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I would like to compile a list of things that each army can do that if you don't know about them it can cost you the game.
For example:
Eldar forwarned: Can shoot a unit when it deeps strikes.
Blood angels can make a first turn charge.

Write a few things your army can do that could or something that has happened to you.

Summeries
Death guard:
- can throw ordinary or improved grenades with every model in a unit dealing mortal wounds; can make vehicles explode
Death Guard have a stratagem, if a model is slain within 7" of a squad of poxwalkers for the entire game turn, add one poxwalker to that unit. The poxwalker added doesn't count for reinforcements, and can be increase the squad beyond its max size.

Harlequins:
- hit&run for infantry and bikes (move-advance-charge-fallback-shoot-charge)
- infantry walks right through terrain and any units
- all vehicles get -1 to hit in the shooting phase
- Ynnari Based Harlequins can literally charge anything anywhere at anytime.

Chaos space marines:
- Mark of Khorne Warp Talons plus a sorcerer with warptime (And maybe Prescience) can annihilate a MEQ gunline if you are not careful about spacing. Stratagems used are the Khorne one for an additional combat round and Veterans of the long war if you particularly want them dead.
- Don't bother shooting chaos cultists that are stood near zombies. All you are doing is creating more zombies, resulting in a mega unit that can be buffed to the sky. Shoot the zombies first.
- Iron Within, Iron Without: Pay 2 cp to remove a squad of cultists from the board, replenish their number ENTIRELY, with no reinforcements cost, and deep strike them near a board edge. Iron hands strat.
- Noise Marines can shoot when you kill them. (Rule is called Music of the Apocalypse)
- Alpha Legion's "Forward Operatives" Stratagem costs 1 Command Point, can be used multiple times, and can let them deploy a unit 9" away from your models before the first turn . That means, if the Alpha Legion player gets first turn, they can easily charge a horde of Bezerkers or Possessed into your models

Imperial guard:
- Imperial Guard superheavy tanks can fire overwatch even when an enemy unit is already within 1" of them.

Space marine:
- Try not to charge Guilliman with anything. Even if you kill him he can use a stratagem to attack, which will kill almost any model, then come back from the dead 75% of the time.
- My first few games of 8th surprised me to learn that both eldar AND space marines have a way of shooting down your deepstrikers/anything coming in from reinforcements immediately after they hit the board
- Space marine Librarian can take away your invul saves with Null zone.

Grey Knights:
- can alpha strike their entire army and smite the hell out of you

Tyranids:
- Tyranid Genestealers have Objective Secured.
- Tyrannid biovores are amazing, let one the mortal wounds they do to finish off guys, the spore mines when they miss(my buddy moves them .5" to get -1 to hit and force the misses) restrict movement and board space like no other thing in the game. Do not be fooled, if your opponent has 2x3 biovores than your army is gonna struggle walking forward at all
Any:
- Swarmlord in pod + deep strike unit = first turn charge
- Can move and fight again with stratagem (can not attack with a charging unit unless they decleared multi charge)
- Can Shoot double in infantery
- Can shoot / fight again with monster when it dies

Kraken:
- Can get a first turn charge with stealers
- Jhormungard: Will deep strike most of their army to somewhere near you
- Behemot: big chance of first turn charge
- Kronos: Will deny psykick powers

Genstealer cult:
- Primus + stratagem will make a first turn charge

Orks:
- Will merge a 10 man unit and a 30 man unit with stratagem, can merge 2 nobs in one group
- Will deep strike a unit (usually the 40 man unit with 2 power claws in it) with tha jump, good chances of first turn charge

Dark angels:
- Dark Angels have a surprising amount of T6. Really messed up one of my shooting phases when I was expecting 4's to wound.

Eldar craftworld :
- A webway strike of 20 guardians + 2 shuriken cannons will hurt or shred its target depending on if it was Doomed, but don't think they'll go down easy in your turn. Their durability can be greatly increased depending on stratagems and psychic powers.
- CW eldar can deep strike full squad of Shining Spears, use spell to move them again and cause some real trouble with shooting, melee, and consolidate moves.
- My first few games of 8th surprised me to learn that both eldar AND space marines have a way of shooting down your deepstrikers/anything coming in from reinforcements immediately after they hit the board
- Eldar Hemlock Flyers can take a Psychic power that gives a -1 to saving throws called Jinx. Any saving throw, even invulnerable.
Hemlocks also come with 2D3 shots that autohit at S12, AP -4, Damage 2.
As they are Flyers, they can move to be close to an HQ, cast Jinx and kill all but the most resilient of Characters in a single good volley

Ynnari Based Harlequins can literally charge anything anywhere at anytime.

