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There are many different factions to play currently but most seem to be either balanced between cc and shooty or slightly leaning towards on or the other but which faction is flat out the best at cc and which is best at shooting?

For cc I'd say Blood Angels are the best.

For shooting I can't decide between Space Wolves and Imperial Guard.

For close combat, I'd easily say that Black Templars are the best. Re-rolls to wound is pretty sweet. Not to mention their Terminators get pretty pimped out if you give them Furious Charge. S5, Re-roll to hit AND wound PwrWpn? However, they don't have the best method and are a little expensive so I'm going to have to give the best OVERALL to the BA. Although a pure Chaos Melee army I feel would do better since BA rely on their Priests and if those get ganked then uh-oh.


In shooting, I feel that this is where there is no 'best'. Imperial Guard don't have the greatest anti-horde (well it depends on the armylist Hydras vs Manticores). Their infantry blow, and the multi-laser/heavy bolters aren't effective at bs3 against horde armies. Grey Knights have great anti-infantry and light tank, but kinda get railed against heavier tank based armies as they rely on rending a lot.

Space Wolves of Longfang/TWC spam are good overall, but not all shooty so don't count imo. Black Templars I feel are pretty damn close to the #1 since they can easily pack 5-man LC/Plas squads, 4 S9 shots vs Vehicles for Terminators, cheaper predators and cheaper Typhoons. Then there is also the DA with their SUPER cheap MM/ML 75pt Speeders and their 245 Terminator Troops with CMLs and TH/SS.

yup.

Guard is the king of Shooting. Horde control we have heavy flamers. And Hellhounds. Cheap effective infantry. Manticores are great at horde control. As are leman russes. Hands down the guard wins at the shooting game.

Ill say Tau for shooting. CC is harder i think, i think perhaps grey knights are it becuase of their grenades (they will usually strike first as well).

You don't really have hellhounds since 99/100 guard armies will have their infinitely better Vendettas . . . Also Manticores and Leman Russes are heavy support. I'm pretty sure that guardsman are NOT effective infantry. 3 Guardsman can't really kill a marine, hell even 4 have a hard time, and lets not talk about 6 Guardsman against 5 Ork Boyz.

A squad of 10 veterans can have 3 meltas/plasma guns they can fire from inside a tank chuck in a heavy weapon if thats not feeling good to you. So really close to 1/3 of those guardsman can be quiet dangerous to a SM. It's not how the armys units work individually but how they all work together that make Guard the king of shooting IMO.

Sad when Tau aren't really the best shooty army....

IG are the best at shooting. It's not even very close. Blood Angels and Space Wolf Razor-spam + Predators/Longfangs is probably next, followed closely by Tau, Dark Eldar, and GK.

Close combat has no clear winner. Among the best ones, especially those with furious charge (Orks, BA, BT, Daemons, Berzerkers, Nids), getting the charge is usually more important to the outcome of any given combat than which army is being used.

AchillesFTW wrote:You don't really have hellhounds since 99/100 guard armies will have their infinitely better Vendettas . . . Also Manticores and Leman Russes are heavy support. I'm pretty sure that guardsman are NOT effective infantry. 3 Guardsman can't really kill a marine, hell even 4 have a hard time, and lets not talk about 6 Guardsman against 5 Ork Boyz.

Unless one prefers to use ground vehicles. I would take a Hellhound over a Vendetta because I like the Hellhound better. And what does a Manticore and Leman Russ being heavy support have to do with anything?
And most of the time it will not even be 1 squad vs. 1 squad. It will be like 2 or 3 squads shooting at one squad, which when equipped with plasma guns are pretty dangerous to MEQ.

It's been said before, but that's because it's true:

Blood Angels are the best pure-CC in general.

Imperial Guard are the best pure-shooting (this one's not even debatable).

GK definitely takes the cake with Best Close Combat Army award.

Nothing can really stand toe to toe against a Draigo wing.

