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.

It's a bit ironic, I find. 4th ed IG codex and their doctrines tried to allow players to take mechanized armies, only to find that it was nearly impossible points wise and still be competent. They were a fun idea though.

5th ed Codex removes the doctrines, cheapens the squads and chimeras, and hopes that this will help get those fluffy mechanized armies; it does, a little too well. Maybe the mistake was allowing veterans to be troops.

As for the tanks, I know 14/13/10 AV is tough, but then how do orks deal with Land Raiders? The extra armor in the front isn't the problem. The mistake was allowing Russes to move and shoot Ordnance; I KNOW that's broken.

Just a note to everyone paying attention, I'm not arguing IG is balanced; by the fact that I win against my buddies nids, practically without fail, is evidence enough. What I'm trying to get at is the reasons to think its unbalanced, namely in this case troop veterans, moving/shooting russes, vendettas and hydras (both of these last two are simply too cheap).

Ascalam wrote:
Right, I forgot that they decided that AV 13 was too wussy..

It's the rear AV10 and squadron rules that kill them.

Try that with Orks or Necrons sometime and tell me if it's still easy to beat.

For necrons, it's like a glorious return to 4E when squadroned, much better to deal with than standard mechanized infantry IG. Yeah, orks have a problem at range, but you only need to get one powerklaw engaged to be able to inflict destroyed results on all 3 tanks in a squadron.

With Orks you have no chance to get close

Between bikes, cover, commandos, huge numbers of ablative wounds, battlewagons, and deffkoptas, you shouldn't have any problem getting close.

no good AT weapons that will actually hit, and no armour worth crap.

Given that those 9 LRBT's, assuming minimum cost, are taking up 1350pts of an army, there's probably not a whole lot. So each squadron may get one direct hit, one whiff, and one scatter that may get stuff, against 3 targets each turn. those tanks really have to overconcentrate their fire.

There's a reason the whole "LRBT Spam" thing doesn't exist in any competitive environment.

The best you can hope for is a ramming attack with a BW, which is effective enough if it can get there, but BW are rather easy to immobilize/blow up..

When most of your points are in S8 battlecannons...? They aren't really much easier than LRBT's to kill, especially if you get the 'ard cover or whatever.

Kommandos occasionally pop one, but only if the IG player hasn't set a rearguard blob.

With 9 LRBT's, they won't have too many points for blobs and won't be able to adequately support them.

With Necrons your only good AT weapon is 24'' range, and Battlecannon spam will phase you before you even get close.

Except there's also still Heavy Destoryers, and with the squadron rules they get to play like 4E again. And once more, the battlecannons have to overconcentrate, they can't hit everything they need to in a turn.

Shadelkan wrote:

As for the tanks, I know 14/13/10 AV is tough, but then how do orks deal with Land Raiders? The extra armor in the front isn't the problem. The mistake was allowing Russes to move and shoot Ordnance; I KNOW that's broken.

Um, they could do that since 2004 and in 2E. That's nothing new. The difference is that they can move and fire weapons *other* than ordnance, but given how expensive those weapons are, and how little they are often taken, and how useless they are without the lumbering behemoth rule, it's really not an issue. One will find that most top IG tournament armies don't actually include Leman Russ tanks at all.

Vaktathi wrote:

Shadelkan wrote:

As for the tanks, I know 14/13/10 AV is tough, but then how do orks deal with Land Raiders? The extra armor in the front isn't the problem. The mistake was allowing Russes to move and shoot Ordnance; I KNOW that's broken.

Um, they could do that since 2004 and in 2E. That's nothing new. The difference is that they can move and fire weapons *other* than ordnance, but given how expensive those weapons are, and how little they are often taken, and how useless they are without the lumbering behemoth rule, it's really not an issue. One will find that most top IG tournament armies don't actually include Leman Russ tanks at all.

I always confuse myself with the Ordnance rules. You are correct.

That said, @Ascalam, in 4th ed the LRBT was cheaper (by 5 points, 15 if you took HB sponsons), and with 1 less SIDE ARMOR. The 14 AV front was there since 4th ed at least. In fact, the demolisher is unchanged (except it was cheaper back then).

It could be that my IG opponets are just unseemly good shots, or unreasonably good at pen rolls, but my orks (we play at 2500 pts usually) have issues getting close. You can't ambush if he parks a blob behind his tanks along the back of the deployment zone, for example, and keeps units lining the sides as he advances.

Getting a powerklaw close works if you can manage it, but all too often they get gunned down before I can get them into CC.

