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Well was ABG actually that bad against a TAC before 7th? 7th only came out a few months ago and before that I mostly considered ABG's pretty crap (they do lots of damage but don't actually win games).

But I only played against an ABG once, and not with my 'nids, so I dunno, maybe it was broken since 3rd I mostly just felt ABG's were pretty mediocre against your average TAC list.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Well was ABG actually that bad against a TAC before 7th? 7th only came out a few months ago and before that I mostly considered ABG's pretty crap (they do lots of damage but don't actually win games).

But I only played against an ABG once, and not with my 'nids, so I dunno, maybe it was broken since 3rd I mostly just felt ABG's were pretty mediocre against your average TAC list.

I've been playing it since 3rd, and it's had its ups and downs. In 3rd and 4th it was stupid good - for 1 pt per tank you could give them Hidden Set Up (basically a way better infiltrate), among other things. In 5th it was alright, because the new damage chart meant that tanks spent more of the game stunned and shaken than wrecked or shooting. (basically went from either damaged or functional to stunlocked).

In 6th it was bad, because of no scoring. In 7th, it's awesome again.

But even if we drop the example, I still think TAC is dead.

Yeah for the most part I don't disagree that TAC armies suck in a game dominated by rock paper scissors where you can essentially take whatever the hell you want.

There's a part of me that wants to see it get better not worse though There's another part of me that wants to sell my armies and give up (I've played so few games in the past few years but I can't bring myself to get rid of armies I've spent so long working on).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Yeah for the most part I don't disagree that TAC armies suck in a game dominated by rock paper scissors where you can essentially take whatever the hell you want.

There's a part of me that wants to see it get better not worse though There's another part of me that wants to sell my armies and give up (I've played so few games in the past few years but I can't bring myself to get rid of armies I've spent so long working on).

I think this is great. If there's ever a time to justify taking the cool models that you've always wanted to take, but couldn't, now's the time!

I've never needed an excuse to paint cool models for show purposes and I'd rather not see game breakers in the game itself.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I've never needed an excuse to paint cool models for show purposes and I'd rather not see game breakers in the game itself.

I like seeing what the cool models do to other cool models in the field of combat! I don't just paint Titans for looks (though that's part of the reason) - I paint them so I can more easily visualize the spectacle of the Legio Crucius engaging the Orks in a hard fight to save a Forge World.

Sometimes the Orks win.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

morgoth wrote:
If you're playing Tyranid... go read the Competitive Tyranid thread, I'm sure they've got ideas.

I'm flipping through that thread and finding nothing about dealing with Imperial Knights. Maybe I just missed it but it's a long arse thread and I'm finding more about allying Tyranids with an IK than I am about actually dealing with one

If Knights are part of the meta then I think Tyranids basically are incapable of making a TAC list, unless TAC means "lose badly to all comers".

Get used to the fact that there are only three top 3 armies, sometimes your army is not in there.

So the answer is 40k sucks, live with it?

That's about it. Tyranids were fethed so hard they exploded all over the place in a gooey mess. live with it.

When your MCs are some of the most overcosted MCs (apart from the dakkafex), and you can mostly build your army on MCs, you're in trouble.

Just play 1400 points of gaunts and two flyrants


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I dislike people who complain like this.

I've used a Leman Russ tank company since 3rd Edition. In its current iteration, it has far -FAR- more versatile firepower than Knights do, while having 40 AV14 hull points at 2,000 points.

It has instant-death shells, which kill monstrous creatures more dead than even D weapons. It has cover-ignoring shells, it has extra hullpoints, it has the ability to give every tank stealth, and some other ways of giving them outflank. It has the ability to make them move flat-out, making them as fast as a Knight for objectives, and they're troops so they get Objective Secured.

This list has existed in various iterations since 3rd, but apparently people suddenly can't deal with it - it's way tougher than the knight list.

EDIT: What I'm saying is that true TAC lists have been dead for some time, but only now are people beginning to realize it, apparently.

But your ABG army is not a TAC list. So it doesn't matter.

