Looking through the rulebook, and having played several missions, I can't figure out any actual benefits for a Close Combat build over a ranged one. As far as I can tell, close combat generally gets less hits, is less likely to hit, and (Depending on the weapon) usually causes less damage unless it's an NPC with buffs stacked on like nobody's business. Plus, while it takes a skill in order to reasonably have a chance of dodging, anyone with a close conbat weapon can parry, making CC damage even harder.

Meanwhile, level one PCs with 50 dollar guns can consistently get good bonuses to hit, get more hits per attack, and they don't have to be within spitting distance of an ensmy to do it, allowing them to stay in cover. Plus, even if they ARE at point blank range, that just means they're getting an additional +30 to hit. (A character with the lowest possible BS can still realistically hit on a 90 or less if they take a full action to aim and fire at full auto point blank. Even without aiming they only need 72 or lower.)

So is there some secret to close combat that I'm missing? Something that makes it stand up to the power of ranged weapons?

Well, first off, getting into Point-Blank-Range is fricking hard. It's less than three metres, which means you're within melee range of your opponents, and thats AFTER you get there in the first place. See this thread on why that might be hard to do.

Second, once you're in melee, you're "safe" from your enemies allies. They probably won't shoot into a melee to hit you, because they'll risk hitting their ally. So, if you play your tactics right, you'll not be outnumbered, and you're probably looking at a one-on-one showdown.

You'll need some talents to make Melee really viable, but once you've got Swift Attack, Blademaster and Counter Attack, you're gonna be a mean machine. Dual-wielding with Ambidextrous is also likely to ruin peoples day.

Also note that you can't use full or semi auto in melee. Meaning that if you charge the gun-wielders, and tie them up in melee, you've really nerfed their damage output. Heavy and Basic weapons can't be used at all, and pistols are limited to single-shots. Which can be dodged "easily".

Melee fighters built "properly" can really dish out some pain. Of course, so can similarly built shooters. Both styles are quite viable.

What Darth Smeg said plus:

1. Knives don't run out of bullets and never jam. Full-auto is nice to open a combat or force somebody into cover, but usually empties a pistols or basic weapons clip/mag too fast. And there are lots of modifiers and talents to make people hard to hit, a running opponent with Hard Target gets you a -40, often negating all bonuses. And god forbid if it jams.

2. Melee weapons can have bonuses that are simply awesome. Every class easily gets access to Shock Weapons, enabling you to keep opponents permanently stunned throughout the combat or till they are down and still questionable. You can't do that with guns.

3. Melee Talents often give you perks like rerolling one missed attack, gaining a free attack/move for a successful attack/parry, choosing between two different strike locations, ... while most Ranged Talents go for less penalties for aimed shots. Way more options.

So is there some secret to close combat that I'm missing? Something that makes it stand up to the power of ranged weapons?

Yes, play with miniatures. If you do, everyone is in charge range of everyone always, so anyone with a basic or heavy ranged weapon is gonna get got.

I played a Moritat Reaper for about two years and i can say that melee is pretty amazing. Though you have to think about how you're going to kill your opponents before you enter the fight. If you have no plan, you'll spend your time getting shot at.

Melee characters in DH are best if they employ stealth. Blind Fighting and smoke grenades are amazing together.

As far as damage, the Reaper in particular has the Tearing trait for all their blades, which increases your average damage. Get Crushing Blow (or whatever the damage add talent for melee is called). Also, two weapon fighting is great with switf attack. Furious Assault is amazing as well as Counter Attack.

When you do close into melee, the idea is to have everyone miss as much as possible (smoke cover) and when they do hit, it's with crappy degrees of success so it's easy for your to parry and counter attack to kill them on THEIR TURN. Then you turn the rest of his buddies into a slippery pile of gore on your turn and assassin's strike to hide in the smoke again for when people start shooting at you.

Don't be the guy charging across a field to engage (unless your a Guardsman with True Grit, 50+ Toughness and Sound Constitution like whoa), instead, be Batman.

I hated playing a Moritat, though that was mostly because I felt extremely limited in the choices of weapon I could take, and Moritat effectively become obsolete as soon as chainswords are available. I find that Guardsmen make the best melee class; give them a Great Weapon and smash your enemies to bits. Plus, you can pack a grenade launcher if there are enemies who just won't get into melee, which is something Moritat cannot do.

Dark Heresy bends over backward to make melee combat viable, as opposed to what it is in the real world (= obsolete and inferior).

Dark Heresy bends over backward to make melee combat viable, as opposed to what it is in the real world (= obsolete and inferior).

Reflection of the universe, where some of the most powerful and dangerous warriors in the Galaxy, primarily fight at close quarters (The Swarmlord, Lelith Hesperax, Marneus Calgar, Kaldor Draigo, Kharne, etc.) They wouldn't have made a name for themselves if they got shot to death before getting there.

