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Hey guys. I just wanted to get your opinions on the best close combat armies and the best shooting armies. Maybe top 3 armies for each category. I am sure there are more categories than just close combat and shooting. These are the only ones I can think of, me being a Warhammer rookie and all. Feel free to add any you feel is important.

Not really a rule question. I'm moving this over to 40K discussions.

best CC army?

Orks. (ok, they're an all rounder.)

nids, obviously.

hmmm....

shooters?

For mobility and ability, I'd have to say tau.

For simply range and over the top firepower, imperial soldiers.

Allrounders:

Space marines, eldar, necrons:

why? they simply have excelent eitheror's.

Space marines are excelent at everything.

Eldar, good defence, good weapons and speed.

Necrons, costly, but powerful weaponry, great abilities and some great skills.

Best Shooting army - Gotta go with Guard, here.

Best Assault army - Hm... I'd like to say Orkz, but maybe Space Wolves?

Best CC army - Orks

Best Shooty army - Orks

Just all depends on the list you play...

no, orks are all rounders

zuperduper spehsmarheens are all rounders.

Shooty? guard.
Assault? space wolves.

I wouldn't say Orks are best at either. They're nice, but even with weight of attacks, I've found that they're hurt by the I2 and S3. As for shootiness, once again, they are hurt by the BS2. I've seen a squad of 15-ish Shootas fire and end up getting 5 hits. Take into account they need a 4 to wound against marines, they managed 2 wounds (Which amounted to zero due to saves).

For best shooty, I think it's a dead tie between Imperial Guard and Tau Empire. IG have better tanks, but Tau have some really awesome guns. S5 AP5 Range 30" basic guns? S7 AP4 Assault 2 at 36"? And don't forget the 72" Railgun at S10 AP1, with the option to go S6 AP4 Large Blast on the Hammerhead.

As for assaulty, it's gotta be the Nids. If any of their monstrous creatures get into close combat, the unit it assaults is likely to be torn open like a tin can. And in a mech-heavy metagame, they're excellent for stomping upfield to be a giant can opener for those tanks. Factor in Genestealers and some of their other CC units, and they easily take the gold medal for assault armies.

Shooting? Guard, SWs, SMs (both in Max-OD mode )

CC: Khorne Berzerkers are still my unit of choice for a devastating assault unit that can be taken as troops, so I'll go with CSM, followed by black templar and then space wolves.

Shooting: IG is currently king of firepower. Followed by Eldar and Tau. When supported by psychic powers, war walkers and dire avengers are incredibly killy. Tau just aren't good at anything else and kinda mediocre at shooting.

Going by if you max an army out in that direction while still being a competitive list.

The best shooting army is DE hands down they bring more to the field then any other shooting army and have great weapons and speed. (Dark lances and Str 7 ap 2 blasts disintegrators). As for cc ill have to go with SW's or Nids both do it well and orks aren’t bad either they are extremely fast if made mech. But SW's for their basic cheap troops with 2 attacks 3 on the charge or the WG a unit of 10 possible (PF's, LC’s, TH, SS, FB, PW you pick it) are nasty and the saga's they have excellent. Nids because genestealers mainly in cc (the elite ones are probably the best cc unit in the game) MC's aren’t what they used to be imo my normal SW's can kill them with mass meltas and bolter fire.

I don't think there is a best <insert trait here> army. One army might have the best single CC/shooty unit, but the point costs and model counts balance that. Is a khorne berzerker army better than a space wolves army in CC? Is a tau army better than an IG army at shooting? I don't think those questions are answerable in any way that doesn't directly come from personal feelings based on what army you've played and/or hate to play against.

I would say that space marines/csm seem to be the most flexible in terms of choosing what you want to do with your army (shooting, cc, mech, psyker, etc), but most armies have a great deal of flexibility and army strategy options. Certainly IG/eldar/tau have great shooting armies, but they also have army options that use other aspects of those armies to succeed (massed guard, psyker/fast attack assault, ok well tau really don't do much but shoot).

Best cc armies: Orks and Nids, followed by Chaos Daemons.
Best shooting armies: IG, Tau, and Eldar.

Best Close-combat army: Tyranids

Best Shooting Army: Tau Empire

Easy

FoeHammer wrote:The best shooting army is DE hands down they bring more to the field then any other shooting army and have great weapons and speed. (Dark lances and Str 7 ap 2 blasts disintegrators). As for cc ill have to go with SW's or Nids both do it well and orks aren’t bad either they are extremely fast if made mech. But SW's for their basic cheap troops with 2 attacks 3 on the charge or the WG a unit of 10 possible (PF's, LC’s, TH, SS, FB, PW you pick it) are nasty and the saga's they have excellent. Nids because genestealers mainly in cc (the elite ones are probably the best cc unit in the game) MC's aren’t what they used to be imo my normal SW's can kill them with mass meltas and bolter fire.

IG can and will outshoot DE any day of the week.

CC: Nids. What else COULD it be? a concentrated assault from a nids army WILL win. second place BA.

Shooty: Tau Tau Tau. Tau. STR 5 basic weapon, cheap units, awesome charge from the kroot (3 attacks while chargin' at 8 points each. 'nuff said.) The railgun is the strongest weapon in the game. Pathfinders are the best scouts in the game, by a God-Damn LANDSLIDE. Indirect missle flyer. Piranha/Devilfish. summary: cover. IG are the next best in terms of firepower

IG is the undeniable gods of shooting, there is no one else in the game that can dish out as much Battle cannon and lasersight....er....lasgun shots in the game. You try and outshoot the guard, you will find yourself full of bullet holes.