TAC lists are meant to fight TAC lists, they can't handle broken non-TAC lists, because nothing can, except other broken non-TAC lists which happen to be their (hard) counter, which makes them obviously non-TAC and non-competitive because you would stand a solid chance of losing at round X because you met your nemesis.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Oh if we're talking about Unbound then I entirely agree that also feths up the game

Then, in the age of Unbound, Lords of War, and Knights, why are people complaining about being unable to build TAC lists?

Unbound, LoW are not accepted in most tournaments, the knights and the other standard codex entries, are.

Don't pretend there's a gray area, there's none.

Knights are the edge of what's allowed in tournaments - and imo the edge of what should be allowed in competitive play, the others (LoW, FW, unbound) are great tools for friendly games but are not balanced yet.

morgoth wrote:

Unbound, LoW are not accepted in most tournaments, the knights and the other standard codex entries, are.

Don't pretend there's a gray area, there's none.

Meep, wrong. Most tournaments allow LoW. They use a list with allowed LOW and exclude the obviously overpowered ones. T-C'tan and such.

In all honesty, Tyranids have been in this boat where they suck at TAC, and have been since 4th stopped being a thing.

5th edition: 6 to hit most vehicles in melee in the Razorback and Metal Box edition, while having crummy shooting and often can't break RHINO armor.

Having certain things beat them out isn't really new.

its not very accurate to compare IG (AM) ABG or even land raider spam to knights.

Knights cannot be 1 shotted, every other AV unit in the game potentially can. Knights, like MC, cannot be made impotent through crew stunned, immobilized, or weapon destroyed results as they are SHW. Vehicles can.

There are lot more to knights than just having av13 6hp.

 Sigvatr wrote:

morgoth wrote:

Unbound, LoW are not accepted in most tournaments, the knights and the other standard codex entries, are.

Don't pretend there's a gray area, there's none.

Meep, wrong. Most tournaments allow LoW. They use a list with allowed LOW and exclude the obviously overpowered ones. T-C'tan and such.

They do? There are some big ones that do, I didn't think "most" did.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

morgoth wrote:

Unbound, LoW are not accepted in most tournaments, the knights and the other standard codex entries, are.

Don't pretend there's a gray area, there's none.

Meep, wrong. Most tournaments allow LoW. They use a list with allowed LOW and exclude the obviously overpowered ones. T-C'tan and such.

They do? There are some big ones that do, I didn't think "most" did.

There're still a lot of people who are stuck on the 6th edition mindset and still believe that the Seerstar is a thing that dominates the entire competetive meta.
Perhaps it's because most of the 7th rulebook is written off with very subtle changes to existing 6th rules, excluding the psyker phase, that many just assumes that what ever was broken in 6th, is also broken in 7th.

That's not really related to what I asked though

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I dislike people who complain like this.

I've used a Leman Russ tank company since 3rd Edition. In its current iteration, it has far -FAR- more versatile firepower than Knights do, while having 40 AV14 hull points at 2,000 points.

It has instant-death shells, which kill monstrous creatures more dead than even D weapons. It has cover-ignoring shells, it has extra hullpoints, it has the ability to give every tank stealth, and some other ways of giving them outflank. It has the ability to make them move flat-out, making them as fast as a Knight for objectives, and they're troops so they get Objective Secured.

This list has existed in various iterations since 3rd, but apparently people suddenly can't deal with it - it's way tougher than the knight list.

EDIT: What I'm saying is that true TAC lists have been dead for some time, but only now are people beginning to realize it, apparently.

TAC in 7th is MSU spam: obsec troops with dedicated transports like drop pods, wave serpents and venoms. These three armies can also spam melta/haywire and deal with horde. LoW/Knights and deathstars are not killy enough to deal with the extra scoring units. Maelstrom and obsec transports have been a major game changer.



Nids have trouble with vehicles as most of their tools have been removed. Drop pods gone, Biomancy gone, 2d6 armor pen not available for FMC, vector strike nerfed, warpblast far less reliable. At the moment the codex options are a bit of haywire and high volume S6 shooting.

It's a bit frustrating that a powerful monster like a Hive Tyrant is pretty much helpless against heavy armor while a bunch of half naked dark elf gladiators can strip a Baneblade in no time flat.

