With a new edition, comes new tiers!

Last edition we saw Vampire Counts and Daemons clean house, but how do they fair now?

Here is the 8th edition tier list. The will be updated constantly due to FAQ's or via good old fashioned who wins the most tournaments.

Thus in order they go.

1. Dwarfs

2. Skaven

3. Empire

4. Dark Elves

5. Lizardmen

6. High Elves

7. Daemons of Chaos

8. Warriors of Chaos

9. Ogre Kingdoms

10. Vampire Counts

11. Orcs and Golbins

12. Tomb Kings

13. Beastmen

14. Bretonnia

15. Wood Elves

Comment below for any changes!

Will only consider changing with good reasons.
So.... "SKAVEN SUCK!" is not a good reason.

Sooo where did you get this list???

Cause some of those placements are actually pretty hilarious.

Lizardmen are still a top tier army.

Orcs and goblins should probably be lower, Animosity still plagues them. Until they get a new army book that removes animosity they will struggle.

Dwarves, skaven and empire i do agree fight for the top 3 slots.

High elves are strong now, but I still dont agree they are top tier, they just keel over to shooting and high toughness high strength elite infantry.

Beastmen should be lower.

Ogres should be a tad higher.

ShivanAngel wrote:Sooo where did you get this list???

Cause some of those placements are actually pretty hilarious.

Lizardmen are still a top tier army.

Orcs and goblins should probably be lower, Animosity still plagues them. Until they get a new army book that removes animosity they will struggle.

Dwarves, skaven and empire i do agree fight for the top 3 slots.

High elves are strong now, but I still dont agree they are top tier, they just keel over to shooting and high toughness high strength elite infantry.

Beastmen should be lower.

Ogres should be a tad higher.

alright thank you for the comments ill change the list right away. The whole point of this project was to establish the list, not to dictate it.

Generalian wrote:

ShivanAngel wrote:Sooo where did you get this list???

Cause some of those placements are actually pretty hilarious.

Lizardmen are still a top tier army.

Orcs and goblins should probably be lower, Animosity still plagues them. Until they get a new army book that removes animosity they will struggle.

Dwarves, skaven and empire i do agree fight for the top 3 slots.

High elves are strong now, but I still dont agree they are top tier, they just keel over to shooting and high toughness high strength elite infantry.

Beastmen should be lower.

Ogres should be a tad higher.

alright thank you for the comments ill change the list right away. The whole point of this project was to establish the list, not to dictate it.

Ok that was not clear. The last statement made it seem like it was fairly set in stone and would require a hell of an argument to change it.

If I knew it was just a baseline list not really based off of much I would have replied differently.

Also instead of 1,2,3,4.

I would do it in tiers.

Tier 1
Skaven
Dwarves
Empire
Lizards

Tier 2
High Elves
Daemons
WoC
Dark Elves

Tier 3
Ogres
VC (!)
TK
O&G(!)

Tier 4
Woodies(!)
Beastmen
Brets(!)

The ! points are armies i have not seen in practice, but am going off of battle reports and QQ...

I do think its a little early in 8th edition to be making a list like this, as the metagame is still shifting very heavily.

I think it's not really very helpful to arrange the books in a sequential list like that, it's much more useful if you actually use tiers of armies who share a similar perceived / performed power level. I'm really not in a place to rank the books, particularly since spamming the obvious things in certain lists (2x 6 flamers DoC, 2x hydras DE, 2x HPA SK, 2x stank EM, 3x mortar + 3x cannon EM, 6+ war machine DW, 2x hellcannon WoC) makes for much "better" armies than taking actual armies. Partially this is the old debate over whether tiers should be established by the most powergame-beardy-cheesy-WAAC version of lists or more balanced versions.

Totally off the top of my head, here's a shot at a more compact tiering:

Tier 1
Dwarfs, Empire, Warriors of Chaos, Daemons of Chaos, Dark Elves, Skaven

Tier 2
High Elves, Brettonians, Lizardmen, Vampire Counts

Tier 3
Beastmen, Tomb Kings, Ogre Kingdoms, Orcs & Goblins*

Tier 4
Wood Elves

*O&G are especially hard for me to rank, as animosity still blows but they have some serious artillery support and some of the most worthwhile troops to horde up (night gobs w/ bows).

Hell, all of the lower brackets are fairly tough. I feel bad sticking WE down in the lowest of the low but there's really nothing I fear in that list, apart from treemen spam but even that is a bad idea competitively with all the flaming artillery.

- Salvage

Haha beat me before i could finish editing salvage....

Now we must do internets message board battle argueing our differences of opinion as internet E-Peen stroking protocol requires....

GO

I did not want armies to be put into High, Mid, and Low tier because it is not specific enough.

its really as specific as you can get with games like this,,,

There is no "best army book" (yet at least), tiers is the best way to do it.

At a certain level, more granularity in differentiation (individual ranks) is actually less useful than broader categories (tiers). This is because when things are very close to the same ranking, the particular strengths and weaknesses are matters of opinion, playstyle, and metagame, thus are basically arbitrary.

I've had personal experience playing Orcs against High Elves, Demons, and Empire, and I'll say that Demons and Empire have been much more impressive than High Elves (which fits the mold established).

High Elves were actually so unimpressive that I'm almost loathe to put them in Tier 2. They are so expensive, and so vulnerable to shooting and close combat. With 2 ranks fighting, "Step Up", and steadfast, even the most basic blocks of troops can absorb casualties and bring High Elf units down.

At the same time, I'll make a case for Orcs to be Tier 2, if low Tier 2.

Orcs have great Horde troops. Sure, goblins are cheap, but Orc Boyz are also cheap, have T4, and S4 the first round of combat. They also have big bases, meaning the unit is somewhat less maneuverable, but those big bases mean you take a lot fewer hits against template based war machines. This reduces the negatives of animosity also, as forming your troops into larger blocks means fewer animosity mitigating Black Orcs can keep the majority of your army in line easier.

Combine this with price effective artillery (especially Doom Divers now) and worthwhile magic and you have an army that can compete in all phases of the game.

This isn't 40k. I think 8th went a LOOONG way to make almost every army have a pretty solid chance at competing.

What I might say is some armies have fewer options to build competitive lists because they have fewer choices or outdated rules or are difficult to use or whatever. Tomb Kings comes to mind. Ogres have very few lords and not a whole lot of viable models, but I still consider them very effective--you just might run into trouble if your enemy knows he's facing you and tailors his army.

I've got maybe 6-7 army books and I feel very confident any of those armies could beat the crap out of any of the other ones. A lot comes down to what happens on the battlefield and dice rolls.

Like if you're magic-heavy, you're placing a lot of power in the hands of the dice gods. 8th ed. Wizards are like massive black powder war machines.

DukeRustfield wrote:This isn't 40k. I think 8th went a LOOONG way to make almost every army have a pretty solid chance at competing.

What I might say is some armies have fewer options to build competitive lists because they have fewer choices or outdated rules or are difficult to use or whatever. Tomb Kings comes to mind. Ogres have very few lords and not a whole lot of viable models, but I still consider them very effective--you just might run into trouble if your enemy knows he's facing you and tailors his army.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Lexx wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:This isn't 40k. I think 8th went a LOOONG way to make almost every army have a pretty solid chance at competing.

What I might say is some armies have fewer options to build competitive lists because they have fewer choices or outdated rules or are difficult to use or whatever. Tomb Kings comes to mind. Ogres have very few lords and not a whole lot of viable models, but I still consider them very effective--you just might run into trouble if your enemy knows he's facing you and tailors his army.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Despite that their are still tiers.

If Army A brings a WAAC list against army B's WAAC list, one of them will most likely start at a disadvantage due to army book and what not. Assuming equal general skill, deployment, etc.

This is where the tier system comes from.

I agree on the use of tiers as the rating system as opposed to a 1-15 lineup; however someone mentioned basing tiers off WAAC lists or average lists. It needs to be said that tiers are used for competetive play discussion.

Thus, the tier needs to represent a WAAC army build. Each book can bring a massive pile of trash to the table, or a refined list that wastes no point and puts in force multipliers. Tournies obviously are more likely to be won by a well designed list, thus tiers should only reflect well designed lists.

Back when 7th just got the daemons book, I was big into the tourney scene with metagames and whatnot. When daemons came out in full force, the tourney scene metagame changed signifigantly with the big 3 armies showing time and again who the best was.

Now, however, 'ard boyz I believe is the first major event with the new rules and FAQs, so the tiers are pretty much up for grabs until the semifinal and final 'ard boyz rounds are finished and real data can be complied from something like 20+ events.

I agree with Boss_Salvage's tiers (although I dislike the tier system in general because most people misinterpreter it to be an all or nothing thing).

You can't place number them 1-15 because eventually dice have to be rolled and when two armies are close together, you can't really figure that out.

ShivanAngel wrote:its really as specific as you can get with games like this,,,

There is no "best army book" (yet at least), tiers is the best way to do it.

I agree with this. 3 tiers is about as specific as you can get given differences in play skill/style, local metas, and terrain. Possibly a 4th tier to accomodate a standout army or two, either amazingly good or amazingly bad. DE and DoC likely occupied this tier (high version) last edition, and WE likely occupy it (low version) now.

ShivanAngel wrote:If Army A brings a WAAC list against army B's WAAC list, one of them will most likely start at a disadvantage due to army book and what not. Assuming equal general skill, deployment, etc.

Nah. Because, from my view, WAAC has a lot more limitations than it used to. Like the debate going on now about purple sun. If you build your army around that and the enemy is Dwarfs with mega dispel or high initiative WOC or you flub your rolls and blow yourself up, not much you can do. Or the former godmode of masses of warmachines, but now everyone charges a random amount, including up to your machines, they still blow themselves up, and you're limited to the number of duplicate models you can take.

Put another way, you design a WAAC Tier 1 army. And someone else design a Tier 2 or 3 WAAC army. I'm betting we can eyeball them and say a lot will come down to events on the table. But put your money where your pixels are at. Throw down an army that has an innate advantage over all the tier 2/3 races.

"Tier" is the most stupid concept ever.

Either your army has structural flaws and cannot compete, or can compete.

Soooo.... Tiers suck, so either Tier 1 or Tier 2?