Deffkoptas can sometimes pull off a bit of damage before being blown up. That i'll grant, but to get side and rear shots they have to be able to park outside of the 1'' range of his units, which it hard to do with blobs laid out to prevent this, and they have slim chance of getting through av 14, even if a glance has a better chance of destroying a tank. Don't forget that squadroning negates shaken/stunned also, which is what i get as often as not

Battlewagons are slow, and side 12 . They die deperessingly easily to heavy weapons teams, battlecannon/lascannon and so on. Ard case helps, but damaged the ability to leap out to assault after the thing moves, as it is no longer open topped. I love my battlewagons, but they are points-hungry and a tad fragile.
When they go up the cargo goes boom too, withn 6+ armour saves, unless you spring for Mega-armour or Ard boyz.



Heavy D's are ok, until three ordinance blasts hit them from one unit, and take them off the map. They are T 5, one wound, 3+ armour. About as tough as a marine biker, with a max unit size of 3. Even hugging cover like a teddybear they don't last long. Monoliths last longer agaist the firepower, and one monolith is about the same cost as 3 heavy d's (a smidge more). They do get to feel retro about their glance being able to kill, but at the cost of being unable to shaken or stun their targets to stop them firing.


IG aren't unbeatable, but I have a ahrd time against them. In smaller points games it's a bit easier, and the tank squadrons are less prevalent, but above about 2000 it's a struggle. I can greentide them to death with PK's, given some luck, or hope to survive long enough with my Liths to do some damage, but it's a rough fight nonetheless.

Something I've noticed: When ever someone someone mentions squadrons, they always assume taking 3 tanks. Why not pairs, that seems more reasonable to me.

The "overkill power" argument is a load though. People do take squadron'd artillery batteries and the Manticore which can throw a max of 3 pie plates. How is that not overkill when taking a squadron of Leman Russ apparently is?

Yeah, I don't understand why one would take 9 lrbt in a hope to just totally obliterate the other guy if you get first turn, when you could take 9 manticores for only 90 more points? The russes chunk out 9 str8 ap3 pie plates, while the manitcores average like 18 str 10 ap4 pie plates. You get double the pie plates and 2 more strength, and you lose some armour and 1 ap.

Luke_Prowler wrote:Something I've noticed: When ever someone someone mentions squadrons, they always assume taking 3 tanks. Why not pairs, that seems more reasonable to me.

Because someone mentioned 9 Battlecannons

That said, even in pairs, for their cost, they aren't exactly stellar performers for their cost.

The "overkill power" argument is a load though. People do take squadron'd artillery batteries

not often, and usually just Griffons. You don't see squadrned medusas really in tournament games.

and the Manticore which can throw a max of 3 pie plates. How is that not overkill when taking a squadron of Leman Russ apparently is?

The manticore is primarily an AT weapon and is one 160pt vehicle firing at 1 target, not 450pts firing at 1 target. Also, the LRBT has AP3, where the Manticore only gets AP4, meaning the LRBT, against MEQ infantry at least, needs fewer shots to assure destruction of the target.

Once again, there's a reason you don't see armies spamming Leman Russ tanks in tournaments. If they were as amazing as some people here are thinking, you'd see them, but you just don't. The Leman Russ is not the power/spam tank of the Imperial Guard, it's a decent tank, but it's hard to see it as broken or imbalanced. Now Hydras...

Yeah, I don't understand why one would take 9 lrbt in a hope to just totally obliterate the other guy if you get first turn, when you could take 9 manticores for only 90 more points? The russes chunk out 9 str8 ap3 pie plates, while the manitcores average like 18 str 10 ap4 pie plates. You get double the pie plates and 2 more strength, and you lose some armour and 1 ap.

Because you can't take Manticore's in Squadrons?

Vaktathi wrote:

Luke_Prowler wrote:Something I've noticed: When ever someone someone mentions squadrons, they always assume taking 3 tanks. Why not pairs, that seems more reasonable to me.

Because someone mentioned 9 Battlecannons

That said, even in pairs, for their cost, they aren't exactly stellar performers for their cost.

The "overkill power" argument is a load though. People do take squadron'd artillery batteries

not often, and usually just Griffons. You don't see squadrned medusas really in tournament games.

and the Manticore which can throw a max of 3 pie plates. How is that not overkill when taking a squadron of Leman Russ apparently is?

The manticore is primarily an AT weapon and is one 160pt vehicle firing at 1 target, not 450pts firing at 1 target. Also, the LRBT has AP3, where the Manticore only gets AP4, meaning the LRBT, against MEQ infantry at least, needs fewer shots to assure destruction of the target.

Once again, there's a reason you don't see armies spamming Leman Russ tanks in tournaments. If they were as amazing as some people here are thinking, you'd see them, but you just don't. The Leman Russ is not the power/spam tank of the Imperial Guard, it's a decent tank, but it's hard to see it as broken or imbalanced. Now Hydras...

