Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Inquisitor_Syphonious wrote:

NuggzTheNinja wrote:The most difficult army to play well in terms of generalship? Probably Tau or Eldar, both are pretty fragile and both require a lot of tactical consideration as faster, more assaulty armies will be on them like white on rice turn 2.

As a wise man once said...

Ok. If you think Eldar are fragile, unless you use foot elements... You're doing it 110% wrong.

Eldar have the most durable skimmers in the game, and they're fast skimmers! Stuff that up your tailpipe people who call eldar "fragile"...

Dark Eldar is who you're thinking of, they go down at a stiff wind.

No...they're fragile. I meant what I said. Their skimmers are durable. The things inside the skimmers are not, and they're very expensive. Considering most of the characters can be instakilled by an Assault Cannon, they're pretty fragile.

DE, fast and deadly, but very fragile.

NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Inquisitor_Syphonious wrote:

NuggzTheNinja wrote:The most difficult army to play well in terms of generalship? Probably Tau or Eldar, both are pretty fragile and both require a lot of tactical consideration as faster, more assaulty armies will be on them like white on rice turn 2.

As a wise man once said...

Ok. If you think Eldar are fragile, unless you use foot elements... You're doing it 110% wrong.

Eldar have the most durable skimmers in the game, and they're fast skimmers! Stuff that up your tailpipe people who call eldar "fragile"...

Dark Eldar is who you're thinking of, they go down at a stiff wind.

No...they're fragile. I meant what I said. Their skimmers are durable. The things inside the skimmers are not, and they're very expensive. Considering most of the characters can be instakilled by an Assault Cannon, they're pretty fragile.

No.

Not at all.

Shall we compare guardsmen and what not? How about an ork boy? A nid gaunt?

Eldar are plenty durable. Combined with the fact that they never have to leave their transports...

You mean those characters that can have re-rollable invulnerable saves?

Or those characters that can have large retinues, making shooting with S6+ weaponry no different than shooting with S5 weaponry?

Expensive? Yes. As is every codex written around that time.

One person says that eldar are fragile, and a billion just tell others "eldar are fragile!" when it is not true.

Nuggz has said what I was thinking, more or less.

There are armies that are just bad, and then there are armies that have a lot of upside, but it's hard to get them to work.

Necrons, for example, are just not a very good army. You can do all you want to clever them up, you won't get a ton of mileage out of it.

Sisters, on the other hand, have a TON of potential, but can be a real hard army to win with. Tau are similar. In both cases, there's a lot of firepower in very vulnerable packages. If you can support your units, and do your damage without trading models, you can win. If you miscalculate or have bad luck, things can fall apart.

Phryxis wrote:
Sisters, on the other hand, have a TON of potential, but can be a real hard army to win with.

Precisely. Sisters can be stupendous - they can make your opponant wonder if you're cheating (surely no army can be that good) - but by god you've got to know what you're doing. There's a reason why I didn't win a single game for the first three months.

You have to know when to use faith (and what act) and where - you have to predict what the enemy will do, and who they'll do it to - you have to weigh all things to a nicety and know when to martyr a faithful model for that one point you'll need in turn six.

And when it all comes together I am the first to admit it looks easy. "Well how could you loose, you have rending flamers and 3++ saves coming out of your ears!"

If you think it's so easy, try it, AbaddonFidelis. (you might like it, I do)

i Voted Chaos Daemons as all the rules can be quite Confuzzling....

That and you have to tailor a list each time as they are very weak in certain aspects, I.E. Tanks...

i Voted Chaos Daemons as all the rules can be quite Confuzzling....

That and you have to tailor a list each time as they are very weak in certain aspects, I.E. Tanks...

Necrons. They are very limited, and very boring to play.

I think that there might be some confusion do to the tittle of the thread, and what the poll actually says.

As for the most difficult armies to play: Daemon hunters and necrons. Neither book deals with armor well. Neither book has a good mix of units that actually do well. Neither book has many real options at all in strategy. Daemonhunters get some help if you use the print version with guard allies. Necrons get no help at all. So necrons are the most difficult to play. But that is because their book isn't compatible with this edition, and their list has no options. (so its just a bad army right now, liths are just noob slayers most of time)

As for requiring the most planning: DE, tau, eldar. In that order.

