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Hey I was wondering if It was not to much trouble if someone or some people could tell me what the Highest, Mid, and lowest tier armies are?

Cheers

Not exactly tactics, and not especially relevant, but I think it goes something like this:

Tier 1: A distinct advantage to use/have multiple strong builds

Grey Knights
Space Wolves

Tier 2: Competitive, but not broken

Dark Eldar
Blood Angels

Tier 3: somewhat "weaker" than tier 2/have limited strong builds

Space Marines
Eldar
Orks
Dark Angels
Black Templars

Tier 4: Generally seen as weak

Tyranids
Sisters
Tau

Necrons cannot really be shoehorned yet, but look to be tier 2/3

Guard didnt make that list?...

Top Tier:
Necrons
Imperial Guard
Dark Eldar
Blood Angels
Space Wolves

Viable Tier:
Necrons
Grey Knights
Dark Eldar
Blood Angels
Tyranids
Space Wolves
Imperial Guard
Space Marines
Orkz
Tau Empire

Questionable Tier:
Sisters of Battle
Chaos Dæmons
Chaos Space Marines

Which classification of tiers are you wanting? The fighting game tier system is the most common for other games. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharacterTiers

So looking at it, i see no "god" tiers

Top tier: GKs, IG, Space Wolves
High Tier: BA, Newcrons, DE, SM ~ of these necrons might get a bump to top, DE are almost higher, SM are solidly in this, BA are a strong high tier.
Mid Tier: Tau, BT, DA, Nids, Orks, Eldar ~ all of these are solidly in this range except tau is almost falling out of it. Eldar is strong, but not even close to challenging for a spot above, orks are bullies of the tier, beating up anything equal or under quite a bit, and even giving hard fights to high tier armies.
Low Tier: CSM, Daemons ~potential controversy, but these armies are very limited in options, and are definitely not optimal compared to above. The fact they are known for their gimmick cookie cutter builds (fatecrusher and lash) should say they are solidly in this category. Daemons are almost joke tier, due to special deployment, but power level warrents better than that.
Joke tier: Sisters, oldcrons.

Due to the popularity of SMs and orks, being able to handle PA, hordes, and a variety of armor types is the determining factor more than anything on these tiers. For instance Nids and orks would be higher if they could just kill transports at range better, and CSM would be better if they could handle hordes better (they get all the anti tank you could ask for if you look, but lack bodies to fight hordes).

notabot187 wrote:Which classification of tiers are you wanting? The fighting game tier system is the most common for other games. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharacterTiers

So looking at it, i see no "god" tiers

Top tier: GKs, IG, Space Wolves
High Tier: BA, Newcrons, DE, SM ~ of these necrons might get a bump to top, DE are almost higher, SM are solidly in this, BA are a strong high tier.
Mid Tier: Tau, BT, DA, Nids, Orks, Eldar ~ all of these are solidly in this range except tau is almost falling out of it. Eldar is strong, but not even close to challenging for a spot above, orks are bullies of the tier, beating up anything equal or under quite a bit, and even giving hard fights to high tier armies.
Low Tier: CSM, Daemons ~potential controversy, but these armies are very limited in options, and are definitely not optimal compared to above. The fact they are known for their gimmick cookie cutter builds (fatecrusher and lash) should say they are solidly in this category. Daemons are almost joke tier, due to special deployment, but power level warrents better than that.
Joke tier: Sisters, oldcrons.

I pretty much agree with this. Id put DE in Top tier based on player skill and Orks in high tier based on player skill.

Its funny how everyone always puts CSMs on the lower tier when I've seen Nurgle/Lash armies that win every game. The same people who say Orks are bad, I guess.

Lash just doesn't stack up when people are widely using transports and psychic defenses.

A player's skill level and familiarity with their army and the meta can always upset that balance.

Its funny that people still talk about nurgle/lash lists like they are still relevant. Most armies best strength is in transports, which happens to be a weakness of lash. The meta heavily disfavours CSM at the moment

IMO:
Tier 1: GK, SW
Tier 2: DE, BA, IG
Tier 3: SM, DA, BT, Orks, Eldar, Demons
Tier 4: CSM, Tyranids, Tau
Tier 5: Sisters

Too early for me to say about the new Necrons. I think maybe tier 2.

