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I hope I didn't contradict myself in the title, but are there any competitive small model count lists out there? I'm looking to start a 2nd army, preferably CC oriented, that has enough troops to win games (so no nidzilla/daemonzilla). Terminator (DW, Imperial Fists) and biker lists (orks, marines, not-so-much eldar) seem interesting but relatively weak. Are there any other small model count lists out there?

Yes.

2 squads of 5 ISTs each.
1 GK Hero.
1 Inquisitor + idiot.
1 Inquisitor + idiot.
5 Land Raiders.

If you mean CHEAP, no not really...

Stealer shock is pretty small model count CC orietented, although I think in 5ed a few more gaunts for screening will be neccesary. Chaos can also be CC orietented small model count. Blood Angels are another.

The new marine dex will probably offer up other possibilities as well but you'd have to wait till October.

While I can't speak for Lysander Wing, I can tell you that playing Deathwing is a labor of love. You can make it competitive through outstanding generalship and a little luck, but certainly not through the list itself. I imagine that Lysander Wing is probably the same.

Lysander is a far better army than DW. It's still a rock, but it's not a pebble like DW is.

Why don't you like Daemonzilla? 4 Khornate Chariots, 24 Bloodcrushers, 10 Bloodletters, and 3 Daemon Princes of Khorne/Soulgrinders (Very Khorne-looking) is going to run just about 2k points and is only 41 models total.... about as small, elite, and close-combat oriented as possible without being completely hopeless in a competitive setting.

Fifth favours close-combat and troops. Combat resolution favours tough units, that take only few wounds.

-> Winning army = Tough close combat troops that relyably reach close combat. = Few models.

You might like 5th^^.

Fifth favors shooting armies to the Nth degree, actually.

The "tough" troops are usually Marines, and people usually kill Marines with torrents of fire making that extra cover save useless.

I have no idea where you got your idea about combat resolution favoring tough units...if you can win combat, that's all that matters. Tough means little if you lose.

Well the unpredictability of demons is what bothers me. I know a lot of people (especially stelek lol) think they aren't very good. I really like the models and a full khorne army is interesting, but with no shooting the only army khorne destroys are MEQs. I will look into demons, but I'd prefer a good biker list/termi list. Maybe I will wait for the new marine codex.

Lysanderwing is probably dead in 5th.

I'd definitely wait for the new marine codex.

Yes, as a general rule...I do not run MEQ so I could care less how good Demons are at killing marines.

What xenos army doesn't kill marines? They are all built to.

Against other xenos, demons...yikes. Horrid.

Stelek wrote:Fifth favors shooting armies to the Nth degree, actually.

The "tough" troops are usually Marines, and people usually kill Marines with torrents of fire making that extra cover save useless.

I have no idea where you got your idea about combat resolution favoring tough units...if you can win combat, that's all that matters. Tough means little if you lose.

#1. With the amount of 4+ cover saves, and the ability to run, I would think that shooting armies have lost quite a bit.

#2. Combat resolution favors tough troops because they will not be taking many losses, thus it is harder to beat them in assault.

I know what he meant.

Shooting armies gained 'you can't touch me'.

It's big.

Please name me tough troops. I would like to see what you and he mean by "tough".

What you prefer if actually units that doesnt win battle to hard in rond #1 but does in are #2 instead. But thats not too easy to calqulate and get working on a regular basis.

My prediction, there are no competitive small unit count armies because the Ork Codex is overpowered. I predict that Orks will win every Grand Tournament for the next year. Gun lines will be overrun by Grots and Boyz. Small non-elite armies will be truck shocked off their objectives. Basilisks and Exocrists will be infiltrated into oblivion....

How would you equip the Grey Knight Land Raiders.... (LOL).

You're crazy if you think the Ork Codex is overpowered.

Templates and the like make it ridiculously easy to kill Orks, and if you're worried about 4+ cover saves, just shoot the ones closest instead of intervening models.

Just about every army in the game can deal with Ork hordes when built for 5th Edition, you just have to adjust your selection and get out of the 4th Edition mentality.

IMO, Nids are still one of the best armies in the game. The "Boom Fex" as our local guys have dubbed it is the new vogue Elite Choice: Scything Talons + Barbed Strangler. Backed up by a Horde of Gaunts, Synapse that can keep up, and Genetealers that come in via short table edges, they're like Orks but with better support.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:You're crazy if you think the Ork Codex is overpowered.

Denial

Templates and the like make it ridiculously easy to kill Orks, and if you're worried about 4+ cover saves, just shoot the ones closest instead of intervening models.

Like the gretchin right? Thanx for the tip.

