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What is the hardest army to play, as in most complex and the hardest to actually use competitively. I play daemons and have played DE and neither are hugely simple. Some lists like Tau seem simple, point and shoot.

XXXX

I know DE are very, very tricky because you are playing soap bubbles with huge firepower.

I think it's fair to say that any army if hard to play at a very high level, but some are more pointly and clicky than others.

Shooting armies are move forgiving of movement mistakes, that's for sure. Bad rolling used to be the bane of shooting armies, but with so many shots now, the law of large numbers of dice has a tendency to mitigate this.

Believe or not, I'd say the marines are in no way a starter list now. It's hard to win with a devalued 3+ armor save.

i would have to say any older elite codex. BA and SW and tyrinds before next week.

Cause the have less toys and power creep from newer codexes killing there old toys

Honestly, I think DE might be more unforgiving than BA. DE are a better list in 6th, but they can go down in flames so quickly. BA just have no offense, so they die a slow miserable death.

Sisters of battle... Mistakes are unforgiving

toocool61 wrote:
Sisters of battle... Mistakes are unforgiving

Sister of Battle have more room for error than BA or DE. Their models aren't as pricey as BA or as vulnerable as DE.

Of all the armies I have played I would say Tyranids are the trickiest. Strategy is very important in getting your gribblies from deployment zone to the enemy lines while still being potent enough to do something. If your opponent knows anything about your army all he has to do is take out your synapse critters and your army starts to fall apart.

I have heard Eldar and DE are also tricky.

Eldar are in no way tricky. They can burn many other lists to the ground from 36" away.

That is just from what I have heard. There are only 2 eldar players in my area. I never see one of them, and I never end up playing the other. Even then our players aren't "competitive".

eldar, dark eldar, and daemons.

people think what? thats 2 of the best armies going they arent hard to play even a noob could win with them.. well you're just jealous and wrong. All these armies are very unforgiving, if you position your self wrong or lose a unit it hurts a lot more than if you lose something from another army because you have so few things to lose.

And as people have said with DE, paper cannons. positioning and strategy are the most important aspects of this and the other armies. which also happens to be the most difficult aspect of 40k and the one MAIN thing the player alone has control over.

Admiral General Aladeen wrote:
eldar, dark eldar, and daemons.

people think what? thats 2 of the best armies going they arent hard to play even a noob could win with them.. well you're just jealous and wrong. All these armies are very unforgiving, if you position your self wrong or lose a unit it hurts a lot more than if you lose something from another army because you have so few things to lose.

And as people have said with DE, paper cannons. positioning and strategy are the most important aspects of this and the other armies. which also happens to be the most difficult aspect of 40k and the one MAIN thing the player alone has control over.

I always love to watch noobs play screamerstars and get annihilated because they believe they are invincible with a 2++. Model positions are of course key, how many daemon lists fall apart because people cannot fathom that they need to hide their grimoire bearer.

XXXX

If you think Eldar are harder to use than marines, you're way off.

Martel732 wrote:
If you think Eldar are harder to use than marines, you're way off.

Marines are not hard to play, they just aren't good.

Admiral General Aladeen wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If you think Eldar are harder to use than marines, you're way off.

Marines are not hard to play, they just aren't good.

Wrong. Bikers with grav guns backed up with dev centurions can be. They are not as good as Eldar by not every list they can put out is bad.

XXXX

Admiral General Aladeen wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If you think Eldar are harder to use than marines, you're way off.

Marines are not hard to play, they just aren't good.

It takes more skill than multi-assaulting with jet seer and frying everything from 36".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GoingtoHell wrote:

Admiral General Aladeen wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If you think Eldar are harder to use than marines, you're way off.

Marines are not hard to play, they just aren't good.

Wrong. Bikers with grav guns backed up with dev centurions can be. They are not as good as Eldar by not every list they can put out is bad.

XXXX

This is solid, but suffers mightily when it starts taking casualties. Even at 21 pts, bikers are a rough to lose to a failed 3+ save.

Martel732 wrote:

toocool61 wrote:
Sisters of battle... Mistakes are unforgiving

Sister of Battle have more room for error than BA or DE. Their models aren't as pricey as BA or as vulnerable as DE.

The model price has little to do with it. A sister of battle is easier to kill by a large margin compared to a space marine. (And sisters are barely cheaper than marines)

However I agree with dark eldar. I think Dark Eldar can definitely be a powerful list but they are so fragile it becomes an issue.

No marine army is ever going to be "hard" to play. They are by definition very flexible and new player friendly. Regardless of how old their book is. So while I agree that Sisters are a very hard army to play right, I think that Dark Eldar are even more so and they take the cake as hardest army.

On the note of Daemons since I saw some people mention them. Any army that always gets their saves, and ignores all morale isn't what I would call "hard" to play.

The marines are NOT new player friendly in 6th. They overpay because they points tied up in capabilities that have been rendered essentially useless by 6th edition meta.

Flexibility is meaningless without efficacy. If my marines were WS 2 S 2, 65% of my 6th edition games would go the same way.

Martel732 wrote:

Admiral General Aladeen wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If you think Eldar are harder to use than marines, you're way off.

Marines are not hard to play, they just aren't good.

It takes more skill than multi-assaulting with jet seer and frying everything from 36".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GoingtoHell wrote:

Admiral General Aladeen wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If you think Eldar are harder to use than marines, you're way off.

Marines are not hard to play, they just aren't good.

Wrong. Bikers with grav guns backed up with dev centurions can be. They are not as good as Eldar by not every list they can put out is bad.

XXXX

This is solid, but suffers mightily when it starts taking casualties. Even at 21 pts, bikers are a rough to lose to a failed 3+ save.