With a few adjustments on how orc animosity, Wood Elf flaming problems and Lances being ineffective for bretonnians, 8th edition is incredibly balanced, with even lower tier armies able to compete effectively.

tokugawa wrote:"Tier" is the most stupid concept ever.

Either your army has structural flaws and cannot compete, or can compete.

I agree, it is the stupidest concept ever. Such as global warming, 9/11, and AIDS, and yet they still exist.

In any complicated game, there will always be a group of people making the absolute balance claim. It is the stupidest concept ever.

It somehow assumes
1. Game designers are perfect
2. Game designers can design hundreds of different units with them all equally effective
3. Army books written BEFORE 8th somehow have all the point costs correctly tuned for a system that did not exist.

I.E. - They'd somehow argue that Skeletons somehow were completely balanced at 8 points each with awesome fear and are somehow completely balanced at 8 points each with garbage fear that no longer autobreaks, no longer prevents charges, etc.

Army books are written by different people, at different times, with different levels of experience, and certainly not with the thousands of hours of testing that'd be needed for a completely even game to be created.

This doesn't say there are any army books that have a 100% win chance or anything, but there are certainly books which have had noticeable advantages.

(The same "every unit is exactly equally competitive." argument is used in most all multiplayer by a large group. Things get buffs and nerfs over time to compensate for imperfect design.
If there's a spell in a game and it is nerfed, there's only two possibilities:
- Either it was too strong. So after the nerf drastically weakens it, it isn't too strong.
- It wasn't too strong. So after a nerf drastically weakens it, it's too weak.
It's not possible for it to be both or neither.)

But the people arguing for the tiers are also assuming you took 8 point skeletons both before and after the nerf and that no other changes took place, like horde or supporting ranks.

Yes, you can go out of your way and make a gak army using the worst possible models. But fortunately, army books have a large array of choices and if one piece gets nerfed, often others get buffed.

there are certainly books which have had noticeable advantages.

Then it should be no problem for you to demonstrate this by building an army for everyone to see and comment on that has this noticeable advantage.

DukeRustfield wrote:But the people arguing for the tiers are also assuming you took 8 point skeletons both before and after the nerf and that no other changes took place, like horde or supporting ranks.

Yes, you can go out of your way and make a gak army using the worst possible models.

Skeletons (8 pts each) are at least slightly worse stat-wise than Clanrats (4 pts each.)
Skaven troops can get horde twice as easily as skeletons, because they cost half as much. They get more supporting ranks than skeletons, because they cost half as much.

Clanrats have +1 movement, +1 weapon skill, +2 initiative over skellies, and skaven who lose combat don't take extra damage, while if skeletons lose combat by 5 points, they suffer 5 extra wounds (no saves any kind.)

Zombies have an even worse stat-line than skeletons, but at least they are as cheap as skaven (though skaven troops would obliterate zombies cost-for-cost.)

I guess an undead player could use nothing but ghouls, but I don't know how many undead people will never bring those units of skeletons and zombies that they bought and painted even if they're awful now.

You admit that within an army some models are automatically more effective than others, but at the same time make the silly claim that between the armies there aren't any differences in effectiveness at all.

Undead isn't even a particularly good army for the horde rule. Their extra attacks go last, are weak, rarely ever hit, and skellies/ghouls aren't cheap. Skaven are a high tier because while a lot of undead core became sucky, skaven were already good and their troops weren't made worse they were just made better. Skeletons pay points for unbreakable and it kills them. They didn't benefit from free Stubborn special rule given to ranked infantry. The skaven battle line can be Ld9-10 rerollable stubborn and if they lose combat, a ton of them don't suddenly explode like skeletons do.

Wood elves are another army which was balanced around 7th mechanics, not 8th and because of that there are lots of fights they're not competitive in.

You can tell yourself that the "good choices" in one army are never superior to the "good choices" in another army, but that's a joke.

But tiering things only means that people go out nd buy £300 of 'tier 1' army just to mangle at tournaments. Usually the high tiers have few in number, high in metal/cost minis (the DoC and VC armies of yore) For a time you could determine who would win by weighing thier army (DE executioners hydras and RBT?).

It serves no purpose. Why does anyone need to know or care what armies are 'the most powerful'? It will change in 8 years with the next edition.

Look at the lists :
Tier 1 Skaven Dwarves Empire Lizards

Tier 2 High Elves Daemons WoC Dark Elves

Tier 3 Ogres VC (!) TK O&G(!)

Tier 4 Woodies(!) Beastmen Brets(!)

Tier 2 - well selling old tier '1',
Tier 1 - buffs from rules. Rush out and buy them NOW!
Tier 3 - need updated army books
Tier 4 - will be brilliant with new army book (esp bret and beastmen)

It's marketing... all of it... rush out an buy your gunline now but in 3 armybooks time you'll be back at 'tier' 2/3....

Phototoxin wrote:But tiering things only means that people go out nd buy £300 of 'tier 1' army just to mangle at tournaments. Usually the high tiers have few in number, high in metal/cost minis (the DoC and VC armies of yore) For a time you could determine who would win by weighing thier army (DE executioners hydras and RBT?).

It serves no purpose. Why does anyone need to know or care what armies are 'the most powerful'? It will change in 8 years with the next edition.

Well, it serves a purpose in that often new people are just getting into fantasy and don't want to play a somewhat neglected army for several years (and no guarantee they won't be neglected in next ed either.)

People often have 2-3 choices of armies they like and sometimes it's nice to a new person knowing that his army won't go feet-up the first little mistake he makes.

DE executioners have never been known as powerhouses, so the "power by how heavy it is" thing is just silly. I'm sure every army has units without plastic kits. Metal kit squads aren't automatically more powerful. I have a metal griffon rider. He might weigh as much as a War Hydra, but he certainly is nothing like it on power. RBT also are heavy and generally considered weak in 8th edition. So you're 1 out of 3 on that example. (Really... is there any army that does not have metal squads or war machines or elite units at all? Name one.)

It's not mandatory to play competitively. That doesn't mean it is wrong to play competitively either. You could field an army of nothing but skeletons and necromancers if you have the most fun that way, all the power to you. I certainly wouldn't try to trash someone if they don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on an army which will be at disadvantage against their friends army for a long time.

Being weak in one edition doesn't guarantee you'll be one of the scary armies on the next edition either.

If you think all armies are exactly equal in power, then I don't see why you need to post in a thread where people are trying to find what the scary armies in 8th currently are, because you're not into competitive tweaking. It's fine if you aren't, that doesn't make people different from you bad.

Yeah, I agree with TheBloodGod. Tiers are more for tourney metagames, and if this does not appeal to you, then you are not forced into it. I for one enjoy building a list to trash my friends, then after a few games they update their lists and trash me, ect.

The challenge of the give and take is one of the only things keeping me in the game... if it wasnt a challenge, what kind of game is it?

Compare to a driving game. Do you want to play a simulation of a safe drive, where you drive 55mph around a track, and if people pass you or lap you its ok, or do you want a challenging game where you take the most pimped out car and push it as hard and as fast as you can against opponents doing the same?

TheBloodGod wrote:

Phototoxin wrote:But tiering things only means that people go out nd buy £300 of 'tier 1' army just to mangle at tournaments. Usually the high tiers have few in number, high in metal/cost minis (the DoC and VC armies of yore) For a time you could determine who would win by weighing thier army (DE executioners hydras and RBT?).

It serves no purpose. Why does anyone need to know or care what armies are 'the most powerful'? It will change in 8 years with the next edition.

Well, it serves a purpose in that often new people are just getting into fantasy and don't want to play a somewhat neglected army for several years (and no guarantee they won't be neglected in next ed either.)

People often have 2-3 choices of armies they like and sometimes it's nice to a new person knowing that his army won't go feet-up the first little mistake he makes.

DE executioners have never been known as powerhouses, so the "power by how heavy it is" thing is just silly. I'm sure every army has units without plastic kits. Metal kit squads aren't automatically more powerful. I have a metal griffon rider. He might weigh as much as a War Hydra, but he certainly is nothing like it on power. RBT also are heavy and generally considered weak in 8th edition. So you're 1 out of 3 on that example. (Really... is there any army that does not have metal squads or war machines or elite units at all? Name one.)

It's not mandatory to play competitively. That doesn't mean it is wrong to play competitively either. You could field an army of nothing but skeletons and necromancers if you have the most fun that way, all the power to you. I certainly wouldn't try to trash someone if they don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on an army which will be at disadvantage against their friends army for a long time.

Being weak in one edition doesn't guarantee you'll be one of the scary armies on the next edition either.

If you think all armies are exactly equal in power, then I don't see why you need to post in a thread where people are trying to find what the scary armies in 8th currently are, because you're not into competitive tweaking. It's fine if you aren't, that doesn't make people different from you bad.

EXACTLY~!

Oh I agree the tier system is flawed, but there isnt a better system for rating armies...

The last major 7th edition tournament in the Houston Area had an Ogre player take 1st place...

Ogres were unanimously agreed to be the worst army in 7th edition...

ShivanAngel wrote:Oh I agree the tier system is flawed, but there isnt a better system for rating armies...

The last major 7th edition tournament in the Houston Area had an Ogre player take 1st place...

Ogres were unanimously agreed to be the worst army in 7th edition...

And its results like that I love hearing about in fantasy and 40k. Even with tiers to gauge effectiveness it isn't guaranteed.

TheBloodGod wrote:You admit that within an army some models are automatically more effective than others, but at the same time make the silly claim that between the armies there aren't any differences in effectiveness at all.

Didn't make that claim at all.

Dwarf artillery is better than pretty much any other artillery in the game. That doesn't make Dwarfs better than any other army in the game.
Lizardmen magic is better than pretty much any other magic in the game. That doesn't make tLizardmen better than any other army in the game.

See how this works? Because armies are just that...armies. They have lots of units. Choosing Skaven RatOgres is not as cost-effective as Ogres choosing Bulls. But they are still viable because they are complimented within the race. If you chose nothing but RatOgres then yes, you would have a substandard army. But the game doesn't even allow you to do that. You can't just look at one model or even a few and say they suck. You need to look at the way the entire list of choices harmonizes.

And again, for all the talk everyone keeps on making about how blatantly obvious the imbalances are, no one will put together a list to prove it. So this is all gum-flapping

Well, it serves a purpose in that often new people are just getting into fantasy and don't want to play a somewhat neglected army for several years (and no guarantee they won't be neglected in next ed either.)

