Via 40k Daemons:
Is Assault Stronger Than Shooting Now?
A funny thing happened with the introduction of 7th, and that is that suddenly, assault became a much more important phase of the game. Sure, everybody talks about the boost shooting got in 6th, and few to none of those boosts has gone away, but things have changed in the meantime.
Consider, tournament standard now allows the following, very-hard-to-shoot-dead things:
Adamantine Lance (Imperial Knights in general)
Wraithknights (Grav weapons excepted)
Wave Serpents
Warp Spiders jumping in and out from behind walls
Chaos Spawn
Flying Nurgle Princes with Iron Arm
Invisible units
Thunderwold spam (Usually with White Scars)
Screamerstars
Beaststars
Seer Councils
Heirodules
Leman Russ Squadrons
Objective Secured Land Raiders
Shrouded Nid armies (especially if President Obama has allowed Malanthopes where you live)
Any assault-based army that can be in assault with most of it on turn 2 (i.e. Any properly designed assault army)
I think Eldar can shoot and scoot well enough to defeat many of those things without sullying their dainty fingers in melee, but most armies can’t. At best some of those things can be defeated by meltaguns, but most of it requires closing in and yelling charge! just like they do in the real army.
These days, everybody needs at least one beefy assault unit to hold the line lest they get quickly crushed by the dude who does. Even AM has blob squads. The simplest solution is Imperial Knights, that give just about any army a decent melee threat.
As Daemon players the rise of nasty assault units is a double-edged sword. Some of these units, like Beaststars are stronger than the sorts of units we can field, and so must be avoided or carefully countered with kiting tactics. On the other hand, it means less shooting in most armies so you can get across the board more easily.
I ain't saying shooting is dead. A shooty Wave Serpent army just won NOVA, and there was a Tau list in the top ten, but most of the top 16 had some pretty hefty assault elements incorporated into them. It makes sense. Pure shooting units cannot protect themselves in assault. Models that can fight and shoot like Wraithknights or Dreadknights are very solid. And although pure assault units can't do anything from range, once they get there, the other faction dies quickly since they get to swing every turn. Just something I've been thinking about.