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What do you guys think the Hardest army is to play? The easiest?

I would probably say either Daemons or Dark Eldar as the hardest, and Orks as the easiest.

Talking competitively:
I wouldn't say Daemons is the hardest by a long stretch! They struggle against knights admittedly but that's about it.
I am not very familiar with all the DE rules so I couldn't say them, but from what I do know and have read about, they do seem very difficult to use.
I would have said CSM were close at one point, but with all the data slates and IA:13, they are pretty good now.

My vote would go to tge Dark Angels or Scions. Both have to be bottom of the pile now BA and Orks have been updated and CSM have got lots of new(ish) goodies.

Easiest would have to be Eldar. Easily.

DA are hardest to play without running cheese lists or allies. Easiest would be Eldar or gunline Tau.

hardest as in, most difficult rules to keep track of and rule complexity?

Or hardest as in hardest to win with?

DA have cheese lists?

DE , I would say have been for a long time the hardest to play. Generally having a larger learning curve BUT it can pay off if you stick with them.

Also if not playing flyrant spam , tyranids can also rank up there.

ancraig wrote:
DA have cheese lists?

Land Raider Dakka spam or Bike Dakka Spam/Black Knight Spam, thats about it.

Yeah, I agree that this is too vague. Does the OP mean to know which is the army whose strongest build is the weakest? That question doesn't really make sense anymore in a world of dataslates, formations, allies, and unbound.

Plus, any army can run weaker builds. Just don't build the strongest possible build. You could run all-kroot tau, or footdar, and neither of those will come anywhere close to the usual tau or wave serpent gunline.

I mean, I played foot guard when everyone else was doing leafblowers, and I played several different kinds of guard armies when everyone else was just playing vendetta spam.

How hard an army is is how hard you choose to make it.

Sorry, to clear it up, I mean hardest army to *Learn* to play. Learning curve or complexity of army, not viability in tournaments

I don't think orks are the easiest, as it is hard to make optimal lists when your army book is so balanced. It takes a long time to learn how to make good lists, and net lists aren't so easy to find. Making the army complex.

I want to say DE... but with the new codex I don't know for sure, so I'm gonna have to go with CSM for now...

 luky7dayz wrote:
Sorry, to clear it up, I mean hardest army to *Learn* to play. Learning curve or complexity of army, not viability in tournaments

Ah.

In that case, the hardest armies are those that don't rely on long-range weapons, so you have to actually use the movement phase and care about terrain. Which is also true about close combat armies, which have been specifically nerfed for awhile now. Of course, those armies get harder if you have no special mobility.

So, an army that runs on foot with short range weapons and/or close combat. That's your hardest army. Of course, you can build this in most codices.

Dark Eldar and Tyranids are likely the most challenging. Tyranids because of how much of a /balanced/ army depends on Synapse, troop positioning, cover saves by hordes and Venomthropes to keep the big beasts alive. A single screwup in deployment means an instant loss. Very obvious when a friend of mine borrowed my bugs...

Dark Eldar for obvious reasons. Glass cannons, no durability, easy to lose entire flanks with a few well placed shots. Two Assault Cannon Razorbacks or two Heavy Bolter Chimeras can devastate a Dark Eldar army if the player doesn't handle the threat early.

 jreilly89 wrote:

ancraig wrote:
DA have cheese lists?

Land Raider Dakka spam or Bike Dakka Spam/Black Knight Spam, thats about it.

i used to have a bike dakka spam list, and the change to jink just killed it for me. having to snapfire whenever I jink, AND not being very good in CC? I sold them for an ork army.

Never got to try black knight spam, but always wanted to.

And the land raider dakka spam list is very much so an eggs in basket scenario. if you get a CC specialist unit close then i have to back up 12" neutering it's firepower. And if you bring an armored list, the firepower it has doesn't really matter anyways. At the end of the day, when i looked at it, you pay a ton of points for a bunch of twin linked bolter shots with good protection. Really not worth it IMO. It'll run roughshod against low strength hordey lists, but one good drop pod of combi sternguard and POOF. Maybe it's just that the people in my meta got used to me bringing double raider lists (even though i tried to mix it up and keep it fresh), but my land raiders always died or did nothing. Looks good on paper, not very amazing in practice IMO.

 luky7dayz wrote:
What do you guys think the Hardest army is to play? The easiest?

I would probably say either Daemons or Dark Eldar as the hardest, and Orks as the easiest.

Orks? Easiest? No.