True - but no army should be neglected.

DE executioners appeared in most 7e DE armys in tournaments where I was. All armies have some metal. My point was that it was usually the armies with more metal minis that did well (DoC? VC special/rare units? with minimal plastic. Thankfully this is changing.

It's not mandatory to play competitively. That doesn't mean it is wrong to play competitively either. You could field an army of nothing but skeletons and necromancers if you have the most fun that way, all the power to you. I certainly wouldn't try to trash someone if they don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on an army which will be at disadvantage against their friends army for a long time.

Being weak in one edition doesn't guarantee you'll be one of the scary armies on the next edition either.

If you think all armies are exactly equal in power, then I don't see why you need to post in a thread where people are trying to find what the scary armies in 8th currently are, because you're not into competitive tweaking. It's fine if you aren't, that doesn't make people different from you bad.

I just think the level of competitiveness around is a bit wrong and offputting considering its a game that's not balanced.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Well, it serves a purpose in that often new people are just getting into fantasy and don't want to play a somewhat neglected army for several years (and no guarantee they won't be neglected in next ed either.)

True - but no army should be neglected.

DE executioners appeared in most 7e DE armys in tournaments where I was. All armies have some metal. My point was that it was usually the armies with more metal minis that did well (DoC? VC special/rare units? with minimal plastic. Thankfully this is changing.

It's not mandatory to play competitively. That doesn't mean it is wrong to play competitively either. You could field an army of nothing but skeletons and necromancers if you have the most fun that way, all the power to you. I certainly wouldn't try to trash someone if they don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on an army which will be at disadvantage against their friends army for a long time.

Being weak in one edition doesn't guarantee you'll be one of the scary armies on the next edition either.

If you think all armies are exactly equal in power, then I don't see why you need to post in a thread where people are trying to find what the scary armies in 8th currently are, because you're not into competitive tweaking. It's fine if you aren't, that doesn't make people different from you bad.

I just think the level of competitiveness around is a bit wrong and offputting considering its a game that's not balanced.

Really executioners saw a lot of tourny play in your area?

They are one of those units (at least in 7th) that was a waste of points.

Funny how the last Warpcon last year a DE player came 2nd fielding executioners... Most other Delf players in Ireland (addmited we're a bit backward) used to use them too. Can't say about 8th edition though.

why we're they bad in 7th?
They get the charge, Go first with Great weapons. Murder everyone. Win combat.

Its now in 8th with the ASL they are not so good.
If they came out in plastic i'd take them

They were a great hammer unit, however if they didnt break the combat they were losing next turn

TheBloodGod wrote:
And again, for all the talk everyone keeps on making about how blatantly obvious the imbalances are, no one will put together a list to prove it. So this is all gum-flapping

Well a hard and fast ruling is hard to come by.

But its fairly obvious some armies are more effective than others.

Consider for example the following three armys

Bretonnians, their only effective units are knights and those are now close to useless without the infantry support Bretonnian Armys don't have..... Wood Elves, they rely upon woods bogging down the enemy and using small elite units to break them through combat res, except of cource woods only slow down (the damn near useless) cavalry and small elite (and very squishy) units can't break large units through combat res anymore. Dark Elves, casualy have some of the most effective infantry in the game, some of the most dangerous cavalry, monsters, charecters and magic. They get all this despite most of their models being cheaper than an equivilent Wood Elf and comparing well to the massively inferior Bretonnian infantry.
Now given the above, can it be reasonable said that a Bretonnian or Wood Elf Army is even in the same league as a Dark Elf one?

Thats not to say its impossible to win with Brets or Wood Elves against Dark Elves, but its going to be an uphill struggle the whole way, which rather suggest a lack of balance.

Challenger

woot! debate!

DukeRustfield wrote:This isn't 40k. I think 8th went a LOOONG way to make almost every army have a pretty solid chance at competing.

What I might say is some armies have fewer options to build competitive lists because they have fewer choices or outdated rules or are difficult to use or whatever. Tomb Kings comes to mind. Ogres have very few lords and not a whole lot of viable models, but I still consider them very effective--you just might run into trouble if your enemy knows he's facing you and tailors his army.

I've got maybe 6-7 army books and I feel very confident any of those armies could beat the crap out of any of the other ones. A lot comes down to what happens on the battlefield and dice rolls.

Like if you're magic-heavy, you're placing a lot of power in the hands of the dice gods. 8th ed. Wizards are like massive black powder war machines.

What you mean is 8th ed made the WHFB situation like 40K. The comment you have about 6-7 army books that can win perfectly applies to 40K for quite some time now (when was the last time 40k tourneys HAD to be comped?). The 5th ed 40k environment is extremely balanced....there ARE tiers, but the gradations between them are such that even older codexes (ex eldar, orks, and even dark eldar) can be still be very competitive.

8th ed is in this situation right now, which is great for the WHFB environment. The last time WHFB environment was "balanced" was from 6th ed right until the release of the unholy 3 books in 7th ed...

freddieyu1 wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:This isn't 40k. I think 8th went a LOOONG way to make almost every army have a pretty solid chance at competing.

What I might say is some armies have fewer options to build competitive lists because they have fewer choices or outdated rules or are difficult to use or whatever. Tomb Kings comes to mind. Ogres have very few lords and not a whole lot of viable models, but I still consider them very effective--you just might run into trouble if your enemy knows he's facing you and tailors his army.

I've got maybe 6-7 army books and I feel very confident any of those armies could beat the crap out of any of the other ones. A lot comes down to what happens on the battlefield and dice rolls.

Like if you're magic-heavy, you're placing a lot of power in the hands of the dice gods. 8th ed. Wizards are like massive black powder war machines.

What you mean is 8th ed made the WHFB situation like 40K. The comment you have about 6-7 army books that can win perfectly applies to 40K for quite some time now (when was the last time 40k tourneys HAD to be comped?). The 5th ed 40k environment is extremely balanced....there ARE tiers, but the gradations between them are such that even older codexes (ex eldar, orks, and even dark eldar) can be still be very competitive.

8th ed is in this situation right now, which is great for the WHFB environment. The last time WHFB environment was "balanced" was from 6th ed right until the release of the unholy 3 books in 7th ed...

OH god! Warhammer 40k is such tier based right now its not even funny. Just look at the nova open last week.... 4 Space Wolf players all made the finals and Space Wolf player won. BTW he goes to my store, very awesome dude and totally chill.

I would have to argue that the tier system is dead. The addition of the new missions means that the rating of armies in a tiered system (in accordance to one mission only) is a matter of the past because armies will perform very differently in the different missions available.

Generalian wrote:

freddieyu1 wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:This isn't 40k. I think 8th went a LOOONG way to make almost every army have a pretty solid chance at competing.

What I might say is some armies have fewer options to build competitive lists because they have fewer choices or outdated rules or are difficult to use or whatever. Tomb Kings comes to mind. Ogres have very few lords and not a whole lot of viable models, but I still consider them very effective--you just might run into trouble if your enemy knows he's facing you and tailors his army.

I've got maybe 6-7 army books and I feel very confident any of those armies could beat the crap out of any of the other ones. A lot comes down to what happens on the battlefield and dice rolls.

Like if you're magic-heavy, you're placing a lot of power in the hands of the dice gods. 8th ed. Wizards are like massive black powder war machines.

What you mean is 8th ed made the WHFB situation like 40K. The comment you have about 6-7 army books that can win perfectly applies to 40K for quite some time now (when was the last time 40k tourneys HAD to be comped?). The 5th ed 40k environment is extremely balanced....there ARE tiers, but the gradations between them are such that even older codexes (ex eldar, orks, and even dark eldar) can be still be very competitive.

8th ed is in this situation right now, which is great for the WHFB environment. The last time WHFB environment was "balanced" was from 6th ed right until the release of the unholy 3 books in 7th ed...

OH god! Warhammer 40k is such tier based right now its not even funny. Just look at the nova open last week.... 4 Space Wolf players all made the finals and Space Wolf player won. BTW he goes to my store, very awesome dude and totally chill.

That is absolutely not true...Nova open is 1 result, adepticon is another, the recent ETC tourney also, etc. etc. etc..Space wolves are strong, but in reality in many local tourney you find IG, BA, nids, orks, etc are also winners...

Like I said there ARE tiers in 40k, but to say space wolves or IG is an autowin is a fallacy, and in no way does 40k at this point represent the 7th ed disaster in WHFB, not even close.

What IS true in 40k though is the love of GW for Imperial armies, specifically marines and their variants. This is the reason a LOT of players play 1 kind of marine or the other....if you can spread that kind of love around the different 40k armies, and even a splatter of that to each WHFB army book, then things might be brighter...(but in reality all of us know better...nothing beats GW's poster boys, and number 1 money maker)...

Back to WHFB tiers...I'm sure you guys have noticed that GW has put in several things which many armies can use to nerf the old 7th ed builds...deathstar units? there's steadfast, as well as unit nuke spells. Powerful character armies? Lore of death, also some nuke spells, as well as the % based FOC system. Magic heavy? the entirely new revised magic system. This why it is difficult to rank most of the WHFB books now, since things seem nuked down to ground zero. Which is why the first few 8th ed army book releases will be important to see the direction of army book creep. Guaranteed, there WILL be creep, but the extent of it will be the important factor to see how the different armies go...

I note that while still claiming that the warhammer army books are balanced, you ignore examples showing to the contrary.

I still fail to see how it is possible to claim that Wood Elves and Bretonnians are balanced against Dark Elves?

Challenger

Even so its much better since now multiple armies have a chance of winning instead of just one, no amount of whyning is gonna change the fact GW did something right this time around.

IMOHO: there are only 2 tiers as 8th did a very good job of Equalizing all the armies.

Tier1: Empire, HE, Lizardmen, Dwarves, and DE.

Empire, DE and Dwarves can do very effective Gunlines. this is extrapolated by the addition of TLOS. Dwarves are more effective now that Charges are much larger for them. HE and lizardmen still have the best mages and can potentially avoid the nasty miscast table.

Tier2: everyone else.

even WE, who are arguably towards the bottom, can still be good in the hands of a skilled player. VCs are still good as well, not as good as they once were, but still fairly good.


the gap between these 2 tiers is pretty small however.

freddieyu1 wrote:The 5th ed 40k environment is extremely balanced....

