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**adielubbe**

I-bounty-hunt-the-elderly wrote:
Eidolon wrote:
Top tier: Largely what makes an army top tier is the age of its codex. The increase of toughness in vehicles coupled with the troops only scoring bs of 5th edition has made the game much more hateful to older codexs. They normally pay more for their weapons then newer lists, and dont have the cheap troops of new dexs.

Space wolves-ability to handle almost anything, almost all units have multiple rolls to play.

Space marines-to a similar extent. They can design lists that have an answer to everything, but require a decent amount of skill to work. Can also design lists that run high in the durr hurr scale, such as multiple raider TH/SS rush.

Chaos-largely the 2 prince, plague/oblit lists. Same as marines, generally less numbers but more elite and tougher/harder hitting per unit.

Orks-dirt cheap troops, who are effective in hand to hand. Plus some of the best hand to hand in the game in the form of nob squads. They can throw a lot of shots too. The real strength of the orks though is sheer numbers. Point, Waaaagh, win, 180 dudes in 2000 points is downright hateful. Who cares if they cant deal with raiders, they will kill everything else, and that raider will not make its points back.

Guard-Lots of cheap troops, lots of shots, lots and lots of high strength shots.

Second tier: These are armies that can do alright if played very well, but generally arent as competitive as other lists. Largely due to being outdated. Tend to pay more for the same thing in new dex. Compare a twin linked bright lance serpent to a vendetta or valkyrie.

Eldar-Once the kings of 40k, they have been knocked down. The overcosting of our transports compared to new dexs, coupled with largely weak/overpriced troops has dropped this dex down in power by a lot. In addition our armies often lose out in the massacre system, because we simply cannot bring the sheer numbers of units to overwhelm our opponents. Can still do well, but generally require much more finesse then your opponent to win with.

Dark eldar-same boat as eldar. While better in objective missions, they lose out hard in kill points. Also in need of a new codex.

Nids-generally are not as strong as they were, troops only scoring means kill the tyrants and troops will run away, plus no ranged anti tank.

chaos demons-very hit or miss. IG with mystics is an instant win, as are marines with null zone. But can put a hurting on lists that struggle from inability to deal with monstrous creatures. Suffer from the same problem as above to armies-being shoehorned into one or two competitive builds. All below armies have this issue too.

Sisters-Horde of power armor, plus lots of melta and flamer means this is an army that can win big if played right. However they largely lose out in hand to hand.

Blood angels- have never truly seen them played. I will put them here for two reasons though. First they are marines, second they are hand to hand. However I hear they are largely overcosted. I figure they suffer from what all other second tier armies have, except chaos demons.

gak tier:

Necrons-lack of truly effective anti tank. Also the new combat system kills them off. Charge 20 necron warriors, kill more then you lost, watch them run, and sweep. Its happened plenty of times.

Tau- Ranged weapons becoming less effective against tanks really hurt them. As did the whole run move on everyone. Whole codex needs about a 25% reduction in points cost.

Demonhunters- assuming no inducted guard, they are not that good. Largely due to lack of anti tank, as all their anti tank comes from either land raiders or dreadnoughts. One is average at best, the other is pretty good but costs more then its worth shooting wise, and both compete for heavy support slots.

Other:
Dark angels, while largely a second tier army, you are simply better playing marines.

Damn good; and damn right too.

Very True.

**Backfire**

grankobot wrote:
Actually yeah, I would say that.

Armies should be judged by their best builds, not their worst. The worst of tau is really, really bad. Mind bogglingly bad, far worse than the worst of orks. This is probably where the army gets its bad rep - new players pick it up, and get their asses handed to them because it's very easy to screw yourself. Orks are much easier to pick up - put your models on the table, run at the other guy. Hurrrrrr.

The best of tau on the other hand is really, really good. Read this post for a very good example of how tau should be played. Unless you're in the group of people who turn up their noses and scoff at anything Stelek says just because it's Stelek saying it. If that's the case you should probably just ignore this post.

