What are the most used competative lists you see?
In context of all the races?

Eldar - dual seer coucil and serpents
Orks - nob bikers
Chaos - dual lash and obs
Marines - 6 Dreads
- All bikes list
- What else?
DE - ??
IG - ??
Nids - ??
Necrons - ??
Daemons - ??
Tau - ??
etc etc...

A few questions before I make some comments. First of all what point total are you looking at 1750 2k or 2.5k? As different builds will be seen in different amounts.

that being said
Necrons: Triple monolith
WH: Immolater spam or mech sisters with triple excorcist
DE: Raider and Lance spam, Haemoculi jetbike spam

I'm not an incredibly active tournament player currently, but for orks I would think ghaz/nobz/boyz BW spam would be more competitive than nob bikers. Judging by Batreps and such that seems to be winning the tournies more.

Competitive armies are defined by their ability to deal with any force they might come across. Sure, your demons/tyranids/necrons/whatever kick ass against anything that runs unprotected infantry, but what do they do against mechanized armies?

It looks a little something like this:



Armies that have to the tools to be dangerous vs any foe:

Marines
Wolves
Chaos
Guard
Tau
Sisters
Daemonhunters (but only if you feel like running the "as many land raiders as I can cram into this points value" list)
Eldar
Dark Eldar

Armies that don't:

Necrons
Tyranids
Orks
Demons

So there you go. There are no tiers as far as I see it, only functional armies and non-functional or situationally functional armies. How to tell? If you can't find an army list that makes you go "well.... I guess I'm boned" from turn 1, then you have a functional army. If you have an achilles heel... well, you're going to fight it eventually. For the above armies that achilles heel is a common weakness - high armor vehicles.

I expect lots of ork players will disagree with me. I'll let the number of "how to deal with land raiders?" posts that pop up here from ork players stand as evidence for my point. Sorry boyz, should have looted some meltaguns.

Oh, and necron armies with 3 monoliths are probably the weakest list you could "competitively build" (ie, no silliness like 200 pt sergeants and intentionally poor choices). With almost 800 points in one place you're going to have a veeeery lean phase out number. Who cares if you have 3 unkillable fortresses if your opponents can win by just... not trying to kill them?

This really depends what points value are playing at. What works good at 1500 or 1750 is vastly different then a 2500 point Ardboys list.

Excuse me Mr Grankobot! I take offence! As a DH player I will tell you that there are NO competitive builds available to us and I resent you trying to make the worst army out there any better and detract from my joy when occasionally winning! How dare you!

Madgod wrote:Excuse me Mr Grankobot! I take offence! As a DH player I will tell you that there are NO competitive builds available to us and I resent you trying to make the worst army out there any better and detract from my joy when occasionally winning! How dare you!

You'd better hope DeadShane doesn't read this :S

I completely disagree with the Ork not being a top tier army its consistently one of the most difficult armies to play against and has such a wide variety of great units.

Battlewagon nob spam etc..


Its just a fantastic army.

Orks are an army that win turnies often, and daemons haven't failed to not apper in the top 10.

Orks wouldn't win tournaments regularly if 40k was played elimination style, ie once you lose you're out, you have to keep winning to keep playing. This would mean that you'd have a much greater chance at drawing one of your counters, whereas the "everybody plays every round" style (while more fun, no doubt. Who wants to pay 15 bucks to get knocked out on round one?) means the odds are much more in your favor. For example:

Your battlewagon army plays foot eldar in round one. Obviously, you stomp him. Meanwhile 2 other crappy lists battle it out and the slightly less crappy one prevails. Over on table #3 two excellent players with solid competitive lists butt heads. One wins, one loses.

Now in round 2, winners play winners and losers play losers. You pair against the crappy but not crappiest army there. That's 2 wins to you from lucky matchups - this doesn't mean your army is competitive, it just means it's not the bottom of the barrel. In a big enough tournament you could find yourself at the top tables by round 3 just by stomping noobs.

Add in soft scores like sportsmanship, painting, and (ugh) composition, and it's pretty clear to see that "who won what tournament" isn't the best way to gauge the relative effectiveness of the armies available. You could wind up with 2 massacres and a loss and stand a good chance of winning, just by merit of having a pretty army and smiling at the refs. Overall it's a very subjective scale and makes it clear that the biggest problem with 40k isn't its noncompetitive armies, it's the noncompetitive tournaments.

Of course I'm not trying to say that orks are THE WURST ARMY EVAR AND WILL NEVER WIN!!11, only that I don't think you can call an army competitive when it has a high chance to hit a draw. For example, your battlewagon army gets paired against a solid DE player with a solid shooty list.

GG.

Some of those dark lances are going to get through, and then you're walking.

The lists in the "functional" column, however, can work around that. When you find yourself boned from turn 1, no matter what you do, no matter what you roll, you can't legitimately call your army competitive.

Anyway, looking back at the original post I see that this thread was about the best builds for each army, not how the armies stack up against eachother. Sorry for the derail

grankobot wrote:Competitive armies are defined by their ability to deal with any force they might come across. Sure, your demons/tyranids/necrons/whatever kick ass against anything that runs unprotected infantry, but what do they do against mechanized armies?

It looks a little something like this:



Armies that have to the tools to be dangerous vs any foe:

Marines
Wolves
Chaos
Guard
Tau
Sisters
Daemonhunters (but only if you feel like running the "as many land raiders as I can cram into this points value" list)
Eldar
Dark Eldar

Armies that don't:

Necrons
Tyranids
Orks
Demons

So there you go. There are no tiers as far as I see it, only functional armies and non-functional or situationally functional armies. How to tell? If you can't find an army list that makes you go "well.... I guess I'm boned" from turn 1, then you have a functional army. If you have an achilles heel... well, you're going to fight it eventually. For the above armies that achilles heel is a common weakness - high armor vehicles.

I expect lots of ork players will disagree with me. I'll let the number of "how to deal with land raiders?" posts that pop up here from ork players stand as evidence for my point. Sorry boyz, should have looted some meltaguns.

Oh, and necron armies with 3 monoliths are probably the weakest list you could "competitively build" (ie, no silliness like 200 pt sergeants and intentionally poor choices). With almost 800 points in one place you're going to have a veeeery lean phase out number. Who cares if you have 3 unkillable fortresses if your opponents can win by just... not trying to kill them?

Orks and tyranids can deal with armor just fine. You just have to assault it, and you always get there eventually. Land raiders can be tough for orks, but they have a few potential strength ten power claws and, honestly, the smart player will just...ignore them. In a small enough game (1500 points or so) a land raider is 1/6 of your entire army. All those points in one place. Just kill the other stuff. What's the land raider going to do? Tie you up in combat?

I completely agree with your point about necrons though. I wouldn't even call that three monolith list competitive. Nor the space marine six dreadnought list. The space marines don't need to phase out if you spent all your points on things that can't even hold an objective.

Biker nobs are stupid scary though. Not necessarily because they're so powerful, and they are. But simply because they're so easy to use. I mean what I said literally, stupid and scary. The unit is damn near unkillable and can take out most anything. (not to say they can't be dealt with, I've tank shocked them off the board with a god damn rhino) but they're tough enough that anyone can use them. Put them on the table and watch stuff die. But, for all the complaining you hear about them, the player paid for them. In 1500 points that's damn near half the army's points in one place. Be smart about objectives and pick on the weak extremities of that list and it can be beaten. It's just scary because it's an easy answer for people who want to win tournaments, but don't particularly like to think.

This is, of course, assuming the point cost is at or near 1,500.

As for your point on single elimination: that wouldn't solve your problem. You could still get to round three with lucky match ups and single elimination. The problem isn't the lack of elimination; it's the lack of rounds. 40k takes a long time to play, and tournaments are rarely more than three rounds. That said, you can still tell top tier lists from tournament standings just by sheer numbers. Sure, you can get lucky and win a tournament with a gakky army but when fifty people when fifty tournaments with damn near the same army, luck starts to seep out of the equation.

grankobot wrote:
Marines
Wolves
Chaos
Guard
Tau
Sisters
Daemonhunters (but only if you feel like running the "as many land raiders as I can cram into this points value" list)
Eldar
Dark Eldar

Armies that don't:

Necrons
Tyranids
Orks
Demons

So there you go. There are no tiers as far as I see it, only functional armies and non-functional or situationally functional armies. How to tell? If you can't find an army list that makes you go "well.... I guess I'm boned" from turn 1, then you have a functional army. If you have an achilles heel... well, you're going to fight it eventually. For the above armies that achilles heel is a common weakness - high armor vehicles.

So you say that Tau > Orks?

Righto.

Biker nobs are stupid scary though. Not necessarily because they're so powerful, and they are. But simply because they're so easy to use.

It would depend really.
against a russ heavy guard army i think its a case of who gets 1st turn does the most damage.

3 russ squads dropping plates is enough to wipe out a nob biker unit + most units with them.
nob bikers also suffer from low model count as they take a huge chunk from your points.
Not only that, but you dont allways find people know what to do with them
Wouldnt be the 1st time ive had to play a bikernob list against someone who only uses them because he has been told they are great.

2 CC turns later, a unit of DC, dante and mephiston and all bikernobz are dead and ive lost 2 DC lol.

Its just a case of what armies can handle them without having to really focus all they have at them. (or your left open against other units)

Nids arent actually bad atall.
Its just a case of a huge drop in nid players over time (jan - march should fix that)

Orks generally show up in mass at tournies, simply because they were the "new army" and the power builds could be found with ease.

Still doesent mean they are amazing, unless used by someone who knows what they are doing, and knows what to avoid.



I would love to say BA are a top tier army, but they arent
I generally get around a 60% or so win ratio, but its mainly due to no one playing BA lol.
Only long time gamers / tournie players know what to expect against them.

JD21290 wrote:nob bikers also suffer from low model count as they take a huge chunk from your points.
Not only that, but you dont allways find people know what to do with them
Wouldnt be the 1st time ive had to play a bikernob list against someone who only uses them because he has been told they are great

Exactly my point.

Backfire wrote:
So you say that Tau > Orks?

Righto.

Actually yeah, I would say that.

Armies should be judged by their best builds, not their worst. The worst of tau is really, really bad. Mind bogglingly bad, far worse than the worst of orks. This is probably where the army gets its bad rep - new players pick it up, and get their asses handed to them because it's very easy to screw yourself. Orks are much easier to pick up - put your models on the table, run at the other guy. Hurrrrrr.

The best of tau on the other hand is really, really good. Read this post for a very good example of how tau should be played. Unless you're in the group of people who turn up their noses and scoff at anything Stelek says just because it's Stelek saying it. If that's the case you should probably just ignore this post.

The only ork player I'm scared of is the one who's smart enough to sneak a power klaw into snikrot's unit.

snickrot's unit cannot have a power klaw... he replaces the nob, and can't take a klaw himself.

snickrot aint that great... i've had tac squads beat him back.