I actually give CC to Dark Angels, IMO they're the best "wing" army.

TH/SS toting Scoring Terminators, They kinda Eat Paladins alive

I think Dark Eldar and Eldar (Even though I play them) dont stand a chance for best. Now you guys are talking ONLY CC Or shooting, both have some verrry good hybrid armys if used correctly
I dont have BA or gK codexes but I hear they have good CC.
Now shootin...I really cant decide

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:I actually give CC to Dark Angels, IMO they're the best "wing" army.

TH/SS toting Scoring Terminators, They kinda Eat Paladins alive

Really? You seem to be good at rolling 3+'s. Especially when they get 3 attacks at str 5-6 @ WS5. IMO the only real chance DA has against a Draigo Wing is when they get lucky or if the Paladins somehow got assaulted by 3 squads seeing as Deathwing termies can only form up to 5 members max (a real bummer). Also, dont forget that paladins get 1-2 rounds of shooting before you can get into contact.

So yeah: No. They aren the best CC army. But that's just my opinion

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:I actually give CC to Dark Angels, IMO they're the best "wing" army.

TH/SS toting Scoring Terminators, They kinda Eat Paladins alive

True but they get pwnd by a DCA/crusader unit packing some nades. I still stand by GN for combat.

I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing that guardsman have effective anti-hordes. Their real anti-hordes in REGULAR lists are ALL in the heavy support section. While manticores sure are boss(D3 ordinance?) they can't be your only one as that leaves you vulnerable still to cover saves and whatnot. Also I have a hard time believing that 3 plasmagun vets are very effective. You're probably only getting 3 shots since the marines are more than likely to be more than 12" away.

Lets do some mathammer now.

3x 2/3 x 5/6 x 1/2 = 30/36 = 15/18 = 5/6

So an 83% of killing a single marine. Not to mention that you have a 1/6 x 2/3 = 2/18 = 1/9 = 11% of killing your gunner(22pts)

Have you played against a guard army? The only thing we do is shoot. Anti-horde: chimeras, hellhounds, valks w/ rocketpods. heavy weapon spam, mass infantry blobs w/ FRFSRF, flamers, heavy flamers. Leamn russes. Anything that has to walk to us, dies. Its the synergy that makes Guard the top shooting army.

As for vendettas, I run 2 and a hellhound. I like the little flame tank.

Best army at CC? All Khorne Daemon army.

Best shooty army? 6 psyifleman dred Grey Knights

I personally reckon the best CC army in the game by far is Grey Knights. At 20pts per model for a force weapon wielding MEQ trooper that can deepstrike and 15pts per model for a SS/PW wielding GEQ trooper you can field a ridiculous number of very effective power weapon bodies and still have points leftover for supplementary units. Considering hammerhand is practically army wide, most models will be striking at str5 in CC as well.

Grey Knights seriously need to be recosted as everything in the book is too darn cheap (even by 5th edition standards).

Shooting: IG
CC: DE


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AchillesFTW wrote:I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing that guardsman have effective anti-hordes. Their real anti-hordes in REGULAR lists are ALL in the heavy support section. While manticores sure are boss(D3 ordinance?) they can't be your only one as that leaves you vulnerable still to cover saves and whatnot. Also I have a hard time believing that 3 plasmagun vets are very effective. You're probably only getting 3 shots since the marines are more than likely to be more than 12" away.

Lets do some mathammer now.

3x 2/3 x 5/6 x 1/2 = 30/36 = 15/18 = 5/6

So an 83% of killing a single marine. Not to mention that you have a 1/6 x 2/3 = 2/18 = 1/9 = 11% of killing your gunner(22pts)

Lol, standard mech list packs a HF on each chimera, complementing the blast you get from heavy support, PBS and what not is the best horde killing army you can possibly get.
Marines? enough melta guns, lascannons and blast templates will kill any marine, not to mention any other AP2-3 weapons we can get. An Executioner would butcher MEQs like a hot knife through butter.
You need to stop looking at guard units individually, Guard's strength lies in the cheapness of their units.