Man, I almost choked on my spaghetti. But I wasn't eating spaghetti. The same races have been showing up at the tops of tourneys for years. 40K is an excercise in race-picking, list-building and to a much lesser extent, dice-rolling.

Dark Eldar were only competitive because of a few broken units which were massed. How about a fight between Space Wolves, Blood Angels, IG vs. Necrons, Tau, Orks? Hell, throw in Chaos Daemons, C:SM, and a bonobo monkey. I already know who won barring two of the players in the first team having cerebral hemorages--or the monkey eating the pieces.. That's more than just tiers, that's geographical landscapes.

My top 5 from what I have seen would be Empire, Dwarfs, High Elves, Dark Elves and Skaven. Empire for their cannons, mortars and basically every thing else is good. Dwarfs for their cannons and grudge throwers and tough cheap infantry, handgunners and awesome magic defense. Skaven have so many routes for building a competitive army list, just pick stuff in the book that you like and I'm sure your going to do fine. personally I like the pestilens clan, they are a bunch of frenzied dudes bringing along the censers that kill you before combat even begins. But you can go shooty, combat, magic, whatever with skaven. Dark Elves with the repeater crossbows are so sick and the whole army has hatred?...nasty. being able to re-roll missed to-hits is huge since no matter your weapon skill your still hitting on 3+ to 5+. their basic troops are so cheap for how hard they hit. And whoever is saying High Elves aren't tops and cant stand up in CC needs to play against better high elf generals. Have you seen what a horde of 30 Sword Masters can do? Your getting ASF to start with 40 WS6, S5 attacks. Against Dwarf infantry for example that is going to be 27 hits, 18 wounds with about 5 successful armor saves (I accounted for Parry) if they have hand weapon and shield for 13 Dead. 13 dead! against a tough well armored opponent! Think what they are going to do against Empire troops. Yes the Sword Masters are weak against shooting but there is so much terrain now in 8th edition that they can do a fair job at staying out of harms way. The White Lions are nasty too.

Exodus2013 wrote:My top 5 from what I have seen would be Empire, Dwarfs, High Elves, Dark Elves and Skaven. Empire for their cannons, mortars and basically every thing else is good. Dwarfs for their cannons and grudge throwers and tough cheap infantry, handgunners and awesome magic defense. Skaven have so many routes for building a competitive army list, just pick stuff in the book that you like and I'm sure your going to do fine. personally I like the pestilens clan, they are a bunch of frenzied dudes bringing along the censers that kill you before combat even begins. But you can go shooty, combat, magic, whatever with skaven. Dark Elves with the repeater crossbows are so sick and the whole army has hatred?...nasty. being able to re-roll missed to-hits is huge since no matter your weapon skill your still hitting on 3+ to 5+. their basic troops are so cheap for how hard they hit. And whoever is saying High Elves aren't tops and cant stand up in CC needs to play against better high elf generals. Have you seen what a horde of 30 Sword Masters can do? Your getting ASF to start with 40 WS6, S5 attacks. Against Dwarf infantry for example that is going to be 27 hits, 18 wounds with about 5 successful armor saves (I accounted for Parry) if they have hand weapon and shield for 13 Dead. 13 dead! against a tough well armored opponent! Think what they are going to do against Empire troops. Yes the Sword Masters are weak against shooting but there is so much terrain now in 8th edition that they can do a fair job at staying out of harms way. The White Lions are nasty too.

nice job

So I would bump lizards down one notch and High Elves Up one even though the lizards are VERY tough I would put them right on the bubble. They have some tough units yes but their strongest phase is the magic and magic in 8th can be spotty.

Exodus2013 wrote:And whoever is saying High Elves aren't tops and cant stand up in CC needs to play against better high elf generals. Have you seen what a horde of 30 Sword Masters can do? Your getting ASF to start with 40 WS6, S5 attacks. Against Dwarf infantry for example that is going to be 27 hits, 18 wounds with about 5 successful armor saves (I accounted for Parry) if they have hand weapon and shield for 13 Dead. 13 dead! against a tough well armored opponent! Think what they are going to do against Empire troops. Yes the Sword Masters are weak against shooting but there is so much terrain now in 8th edition that they can do a fair job at staying out of harms way. The White Lions are nasty too.

That was me, and you've just suggested that a near 500 point does a lot of damage. Well damn, it should. Let's compare it to Orc Arrer Boyz, my new favorite core of the Orc & Goblin list. 450 points buys you 70 Orc Arrers with FC. Let's pretend the Arrers do zero damage to the incoming Swordmasters in shooting, the swordmasters will do 18 wounds to the Orcs. Goodbye ranks 6 and 7. Now it's 30 attacks, 15 hits, 10 wounds, and 8 or 9 kills. Steadfast Orcs probably stick around. Every new round is worse for the Swordmasters because every casualty is a loss of attacks. Let's pretend the opposing general was sane, and took his horde of choice in the the 50 man range (which can still take a round of swings from a 30 man Swordmaster Horde and fight back with full attacks). This frees up 120 points of Arrers, which is almost a chariot and a stone thrower for the Orcs. Let's look at 30 Swordmasters vs. 50 Arrers, a Stone Thrower, and a Chariot. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine the winner.

Of course this is mostly pointless, because armies play each other, not units, but it does show that Swordmasters against a mixed purpose horde unit come out the losers in equal points, assuming that the biggest weakness of the elf elite, shooting damage, isn't factored in. In any knock-down fight with hordes, the elf elite are hosed. Phoenix Guard are in much better shape thanks to their ward, but lose out a lot on damage.

Meh swordmasters scare me in close combat, but the fact that a unit of them has yet to get into combat against me tells you how squishy they are.

DukeRustfield wrote:

freddieyu1 wrote:The 5th ed 40k environment is extremely balanced....

Man, I almost choked on my spaghetti. But I wasn't eating spaghetti. The same races have been showing up at the tops of tourneys for years. 40K is an excercise in race-picking, list-building and to a much lesser extent, dice-rolling.

Dark Eldar were only competitive because of a few broken units which were massed. How about a fight between Space Wolves, Blood Angels, IG vs. Necrons, Tau, Orks? Hell, throw in Chaos Daemons, C:SM, and a bonobo monkey. I already know who won barring two of the players in the first team having cerebral hemorages--or the monkey eating the pieces.. That's more than just tiers, that's geographical landscapes.

Well, this comment tells me that you really don't play 40k too much, or are used to the environment locally and have not been seeing what is happening across the board...and also that your "geographical landscape" is extremely limited...

Let me change the armies you mentioned..BA, SW, IG versus Orks, Eldar, and CSM, and chaos damons and tau?..it will be 1 hell of a fight, and I tell you the best players will win. 1 way to prove this is after 1 game let the same players swap sides, and you will see it is the GOOD players who win in 40k. After all, there is no Magic phase in 40k..no spells like Purple Sun and The Dwellers below, which many seem to be currently complaining about (I say meh to these complaints though...players who rely on too much magic will live and die on the winds of magic, which is much more random in 8th ed)...

The fact that the same "races" seem to predominate is again due to GW's love pf spesh muhrines....if there is 1 thing I like about WHFB until the 7th ed fiasco is that there was a great representation of army types in tourneys. In 8the it going back to this. In 40k half of the players play with imperial armies, hence the skew in what you see.

However, when you say that the same "races" are winning for years, and I would amount your word "race" to codexes, then I know you are just misinformed, or under the wrong impression. Space wolves have only just recently started to win within the last year, since their codex is new. 2 years ago, orks, eldar, and nidzilla were very powerful. Then came IG and regualr marines. Now we have space wolves, and blood angels. Chaos space marines and chaos daemons you also see winners. Case in point, this year's hard boyz had chaos space marines, chaos daemons, and IG as the winners. Yes, the nova open had a lot of SW, and that is good since SW is a great codex, but to say that the field is grossly imbalanced is definitely wrong, as most of the dexes can really still compete. There is no "autowin" in 40k folks. Getting the first turn in 40k, for example, is not an autowin since 40k now has so many excellent reserves options that many of us players actually decide to go second and reserve the majority of our units.

You can go look at a ton of other threads on tiers and balance, and you will see that WHFB was the system which had to redress the balance, not 40k. As mentioned in the last few posts, 40k basically has 2 tiers 2 (well, maybe 3, but with the new dexes of the necrons and DH coming up it be 2 tiers...the favorites, and the rest who can still win).

Anyway, this is not a 40k versus WHFB thread, and as a player of both systems for 12 years (since 5th ed WHFB, 3rd ed 40k) I belong to the camp that both are great and DIFFERENT games, with different sets of challenges.

what I find very encouraging are threads like this where players discuss who the top armies are. This means the playing field as of now has been redressed. Let us see who the Top Dawgs are 6 months from now, and I will bet this will certainly include the latest 8th ed army(ies) to be released.I just hope the top dawgs won't just be them.

freddieyu1 wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:

freddieyu1 wrote:The 5th ed 40k environment is extremely balanced....

Man, I almost choked on my spaghetti. But I wasn't eating spaghetti. The same races have been showing up at the tops of tourneys for years. 40K is an excercise in race-picking, list-building and to a much lesser extent, dice-rolling.

Dark Eldar were only competitive because of a few broken units which were massed. How about a fight between Space Wolves, Blood Angels, IG vs. Necrons, Tau, Orks? Hell, throw in Chaos Daemons, C:SM, and a bonobo monkey. I already know who won barring two of the players in the first team having cerebral hemorages--or the monkey eating the pieces.. That's more than just tiers, that's geographical landscapes.

Well, this comment tells me that you really don't play 40k too much, or are used to the environment locally and have not been seeing what is happening across the board...and also that your "geographical landscape" is extremely limited...

Let me change the armies you mentioned..BA, SW, IG versus Orks, Eldar, and CSM, and chaos damons and tau?..it will be 1 hell of a fight, and I tell you the best players will win. 1 way to prove this is after 1 game let the same players swap sides, and you will see it is the GOOD players who win in 40k. After all, there is no Magic phase in 40k..no spells like Purple Sun and The Dwellers below, which many seem to be currently complaining about (I say meh to these complaints though...players who rely on too much magic will live and die on the winds of magic, which is much more random in 8th ed)...

The fact that the same "races" seem to predominate is again due to GW's love pf spesh muhrines....if there is 1 thing I like about WHFB until the 7th ed fiasco is that there was a great representation of army types in tourneys. In 8the it going back to this. In 40k half of the players play with imperial armies, hence the skew in what you see.