Mechanized Marines is a competitive army build... i've done very well in tournaments with it, and only lost those tournaments because I made minor mistakes. Marines are NOT forgiving of mistakes, like everyone seems to think. A slight error in deployment can leave you entirely screwed, because every unit relies on support. Don't have the correct support in the correct place, you will loose.

playing against a newb marine player is always easier than a newb ork player... orks are basically just point and waaaagh. marines take more... finesse.

The lack of Nob Bikers are likely attributed to one of the most popular armies gaining one of the best assault units in the game...that usually deploys out of a tank that Orks find neigh impossible to blow up;

TH/SS Terms storming out of a Land Raider

Horst wrote:snickrot's unit cannot have a power klaw... he replaces the nob, and can't take a klaw himself.

The reason why not every ork player is smart enough to do it is because it isn't immediately obvious how. You can attach dok grotsnik to the unit and still use their wonky outflanking rule.

It gives the squad a hidden power klaw and FNP. Nasty combo.

grankobot wrote:

Armies that have to the tools to be dangerous vs any foe:

Marines
Wolves
Chaos
Guard
Tau
Sisters
Daemonhunters (but only if you feel like running the "as many land raiders as I can cram into this points value" list)
Eldar
Dark Eldar

Armies that don't:

Necrons
Tyranids
Orks
Demons

This list is wrong on a few levels. It largely ignores the amount of ease an army has, which effects a lot of its playability. All most all players would do better with orks then demon hunters, as orks are by no means a finesse army. In addition the orks cannot deal with one unit means they are a bad army is a good example of fuzzy logic. Heres a counter example. With the exception of kroot the entire tau army cannot deal with orks in hand to hand.

Top tier: Largely what makes an army top tier is the age of its codex. The increase of toughness in vehicles coupled with the troops only scoring bs of 5th edition has made the game much more hateful to older codexs. They normally pay more for their weapons then newer lists, and dont have the cheap troops of new dexs.

Space wolves-ability to handle almost anything, almost all units have multiple rolls to play.

Space marines-to a similar extent. They can design lists that have an answer to everything, but require a decent amount of skill to work. Can also design lists that run high in the durr hurr scale, such as multiple raider TH/SS rush.

Chaos-largely the 2 prince, plague/oblit lists. Same as marines, generally less numbers but more elite and tougher/harder hitting per unit.

Orks-dirt cheap troops, who are effective in hand to hand. Plus some of the best hand to hand in the game in the form of nob squads. They can throw a lot of shots too. The real strength of the orks though is sheer numbers. Point, Waaaagh, win, 180 dudes in 2000 points is downright hateful. Who cares if they cant deal with raiders, they will kill everything else, and that raider will not make its points back.

Guard-Lots of cheap troops, lots of shots, lots and lots of high strength shots.

Second tier: These are armies that can do alright if played very well, but generally arent as competitive as other lists. Largely due to being outdated. Tend to pay more for the same thing in new dex. Compare a twin linked bright lance serpent to a vendetta or valkyrie.

Eldar-Once the kings of 40k, they have been knocked down. The overcosting of our transports compared to new dexs, coupled with largely weak/overpriced troops has dropped this dex down in power by a lot. In addition our armies often lose out in the massacre system, because we simply cannot bring the sheer numbers of units to overwhelm our opponents. Can still do well, but generally require much more finesse then your opponent to win with.

Dark eldar-same boat as eldar. While better in objective missions, they lose out hard in kill points. Also in need of a new codex.

Nids-generally are not as strong as they were, troops only scoring means kill the tyrants and troops will run away, plus no ranged anti tank.

chaos demons-very hit or miss. IG with mystics is an instant win, as are marines with null zone. But can put a hurting on lists that struggle from inability to deal with monstrous creatures. Suffer from the same problem as above to armies-being shoehorned into one or two competitive builds. All below armies have this issue too.

Sisters-Horde of power armor, plus lots of melta and flamer means this is an army that can win big if played right. However they largely lose out in hand to hand.

Blood angels- have never truly seen them played. I will put them here for two reasons though. First they are marines, second they are hand to hand. However I hear they are largely overcosted. I figure they suffer from what all other second tier armies have, except chaos demons.

gak tier:

Necrons-lack of truly effective anti tank. Also the new combat system kills them off. Charge 20 necron warriors, kill more then you lost, watch them run, and sweep. Its happened plenty of times.

Tau- Ranged weapons becoming less effective against tanks really hurt them. As did the whole run move on everyone. Whole codex needs about a 25% reduction in points cost.

Demonhunters- assuming no inducted guard, they are not that good. Largely due to lack of anti tank, as all their anti tank comes from either land raiders or dreadnoughts. One is average at best, the other is pretty good but costs more then its worth shooting wise, and both compete for heavy support slots.

Other:
Dark angels, while largely a second tier army, you are simply better playing marines.

grankobot wrote:

Horst wrote:snickrot's unit cannot have a power klaw... he replaces the nob, and can't take a klaw himself.

The reason why not every ork player is smart enough to do it is because it isn't immediately obvious how. You can attach dok grotsnik to the unit and still use their wonky outflanking rule.

It gives the squad a hidden power klaw and FNP. Nasty combo.

Not in any competitive setting that uses INAT you can't. RAW allowing it aside.

Orks are still in my opinion the best army but people are horribly obsessed with Nob Bikers.

I'd rather face nob bikers than battlewagon spam with KFF mech.


You have not faced frustating having to face 6 to 7 battlewagons w/ 3 squads of Nobs driving across the field with a 4+ invulnerable.

Hollismason wrote:Orks are still in my opinion the best army but people are horribly obsessed with Nob Bikers.

I'd rather face nob bikers than battlewagon spam with KFF mech.


You have not faced frustating having to face 6 to 7 battlewagons w/ 3 squads of Nobs driving across the field with a 4+ invulnerable.

This a thousand times. My marines are equipped with the specific goal of dealing with nobs. 2 vindis, thunderfire for lootas, 5 hammers+lysander in a raider. They are not easy to deal with if you are not equipped to kick them around. And they have so many builds, hand to hand in wagons with KFF, which IMO makes them much tougher then raiders at range. Plus nobs which are one of the best hand to hand units in the game, and you run into some serious problems. But a list kitted up to fight those guys will lose out to anyone running 45 lootas+120 boyz at you.

Yeah its still a fantastic army. People are just now moving away from the whole Nob Biker and making more balanced numbers and shooting lists.

People go on and on about mechanized list

A Nob Squad w/ Battlewagon usually runs 350 to 370


The army is just really really good at having a infinite lit almost of amazing lists.

Yes, for literally half the points you get a roughly the same toughness, just without the gimicks. Which is what they are. Magic is not interesting if you know how the trick works.

I know a guy who tears up all the tournaments with an SM army. He calls it "The army that kills everything within 24 inches."

Literally anything that comes close dies.

Ill take 2 Nob Squads on Bikes vvs. 30 Nobs w/ 3 Battlewagons any day of the week.

edit:
The ork players I have played regularly against have switched out for 2 Nob Squads in battlewagons and 9 Wartraks along w/ 9 Killa Kans. I hope you enjoy dealing with 22 vehicles with a 4+ invulnerable save firing off 26 Missiles a turn as it advances.

Oh wait everything is in H t H on the second turn.

Until you run into an IG army with lots of pie plates, or marine multi hammer squad raider rush. Then those 2 nob squads are dead.

Very rock paper scissors. I find beat stick units work best with only one in the list.

The Ork army can have Rock, Paper, Scissors in every damn army

edit:
Oh and that list 2 nobs in Battle Wagons 9 wartraks and 9 Kans is 1300 points

You still have points left over in 2000 to take 700 points of just absolute HORDE.

grankobot wrote:Armies that don't:

Necrons
Tyranids
Orks
Demons

Three of the four down! I knew I should have started up Orks as my next army instead of Tau...

Eidolon wrote:
Top tier: Largely what makes an army top tier is the age of its codex. The increase of toughness in vehicles coupled with the troops only scoring bs of 5th edition has made the game much more hateful to older codexs. They normally pay more for their weapons then newer lists, and dont have the cheap troops of new dexs.

Space wolves-ability to handle almost anything, almost all units have multiple rolls to play.

Space marines-to a similar extent. They can design lists that have an answer to everything, but require a decent amount of skill to work. Can also design lists that run high in the durr hurr scale, such as multiple raider TH/SS rush.

Chaos-largely the 2 prince, plague/oblit lists. Same as marines, generally less numbers but more elite and tougher/harder hitting per unit.

Orks-dirt cheap troops, who are effective in hand to hand. Plus some of the best hand to hand in the game in the form of nob squads. They can throw a lot of shots too. The real strength of the orks though is sheer numbers. Point, Waaaagh, win, 180 dudes in 2000 points is downright hateful. Who cares if they cant deal with raiders, they will kill everything else, and that raider will not make its points back.

Guard-Lots of cheap troops, lots of shots, lots and lots of high strength shots.

Second tier: These are armies that can do alright if played very well, but generally arent as competitive as other lists. Largely due to being outdated. Tend to pay more for the same thing in new dex. Compare a twin linked bright lance serpent to a vendetta or valkyrie.

Eldar-Once the kings of 40k, they have been knocked down. The overcosting of our transports compared to new dexs, coupled with largely weak/overpriced troops has dropped this dex down in power by a lot. In addition our armies often lose out in the massacre system, because we simply cannot bring the sheer numbers of units to overwhelm our opponents. Can still do well, but generally require much more finesse then your opponent to win with.

Dark eldar-same boat as eldar. While better in objective missions, they lose out hard in kill points. Also in need of a new codex.

Nids-generally are not as strong as they were, troops only scoring means kill the tyrants and troops will run away, plus no ranged anti tank.

chaos demons-very hit or miss. IG with mystics is an instant win, as are marines with null zone. But can put a hurting on lists that struggle from inability to deal with monstrous creatures. Suffer from the same problem as above to armies-being shoehorned into one or two competitive builds. All below armies have this issue too.

Sisters-Horde of power armor, plus lots of melta and flamer means this is an army that can win big if played right. However they largely lose out in hand to hand.

Blood angels- have never truly seen them played. I will put them here for two reasons though. First they are marines, second they are hand to hand. However I hear they are largely overcosted. I figure they suffer from what all other second tier armies have, except chaos demons.

gak tier:

Necrons-lack of truly effective anti tank. Also the new combat system kills them off. Charge 20 necron warriors, kill more then you lost, watch them run, and sweep. Its happened plenty of times.

Tau- Ranged weapons becoming less effective against tanks really hurt them. As did the whole run move on everyone. Whole codex needs about a 25% reduction in points cost.

Demonhunters- assuming no inducted guard, they are not that good. Largely due to lack of anti tank, as all their anti tank comes from either land raiders or dreadnoughts. One is average at best, the other is pretty good but costs more then its worth shooting wise, and both compete for heavy support slots.

Other:
Dark angels, while largely a second tier army, you are simply better playing marines.

Damn good; and damn right too.

