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In this edition and since 5th edition the Tyranids, Astra Militarrrrriummm, and esp. the Orks have not been competitive. You have chaos space marine fantards saying they are worse but I suspect all three armies are actually even less competitive. In case of Orks I don't think they have EVER been top-tier competitive like the Eldar or Necrons right now.

In 40k we already have a huge problem of lazy gamers only playing elite armies because they don't want to have to paint so many models but for the few diligent painters that do paint an horde army they get rewarded with a uncompetitive codex that gets rolled by elite armies.

Do GW hate non-elite armies? What gives GW?

It's not a hate thing. They want to sell large, big models like titans and wraithknights to earn money. GW doesn't hate any particular part of their playerbase. They're just here to make money, and they do that by selling the most expensive kits, which are usually the elite ones, which is why they have the best rules. It's also a power-creep thing. It's hard to power-creep hordes, but it's simple to do that to single-model units.

Also, Chaos Space Marines are in a pretty bad shape, moreso even than orks and guard. Not nids though- those players have it rough.

On a final note, this entire post is laden with some underlying contempt for elite armies. Elite army painters can be absolutely amazing at what they do, and horde painters can be downright lazy. I think you need to step back and chill for a moment, and look at things through a less personal light.

Probably. This is cuz it's roughly around that time that GW started producing huge figures and wanted to move those sales, so large tanks, flyers and MCs were given the emphasis. Tyranids, Astra Militarium and even Orks did have effective builds at different points, but all of them involved huge models and never the hordes depicted in fluff.

Like, for Tyranids, the most useful models in the past half decade were Trygons, Tervigons, Hive Tyrants, Harpies/Crones, and even Venomthropes/Zoanthropes. None of these are small horde models and each are fairly expensive. Meanwhile Genestealers are situational, Hormagaunts are all but useless, Termagants require the Tervigon to be useful, and Gargoyles are only used to fulfill the minimum requirement of the flyer formations.

Firstly, I'm with vitali on your comments about "lazy" painters.
I've seen tons of 3 colour and dipped horde armies that look plain and boring, while taking minimum time to do.
A lazy painter collects any army they wish.

Being lazy or a proactive painter has no bearing on the army they play.




OT: I'm assuming you were not about when kan wall and nob bikers were a thing?
Or leaf blower guard?

Most armies have had their day with net lists that roll through tournaments.

Currently alot of horde armies just have a poor book that is outdated or hasn't jumped on the power creep band waggon.




If GW did show bias, horde armies would be unstoppable due to the cost of buying these armies.
So any bias would be in their favour.

They don't hate them, they just failed math. Many times.

Well for me personally... as the battles got bigger it became less manageable to build/paint, and then deploy/move/shoot/assault tons and tons of horde models.

I love the Tyranids and I could care less what the 'power level' of the codex is - it's just that it's too much work to both build and play.

After the hell of building my last 40 Hormogaunts, I then realized I would have to weigh down every single model because they tip forward... that kinda broke my spirit ha.

The gladius and war convocation are some of the most competitive lists you can run and they run a lot of models. Multiple small unit armies are some of the most competitive, and they tend to take plenty of models just not in one giant hoard.

Martel732 wrote:
They don't hate them, they just failed math. Many times.

Basically this. GW doesn't seem to grasp how numbers work so you end up with mechanics that encourage Deathstars and hard to kill SHW/GMCs stomping around the battlefield. The latest space marine powers just scream a poor understanding how how math and games in general are played.

 Jackal wrote:


OT: I'm assuming you were not about when kan wall and nob bikers were a thing?
Or leaf blower guard?

Most armies have had their day with net lists that roll through tournaments.

Currently alot of horde armies just have a poor book that is outdated or hasn't jumped on the power creep band waggon.

If GW did show bias, horde armies would be unstoppable due to the cost of buying these armies.
So any bias would be in their favour.

Kan Wall was never an "Easy Win" army, nor was Nob Bikers. Kan Wall was usually 6-12 Kanz in 2-3 units. Scary? yeah maybe, but incredibly slow and short ranged weapons meant they had a very small area where they could hurt people, plus WS2 meant they sucked in CC when they got there (Granted the S10 AP2 klaws helped)

Kanz and Bikers were competitive but they never reached the same levels as Eldar/SM/Necrons and Tau have right now, hell they never came close. Furthermore, any lists that were remotely competitive, Nob Bikers, Kan Wall, BW rush with Deff Rollas, got nerfed into oblivion.

Nobs in general went from being able to purchase a painboy for cheap, having access to 5++, and a couple of other toyz, teamed with the wound allocation shenanigans to being completely stripped of ALL OF THAT! Now Nobz can purchase a 6+ FNP......thats it.