That's all nice theoryhammer, but why even very very good Tau players don't seem to make it in the tournaments? I mean, yeah, you probably can't read too much from one tournament, but when you don't see an army on top positions in any tournament, I think that tells something. One guy won ToS Heat 1 with Tau last year, but his list was not anything like "best of" list. This year, there was IIRC only one Tau player qualifying in Heat 1. You talked about dealing with "any force which comes across" - how do you deal with Nob Bikers? Horde Orks? Plague Marines?

**olympia**

Kirika wrote:This really depends what points value are playing at. What works good at 1500 or 1750 is vastly different then a 2500 point Ardboys list.

Great point. I play orks and I find that they do not scale that well past 1500 points simply because ork anti-tank is so godawful.

**cptjoeyg**

Orks are one of the better armies. Last two tournies i was in i won with orks. Don't let the so called lack of AT weapons fool you.

But i would have to say the most well balanced army would have to be space marines. Solid infantry and good supporting units.

Still i put my money on Orks, just can't build them as a shooty army.

**97252783**

Tau are not third tier, a good tau list is definetly first tier, crappy tau lists are third tier. Any crappy list is third tier from any army.

Competitive=Mech, Tau beats Mech. My 2k list runs 1 Fusion Blaster, 10 MPs, 5 Railguns (Can be fired at 4 different targets) and 16 markerlights. So say i had an extra 500 points as someone suggested (25% decrease in cost), i could bring a whole lot more pain. While i agree there are some over costed units (eldar players complaining about there serpents being over costed makes me want to slap them) this helps balance out the rest of the incredible list.

So what are the most common top tier builds... Vulkan (mech or pod), Ork Nob spam, bikers, hoarde (all debatable), Guard and finnally chaos oblit/PMs spam.

The only lists in there that would stand a chance against the elite tau builds are oblit/PMs and MAYBE guard (Although guard struggle with durable long range anti tank).

**Orkish**

Grankobot can theory hammer all he wants about the tournament setting, and we can do likewise the other way. But if he cant prove it in tournaments, his theories are only as good as trash.

Land Raiders - I never had a problem with a land raider spam list. In fact, they often have to worry not having enough fire power to deal with my number.

I don't know how many times I have said this, but Stelek is a joke. And for that reason, many people I know have stopped visiting his blog since it is simply a waste of time.

**Sgt.Sunshine**

There is some truth in that. While you may have a theory and the math may work out...until field tested with repeated results your theory is only sound not valid...

**Horst**

I play mech marines, and orks are always one of my harder matchups. if I don't stop them, those mega nobz with power klaws rushing out of a battlewagon will gut my land raider, and do it on turn 2. something about 25 power klaw attacks on the charge..... it tends to wreck land raiders, even if they move 12". sure, the nobs will die after that, but with the raider dead, I have no transports that can stand up to loota fire, so now i'm boned.

Orks are quite good.

**97252783**

And then those mega nobs that didnt have there BW destroyed by melta speeders are charged by the TH/SS termies inside the LR. Meanwhile the lootas are being smashed to peices by drop poding anything with a flamer, wirlwinds, dakkapreds etc etc

**Orkish**

97252783 wrote:And then those mega nobs that didnt have there BW destroyed by melta speeders are charged by the TH/SS termies inside the LR. Meanwhile the lootas are being smashed to peices by drop poding anything with a flamer, wirlwinds, dakkapreds etc etc

And then all that you mentioned above are trampled by 3 squads of 30 boyz that are standing behind waiting. Typing anything you like is as easy as rolling for 1+ armor saves.

**97252783**

Yup, kinda like what you did, just replied in the same manner. Although what marine list that has a LR doesnt have TH/SS termies??

**olympia**

97252783 wrote:Yup, kinda like what you did, just replied in the same manner. Although what marine list that has a LR doesnt have TH/SS termies??

