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Tiers are absolutely subjective to the person making the call on what tier something is.

The agreed on tiers are that Tau, Eldar, and Daemons are the top tier lists, especially when paired with allies. The bottom tier is usually agreed to consist of Blood Angels, Sisters of Battle, Orks, and no formation Tyranids.

When you include things like the Legion of the Damned, Imperial Knights, Scions, and Inquisition things get really damn muddled though.

 Kain wrote:
The agreed on tiers are that Tau, Eldar, and Daemons are the top tier lists, especially when paired with allies. The bottom tier is usually agreed to consist of Blood Angels, Sisters of Battle, Orks, and no formation Tyranids.

When you include things like the Legion of the Damned, Imperial Knights, Scions, and Inquisition things get really damn muddled though.

It's also pretty hard to give an exact rank (i.e. what is the 5th best army?), so tiers help with grouping. What Kain has posted is the generally accepted tier list (assuming 3 tiers), although people will always fight and bicker about it.

 kerikhaos wrote:
I think I'm back to where I started with my original question of this thread. Tiers are based on the current powers and abilities of a codex plus the skills and abilities of a player. Therefor a good player playing a (at the moment) cack blood angel army against a cack player with a tau army the battle should be a fairly balanced one. 2 good players however ( one playing tau and the other blood angels) would leave the BA wiping the cack off his face at the end of the battle.

This sound about right???

Close. Tiers do not take player skill into account, but rather assume the skill of both players to be identical.

However, the general idea you got is right: a low tier army played by skilled player should be able to beat an unskilled player playing a high tier army.
In some cases balance might be skewed enough that even an extremely skilled player has absolutely no chance of beating a less skilled players because the power level of their armies is too far apart and the high tier army basically runs itself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


The second thing is that ork technology does gerneally work, even in the hands of non-humans. It just works a little better when the orks believe in it, like not jamming, having more impact, or not running out of ammunition when it should . There is absolutely no trace of the often repeated "ork technology doesn't work by itself" in any part of the fluff.

I do remember reading that some ork weapons do not even have trigger mechanisms inside yet still work when used in battle though and it seems to be a very common rumor when talking about ork lore.

That's an internet phenomenon. If something gets repeated often enough, it suddenly becomes a fact, because there are enough sources to quote. I have read a lot of fluff, novels, GW, FW whatever, even the kind of fluff where ten space marines magically shoot half a Waaagh! dead. There is no indication of orks being unable to build functioning technology, quite the opposite. An ork just can't pick up a shoota-formed rock and start shooting. If that was ever part of the fluff, it no longer is.

Also, considering how most Xenos technology is described from the view of the IoM, this often repeated rumor might have two possible sources:
1) They just didn't get it. They have a hard time understanding their own technology, and have rituals and prayers for changing fuses. Not exactly someone I would count on making a decent analysis. Even the eldar and necrons are sometimes surprised by some of the orks technology, the IoM should be surprise by nearly all of it.
2) It didn't have a trigger to begin with, it just shoots all the time until ammo runns out. We all know that orks would do that.

Using a tier system is just a shorthand for talking about the relative power level of codices. It's much easier to say "Grey Knights are tier 2" than "An optimal Grey Knights list has a relative power level at which it has an even or better chance against most lists but is not powerful enough to have an even chance against optimised lists made from X, Y and Z Codices and does not have any inherent weaknesses that are easy to exploit."

 Jidmah wrote:

 kerikhaos wrote:
I think I'm back to where I started with my original question of this thread. Tiers are based on the current powers and abilities of a codex plus the skills and abilities of a player. Therefor a good player playing a (at the moment) cack blood angel army against a cack player with a tau army the battle should be a fairly balanced one. 2 good players however ( one playing tau and the other blood angels) would leave the BA wiping the cack off his face at the end of the battle.

This sound about right???

Close. Tiers do not take player skill into account, but rather assume the skill of both players to be identical.

They also assume player skill to be at the highest known level in the metagame. In other words, it's assuming both players are playing perfectly.

Any game that lets players choose from more than one option with traits that alter the gameplay, no matter how slightly, for the tool they'll use (an army in 40k, or a character in a fighting game are examples) will have tiers. Tiers are fluid, and evolve not only on alterations to the game itself, but also to the development of player skills and strategies around it. This is known as the 'metagame.' As the metagame evolves and new techniques are uncovered, it's likely that a game's relevant tier list will evolve with it. Certain traits will simply have more value than others, and the tools players use that have more desirable traits will tend to be higher on a tier list.