They can get double movements easily on a couple units. When you move 16+Advance, moving a 2nd... and even a 3rd time is possible lol, along with DS and then able to move.

They can move over models/terrain as well

Death guard: can throw ordinary or improved grenades with every model in a unit dealing mortal wounds; can make vehicles explode
Harlequins: hit&run for infantry and bikes (move-advance-charge-fallback-shoot-charge); infantry walks right through terrain and any units; all vehicles get -1 to hit in the shooting phase

Kind of a lesser one due to it's expense and chance elements but can definitely throw some armies on the back foot if they don't know about it.

Mark of Khorne Warp Talons plus a sorcerer with warptime (And maybe Prescience) can annihilate a MEQ gunline if you are not careful about spacing. Stratagems used are the Khorne one for an additional combat round and Veterans of the long war if you particularly want them dead.

Admech (not for me since I play them): do not get within 36" of the cute robots

The thread reminds me of this quote...

"If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat."

~Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Not reading up on my opponent's army means he can surprise me with things from his publicly available codex.

Imperial Guard superheavy tanks can fire overwatch even when an enemy unit is already within 1" of them.

I explain it to people, but it doesn't click until they charge with 5 units and get overwatched 5 times. And then they complain that it's OP while the units that made it in rip the thing to shreds and destroy it in one assault phase.

Don't bother shooting chaos cultists that are stood near zombies. All you are doing is creating more zombies, resulting in a mega unit that can be buffed to the sky. Shoot the zombies first.

Try not to charge Guilliman with anything. Even if you kill him he can use a stratagem to attack, which will kill almost any model, then come back from the dead 75% of the time.

Grey Knights: can alpha strike their entire army and smite the hell out of you

 Theo4016 wrote:
Grey Knights: can alpha strike their entire army and smite the hell out of you

No, we're still bound by the 50% rules.

And 1 damage Smite that gets more difficult to cast every time we use it? Yeah...

Anyway, for the thread:

Tyranid Genestealers have Objective Secured.

No, we're still bound by the 50% rules.

Think Interceptor Squads.

And 1 damage Smite that gets more difficult to cast every time we use it? Yeah...

You are talking about a beta rule. Plus, 1 damage on AM Infantry Squad is nothing. 1 MW on Baneblade is something else.

 Theo4016 wrote:

No, we're still bound by the 50% rules.

Think Interceptor Squads.

And 1 damage Smite that gets more difficult to cast every time we use it? Yeah...

You are talking about a beta rule. Plus, 1 damage on AM Infantry Squad is nothing. 1 MW on Baneblade is something else.

If you're spending that many points on Interceptor Squads you've already handicapped your army to the point it doesn't fit this thread.

1 MW on a Baneblade is still pretty insignificant.

It's a beta rule that is almost certainly becoming permanent.

We should probably go to PM's though cause we're gonna derail this into a GK balance discussion

My superheavy tank army lost to grey knights at NOVA, though I was using index superheavy tanks at the time and I tabled my opponent.

He did alpha strike 100% of his army though with Interceptors.

As for 1MW on a Baneblade... that's fairly insignificant, yeah. I'm more concerned with the 1MW from a GK strike squad, then 1MW from a GK librarian, then 1MW from a GK GM, then 1MW from a GK paladin squad, then 1MW from an Interceptor squad, before they all shoot (not that their shooting is scary, just saying).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
My superheavy tank army lost to grey knights at NOVA, though I was using index superheavy tanks at the time and I tabled my opponent.

He did alpha strike 100% of his army though with Interceptors.

As for 1MW on a Baneblade... that's fairly insignificant, yeah. I'm more concerned with the 1MW from a GK strike squad, then 1MW from a GK librarian, then 1MW from a GK GM, then 1MW from a GK paladin squad, then 1MW from an Interceptor squad, before they all shoot (not that their shooting is scary, just saying).

Yeah but you run ONLY tanks so they eat all the smite damage Index ones too (poor tanks).

Here's another one:

Dark Angels have a surprising amount of T6. Really messed up one of my shooting phases when I was expecting 4's to wound.

Also realize baneblades are likely quite undercosted; especially compared to other lords of war.

Martel732 wrote:
Also realize baneblades are likely quite undercosted; especially compared to other lords of war.

What other lords of war are you thinking about?

There's not much other than Knights that compares to a Baneblade, and I think Knights are drastically overcosted for what they do.

These are potentially game altering if you don't know about them:

Death Guard have a stratagem, if a model is slain within 7" of a squad of poxwalkers for the entire game turn, add one poxwalker to that unit. The poxwalker added doesn't count for reinforcements, and can be increase the squad beyond its max size.