Orks require a lot of thought, even if it might not seem like it. Everything is very easily squished. Though T4 is the baseline for most of our units, we have no access to affordable (or rather worthwhile) armor, terrible shooting (Volume of fire can only make up for so much), and no real reliable anti armor. While we have large numbers, this can often be a disadvantage. Placement and movement are so important for this army. Almost more so than any other. While other armies can rely on non characters/IC to do some serious work, Orks rely on keeping our Nobs or Warbosses alive to do the heavy lifting against almost everything to make use of our ONLY truely reliable weapon. (Power Klaws). Our vehicles are all very fragile and tend to be a liability to our own army if we aren't careful (Battle Wagons being really the only exception, but is easily busted due to the odd shape making weaker armor facings easy to access). Our large killy guns are all pretty unreliable (again, due to poor BS) with the exception of Mek Gunz getting a boost due to Grots being the gunners (BS3)

Proper target selection and knowing who to send at what are big for Orks, or you just throw points away for nothing.

Orks aren't a terrible army, but they require a strong general to make the work well. Orks may SEEM easy due to Green Tide formation becoming our strongest asset.

I get a little tired of hearing the 'Orks be easy' thing. They aren't easy to play. They are FUN to play. Orks are the most FUN to play. (Though I suppose this is subjective)

Melevolence wrote:

 luky7dayz wrote:
What do you guys think the Hardest army is to play? The easiest?

I would probably say either Daemons or Dark Eldar as the hardest, and Orks as the easiest.

Orks? Easiest? No.

Orks require a lot of thought, even if it might not seem like it. Everything is very easily squished. Though T4 is the baseline for most of our units, we have no access to affordable (or rather worthwhile) armor, terrible shooting (Volume of fire can only make up for so much), and no real reliable anti armor. While we have large numbers, this can often be a disadvantage. Placement and movement are so important for this army. Almost more so than any other. While other armies can rely on non characters/IC to do some serious work, Orks rely on keeping our Nobs or Warbosses alive to do the heavy lifting against almost everything to make use of our ONLY truely reliable weapon. (Power Klaws). Our vehicles are all very fragile and tend to be a liability to our own army if we aren't careful (Battle Wagons being really the only exception, but is easily busted due to the odd shape making weaker armor facings easy to access). Our large killy guns are all pretty unreliable (again, due to poor BS) with the exception of Mek Gunz getting a boost due to Grots being the gunners (BS3)

Proper target selection and knowing who to send at what are big for Orks, or you just throw points away for nothing.

Orks aren't a terrible army, but they require a strong general to make the work well. Orks may SEEM easy due to Green Tide formation becoming our strongest asset.

I get a little tired of hearing the 'Orks be easy' thing. They aren't easy to play. They are FUN to play. Orks are the most FUN to play. (Though I suppose this is subjective)

honestly, when i picked up orks, i expected them to be an attrition based army based off their fluff and their numbers. They really seem to play more like a hordey glass hammer to me. maybe it's because i typically play battlewagon blitz. Once they get out the battlewagon, if they're not all making charges at the same time against different units across the board, they're just going to die in the open to shooting, since they basically get no saves.

Hardest Army: Tau

Gameplay
You need careful preparation to ensure synergy (do I have enough markerlights?).
You need to pre-decide the roles of your suits and equip them in that way (missile pods for light infantry, plasma rifles for MEQ and TEQ etc.).
You need to place pathfinders well or they will be useless.
Same with broadsides.
If ethereals are used they need loads of protection, otherwise giving the opponent another victory point.

Rules
Remembering everything that your guys can do (e.g. JSJ , nova reactor etc.).
Remembering marker lights.
Remembering which rules you 'ignore'.
Remembering supportive fire.

Attitudes
Trying to figure out why everyone hates you for playing Tau even though you aren't anywhere near as competitive as in 6th.

 jreilly89 wrote:

ancraig wrote:
DA have cheese lists?

Land Raider Dakka spam or Bike Dakka Spam/Black Knight Spam, thats about it.

Or TEQ spam.

SGTPozy wrote:
Hardest Army: Tau

Gameplay
You need careful preparation to ensure synergy (do I have enough markerlights?).
You need to pre-decide the roles of your suits and equip them in that way (missile pods for light infantry, plasma rifles for MEQ and TEQ etc.).
You need to place pathfinders well or they will be useless.
Same with broadsides.
If ethereals are used they need loads of protection, otherwise giving the opponent another victory point.

Rules
Remembering everything that your guys can do (e.g. JSJ , nova reactor etc.).
Remembering marker lights.
Remembering which rules you 'ignore'.
Remembering supportive fire.

Attitudes
Trying to figure out why everyone hates you for playing Tau even though you aren't anywhere near as competitive as in 6th.

You agree gameplaywise (im guessing you mean tactically by your answers) SM are not difficult to use right?

Well for SM you need to
-synergise the army
-pre decide the role of every unit (dakka pred or tri las, for example)
-you need to place units well or they will be useless
-any T4 or lower non-ew hq requires a unit to run with

This actually applies to every single army in the game too. Not just Tau.

I mean that Tau without marker light support suck, whilst SM squads act more independently.

I agree with the pre-decide the role being too generic.

Unit placement doesn't matter as much if they don't have heavy weapons. For example pathfinders and broadsides are generally stationary, whilst fire warriors can move to increase effectiveness.

