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So what I'm looking at here is trying to find which balanced armies or overlooked armies could beat up a top teir army in a one off game (no specific tooling of the armies allowed).
For instance:
I am convinced that a medium shooty dwarf list could rip deamons apart. Any kind of deamon. Now that same list would probabally fall to rez-happy vampires but that doesnt matter.

Player A and I had a similar discussion once, (Who can beat the Gauntlet, all 4 daemon purist armies), and we came up with a High Elf list led by a Star Dragon prince and loaded down with repeater bolt throwers and hard fighting elites as our answer. Also in the running is the classic empire popemobile stank goalie gunline.

Well, here in Sacto. I've been having lots of luck against both daemons and vamps with my wood elves.

This past Friday I played against a Bloodthirster, 2x Khorne Heralds, hounds, 2xhorrors, 2xflamers, 2xbloodletters and 2xfuries list with my balanced Woodies and came out with a minor victory. The terrain advantages and ability to avoid combats I don't want helped me keep the Bloodthirster, Heralds and 'Letters chasing shadows all game while I killed everything else. The Daemons' low T helps Woodies mop up most of the Deamons.

Against Vamps, Woodies are good at charectar assassination, march-blocking and avoiding the skelly blocks and Grave guard deathstars. A wand of wych elm goes a long way towards limiting rez as well.

Wow 40k, those are more of what I would call the top teir lists.
Looking for the more balanced lists that are the rock to one or more top lists.

Dwarves can beat anything.

O&G.

Black orc general (or Skarsnik)
Gobbo BSB with raggedy red banner
2 level 2 NG mages
5-6 25-30 'man' units of NGs with weapons at players choice
2 fanatics per NG unit
4 bolt throwers with bullies
Spider riders (5)
8 squig hoppers
2 giants

I took the above list (Skarsnik leading) and drew vs daemons at a tourney, and would have been a good sized win \if he hadn't killing blowed my giant with skulltaker (we later found out skulltaker couldn't KB him as the giant is not a character).

Also WEs would be right up there as long as there was some terrain to hide in. As Marshal Torrick pointed out they can pick their fights and blast away with shooting, that is accurate enough to kill flamers.

Well, when it comes to VC and their annoying zombie tarpits, WoC don't seem to have a problem. Chaos Warriors have 3 S4 attacks each on the charge, and could easily bring down a tarpit by sheer weight of attacks.

Khorne Warriors would be even better against VC. They just wouldn't be able to sustain their meatshields. This works fine for me, but YMMV.

Another way for WoC to beat VC is with the use of strong area-effect spells and abilities (Bloodcurdling Roar, Plague Squall, and Infernal Gateway). Vilitch could be the answer.

I'm curious to try some EoG spam against summon tarpits.

Slan with "no 6s for you", "More dice for me" and "I know everything" or MR3. Banner of "mages are stupid", Cupped hands of you get my miscasts, power stone.

Lvl 2 skink priest with cube of darkness/ engine.
lvl 2 skink priest with bane head, dispel scroll.

3x skink skirmishers

temple guard

2 salamanders

Sorry Cypher, I don't think the non top tier lists can beat the top tier lists. I was looking for mid top tier lists that could beat the very top, given good rolls+ play. I don't know any answers now that I understand your question properly. If they existed, we wouldn't call the top tier top.

VC is the weak link of the top tier, there inclusion as a top army rest almost solely on their ability to beat daemons. Any army that can bring units with high number of attacks can blast through a block of high combat res skeletons or zombies. Its really not that hard to smash a unit of guard too. Dark elves are a top army because they beat VC, and almost all the other armies. Daemons are the best army easily, because they almost auto win vs all but the most list tailored enemy list. A general of almost any army can beat them with the right list, but they can't beat them and win vs the other 2 armies.

High elves are top on the list of armies that can compete with the best 3, it just takes a very solid list and good general. Dwarves, wood elves, and chaos warriors, while very narrow and generally bad, can also win vs the top 3. Empires ability to be ok at everything, and a couple of silly non fluffy units (what empire army would have access to 2 stanks, a war alter, and only have a handful of normal rank and file? its not like steam tanks grow on trees!)give them a fighting chance. Chaos dwarfs, while not really supported, can also win vs most armies, including the top ones.

In general, in a normal big tourney setting, its going to be very difficult to repeatedly beat the top armies lead by competent players. VC and DE are the most easily beaten, because unlike daemons, they have to be well played to win. Many of the people playing them are army of the month guys, so they don't always have the best generals. Daemons are very hard to beat, even when piloted by an average or even bad general. The problem is that some of the best players are playing the most powerful book, making it virtually impossible to win.

VC are the weakest link in the top tiers?

Man you are playing some pretty weak VC lists, or some pretty poor players if you're going to try and sell me on that line.

I second that.

Which of the top 3 would you say is the weakest? DE have a lower win percentage than VC, mostly because they are harder to run IMHO. VC also have a better match-up vs daemons which is the most popular army. Over all I think DE are a better list, but VC is a better meta game choice.