If you are going to include this type of unit and transport in a 1500 point list you will be punished. At 1750 and above of course the LR and it's terminators are going to be much more effective.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I also agree that Tau can be top tier. They are a rare army, and rarer still is it to see them played well.

**97252783**

olympia wrote:
97252783 wrote:Yup, kinda like what you did, just replied in the same manner. Although what marine list that has a LR doesnt have TH/SS termies??

If you are going to include this type of unit and transport in a 1500 point list you will be punished. At 1750 and above of course the LR and it's terminators are going to be much more effective.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I also agree that Tau can be top tier. They are a rare army, and rarer still is it to see them played well.

He included MANs in a battlewagon so i was assuming it was at a fairly high points level.

Yup tau are almost NEVER played well. I always thought tau was a strong army but stelek (ye i know haha) really opened my eyes to how strong they are.

**Orkish**

97252783 wrote:Yup, kinda like what you did, just replied in the same manner. Although what marine list that has a LR doesnt have TH/SS termies??

Same manner? I dont think so.

"Theories that cant be proved are trash, or at most sound to the person proposing it" - This sounds ridiculous? I don't think so.

97252783 wrote:Although what marine list that has a LR doesnt have TH/SS termies??

Similarly, why cant an ork army have mobs of 30 boyz?

Instead of trolling around, I proposed that you keep quiet and not embarass yourself. If you or Grankobot would like to prove your theories, prove it to us in the Ard Boyz or GT :-)

**grankobot**

Orkish wrote:Grankobot can theory hammer all he wants about the tournament setting, and we can do likewise the other way. But if he cant prove it in tournaments, his theories are only as good as trash.

Land Raiders - I never had a problem with a land raider spam list. In fact, they often have to worry not having enough fire power to deal with my number.

I don't know how many times I have said this, but Stelek is a joke. And for that reason, many people I know have stopped visiting his blog since it is simply a waste of time.

So your conjecture is arbitrarily more valid than my conjecture. Ok.

I stand by my opinions, but I will clarify them for the people who may have misunderstood me.

First, the majority of 40k tournaments aren't what you could call competitive. When you have ridiculous soft scores like comp as common as they are, how could you say that they are competitive? Would you call basketball competitive if short players only had to touch the rim to get points? I don't think so. It's a farce. Tournaments like 'ard boyz with no soft scoring come down to demographics and the win/loss/draw/annihilation scoring as much as # of games won - a win is a win. It's silly that tabling your opponent is worth more points than just beating him, which is something that tau aren't good at. CC armies are naturally better at winning big, and you need big points to win big tournaments in the current setting.

As an example, I recently went 3/0/0 in a local tournament, but only won overall by a handful over the next highest guy who I beat in round one, who then went on to get 2 massacres against the losers of earlier rounds. Make sense to you? Me neither. If his army was painted, he would have best overall, just because he went on to stomp the noobs on the lower tables instead of having hard games against the more competitive players who won in round one.

And secondly, my list wasn't addressing which armies were easier to play, or which ones have more viable builds, only which armies can compete with their strongest builds and not draw any counters, and which armies can't make top of the line take all comers lists.

Orks have a lot of cool lists that "work", but not against everyone. Orks lose to land raiders. That's a counter. Sorry.

**Hollismason**

I hate the Tier statement and in fact am now replacing it with the following statement.

All armies in their own right can be competitive different armies have different levels of skill reuirment and experience in order to play correctly. There are levels of skill required to excell t making a ary competitive. However some armies are naturally easier to play than others.

Easy
Space Marine
etc...

Medium
Templars
etc..

Difficult
Tyranid

etc...

**Orkish**

Ok, so filtering all that you have said above, your mainpoint is - orks have no solution to land raider spam (the rest are just your own personal experience - for e.g Many orks players, including myself, have emerged as 1st in tournies, big or small, and won all the games too - in your case 3-0-0).