Other HQs have armour... The ethereal doesn't. Other HQs only give a victory point if it is the warlord... The ethereal gives 2 if it is the warlord.

So you have to protect your Warlord, use units how they're supposed to be used and not just wander around blindly? That doesn't make them difficult. That just means they're in 40k. It's not like your entire army decides it's hungry and eats Bob'ui next to them when the HQ goes down. Remembering things is obvious when you have an entire rule set to remember. Even Imperial Guard are more difficult than Tau on the remembering and pre-planning.

Easiest army I'd say knights. One unit type, pretty fast, good shooting and good CC

In terms of difficulty I would say DE, Orks, tyrannids or Deathwing.

In terms of difficult to play a game with I would say daemons using multiple psychic DPs/ Heralds - especially if summoning more.

You need a journal sometimes to remember everything.

I'd say DE or Necrons.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
So you have to protect your Warlord, use units how they're supposed to be used and not just wander around blindly? That doesn't make them difficult. That just means they're in 40k. It's not like your entire army decides it's hungry and eats Bob'ui next to them when the HQ goes down. Remembering things is obvious when you have an entire rule set to remember. Even Imperial Guard are more difficult than Tau on the remembering and pre-planning.

I was mostly just waiting for someone to declare Tau as a 'point and click' army that takes no skill to play... I hate Tau haters!

Pure Grey Knights. Hilariously one-dimensional and incredibly easy to hard-counter.

That said it's sort of hard to pick one thing as 'the hardest' in this age of many Detachments from many books.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SGTPozy wrote:

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
So you have to protect your Warlord, use units how they're supposed to be used and not just wander around blindly? That doesn't make them difficult. That just means they're in 40k. It's not like your entire army decides it's hungry and eats Bob'ui next to them when the HQ goes down. Remembering things is obvious when you have an entire rule set to remember. Even Imperial Guard are more difficult than Tau on the remembering and pre-planning.

I was mostly just waiting for someone to declare Tau as a 'point and click' army that takes no skill to play... I hate Tau haters!

Depends on how you're playing them. Take as many Riptides and Hammerheads and a gunline and sit back in your deployment zone throwing bullets downfield? Point and click. Crisis suits? Very manoeuvre-intensive.

Hardest to learn to play? Probably as someone said, Tyranids and Dark Eldar. Tyranids have to rely on cover and terrain, and you have to know how to utilize as many rules as you can to keep your things alive. Same thing with Dark Eldar. They're not as "point-n-click" as Tau, Eldar, or Marines.

Sisters of Battle. A 7th edition world with a practically unchanged 3rd edition codex.

With some pages torn out.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Pure Grey Knights. Hilariously one-dimensional and incredibly easy to hard-counter.

That said it's sort of hard to pick one thing as 'the hardest' in this age of many Detachments from many books.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SGTPozy wrote:

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
So you have to protect your Warlord, use units how they're supposed to be used and not just wander around blindly? That doesn't make them difficult. That just means they're in 40k. It's not like your entire army decides it's hungry and eats Bob'ui next to them when the HQ goes down. Remembering things is obvious when you have an entire rule set to remember. Even Imperial Guard are more difficult than Tau on the remembering and pre-planning.

I was mostly just waiting for someone to declare Tau as a 'point and click' army that takes no skill to play... I hate Tau haters!

Depends on how you're playing them. Take as many Riptides and Hammerheads and a gunline and sit back in your deployment zone throwing bullets downfield? Point and click. Crisis suits? Very manoeuvre-intensive.

Can't do that in Maelstrom. Anyway, why does no one ever complain about IG gunlines? Surely they're the masters of it with 50 man blobs, prescience, FRF,SRF, supporting wyverns, leman russes etc.

ancraig wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

ancraig wrote:
DA have cheese lists?

Land Raider Dakka spam or Bike Dakka Spam/Black Knight Spam, thats about it.

i used to have a bike dakka spam list, and the change to jink just killed it for me. having to snapfire whenever I jink, AND not being very good in CC? I sold them for an ork army.

Never got to try black knight spam, but always wanted to.

And the land raider dakka spam list is very much so an eggs in basket scenario. if you get a CC specialist unit close then i have to back up 12" neutering it's firepower. And if you bring an armored list, the firepower it has doesn't really matter anyways. At the end of the day, when i looked at it, you pay a ton of points for a bunch of twin linked bolter shots with good protection. Really not worth it IMO. It'll run roughshod against low strength hordey lists, but one good drop pod of combi sternguard and POOF. Maybe it's just that the people in my meta got used to me bringing double raider lists (even though i tried to mix it up and keep it fresh), but my land raiders always died or did nothing. Looks good on paper, not very amazing in practice IMO.

Really? As objective holders I find them to be awesome. Libby with a PFG and Command Squad in one, Deathwing Knights in the other. I also roll 4+ invuln saves like a madman, so I've rarely had my LRs die