A tier list is an attempt to organize these tools in a fashion ranking them from top to bottom viability. While the differences that influence tiers themselves are an inherent part of the game, the tier lists that people use can only reflect as far as we know for the relevant metagame. In the case of 40k, note that there's no real cohesive competitive body that compiles this information and develops a tier list (and with GW changing the game so often, it's far too difficult to establish a stable and consistently healthy metagame in the first place). So while the 40k community at large will often reach a fairly general consensus as far as the overall viability of most armies would be concerned, you'll find variations depending on players' local metagames.

I'd like to see the paste-eating meta where BA aren't bottom tier

Martel732 wrote:
I'd like to see the paste-eating meta where BA aren't bottom tier

A meta dominated by Deathwing Dark Angels, Mono-Khorne Chaos Space Marines, Synapseless Tyranids,

Martel732 wrote:
I'd like to see the paste-eating meta where BA aren't bottom tier

Didn't a BA army won nationals in RPA this year ? And it was a tournament with escalation being legal .

Because we're the internet and love using phrases such as "God Tier" or "Crap Tier".

Makumba wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'd like to see the paste-eating meta where BA aren't bottom tier

Didn't a BA army won nationals in RPA this year ? And it was a tournament with escalation being legal .

Is this really true???

 kerikhaos wrote:

Makumba wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'd like to see the paste-eating meta where BA aren't bottom tier

Didn't a BA army won nationals in RPA this year ? And it was a tournament with escalation being legal .

Is this really true???

Blood Angels were a pretty damn good army back in 5th edition. I think they were in top 5 armies prior to DE coming out. Eldar were up there and so were Tank Guard.

 Xerics wrote:

 kerikhaos wrote:

Makumba wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'd like to see the paste-eating meta where BA aren't bottom tier

Didn't a BA army won nationals in RPA this year ? And it was a tournament with escalation being legal .

Is this really true???

Blood Angels were a pretty damn good army back in 5th edition. I think they were in top 5 armies prior to DE coming out. Eldar were up there and so were Tank Guard.

Eldar in the top five in 5e?

That's pretty snigger worthy.

 Kain wrote:

 Xerics wrote:

 kerikhaos wrote:

Makumba wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'd like to see the paste-eating meta where BA aren't bottom tier

Didn't a BA army won nationals in RPA this year ? And it was a tournament with escalation being legal .

Is this really true???

Blood Angels were a pretty damn good army back in 5th edition. I think they were in top 5 armies prior to DE coming out. Eldar were up there and so were Tank Guard.

Eldar in the top five in 5e?

That's pretty snigger worthy.

Mechdar. Wave serpents, warwalkers and Seer council on bikes.

 Xerics wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Xerics wrote:

 kerikhaos wrote:

Makumba wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'd like to see the paste-eating meta where BA aren't bottom tier

Didn't a BA army won nationals in RPA this year ? And it was a tournament with escalation being legal .

Is this really true???

Blood Angels were a pretty damn good army back in 5th edition. I think they were in top 5 armies prior to DE coming out. Eldar were up there and so were Tank Guard.

Eldar in the top five in 5e?

That's pretty snigger worthy.

Mechdar. Wave serpents, warwalkers and Seer council on bikes.

The upper bracket of armies in 5e were

Grey Knights

Imperial Guard

Necrons

Dark Eldar

Space Wolves

Blood Angels

The Eldar were if anything; hovering in the bottom third.

 Kain wrote:

 Xerics wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Xerics wrote:

 kerikhaos wrote:

Makumba wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'd like to see the paste-eating meta where BA aren't bottom tier

Didn't a BA army won nationals in RPA this year ? And it was a tournament with escalation being legal .

Is this really true???

Blood Angels were a pretty damn good army back in 5th edition. I think they were in top 5 armies prior to DE coming out. Eldar were up there and so were Tank Guard.

Eldar in the top five in 5e?

That's pretty snigger worthy.

Mechdar. Wave serpents, warwalkers and Seer council on bikes.

The upper bracket of armies in 5e were

Grey Knights

Imperial Guard

Necrons

Dark Eldar

Space Wolves

Blood Angels

The Eldar were if anything; hovering in the bottom third.