This is my tiers list:

1 Daemons, they have very few bad builds.
2 VC, mostly on ability to beat daemons, and doesn't lose often to the lower tiers.
3 DE, because it beats VC, and doesn't auto lose vs Daemons. They don't win as much as VC vs daemons, and so they have #3 spot. The entire book is really under priced, and even the junk units beat most or the lower tier stuff.
4 HE, because they can beat most armies, and doesn't auto lose to many lists. They have some pretty unfair stuff, even if their shooting is kinda bad for elves.
5 Lizards, because this is an army that can do most things well, and can beat some of the better lists. The only reason I have them at 5 rather than 3-4 is that they are a little too fair. (as in the lower tiers can have a chance)
6 Skaven, their ranged units are very scary, and they have so many guys that they can throw away to you and still come out on top.

7: everything but Beastmen, ogres, and O&G. I lump most of these armies together because even though within this group they are tiers, none of them are really head and shoulders better.

8: OG. A list that would be good if it weren't shackled with dumb fluff rules that make them randomly terrible. Lots of fun to play, and they have some down right nasty spoiler lists that can beat even the best.... but only if your armies decides to cooperate.

9: beastmen and ogres. Beastmen were balanced with the idea that they could take allies, which they now can't, and ogres need just a little help to get them over the top. A points reduction on either the ogres or the command groups would help. And Cav is needed badly, and why do the leadbelchers have such terrible rules?

Other than the top 3, the rest is actually pretty close in quality (though beastmen and ogres are just really bad).

You kind of answered you own question there. The only thing that VC worry about against DE are assassins and black guard with the strike first banner, everything else is inconsequential.

VC have the ability to royally screw up and fix everything in the magic phase which no other army can. That's the main reason they are better than everything besides Daemons.

Well, the mobile shooting/magic DE I normally take can shoot to nothing 1 full block a turn. You can't fix a unit that isn't there. Flame templates from hydras support this. A fully cheesed out DE wizard can toss more dice in a turn than an entire VC army. And this comes cheap enough to still take a solid combat unit, like Black guard, or cold one chariots.

The assassins are a bit overrated. The throwing star one is like a mobile bolt throw, and the combat ones are just extra combat characters.... when put that way i kinda kill my point don't I? Dang. I guess the real problem is that you can never really afford as many as you want to take!

I dont think there are any armies, top tier or not, with the exception of daemons, that are truly better than the others, they are just easier to use. A 'crap' army book in the hands of a pro is as scary to me as a 'good' one in the same hands.

i have to agree with Leith, i personaly think it all depends on who ever is behind the wheel, i used to use VC and i got my arse handed to my by a realy compitent player who used orcs and gobbos, i lost badly.

Leith wrote:I dont think there are any armies, top tier or not, with the exception of daemons, that are truly better than the others, they are just easier to use. A 'crap' army book in the hands of a pro is as scary to me as a 'good' one in the same hands.

Well, wouldn't you put "ease of use" as an inherent trait of powerful armies?

While I agree with your point about the caliber of the player behind the army being more of a factor than the inherent strength of a list, it's also rather silly to compare armies (on a one-on-one basis) with the assumption that the players are unequal in generalship.

cypher wrote:So what I'm looking at here is trying to find which balanced armies or overlooked armies could beat up a top teir army in a one off game (no specific tooling of the armies allowed).
For instance:
I am convinced that a medium shooty dwarf list could rip deamons apart. Any kind of deamon. Now that same list would probabally fall to rez-happy vampires but that doesnt matter.

Shooty dwarfs and particulary shooty empire can give daemons some trouble. The dwarfs and empire need to bring the best toys, though (anvil,waltar+stank etc.), and DoC flesh hound spam can still be too much to handle for them.

no i dont factor ease of use as better, rather more popular. People take armies like daemons and VC and DE to tourneys to win, and win is what they do because all the other good players brought the same.
As for the unequal generalship, i see daemons and VC and DE get beaten on a regular basis by O&G, Empire, Warriors, Dwarfs, HE, and even Dogs of War on occasion. The truth is the better general always wins (longterm standings, here), because he brought a good army and can use it better than his opponent. What book that army is from doesnt factor in to it according to my observations.

@Leith: again, I'm in agreement with your comments about Generalship > Army List, but that doesn't address my point - the point that in a game between equally skilled players, some army lists would have better chances (more forgiving for bad rolls of the dice) against others.

And I feel like your points about ease of use/popularity still add more to the argument that there are lists that are better than others. I would argue (and I'm sure you disagree with me here) that the popularity of an army, especially in tournament scenes, is directly related to the ease with which it is possible to win with that given army. Yes, a superior player can take a "less popular" army to a tournament and win, but I would wager that the "more popular" armies are chosen because of their ability to dominate many phases of play without losing out too much on other phases. Again, I'm referring in all of these points, to army comparisons between players of equal skill.