I-bounty-hunt-the-elderly wrote:

Eidolon wrote:
Top tier: Largely what makes an army top tier is the age of its codex. The increase of toughness in vehicles coupled with the troops only scoring bs of 5th edition has made the game much more hateful to older codexs. They normally pay more for their weapons then newer lists, and dont have the cheap troops of new dexs.

Space wolves-ability to handle almost anything, almost all units have multiple rolls to play.

Space marines-to a similar extent. They can design lists that have an answer to everything, but require a decent amount of skill to work. Can also design lists that run high in the durr hurr scale, such as multiple raider TH/SS rush.

Chaos-largely the 2 prince, plague/oblit lists. Same as marines, generally less numbers but more elite and tougher/harder hitting per unit.

Orks-dirt cheap troops, who are effective in hand to hand. Plus some of the best hand to hand in the game in the form of nob squads. They can throw a lot of shots too. The real strength of the orks though is sheer numbers. Point, Waaaagh, win, 180 dudes in 2000 points is downright hateful. Who cares if they cant deal with raiders, they will kill everything else, and that raider will not make its points back.

Guard-Lots of cheap troops, lots of shots, lots and lots of high strength shots.

Second tier: These are armies that can do alright if played very well, but generally arent as competitive as other lists. Largely due to being outdated. Tend to pay more for the same thing in new dex. Compare a twin linked bright lance serpent to a vendetta or valkyrie.

Eldar-Once the kings of 40k, they have been knocked down. The overcosting of our transports compared to new dexs, coupled with largely weak/overpriced troops has dropped this dex down in power by a lot. In addition our armies often lose out in the massacre system, because we simply cannot bring the sheer numbers of units to overwhelm our opponents. Can still do well, but generally require much more finesse then your opponent to win with.

Dark eldar-same boat as eldar. While better in objective missions, they lose out hard in kill points. Also in need of a new codex.

Nids-generally are not as strong as they were, troops only scoring means kill the tyrants and troops will run away, plus no ranged anti tank.

chaos demons-very hit or miss. IG with mystics is an instant win, as are marines with null zone. But can put a hurting on lists that struggle from inability to deal with monstrous creatures. Suffer from the same problem as above to armies-being shoehorned into one or two competitive builds. All below armies have this issue too.

Sisters-Horde of power armor, plus lots of melta and flamer means this is an army that can win big if played right. However they largely lose out in hand to hand.

Blood angels- have never truly seen them played. I will put them here for two reasons though. First they are marines, second they are hand to hand. However I hear they are largely overcosted. I figure they suffer from what all other second tier armies have, except chaos demons.

gak tier:

Necrons-lack of truly effective anti tank. Also the new combat system kills them off. Charge 20 necron warriors, kill more then you lost, watch them run, and sweep. Its happened plenty of times.

Tau- Ranged weapons becoming less effective against tanks really hurt them. As did the whole run move on everyone. Whole codex needs about a 25% reduction in points cost.

Demonhunters- assuming no inducted guard, they are not that good. Largely due to lack of anti tank, as all their anti tank comes from either land raiders or dreadnoughts. One is average at best, the other is pretty good but costs more then its worth shooting wise, and both compete for heavy support slots.

Other:
Dark angels, while largely a second tier army, you are simply better playing marines.

Damn good; and damn right too.

Very True.

grankobot wrote:
Actually yeah, I would say that.

Armies should be judged by their best builds, not their worst. The worst of tau is really, really bad. Mind bogglingly bad, far worse than the worst of orks. This is probably where the army gets its bad rep - new players pick it up, and get their asses handed to them because it's very easy to screw yourself. Orks are much easier to pick up - put your models on the table, run at the other guy. Hurrrrrr.

The best of tau on the other hand is really, really good. Read this post for a very good example of how tau should be played. Unless you're in the group of people who turn up their noses and scoff at anything Stelek says just because it's Stelek saying it. If that's the case you should probably just ignore this post.

That's all nice theoryhammer, but why even very very good Tau players don't seem to make it in the tournaments? I mean, yeah, you probably can't read too much from one tournament, but when you don't see an army on top positions in any tournament, I think that tells something. One guy won ToS Heat 1 with Tau last year, but his list was not anything like "best of" list. This year, there was IIRC only one Tau player qualifying in Heat 1. You talked about dealing with "any force which comes across" - how do you deal with Nob Bikers? Horde Orks? Plague Marines?

Kirika wrote:This really depends what points value are playing at. What works good at 1500 or 1750 is vastly different then a 2500 point Ardboys list.

Great point. I play orks and I find that they do not scale that well past 1500 points simply because ork anti-tank is so godawful.

Orks are one of the better armies. Last two tournies i was in i won with orks. Don't let the so called lack of AT weapons fool you.

But i would have to say the most well balanced army would have to be space marines. Solid infantry and good supporting units.

Still i put my money on Orks, just can't build them as a shooty army.

Tau are not third tier, a good tau list is definetly first tier, crappy tau lists are third tier. Any crappy list is third tier from any army.

Competitive=Mech, Tau beats Mech. My 2k list runs 1 Fusion Blaster, 10 MPs, 5 Railguns (Can be fired at 4 different targets) and 16 markerlights. So say i had an extra 500 points as someone suggested (25% decrease in cost), i could bring a whole lot more pain. While i agree there are some over costed units (eldar players complaining about there serpents being over costed makes me want to slap them) this helps balance out the rest of the incredible list.

So what are the most common top tier builds... Vulkan (mech or pod), Ork Nob spam, bikers, hoarde (all debatable), Guard and finnally chaos oblit/PMs spam.

The only lists in there that would stand a chance against the elite tau builds are oblit/PMs and MAYBE guard (Although guard struggle with durable long range anti tank).

Grankobot can theory hammer all he wants about the tournament setting, and we can do likewise the other way. But if he cant prove it in tournaments, his theories are only as good as trash.

Land Raiders - I never had a problem with a land raider spam list. In fact, they often have to worry not having enough fire power to deal with my number.

I don't know how many times I have said this, but Stelek is a joke. And for that reason, many people I know have stopped visiting his blog since it is simply a waste of time.

There is some truth in that. While you may have a theory and the math may work out...until field tested with repeated results your theory is only sound not valid...

I play mech marines, and orks are always one of my harder matchups. if I don't stop them, those mega nobz with power klaws rushing out of a battlewagon will gut my land raider, and do it on turn 2. something about 25 power klaw attacks on the charge..... it tends to wreck land raiders, even if they move 12". sure, the nobs will die after that, but with the raider dead, I have no transports that can stand up to loota fire, so now i'm boned.

Orks are quite good.

And then those mega nobs that didnt have there BW destroyed by melta speeders are charged by the TH/SS termies inside the LR. Meanwhile the lootas are being smashed to peices by drop poding anything with a flamer, wirlwinds, dakkapreds etc etc

97252783 wrote:And then those mega nobs that didnt have there BW destroyed by melta speeders are charged by the TH/SS termies inside the LR. Meanwhile the lootas are being smashed to peices by drop poding anything with a flamer, wirlwinds, dakkapreds etc etc

And then all that you mentioned above are trampled by 3 squads of 30 boyz that are standing behind waiting. Typing anything you like is as easy as rolling for 1+ armor saves.

Yup, kinda like what you did, just replied in the same manner. Although what marine list that has a LR doesnt have TH/SS termies??

97252783 wrote:Yup, kinda like what you did, just replied in the same manner. Although what marine list that has a LR doesnt have TH/SS termies??

If you are going to include this type of unit and transport in a 1500 point list you will be punished. At 1750 and above of course the LR and it's terminators are going to be much more effective.


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I also agree that Tau can be top tier. They are a rare army, and rarer still is it to see them played well.

olympia wrote:

97252783 wrote:Yup, kinda like what you did, just replied in the same manner. Although what marine list that has a LR doesnt have TH/SS termies??

If you are going to include this type of unit and transport in a 1500 point list you will be punished. At 1750 and above of course the LR and it's terminators are going to be much more effective.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I also agree that Tau can be top tier. They are a rare army, and rarer still is it to see them played well.

He included MANs in a battlewagon so i was assuming it was at a fairly high points level.

Yup tau are almost NEVER played well. I always thought tau was a strong army but stelek (ye i know haha) really opened my eyes to how strong they are.

97252783 wrote:Yup, kinda like what you did, just replied in the same manner. Although what marine list that has a LR doesnt have TH/SS termies??

Same manner? I dont think so.

"Theories that cant be proved are trash, or at most sound to the person proposing it" - This sounds ridiculous? I don't think so.

97252783 wrote:Although what marine list that has a LR doesnt have TH/SS termies??

Similarly, why cant an ork army have mobs of 30 boyz?



Instead of trolling around, I proposed that you keep quiet and not embarass yourself. If you or Grankobot would like to prove your theories, prove it to us in the Ard Boyz or GT :-)

Orkish wrote:Grankobot can theory hammer all he wants about the tournament setting, and we can do likewise the other way. But if he cant prove it in tournaments, his theories are only as good as trash.

Land Raiders - I never had a problem with a land raider spam list. In fact, they often have to worry not having enough fire power to deal with my number.

I don't know how many times I have said this, but Stelek is a joke. And for that reason, many people I know have stopped visiting his blog since it is simply a waste of time.

So your conjecture is arbitrarily more valid than my conjecture. Ok.

I stand by my opinions, but I will clarify them for the people who may have misunderstood me.

First, the majority of 40k tournaments aren't what you could call competitive. When you have ridiculous soft scores like comp as common as they are, how could you say that they are competitive? Would you call basketball competitive if short players only had to touch the rim to get points? I don't think so. It's a farce. Tournaments like 'ard boyz with no soft scoring come down to demographics and the win/loss/draw/annihilation scoring as much as # of games won - a win is a win. It's silly that tabling your opponent is worth more points than just beating him, which is something that tau aren't good at. CC armies are naturally better at winning big, and you need big points to win big tournaments in the current setting.

As an example, I recently went 3/0/0 in a local tournament, but only won overall by a handful over the next highest guy who I beat in round one, who then went on to get 2 massacres against the losers of earlier rounds. Make sense to you? Me neither. If his army was painted, he would have best overall, just because he went on to stomp the noobs on the lower tables instead of having hard games against the more competitive players who won in round one.

And secondly, my list wasn't addressing which armies were easier to play, or which ones have more viable builds, only which armies can compete with their strongest builds and not draw any counters, and which armies can't make top of the line take all comers lists.

Orks have a lot of cool lists that "work", but not against everyone. Orks lose to land raiders. That's a counter. Sorry.

I hate the Tier statement and in fact am now replacing it with the following statement.


All armies in their own right can be competitive different armies have different levels of skill reuirment and experience in order to play correctly. There are levels of skill required to excell t making a ary competitive. However some armies are naturally easier to play than others.


Easy
Space Marine
etc...

Medium
Templars
etc..

Difficult
Tyranid

etc...

Ok, so filtering all that you have said above, your mainpoint is - orks have no solution to land raider spam (the rest are just your own personal experience - for e.g Many orks players, including myself, have emerged as 1st in tournies, big or small, and won all the games too - in your case 3-0-0).