I personally have played land raider spam lists countless times, and had lost ZERO times to them. At 1750pts or greater, the number of powerklaws + boyz that I am carrying (you may even take TANK bustas if you want) is simply so numerous that it is almost a certainty I will immob/wrecked/explode a land raider in a turn or 2.

4 Land Raiders trying to shoot into my numbers of orks? I laugh

Of course if you are comparing who is better at bringing down a land raider - Tau or Orks, the answer is simply - Tau. RailGuns coupled with markerlights takes down AV14 like chimeras taking down boyz. But does that mean orks cant deal with AV14? Not quite. And apart from that, orks are better than Tau in dealing with ALMOST anything else.

**grankobot**

Orkish wrote:Ok, so filtering all that you have said above, your mainpoint is - orks have no solution to land raider spam (the rest are just your own personal experience - for e.g Many orks players, including myself, have emerged as 1st in tournies, big or small, and won all the games too - in your case 3-0-0).

I personally have played land raider spam lists countless times, and had lost ZERO times to them. At 1750pts or greater, the number of powerklaws + boyz that I am carrying (you may even take TANK bustas if you want) is simply so numerous that it is almost a certainty I will immob/wrecked/explode a land raider in a turn or 2.

4 Land Raiders trying to shoot into my numbers of orks? I laugh

I bet you don't laugh at 4 land raiders tank shocking your boyz off of objectives, or throwing some assault terminators with rerolls to hit in your face.

Sounds to me like your buddies are stuck on "vanilla" land raiders, which aren't really good at anything. One day they'll learn that redeemers are awesome and they might even learn how to use them properly!

My main point is that armies with built in weaknesses that can be exploited aren't on par with real competitive armies - if the 2 best players in the world met on a 6x4 and ran every army against every other army 100 times, orks would lose more than the armies in the first list because there are certain armies that put them at a disadvantage right from turn 1 WITHOUT gearing up the whole list to fight orks specifically. That's how I define competitive vs not competitive - if there's a list that your army has extreme difficulty beating, even if both players are excellent.

Some of the 4 gimps are more extreme than others, like necrons, but they all suffer from the same core problem - no reliable answer to armor. If only you could loot meltaguns. That would pretty much solve everything.

Anyway, it's not like this matters even if by some miracle I do convince you all that orks aren't "zomg top tier the winnarz", because GW's tournaments don't reward winning consistently as much as they do flashy games with purdy plastic men.

**Flavius Infernus**

I completely agree with Grankobot.

At the most refined levels of all-comers, no-comp, tournament-style play, his categorization is correct IMO.

**SWPIGWANG**

only which armies can compete with their strongest builds and not draw any counters, and which armies can't make top of the line take all comers lists.

I'd take an army that is 65% over all armies except a rare one than one that has 45% odds against all armies.

Frankly, there is no army that can not be countered unless the game is broken. Show me an army and I'll show you one that strips out all it gimmicks it has to deal with "all the other armies" and fill it with just plain power beat it.
--------------------------
Codex exists to build armies. It is better to rate individual armies than anything. I categorize them as follows:

1. Broken good: An army that can stalemate or beat any other possible army regardless of that other army's composition. Thankfully not around in this ed of 40k since if it exists, everyone who wants to win would just play this. (and multiple perfectly balanced armies are impossible given the complexity of the game and issues with missions)

2. Meta-gamed: An army that can beat some other armies and loses to some other armies. The strongest army is thus dependent on the list and how many have geared up to beat it. Some army can be amazingly 'weak', but since it is rare no one gears up to beat it, it gives good win rates to the few that play them. Other armies can be innately strong, but gives few wins since everyone is geared up to beat it. Sometimes weak armies that in theory could be good but never is because too many players gear up to beat it even when it is rare, sometimes because it is too similar to another, more common army.

3. Useless: An army that has worst performance than another army when fighting ALL opponents. Note this is actually quite rare as long as you spend all your points on useful things.