Killa Kanz? Well they went from 35pts a model (slightly over priced in my opinion) to 50pts a model, COMPLETELY over priced. Furthermore, their CC weapons went from S10 AP2 to S7 AP2 Klaws...because reasons. There is a reason you don't see Kanz in any kind of competitive lists anymore, hell even friendly games these things aren't seen that often.

And BWs, you poor buggers. Price for the naked wagon went up, It lost the Deff Rolla Completely (unless you want an over priced ram that can deal D3 S10 wounds that the enemy can ignore simply by not standing in the way of it. Teamed with the new vehicle damage chart means that these pieces of garbage are barely playable anymore.

Realistically out of all the horde armies currently playing the only OP unit I can think of is the Flyrants and maybe that IG blast thing that is pretty good.

compare that to Eldar, Tau, SM, Necron, SW and it is pretty clear that GW doesn't like supporting horde armies. Now whether or not that is intentional or whether that is due to them just being terrible at their jobs, that is up for debate. What is not up for debate though is that there is currently no Horde army that is even Middle Tier, we are all currently relegated to Low tier, and the only time you see them at the tourny tables is when they run super elite spam lists, 5 Flyrants, Orks with Zad taking tons of MSU Bikes.

DorianGray wrote:
In this edition and since 5th edition the Tyranids, Astra Militarrrrriummm, and esp. the Orks have not been competitive. You have chaos space marine fantards saying they are worse but I suspect all three armies are actually even less competitive. In case of Orks I don't think they have EVER been top-tier competitive like the Eldar or Necrons right now.

In 40k we already have a huge problem of lazy gamers only playing elite armies because they don't want to have to paint so many models but for the few diligent painters that do paint an horde army they get rewarded with a uncompetitive codex that gets rolled by elite armies.

Do GW hate non-elite armies? What gives GW?

I doubt there's any active hate towards horde armies, it's just easier to overload more elite armies with ridiculous stats or special rules to make them absurdly broken (you can look at something like TWC's or Necron Wraiths to see how much the difference between T4 to T5 blasts their ability to stay alive through the roof) and GW's business model these days appears to center more and more around selling big, impressive, *expensive* kits that necessitate increasingly more ridiculous rules to sell.

Of course, this also all layers on top of the aforementioned ease with which low model count armies are collected, assembled, painted and transported relative to Horde armies.

That is because GW hates orks.

They give new amazing models, but most of them are garbage in rules.
And how was not enough, they decided nerf the mob rule, make orks 1pts more expensive, quit the invulnerable saves, erase the green horde formation because was the one the ork players use and a huge NERF to kans because looks like 11 10 10 walkers were to much op, so reduced the S, makes 20 pts more expensive and they can be affected by the number of casualties in his squad.
No mention still have garbage psi powers and only access to our table, no one from the book.

ole ole


Also recently the new ships, but the ork one is pure garbage meanwhile the marine one is really cool. For 125 pts it have a laser cannon of two shots, a twin linked assault cannon and a twin-linked heavy bolter.


But hey, they recently gave to marines a new amazing ship, gave even more formations, new op powers, etc etc.....

Custom force fields give 5+ invuls instead of cover though.
But yeah, new mob rule is garbage. Like, most of the results involve killing your own soldiers. How could anyone think that's a good system is beyond me.

I mean on HQ. You cant give to a warboss a invulnerable save now (looks like pay fora 5++ was to much op....but mariens have a 3++ and is ok xDD). And that make then really vurnerable since usually have a power claw and the enemy attacks before.

Also no variety on what weapons you can give to them, if you want penetrate a 3+ armor you need give a claw, all them with I1 rule. No energy swords or similar
Think orks are the "melee" army with worst equip, weapons and options on melee fights for your HQ

I never really thought it had anything to do with GW and was just players being cheap. Fewer models means fewer purchases (especially if your army is small models that are point heavy, like Grey Knights).

Audustum wrote:
I never really thought it had anything to do with GW and was just players being cheap. Fewer models means fewer purchases (especially if your army is small models that are point heavy, like Grey Knights).

this, calculate how many dollars a 1000 point Grey Knight army costs vs a 1000 point IG army. and then you have to paint your army, I'm not lazy put I'd proably find painting guard to be kinda tedious. you'd have buckets of infantry, all mostly the same

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Custom force fields give 5+ invuls instead of cover though.
But yeah, new mob rule is garbage. Like, most of the results involve killing your own soldiers. How could anyone think that's a good system is beyond me.

that is actually a nerf. 5++ is nice, but its a 6in bubble around the model. The old rule was 5+ cover save, but any UNIT that touched it benefited from it. So you paid the same amount of point sand you could theoretically give half your army a cover save

You have to view GW through a very specific prism, and that's this: GW isn't malicious, they're just really, really, really bad at rules writing. I mean, they're comically bad at it. Not only are they bad at it, but they don't seem to be aware they're bad at it. How exactly this is possible is unknown, but it is true, nonetheless.