I personally have played land raider spam lists countless times, and had lost ZERO times to them. At 1750pts or greater, the number of powerklaws + boyz that I am carrying (you may even take TANK bustas if you want) is simply so numerous that it is almost a certainty I will immob/wrecked/explode a land raider in a turn or 2.

4 Land Raiders trying to shoot into my numbers of orks? I laugh


Of course if you are comparing who is better at bringing down a land raider - Tau or Orks, the answer is simply - Tau. RailGuns coupled with markerlights takes down AV14 like chimeras taking down boyz. But does that mean orks cant deal with AV14? Not quite. And apart from that, orks are better than Tau in dealing with ALMOST anything else.

Orkish wrote:Ok, so filtering all that you have said above, your mainpoint is - orks have no solution to land raider spam (the rest are just your own personal experience - for e.g Many orks players, including myself, have emerged as 1st in tournies, big or small, and won all the games too - in your case 3-0-0).

I personally have played land raider spam lists countless times, and had lost ZERO times to them. At 1750pts or greater, the number of powerklaws + boyz that I am carrying (you may even take TANK bustas if you want) is simply so numerous that it is almost a certainty I will immob/wrecked/explode a land raider in a turn or 2.

4 Land Raiders trying to shoot into my numbers of orks? I laugh

I bet you don't laugh at 4 land raiders tank shocking your boyz off of objectives, or throwing some assault terminators with rerolls to hit in your face.

Sounds to me like your buddies are stuck on "vanilla" land raiders, which aren't really good at anything. One day they'll learn that redeemers are awesome and they might even learn how to use them properly!

My main point is that armies with built in weaknesses that can be exploited aren't on par with real competitive armies - if the 2 best players in the world met on a 6x4 and ran every army against every other army 100 times, orks would lose more than the armies in the first list because there are certain armies that put them at a disadvantage right from turn 1 WITHOUT gearing up the whole list to fight orks specifically. That's how I define competitive vs not competitive - if there's a list that your army has extreme difficulty beating, even if both players are excellent.

Some of the 4 gimps are more extreme than others, like necrons, but they all suffer from the same core problem - no reliable answer to armor. If only you could loot meltaguns. That would pretty much solve everything.

Anyway, it's not like this matters even if by some miracle I do convince you all that orks aren't "zomg top tier the winnarz", because GW's tournaments don't reward winning consistently as much as they do flashy games with purdy plastic men.

I completely agree with Grankobot.

At the most refined levels of all-comers, no-comp, tournament-style play, his categorization is correct IMO.

only which armies can compete with their strongest builds and not draw any counters, and which armies can't make top of the line take all comers lists.

I'd take an army that is 65% over all armies except a rare one than one that has 45% odds against all armies.

Frankly, there is no army that can not be countered unless the game is broken. Show me an army and I'll show you one that strips out all it gimmicks it has to deal with "all the other armies" and fill it with just plain power beat it.
--------------------------
Codex exists to build armies. It is better to rate individual armies than anything. I categorize them as follows:

1. Broken good: An army that can stalemate or beat any other possible army regardless of that other army's composition. Thankfully not around in this ed of 40k since if it exists, everyone who wants to win would just play this. (and multiple perfectly balanced armies are impossible given the complexity of the game and issues with missions)

2. Meta-gamed: An army that can beat some other armies and loses to some other armies. The strongest army is thus dependent on the list and how many have geared up to beat it. Some army can be amazingly 'weak', but since it is rare no one gears up to beat it, it gives good win rates to the few that play them. Other armies can be innately strong, but gives few wins since everyone is geared up to beat it. Sometimes weak armies that in theory could be good but never is because too many players gear up to beat it even when it is rare, sometimes because it is too similar to another, more common army.

3. Useless: An army that has worst performance than another army when fighting ALL opponents. Note this is actually quite rare as long as you spend all your points on useful things.

Assault terminators again, are never a problem - simply because I always have the numbers to counter charge. Do the math hammering yourself (I have done it countless times, so dont ask me to do it again) - point for point, the terminators are not going to survive the trampling by the ork boyz.

As mentioned in my previous post on top, in your tournament setting where everywhere will play against everyone else, orks will in fact most probably be ranked the highest (or tied with IG) because orks simply have an advantage against a greater number of armies.

Of course, if your tournament only revolves around "the fastest men who takes down the land raider wins", I for once will vote for Tau. If orks have railguns, let me tell you - I will throw all my orks away because it will be crap - orks are already overpowered (if not, on par with the likes of new IG) as it is.

I bet you don't laugh at 4 land raiders tank shocking your boyz off of objectives, or throwing some assault terminators with rerolls to hit in your face.

I bet you don't laugh when some dark eldar just....well I don't think I need to say anything. Oh please, if LR spam has no bad match up, than we'd be talking.

Sure, marines codex allows you to build an army to beat most things out there, but you can't do them all at once.

Take your basic list, and remove all the things you add because you aren't fighting marines, like null zones, flamers whatnot. Now replace it with marine killing units. Congrats, you've just created a list that is visibly better in a stand up match!

Every army has a bad match up. Whether it is a problem is in the metagame.

Also, there is no such thing as tooling up against a codex. There is tooling up to beat an army, not a codex.

Orks have lots of options and has game in a lot of metagame situations outside of "everyone spams anti-ork."

if the 2 best players in the world met on a 6x4 and ran every army against every other army 100 times, orks would lose more than the armies in the first list because there are certain armies that put them at a disadvantage right from turn 1 WITHOUT gearing up the whole list to fight orks specifically.

If we ran every army possible, than orks would clean house since most possible armies in most other codex sucks more than a random ork army. Lets see you put together a "randomly generated necron army" and see if it works.

40k matches are nowhere near fair as matches are never 50/50 when two armies faces up. Say you are having a guard mirror match, and you bought melta to deal with raiders, pbs and inquistor to deal with fatecrusher, while the other guy just spammed heavy weapons with those points....fair?

In 40k every match up is uneven and every game a gamble.

The point is not to win 50% of every match up, the point is to win the most match up by the biggest margins and if you have to gamble against a low probability armies, well just do that.

Frankly, the whole "balanced army" thing is because player skills are unequal, and good players can pull off big wins with a small army disadvantage. If player skill is totally even, than rock-paper-scissor metagaming beats "balanced army against all" since a balanced army would pretty much win only half its games in small margins and pretty much never win anything big. The better strategy is to have some "big win matchups" and gamble on that.

It seems we have two different opinions of what defines "competitive." That's fine. My definition is an army that has the tools to win consistently and not be at a serious disadvantage against any one army.

I don't care if you do win big against some builds with your orks. The fact is, orks have hard counters, which doesn't qualify them for the above definition.

If we ran every army possible, than orks would clean house since most possible armies in most other codex sucks more than a random ork army. Lets see you put together a "randomly generated necron army" and see if it works.

I'm sorry, I should have been more specific. What I meant was the strongest "take all comers" lists from each army. And yes, serious players bring army lists geared to 5th edition, not specific armies to serious (lol) tournaments.

Bringing an unbalanced army and praying you get some lucky matchups is a very poor game plan and, again, only highlights the silliness of GW style tournaments.

40k matches are nowhere near fair as matches are never 50/50 when two armies faces up. Say you are having a guard mirror match, and you bought melta to deal with raiders, pbs and inquistor to deal with fatecrusher, while the other guy just spammed heavy weapons with those points....fair?

Meanwhile, back in the real world where we're not allowed to change our lists in between rounds, the guard player who decks out infantry squads (I assume when you say heavy weapons, you mean heavy weapons infantry bases) WILL fold to one of the armies in the second category of my first post, who are all damn good at killing infantry. On the other hand, they MIGHT do well against a balanced guard list. Maybe. I doubt it though.

Having a buttload of veterans and command squads with 3 or 4 meltaguns each isn't a balanced list - balanced lists mix at least one flamer into each squad. You'll have chimeras with hull flamers. You'll have ordnance. Have you even seen a properly decked out valkyrie + vet team? The veterans are there to pop tanks, the valkyries can handle infantry and holy crap can they handle infantry.

I mean seriously. I don't think you understand what a balanced list is. Not trying to make it personal, just I don't think we're on the same wavelength here.

Frankly, the whole "balanced army" thing is because player skills are unequal, and good players can pull off big wins with a small army disadvantage. If player skill is totally even, than rock-paper-scissor metagaming beats "balanced army against all" since a balanced army would pretty much win only half its games in small margins and pretty much never win anything big. The better strategy is to have some "big win matchups" and gamble on that.

The entire purpose of a balanced army is to eliminate the natural counters to your army - you keep playing rock paper scissors. I choose nuke. The armies in the first category have builds that can do this. The armies in the second category always have a rock to their scissors, even in their best builds, and that is what makes them noncompetitive.

LOL you are once again contradicting yourself. If being competitive means being able to win most of the competitive list out there, then orks again certainly qualify for this. But that being said, your idea of what IS CONSIDERED competitive has NO VALUE whatsoever, because it has value only in YOUR own world.

So maybe if you are proposing - Orks are not top tier in Grankobot's world, I would certainly agree.


You are proposing that in the countless tournaments that had orks emerge as winner, the player might have been lucky to avoid facing problematic list, might hav scored points due to massacre but not outright winning, etc etc other reasons. If it was a one off result, should we suspect the above? Yes. If orks manage to win times and again, should we suspect the above? Maybe yes, maybe no, but I doubt so.

If by my world you mean "amongst competitive armies in a high level of play", then sure. If you feel I've contradicted myself then please point out where so I can clarify. I'm not beating my chest here or just trying to be contrary, I'm discussing my opinion in the appropriate thread, on the appropriate board.

Orks are a noobstomper army, like demons and tyranids. Unlike demons and tyranids they're at the interesting position of being halfway between good and not good for 5th edition, which means in games where neither player is very good...

It's funny how my posts all end with the same point. If you're having a consistently good record with orks, maybe you need to step outside of your comfort zone and play with some new opponents. Maybe you just happen to be a big fish in a small pond. That's not an objective way to judge an army's effectiveness though.

I'm going to just stop here, since I can't make my point much clearer without this thread devolving into personal attacks. If you disagree with me, that's cool. I'm happy to hear why. I'm not thrilled at all the knee-jerk "UR WRONG!!!!!" posts from people who have a boner for all things green and burly.

Play with new opponents? Sure, why not? I have always been doing that.

And like I said, if you need to prove your theories (which are now at most sound to you), then prove it somewhere where there will be a record, like the Ard Boyz or the various GTs. Well, then again you are complaining the flaws in the tournament system - which is not even for you to judge. And still, if you desperately need to prove it, organise your own so called perfect tournament and make it known all over the world / country, so that we can see the results.

If you cant do any of the above and prove your theories, then your theories are nothing but trash to us.

Because what seems sound to you, obviously don't seem so to the rest of us. You may say "hmm, rocks should float in water, bla bla bla reasons" and when the experiment results proved otherwise, you insist that the experiment is unfair. You are unable to design your own experiment to prove your theories, but insist that they are correct - JOKE.