As far as my opinions about the army books - I feel that other than the Daemons book, the rest of the "Top Tier" armies are pretty well balanced with the exception of a few underpriced magic items/combos.

actually the point is that no army list is better because there is no such thing as equal skill. You choose the army, you choose what to take from that book, and you choose how to use it. People say daemons are a really good army but they arent, the reason they do so well is because the list is broken, ie it breaks all the normal conventions of warhammer. Most players have to make a major shift in thinking to beat the army and then they still have trouble because it doesnt adhere to the same rules that theirs does. VC does this too.
If all the books are equal, as i am proposing they are, then a good empire player could consistantly beat a good daemon player, and vice versa, while a bad empire player could beat a bad daemon player.
So why then do we see a consistant number of certain armies, daemons, VC and DE, at the tops of all the tournament ladders? Because good players like to play them, daemons and VC are hard for less exerianced players to understand and DE have some very prominent items and units.
So the question 'who beats the top dogs?' 'Which overlooked armies can beat the top teir books?' is a self answering question: all of them.

Ludicrous.

Here's a Daemon list, and not a particularly strong one

Bloodthirster w/rerolls, flame blade, armor of khorne, killing blow
Herald w/Jugger, armor of khorne, BSB w/grand standard of sundering
10 Pink Horrors
10 Pink Horrors
10 Pink Horrors
6 Flesh Hounds
6 Flesh Hounds
6 Flesh Hounds
5 Flesh Hounds + Karanak
3 Bloodcrushers

Play a game of that vs. your Take all comers Tomb King list, whatever that may be, or more hilariously yet, Beasts of Chaos. Play a couple of times, get a feel for both armies, get a friend who plays well over to take over one side, whatever. Post the batrep where you make no egregious mistakes with the Daemons, and they have no wretched dice rolls, and they lose.

It can't be done. The 5 Dispel dice + standard of sundering completely shuts down the Beast's magic phase, and the Beasts can't outfight any one of the 6 blitzing components of that list, much less big red.

It takes skill to play warhammer optimally. If you care enough about the game to post about it on a board you have that skill. Game's outcome will be determined by, roughly, the following metric.

Are you and your opponent both optimal players? If yes:
WHo built the better list and got luckier. If no, who is optimal.

optimal player is indicative of who built the better list, luck only has a factor in one game, play twenty and the statistics even out.

Im gonna agree with 40k here.
There are better lists and worse lists.
Not every army is equally good.

For instance.
Take bretonians against vampires. 9 times out of 10 a summoning hoard vamp army will beat a bretonian army no matter the skills of the players or the luck/tooling involved.

Vamps are just the rock to the bretonian's scissors.

It does seem the intent was to create a rock/paper/scissors setup where certain armies have advantages vs some armies and weaknesses vs others but in reality it seems that some armies are above this and it is difficult to beat an uber-rock with a piece-of-crap paper.

In plain English, all armies are not created equally.

The key to beating DoC is always going to be light shooting. Such an army will work equally well against most DE builds, also. Any army with easy access to light shooting is going to have an advantage, especially if it can be backed up with some solid magic. The trick is you have to have a way to deal with regenerating GG (or Doggy Deathstar) as well in the same list to contend against the VC. With that in mind, I think there are a couple armies that, while not as strong against the main field, are solid bets against the top three:

1) Lizardmen EotG spam- As long as you can keep the priests from getting assasinated, you can grind down anything with a combination of burning alignment and suarus spear beatdown, backed by ludicrous amounts of blowpipe spam.

2) Brettonian Peasants- Lots of archers with flaming arrows, protected by tons of cheap CR5 blocks is a huge problem for DoC and the flaming arrows screw the regen units pretty massively too. Any GD is also going to be stuck dodging rocks from Trebuchets all game, too.

3) Dwarf Anvil Army- For 5 points, every dwarf character can be immune to Thirster attacks (assuming they take FSB) and they can win the CR game through a combination of Oath Stones, light shooting, and powerful war machines. The only issue is that unless you load up on Spelleater runes, VC eat you alive.

Re-rolling greater daemons are the real issue. Everything else is just about handleable.

Even a dwarf anvil list will suffer against a fast daemon army. Seekers, Flamers and screamers are all able to be in your face in turn 2.

fitzeh wrote:Re-rolling greater daemons are the real issue. Everything else is just about handleable.

Even a dwarf anvil list will suffer against a fast daemon army. Seekers, Flamers and screamers are all able to be in your face in turn 2.

Altough the Seekers and Screamers are faster than Khorne stuff, they are quite vulnerable to light shooting (and one anvil-hit may neutralize the screamer unit for example). In addition, the flamers certainly aren't the most dangerous things vs dwarfs, as the t4 and decent armor helps against their shooting. I'd be more worried if the DoC-player had a unit of Fiends. In essence Seekers & Screamers => less Flesh Hounds => Easier for the dwarfs.

But if a fast list means thirster+furies+flesh hound spam, then yes, dwarfs (and pretty much everybody else) is in trouble.