**Orkish**

Assault terminators again, are never a problem - simply because I always have the numbers to counter charge. Do the math hammering yourself (I have done it countless times, so dont ask me to do it again) - point for point, the terminators are not going to survive the trampling by the ork boyz.

As mentioned in my previous post on top, in your tournament setting where everywhere will play against everyone else, orks will in fact most probably be ranked the highest (or tied with IG) because orks simply have an advantage against a greater number of armies.

Of course, if your tournament only revolves around "the fastest men who takes down the land raider wins", I for once will vote for Tau. If orks have railguns, let me tell you - I will throw all my orks away because it will be crap - orks are already overpowered (if not, on par with the likes of new IG) as it is.

**SWPIGWANG**

I bet you don't laugh at 4 land raiders tank shocking your boyz off of objectives, or throwing some assault terminators with rerolls to hit in your face.

I bet you don't laugh when some dark eldar just....well I don't think I need to say anything. Oh please, if LR spam has no bad match up, than we'd be talking.

Sure, marines codex allows you to build an army to beat most things out there, but you can't do them all at once.

Take your basic list, and remove all the things you add because you aren't fighting marines, like null zones, flamers whatnot. Now replace it with marine killing units. Congrats, you've just created a list that is visibly better in a stand up match!

Every army has a bad match up. Whether it is a problem is in the metagame.

Also, there is no such thing as tooling up against a codex. There is tooling up to beat an army, not a codex.

Orks have lots of options and has game in a lot of metagame situations outside of "everyone spams anti-ork."

if the 2 best players in the world met on a 6x4 and ran every army against every other army 100 times, orks would lose more than the armies in the first list because there are certain armies that put them at a disadvantage right from turn 1 WITHOUT gearing up the whole list to fight orks specifically.

If we ran every army possible, than orks would clean house since most possible armies in most other codex sucks more than a random ork army. Lets see you put together a "randomly generated necron army" and see if it works.

40k matches are nowhere near fair as matches are never 50/50 when two armies faces up. Say you are having a guard mirror match, and you bought melta to deal with raiders, pbs and inquistor to deal with fatecrusher, while the other guy just spammed heavy weapons with those points....fair?

In 40k every match up is uneven and every game a gamble.

The point is not to win 50% of every match up, the point is to win the most match up by the biggest margins and if you have to gamble against a low probability armies, well just do that.

Frankly, the whole "balanced army" thing is because player skills are unequal, and good players can pull off big wins with a small army disadvantage. If player skill is totally even, than rock-paper-scissor metagaming beats "balanced army against all" since a balanced army would pretty much win only half its games in small margins and pretty much never win anything big. The better strategy is to have some "big win matchups" and gamble on that.

**grankobot**

It seems we have two different opinions of what defines "competitive." That's fine. My definition is an army that has the tools to win consistently and not be at a serious disadvantage against any one army.

I don't care if you do win big against some builds with your orks. The fact is, orks have hard counters, which doesn't qualify them for the above definition.

If we ran every army possible, than orks would clean house since most possible armies in most other codex sucks more than a random ork army. Lets see you put together a "randomly generated necron army" and see if it works.

I'm sorry, I should have been more specific. What I meant was the strongest "take all comers" lists from each army. And yes, serious players bring army lists geared to 5th edition, not specific armies to serious (lol) tournaments.

Bringing an unbalanced army and praying you get some lucky matchups is a very poor game plan and, again, only highlights the silliness of GW style tournaments.

40k matches are nowhere near fair as matches are never 50/50 when two armies faces up. Say you are having a guard mirror match, and you bought melta to deal with raiders, pbs and inquistor to deal with fatecrusher, while the other guy just spammed heavy weapons with those points....fair?

Meanwhile, back in the real world where we're not allowed to change our lists in between rounds, the guard player who decks out infantry squads (I assume when you say heavy weapons, you mean heavy weapons infantry bases) WILL fold to one of the armies in the second category of my first post, who are all damn good at killing infantry. On the other hand, they MIGHT do well against a balanced guard list. Maybe. I doubt it though.