CC, though, is a bit less clear. Daemons and Nids are built for CC, since one has quite a number of troops that just plain dont have a ranged weapon, while the other has ranged weapons, but the lackluster AP and abilites of all but a handful of them make it near-impossible to build a nid list focused on shooting. However quite a number of variant SM codexes can boast powerful CC troops, from Wolf Guard Terminators and TWC to BA Death Company and Furioso dreads (not to mention they get Assault Marines as troops) and of course there's always the Black tide, and Khorne Marines. Orks are also built for close-range face removal as well, even though they can do well in a dakka list too. Only Nids and Daemons are actually forced into the CC role, everyone else still has options.

Blood Angels can make some pretty devastating DoA assault lists.

Guard will always be the ranged overlords though.

As far as shooting goes, gonna go with guard here, not even the tau can outshoot them at this stage of the game.

Melee isn't quite so cut and dry, nids, Blood Angels, orks, daemons and black templars are all strong contenders for the top spot.

Not including GK because they're not out obviously.

Best shooting army was covered to death in this thread:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/331759.page

The consensus was IG followed by Tau.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

im2randomghgh wrote:CC: Nids. What else COULD it be? a concentrated assault from a nids army WILL win. second place BA.

Shooty: Tau Tau Tau. Tau. STR 5 basic weapon, cheap units, awesome charge from the kroot (3 attacks while chargin' at 8 points each. 'nuff said.) The railgun is the strongest weapon in the game. Pathfinders are the best scouts in the game, by a God-Damn LANDSLIDE. Indirect missle flyer. Piranha/Devilfish. summary: cover. IG are the next best in terms of firepower

Um...what? I understand where you are coming from but IG outshoot Tau. Tau have better quality, but IG has more volume and more templates. And I like how you said "cheap units". Tau have some of the most overcosted units in all of warhammer. 80 points for a transport? Are you kidding me? And "awesome charge from the kroot"? Sure you get 3 attacks, but a house of cards stands up better than some kroot. They are a passable CC unit, certainly not "awesome". And pathfinders are not the best scouts in the game. They are good, but not the best.

im2randomghgh wrote:CC: Nids. What else COULD it be? a concentrated assault from a nids army WILL win. second place BA.

I think BA win out here over Nids. Nids are an assaulty Horde without grenades.

Best CC army: BA

Best shooty army: Tau (in theory, but in reality, guard...

Close Combat: Daemons

Shooty: Guard

No one can ever say tau is the best shooting army when they have BS3 base...

Guard, Wolves come to mind when I think of high powered shooting armies.

Though I would Like to say eldar as well... the volume of S6-8 they can pump out in a single army is quite nasty. (To bad S6 means so little against vehicles...)

All around I would have to go with space marines. Not all factions, for obviously things like Black templar don't like shooting as much as other marines.

Wolves being a close combat army at heart... and being able to some the heavy weapons like that. I'm going to have to say them.

CC army? Well... when thinking anti-infantry and walker, nidz, orks, and daemons come to mind. Orks are only really good on the charge though, and with daemons it really depends on how soon they arrive, and if they can live through shooting long enough actually get to close combat (which with the fateweaver is more likely to happen than not)

My vote goes to Tyranids for the amount of poison and furious charge that can get for so little. Nothing is happy being in close combat with their 5 point models! And yes... having furious charge and poison actually does increase the damage output when you are vs T4... which most things are.

Guard are definitely the shootiest.

Best CC is tougher. I'll go with Blood Angels.

wisdomseyes1 wrote:No one can ever say tau is the best shooting army when they have BS3 base...

your forgetting the fact that a single markerlight adds an extra BS to the entire squad and that each and every additional markerlight reduces coversave by one.

Also, have you forgotten the railgun? an XV88 Broadside with targeting array has 89% accuracy with a STR 10 AP 1 72" range weapon? a team of three, in a six round game, would get ~15/16 hits. that means that you could kill ~15/16 GK in a regular game, as they would be insta-killed, w/o armour save, and with markerlights there is nowhere they could hide


Automatically Appended Next Post:
although, to be fair, they are good at different things, with the tau being almost catered to MEQ killing, while the sheer weight of fire of the IG being better at horde killing i.e. 'Nids/Orks/more IG

Shooting
1. Nids
2. SOB
3. More Nids
CC
1. Tau
2. Drones
3. IG

For weight of attacks orks win at cc especially with nobz!

Shooting id say tie between ig and tau.

If it werent for Markerlights i would definately agree w/ IG being shootier than Tau, but They are such amazing tools, they make all the difference, and change battle

trewbarton wrote:Shooting
1. Nids
2. SOB
3. More Nids
CC
1. Tau
2. Drones
3. IG

Wait what?

Every time someone asks this question, I feel obliged to give the same response.

Don't listen to hackneyed stereotypes from versions long gone. Guard have plenty of close combat ability. BA have plenty of shooting. Orks can have plenty of both.

Really, any army (except for perhaps tau) can do CC well, and any army (except perhaps demons) can do shooting well.

There is no "the" best shooting army and "the" best close combat army. 40k may be a somewhat shallow game, but it's not THAT two-dimensional.