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My 2 cents: with everything going as mech as it is, Lash is nowhere near the factor it once was.

I have no interest in buying more Codices than I'm already buying.

Nor more frequently than already.

So is that a "yes, I buy every codex" or a "no I don't buy every codex"?

Off-Topic-I have a second army. Eldar. Will stay with only 2 armies until we get a bigger place to live. I Will not sell off the 2 I have. I won't go into my annoyance at the SM&IG model lines recieving preffered treatment from GW and how it hurts the game by making everything the same old same old.

On-topic: Was intending this thread to be more about prevailing build strategies and the percieved direction they are going. That right now there seems to be a fair representation of the various styles of armies.

Not intending so much about the Release cycle and its problems, there are several other threads on dakka covering that subject.


Are armies able to feild several differing effective build in this environment?

I'm not looking for a Tau-centric answer. Looking towards the overall picture.

I only buy the Codices I need.

Thanks Cannerus, which mech builds seem to be on the rise?

Are all the lash armies the same? Lash with oblits? Or do we see variations on that? I've seen someone use lash to bring enemy units closer to his Berzerkers and raptors....

If there were so many Mech armies, they would negate the Lash....

I once posted a pretty huge article on tourney tiers and the meta game over on bolterandchainsword for last year's 'Ard Boyz. What I wrote is mostly still true despite needing some updates for Marines and IG.

Basicly, you need to rate the tourney tiers and metagames on the most powerful builds, which can be broken down with fairly quantifable figures.

For the tourney tier, Ratings were based on a list's math hammer and its ease of play. For example, Horde shoota orks have fantastic math hammer, and fantastic ease of play, thus they got rated in the highest tier.

For metagames, mech for me was and still is the number 1 metagame. This is pretty simple to quantify--if you have nothing to bust vehicles, and the enemy has vehicles, then you simply can not hurt your opponent, plain and simple. 35 point rhino dedicated transports are just about the most broken unit, point for point, in the game.

I say broken, because for 35 points, your simple tac squad not only becomes immune to small arms, it has a really good resiliancy to heavy weapons (they have to kill the rhino before even taking any damage), increases the squads movement to 12, and can allow you to tank shock enemy units right off of an objective.

After the mech metagame, the next most important metagame to me is anti-horde. Like the mech metagame, if your opponent is properly 'horded' then without dedicated anti-horde abilities you will be unable to deal enough damage to the horde. The factions that can field Horde armies, however, are far fewer than mech armies, thus making them a more minor metagame than mech. Also, any tourney with a painting component will see even fewer horde armies, as such a large number of models will require intense commitment to buy, build, and paint. Plus, it takes more time to physically move around so many models, which hurts your decisiveness.

After my 2 main metagames, there are several secondary metagames. Anti-psyker is a minor metagame, as it is only really helpfull versus the twin lash and psychic eldar armies, and even then the best antipsyker stuff is unreliable with only about a 50% chance at success.

There is anti monstrous creature metagames, pushed to a minor role due to 'nidzilla being far less competitive than before. There is the ever present anti-meq metagame, as MEQ armies are still the most populus army type. There is the land raider metagame, a more focuced mech metagame dealing with the 14 all round 'raiders. There is the antidaemon metagame, including everyones favorite Sanctuary, mystic, and psycannon abuse--Fatecrusher did win 'ard boyz last year. Hmmm... ah anti-nobs/nob bikers, aka taking terminators and other massed s8 attacks, can be considered a metagame due to their popularity last year.

Out of all the minor metagames, one that I think is most important for US events, especially 'ard boyz, is a decisivness metagame. In a nutshell, armies that win more decisively get more points, and thus higher rankings, than armies that just win. As stated, Tau are not a decisive army, despite being able to be a winning army. Also, horde armies, due to the amount of extra time required, tend to not be very decisive as games can end on only turn 3. Really, any army that plays slow is not decisive. Players who naturally 'slow play' do not fit into this, as we are only interested in the armies generic qualities on their own. Decisive armies also establish a winner quickly, thus since most tournies have a time limit, for no other reason you will finish more games with a more decisive army.

Thank you DevianID,very informative.
Have speed builds and mobility gone completely out of consideration? Are they now just considered mech or more appropriately mech-dar?

The issue with speed builds, exemplified by 'mechdar,' is that they are not great at killing the enemy while they are boosting around trying not to die. While yes, moving 36 inches and pushing the enemy off 4 of the objectives while only holding 1 can get you a win, if you need decisive wins (like 'ardboys or the US GTs) then 1 objective is only a minor win.

Also, random game length was instituted pretty much exactly because of 'mech-dar' and the last minute objective grab. When they boost on turn 5, if there is a turn 6 then you can deal crippling damage to the contesting units. Also, such an army that is forced to go first can be at a huge disdvantage, as they are also suseptable to being contested at the last minute.

So more or less, in my opinion the much stronger eldar army is one that focuses on lots of transports and tanks that shoot, with minimum dire avenger squads that pretty much do nothing other than get you a wave serpant, and fire dragons for massed melta attacks.

People have also had success with Wraithlords, but since prettymuch everyone runs around with a fist nowadays, I think the Wraithlords lost a lot of oomph.