I've always thought they either don't play or play in a really REALLY different way to us and just don't notice the issues.

 the_Armyman wrote:
You have to view GW through a very specific prism, and that's this: GW isn't malicious, they're just really, really, really bad at rules writing. I mean, they're comically bad at it. Not only are they bad at it, but they don't seem to be aware they're bad at it. How exactly this is possible is unknown, but it is true, nonetheless.

In many instances, they seem to go out of their way to intentionally be bad at it, and repeat the same mistakes multiple times.

It's bot that they hate hordes, they just hate the idea of heroes losing to villains or unimpressive mooks. In GWs opinion, Dark Eldar, Orks, Guard, CSM, Nids and Dark Eldar exist to be a contrast to the cool awesome unique rules that the heroic races get that make them always win.

Horde armies will get rules that let them put more and more easily killed mooks on the table but never rules that let them get past being the baseline to demonstrate how awesomely tough necrons are, how awesomely agile Eldar are, how awesomely specialized Space Marines are, or how awesomely shooty Tau are.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Franarok wrote:
That is because GW hates orks.

They give new amazing models, but most of them are garbage in rules.
And how was not enough, they decided nerf the mob rule, make orks 1pts more expensive, quit the invulnerable saves, erase the green horde formation because was the one the ork players use and a huge NERF to kans because looks like 11 10 10 walkers were to much op, so reduced the S, makes 20 pts more expensive and they can be affected by the number of casualties in his squad.
No mention still have garbage psi powers and only access to our table, no one from the book.

ole ole


Also recently the new ships, but the ork one is pure garbage meanwhile the marine one is really cool. For 125 pts it have a laser cannon of two shots, a twin linked assault cannon and a twin-linked heavy bolter.


But hey, they recently gave to marines a new amazing ship, gave even more formations, new op powers, etc etc.....

Im not disagreeing that marines are the fat spoiled favorite child but how is the new Ork flyer bad? For a similar price to our other flyers we got a great anti tank/anti elite gunship with an AV12 face and a supremely mobile KFF.

You should be complaining about them basically deleting the Dakkajet from the game because now it can't even shoot ground targets and it's still retardedly expensive.

At least Ork, 'Nid and Guard players get to look fething awesome while getting their backsides kicked in by those spoiled little Marines...
Chaos Marines don't even get that.

While their rules may be awful and/or about 3 editions out of touch with the game itself, at least the other bottom feeders have some amazing looking model lines to build & paint with.

On the other hand, I would direct to the raging dumpster fire that is the CSM range, where almost half our very basic upgrades are completely missing, large chunks are still Finecrap kits, AND, 95% of the entire line is from the early to mid 2000's. (meanwhile, Khorne Berserkers aren't even from this ****ing millennium!!)

That's right, we have an army of models that were already "old", back when the Maple Loafs were still a competitive play-off team!

SemperMortis wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Custom force fields give 5+ invuls instead of cover though.
But yeah, new mob rule is garbage. Like, most of the results involve killing your own soldiers. How could anyone think that's a good system is beyond me.

that is actually a nerf. 5++ is nice, but its a 6in bubble around the model. The old rule was 5+ cover save, but any UNIT that touched it benefited from it. So you paid the same amount of point sand you could theoretically give half your army a cover save

Yeah, I noticed that part. It's over all less useful than the previous version, which was useless anyway because of ignore cover.
So basically, orks got nothing.

The only thing I like from the ork dex is lootas being moved to heavy support, which is where they belong. Everything else is either meh or gak.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 the_Armyman wrote:
You have to view GW through a very specific prism, and that's this: GW isn't malicious, they're just really, really, really bad at rules writing. I mean, they're comically bad at it. Not only are they bad at it, but they don't seem to be aware they're bad at it. How exactly this is possible is unknown, but it is true, nonetheless.

Its almost as if the competent rules writers all left the company, as they couldn't put up with the management's bs.
Didn't Alessio Cavatore get fired when he tried to tell Kirby what he was doing wrong?

SemperMortis wrote:
Kanz and Bikers were competitive but they never reached the same levels as Eldar/SM/Necrons and Tau have right now, hell they never came close.

NOTHING has ever been on the same level as Eldar/SM/Necrons and Tau are now. Hell, old Tau were never on the same level that new Tau are now, or ever came close.