However, when you say that the same "races" are winning for years, and I would amount your word "race" to codexes, then I know you are just misinformed, or under the wrong impression. Space wolves have only just recently started to win within the last year, since their codex is new. 2 years ago, orks, eldar, and nidzilla were very powerful. Then came IG and regualr marines. Now we have space wolves, and blood angels. Chaos space marines and chaos daemons you also see winners. Case in point, this year's hard boyz had chaos space marines, chaos daemons, and IG as the winners. Yes, the nova open had a lot of SW, and that is good since SW is a great codex, but to say that the field is grossly imbalanced is definitely wrong, as most of the dexes can really still compete. There is no "autowin" in 40k folks. Getting the first turn in 40k, for example, is not an autowin since 40k now has so many excellent reserves options that many of us players actually decide to go second and reserve the majority of our units.

You can go look at a ton of other threads on tiers and balance, and you will see that WHFB was the system which had to redress the balance, not 40k. As mentioned in the last few posts, 40k basically has 2 tiers 2 (well, maybe 3, but with the new dexes of the necrons and DH coming up it be 2 tiers...the favorites, and the rest who can still win).

Anyway, this is not a 40k versus WHFB thread, and as a player of both systems for 12 years (since 5th ed WHFB, 3rd ed 40k) I belong to the camp that both are great and DIFFERENT games, with different sets of challenges.

what I find very encouraging are threads like this where players discuss who the top armies are. This means the playing field as of now has been redressed. Let us see who the Top Dawgs are 6 months from now, and I will bet this will certainly include the latest 8th ed army(ies) to be released.I just hope the top dawgs won't just be them.

this topic is about fantasy tiers, not 40k... but I appreciate the enthusiasm

Biophysical wrote:That was me, and you've just suggested that a near 500 point does a lot of damage. Well damn, it should. Let's compare it to Orc Arrer Boyz, my new favorite core of the Orc & Goblin list. 450 points buys you 70 Orc Arrers with FC. Let's pretend the Arrers do zero damage to the incoming Swordmasters in shooting, the swordmasters will do 18 wounds to the Orcs. Goodbye ranks 6 and 7. Now it's 30 attacks, 15 hits, 10 wounds, and 8 or 9 kills. Steadfast Orcs probably stick around. Every new round is worse for the Swordmasters because every casualty is a loss of attacks. Let's pretend the opposing general was sane, and took his horde of choice in the the 50 man range (which can still take a round of swings from a 30 man Swordmaster Horde and fight back with full attacks). This frees up 120 points of Arrers, which is almost a chariot and a stone thrower for the Orcs. Let's look at 30 Swordmasters vs. 50 Arrers, a Stone Thrower, and a Chariot. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine the winner.

Of course this is mostly pointless, because armies play each other, not units, but it does show that Swordmasters against a mixed purpose horde unit come out the losers in equal points, assuming that the biggest weakness of the elf elite, shooting damage, isn't factored in. In any knock-down fight with hordes, the elf elite are hosed. Phoenix Guard are in much better shape thanks to their ward, but lose out a lot on damage.

I forgot to add in the fact that the High Elves get to re-roll missed to hits... so let me re-work the math for ya add Ill use the nearly unarmored orc boys who may or may not have squabbled this turn :p (like you said this is all in good fun and hypothetical because its army vs army but lets have a looksee). 30 Sword masters against 50 arrer boyz. For this demonstration I am assuming the High Elf player was smart enough to charge his 500pt unit into the flank of the orc horde and let his spearmen take the stand and shootyness. The Sword Masters strike first with their 41 WS6 attacks including the extra one for the champ against the WS3 of the Orcs that is and hit with 27.47. Re-roll the misses and thats 36.5 hits. S5 vs T4 and no armor saves = 24.5 Dead. Now I do not care to think about the sword masters charging the front of an orc arrer horde as this is complete suicide. Also remember I play Goblins and Skaven but I am just saying that Sword Masters can really dish out the hurt, if they were attacking Goblins they would have killed 31. Yes they are expensive at around 500pts for the unit, but to me all the best units are. Also I dont think you are insane for taking the unit of 70 arrer boyz. I like a unit of 50 Night Goblins with shortbows and a BSB in the unit with the spider banner personally but thats only cause I wasn't using orcs ever. Also I plan in my new Skaven army to take a unit of Plague Monks w/ Plague Furnace and plague priest that is 65 monks strong. With the 15 spots the Furnace takes up this will give me essentially a unit the size of 10x8. The Monks have two hand weapons naturally and are frenzied so this gives them 3 attacks each for only 7pts per model. The unit with magic items and all will cost 828pts but the Furnace makes the already frenzied unit Unbreakable and magic resistance (2) for a 5+ ward save against magic. The priest is no slouch in CC and has items that cause -1 to shoot the unit and -1 to enemy leadership if in base contact. A true death star unit ...but it will be fun! Backed up by a couple units of censer bearers there wont be much stopping it that I can imagine, as long as I get into CC fast.

I know oyu are theorycrafting but no one in there right mind would let 30 swordmasters walk across the board.

They would be fairly diminished after 2-3 rounds of shooting.

Not to mention dwellers below, loosing half your guys is the fails.

I agree with Exodus2013 that 500 point units can be good, and didn't mean to imply otherwise, but I don't think that a 500 point Swordmasters unit is good, because it can't stand toe-to-toe with similarly priced units, because it's just not tough enough. High Elves don't have the cheapness, toughness, or armor to fight on the line, and their huge damage potential is insufficient against large body counts because step-up lets the big units keep fighting despite casualties, something the cost of elves prevents them from doing.

I will also agree with Exodus2013 that the horded 30 man Swordmasters unit (~450 points) that flanks of Orc unit (330 points) will totally own in combat. In this allmost comically unlikely situation (zero casualties to the incoming swordmasters unit, unguarded flanks of a 50 man Orc Horde, having the table space to swing a horded unit into something's flank), Swordmaster's rule.

Against other elites, I think the High Elf troops stack up a lot better, but I think magic and archery is there only good option against Hordes.

ShivanAngel wrote:I know oyu are theorycrafting but no one in there right mind would let 30 swordmasters walk across the board.

They would be fairly diminished after 2-3 rounds of shooting.

I don't think any elf general in their right mind would charge 30 swordmasters into a horde of 70 orcs either.

Well ya take a couple units of archers, Teclis, Sword Masters and White Lions. The archers and Teclis rip ya up pretty bad then the elites come in and kill the half units your hordes once were in one CC turn. I can see where your coming from though its not hard to kill a unit of 30 low toughness low armored and highly expensive elites from a distance. This is the major downfall for all Elves.

Boss_Salvage wrote:Tier 4 Wood Elves

*O&G are especially hard for me to rank, as animosity still blows but they have some serious artillery support and some of the most worthwhile troops to horde up (night gobs w/ bows).

Hell, all of the lower brackets are fairly tough. I feel bad sticking WE down in the lowest of the low but there's really nothing I fear in that list, apart from treemen spam but even that is a bad idea competitively with all the flaming artillery.

- Salvage

You should feel bad, Mr. Salvage! Very, very bad... I keep saying that my "particular" brand of wood elves (forest spirits) seems to have gotten better, but nobody listens to me . Admittedly, I went 0-1-5 in two tourneys with it under 7th ed, so it wasn't great before- but it seems somewhat competitive to me now! I've had a few wins in friendly games and they've all been at the very least close (although 8th edition rules seem to be making that happen in a lot of games). So don't relegate us to the corner with the dunce hat just yet!!!

I'm glad that Warriors of Chaos are at least second tier.

I find it odd that people are complaining that orcs aren't competitive. Dirt cheap warmachines, chariots, fast cav and horde units. Combined with beefy characters, they're a tough nut to crack.

I blame purple sun.

*lawl-purplesun*tm


I am glad Ogres are competitive. mid tier at least.

I blame the fact that on any given turn 1/6 of their army is useless.

ShivanAngel wrote:I blame the fact that on any given turn 1/6 of their army is useless.

This is a bit of an exaggeration. True Statement: 1/6th of the time, the portion of the army that is 5 or more models and has no black orc characters in it is useless.

The key difference here is that war machines, chariots, and key units (you know, the ones worth putting a black orc character with) are not ever useless. I'll fully admit that animosity can cause problems, but it can be mitigated, and the backbone of a plan can be carried out, even if contingency plans are required for the details.

Weirdly, I'm not that afraid of Purple Sun. Orcs are cheap, their big bases mean fewer hits from the templates, and magic resistance is solid thanks to the Spirit Totem and Staff of Sneaky Stealin'.

Honestly, I think Orcs are a lot like Empire Light. Cheapish, capable troops and characters, with a good mix of war machine and magic support. Empire has real advantages in magic and war machines and cavalry, but Orcs have the infantry edge, I think. Empire is a tougher army overall since they have a lot more options, but like Empire, Orcs have something to bring to all phases of the game, and do it cheap enough to have it in one army.

HoverBoy wrote:I blame purple sun.

I also blame purple sun

It's not that orcs are not competitive its just that they are mid range, which is good. Mid range is more fun to play and play against then an army that if deployed right is most likely an insta win *cough-7th ed. daemons-cough*

Exodus2013 wrote:It's not that orcs are not competitive its just that they are mid range, which is good. Mid range is more fun to play and play against then an army that if deployed right is most likely an insta win *cough-7th ed. daemons-cough*

prime example there! nobody can truly say that chaos daemons were not severly high tier in 7th. Thus, with 8th, we have tiers to represent the daemons of the new editions to come.

Surtur wrote:I find it odd that people are complaining that orcs aren't competitive. Dirt cheap warmachines, chariots, fast cav and horde units. Combined with beefy characters, they're a tough nut to crack.

People complain that they aren't competitive because of animosity when you start relying on a unit they spend a turn squabbling and get flanked. But other then that orc and goblins are quite good.

I have to agree that Orcs can actually be very good, especially with this edition.