Just about every army in the game can deal with Ork hordes when built for 5th Edition, you just have to adjust your selection and get out of the 4th Edition mentality.

Every army can kill 180 plus models easy?...when in cover?....with 30+Lootaz blasting away at them at extreme range? I may try to take you up on that challenge with grey knights.....SHYEEAAA, RIIGGHT.

IMO, Nids are still one of the best armies in the game. The "Boom Fex" as our local guys have dubbed it is the new vogue Elite Choice: Scything Talons + Barbed Strangler. Backed up by a Horde of Gaunts, Synapse that can keep up, and Genetealers that come in via short table edges, they're like Orks but with better support.

With one of Tyranids best weapons being rending and the way 5th neuters it; also the way big bugs are going to be able to be targetted with possibly having a problem getting proper cover....I question how great Tyranids are now. Seems to me that they're a solid army but not really one of the 'best'.

Dont try to deflect attension...we all know about you dipping your orks!!!

Blackmoor wrote:
#1. With the amount of 4+ cover saves, and the ability to run, I would think that shooting armies have lost quite a bit.

...not with area terrain and no consolidating into combat they havnt. Expect rapid fire weapons to get crazy use now. (I WISH I still had my guard..its gonna be so ugly)

#2. Combat resolution favors tough troops because they will not be taking many losses, thus it is harder to beat them in assault.

Tough troops seem tough only against shooting really. "Tough" Troops generally excel at "being tough" and not dishing it out in CC. Have some "Tough" troops charged by some Khorne Berserkers and you'll see what I mean. Combat Resolution favors the "Heavy Hitters" in close combat more than any tough troops. If you can get your kill count up....you're going to see some seriously 'hard-to-make' morale checks and fearless units will be rolling lots of armour saves after combat resolution.

"You're crazy if you think the Ork Codex is overpowered."

I'm a competitive player, so I don't use the term overpowered, but the Ork codex is the best codex in the game, currently. The contortions necessary to get other codexes to beat a simple Green Tide army leave them non-competitive, and they don't even lock in the win, Snikrot might come in on round 2. In a classic SF2 sense, it's a degenerate condition. Adepticon was all green, but it only confirmed what the theorycrafters had proven ahead of time. Orks have the crown.

I dunno, my stock 2k Sisters can probably brutalize orks. No large blasts saddly, but 5 HBs, 30-40 bolters and plenty of flamers makes me think I can deal with them well.

I do think 5th changes things in favor of large masses of shooting and bodies, since there is lots of cover to be had along with different wound assignment rules that make high volume of fire more likely to kill expensive models. In general I rather think las/plas armies are going to take a hit, though I don't know that this will make orks a definite best codex, just that their "standard good list" just happens to work well with the new rules, as opposed to other armies that need to alter their 4th lists.

How will those sisters handle battlewagons filled with boys? Or commandos jumping your HB teams? Also, after 1 round of boltering you will get assulted so it isnt that easy.

SoB will be nice and will be intresting to see around altho orks will still have quite a good chance against them.

Orks will be dead ard in 5th. Especially with 4+ cover saves everywere.

4+ Cover saves are not "everywhere".

You can not take 180 Ork Boyz + 30 Lootas in any normal kind of points level. And IMO Lootas are not all that in 5th Edition, I'd rather spend the points elsewhere considering that while Templates put a big "dent" in hordes, they murder Lootas with the no partials rule.

Snikrot is also very problematic in any scenario other than a complete throw away unit. If you build a big unit with him, they come in, kill a unit (maybe 2 if you're lucky and multi-assault), and die to shooting due to the no consolidation rules. He'll work wonders against certain lists and fail vs. others.

Grots prove somewhat interesting, but for their cost I'm not sure how worth it they are. They're taking wounds on 2's for just about anything, so inflicting the 8 casualties needed to cause a morale test isn't that hard. LD7 with a re-roll isn't that great (they're running 1/4th of the time).

Will running Ork Boyz murder most 4th Edition army builds? Yes.

Will they stand up against the new rules? I doubt it.

Orks in 4th are amazing because you can move up, shooting (which will inflict decent casualties, but nothing staggering), and eventually charge - which is where you'd normally do your damage through numbers and a PK Nob. All the while the "horde" boxes people in, and they've got really fast units to tie things up in CC.

In 5th, if you charge, you kill a unit, and have no chance to survive the incoming shooting because after most assaults you will not:

#1) Have a Screening unit to give you cover saves
#2) Have a KFF to give you the 5+ Cover Save.

Combine this without being able to "hide" behind Blocking LOS terrain, and suddenly things like Storm Boyz are expensive and suck.