@Antario, that's not true if you're playing ALL missions from the rulebook and not only those that favor obsec and other bs.

morgoth wrote:
@Antario, that's not true if you're playing ALL missions from the rulebook and not only those that favor obsec and other bs.

In 7th only 1 out of 12 BRB missions relies purely on kill points while 3/4 of missions have multiple objectives on the field. In 6th edition 1 in 6 missions was determined by kill points and only half the missions were objective heavy. Guess which strategy has become more important for a TAC army now.

Knights are borderline broken because they bring a lot to the table for their points. Their formation is actually sort of ridiculous. I can understand a big walker having 6 hull points. I can NOT understand it ignoring all results on the damage table so it gets to have the best aspects of an MC and a vehicle.

I can understand it having a 4+ save on one facing. I don't get why it has to bring a D-strength weapon to regular games.

I get why it should be fearsome in CC. I don't get why it should mulch things automatically with stomp, and then blow up to auto-kill whatever it is that managed to bring it down.

I really don't know how to deal with Knights with my CSM. They have no real weaknesses, and that is exactly why so many top lists in tournaments bring one.

 Sephyr wrote:

Knights are borderline broken because they bring a lot to the table for their points. Their formation is actually sort of ridiculous. I can understand a big walker having 6 hull points. I can NOT understand it ignoring all results on the damage table so it gets to have the best aspects of an MC and a vehicle.

I can understand it having a 4+ save on one facing. I don't get why it has to bring a D-strength weapon to regular games.

I get why it should be fearsome in CC. I don't get why it should mulch things automatically with stomp, and then blow up to auto-kill whatever it is that managed to bring it down.

I really don't know how to deal with Knights with my CSM. They have no real weaknesses, and that is exactly why so many top lists in tournaments bring one.

They actually are pretty moderate for their points, they are actually one of the few things ingame that are probably priced right.

And a couple melta penetration rolls can scrap a knight in a hurry. You just have to tag team it from multiple angles OR get into melee with something that has a bunch of Str8+ attacks.

Squads with hammers eat knights.

Bike squads with melta eat knights.

Fast vehicles with melta/lance eat knights.

Anything with 3+ saves or better can tarpit knights quite effectively(unless they roll 6s on their stomps) as the knight is only going to kill 1-2 a turn at most.

The mistake that many people make when sitting across from 4-5 knights is thinking to themselves "How am I going to kill all of those??"
What you should be thinking is "how can I kill 2-3 of those?". Because most games have objectives, and your list probably has enough objective secured units to hold 3-4 objectives, even while taking losses from the knights. They are tough to kill, but don't really hit that hard with only 3 attacks that don't generally ignore invulnerable saves and their stomps which do very little to MEQ-save units. Remember, if you have even one ork boy next an objective, it doesn't matter if there are 2 knights also next to it...it's yours. Your best bet is to focus down one or 2, then hold objectives.

And if you manage to get a chain reaction (knights are too close, and the explosion from one takes down another), all the more happy day for you.

Seriously. you don't need to kill the entire opposing army, just to kill enough of it so it won't kill too much of your army.



And for those who claim that knights are another reason why "TAC is dead", nope. I play TAC. wonna know how?
I run a list where every single unit can at least deal at least SOME degree of damage to tanks, monsters and hordes. (the three three of "defense", even super-infantry in the end behaves like monsters)
Maybe alot of my units are not optimal for any one job (heavens forbid the fire warriors to be optimal against tanks, that would be crazy), but they all assist at anything that gets thrown at me-no matter how minmaxed, nothing i have on the field can be outright ignored by any army, and as long I'm not tabled-I have something to fight with. (as long I'm not left with just markers ofcourse. they are not quite threatening on their own)

My railheads can slug tanks and MCs or submunition hordes (drones detach to go annoy stuff), my fire warriors can gun down hordes ping at MCs and EMP tanks, my suits come with fusion to blow up tanks and cause major pain to monsters but can last-resort assault hordes to delay them, ralai has a gun for nearly anything, my riptide (singular) is equipped with an HBC that is decent against everything, even if never quite perfect, etc. all units are multi-purpose.
And I don't even need the "game start list manipulation" that psykers bring, or that the demon rewards has. (honestly, why didn't nids have such a system of buying "mutation levels" and than applying them at game start? it fits them well.)