Having a buttload of veterans and command squads with 3 or 4 meltaguns each isn't a balanced list - balanced lists mix at least one flamer into each squad. You'll have chimeras with hull flamers. You'll have ordnance. Have you even seen a properly decked out valkyrie + vet team? The veterans are there to pop tanks, the valkyries can handle infantry and holy crap can they handle infantry.

I mean seriously. I don't think you understand what a balanced list is. Not trying to make it personal, just I don't think we're on the same wavelength here.

Frankly, the whole "balanced army" thing is because player skills are unequal, and good players can pull off big wins with a small army disadvantage. If player skill is totally even, than rock-paper-scissor metagaming beats "balanced army against all" since a balanced army would pretty much win only half its games in small margins and pretty much never win anything big. The better strategy is to have some "big win matchups" and gamble on that.

The entire purpose of a balanced army is to eliminate the natural counters to your army - you keep playing rock paper scissors. I choose nuke. The armies in the first category have builds that can do this. The armies in the second category always have a rock to their scissors, even in their best builds, and that is what makes them noncompetitive.

**Orkish**

LOL you are once again contradicting yourself. If being competitive means being able to win most of the competitive list out there, then orks again certainly qualify for this. But that being said, your idea of what IS CONSIDERED competitive has NO VALUE whatsoever, because it has value only in YOUR own world.

So maybe if you are proposing - Orks are not top tier in Grankobot's world, I would certainly agree.

You are proposing that in the countless tournaments that had orks emerge as winner, the player might have been lucky to avoid facing problematic list, might hav scored points due to massacre but not outright winning, etc etc other reasons. If it was a one off result, should we suspect the above? Yes. If orks manage to win times and again, should we suspect the above? Maybe yes, maybe no, but I doubt so.

**grankobot**

If by my world you mean "amongst competitive armies in a high level of play", then sure. If you feel I've contradicted myself then please point out where so I can clarify. I'm not beating my chest here or just trying to be contrary, I'm discussing my opinion in the appropriate thread, on the appropriate board.

Orks are a noobstomper army, like demons and tyranids. Unlike demons and tyranids they're at the interesting position of being halfway between good and not good for 5th edition, which means in games where neither player is very good...

It's funny how my posts all end with the same point. If you're having a consistently good record with orks, maybe you need to step outside of your comfort zone and play with some new opponents. Maybe you just happen to be a big fish in a small pond. That's not an objective way to judge an army's effectiveness though.

I'm going to just stop here, since I can't make my point much clearer without this thread devolving into personal attacks. If you disagree with me, that's cool. I'm happy to hear why. I'm not thrilled at all the knee-jerk "UR WRONG!!!!!" posts from people who have a boner for all things green and burly.

**Orkish**

Play with new opponents? Sure, why not? I have always been doing that.

And like I said, if you need to prove your theories (which are now at most sound to you), then prove it somewhere where there will be a record, like the Ard Boyz or the various GTs. Well, then again you are complaining the flaws in the tournament system - which is not even for you to judge. And still, if you desperately need to prove it, organise your own so called perfect tournament and make it known all over the world / country, so that we can see the results.

If you cant do any of the above and prove your theories, then your theories are nothing but trash to us.

Because what seems sound to you, obviously don't seem so to the rest of us. You may say "hmm, rocks should float in water, bla bla bla reasons" and when the experiment results proved otherwise, you insist that the experiment is unfair. You are unable to design your own experiment to prove your theories, but insist that they are correct - JOKE.

And seriously, I think you are the one who needs to step out of your small fish pond and meet with the top tier ork players out there. I, personally will show you how I consistently beat the crap out of a land raider spam list. FYI, I have played against different players from more than 10 countries.

**Backfire**

Lets take ToS 2009 Heat 1 results. Six matches, so it is statistically more signifant than 3-match tournaments. It appears there are no soft scores, with almost 150 participants it's a decent field.