I played DE ALOT when they came out at my game store and beat them pretty regularly. The only army i can think of that gave me a hard time were blood angels and sometimes IG. I took a break from the game before the new Necron dex came out and before GK became too popular.

You might want to add that Necrons were only good in 5th just before it ended. Before their new codex, Necrons absolutely and horribly sucked in 5th.

Of course, you could say the same thing about Daemonhunters as well. Both were in a pretty close competition for absolute worst codex in the game.

But major ebbs and flows in power in a GW game are something we should have come to expect by now, really.

Eldar were NOT bottom third in 5th. Their codex was a codex of peaks and valleys. But oh, were their peaks good. They had guided scatterwalkers that had a 4+ rerollable cover save from fortune. Jetseer council. Wave Serpents under 5th ed vehicle rules.

Martel732 wrote:
Eldar were NOT bottom third in 5th. Their codex was a codex of peaks and valleys. But oh, were their peaks good. They had guided scatterwalkers that had a 4+ rerollable cover save from fortune. Jetseer council. Wave Serpents under 5th ed vehicle rules.

I don't recall them being particularly more competitive than my Tyranids who definitely were in the lower-mid tiers.

Stick with the Blood Angels if you love to play them, regardless of tier. I honestly feel that if the army is fun to play for you then that is 95% of 40K. Some people do enjoy WAAC lists and that is what makes the game fun for them.

At the end of the day to me tier is irrelevant. Blood Angels won't suck forever. And they are due for a new codex some time in the next year so my advice to you is forget tiers. Love the army, love the game.

tiers also gloss over the varity you can get from lists.


Just for example, Deamons can be played at the "top tier" but I'm pretty sure you could develop a deamons army thats weak as well

BrianDavion wrote:
tiers also gloss over the varity you can get from lists.


Just for example, Deamons can be played at the "top tier" but I'm pretty sure you could develop a deamons army thats weak as well

The tier listing is mostly concerned with how many strong lists an army can have and how strong those lists are.

BrianDavion wrote:
tiers also gloss over the varity you can get from lists.


Just for example, Deamons can be played at the "top tier" but I'm pretty sure you could develop a deamons army thats weak as well

When ranking codices you assume an optimised build.

Tier lists always assume the highest level of play, which assumes the most optimal possible options.

Most modern users of "tiers", particularly in this hobby, don't understand what it actually means to competitive play. They just vomit up their internet spittle and scream down anyone with an original thought or open-mind.

Tiers, in this sense, originate in the competitive fight gaming scene. (You're welcome to argue against this, you'll be wrong, but you're welcome anyway). Read this article by David Sirlin if you want a better idea of what tiers actually mean in competitive gaming.

On a side not, what is the current "tier" list. I do like keeping up with the 40k meta and it would be nice to see that list.

I would assume Eldar is #1 with Tau at #2.

 Happygrunt wrote:
On a side not, what is the current "tier" list. I do like keeping up with the 40k meta and it would be nice to see that list.

I would assume Eldar is #1 with Tau at #2.

That's not how a tier list works. Both Tau and Eldar would likely be in Tier 1 along with Daemons.

Roughly:

T1: Tau, Eldar, Daemons

T2: Vanilla (could arguably be in T1), Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Dark Eldar, Necrons, Sisters, Chaos Space Marines, Dark Angels, Tyranids

T3: Blood Angels, Orks

Limbo/Too soon: Imperial Guarg, any Codex intended to be used as allies.

The problem with a Tier list like this is that allies makes everything really complicated to figure out, so it's not really reflective of what actually goes into the lists.

Ok so it's safe to say then that there are 3 known tiers and when looking at the stats and the facts blood angels are currently the lowest because they are a close combat army in a shooting 6th edition. So they have become disabled in a sense. Only a new update in the codex can bring them back to tier 1 or 2 but they can't stay that low forever I'm guessing of course.

Well, there's nothing that says they can't stay there for ever. Black Templars have been at-best a low-T2 army since the start of 5th edition if not earlier, a new Codex didn't really change that all too much as while the Codex could potentially be T1 it depends on not playing Black Templars in the first place. It's likely that Blood Angels will improve if/when given a new Codex, but due to the problems all MEQ face in 6th edition it's unlikely that they'll be among the strongest armies.