You can't compare Orks during their heyday to the top tier armies now, because literally nothing from previous editions can compare. The game as it stands is a fething mess. When the game was last playable, however, Orks could compete. They weren't the best, they weren't even really that "good", but they could at least participate, as could other low-tier or neglected armies. It really isn't the same now.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Custom force fields give 5+ invuls instead of cover though.
But yeah, new mob rule is garbage. Like, most of the results involve killing your own soldiers. How could anyone think that's a good system is beyond me.

that is actually a nerf. 5++ is nice, but its a 6in bubble around the model. The old rule was 5+ cover save, but any UNIT that touched it benefited from it. So you paid the same amount of point sand you could theoretically give half your army a cover save

Yeah, I noticed that part. It's over all less useful than the previous version, which was useless anyway because of ignore cover.
So basically, orks got nothing.

The only thing I like from the ork dex is lootas being moved to heavy support, which is where they belong. Everything else is either meh or gak.

I actually hate that move. The Elite section for our codex is utter trash. Either take meganobz or Tank Bustas....that is it. For heavy support....well hell you got Kanz, Dreads, Naughts, Mek Gunz, Lootas, Battlewagonz, and im sure I am forgetting something.

 Sidstyler wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Kanz and Bikers were competitive but they never reached the same levels as Eldar/SM/Necrons and Tau have right now, hell they never came close.

NOTHING has ever been on the same level as Eldar/SM/Necrons and Tau are now. Hell, old Tau were never on the same level that new Tau are now, or ever came close.

You can't compare Orks during their heyday to the top tier armies now, because literally nothing from previous editions can compare. The game as it stands is a fething mess. When the game was last playable, however, Orks could compete. They weren't the best, they weren't even really that "good", but they could at least participate, as could other low-tier or neglected armies. It really isn't the same now.

3rd edition Ulthwe Seer Congress & Alatioc Disruption table say hi...

Sirenbombing was also pretty much impossible to stop unless you played either Templars w/Abhor the Witch vow or Sisters/Witch Hunters.

4th ed unkillable Eldar Flying Cirucs? Yep, that was broke as gak.

SW's Langwang spam, vehicle spam & Grey Knights in general in 5th.


Every single edition has had stuff that's so badly broken/abusive, that it's on a level well above the majority of the game.

Seriously? ...Blood Angels first turn assault, then Sweaping Advance through your entire army "Rhino-Rush" during 3rd edition was better.

 Gunzhard wrote:
Seriously? ...Blood Angels first turn assault, then Sweaping Advance through your entire army "Rhino-Rush" during 3rd edition was better.

People figured out to block the rhinos with their own vehicles.

The purpose of horde armies is not to overwhelm the opponent with cheap expendable bodies. The purpose of horde armies is to put lots of easily dispatched mooks on the table so that the heroes can rack up satisfyingly hefty kill counts as they Forge the Narrative of how they heroically triumphed over overwhelming odds.

I believe Jervis recently indicated that they don't view the game so much as a contest between 2 generals, but rather a cooperative effort with 2 directors helping to create a cinematic reenactment of a battle. Well, remember that scene in Gladiator with the chariots vs "the barbarian horde"? Yeah, you're the horde. Except there's no Russell Crowe. Forge that Narrative!

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
The purpose of horde armies is not to overwhelm the opponent with cheap expendable bodies. The purpose of horde armies is to put lots of easily dispatched mooks on the table so that the heroes can rack up satisfyingly hefty kill counts as they Forge the Narrative of how they heroically triumphed over overwhelming odds.

I believe Jervis recently indicated that they don't view the game so much as a contest between 2 generals, but rather a cooperative effort with 2 directors helping to create a cinematic reenactment of a battle. Well, remember that scene in Gladiator with the chariots vs "the barbarian horde"? Yeah, you're the horde. Except there's no Russell Crowe. Forge that Narrative!

It's exactly a contest between two generals. Jervis is insane.

Martel732 wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
The purpose of horde armies is not to overwhelm the opponent with cheap expendable bodies. The purpose of horde armies is to put lots of easily dispatched mooks on the table so that the heroes can rack up satisfyingly hefty kill counts as they Forge the Narrative of how they heroically triumphed over overwhelming odds.

I believe Jervis recently indicated that they don't view the game so much as a contest between 2 generals, but rather a cooperative effort with 2 directors helping to create a cinematic reenactment of a battle. Well, remember that scene in Gladiator with the chariots vs "the barbarian horde"? Yeah, you're the horde. Except there's no Russell Crowe. Forge that Narrative!

It's exactly a contest between two generals. Jervis is insane.

You and I and the whole (sane) world may think that it's a contest between 2 generals. But the people making the game seem to think it's an RPG with 2 GMs and no players. And when you think about it that actually does explain a whole lot (like the constant inexplicable nerfs to already underpowered "badguy" armies). That and incompetence.