And seriously, I think you are the one who needs to step out of your small fish pond and meet with the top tier ork players out there. I, personally will show you how I consistently beat the crap out of a land raider spam list. FYI, I have played against different players from more than 10 countries.

Lets take ToS 2009 Heat 1 results. Six matches, so it is statistically more signifant than 3-match tournaments. It appears there are no soft scores, with almost 150 participants it's a decent field.

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m640087a_Throne_of_Skulls_40K_-_Heat_1.pdf

Top 50 has

-8 Space marines
-6 Imperial Guard
-7 Orks
-6 Eldar
-4 Daemons
-9 Chaos Marines
-2 Dark Angels
-3 Tyranids
-2 Tau
-1 Dark Eldar
-0 Black Templar, Necron or DH

-And apparently there were one Warriors of Chaos and one Dark Elves? One would think that bows and spears aren't a match for a bolt gun...

The entire purpose of a balanced army is to eliminate the natural counters to your army

There is no such thing as an army without a counter without the game being broken. Look, if this army has 50% or better match up against everything, why play any other army? Now you can argue that multiples versions of this exists, but experience shows otherwise. GW couldn't possibly balance the game in such a fine line that this could be true, across different missions, formats and other fudge factors.

There is a kind of balanced army where there is no "strong" counter to the army, say an army that has a base 45% expectation against every army, for example. This kind of army is good for an expert that has a skill advantage over opponents, so that base 45% can be added to a skill factor, of say 30%, and win 75% of all matches and not likely to get kicked out by any tournament by bad draws. However when no skill edge exists, this army wins only under 45% of matches which is not good at all.

The armies in the second category always have a rock to their scissors, even in their best builds, and that is what makes them noncompetitive.

They win competitions, thus they are competitive. Do not hijack term's meaning from what is commonly used. Competitiveness is about competitions, and if they do fine in the competition environment existing today in 40k, they are competitive. If you prostulate another environment, they are just your imaginations and arbitrary definitions. I can just as well define "properly competitive" as tables without terrain because I favor that arrangement.

(I assume when you say heavy weapons, you mean heavy weapons infantry bases)

I mean heavy weapons in slots that is otherwise unused, like giving vets an autocannon, adding plasma to lemans and stuffing in some hydras. But really, if you want to kill some mech guard, try the leman + manticore +vendetta plus chimera bunkers with autocannons in them. The melta, valk, flamers, ap2, pbs, inq and such do nothing when you get alpha striked to heaven. If you think a "balanced" list can have better odds than a list designed specifically to screw yours, your are just mad. It is just a matter of effort.

What I meant was the strongest "take all comers" lists from each army.

Take all comers is a silly concept when guns, weapons, armor and everything else can be used to counter others in very, very specific ways. What "take all comers" really means is "take something that can fight everything in the metagame" not "take something that can beat EVERYTHING the opponent can throw at me."

Since metagames shift, "take all comers" shift too.

edit:
Fundamentally, 40k is a game played with real models. Since models takes real effort to buy, build, paint and use, access to armies and units is uneven and players are never optimal in their armies. A competitive player should therefore not imagine a world where everyone have every model and try to combat every possible army that is possible within the rules. Instead, he should look at the real armies they could field and design his army to beat just that.

This remains true as long as 40k is a game played with models.

To ask a table top game to be competitive in the sense of "everyone is playing optimally and thus no metagame exploits are possible" is just silly. Fundamentally, 40k is just a game.

Its just proliferation there are more bad Ork players than there are good ork players. I would still rather not face orks with my marines its a difficult army regardless.

Eidolon wrote:In addition the orks cannot deal with one unit means they are a bad army is a good example of fuzzy logic. Heres a counter example. With the exception of kroot the entire tau army cannot deal with orks in hand to hand.

Your counter example is indeed a good example of fuzzy logic, as the Tau ARE able to deal with the Orks through shooting. The Orks however, are unable to deal with AV13 or AV14 Vehicles, period. No, Power Klaws in close combat do not work. Hitting on sixes isn't going to cut it, and that is assuming those Power Klaws actually get into combat. Grankobot's point is: can you build a competitive army that stands a chance against the most extreme army builds out there (Land Raider spam being the spoiler for the Orks)? If an army can't do this, than it isn't competitive.

Airmaniac wrote: The Orks however, are unable to deal with AV13 or AV14 Vehicles, period. No, Power Klaws in close combat do not work. Hitting on sixes isn't going to cut it, and that is assuming those Power Klaws actually get into combat.

"Period"? Avoid categorical pronouncements like this and you have a chance of being taken seriously. For five points an ork player gets a handy device (the grabbin klaw) that immobilizes a vehicle for a turn on 4+. At my most recent four tournaments I dropped land raiders like I drop Bristol Scale 7 bowel movements.


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Airmaniac wrote: (Land Raider spam being the spoiler for the Orks)

Luckily, an Ork player would never meet Land Raider spam at any of the top tables because such a list would be weeded out in the first three rounds by sundry Tau, Eldar, and whatnot. Very few, if any, Land Raider spam lists have won any major tournament. I can't name one, can you?

Backfire wrote:Lets take ToS 2009 Heat 1 results. Six matches, so it is statistically more signifant than 3-match tournaments. It appears there are no soft scores, with almost 150 participants it's a decent field.

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m640087a_Throne_of_Skulls_40K_-_Heat_1.pdf

Top 50 has

-8 Space marines
-6 Imperial Guard
-7 Orks
-6 Eldar
-4 Daemons
-9 Chaos Marines
-2 Dark Angels
-3 Tyranids
-2 Tau
-1 Dark Eldar
-0 Black Templar, Necron or DH

-And apparently there were one Warriors of Chaos and one Dark Elves? One would think that bows and spears aren't a match for a bolt gun...

This means absolutely nothing at all. Not only have you taken absolute data instead of relative data (for example: there are only 3 Dark Angel armies in the field, so 66,67% of them finished top 50, while there are 18 Orks armies in the field, so 38,89% of them finished top 50). You are also forgetting, that not all those armies are playing the the most competitive (or even a competitive) build. Since certain armies have less 'horrible' units then others do, there is no way to compare the strength of the competitive builds of the armies like this.

Can we get off the subject of Orks not being competitive its kind of a moot point.


Im actually more interested in how Tyranids and Space Wolves are gong to start fairing.

olympia wrote:

Airmaniac wrote: The Orks however, are unable to deal with AV13 or AV14 Vehicles, period. No, Power Klaws in close combat do not work. Hitting on sixes isn't going to cut it, and that is assuming those Power Klaws actually get into combat.

"Period"? Avoid categorical pronouncements like this and you have a chance of being taken seriously. For five points an ork player gets a handy device (the grabbin klaw) that immobilizes a vehicle for a turn on 4+. At my most recent four tournaments I dropped land raiders like I drop Bristol Scale 7 bowel movements.


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Airmaniac wrote: (Land Raider spam being the spoiler for the Orks)

Luckily, an Ork player would never meet Land Raider spam at any of the top tables because such a list would be weeded out in the first three rounds by sundry Tau, Eldar, and whatnot. Very few, if any, Land Raider spam lists have won any major tournament. I can't name one, can you?

In the first case, this would mean a Battlewagon army probably, meaning the Battlewagon is standing within 6" of the Land Raider to use the Grabbin' Klaw. Whatever is inside the Battlewagon is going to get shot to pieces before it even get's to assault the (50% chance) stationary Land Raider, because the up close and personal Battlewagon is now within Melta range of the Space Marine army.

The second part brings us back to what has been already explained about 10 times in this thread: the first (and very often the second round of the tournament) you can come up against anything. Just because you don't think you will meet Land Raiders on the top tables, doesn't mean you can't meet them in the first two rounds. Also, you will be meeting enough Land Raiders on the top tables as well, as they seem a popular choice for the Space Marines (since they can carry Assault Terminators, which are arguably a very good unit).

Eldar -
Bike Council, Monstrous Eldar, Iyanden build.

Orks -
Diversified nobs in battlewagons (not bikers)
Battlewagon spam
MASSIVE HORDE

Chaos -
Lash Princes, Abbaddon, Plague Marines, Oblits.

Marines -
Vulkan List
Termie heavy List

DE -
Parking lot of doom

IG -
Alpha Strike
mechvets

Nids -
Nidzilla

Necrons -
Dual/Triple monolith, Destroyer heavy.

Daemons -
Throw darts at the codex, get a winning build.

Tau -
Rail line
Battlesuit Army
Krootbash

Has no one had he experience of havng a 15 man Tankbusta squad shooting at their landraider? Or charging it with ST10 and 12 Meltabombs basically?

Seriously, Stop saying orks do not have anti av14. They dont have Melta weapons.. thats it.


I've field 2 to 3 landraiders the just sit there when you have 30 ST8 shots plough into it.

Airmaniac wrote:
This means absolutely nothing at all. Not only have you taken absolute data instead of relative data (for example: there are only 3 Dark Angel armies in the field, so 66,67% of them finished top 50, while there are 18 Orks armies in the field, so 38,89% of them finished top 50). You are also forgetting, that not all those armies are playing the the most competitive (or even a competitive) build. Since certain armies have less 'horrible' units then others do, there is no way to compare the strength of the competitive builds of the armies like this.

I'm not forgetting anything, thank you. I'm just showing that the real world seems to disagree with the theoryhammering of some posters. I mean, you can yap about non-optimal lists and lucky matchups until your keyboard breaks down, but in the end, proof of the pudding is in the eating. A competive army (or list), by definition, is an army which fares well in a competition. That's the bottom line.

Airmaniac wrote:

olympia wrote:

Airmaniac wrote: The Orks however, are unable to deal with AV13 or AV14 Vehicles, period. No, Power Klaws in close combat do not work. Hitting on sixes isn't going to cut it, and that is assuming those Power Klaws actually get into combat.

"Period"? Avoid categorical pronouncements like this and you have a chance of being taken seriously. For five points an ork player gets a handy device (the grabbin klaw) that immobilizes a vehicle for a turn on 4+. At my most recent four tournaments I dropped land raiders like I drop Bristol Scale 7 bowel movements.


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Airmaniac wrote: (Land Raider spam being the spoiler for the Orks)

Luckily, an Ork player would never meet Land Raider spam at any of the top tables because such a list would be weeded out in the first three rounds by sundry Tau, Eldar, and whatnot. Very few, if any, Land Raider spam lists have won any major tournament. I can't name one, can you?

In the first case, this would mean a Battlewagon army probably, meaning the Battlewagon is standing within 6" of the Land Raider to use the Grabbin' Klaw. Whatever is inside the Battlewagon is going to get shot to pieces before it even get's to assault the (50% chance) stationary Land Raider, because the up close and personal Battlewagon is now within Melta range of the Space Marine army.

The second part brings us back to what has been already explained about 10 times in this thread: the first (and very often the second round of the tournament) you can come up against anything. Just because you don't think you will meet Land Raiders on the top tables, doesn't mean you can't meet them in the first two rounds. Also, you will be meeting enough Land Raiders on the top tables as well, as they seem a popular choice for the Space Marines (since they can carry Assault Terminators, which are arguably a very good unit).