Also, on the topic of "best melee career", Templar Calix Psykers could probably beat out the Guardsman, given even minor Psychic Powers like Precognition and their Force Weapon.

Well, as far as general melee a Guardsman is excellent because they can get the toughness based talents. Living long enough to make a swing is often where its at.

The reason i liked the Moritat so much instead is probably that my GM made things objective based and i tended to chase the objective. Everyone else could mow down hordes of inftantry, i was going to sneak around, take out a few guys, then stop the big bad from doing his voodoo, then cut him to pieces.

Also, chainswords are nice, but they aren't quiet. Plus a mono-edge scimitar/saber is pretty much just as good. Or maybe a great weapon. You also don't need additional training...

Dark Heresy bends over backward to make melee combat viable, as opposed to what it is in the real world (= obsolete and inferior).

I agree they bend over backwards, but that's to make it attractive, not viable. Militaries around the world train in hand to hand combat for a variety of very real reasons, not just for funsies. The more heavily trained you are, the better you can react to obscenely difficult situations. Especially with all the urban style combat that's happened over the past decade. The US primarily uses a carbine now, rather than a full rifle, because it's more maneuverable in close quarters, hand to hand combat is still taught because it's much more likely you'll be engaged that way while clearing a building than you will in the open field. The range of engagements has decreased, so skills that help at closer range are focused on.

On top of that, you're an inquisitor's acolyte, you're expected to be competitive in most arenas if you're a guardsman espeically. Combat is kind of your job.

So, what I'm getting is...

It's less deadly at first, but once you level it up enough and get the right talents it loses that disadvantage. Also, it's a more strategic choice, since it ties up enemies better and helps protect you from shooting.

Mostly what has been said before, in-setting melee can be pretty beasty, and once a bloodletter is ripping your guy with a melta-gun apart after tearing through the rest of the team who thought "who'd need melee?" you'd realize you should have at least someone at least a bit competent at holding enemies at bay.

Only thing I have problems with is Parry being basically in any way inferior to Dodge, since you can't parry bullets and potentially get a +20 bonus on it... it being available to all classes for free is not helping much imho... balanced weapons do help, but especially in later systems with parry being a trainable skill, I'm not exactly sure it's worth the XP... but that'd be something for the Rules-Sections.

So, what I'm getting is...

It's less deadly at first, but once you level it up enough and get the right talents it loses that disadvantage. Also, it's a more strategic choice, since it ties up enemies better and helps protect you from shooting.

Yes, if you play it that way. Though remember, there are many cultist types who don't care about shooting into their "friends" to kill you. Though many "cultists" are also just normal people steered wrong, so they likely won't. All I'm saying is, move carefully and don't depend on your enemy being stupid.

Me and my group tend to find quite the opposite problem, our assassin melee oneshots most foes with only standard melee weapons, no advanced spec and relatively few talents. (Although he did pile theese on later.)

By level five he`d just run off and brutaly resolve any normal combats after the rest of the group fired their opening salvoes, leaving our cover hugging gunslingers sitting about waiting for the bloodied bodies to drop so they can get going due to the assassin hogging all the combat glory.

As a side note once you get a ME great sword there is no crunch reason to swap it out until power weapons come along and even then it`s only a minor improvement.

The key to melee is it`s a level playing field. Free of preperation based modifiers, maximising the charge bonus advantage, capitalising on strength bonus to damage and remembering to dodge and parry anre the route to greatness.

Only thing I have problems with is Parry being basically in any way inferior to Dodge, since you can't parry bullets and potentially get a +20 bonus on it... it being available to all classes for free is not helping much imho... balanced weapons do help, but especially in later systems with parry being a trainable skill, I'm not exactly sure it's worth the XP... but that'd be something for the Rules-Sections.

True, BUT... A Best Quality sword is cheap and readily available, and the +10 to WS stacks nicely with the Balanced Bonus, giving you a free-as-in-xp +20 Bonus to Parries.

It also allows you to defend yourself with WS, rather than Ag. Which is generally to the good for a melee career; who will want to be thumping XP into WS.

Admittedly, sneaky-ninja-murder-assassins will want both.

Essentially, the advantages of melee:

• Melee attacks are usually quieter if trying to sneak in without raising the alarm. Chain weapons are not your friends here, though.
• Swords do not require reloading
• Being in a melee provides some protection from being shot at by third parties
• The high-end swords do a hell of a lot of damage
• Carrying a blade - even a powered one - to (say) a High-spire social function is more socially acceptible than packing an assault rifle

Looking through the rulebook, and having played several missions, I can't figure out any actual benefits for a Close Combat build over a ranged one. As far as I can tell, close combat generally gets less hits, is less likely to hit, and (Depending on the weapon) usually causes less damage unless it's an NPC with buffs stacked on like nobody's business. Plus, while it takes a skill in order to reasonably have a chance of dodging, anyone with a close conbat weapon can parry, making CC damage even harder.