DE can't make any mistakes, their transports (which are costly) can be dispatched by bolters, being AV 10 open topped. Their troops are easily killed by lasguns. Their CC units hit somewhat poorly, and can't take a hit. So what makes them good? So many special and heavy weapons for cheap, and good range on most of it. Fast army, devastating firepower, and troops that are actually worth taking over other units (in fact, the troops are about the only thing worth taking lol) That being said, they punish mistakes very harshly. (yours and your opponents)

Tau, require planning since they can't hold their own in CC at all. So they must make good use of their firepower (which thankfully they have plenty of), and their mobility (which they are decent at, not super fast, but not foot guard slow) The proper mix of units is key, even one improper unit selection/war gear can make the army have fatal flaws. That being said, they have great unit to fill up their different rolls, kroot are great blocking units, as are the piranha. Their battle suites and heavy support options do most of the killing having some of the best weapons available in the game. Their weakness in this edition is their troops, whom have little chance of killing things, and are easily killed. You can protect them with devil fish, but that tank is a bit over priced.

Eldar have a lot going for them. Great transports (if a bit point heavy for what you get), and great specialized units. The problem is their assault units don't have delivery systems (1 hatch closed top vehicles with the hatch on the back side is not an assault system), and their units MUST work in concert to be effective. They are never going to win a straight up slugfest, but the good thing is their mobility and concentration of fire power means they don't have too.

I'd like to point out that the DARK ANGEL codex isn't even on the voting list! Having compared the newer beefed up Marines (including the vanilla's) the Dark Angels have a hell of a disadvantage! Not as difficult as Necrons I'd say but it certainly bares mentioning... which you haven't!

Every one forgets about dark angels, they are just like normal marines but not as good and more expensive.

That being said, they are still a marine army, so have a good mix of units that work well together. Their strategy doesn't really change much from other marine armies, though they can take specialized lists that vanilla marines can't. (though amusingly, reg marines do bikes better and cheaper)

Most dark angels players where i play just run their army using vanilla rules, unless they specifically just want to run a fluff list like deathwing or ravenwing. (or double wing )

Doublewing, I like that terminology!

a bike / speeder marine army is difficult to work with

no dreads / preds / razors... those are for pussies!

Inquisitor_Syphonious wrote:

No.

Not at all.

Shall we compare guardsmen and what not? How about an ork boy? A nid gaunt?

Eldar are plenty durable. Combined with the fact that they never have to leave their transports...

You mean those characters that can have re-rollable invulnerable saves?

Or those characters that can have large retinues, making shooting with S6+ weaponry no different than shooting with S5 weaponry?

Expensive? Yes. As is every codex written around that time.

One person says that eldar are fragile, and a billion just tell others "eldar are fragile!" when it is not true.

The fragility doesn't come from armor saves, it comes from unit cost and intent.

How many points is a Wave Serpent? How many points is a Chimera?

How many points is a squad of Dire Avengers who can drop Blade Storm? How many points is a squad of Guardsmen who can receive "First Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire!"?

Guardsmen die like lemmings, but they don't care about a rerollable invul when they've got several hidden power weapons / melta bombers sitting inside of a blob platoon.

Once the Farseers start going, Eldar run out of steam quite fast. With an Eldar army, everything needs to work in harmony. You lose one component and you're SOL. That's what I mean by fragile. You can deny it, but it's only because you are insecure about the sexuality of Space Elves. They are dainty and feminine, and there's no denying that they are, when they form an army, quite fragile.

Agreed. Eldar units are strong, but synergistically they're fragile. A lynchpin units dies, and suddenly you can't handle whatever it was supposed to kill. Not at all gonna say they're the toughest army to play though.

My vote goes for Grey Knights. Pure Codex, no allies though. With so little cheap long ranged firepower, the Grey Knights rely on getting into close range with their foes. However unlike sisters, they don't have a heckuva lot of close range firepower either. They're great in CC but the problem is... they lose in quantity vs. quality. Each Knight can slay two Ork Boys, for example, but for every armor save you fail it hurts you a lot more. Because they are so limited in model count, you have to play very carefully with them so as to maximize each model's use.

Necrons are merely difficult because they are so limited in scope. You take what your are given, and you hope you can win with it. There are few unique strategies with them, and all are difficult against an experienced player... but not enough to make them the most difficult.

I'd also be tempted to say Tau but a lot about Tau comes down to the army list. You have to be very efficient with their upgrades because therein lies their firepower, but also their weakness. If you bring a good army to the table, it gets a lot easier. Once on the table, you merely have to play it safe with enemy assault elements and use good target priority. Difficult yes, but doable? Also yes.

the problem with tau is that they are an army that simply cannot handle the newest codices. I cannot find a way to stop 40 something FNP assault marines from curb stomping my lines - bubble wrap or no bubble wrap.