AchillesFTW wrote:I'm sorry, but I have a hard time believing that guardsman have effective anti-hordes. Their real anti-hordes in REGULAR lists are ALL in the heavy support section. While manticores sure are boss(D3 ordinance?) they can't be your only one as that leaves you vulnerable still to cover saves and whatnot. Also I have a hard time believing that 3 plasmagun vets are very effective. You're probably only getting 3 shots since the marines are more than likely to be more than 12" away.

Lets do some mathammer now.

3x 2/3 x 5/6 x 1/2 = 30/36 = 15/18 = 5/6

So an 83% of killing a single marine. Not to mention that you have a 1/6 x 2/3 = 2/18 = 1/9 = 11% of killing your gunner(22pts)

Every chimera has a heavy flamer. They also have multilasers for AV10-11 duty. Manticores can kill ANYTHING due to the massive amount of wounds an averge of two large blasts will do over 4 turns. And there's never just one. Vendettas are one of the best anti-tank platforms in the game. Hydras take care of fast skimmers. Plasma and melta vets deal with heavy infantry and tanks.

And when discussing guardsmen as anti-horde, you're never facing 10 guardsmen. You'll always be facing 30+, unless you're charging a vet squad that was removed from its chimera, in such a case, is dead anyways. Guard on foot has its strength in numbers and power weapon sergeants that can't be picked out in combat. Add in Straken and those guardsmen are doing a lot more damage than you'd expect.

*Edit* Ninja'd

So in summary, Guard anti-horde is everywhere except fast attack due to the vendettas. Guard anti-tank is everywhere. That is why IG is one of the stronger codices. Same goes for SW, BA, GK, and DE.

So, genestealer-heavy Nids aren't any good in close combat?

It's very strange from a fluff point of view that Space Wolfs would be one of the top shooty armies...

Sometimes it's feel like GW have no idea of how the rules affect the type of lists people will build.

If we go by the fluff I guess that it would be guard or tau as the best shooters and demons or nids as the best cc.

But that doesn't seem to be the case at the moment.

CC, im gonna say Grey Knights. My personal favorite is Crowe.

Then shooty, hands down IG. Though I have to say enough fire warriors in rapid fire range, plus some Burst Cannon Suits and Hammer Heads can be really effective against hordes. But 9 times outa 10 you wouldn't use a list like that with Tau. The IG are pretty much effective shooty no matter what type of list you choose

Kajon wrote:It's very strange from a fluff point of view that Space Wolfs would be one of the top shooty armies...

Sometimes it's feel like GW have no idea of how the rules affect the type of lists people will build.

If we go by the fluff I guess that it would be guard or tau as the best shooters and demons or nids as the best cc.

But that doesn't seem to be the case at the moment.

I'd say the portrayal of SW is pretty accurate, they arent all out CC fighters, they get in close and pump you full with bolters and special weapons then tore you up in CC if they need to.

I'd say it depends on what frames you use. I don't think anyone has played a Tyranid army only focused on close combat, but I'll bet on that against any other CC-only army.

Jackster wrote:
I'd say the portrayal of SW is pretty accurate, they arent all out CC fighters, they get in close and pump you full with bolters and special weapons then tore you up in CC if they need to.

Bolters and melta yes... the best ML unit in the game... feels pretty wrong.

gonna go with IG for shooting

and grey knights with CC psy grenades force weapons just tear through everything

IG for shooting, no doubt

CC, uuuuummmmm...............

one of:
GK
orks
nids
one of the insane SM chapter-specific codexes

Best close combat Tau by far, no I'd say a orks army are pretty good maybe not man for man but in a horde they can pretty much overun everything. For shooting probably IG becouse of their overwhelming arteilary.