Iron Within, Iron Without: Pay 2 cp to remove a squad of cultists from the board, replenish their number ENTIRELY, with no reinforcements cost, and deep strike them near a board edge. Iron hands strat.



Fun things that can also come up:

If people are not clearly distinguishing their regiments, chapters, etc, WATCH LIKE A HAWK when they apply buffs to a unit. Yeah you're within 6" but you're not the same chapter.

If you start a game turn with over 20 minutes left and you're at the top of the turn, your turn ends at 15 minutes so your opponent can respond. Prioritize your targets.

Don't take your hand off deep strikers/chargers unless you're ready to place them. Don't get Tony'd!

Noise Marines can shoot when you kill them. (Rule is called Music of the Apocalypse)

Protip: don't kill them ;-)

Tyrannid biovores are amazing, let one the mortal wounds they do to finish off guys, the spore mines when they miss(my buddy moves them .5" to get -1 to hit and force the misses) restrict movement and board space like no other thing in the game. Do not be fooled, if your opponent has 2x3 biovores than your army is gonna struggle walking forward at all

Nids:

Any:
Swarmlord in pod + deep strike unit = first turn charge
Can move and fight again with stratagem (can not attack with a charging unit unless they decleared multi charge)
Can Shoot double in infantery
Can shoot / fight again with monster when it dies

Kraken: Can get a first turn charge with stealers
Jhormungard: Will deep strike most of their army to somewhere near you
Behemot: big chance of first turn charge
Kronos: Will deny psykick powers

Genstealer cult:
Primus + stratagem will make a first turn charge

Orks:
Will merge a 10 man unit and a 30 man unit with stratagem, can merge 2 nobs in one group
Will deep strike a unit (usually the 40 man unit with 2 power claws in it) with tha jump, good chances of first turn charge

A webway strike of 20 guardians + 2 shuriken cannons will hurt or shred its target depending on if it was Doomed, but don't think they'll go down easy in your turn. Their durability can be greatly increased depending on stratagems and psychic powers.

Fortunately you can counter this in multiple ways. They need to deploy 22 models outside of 9" but within 12" (the ridiculous range of their guns), this usually means a ( shaped drop. Deny them a good place to drop. Speaking of denial, they don't get that tough if you manage to deny the protect power (just 4 3+/4++ and 20 5+/4++ wounds then, bolter em to bits). And you could of course tie them up/kill them in close combat. With a single s3 attack each it doesn't really matter that there's 20 of them, toss a rhino or an actually choppy unit at them and focus on something else.

The stratagem that gives them their 4++ only works for a single phase, so bonus points if you manage to bait your opponent in wasting an extra cp

This is why I find same faction fights to be so much more fun.

Unfortunately I am in the minority. My FLGS rarely ever sees Marine vs Marine fights. Chaos vs chaos is fluffy. Orks vs Orks was one of my favorite games of all time, even for 7th edition.

Yesterday I played my Nurgle Daemons against Tzeentch daemons and it was nearly a flawless game for me with remembering rules, utilizing Strategems, and coordinating psychic powers, backed up by an opponent familiar with everything I was doing, as I was with what he was doing.

Titanic Daemon Engine is very different from Knight Titan, know the difference before you charge or you will be very sad.

SoB. They can move their entire army pre first turn if they built for it. They can move Jump units 24" easily.

 Marmatag wrote:
Iron Within, Iron Without: Pay 2 cp to remove a squad of cultists from the board, replenish their number ENTIRELY, with no reinforcements cost, and deep strike them near a board edge. Iron hands strat.

Actually this stratagem is called Tide of Traitors, and it's not specific to Iron Warriors, but all Chaos legions can use it except for Death Guard and Thousand Sons.

CW eldar can deep strike full squad of Shining Spears, use spell to move them again and cause some real trouble with shooting, melee, and consolidate moves.

Caught me by surprise.

My first few games of 8th surprised me to learn that both eldar AND space marines have a way of shooting down your deepstrikers/anything coming in from reinforcements immediately after they hit the board

 Commissar_Rex wrote:
My first few games of 8th surprised me to learn that both eldar AND space marines have a way of shooting down your deepstrikers/anything coming in from reinforcements immediately after they hit the board

Tide of traitors doesn't. Because it's restoring lost models and not creating a new unit. Subtle difference.

I played a game of Orkz vs Dark Eldar in 7th. Lots of trukk boyz and cover, so I rolled the Night Fight warlord trait. I forget what, but we used to house rule roll 2, and pick one or something, so I picked Night Fight, and my opponent said NOTHING.

For those that don't remember, DE all have Night vision stock, so my trait did nothing for me and only benefitted him.

Edit: We used to house rule, roll first and then pick the result from the 3 charts, so you'd at least try and get something useful.