You cand babble your rhetoric until you are blue in the face, that does not make you right. You are mistaking your interpretation of competitive with truely competetive. What you write on paper and mathhammer out and what is actually doing well in tournaments don't match, so it must be the tournament lists that are lacking, as you cannot possibly be wrong.

Orks are a solid army. They don't have meltas, so the theoryhammer lot conclude that they naturally can't be effective against av14 since meltas are the best tool for that. Wrong. Orks, when played properly by a good general are solid agains any build. You don't have to like it, but don't preach your ignorance of truth as fact; you are wrong.

Im sorry, but this topic is so full of BS that it would take hours getting through it all.

Land raider spam auto loses to many take all comers eldar/dark eldar/tau builds and is very much the definition of "tooling up to beat orks." Since raider spam is not a balanced army, a "balanced ork" do not need to beat it.

Unless you want to say that mech eldar is not a balanced army since a hydra spamming IG can beat that, tau is an unbalanced army since gunline IG can beat that, sisters is an unbalanced army since mech eldar can beat that.....

So the only good army is 2xlash + 9xoblit + plague spam. There, that is the very definition of a competitive army since it doesn't have any points in "countering the other guy's army"!

I cant believe I read this entire thread. Once again orks do struggle against raiders. However this scenario of some marine player having 3+ raiders in anything under 2500 is slowed.

Power klaws can and will do damage, as will tank bustas. In addition the idea of a raider just shooting up battlewagons is bunk, as they have that KFF.

Finally we reach the idea of tau being a very competitive army. Which they are not, for a number of reasons.
1-massacre system, shooting armies are generally not as good at it.

2-same problem that eldar armies face. Tooling up to deal with something. Lots and lots of kroots and fish o fury+submunition railheads could put a hurt on ork horde. But nob bikers or battle wagon bikes would roll all over you. You could take 3 pathfinder teams and 9 broadsides and leave that 3 raider list dead turn 1. But you will get swamped by horde. And when faced with anything and everything in all comers you find you dont have enough to deal with everything.

Finally I will state much of an armies effectiveness is its ease of play. A very experienced eldar player will stomp all over most people, look at blackmoor at the wild west shootout. However most players could no do well with what he ran. Most players could do well with ease armies. Armies which offer lots of bang for their buck, and are forgiving. Other easy armies can be things like black templar and blood angels, which while not the best hand to hand armies still rely on a point HUUURRRRRR charge tactic. Easy armies are armies that require minimal tactical thought to get gains, they handicap the game. So that your really good tau player might pull a draw against your average player running an ork horde. If for no other reason then the ork player got in hand to hand with at least 2 of his boyz.

Orkish, so you honestly believe that a hoarde or mixed ork list has the advantage over a vulkan marine list... lol

You talk bull gak about talking theory, well why are you in the tactics and not in battle reports. THIS IS THEORY.

Hollisman ummm 15 Tankbustas firing at a LR... please tell me you are joking. Assuming you havent already taken casualties getting into rang you cause less than 1 glance, and then the LR can probs take a cover save. Has anyone ever been dumb enough to let there LR be charged by tankbustas?? Seriously seriously hope not.

Hollismason wrote:Has no one had he experience of havng a 15 man Tankbusta squad shooting at their landraider? Or charging it with ST10 and 12 Meltabombs basically?

Seriously, Stop saying orks do not have anti av14. They dont have Melta weapons.. thats it.

I agree with this. Tankbustas coming out of a Trukk or Wagon can shoot all those rockits and then assault with str 10 tank hammers. A LR doesn't have a chance. The effective assault range of the tankbustas is 13" + 2" + 6" = 21 inches. That's nothing to sneeze at. I'm not sure it is viable for any LR spam list to try and sit back further than 21" from the Ork Army. LR spam just can't win vs. Orks that way. And let's remember it is the str 10 tankhammer assault that really does the damage from tankbustas.

Another trick for Orks is to have boarding planks on the wagons. The Wagon moves within 2" of the LR and the str 9 nob or str 10 warboss proceeds to whack on the LR for free. Heck even wrecking balls on Trucks will deliver a str 9 hit on a 4+ to the LR. The units and wargear are there for Orks to be successful vs Land Raiders. And those units will not take away to much from the core of the Ork army so it should be effective against many other type of builds.

IG: Hybrid lists with a strong mech/cav component + an infantry + tank/artillery firebase are also competitive...

It is the all or majority footslog IG list that would be the most challenging to play especially in light of the importance of capturing objectives missions...

97252783 wrote:Orkish, so you honestly believe that a hoarde or mixed ork list has the advantage over a vulkan marine list... lol

You talk bull gak about talking theory, well why are you in the tactics and not in battle reports. THIS IS THEORY.

I don't think, I know. My theory? At least what I stand by with have been proven on board.

Maybe I think - I think you are just a newbie in 40k trying to start BS around the forum.

Well, if anyone desperately needs to prove his point about orks (or any other race) being weak or bottom tier, prove it to me on the table or in tournaments. If you can't, then your theories are just fairy tales. Instead of blaming the system, why not blame it on your own incompetence?

And like what SWPIGWANG has pointed out, competitive is about competitions. Quit trying to prove THEORETICALLY (even though in this case your theoretical reasoning is unsound) that Tyson Gay can sprint faster than Usain Bolt, because I believe what I see in competitions, especially when SAME RESULT REPEATS itself over and over again countless times.

Eidolon wrote:I cant believe I read this entire thread. Once again orks do struggle against raiders. However this scenario of some marine player having 3+ raiders in anything under 2500 is slowed.

QFT. I'm a dedicated CSM raider rusher-so I can fill my Raiders with some of the best assault troops in the game (berzerkers) that also score, and I would never, ever take 3 raiders under 2500.
Now, GK, OTOH...can run 3 raiders...but don't have the tools to deal with Orks at all.

Orkish wrote:

97252783 wrote:Orkish, so you honestly believe that a hoarde or mixed ork list has the advantage over a vulkan marine list... lol

You talk bull gak about talking theory, well why are you in the tactics and not in battle reports. THIS IS THEORY.

I don't think, I know. My theory? At least what I stand by with have been proven on board.

Maybe I think - I think you are just a newbie in 40k trying to start BS around the forum.

Well, if anyone desperately needs to prove his point about orks (or any other race) being weak or bottom tier, prove it to me on the table or in tournaments. If you can't, then your theories are just fairy tales. Instead of blaming the system, why not blame it on your own incompetence?

And like what SWPIGWANG has pointed out, competitive is about competitions. Quit trying to prove THEORETICALLY (even though in this case your theoretical reasoning is unsound) that Tyson Gay can sprint faster than Usain Bolt, because I believe what I see in competitions, especially when SAME RESULT REPEATS itself over and over again countless times.

Show me a battle report where a descent vulkan list has lost to an ork list. I wanna see this proof. Not that the 30 ork players managed to get a couple rank higher than the two vulk lists.

Gotta love it when people judge you on how many posts uv made :-). But to actually say it, wow thats silly.

Lolz at the comment about Usain Bolt (hav no idea who Tyson Gay is). That is proven because they actually compete against each other. Not lil 1 on 1 races where the overall differences in times decided the winner. Cmon you should kno better than that.

Tau are situationally competitive - i would say high tier 2. The things that keep them out of tier one are the fact that their base troop sucks and contributes nothing to the army - therefore necessitating an expensive transport (85 points minimum). They have no psychic defense, and really can't "hold" an objective. Sure they can claim/contest on turn 5, but 66% of the time, the enemy has a chance to kick them off of it next turn. the lack of hth doesn't really bother me. Units that really suck though are unit that can shrug off firepower (Nobs don't qualify). i'm talking seer councils and TH/SS termies. At least TH/SS termies are slow once you pop their raider.

Definitely not tier 1 though - and extremely unforgiving of mistakes.

Hollismason wrote:I hate the Tier statement and in fact am now replacing it with the following statement.


All armies in their own right can be competitive different armies have different levels of skill reuirment and experience in order to play correctly. There are levels of skill required to excell t making a ary competitive. However some armies are naturally easier to play than others.


Easy
Space Marine
etc...

Medium
Templars
etc..

Difficult
Tyranid

etc...

This was lost on page #2, but I would like to say that I agree 100%.


What most people think are "Top" lists are actually just the easiest builds to win with, so people who are bad or mediocure do better with them.

A good player can win with any codex, and with a lot of builds that people don't think about.

agreed with Hollismason and Blackmoor - it's hard to break the tier habit though when talking about it.

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:agreed with Hollismason and Blackmoor - it's hard to break the tier habit though when talking about it.

Yeah, I was the same way for the longest time. Then I realized that I could build a list that could win with both the Necron and the Demonhunters codexes, and I became a believer in any codex can win.




Oh, and by the way, here are the 10 ten armies from the UK GTs Heat #2 last week:

1) Orks
2) CSM
3) Eldar
4) CSM
5) Orks
6) Blood Angels
7) Imperial Guard
8) Necrons
9) Daemons
10) Imperial Guard

No soft scores, 6 games at 1500 points, 150 people.


Sorry, go ahead and continue with theorizing with what armies you guys think are good and bad.

LOl then you will see noobs like 97252783 saying "no vulkan list, not counted !".

Davicus wrote:LOl then you will see noobs like 97252783 saying "no vulkan list, not counted !".

Calling him a noob is like the pot calling the kettle black.

There is so much variation in a Vulkan and an Ork list that there is no way that anyone can say for certain which one will win facing each other in a tournament. Personally, I think it would be a close game no matter what the builds are if they players are of equal caliber.

So you are the pot and he is the kettle?

"LOl then you will see noobs like 97252783 saying "no vulkan list, not counted !"."

@Davicus: Did you even read the whole argument? Lolz it was comparing orks and marines, i never said anything about vulkan lists being the best? Ur calling me a noob?

In fact that post was so stupid i cant even see the point you were making. By saying that im a noob if i object to the tournament results being real evidence of the top lists, you obviously believe they are a perfect example.

Yup deamonhunters, blood angels and necrons really are THAT good.

I would have to agree with blackmoor here.

At the end of the day, its down to how the general plays his army.
That is something that no amount of mathhammering can show results for.

Sure, being a better general is a greater advantage than having a more effective list.

But when there is a game between two very good generals, where the difference is often a simple range mistake or the like, having a better list is a massive advantage.

97252783 wrote:Sure, being a better general is a greater advantage than having a more effective list.

But when there is a game between two very good generals, where the difference is often a simple range mistake or the like, having a better list is a massive advantage.

I agree with Blackmoor and Hollismason. 3 Tiers should be replaced with easy to play, medium to play and hard to play. I also disagree with the above statement. Of course one player can have complete gack in their army and will most likely lose to a better list, but if two top Generals are playing each other, then the lists they bring are going to be good no matter what codex they come from. There will be no massive advantage given to anyone. No more massive than the terrain or scenario might give to one or the other.

