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I think there's a difference between being hard to play and being competitive. I don't think Necrons are particularly hard to play, it's just that even when played well they often come up short against opposing armies.

I'd say the hardest to play is probably Dark Eldar, followed by Tau.

EDIT: whoa, people already said practically exactly what I said.

phogiston735 wrote:I have no experience what-so-ever with Sisters, so I can't comment.

I do. Imagine a universally overpriced shooty army with no good assault options that has to get within 12" to do any real damage, preferably within flamer range for anti-infantry. They have no fast vehicles, no scouts, and only one deep striking unit which is a jump pack unit. There's only one tank proper, and it has a mere S8 AP1 weapon which isn't melta, so they have to rely on meltaguns to kill AV14. Their transports, which are necessary to get within 12" without taking too many casualties, are overpriced, as are their infantry for what they get. They have only two infantry heavy weapons, the heavy bolter and multi-melta, and only two units which can equip them (one of which can only equip one per squad), and no plasma option except for combiplasma even in special weapons options. And all of this for an army with a human statline, whose basic units are essentially 11 point IG veterans with power armor and bolters (and no grenades unless you pay for them, no doctrines, only two special weapons, no heavy weapons aside from a heavy flamer). You win or lose in the movement phase, and because of this, against most armies, it's a struggle to win because you are nowhere near as mobile as they are or they just have the range and firepower to easily kill you because of said lack of mobility.

That's Sisters in a nutshell.

They stand up decently still even in 5th edition, at least in my experience with them. As long as you pay attention to when and where you should use the acts of faith they can still compete. Sometimes the acts of faith will let you just walk those meltas right up to the target.

Definitely not the hardest to play in my opinion, but they do take a small getting used to.

In order to activate Spirit of the Martyr, you need to have roll equal to or over the number of models in the squad. And even with a squad that is reduced to only three or so members (IE, both meltas and the sister superior for her book), you still have about a one fourth chance of failing it.

And it uses up an act of faith. Which you have a limited number of (just over one per squad, gaining more as you lose squads or your squads lose their ability to actually use acts of faith). No, you cannot simply walk up to someone using acts of faith to protect yourself and easily melta the enemy. And these acts of faith only last a single phase, meaning you might be able to protect your army that way for PART of a turn, but then you give up your already limited offensive capabilities in order to do so.

I can vouch for those who say eldar are hard to play. Although i class myself as successful with them now, i found them very hard to get to grips with at first (i think that's partly what made me start off getting different armies). Every unit in an eldar army has it's own specific job and if can do great at that job, and eliminate that certain unitw ith ease, but should one unit get caught up in the wrong kinda fight, in the wrong place, or not kill enough of a unit due to bad rolls it can all go wrong. As someone said before, with eldar one mistake can lose you the game. I think the think you'll find a lot when playing with eldar is that you'll either totally obliterate the enemy, or get totally obliterated yourself.

I would also agree that necrons are hard to play, mostly because they're old, and also tau because now there are so many units and ways that can DS right in the heart of your battle line or get there really quickly.

Going to go with Daemons myself, the randomness of their deployment means that you have to be very tactically astute to deal with the complete chaos (pardon the pun) that can ensue.
The random nature also means you have to have built a very solid army list to deal with any contingencies that arise.
I dont rate their shooting as much as some other armies (which can be a big part of the game) and several armies can lock them down psychically which can really hurt.

Eldars/DEMONS

Melissia wrote:In order to activate Spirit of the Martyr, you need to have roll equal to or over the number of models in the squad. And even with a squad that is reduced to only three or so members (IE, both meltas and the sister superior for her book), you still have about a one fourth chance of failing it.

And it uses up an act of faith. Which you have a limited number of (just over one per squad, gaining more as you lose squads or your squads lose their ability to actually use acts of faith). No, you cannot simply walk up to someone using acts of faith to protect yourself and easily melta the enemy. And these acts of faith only last a single phase, meaning you might be able to protect your army that way for PART of a turn, but then you give up your already limited offensive capabilities in order to do so.

Not saying its a good strategy, just a nice way to make do with a bad situation. I mentioned it because I've done it, though it wasn't the plan to begin with in the first place.
There are much better uses for the acts, I agree.

If by much better you mean uses that actually work? As I said, unless your squad's already half dead, you won't nbe able to succeed that often with it...