All lists suffer in some form. Screamerstar suffers in the fact that at under 2000 points you lack troops and of course the wealth of exploitable weaknesses of the star itself has.

Not all suffering is equal. The screamerstar provides advantages to the Daemon player that the marine player simply doesn't have access to and can't effectively counter.

Marines bikers are vulnerable to mass pulse rifle or scatterlaser, since jinking doesn't help against weight of fire.

Martel732 wrote:
Not all suffering is equal. The screamerstar provides advantages to the Daemon player that the marine player simply doesn't have access to and can't effectively counter.

Marines bikers are vulnerable to mass pulse rifle or scatterlaser, since jinking doesn't help against weight of fire.

Which is why it's far more competitive. My point was that the space marine dex does not have no decent lists.

XXXX

GoingtoHell wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Not all suffering is equal. The screamerstar provides advantages to the Daemon player that the marine player simply doesn't have access to and can't effectively counter.

Marines bikers are vulnerable to mass pulse rifle or scatterlaser, since jinking doesn't help against weight of fire.

Which is why it's far more competitive. My point was that the space marine dex does not have no decent lists.

XXXX

Marines are the quintessential 2nd tier list right now. The problem is that the gap between tier 1 and 2 is huge. I say this because I can still take games from the marines with BA. Their firepower is good, but it can fall short because grav guns are 18", etc. Eldar and Tau have range and the laws of large numbers of dice on their side.


Marines also have lots of trap units. Not as many as BA (no one does), but still quite a few.

Martel732 wrote:

GoingtoHell wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Not all suffering is equal. The screamerstar provides advantages to the Daemon player that the marine player simply doesn't have access to and can't effectively counter.

Marines bikers are vulnerable to mass pulse rifle or scatterlaser, since jinking doesn't help against weight of fire.

Which is why it's far more competitive. My point was that the space marine dex does not have no decent lists.

XXXX

Marines are the quintessential 2nd tier list right now. The problem is that the gap between tier 1 and 2 is huge. I say this because I can still take games from the marines with BA. Their firepower is good, but it can fall short because grav guns are 18", etc. Eldar and Tau have range and the laws of large numbers of dice on their side.


Marines also have lots of trap units. Not as many as BA (no one does), but still quite a few.

Any list can take games of another list if the player commanding the weaker list is superior to the one playing the more powerful list. I've seen deer councils and O'vestars get butchered by BA, Ork biker lists and the like. It is all about positional dominance and model positioning.
I have personally beaten a triptide tau list with a pre heresy Word Bearers list.

XXXX

Imperial Guard.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Imperial Guard.

Fly in vendettas, shoot everything you can see for 4 turns. Late game drop troops on objectives. Not hard.

XXXX

As of right now?

Anything Orks.

I haven't played them in 6th ed at all...

Martel732 wrote:


This is solid, but suffers mightily when it starts taking casualties. Even at 21 pts, bikers are a rough to lose to a failed 3+ save.

Space Marine bikers are 21pts?

Ork bikers are 25pts... I feel so ripped off

As of right now?

Anything Orks.

I haven't played them in 6th ed at all...

SH and Escalation both help Orks quite a bit. Void shields can make mechanized Orks a thing to be feared. Not quite at the levels of cheese of Taudar and stuff but if it were, that'd mean you'd have to play those armies at tournies =/

DE cause they are true glass cannons so one wrong move and you shatter

Orks did benifit alot from escalation and stronghold, plus they have never been hard to play, Boyz Boyz and more Boyz thats all. Sure are they a little low on the power scale right now, yeah of coarse. 4th ed rules. But that doesnt make them hard to play.

The model price has little to do with it. A sister of battle is easier to kill by a large margin compared to a space marine. (And sisters are barely cheaper than marines)

However I agree with dark eldar. I think Dark Eldar can definitely be a powerful list but they are so fragile it becomes an issue.

No marine army is ever going to be "hard" to play. They are by definition very flexible and new player friendly. Regardless of how old their book is. So while I agree that Sisters are a very hard army to play right, I think that Dark Eldar are even more so and they take the cake as hardest army.

On the note of Daemons since I saw some people mention them. Any army that always gets their saves, and ignores all morale isn't what I would call "hard" to play.

Dark Eldar are no where near as hard to play in my opinion than SoB. For a few reasons:
1) Options. Sisters literally have as many choices in all their slots as DE have in their HQ/Fast/troops sections. This means that the army is not very dynamic.
2) Dedicated transports. SoB have access to an immolator and rhino. Immolator is good, but at most puts out 3 shots with no upgrades to make them survivable. DE have the venom and raider. both of which can become more survivable with upgrades. Not to mention the venom outshoots the immolator by a lot. Even the raider is better in my opinion than the immolator.
3) SoB for some reasons are an insanely good short range army. They can spam melta and flamers like no other. the only problem is that they have trouble getting there in rhino chassis, and being t3 walking across the board seems like a bad idea.

DE would just have to shoot down the exorcists/rets. and then play keep away. and taking down AV 13 isn't even that hard for DE when you throw in ravagers with dark lances or true born with dark lances or kabalite warriors with dark lances.

However, I am not taking away from DE and saying they are easy to play. I wouldn't want to try and just pick them up as my first army at all.

Granted "more boyz" isn't hard to play, but they have other strategies that are harder to pull off and don't require moving 180 bloody models per turn =/

Edit: For what its worth, 90% of my games are Orks vs Dark Eldar, and I win over 50% despite being a much worse player. Orks > Dark Eldar it seems

Marines aren't the hardest, but if you don't use Biker Spam then you are going to be at a huge disadvantage to any first tier armies ex.) Eldar,Tau, Daemons etc.