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Can you take a balanced list with space marines in 5th edition and expect to beat a true horde or swarm list? I mean in a tournament situation, which I am rarely in, you have to bring a list that is fairly balanced because, at least in the tournaments I have heard of, you don't know what list you are going to be playing. But given this if you bring a balanced list aren''t you at a disadvantage against a horde of rushing orks or nids?

It depends on what you mean by a 'Balanced list'.

If you mean what Stelek would call a Battleforce list (i.e. some tanks, some elite troops, some basic troops, some characters, some fast stuff etc....) then you're not talking about balance, you're talking about lack of focus.

Yes just this last weekend i beat horde nids with my BA. I took a semi decent sized fire base complete with 3 HB 1 Plaz cannon and 2 Missle Launchers, as well as a large assault force. Got to love combat squads. Since this new edition favors "objectives" At the end of the game he killed most of my stuff, (to the point of if we were playing VPs he would have won) but i held both objectives by the end of the game and was victorious.

When I say a balanced list I am referring to whatever you playing your main 40k army would consider balanced.

you have to bare in mind that would you be considered a balanced list in 4th and what would be considered a balanced list in 5th differs somewhat. since low shot/low ap weapons become less good with all the cover saves knocking around people will begin to bring more high shot/high ap weapons. in cover a heavy bolter will deal with marines better than a plasma gun will. such weapons are also almost a necessity againt horde. the changes in blast rules also mean that you will see more plasma cannon/missile launchers than before, both of which are decent againt horde.

so yes it is possible to beat a horde list with a well balanced list. getting the balance right is the hard part.

The idea of a balanced list is to make sure you have a little something for everything and that it all works well together. This means that you have various units to fill various roles. What it doesn't mean is that your army has to have a little bit of everything. You can make a balanced mech list or a balanced foot list or a balanced horde list for that matter.

In general the things you have to blanace are:
Shooting / Assault
Mobility
Anti Tank / anti infantry

So if we look at say a mech list, a balanced one will contain both assault units and short ranged shooty units. It might also have anti tank special / heavy weapons mounted on transports or designated squads while the bulk of the transported squads might be outfited with anti troop special weapons. Finally, the mech nature of the list means that it has mobility covered.

Similarly, an all foot list might be mostly shooty units (gun line style) with a mix of anti troop and anti tank weapons. Then it could have some jump pack style assault units that can move in later in the game for assault coverage of the wounded incomming enemy. They could also be used for covering the army's mobility requirements as well.

In either case, while balanced lists can struggle against lists that have overloaded on one aspect or another, they tend to do better over all than ones that have overloaded. This is because they have the tools to acomplish any job (even if they don't have quite as many as you might like for the job at hand) but they are never caught compeltely without the tools they need.

That's one definition of a balanced list. The more common one in my area is a list that can take on any enemy it could possibly face. A list is balanced if it can win against horde, elite, mech, or any other type of list.

An army is unbalanced if there is a certain kind of build against which it is weak.

So, for example, in 4th a mech Eldar list was balanced because there was no other army in the game against which it was particularly vulnerable.

Building a list with lots of variety just for the sake of it is reffered to as a "hobby" list around here. These lists are designed to be weaker than an optimal build so that any enemy you face will have a good chance at defeating you.

If both players take a balanced list, the game should be good. If both players take a hobby list the game should also be good. The problem comes in when one player's "balanced" is another player's "hobby" or even "cheese". Since GW offers little help in this arena, it is up to your local gaming group to reach a local consensus and then it is on the individual to honor this agreement.

Democratus wrote:
An army is unbalanced if there is a certain kind of build against which it is weak.

So, for example, in 4th a mech Eldar list was balanced because there was no other army in the game against which it was particularly vulnerable.

So... you think a list is "balanced" if no other type of army or faction is on equivalent terms with it? Sorry but i'm going to disagree... to me that is the definition of "Overpowered"

Red_Lives wrote:

Democratus wrote:
An army is unbalanced if there is a certain kind of build against which it is weak.

So, for example, in 4th a mech Eldar list was balanced because there was no other army in the game against which it was particularly vulnerable.

So... you think a list is "balanced" if no other type of army or faction is on equivalent terms with it? Sorry but i'm going to disagree... to me that is the definition of "Overpowered"

Not according to what he wrote.
He said in fact that any army could at best be even. Thus someone else bringing the best he or she had to offer would be a fair fight.
Overpowered is only related to what you are playing against.
Which is what the rest of the post explained, as I read it.


shrug