Yeah, I don't understand why one would take 9 lrbt in a hope to just totally obliterate the other guy if you get first turn, when you could take 9 manticores for only 90 more points? The russes chunk out 9 str8 ap3 pie plates, while the manitcores average like 18 str 10 ap4 pie plates. You get double the pie plates and 2 more strength, and you lose some armour and 1 ap.

Because you can't take Manticore's in Squadrons?

Whoops. Silly me.

Now I never said the Leman Russ was broken, I just wondered why people don't take squadrons of them seriously.

Anyway, I'm trying to avoid this kind of conversation, so let's get back on topic.

I'm repeating what most people have said already: Orks, Dark Eldar, and C:SM are the closest to balance that we have (none are perfect, obviously). Space marines lose a lot of point form me because despite having a lot of good units, it also has those few units everyone take such as TH/SS terminators, Vulkan, and Razorbacks (in fact, that seems to be a trend with Matt Ward: An otherwise good internal balance thrown out the window by a few units that are too good for their points). Dark Eldar and Orks obviously have that problem too, but nothing so egregious (take a drink).

Ork is the best in my opinion, and it's why Phil Kelly is my favorite codex writer. Most units are good for their points and only get shafted by the meta, there are so many lists that are considered competitive (even Green Tide is considered a threat, when most footslogging lists are laughed off the table) and it's approachable by new players and powerful in the hands of a skilled player.

The most balanced codex is Space Wolves. Everyone plays them because the hobby's composed of fair-minded individuals who want to win with their generalship, not with their netlist. It's also the most versatile codex, allowing everything from Dark Angels to Black Legion to "count as" Space Wolves. Aside from that, the fluff and naming conventions (Phil Kelly had me at Wolf Claws) are both top notch.

Ascalam wrote:(we play at 2500 pts usually)

Problem found!

i think Orks

Corrode wrote:

Ascalam wrote:(we play at 2500 pts usually)

Problem found!

True, true

At lower points levels it's less ugly, most times.

But then how do you expect me to get 120 Necron Warriors on the field at a lower points level

(i do this occasionally. It looks awesome, and is more sturdy that you'd think..)

Every codex should be written as per Orks, DE and Vanilla marines, yes they all have some broken builds but the internal balance of what they can do with so many different lists is there, rather then spamming the same stupid things! Meta makes me sad When was the last time anyone saw a vanilla marine list at a tournament....it's been at least 12 months for me.

I define "balanced" as being able to create different kinds of armies which can be competitive..either a shooty based one or a close combat based one.

With this in mind, I feel the SW and DE are examples of such codexes. The orks also come to mind. The IG army (which is my main army) IS a powerful codex, and albeit slanty on the very shooty aspect the fact that you can build a predominantly infantry, or hybrid, or pure mech list (and all can be competitive) makes it also qualify as a balanced force.
CSM also is very balanced, especially with the basic CSM squad being able to fight well in close combat as well as the short ranged firefight.

@Luke Prowler: I agree with your opinion that Phil Kelly is a great codex writer. His books have always been competitve but not overpowered. Allessio is also a good one, particularly with Basic rulesets and WHFB books.

If the question of balance is meta, I never play the same list twice. I purposely play models and ways that are often claimed to be bad, because I know most people aren't expecting it, and don't know much about it.

I once fielded a combined squad (IG) with three autocannons init, attached a lord commissar, and had my commander in a chimera (rest of my forces were two sentinels and an executioner LR). The autocannons were placed at a high point, and saw the field; with my commander in the chimera, and the combined squad a long line of men, the HWTs were firing 6 TL str 7 shots into the enemy ranks, often times with no cover save because of the high point. They shot at the squad, naturally, but the rest of the squad was inside cover, and everytime they shot, giving them a nearly undefeatable save, and most wounds were just allocated to lasguns. The rest of my army went and took care of anything too tough for my autos, armor-save-wise.

Was it efficient? Was it worth the points? No, definitely not on paper, but the enemy couldn't deal with it, because they didn't expect it at all. They lost hundreds of points, I lost 8 men (yep!).

My point, and question, is what exactly makes a codex balanced? The number of ways it can win? Or the number of ways most players use it to win?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@White-Wolf, he's being sarcastic

Yeah I just read over it again That's embarressing That will teach me to read the whole thing....

I think Orks, DE and Vainilla. The 3 have multiple playable lists and they not are extremly overpowered, are very fun to play.

Ascalam - why do they have to stay outside of 1'? the scout turbo, shoot TL rokkits into the side.

Also remember it only downgrades Stunned to Shaken - it doesnt ignore shaken altogether - and if you shake a few tanks your horde gets closer.

The Imperial Guard hate is kind of hilarious. While I agree that the Vendetta is a little undercosted, I don't think anything else in that codex is. Chimeras undercosted? They're 55 pts, and have SIDE AV10. SIDE! Not hard to get side on transports. As for the mass fire for cheap argument... you guys realize all of that fire is BS3 right? That many shots at BS3 is pretty much just insurance against the low BS. I also love the reference to the Guard fast attack tanks. When was the last time any of you have seen a Hellhound? No one uses them. Ever.

