs, unless the melee unit is flying for example IIRC Helldrake. Though if the ranged unit is landed, if it doesn't have the skyfire trait, its damage is effectively 1/3 vs flying units anyway, so it is not a huge loss compared to landed melee units. In the end, you need anti-air units to face air units efficiently.

So depending on the unit, melee can be preferable to ranged despite having the same 1 range.

For example, Hormagaunts are preferable to Termagaunts as units, though they need to be researched first and can't be created by Tervigon.

Another example, Assault Space Marines, split their attack power between 1 ranged weapon and 1 melee weapon, compared with Tactical Space Marines. They lose 1 range (though Tacticals fire at 1/2 the dmg at 2 range) but can ignore cover and ranged damage reduction with half their dmg, proving better for attacking fortified positions.

[gmsh1964]

This is a super INFORMATIVE thread. Thank you everyone.