Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by ArchonShiva

Why does it work in 40k?

Are effective weapon ranges incredibly low, or maybe weapons are incredibly inaccurate, jam all the time or hold very low ammo and reload or cycle very slowly?

The entire premise of 40K is Maximum Grimdark, with an additional side-helping of grimdark. They are the Spinal Tap * of grimdark, if you will. Missing out on bloody melees would reduce the grimdark quotient and therefore the rules are tweaked to ensure that hand-to-hand combat is useful at a technology level where it should seldom be a thing.

* It goes up to 11.