To stay on topic, the most balanced codex is definitely between Orks and DE.

I cant believe anyone thinks that Orks are well balanced. They have some of the best melee and shooting in the game. 3 ork shoota boys cost the same as one spacemarine. THe basic ork is undercosted by at least a point.

My question is this. By what marker are you all gauging balance by. For me i would have to say that the most balanced codex is vanilla marines. Use of Vulkan and melta flamer spam throws this out the window though.

creeping-deth87 wrote:I also love the reference to the Guard fast attack tanks. When was the last time any of you have seen a Hellhound? No one uses them. Ever.

I use em. Played a 750 point with two of them, killed a predator and 5 Plague Marines without losing any of them.

sennacherib wrote:I cant believe anyone thinks that Orks are well balanced. They have some of the best melee and shooting in the game. 3 ork shoota boys cost the same as one spacemarine. THe basic ork is undercosted by at least a point.

The reason that Orks are considered a finely balanced codex is multi-faceted. They excel at their intended purpose (hard-hitting close combat), and while they are cheap, they die like flies due to their paper thin armor, which balances out their price. Sure, you're able to take 30 Boyz for quite a low number of points, but most of those Boyz will be dead, and quickly - it's not as if you're paying 6 points for a 3+ armor save. The biggest thing that makes them survivable is cover saves, and that's not their fault. That's the fault of the main rules, and you can bet that when your standard armor has a 5 out of 6 chance of failing (if you even get it, which is usually limited to close combat) you're going to be abusing cover as much as possible.

This has been stated numerous times by many people (DashofPepper being the most vocal and frequent about it, since he's incredibly well versed in how the army plays), but Orks can excel at everything. They can be shootier than the Guard or more choppy than the Blood Angels. But you can only do one at a time; it's incredibly hard to build a mixed-bag army list and have it work effectively. They're a great book because next to nothing is overpowered or overly cheesy, and their points costs reflect well on what they're supposed to be able to do. They hit like a sack of bricks, but you WILL lose buckets of them before you hit the enemy, and if they had a higher price point you wouldn't be able to fit enough of them in your list to survive to the point where you can hit back.

They've got a well-varied book that has plenty of options for just about everyone, and they're easy enough to play for newbies while still offering enough in the way of tactics for the vets. Perhaps most telling is the fact that (as I said in my first post) they've stood the test of time since they came out against newer and arguably stronger codices and still manage to offer up a decent fight on the tabletop. They're strong, but not unbeatable; varied without being confusing; and easy enough to pick up and play without becoming boring.

Shadelkan wrote:

creeping-deth87 wrote:I also love the reference to the Guard fast attack tanks. When was the last time any of you have seen a Hellhound? No one uses them. Ever.

I use em. Played a 750 point with two of them, killed a predator and 5 Plague Marines without losing any of them.

I commend you sir for using units that others would consider thinking out of the box. I was a little strong with my hyperbole there, I was talking in terms of in most competitive builds you don't really see Hellhounds. My comment was more a response to whoever it was that was complaining about more Guard tanks in the FA slot, which have pretty situational effectiveness or are generally outclassed by other units in the codex.

Ascalam wrote:Also squadroned AV 13 tanks with pieplate cannon (9 on a field is a touch much) plus more tanks in the Fast attack section

This is one of those things that everyone complains about but is actually not good at all. How many competitive IG armies have you seen with 9x LR's? 6? Even 4?

Orks. They have one of the oldest codexes in circulation but are still viable against almost any army. They have a huge number of builds that are all good, and have possibilities for both rookies and veterans to play with.

-cgmckenzie

Orks were 2008ish i thought?

Necrons, Sisters, Tau are older.

I think Dark Angels and Black Templar also.

Not sure about Chaos Space Marines? About the same time?

That said, orks are awesome

cgmckenzie wrote:Orks. They have one of the oldest codexes in circulation but are still viable against almost any army. They have a huge number of builds that are all good, and have possibilities for both rookies and veterans to play with.

-cgmckenzie

Orks are early 2008, they're only about 3.5 years old, they're middle of the road aged. Still not as bad off as Necrons at 8.

Dark Eldar and Orks seem to be the most competitive balanced.

EDIT:^Massive brain fart, I meant balanced.

Gavo wrote:Dark Eldar and Orks seem to be the most competitive.

That's not quite what we're talking about. All the 5th edition codex (with the possible exception of Tyranids) and some of the 4th editions codex are competitive, but a balanced codex requires being competitive but not A: incredibly biased towards certain choices and B: have under-priced units.