The reason why people fail to make TAC lists is that they try to bring a toolbelt with a singular great tool to every occasion, but when that tool brakes or gets overloaded they are left stranded. the key is to bring a bunch of different swiss army knives who are all doing many things to a given degree of efficiency, so when one brakes or is overloaded, you have backups.

Some armies definitely do TAC better than others.

Knights themselves aren't a good TAC army, but they can feth up some other TAC armies, maybe not Tau ones though.

That's usually how spam armies work, they fail badly against some armies but smash other ones, they don't dominate, they just feth up the balance.

The reason why people fail to make TAC lists is that they try to bring a toolbelt with a singular great tool to every occasion, but when that tool brakes or gets overloaded they are left stranded. the key is to bring a bunch of different swiss army knives who are all doing many things to a given degree of efficiency, so when one brakes or is overloaded, you have backups.

And yet eldar can take serpents full of DA and firedragons and counter everything from MC and flyers to infantry and tanks with the same units.

I find individual and small knights (though not entire armies of them) to be quite balanced.

The only problem I have with them is when they roll 6's.

6+d6 wounds is a bit too much, and auto removing models with a 6 roll on a stomp attack really can be game breaking.
I would be more happy if it was toned down a bit.

Chainsword would be fine imo with only D3 wounds per hit. It is still terminally lethal to the vast majority of the game.


Stomp attacks should be something like str 10 ap2 on the roll of a 6, instead of simply removing a model. This way it would still squash squads almost as effectively, but won't remove giant MCs and terminators as easily.

Makumba wrote:

The reason why people fail to make TAC lists is that they try to bring a toolbelt with a singular great tool to every occasion, but when that tool brakes or gets overloaded they are left stranded. the key is to bring a bunch of different swiss army knives who are all doing many things to a given degree of efficiency, so when one brakes or is overloaded, you have backups.

And yet eldar can take serpents full of DA and firedragons and counter everything from MC and flyers to infantry and tanks with the same units.

That's because the wave serpent is completely off the charts and the only thing he does not eliminate with absurd ease is taken down by the fire dragons.

Every WS+FD unit is a self-contained "tac unit" that is not only a threat to any target, but brutally efficient against any target, paring great armored defense, what is probably the most point-efficent melta in the game, the number of shots to take down hordes with the strength that even just random snap-hits will threaten flyers, etc, etc.
Its quite literally the most obviously OP "win button" unit in the game.

Using the WS as an answer to any point anyone brings up is absurd, unless the point was "the balance is perfect", and than WS is the perfect counter-argument.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Makumba wrote:

The reason why people fail to make TAC lists is that they try to bring a toolbelt with a singular great tool to every occasion, but when that tool brakes or gets overloaded they are left stranded. the key is to bring a bunch of different swiss army knives who are all doing many things to a given degree of efficiency, so when one brakes or is overloaded, you have backups.

And yet eldar can take serpents full of DA and firedragons and counter everything from MC and flyers to infantry and tanks with the same units.

That's because the wave serpent is completely off the charts and the only thing he does not eliminate with absurd ease is taken down by the fire dragons.

Every WS+FD unit is a self-contained "tac unit" that is not only a threat to any target, but brutally efficient against any target, paring great armored defense, what is probably the most point-efficent melta in the game, the number of shots to take down hordes with the strength that even just random snap-hits will threaten flyers, etc, etc.
Its quite literally the most obviously OP "win button" unit in the game.

Using the WS as an answer to any point anyone brings up is absurd, unless the point was "the balance is perfect", and than WS is the perfect counter-argument.

That tac unit costs 250 points and can be taken down with a single laser shot.

If you think Knights are nothing big, WS+FD definitely are nothing big.

The lack of balance is the primary reason TAC lists suck. Imbalance can come in the form of overpowered units (which requires you tailor to beat it) or it can come in the form of units that are good against one thing and suck against another (Knight suck against an army with decent ranged anti-tank and are awesome against armies that have don't have so much anti-tank and/or use CC as their anti-tank).

morgoth wrote:


That tac unit costs 250 points and can be taken down with a single laser shot.