Meanwhile, level one PCs with 50 dollar guns can consistently get good bonuses to hit, get more hits per attack, and they don't have to be within spitting distance of an ensmy to do it, allowing them to stay in cover. Plus, even if they ARE at point blank range, that just means they're getting an additional +30 to hit. (A character with the lowest possible BS can still realistically hit on a 90 or less if they take a full action to aim and fire at full auto point blank. Even without aiming they only need 72 or lower.)

So is there some secret to close combat that I'm missing? Something that makes it stand up to the power of ranged weapons?

Hope I am not being patronising but are you adding SB to melee attacks? I always found Melee to be pretty deadly in my games.

Also point blank as has been said should be very rare.

To cut a long story short:

Melee isn`t underpowered, if you are finding that shooting is consistently outperforming melee in your group then maybe you should rethink how quickly you are accessing high damage guns and ammo variants.

Alternately you should just start introducing environmental factors like mist darkness or the like to increase ranged attack penalties.

an idea I dreamt up today was to be able to call a high or low melee strike (-20 and +20 to hit location respectively but are at a -10 to hit and +10 to dodge or parry) these allow fighters to aim shots towards the head or legs without the surgical precision of a called shot.

Another thing to consider is one that I consistently forget: Cover!

Far too often RPG combats happen on some featureless open field, where the opponents charge in from clear view, and get gunned down as they move in. Make sure your fights take place in interesting environments, with lots of walls, broken pieces of machinery, vehicles, building support columns, etc etc. In short, make lot's of options for people to hide behind, sneak around, flank, etc.

A person behind cover is much harder to shoot. Only parts of his body will be visible, requiring either Called Shots or luck to hit, as well as granting the target a bonus to his Dodge.

Melee fighters don't worry about cover. Once they get stuck in, it's all moot

Another thing to consider is one that I consistently forget: Cover!

Far too often RPG combats happen on some featureless open field, where the opponents charge in from clear view, and get gunned down as they move in. Make sure your fights take place in interesting environments, with lots of walls, broken pieces of machinery, vehicles, building support columns, etc etc. In short, make lot's of options for people to hide behind, sneak around, flank, etc.

A person behind cover is much harder to shoot. Only parts of his body will be visible, requiring either Called Shots or luck to hit, as well as granting the target a bonus to his Dodge.

Melee fighters don't worry about cover. Once they get stuck in, it's all moot

I never put enough cover in my scenarios! And even when I write up locations with the best of intentions the mooks under my control as GM always seem to end up running into the open to get shot up like punks!

I'm slowly learning my lesson, less bad guys but smarter!

I never put enough cover in my scenarios! And even when I write up locations with the best of intentions the mooks under my control as GM always seem to end up running into the open to get shot up like punks!

I'm slowly learning my lesson, less bad guys but smarter!

When you prepare your session, do you draw a map of the combat zone? I find this very helpful to include cover, but also height, obstacles or environmental hazards. We do play with a battlegrid where we draw the map on so that the players have the same information.

We once fought in an office, essentially a bunch of cubicles and walkways.

First the hallucinogen grenade came and our heavy weapons guy started seeing demons everywhere. Then the smoke grenade came.

So we're in this tight space, we can't see a **** thing and the guy with the heavy stubber is shooting wildly in random directions, forcing us to make pinning tests.

THEN the death cult assassins came through the smoke...

We once fought in an office, essentially a bunch of cubicles and walkways.

First the hallucinogen grenade came and our heavy weapons guy started seeing demons everywhere. Then the smoke grenade came.

So we're in this tight space, we can't see a **** thing and the guy with the heavy stubber is shooting wildly in random directions, forcing us to make pinning tests.

THEN the death cult assassins came through the smoke...

Did it result in a TPK?

No, i managed to randomly hit one of them with my hellgun, then the other one escaped. We did lose 2 guys from our squad though. I used Takedown on the heavy weapons guy to put him out of commission while we fought.

I never put enough cover in my scenarios! And even when I write up locations with the best of intentions the mooks under my control as GM always seem to end up running into the open to get shot up like punks!

I'm slowly learning my lesson, less bad guys but smarter!

Seconded!

Thirded. Sometimes.

If you want to "add a combat encounter", then generic movie goons are fine. But a 'competent' bad guy can be dangerous even without high end gear - as discussed above, smoke grenades, pinning tests, cover, using stuff like guarded attacks, etc, etc - essentially remembering that the NPCs have the same options as PCs - can make them very dangerous.