1. Cheap troops at T4.
2. Cheap warmachines.
3. Cheap chariots - goblin chariots at Str 5 and Mvt 9?
4. Animosity - yes its a pain sometimes, but with decent placement of black orc characters (which you can take more of now), you'll be fine.
5. WAAAGH is almost broken now in 8th. Take a Lvl 4 shaman and cast WAAAGH the same turn you declare one with your general - ouch. ASF and rerolls to hit on big units of orcs is pretty sick.
6. And finally - people are so used to them being pretty crappy in 7th, they aren't prepared for them in 8th. I played an Orc guy last week that absolutely rolled my Skaven army. Wasn't pretty. Everything in combat by turn 2.

Ogre Kingdoms - I don't know. I wouldn't base them off tournament results (like Bayou), especially when you can figure in comp score, sportsmanship and painting.

I also think people underestimate Tomb Kings alot now - their magic is almost unstoppable, although their catapults took a big hit.
Beastmen - well - I'm still searching for the winning build, but I think the chariot spam list has some potential.

Mattbranb wrote:
I also think people underestimate Tomb Kings alot now - their magic is almost unstoppable, although their catapults took a big hit.

I've heard the exact opposite from TK players. Their magic is easy to shut down now, but the catapult works wonders.

I dont see how goblin warmachines are "dirt cheap".. Rock lobber is same price as empire mortar and BS3 bolt throwers arent even worth 35 pts regardless.. With all the negative to hit modifiers now you'll need 6s or more almost all the time

The problem with "Animosity can be mitigated with Black Orcs" should be known to anyone who has put a BOrc in a unit of Big 'Uns and for three turns in a row rolled a 1 for animosity and a 6 for number of hits caused. Yeah, you can mitigate animosity... but a few bad rolls and you can wipe out two or three of your ranks from a unit (and well over 100pts of your own models) just so your unit can function normally.

Let alone with things like Boar Boyz, who you are usually stuck either taking in huge bricks so that they can safely suffer an animosity result (See: Not have your BOrc Big Boss kill twice his points in your own army in two turns because you are bad with the dice) or small "hammer" units to give Active CR next to a brick (which then has the 1-in-6 chance of twiddling its thumbs while your Orcs keep looking for the support they aren't going to get).

Orcs are mid-tier, but Animosity isn't something you just handwave away. The closest you get is Azhag, and taking him is risky and still only covers about two-to-four units a turn with protection.

I think that problem has more to do with Big'Uns and Boar Boyz being overpriced. I've found the other units can reasonably handle animosity.

Also it would be good if big 'Uns had a similar rule as the dwarf longbeards (old grumblers rule) but for animosity that might justify their cost.

To be clear, I don't think O&G are top tier, but I do think they are not lower than middle tier. They've got plenty of weaknesses, but they have the tools to win against any army.

I would swap daemons with high elfs, i know they have taken a hit this edition but there still powerful and flamers still rock, and i think high elfs are maybe even below warriors of chaos aswell tbh.

Djones I would be curious to see what level game those TK players are playing that say their magic is easily stopped. So 2500 game (seems to be the new tournament standard) - here's what my sample TK would have.

1 King - 2 spells 1d6
1 High Priest - 2 spells 3d6
1 Prince - 1 spells 1d6
2 Priests - 1 spell 2d6

Say six dispel dice for your opponent, with 7 maybe unless your playing an Empire army with a crap load of Warrior Priests, your almost guaranteed to get off a spell or 2 (which is really all you need for them).

1 Dispel dice for each of the Kings spells. 1 for the prince. 2 dispel dice each for the 2 priests (unless they roll really low). Thats all 6. The High Priest - need at least 2, poss 3 for each one. Thats IF you get 6 or 7 dispel dice.

Where TK magic seems to be underpowered is that it doesn't have the spectacular results of the new magic lores. I counter that raising is always good, while being able to get free attacks (in 2 ranks now), shoot catapults or make extremely long charges possible are pretty darn good.

They are still a finesse army though, as they are vulnerable to more attacks and have crap for armor. Fast, shooty and a reliable magic phase.

I have to argue against this idea that High Elves are not top tier? If the list is made properly, the HE army is easily one of the stronger army books out there.

I have no idea where this fallacy that 8th edition Dark Elves are stronger came from, in the last edition I would agree but in this edition our strengths were improved, while many of our weaknesses were shored up by a better magic phase. In the Hard Boys tournaments if you look you will notice that we usually only lost to stuff like the Double Stanks.

I would hazard something like this:

Tier 1:
Empire
Dwarves
Lizardmen
High Elves
Skaven
Warriors of Chaos

Tier 2:
Dark Elves
Vampire Counts
Orc and Goblins
Ogre Kingdoms

Tier 3:
Wood Elves
Brettonians

Unknown:
Daemons of Chaos
Tomb Kings

Dark Elves are possibly top tier too. The thing 8th edition did is add more armies to "tier 1". Its a more balanced game now and a lot more of the armies are highly competitive.

ard boyz is going on right now and soon the new tiers will be officially established.

Right now the armies being used the most are Chaos Daemons, VC (6 purple suns), Skaven (so...many... slaves...) , Dwarfs,(Gun Line), High Elves (Teclis), and Empire

Some armies have no chance to place well due to too few players playing them, after all if everyone and thei'r grandma brings teclis he's bound to make it higher up than the heavily overlooked Ogres.

It will start to balance out.

Honestly Teclis is so powerful that there are players that are horrible generals that can use Teclis to coast through the earlier prelims.

I dont think we will see nearly as many High Elf lists winning semi's.

Yea but my example still stands:
How many good generals do you think actually brought Ogres to ard boyz to help us judge if they are indeed competitive or not?

not many, but those that did(all 4 of them) will do pretty good.

people who play ogres tend to be good generals because they need to compansate.


The problem with Teclis is that 1 feedback scroll can send him down instantly. not having any saves whatsoever is really bad against a feedback scroll.

Yea Ogres, as i said, was just an example, how about wood elves, brettonians, VC in fact any of the armies that where assumed to be weak/nerfed when 8th came along without much playtesting, as ard boyz itself didn't really give players time to playtest stuff they just brought the army they thought would be best in competitive play.

Frankly IDK if this Ard boyz will give a decent view on the actual balance of power.

there hasn't been enough time for everyone to get a hang on the new rules.

people won't have had time to adjust their playstyle or their tactics.

the rules support large blocks of cheap infantry, but i don't think there will be many blocks larger then 40(with the possable exception of Slaves and maybe marauders) as people will have to have time to purchase and assemble large quantities of troops.

Grey Templar wrote:there hasn't been enough time for everyone to get a hang on the new rules.

This.

Grey Templar wrote:
The problem with Teclis is that 1 feedback scroll can send him down instantly. not having any saves whatsoever is really bad against a feedback scroll.

Not really, you cant use a feedback scroll unless you can attempt to dispell the spell.

So unless he trows 5-6 dice at a spell and doesnt get IF, it probably wont kill him.

i know this will generate contriversy, but the Feedback scroll doesn't reqire that you have to have been able to dispell. it is used at the same time.

"instead of dispelling" can be read as " i can't dispell, but i can use this to eat your face"


RAI: i think the FS can be used against a IF.

No it reads "instead of attempting to dispel the spell"

With IF you cannot attempt to dispel, therefor you cannot use the FS instead of attempting to dispel, since you cant attempt to dispel it.

It goes further to say on page 33 under the rules for magic.

More importantly perhaps, a spell cast with irresistable force is impossible to dispell- your opponent cannont even ATTEMPT to dispell. Go straight to step 4, spell resolution.

You would have to use the feedback scroll instead of attempting to dispel. The attempt to dispell cannot happen, because you go straight to spell resolution. Therefor the FS cannot be used.

Yea GT this is pretty common knowledge.

Mattbranb wrote:Djones I would be curious to see what level game those TK players are playing that say their magic is easily stopped. So 2500 game (seems to be the new tournament standard) - here's what my sample TK would have.

1 King - 2 spells 1d6
1 High Priest - 2 spells 3d6
1 Prince - 1 spells 1d6
2 Priests - 1 spell 2d6

Say six dispel dice for your opponent, with 7 maybe unless your playing an Empire army with a crap load of Warrior Priests, your almost guaranteed to get off a spell or 2 (which is really all you need for them).

1 Dispel dice for each of the Kings spells. 1 for the prince. 2 dispel dice each for the 2 priests (unless they roll really low). Thats all 6. The High Priest - need at least 2, poss 3 for each one. Thats IF you get 6 or 7 dispel dice.

Where TK magic seems to be underpowered is that it doesn't have the spectacular results of the new magic lores. I counter that raising is always good, while being able to get free attacks (in 2 ranks now), shoot catapults or make extremely long charges possible are pretty darn good.

They are still a finesse army though, as they are vulnerable to more attacks and have crap for armor. Fast, shooty and a reliable magic phase.

You can't raise a unit wiped out by opposing powerful magic, and TK are expensive enough for that to be a common possibility. Also, they can choose to throw one die at your low rolls for a 1 in 3 chance of failure. You can get spells off, barring unusual magic/magic items, but your opponent will choose which ones because dispelling non-Priest casts is really easy.

The problem with throwing a single dice at a low roll is that if its a 1 or two they just lost the ability to dispell with that wizard.

Also if a tomb king army got for winds of magic or something like 3-2 they are about to stomp all over you during the magic phase.

ShivanAngel wrote:
Not really, you cant use a feedback scroll unless you can attempt to dispell the spell.

So unless he trows 5-6 dice at a spell and doesnt get IF, it probably wont kill him.

It doesn't say that. So I believe you can still use it with IF. BUT the problem is that you have to roll a 5+ to wound so teclis would have had to throw 9 dice at a spell for you to statistically roll enough 5+'s to kill him.

read the post above, you cannot use the feedback scroll if the spell is cast with IF.

Also it most definitely does say you use the feedback scroll instead of attempting to dispel.

Exodus2013 wrote:

ShivanAngel wrote:
Not really, you cant use a feedback scroll unless you can attempt to dispell the spell.

So unless he trows 5-6 dice at a spell and doesnt get IF, it probably wont kill him.

It doesn't say that. So I believe you can still use it with IF. BUT the problem is that you have to roll a 5+ to wound so teclis would have had to throw 9 dice at a spell for you to statistically roll enough 5+'s to kill him.

BRB, pg.33, Irresistible Force, par.7, "A spell cast with irresistible force automatically succeeds, even if the casting total is not enough to reach the spell's casting value. More importantly, perhaps, a spell cast with irresistible force is impossible to dispel--your opponent cannot even attempt to prevent the magical mayhem soon to be unleashed--go straight to Step 4, Spell Resolution."