Not to harp on Blacmooor a bit but I think his footslogging eldar is a perfect example of player skill along with well built army. Most people look at the list and think how the hell does he win with that list. I did as well I just personally did not see it. However I dont discount it because I have read the battle reports of it being played.


As for Tau being competitive.
They're a very dificult army to make competitive now sure theycan mechanize very well but they have to bring a tool for each job to the table.

Personally , the best Tau lists I have played and played against have always taken advantage of fact that they can have dirt cheap troops and the ability to keep them off board with positional or bring them on when needed.


People discount Tau because its a weird army but it just requires some weird list make up. The rmy suffers heavily from a lack of mobility and the new vehicle rules. Everyone keeps discounting orks because they have no melt , um Necrons do not have melta and have 2 units for AV14 ST9 from monolith and heavy gauss and monstrous

Sure they glance which orks can do as well so tht is not the same.

I still think Pirahna / Kroot/ Battlesuit Horde is a great list.


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The only army I feel that fits in a easy to play / difficult to win category is Necrons.

97252783 wrote:By saying that im a noob if i object to the tournament results being real evidence of the top lists, you obviously believe they are a perfect example.

Honestly, no one here cares about what you think of the tournament results. You can be the weird one out all you care, and blame the system if you want.
Your theories are nothing more than trash to us if we don't see them at work and if the majority of us finds it dumb.

I do feel that this idea of tier being based on ease of play is correct. What else should it be based on? Someone at the very top levels can compete with just about anything, but they are outliers in the pool.

I just disagree with the whole tier thing its stupid.

What makes a winning army is player skill and list make up.

Thats it. If you have a good player playing a good list it will be competitive or if you have a very bad player playing an amazing list it will be competitive or if you have a Amazing player but a poor list you will be competitive.

Its tit for tat ; amazing players with amazing lists are the best.

This is offset with a armies ease of use.

I'll just classify this as ease of making a good list by ease of use.

Easy
Orks
Space Marine
Space Wolfs ( I knock them but it is a good list Im just not impressed by them)
Imperial Guard

Medium
Eldar
Blood Angels
Black Templars
Dark Angels ( specifically because the marine codex outshines it in its abilities to field a raven wing like army as well as abnormal point costs)
Dark Eldar ( people will fight about this but I dont find the list terrible at all Just say " How many raiders can i have)

Difficult
Sisters of Battle
greyknights
Tyranids
Necrons
Tau


Any of these lists are augmented by player skill.

A poor players who plays Easy set has a decent chance against a good player with a medium army.


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edit:

I guess I should add in that really good Sister or Battle lists are difficult I mean as far as making a well balanced decent army that can handle most threats I find the army lacking in some respects and it is also reflected by the armies lack of support more than anything.

I dont think its a bad army but straight up vs. other MEQ it falls pretty short.

Hollismason wrote:I just disagree with the whole tier thing its stupid.
*posts a tier list*
*even says that the army choices can overcome skill differences*

I always assumed these debates assumed;

Comparable player skill
Standardized Scenarios (Mix of Objective/kill points)



With the above assumptions, a tier look at 40k is acceptable (Although not black/white).

Its not really a tier its just based on what armies are the easiest to create a balanced list that is easy to play with.

Tiers auto assume that one army is inherently better class than others its not A good sisters of battle army played by a good player can compete with what people call "top tier" lists like vulcan etc..


its just stupid to say these lists are the best lissts for making competitive lists.

Everything comes down to ultimatel player skill and luck recommending a new player to play a specific army because its " tiered way higher than the others is stupid

Instead say " these armies take a little bit more time to learn all of the nuances but are still just as competitive as these others as long as played properly."


Its why when someone asks " what should I play to be competitive?"

i say " Pick an army and learn how to play it because ultimately it doesnt matter"

Hollismason wrote:

Its why when someone asks " what should I play to be competitive?"

i say " Pick an army and learn how to play it because ultimately it doesnt matter"

QFT

AgeOfEgos wrote:The lack of Nob Bikers are likely attributed to one of the most popular armies gaining one of the best assault units in the game...that usually deploys out of a tank that Orks find neigh impossible to blow up;

TH/SS Terms storming out of a Land Raider

I think it is more likely that it is the psyker battle squad makes them run like pansies.

Lets get back on topic, instead of arguing about how to rank or list or tier the different armies. What are some of the most common competitive lists, what are their strengths and weaknesses?

murdog wrote:Lets get back on topic, instead of arguing about how to rank or list or tier the different armies. What are some of the most common competitive lists, what are their strengths and weaknesses?

Yeah, get back on topic.

Competitive lists are CSM (double lash, PM, Obliterators), Orks (Nobz Bikerz, Killa Kanz, many Boyz), and Nidzilla.


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On the other hand, Eldar is not as competitive as it was in the 4th ed.
Also Nidzilla lost an edge.

I would expect Nids (perhaps Zilla) to get a huge boost whith their new codex though.
Eldar are a differant story.
After Nids, DE, Necrons... Eldar, Tau and Inquisition need updates IMO.

Space Marines appear not to be top tier despite some strong builds around special characters.
This was proved by results of several GT's (German, Irish, British heats).

wuestenfux wrote:Space Marines appear not to be top tier despite some strong builds around special characters.
This was proved by results of several GT's (German, Irish, British heats).

Yeah... I've also been noticing a lack of appearances of SM in the top results coming out some of the major tournaments.

I think its more to do with the fact that people expect to face Space Marines and compensate for it to degree when they are building a list.

I still think as for just absolute complete competitive sake Imperial guard can put out some devastating lists.


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Also orks are still one of the easiest armies to build a strong competitive build ,yet have a great ease of use to learning to play.

Imperial Guard lists are usually

Do you have more than 20 tanks? Yes No

If No ADD MORE TANKS

Do you have more than 150 men Yes No

if no ADD MORE MEN

Its hard to argue with a army that can put out

10 AV 12 transports w/ 100 guys w/ autocannons for 1000 points ugh so cheap

is a 4 or 6 space marine Dreadnought list competitive? Seems like a Tau player or any other faction with good ranged weapons wouldn't have too much trouble.

Beowulfen wrote:is a 4 or 6 space marine Dreadnought list competitive?

Well, this still need to be proved.

I don't think armies should be characterized by how easy or hard they can be played and created, but how they fit into the meta-game picture.

A "strong" codex is one that has a place in metagame when it is fully expected and significant tooling against them exists.

A "weak" codex is one that survives in the metagame because it is unexpected and people leave holes in both list and strategy against them.

A good player will figure out the metagame and win, but not with just any random army, but one that counters the meta. He can do this with strong or weak codeciis depending on the situation.

wuestenfux wrote:Space Marines appear not to be top tier despite some strong builds around special characters.
This was proved by results of several GT's (German, Irish, British heats).

The P1 at Heat 1 didn't have a special character.

As well as Heat 2, Orks just won Warfare and played off for 2nd as well. Orks also came 1st and 3rd at Open War 12.

I see alot of mechvet IG lists with chimeras/valks in the lists section. Opinions?

I have learned two things from reading this thread:

1) Competitive is relative to the field you are playing in. Lets say we can determine the "Best Army List" through some means. The BAL is able to win the majority of games assuming equal skill and even number of matches against different army types. There are however army lists that have an advantage over this BAL (under the assumption that every list has a weakness). At a tournament with the majority of the lists having an advantage against the BAL, the BAL will not rank very well.

2) From #1 I have decided that it is more productive to determine what is being played and design a list with the goal of placing highly against these armies. This list would be the "Most Competitive List" (where consistently ranking highly is how competitiveness is measured). Ranking a list on its ability to always have a chance does not make it competitive. I would say the MCL is one that loses to the least commonly played armies, but easily wins against the most commonly played armies. Not having a chance to win against a uncommon army does not hinder the MCL's ability to win the tournament. Having an answer to all opponents but not being able to easily win the most common match-ups can be a disadvantage.


Shortened version: You don't fold a pair of Aces in poker just because there exists a hand that can beat this pair. Having a weakness does not make something uncompetitive. Play the odds.

Shortened version: You don't fold a pair of Aces in poker just because there exists a hand that can beat this pair. Having a weakness does not make something uncompetitive. Play the odds.

My counterpoint, to build on your poker analogy:

If you could choose your hand, why would you ever build towards anything less than a royal flush? Your army isn't "dealt" to you. It's up to you to make it the best it can be.

grankobot wrote:

Shortened version: You don't fold a pair of Aces in poker just because there exists a hand that can beat this pair. Having a weakness does not make something uncompetitive. Play the odds.

My counterpoint, to build on your poker analogy:

If you could choose your hand, why would you ever build towards anything less than a royal flush? Your army isn't "dealt" to you. It's up to you to make it the best it can be.

Because there is no royal flush list! That is what everybody would play. My point is play the list that will will the most against the current group of opponents. So what if it has a hard counter that it can not defeat? It still wins more often than not.

Yes there is, it's just that poker isn't a very good analogy

There's at least one "royal flush" for every army in my first column back on page one, and many of those armies can do more than one. The thing is that 40k is different from poker in that there are list wins and generalship wins. You don't win by just putting your army down.

Say two players of equal skill throw down, Vulkan vs Necrons. You all know how that's going to end. That's a list win.

Same armies, different players. The Necron player this time has years of experience on the Vulkan player. That's a generalship win.

The "royal flush" armies are designed to eliminate list wins and leave it to player skill. Armies in the second column can't build one of these, and always have a chance of getting rolled by an inferior player with a superior list.

Make sense? That's what I've been trying to say this whole time. If a poor player can beat you by having an army that can counter yours, then your army isn't competitive. If you lose because your opponent outplayed you, that's a whole different story.

This is an excellent point! So often when someone posts up an army list that is not a certified metanet list someone else will post up another list specifically tailored to beat it and proclaim the new list is no good because the heavily tailored list will beat it more than 9 times out of 10. If you feel inspired by a new list you have developed there is no reason not to build it because there is a specifically tailored list that can table it based upon mathhammered conjecture.

G

scarab5 wrote:

grankobot wrote:

Shortened version: You don't fold a pair of Aces in poker just because there exists a hand that can beat this pair. Having a weakness does not make something uncompetitive. Play the odds.

My counterpoint, to build on your poker analogy:

If you could choose your hand, why would you ever build towards anything less than a royal flush? Your army isn't "dealt" to you. It's up to you to make it the best it can be.

Because there is no royal flush list! That is what everybody would play. My point is play the list that will will the most against the current group of opponents. So what if it has a hard counter that it can not defeat? It still wins more often than not.

grankobot wrote:Yes there is, it's just that poker isn't a very good analogy

There's at least one "royal flush" for every army in my first column back on page one, and many of those armies can do more than one. The thing is that 40k is different from poker in that there are list wins and generalship wins. You don't win by just putting your army down.

Say two players of equal skill throw down, Vulkan vs Necrons. You all know how that's going to end. That's a list win.

Same armies, different players. The Necron player this time has years of experience on the Vulkan player. That's a generalship win.