Suddenly Trukk mounted Boyz suck.

Again, I should state that I think 5th Ed Horde Orks are great and all that - but they're going to struggle vs. IG, Tau, and Lash Chaos. And that's at a minimum.

EDIT: This isn't me trying to misdirect people on Orks, and I'm super secretly building a massive horde to run at tourneys, etc.

Right now my revamped horde of Orks remains unbuilt (gladly so, as 5th changed my army build significantly) and I'm seriously contemplating not playing 40k in tournaments for the foreseeable future, concentrating instead on WHFB.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:

In 5th, if you charge, you kill a unit, and have no chance to survive the incoming shooting because after most assaults you will not:

I think you might be thinking too much about units in isolation. If you charge with 1 unit then you will kill a unit and then that unit may be in trouble. If you charge with half a dozen units then the picture changes a lot.

If you advance half a dozen units across the table then you might not be able to get them all into combat in the same turn, but by the time the first unit hits CC then even if it is stranded out in front of the enemy gunline the other Ork units should be close enough to be threatening the rest of the enemy line.

Flinty

Voodoo Boyz wrote:4+ Cover saves are not "everywhere".

I'm sorry, lemme rephrase...."almost everywhere". You're right, much more accurate, sorry, my mistake.

You can not take 180 Ork Boyz + 30 Lootas in any normal kind of points level. And IMO Lootas are not all that in 5th Edition, I'd rather spend the points elsewhere considering that while Templates put a big "dent" in hordes, they murder Lootas with the no partials rule.

I meant 180 WITH 30 lootas included...thats not so far fetched. If you dont think that lootas are "all that" well....thats your first mistake. All the winningest lists at adepticon sported them in some generous fashion. However you slice it...4e OR 5e..its always a ton of Autocannon shots....I dont see people ignoring that.

Snikrot is also very problematic in any scenario other than a complete throw away unit. If you build a big unit with him, they come in, kill a unit (maybe 2 if you're lucky and multi-assault), and die to shooting due to the no consolidation rules. He'll work wonders against certain lists and fail vs. others.

Snikrot is obviously a matter of taste...some people love him, some dont, but if you're bringing Kommando's...he makes them better regardless.

Will running Ork Boyz murder most 4th Edition army builds? Yes.

Will they stand up against the new rules? I doubt it.

Orks in 4th are amazing because you can move up, shooting (which will inflict decent casualties, but nothing staggering), and eventually charge - which is where you'd normally do your damage through numbers and a PK Nob. All the while the "horde" boxes people in, and they've got really fast units to tie things up in CC.

In 5th, if you charge, you kill a unit, and have no chance to survive the incoming shooting because after most assaults you will not:

Orks are a shooting army now...most top Ork players will tell you....with a strong HtH phase, but a lions share of the damage is done while shooting.

#1) Have a Screening unit to give you cover saves
#2) Have a KFF to give you the 5+ Cover Save.

.....no, have a screening unit of 30 boys with the special character Doc under a KFF all of a sudden you have what almost amounts to a twin linked 4+ cover....on 6pt boys.

Combine this without being able to "hide" behind Blocking LOS terrain, and suddenly things like Storm Boyz are expensive and suck.

they got better with the new codex but there are better selections competing for spaces in your army list.

Suddenly Trukk mounted Boyz suck.

They never WERE any good in the new codex anyway.

Again, I should state that I think 5th Ed Horde Orks are great and all that - but they're going to struggle vs. IG, Tau, and Lash Chaos. And that's at a minimum.

EDIT: This isn't me trying to misdirect people on Orks, and I'm super secretly building a massive horde to run at tourneys, etc.

Right now my revamped horde of Orks remains unbuilt (gladly so, as 5th changed my army build significantly) and I'm seriously contemplating not playing 40k in tournaments for the foreseeable future, concentrating instead on WHFB.

I think if you look at the top winners in tournements over the next year...you'll indeed be seeing ork players on top of the heap and playing with lots of lootaz, lots of shooting, and good HtH....winning games over, and over, and over.....

Deadshane1,

The only way you're getting 4+ cover to the majority of your Boyz is with screening units. The solution to this is to shoot the screening unit. Yes you can give them a KFF to keep them alive, but the issue with Orks is that once you get them down to about 8-9 models from shooting, their's a good chance they're running. Once that screen

You're not going to get that much cover otherwise, not with 180 Models, or the 150 or whatever you have dedicated to moving up and shooting.

On Lootas:

Of course the Adepticon Ork armies had them, they're FANTASTIC in 4th! They kill Falcons, they kill 3+ Save Carnifex's, they're the most reliable long-range anti-tank of the Ork army!