BRB, pg.504, Arcane Items, Feedback Scroll, par.1, "When an enemy spell has been cast, a Wizard who has a Feedback Scroll can read it instead of attempting to dispel the spell."

The common consensus is that you cannot use any type of scroll, including a feedback scroll, when a spell is cast with IF. This is because you cannot even attempt to dispel a spell cast with IF and if you cannot attempt a dispel then you cannot substitute a scroll in place of a dispel that allows such substitution

In short, you cannot use any type of scroll on a spell cast with IF.

Respectfully,
DarkAngelHopeful.

I would like to point out that common consensus, doesn't matter this was already FAQ's, you can't use the Feedback Scroll vs. a IF spell. Which is why I have Teclis throw 6 dice at any spell he casts to kill that unit/character, because that damn scroll worries him a lot.

citadel97501 wrote:I would like to point out that common consensus, doesn't matter this was already FAQ's, you can't use the Feedback Scroll vs. a IF spell. Which is why I have Teclis throw 6 dice at any spell he casts to kill that unit/character, because that damn scroll worries him a lot.

Right, I only said that because the common consensus on Dakka was in fact right. Also, it didn't need to be FAQ'ed because it's pretty clear in the rules. However, since it's been FAQ'ed there isn't any question about it any more.

Ok well if they Faq'd it then thats the deal

Alot of people are comparing armies when they should be comparing lists for tiers. The list gets a bit bigger but more accurate.

For example, Wood Elf magic/gunline might be W/L 30/70 (or worse) vs most armies where Drycha might be 40/60 etc etc. It also clears up stuff like "Teclis isn't overpowered even though he pretty much forms the backbone of any HE army that wants to even try to win because I totally just shoot his unit with my empire cannons on turn 1!"

That's how you would want to build a tier anyway, and the only way a thread like this could ultimately become constructive - start building archetypical lists and come to a consensus as to their W/L over 100 games vs the other lists and then from that info attempt to generate a series of tiers.

The problem with tomb king magic is that.. sure you can get a TON of spells off. Then what? Those spells pretty much suck and so to the units you use them on with the exception of the constructs

I dont care how many S3 bow shots you have.. its not enough

Kirasu wrote:The problem with tomb king magic is that.. sure you can get a TON of spells off. Then what? Those spells pretty much suck and so to the units you use them on with the exception of the constructs

I dont care how many S3 bow shots you have.. its not enough

a little OT:

I dunno, my Dark Elves' repeater crossbows sure put a hurting on a chaos warrior unit...granted he was only 15 models strong...3 made it into combat, and were swiftly dispatched by them in combat (thank god he went great weapons, got to go first)

back OT:

So far from what I've seen, it's almost a crapshoot as to which army belongs in what tier, the only thing I can say for certain, is both daemons and VC were brought back down to earth. I also agree HE are being rated a little higher than they should, granted mostly because of teclis. But from what I'm seeing from a few tournies, is no special characters are allowed, which hurts the army a bit.

Maybe I'm trying to stay positive, since I'm playing against HE tomorrow night, most likely a teclis list, so I'll see how my DE hold up.

The difference is repeater crossbows are S4 and bows are only S3. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Skaven are ranked number one followed by Empire, Dwarfs and Dark Elves. Just my personal opinion at the moment .

i'm not too sure. I think maybe the ogres should be top, if you look at the new rules about monstrous infantry, they can fight in two ranks which is sick with the front rank receiving stomp attacks as well, not forgetting about the bull charge thingy. The leadbelchers can also fire in two ranks and so don't need to be spaced out too much and can still fire a heck load of shots, the gnoblars have also grown more effective, with the ability for them to wound on 6s, they can just spam their ranged attacks on whatever comes too close. I'm not to sure about this, because I don't play Ogres, but I think you can just spam a tonne of gut magic spells.

Wait a second... I thought High Elves were the most broken thing ever now? Why are they only 6th? /sarcasm

Renbags wrote:i'm not too sure. I think maybe the ogres should be top, if you look at the new rules about monstrous infantry, they can fight in two ranks which is sick with the front rank receiving stomp attacks as well, not forgetting about the bull charge thingy. The leadbelchers can also fire in two ranks and so don't need to be spaced out too much and can still fire a heck load of shots, the gnoblars have also grown more effective, with the ability for them to wound on 6s, they can just spam their ranged attacks on whatever comes too close. I'm not to sure about this, because I don't play Ogres, but I think you can just spam a tonne of gut magic spells.

Gut magic is weak. Too many spells needing attention and are easily dispelled next magic phase. Gnoblars are speed bumps, leadbelchers still suck. The best thing going for them is the monstrous infantry rules, but if people play against them the way I tell them to, it shouldn't be a problem. Hit them on the front and the flank at the same time with a anvil unit and hammer unit respectively and use artillery to pound them as they come.

Gut magic may not have a spectacular effects as other spells, but ignore it at your own risk.


we can cast alot of spells and draw out your dispell dice.

our magic will almost never fail to be cast.

and T6 ogres just arn't fair.


miscasts just arn't very nasty for us either since we can regenerate wounds we take from it.

Exodus2013 wrote:The difference is repeater crossbows are S4 and bows are only S3. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Skaven are ranked number one followed by Empire, Dwarfs and Dark Elves. Just my personal opinion at the moment .

Repeater crossbows are S3 AP 2x multiple shot

OK thanks for clearing that up. I have a little less fear of Dark Elves now haha.

MikeMcSomething wrote:Alot of people are comparing armies when they should be comparing lists for tiers. The list gets a bit bigger but more accurate.

For example, Wood Elf magic/gunline might be W/L 30/70 (or worse) vs most armies where Drycha might be 40/60 etc etc. It also clears up stuff like "Teclis isn't overpowered even though he pretty much forms the backbone of any HE army that wants to even try to win because I totally just shoot his unit with my empire cannons on turn 1!"

That's how you would want to build a tier anyway, and the only way a thread like this could ultimately become constructive - start building archetypical lists and come to a consensus as to their W/L over 100 games vs the other lists and then from that info attempt to generate a series of tiers.

It's a good point you make, and if you look back over this thread and others like it you'll see other people making the same point. You even get other folk posting to agree with the point... but then it just switches back to people talking about what army in general is more powerful than some other army. People... just really like the idea of some army being more powerful than some other army.

Surtur wrote: but if people play against them the way I tell them to, it shouldn't be a problem. Hit them on the front and the flank at the same time with a anvil unit and hammer unit respectively and use artillery to pound them as they come.

So just like any other unit in Fantasy then?

Don't get me wrong but from this Skaven players stand point against Ogres I am pretty much going to be devastating in the magic phase and here is the reason being. I run a Grey Seer (lvl4 wizard) with a 4+ward save and skalm (healing pot on steroids) and I roll for my 4 spells and swap the worst one out for the Dreaded Thirteenth Spell. Now heres the thing about Skaven magic, is that it is not regarded as being all that powerfull but against large units of highly expensive troops it can be lethal. The 13th spell takes a 25+ to cast so you going to need to be throwing 6 dice at it and will likely be taking an IF. On average with 6 dice the spell goes off with or without the IF. When it goes off it takes 4d6 models from the targeted enemy unit and turns them into clanrats or destroys them if you do not have the models to replace them. No saves of ANY kind allowed and it doesn't matter about your 3 wounds. On average this is 14 models. You have a horde unit of 6x3 Bulls and this kills all but 4 of them for 490 points. Maybe Ironguts 672pts then. Lets be really conservative and say the biggest unit you have is a 9 strong unit of bulls, with FC the whole unit is wiped out and this costs 365pts without gear upgrades. Now i've got to take the miscast table though most likely, worst cast scenario the Grey Seer dies, I lose my general at 320pts and another 100vp's for the general slain to you but I'm guessing your largest unit going bye bye is going to hurt a bit and I can probably get by without my magic and inspiring presence although I admit it will hut a lot. But a lot of the time the ward save and skalm should get me through to the 2nd magic phase and if this happens I'm guessing its good night Irene. It is a risky tactic for me to run but that is the life of a Skaven player, whatever you do can be highly destructive to both you and your opponent. Its a high risk and very high reward tactic and I think most definitely worth using against anyone with large units of highly expensive models.

The only thing that makes HE the least bit threatening is Teclic or a Book of Hoeth Archmage sitting in a unit with the World Dragon Banner. HEs worked in 7th because they could kill enemies and not get struck back in turn. Now they can no longer do this.

Dark Elves transitioned much better because they unit much harder on the offense and have units that can take a a few hits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Exodus2013 wrote:Don't get me wrong but from this Skaven players stand point against Ogres I am pretty much going to be devastating in the magic phase and here is the reason being. I run a Grey Seer (lvl4 wizard) with a 4+ward save and skalm (healing pot on steroids) and I roll for my 4 spells and swap the worst one out for the Dreaded Thirteenth Spell. Now heres the thing about Skaven magic, is that it is not regarded as being all that powerfull but against large units of highly expensive troops it can be lethal. The 13th spell takes a 25+ to cast so you going to need to be throwing 6 dice at it and will likely be taking an IF. On average with 6 dice the spell goes off with or without the IF. When it goes off it takes 4d6 models from the targeted enemy unit and turns them into clanrats or destroys them if you do not have the models to replace them. No saves of ANY kind allowed and it doesn't matter about your 3 wounds. On average this is 14 models. You have a horde unit of 6x3 Bulls and this kills all but 4 of them for 490 points. Maybe Ironguts 672pts then. Lets be really conservative and say the biggest unit you have is a 9 strong unit of bulls, with FC the whole unit is wiped out and this costs 365pts without gear upgrades. Now i've got to take the miscast table though most likely, worst cast scenario the Grey Seer dies, I lose my general at 320pts and another 100vp's for the general slain to you but I'm guessing your largest unit going bye bye is going to hurt a bit and I can probably get by without my magic and inspiring presence although I admit it will hut a lot. But a lot of the time the ward save and skalm should get me through to the 2nd magic phase and if this happens I'm guessing its good night Irene. It is a risky tactic for me to run but that is the life of a Skaven player, whatever you do can be highly destructive to both you and your opponent. Its a high risk and very high reward tactic and I think most definitely worth using against anyone with large units of highly expensive models.