CSM is mid tier. Certainly it has limitations but its core troops are still strong - though arguably overcosted. Obliterators still make sense. Demon princes are bests in HTH. Now agreed they suffer on points but it is at worse, a limitation of abou 50 - 100 points extra being paid at 1850. A general can still make a list to take advantage of their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.

Qualify DA - Deathwing is Tier 3, The rest of the codex is tier 4 or even 5.

So for example. Could Eldar still be a pretty competitive army or na. Like as in tourny winners?... possibly?

Well for eldar I suggest the D A V U list
wich is the Mech list Dire avenger Vehicle upgrade. Best thing to do is read battle reports to see top list! !

Tier1 IG,GK,SW,BA
Tier2 Orks,SM,DA,DE
Tier3 Necrons,BT, Eldar, Daemons, Tau
Tier4 Sisters, Nids

Dude, it all depends on the player skill, evrybody says eldar is around tier 3 but a guy at my club has never lost a game while i've been there(i've been there a year and a half) Every army depends on player skill.

Whats wrong with Nids. Everyone puts them in the bottom tier categories

Well not everyone is Metal Tide.

Problem with Nids is, they don't have much diversity, if you want to be competitive, its Tervigons, Hive Guard, Genestealers maybe Gargoyles and Trygons. And unless your a really good player, with a well developed list you pretty much need to be using (just) those units to have any chance in a competitive environment.

You look at the Space Wolves codex, and its a question of what do you leave out? Pretty much everything in that codex can be used to great effect.
GK, BA, DE, IG all have multiple strong units and builds. Then even armies like Eldar, Orks, Space Marines you'll generally find having stronger lists.

I don't really like the idea of listing armies in tiers. I know you can do it, but essentially the best players can win with any army, they know how to build a strong list, play tactically etc. I think looking at armies in this way, is kind of just saying which armies are noobs going to do better with....

Tier 1:
Imperial Guard
Space Wolves
Grey Knights

Tier 2:
Dark Eldar
Blood Angels

Tier 3:
The rest

This doesnt mean a tier 3 army cant beat a tier 1 it just means the tier 1 has a advantage due to cheap point costs and extra rules.

Tier Hierarchy Scoring Categories:
-Armies that can compete at any and all pointages; any and all missions.
-Easy to play; where errors do not have catastrophic effects regards to winning.
-Varety of Unit choices and tactics.
-Meta resiliency; Resiliency/versatility to vast and emerging or changing meta.
-Luck-proof; Armies whose performance are not extremely affected by luck.
-Number of Viable Options.
-Model Count.

Tier 1:

Imperial Guard:

+No matter what point ranges you play them, from 500 to 3000. They are very competitive and viable, if not broken.
+They have a vast array of weaponry that can deal with any situation.
+Reliable shooting thanks to twinlinking BS3 units or natural BS4 and finally blasts.
+Numerous in number; Its like playing against an MSU but these unit are not "Small".
-Low Leadership
-No Proper Assault/Countercharge Elements. But can be remedied by more shooting.

Space Wolves:

+Workable at points below 1500, scales up pretty well at higher points.
+Strong Assault elements with superior local Firepower.
+A brute force army that employs brute force well. They can outassault and outshoot almost any opponent.
+Cheapest scoring Terminators with vast customizability
+Tweaked Astartes Wargear with the same price range.
+4 HQ slots with powerful options.

Tier 2:

Eldar
+Toughest vehicles to crack in the game: Holofields are broken. Suvivability is further increased with SMF and Fortune.
+Most potent Specialised units. Will wipe out their intended targets.
+Most dangerous offensive Psyker abilities.
-Overcosted, 3rd edition costing.
-Intimate knowledge of army and tactics. Errors are dangerous.
-Extremely Limited builds

Codex Marines
+Extremley exotic and versatile units.
+Powerful unit synergy; Army-wide bonuses (Chapter tactics).
+Near-broken Vulkan chapter tactics.
-Very weak at pointages below 1500.