But in 5th, they start to suck for anti-tank duty now, and unlike 4th, AV14 now becomes attractive and Lootas can't even scratch the paint. Also, they're easier to eliminate than before. Right now their issue is that long range firepower that hits can see them running quickly and easily, this gets even easier to do in 5th Ed with the new template rules, also with the infiltrate/scout rules they face more threats than they did before and they clock in with a pretty hefty points cost.

Personally, for a similar cost I see units of 3 Kanz, backed up by a KFF Mek to run along side a horde of Boyz. This helps a ton vs. many armies (Lash), and gives multiple threats that can move and provide fire support (Rokkits) while being extremely resilient to damage.

Kallbrand wrote:How will those sisters handle battlewagons filled with boys? Or commandos jumping your HB teams? Also, after 1 round of boltering you will get assulted so it isnt that easy.

SoB will be nice and will be intresting to see around altho orks will still have quite a good chance against them.

Battlewagons: If open topped, Exorcists pound them at range. AP1 + opentopped means when they get that 6 to pen (which is admittedly a rough requirement) the wagons are hurting. Even if they don't, the unit pops out, assaults with what, 20 boyz? No problem, I pop invulnerable saves, and strike simultaneously, or pop better initiative and strike first. If you wipe the unit, oh well, I shoot you to death next turn.
If closed top, you are not going to be assaulting out of them after they move. At that point, I don't care what comes out, it will just get shot to death.
Alternately, seraphim hop up and nuke the tank, depending on situation.

Sneaky gits: You pop out, kill one squad. Those 15 boyz still strike simultaneously with the girls. Girls kill a couple, then die. Then you get shot to death, and lose 15 expensive boys.

The trouble the orks are going to have is dealing with so many bolters. Sisters cost less than marines and have no real heavy weapons to spend points on. The result is an army that has a few issues with armor heavy forces, but rock against lightly armored hordes. Flamers are suddenly killing everything they wound. Do you have battle wagons? Ok, that's less bodies to kill, and Sisters don't care about Orks's AP3. Kommandos? Slightly irritating, but again, less total bodies.

The difference in small arms fire output between Sisters and Marines is startling for folks who are not used to it. The ability to ignore AP and power weapons really wrecks armies that are made for killing MEQ. I am not saying Sisters will cakewalk orks, but I do think that of all the MEQ armies, they might have one of the easiest times. Maybe chaos boys, who out melee orks in many cases, will be tricky too, but I just don't think that orks can really deal with the sheer volume of bolter rounds and flame templates coming their way without troubles.

The problem with sisters is if you go Mech or Horde. Mech Sisters will probably have issues dealing with horde orks since we can pop rhinos, and since the Ork player should know Flamers are coming, they can build a buffer unit spread out to limit damage, and even if you kill one 30 Boy mob, the Ork player should have 3+ mobs of them left afterwards who can shoot/assault the remaining sisters.

Also Orks have an effective shooting range of 24" where the Sisters are only 18", so for the Horde Sisters vs. Horde Orks the Orks are shooting sooner and can try to dance around the girls.

And I don't care if you go "invulnerable", Orks are S4 on the charge, have S4 AP6 guns. You don't die from power weapons, you die because I'm going to overload your 3+ save with way too many attacks.

Yes Flamers = Dead Orks, but all the girls have got are flamers, and it isn't as easy to get to the horde of boyz as you may think it is.

I do think Orks will have a lot of issues vs. specific builds, but Sisters are amazingly not one of them.

Never discount the power of a mech sisters army, played correctly. Played correctly, it acts as one huge angry unit that takes a large bite out of your army every turn while shielding itself from counterattack. It's not invincible, but I've beaten many people who didn't think that bolters were a threat to them.

But we're off topic! Sisters are not a small CC oriented army. Neither are orks!

I think that Blood Angels and Black Templars make good elite, close combat lists. I'm not sure how competitive Ravenwing is, but it's out there too. I question the wisdom of wanting to play an army without shooting; I've known Fantasy devotees with the same goal, and it never works out too well for them. Not that the OP is trying to do that. I just want to emphasize that even CC armies need some firepower...

+1 on the Grey Knight Land Raider horde.

It's not THAT expensive.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:4+ Cover saves are not "everywhere".

You can not take 180 Ork Boyz + 30 Lootas in any normal kind of points level.

?

1 warboss+pk+bosspole+eavy armor=90

30 shoota boys +nob +pk=215 x6= 1290

15 lootas= 225 x2 = 450

total points cost=1830

at 2000, you can really trick them out with rokkits and the like, and have perhaps even a second warboss