The "royal flush" armies are designed to eliminate list wins and leave it to player skill. Armies in the second column can't build one of these, and always have a chance of getting rolled by an inferior player with a superior list.

Make sense? That's what I've been trying to say this whole time. If a poor player can beat you by having an army that can counter yours, then your army isn't competitive. If you lose because your opponent outplayed you, that's a whole different story.

So the fundamental flaw lies in YOUR definition of competitive. If you define the fastest sprinter as one who has the greatest speed per cm height the person is, then many people will beat Usain Bolt.

Bear in mind, not everyone share your weird view of what IS competitive.

"The "royal flush" armies are designed to eliminate list wins and leave it to player skill. Armies in the second column can't build one of these, and always have a chance of getting rolled by an inferior player with a superior list."

This sums up the whole post brilliantly!! Well said!

Another topic worth discussion are wether SM are an easy army to play.

I feel you have to determine what is meant by 'play'.
SM are easy to do reasonably well in, the codex can be quite safe.
Yet SM are harder to do very well in.
I think there are two main reasons for this: firstly all units can do many things, but should really only do one thing well, and beginner players usually struggle with this concept, thus they tend to just throw the closest unit at the target, which can work with SM, but very often doesnt. Secondly, most metagames around the world are highly inclusive of SM, and most enemies know how to face them, and their list likely contains mechanisms of dealing with the MEQ.
If a marine player can overcome these two main set-backs, a truly strong force can be produced -As the
SM codex literally has so many options.

Thats just what i feel anyway.

Not to thread jack but why would a Vulkan list auto win Vs a Necron list. Melta is terrible vs a Nec army. Everyone can go back to the poker argument. I just think the newer codexs have units (in general) at a bit lower cost in points hence the earlier the codex usually to more over priced the unit. DE being real exception. The points cost is a small difference, 5-15% IMO. After that its how the armies match up both on paper and after deployement. Then its how they are run and how the dice fall. Thats the beauty of this game, the match ups are limitless and hence there is no perfect build. Even if there was a perfect build

Green Blow Fly wrote:This is an excellent point! So often when someone posts up an army list that is not a certified metanet list someone else will post up another list specifically tailored to beat it and proclaim the new list is no good because the heavily tailored list will beat it more than 9 times out of 10. If you feel inspired by a new list you have developed there is no reason not to build it because there is a specifically tailored list that can table it based upon mathhammered conjecture.

This is very true. Ive seen this happen all the time.

Norbu the Destroyer wrote:Not to thread jack but why would a Vulkan list auto win Vs a Necron list.

That is what I was thinking. When he said we all know who would win in a game with Vulkan vs. Necrons my first guess was necrons should win it.


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Night Lords wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:This is an excellent point! So often when someone posts up an army list that is not a certified metanet list someone else will post up another list specifically tailored to beat it and proclaim the new list is no good because the heavily tailored list will beat it more than 9 times out of 10. If you feel inspired by a new list you have developed there is no reason not to build it because there is a specifically tailored list that can table it based upon mathhammered conjecture.

This is very true. Ive seen this happen all the time.

You see this all the time with units and armies.

You see people say things like Thunder hammer terminators are better that harlequins, because in assault with each others the terminators would win. There are so many things wrong with comparing the two like the fact that Eldar don't have terminators, and it does not take into a lot of factors like Harlies can't be targeted in over 2d6" and they move through cover, and they move faster. etc.

I have seen winning lists posted and others thinking that they could make better lists but they do not put a lot of thought into how they have to make compromises and sacrifice certain units to get others.

The specifics aren't important. If it helps the point, pretend it says "good list" and "bad list"

armies are designed to eliminate list wins and leave it to player skill.

Nevermind that an army that can counter everything is broken as far as 40k is concerned...

Not every player in the tournament circuit is conceited enough to believe that they are the best player in terms of tactical skill. With that in mind, they can use their skills as a list maker to deal with local meta, boost there chances against common foes and fill gaps in their tactical knowledge and so on to win.

I would in not way say their armies are uncompetitive. They would in fact be uncompetitive with a pure skill army.

Being competitive is wanting and being able to win.

The problem with a pure skill army is its just that. Many people do not have pure skill. I know I often choke during tough games. So I would do better with an easier list. All the tier system to me means whats easier to get wins with. What has less opportunity cost if you will.

Also, army lists get more scrutiny online. It's easier to discuss armylist construction as opposed to what strategies/tactics are used to actually win a game.

In short: Lots of armylist talk vs. very little tactics talk.

SWPIGWANG wrote:

armies are designed to eliminate list wins and leave it to player skill.

Nevermind that an army that can counter everything is broken as far as 40k is concerned....

I wrote an article for Blood of Kittens about this and I will try to sum it up.

There are 2 types of armies, balanced and unbalanced. Think of it this way, armies are on a scale of 1 to 100. With 1 being the most assault heavy armies and 100 for the pure shooty armies, and balanced armies are closer to 50.

Most armies are unbalanced and are heavily weighted toward pure assault like orks and pure shooting like Imperial guard. These armies are easy to play and are very effective. See Darkwynn’s ‘Ard Boyz list as an example of this.

On the other side of the coin are balanced armies. They are harder to build, harder to play, but they are less susceptible to the rock-paper-scissors problem that the unbalanced lists fall into. Balanced armies are built to counter everything. See Darth Diggler’s ‘Ard Boyz list as an example of a balanced list.

grankobot wrote:
The only ork player I'm scared of is the one who's smart enough to sneak a power klaw into snikrot's unit.

grankobot wrote:
The reason why not every ork player is smart enough to do it is because it isn't immediately obvious how. You can attach dok grotsnik to the unit and still use their wonky outflanking rule.

After reading throught 5 pages of stuff I'm comming back to these comments;
#1 "sneak" As in put two in there by saying burnas count as powerfists not wepons against a person who doesn't know the codex?
#2 taking a HQ with snikt is the dirtyest thing an ork player can do and should not not not ever be done for anything but cold-bloodied-grave-dirt-revenge.



Lastly not that I have no time left yes orks are very competitive! <3

If we're going to say single most competitive, I have to throw it in for Wolves or Vulkan lists.

Some of the new Wolf lists are downright awful, and Vulkan lists essentially take your two biggest problems, armor and horde, and turn them into a shooting gallery.


Though a friend of mine plays an Ork list with which he consistently dominates. Mek, KFF, battlewagon, 9 kanz, ton of boyz, and some other goodies. The 9 kanz are a real b-tch to deal with. 4+ invul, squadron rules...ugh.

The problem with Vulkan lists is that the number of melta and flamer weapons is limited in SM units.
This limitation limits the effectiveness of the army.

On the other side of the coin are balanced armies. They are harder to build, harder to play, but they are less susceptible to the rock-paper-scissors problem that the unbalanced lists fall into. Balanced armies are built to counter everything. See Darth Diggler’s ‘Ard Boyz list as an example of a balanced list.

Balance armies don't "counter" as in "have an advantage" over everything. Even balanced armies have "not so good" matchups, only that they are not as serious as a rock-paper-scissor's list's "autolose" matchups. Despite the "every unit do everything" nature of Darth Diggler's list, it clearly contains elements that exists to counter specific armies like null zone and thunderfires that don't work well against a mirror army.

So it is possible to "tool up" for a darth diggler army if you know in advance that it is coming, simply by starting with a mirror removing elements that don't work against itself and replacing them with something that kills marines better and such. One does not need to beat a "counterattack" army with an overload army, by the way. Alternatively one try strange overloading lists that is far out of the current meta, like scab-swarm lists or something. Or maybe some guard lists can just alpha strike it easy after taking out all the anti-hoard/eldar/daemon/raiderspam/other-guard tools that costs quite a bit....

Playing a "counter list" to darth's list may be a bad idea, but it is a bad idea because very few people play darth's list. If 90% of the players play his list, for example, than playing a counter list to his would be a very good idea even if it autoloses to most other things.

Now it is possible that there exists a list where it always have an advantage (as in counter) or at least parity against any opponent, but it would mean 40k is broken since it is the best army! For 40k to be interesting, there should NOT be a best army. Every army should have an weakness, even if a small one, to keep the meta flowing and the armies diverse.

I still don't think that people have fleshed out and played Imperial Guard long enough to really discover the potential of the army.

You're seeing it now though I recently played a Imperial Guard Player that had something crazy like 25+ vehicles in a 2000 point game. 80 to 100 guys most everything was scoring.

It's prtty difficult to deal with I don't care what army you are playing to deal with that number.

People will eventually see that AV12 is well and above on the chart when compared to AV14 simply because AV14 i reliably destroyed by melta which melta destroys AV12.

Lascannon spam is possible vs A 12 as well and STR 10 you have to figure tho that if someone does lascannon spam etc.. youll eventully deal with it.


AV12 horde Imperial Guard is just difficult to deal with.

I think people like grankobot do not see the dynamics of the game and is taking it too simply from a narrow aspect. 40k, though not as complicated as rocket science, is definitely not as simply as 1 + 1 = 2 or a Royal Flush rules All.

I do not agree that many people have not discovered the potential of new IG. In fact, it is the opposite. I am seeing increasing numbers of IG players with power builds

Yeah, IG has rather powerful builds.
They are top tier in my ranking.

More and more yeah ; when it tarted it was " Oh wow Psyker Battlesquads Vendetta etc..."

The fact is though is just a difficult aarmy to deal with to the point of being almost pointless to play against.

Especially vehicle like the Hydra and Vendetta. 2 horribly undercost units.

Okay I have 3 units that put out 36 twinlinked autocannon shots ; Oh these guys oh I have 3 twinlinked lascannon platforms ; Oh and its under 1000 points.

Oh let me add the 8 or so AV12 transport carrying guys with autocannons and meltas ; oh and I got these h. flamers on all of them as well.

Oh and they all outflank.


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It's not fun to have 55 guys in troop transports jump onto your backfield in AV12 vehicles led by a guy that can give 3 orders etc..

Its just ridiculous.

o.O Yes, I HAVE to agree with that.
In fact, I would say the current IG codex is broken and unbalanced. It doesnt even qualify into our discussion of "competitive". If only 40k is like magic, where can you ban or restrict certain units o.O.

Its actually broken somewhat because of the models as well as vehicle rules.

The vehicle that gets the most broken is he sentinel. The model as in physical kit allows for it to be built low to the ground. in a squating position.

3 Sentinels with camo netting and autocannons or missile launchers for that matter 165 points.

Place behind a Chimera two of them; congratulations you have a armoured unit that has a 3+ invulnerable.

It gets worse with Armoured Sentinels. Take two armoured sentinels with whatever take a 3rd with nothing. Okay whole squad has 3+ invulnerable and requires two models to be in cover.

Now your shooting at 3 vehicles w/ AV12 3+ invulnerable save and 2 plasma cannons.


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The thing is that is cheap as dirt really.

Hell most of the codex is dirt cheap 700 points buys 6 squads in Chimeras w/ Autocannons and 60 warm bodies.