Grey Knights
+Most powerful offensive assault units.
+Superb Psychic defense.
+Near-broken, instant-kill abilities
+Everything can score.
-Luck prone. Bad reserve, armor, flanking rolls are bad. (Grand strategy, psychic tests, et al)
-Requires very good generalship (newbie-proof)
-Very few model count (for most builds).
-Mistakes are grave.

Blood Angels
+Superior maneuverabilty in tandem with firepower.
+FNP everywhere (FC too)
+Most potent walkers: WS6 Av13 with melta guns.
-Requires aggressive playstyle

Tier 3

Daemons

+Instant Death immunity
+Undercosted superior assault units.
-Luck-Prone (Deep strike and will of the chaos gods).
-Extremely hard to use
-Very Slow
-Broken Troop choices. (in a bad way)
-Requires aggressive play.

Tau

+Best ranged anti-tank weapons in the game
+Superior firepower with regards to range.
-Poor troop choices Cannot take or hold properly.
-lack of army-wide characteristic rules
-Low Leadership
-Silver Bullet syndrome. Assault destroys Tau.

Others: Havent fought thoroughly to say.

DAaddict wrote:CSM is mid tier. Certainly it has limitations but its core troops are still strong - though arguably overcosted. Obliterators still make sense. Demon princes are bests in HTH. Now agreed they suffer on points but it is at worse, a limitation of abou 50 - 100 points extra being paid at 1850. A general can still make a list to take advantage of their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.

Qualify DA - Deathwing is Tier 3, The rest of the codex is tier 4 or even 5.

The reason why CSM are low tier is the fact that the points you make in their favor are all heavily qualified. The troops are overcosted: CSM pay SM prices for guys who don't have ATSKNF or chapter tactics. CSM pay GK prices for guys with effectively basic weapons, some expensive upgrade options, and mostly crappy rules (even zerkers, they can't assault out of anything close to cheap enough). They don't even get cheap/free sarges. Yeah, overcosted and crappy is not a good place to be in troops. The transport is the strongest part of the selection, as having useful weapons on rhinos is refreshing and unique. Obliterators don't make as much sense as they used to. Their cost is bit too high for something that is easily shot up by modern lists (venom/DL spam, razorback spam, GK shooting in general, IG good lists) Oh, and when the oblits are gone how much long range anti tank does the list have left? Yeah, not much. DP: not all that great in CC when they usually get shot up before getting there. 2 princes is not enough MCs to avoid having them killed before they get to do much. In CC they aren't even all that great, before the WD codex I could usually kill the dumb things with a cannoness in CC. Other books have characters that can take princes on in CC too, if they chose to go that route instead of just shooting the dumb thing.

They have a couple of gimmick lists that exploit what is still useful in the book, most famous is dual lash, which uses sorcerers now (to protect them), and rhino spam lists which spam weaponized rhinos carrying special weapon (not heavy) havocs and chosen. The other lists are mostly fun/fluffy, and aren't serious contenders even as gimmick lists.

DW isn't better than rest of the book, a pure DW is NOT a good army. An army with DW in it? Sure, its strong. Same thing with parts of ravenwing. You don't have to make them troops either, DA have close to vanilla marine rules on their units. The unique options are compelling enough for the entire book to be in mid tier, the book as a whole isn't as good/flexible enough to qualify as high tier like vanilla is, nor is it anywhere near bad enough to be in low tier.

Is this something people ever agree on?

ironicsilence wrote:Is this something people ever agree on?

Well, there won't ever be complete agreement, simply because the question is to vague to have a real answer.

Many people point out that player skill is more important. Of course it is. A good player with Sisters will beat a mediocre player with anything else. A strong player with a strong army will still win more often (or against touger competition).

Local metagames matter a lot. I won a hard boys semis with Orks. Not because I'm a brilliant tacticion, but because I drew three straight players that had never faced Thraka/battlewagon orks. Everybody was built to handle MEQs...

finally, missions matter a lot. What's strongest in book missions might not be in the missions you play at a tournament. Events like Hard boys have such weird missions that different lists emerge.

Boil it all down, and you end up with, in general, two sorts of responses to this question: the "national" answer, and the "local" answer. the national answer is given (and then parroted) by players that participate in a broad range of events in various locations, and against elite competitors. These might quibble about certain details (were to Orks rank? What about Demons?), but generally come up with a vague consensus. "Local" answers are usually given by players with a more limited exposure, so the above factors (metagame, missions, player skill) factor more into their rankings. After all, if the local big fish is stomping people with Tyranids, it's human nature to assume that nids are really good.