If you think Knights are nothing big, WS+FD definitely are nothing big.

Excuse me?

Assuming BS 4, you will have an abysmal 0,0062% chance to 1 shot a WS with a single lascanon shot.

That's assuming 3+ to hit, 4+ to pen, the opponent failing his 3+ cover, the opponent failing his 2+ reduction to glance AND THEN assuming you roll 6+ on the vehicle.

I won't even begin the calculations on what the chances are that the vehicle explodes, wounds every passenger inside and them, all failing their saves. I would have to put so many zeroes that the chances for a single laser shot ever harms the WS, let alone destroying the whole unit of 250 point, is best described as non existent.

 Zewrath wrote:

morgoth wrote:


That tac unit costs 250 points and can be taken down with a single laser shot.

If you think Knights are nothing big, WS+FD definitely are nothing big.

Excuse me?

Assuming BS 4, you will have an abysmal 0,0062% chance to 1 shot a WS with a single lascanon shot.

That's assuming 3+ to hit, 4+ to pen, the opponent failing his 3+ cover, the opponent failing his 2+ reduction to glance AND THEN assuming you roll 6+ on the vehicle.

I won't even begin the calculations on what the chances are that the vehicle explodes, wounds every passenger inside and them, all failing their saves. I would have to put so many zeroes that the chances for a single laser shot ever harms the WS, let alone destroying the whole unit of 250 point, is best described as non existent.

Excuse me ?

Assuming BS4, you have a 3+ to hit, 3+ to glance, 4+ to pen, 3+ cover, 5+ on the damage table.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A WAVE SERPENT THAT HAS ITS SHIELD ACTIVATED YET IS COMPETITIVE AT THE SAME TIME.
Go read on schrödinger's wave serpent, it's a concept just for you.

It's 5,6% and 7.4% when TL which is very often the case with lasers. So.. maybe I shouldn't Jink if there's only a 15% chance when not jinking ? o gak boom. Wait. I jinked. good... i now have 25% of my damage dealing abilities.

And my Space Wolf opponent does it in at most 4 shots every game, even with cover saves (I'm not that good at rolling saves).

The thing is: luck against an IK will do nothing because there is no vehicle damage table roll, making it a lot tougher and less variable than other vehicles.



Really, you should try those WS for yourselves before thinking they're made of pure god mode.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW, I think there's something wrong with Imperial Knights. The presence of D strength is a first in regular 40K lists and ... it's badass. Ignoring invulnerable saves is crazy good.

morgoth wrote:

Excuse me ?

Assuming BS4, you have a 3+ to hit, 3+ to glance, 4+ to pen, 3+ cover, 5+ on the damage table.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A WAVE SERPENT THAT HAS ITS SHIELD ACTIVATED YET IS COMPETITIVE AT THE SAME TIME.
Go read on schrödinger's wave serpent, it's a concept just for you.

It's 5,6% and 7.4% when TL which is very often the case with lasers. So.. maybe I shouldn't Jink if there's only a 15% chance when not jinking ? o gak boom. Wait. I jinked. good... i now have 25% of my damage dealing abilities.

And my Space Wolf opponent does it in at most 4 shots every game, even with cover saves (I'm not that good at rolling saves).

The thing is: luck against an IK will do nothing because there is no vehicle damage table roll, making it a lot tougher and less variable than other vehicles.



Really, you should try those WS for yourselves before thinking they're made of pure god mode.

Except you talked about the unit being destroyed by a single laser canon, in which case the glancing is irrelevant.
Except you need 6+ to explode a vehicle, assuming you're playing 7th edition and the weapon is AP 2 (which the lascanon is).
Except WS do in fact pop their shields against alpha strike lists and if they aren't going 1st, so what ever your definition of competetive is, I've never heard of it. Especially if said competetive environment allows 5+ to explode on a weapon that is AP2.

Also, I don't know how you do math, but assuming TL BS 4 Lascanon AP2 with 3+ cover, there's a 4,9% to destroy the target. And this is also assuming no Night Fighting, Scatterfield Generators, Wave Serpent Shield, but then again, you seem to play a game of 40K where AP2 explodes vehicles on 5+.