Actually the 13th spell pretty much needs the Power Scroll to work. Even on a Gray Seer + 6 PD comes out to exactly 25. That does not exactly leave a lot of room of error. If it does end up casting without IF (which is most of the time if you don't have use the Power scroll) then it pretty much screams "use a Dispel Scroll right about...now".

Doesn't the 13th only work on Infantry? So that would make it pretty useless against Ogre's right?

Maxzero wrote:Actually the 13th spell pretty much needs the Power Scroll to work. Even on a Gray Seer + 6 PD comes out to exactly 25. That does not exactly leave a lot of room of error. If it does end up casting without IF (which is most of the time if you don't have use the Power scroll) then it pretty much screams "use a Dispel Scroll right about...now".

It works out, exlucing IF, to be about 50% likely. I'd expect that target level of 25 was chosen to have exactly that effect - even a powerful caster using as many dice as possible could only expect to get the spell to work around half the time. These are meant to be the big gamble spells that are cast at the height of the battle.

Of course, this is a game with craploads of options and even more players looking for the best ways to win, so it doesn't look like it's really working out like GW intended.

djones520 wrote:Doesn't the 13th only work on Infantry? So that would make it pretty useless against Ogre's right?

Why yes, yes it does only work on infantry.

Dreaded 13th cast with a lvl 4 on 6 power dice works out at -4 for his level so you need to get 21 on 6 dice, you only need 4s on all and thats cast so its around 50% but adding in the factor of getting 2 6's in 6 dice is actually more likley then you would think, dreaded 13th is rediculus because i really dont think its hard to cast.

HoverBoy wrote:

djones520 wrote:Doesn't the 13th only work on Infantry? So that would make it pretty useless against Ogre's right?

Why yes, yes it does only work on infantry.

Quoted for 100% truth.


if you try and use the 13th on Ogres i will personally hunt you down and sacrifice you to the Great Maw

Actually you only need an average of 3.5 on each dice, so 3 3's and 3 4's.

Also it only works on normal infantry, so there is plenty that the dreaded 13th cannot kill. The other super spells are great for killing any unit, the 13th is great for wiping out a unit of infantry (looking at you Pheonix Guard.

Statistically you will roll a 21 with 6d6, add your caster lvl of 4 and you have got the spell off without IF. As far as I see it ogres are monstrous infantry... key word INFANTRY :p. I may have overlooked that my bad ya I don't think it works on them. Still a great spell against any other expensive normal infantry but I can see a few other angles on the ogres that are more traditional for taking ogres out, they are just not numerous enough and will get bogged down and out maneuvered.

bogged down, yes.

outmaneuvered, NO.

ogres are fast and are normally run 3 wide. that is exactly the same as 6 normal infantry. they can wheel faster than normal infantry because of M6.



most ogre players will be running units of 6-9 ogres 3 wide. pretty fast and maneuverable if you ask me.


and god help you if a unit with 2 Toothcrackers charges you.

What I meant by out maneuvered is that when your unit gets bogged down Skaven will have a variety of flanking units slamming into your flanks. I guess by trait up table movement Ogres will have a slight edge but Skaven move as elves do, and some of our units go 6" like rat ogres and gutter/night runners and assassins.

Fair enough.


I haven't ever faced Skaven, but should soon.

only ever faced WE, HE, DE, TK and VCs.

I'm late to this topic, but with respect to the original posting (tiers, army strength, what-have-you)-
1) is there any accumulation of statistics of W/L margins (either frequency of win/loss or margin of VP from winner to loser) from regional or big tournaments? there are of course individual player variables (some are better than others), but you could easily enter that as a covariate to predict which armies tend to win the most across players. you'd have some nice distributions of data for each army and you could empirically assess the overall efficacy of each army at the tournament,gaming group, or whatever level.

2)If this doesn't exist, it occurs to me that it'd be relatively easy to use a site with a large user community like.... I don't know, DAKKA DAKKA to accumulate data from local gaming groups and tournaments to actually look at different races' success.

If you're a data junkie like me, this might be a cool project the community could submit to, make data widely available, and people could look at which armies are doing the most thumping I'd happily volunteer my services as a data manager if people submitted to a collective excel sheet or something that analyses could be run on w/ statistical softwares

I just ran the numbers on the odds of casting a level 25 spell with 6 dice. I think a lot of people are thinking that you're about 50% likely to cast it at level 4, and there's the chance of IF at around 25%, so that means you're very likely to cast... but the trick is to realise most of the IF results would have scored more than 25 anyway (two sixes will do that). What we're really looking at is results that scored two or more 6s, and results that rolled over 25 without scoring two or more 6s, and the rest.

Having produced a neat little table showing every possible dice combination (all 46,656 of them ) I can tell you that the chance of IF is 26%.

For a level 4 caster, in addition to that 26% chance of rolling IF, there's another 31% chance of rolling 21 or more without rolling two or more 6s. Combining that chance with the odds of IF and you see the overall chance of a level 4 casting successfully is 57%.

For level 3, needing 22 or more, the chance of drops to 23%... for a total chance of a successful cast of 49%.

For a level 2, needing 23 or more, the chance drops to 17%... for a total chance of a successful cast of 43%.

For a level 1, needing 24 or more, the chance drops to 11%, for a total chance of a successful cast of 37%.

For a level 0, needing a straight 25, the chance drops to just 7%, for a total chance of a successful cast of 33%.

Exodus2013 wrote: As far as I see it ogres are monstrous infantry... key word INFANTRY :p.

Except that Monstrous Infantry is now a separate classification than Infantry. Unless Ogres get to ignore stuff that really hurts MIs(see: Khemarian Quicksand)?

BossGobbaz wrote:I'm late to this topic, but with respect to the original posting (tiers, army strength, what-have-you)-
1) is there any accumulation of statistics of W/L margins (either frequency of win/loss or margin of VP from winner to loser) from regional or big tournaments? there are of course individual player variables (some are better than others), but you could easily enter that as a covariate to predict which armies tend to win the most across players. you'd have some nice distributions of data for each army and you could empirically assess the overall efficacy of each army at the tournament,gaming group, or whatever level.

2)If this doesn't exist, it occurs to me that it'd be relatively easy to use a site with a large user community like.... I don't know, DAKKA DAKKA to accumulate data from local gaming groups and tournaments to actually look at different races' success.

If you're a data junkie like me, this might be a cool project the community could submit to, make data widely available, and people could look at which armies are doing the most thumping I'd happily volunteer my services as a data manager if people submitted to a collective excel sheet or something that analyses could be run on w/ statistical softwares

I brought this up earlier and someone said it doesn't happen much, I think the problem is that most GW gamer guys aren't really ''true'' numbers guys. If anyone has any links to good tournament data that would be a great start.

yeah I think it could be interesting (i'm an empiricist at heart)- and even if there isn't data out there (please say if there is!), it would be easy to make an excel to post results, maybe it could be Moderated and serve as a nice database

BossGobbaz wrote:yeah I think it could be interesting (i'm an empiricist at heart)- and even if there isn't data out there (please say if there is!), it would be easy to make an excel to post results, maybe it could be Moderated and serve as a nice database

The other issue is at some tournies people come just for fun. They arent very good at the game and skew results horribly.

You would have to take top 3 or top 5 (depending on tourny size) to determine the stronger armies.

that's a good point, and it ties in with the player variable (in addition you suggest, just as importantly, a "competitiveness" variable)- it sounds like the real question is "all else being equal, which army is the most successful"- you'd run into the main problem if good players simply tend to pick good armies and bad players pick bad armies, but with a little statistical finesse (e.g., multiple regressions, ANOVAs) it might take a good slice at it. I agree there definitely- you'd probably want to look at the tail end with the most successful players as its own independent ministudy since it's hard to get at which army is "fundamentally better." one of the best tests would be to grab many many competitive players and randomly assign them armies, give them time to understand the army and build lists, then let them go at it... but in any event, I still think a first pass with aggregate data would be an interesting cross-section

Meh not all good players take the best armies.

The last 7th Edition GT in Houston had an Ogre Kingdoms player take best overall.

Sure- i didn't mean as much to generalize as to point out that if there is such a trend, you'd have to do some footwork to account for it when looking at data etc. but examples like that are the good news that many armies can find their way to the top

Skaven it top tier, 2nd tier is Dark Elves, Empire, Dwarfs, Lizards, WoC and everyone else. Bottom tier is Brets, TK, and Wood Elves.

what does WAAC mean?

Gar'Ang wrote:what does WAAC mean?

Win at all costs. It refers to the players who like to play no holds barred games, where players are expected to take the most powerful army possible.

Note that a lot of acronyms will turn yellow - this means if you put your cursor over them it'll tell what they stand for.

thank you. ive only played one tourney and i shared the last spot with a experienced player who said that he had cracked th 8th edition and im new to dakka and havent learned the system yet

it's alright man, I suck at it too

Grey Templar wrote:bogged down, yes.

outmaneuvered, NO.

ogres are fast and are normally run 3 wide. that is exactly the same as 6 normal infantry. they can wheel faster than normal infantry because of M6.



most ogre players will be running units of 6-9 ogres 3 wide. pretty fast and maneuverable if you ask me.


and god help you if a unit with 2 Toothcrackers charges you.

LolFace

Good luck with that, I have Giant Rat Darts to redirect and warpfire throwers and warp lightning cannons to kill (Multiple Wounds VS Multiple Wound Models FTW)

ShivanAngel wrote:Meh not all good players take the best armies.

The last 7th Edition GT in Houston had an Ogre Kingdoms player take best overall.

Ah, the Best Players love a challenge...

Grey Templar wrote:

HoverBoy wrote:

djones520 wrote:Doesn't the 13th only work on Infantry? So that would make it pretty useless against Ogre's right?

Why yes, yes it does only work on infantry.

Quoted for 100% truth.


if you try and use the 13th on Ogres i will personally hunt you down and sacrifice you to the Great Maw

that is, if you are not enslaved to further the Great Horned Rat's(or local grey seer's) goals.

ShivanAngel wrote:The other issue is at some tournies people come just for fun. They arent very good at the game and skew results horribly.

You would have to take top 3 or top 5 (depending on tourny size) to determine the stronger armies.

Well, there is that, sure, but out of all GW products, WFB8th is probably the one least designed for hyper-competitive environments. Just look at the terrain rules and the time spent on the campaigns/narrative battles section of the book.