I'd stick GK, DE, IG, SW and BA at the top, Necrons, Orks and Eldar in the upper middle, Tau and Nids in the lower middle, and Sisters at the bottom. CSM and Daemons are Lethal Joke Characters.

Setting up a tier list:

Assuming infinite funds, and an army of painters/assemblers, and equal play level:
How flexible the books are at making competitive lists (without comp or list restrictions), inflexible armies can be upset by change (in rules or new books shaking things up).
How flexible the army performs in the most common missions (book missions, not the usually terrible event missions you often see to try to re-balance things).
How they stack up the other armies in general, and how they stack up to the best books. (for instance its OK to have an auto loss against sisters if you can beat 2 or 3 of the best books on the table).

Due to the prevalence of marine armies (nearly all marine type books are at least midtier, only CSM are truly bad) ability to handle marines is required to be at least mid tier. Ability to handle mobile opponents (usually meaning mech) or hordes gets to high tier, and ability to beat all of the above qualifies for top tier (though power level or exploitable weaknesses might bump it back down, see DE). Armies with limited builds are also bumped down, due the the exploitable weakness issue (everybody who is competent knows how to beat the obvious builds from certain books, other options might surprise, but you give up power level for surprise, so they are demoted) Ability to beat does not equal auto win as in paper rock scissors, this is still a game of random chance meets tactics. Thus even armies from high tier can be beat even in favorable matchups by lower tier armies due to variables (dice, experience, mission, ect).

I rated orks rather low for some people, yet they have won many major tourneys. Well, first off, they are still mid tier, so they have some advantages that allow them to beat even high tier armies. In the case of orks they have a couple of fatal flaws that drop them down two tiers: The FOC is a mess, too much competition in the elite section, HQs are required to make builds work, and to unlock better troops. These issues cause limited list problem (orks have a decent number of archetypes, but very little flexibility within these) Ranged anti tank is nearly nonexistent (lootas are elites, see FOC issue, and 3 slots does not make enough anti tank these days). The power level and application of most of the units is uneven, so against paper you might be stuck holding rock. Ability to deal with fast armies is limited, orks are mostly slow (limited real mechanization, trucks don't count due to exploitable weakness, just look at how much mid to high S shooting other books get now), the size of the army make it unwieldy, fast armies can exploit this. A good player with a fine tuned ork list can beat another good player with a better army, but the match is unlikely to be favorable (exception: ork players are usually very in tune with their list precisely because they can't really change it up much).

Tier 1: Imperial Guard, Grey Knights, Space Wolves
Tier 2: Dark Eldar, Blood Angels
Tier 3: Space Marines, Dark Angels, Black Templar, Orks, Eldar, Tyranids, Necrons (imho, based on what I've seen of their rules - we'll see what it hits the table though)
Tier 4: CSM, Daemons
Tier 5: Sisters, Tau

Of course it depends on the player skill, but IMO this is how it goes

Top Tier: SW, IG, DE
High Tier: BA, SW, Eldar
Mid Tier: Nids, Orks, BA, Templars, Necrons
Low Tier: GK, Tau
Joke Tier: CSM Daemons, Sisters

CSM are better than Tau.

Every army is extremely usable if you can figure out their strengths, your playstyle, and tailor to that. Player skill makes up 95% of the list.

The other 5%, army, is really only going to affect a small handful of armies.

The only armies that have a real advantage (from what I have experienced in the tournament scene this last year) are Wolves, IG, and DE.

But you can have the highest tier army, not know them well, and get whooped on by the perceived lower tier.

SpacePup1987 wrote:Well for eldar I suggest the D A V U list
wich is the Mech list Dire avenger Vehicle upgrade. Best thing to do is read battle reports to see top list! !

Completely disagree. Best thing you can do is play. That stands for "Top Tier" questions, too. It's all relative to who you are and who you're playing so just try and play as many different armies and people as possible. If you learn how to use a low-end army, then it's more often just a little more challenging to get it right.