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m640087a_Throne_of_Skulls_40K_-_Heat_1.pdf

Top 50 has

-8 Space marines
-6 Imperial Guard
-7 Orks
-6 Eldar
-4 Daemons
-9 Chaos Marines
-2 Dark Angels
-3 Tyranids
-2 Tau
-1 Dark Eldar
-0 Black Templar, Necron or DH

-And apparently there were one Warriors of Chaos and one Dark Elves? One would think that bows and spears aren't a match for a bolt gun...

**SWPIGWANG**

The entire purpose of a balanced army is to eliminate the natural counters to your army

There is no such thing as an army without a counter without the game being broken. Look, if this army has 50% or better match up against everything, why play any other army? Now you can argue that multiples versions of this exists, but experience shows otherwise. GW couldn't possibly balance the game in such a fine line that this could be true, across different missions, formats and other fudge factors.

There is a kind of balanced army where there is no "strong" counter to the army, say an army that has a base 45% expectation against every army, for example. This kind of army is good for an expert that has a skill advantage over opponents, so that base 45% can be added to a skill factor, of say 30%, and win 75% of all matches and not likely to get kicked out by any tournament by bad draws. However when no skill edge exists, this army wins only under 45% of matches which is not good at all.

The armies in the second category always have a rock to their scissors, even in their best builds, and that is what makes them noncompetitive.

They win competitions, thus they are competitive. Do not hijack term's meaning from what is commonly used. Competitiveness is about competitions, and if they do fine in the competition environment existing today in 40k, they are competitive. If you prostulate another environment, they are just your imaginations and arbitrary definitions. I can just as well define "properly competitive" as tables without terrain because I favor that arrangement.

(I assume when you say heavy weapons, you mean heavy weapons infantry bases)

I mean heavy weapons in slots that is otherwise unused, like giving vets an autocannon, adding plasma to lemans and stuffing in some hydras. But really, if you want to kill some mech guard, try the leman + manticore +vendetta plus chimera bunkers with autocannons in them. The melta, valk, flamers, ap2, pbs, inq and such do nothing when you get alpha striked to heaven. If you think a "balanced" list can have better odds than a list designed specifically to screw yours, your are just mad. It is just a matter of effort.

What I meant was the strongest "take all comers" lists from each army.

Take all comers is a silly concept when guns, weapons, armor and everything else can be used to counter others in very, very specific ways. What "take all comers" really means is "take something that can fight everything in the metagame" not "take something that can beat EVERYTHING the opponent can throw at me."

Since metagames shift, "take all comers" shift too.

edit:
Fundamentally, 40k is a game played with real models. Since models takes real effort to buy, build, paint and use, access to armies and units is uneven and players are never optimal in their armies. A competitive player should therefore not imagine a world where everyone have every model and try to combat every possible army that is possible within the rules. Instead, he should look at the real armies they could field and design his army to beat just that.

This remains true as long as 40k is a game played with models.

To ask a table top game to be competitive in the sense of "everyone is playing optimally and thus no metagame exploits are possible" is just silly. Fundamentally, 40k is just a game.

**Hollismason**

Its just proliferation there are more bad Ork players than there are good ork players. I would still rather not face orks with my marines its a difficult army regardless.

**Airmaniac**

Eidolon wrote:In addition the orks cannot deal with one unit means they are a bad army is a good example of fuzzy logic. Heres a counter example. With the exception of kroot the entire tau army cannot deal with orks in hand to hand.

Your counter example is indeed a good example of fuzzy logic, as the Tau ARE able to deal with the Orks through shooting. The Orks however, are unable to deal with AV13 or AV14 Vehicles, period. No, Power Klaws in close combat do not work. Hitting on sixes isn't going to cut it, and that is assuming those Power Klaws actually get into combat. Grankobot's point is: can you build a competitive army that stands a chance against the most extreme army builds out there (Land Raider spam being the spoiler for the Orks)? If an army can't do this, than it isn't competitive.