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BA in 3rd with T1 rhino rush assaults then sweeping from combat to combat.

Yeah, any variation of rhino rush, or any assault-based army was hilariously stupid in 3rd ed. until the 3.5/4e fix to the Assault phase.

Although obviously the Tau were the most hideously OP when they first came out as an army....... I think Tau players that kept with the army since it's inception might have suffered the most, the longest. Or maybe the Dark Eldar players that had to use the 3rd edition codex for what seemed like about three decades.

I never had a problem with my Eldar being overpowered, but then I preferred to play "different" builds than what the internet demanded was the meta.

niv-mizzet wrote:
I started wondering if maybe some old competitive scene veterans could weigh in on a curiosity I have.

Which 40k codex, given its edition of choice in terms of core rules, is the king of codices? The one that not only has some of the best possible lists, but also has more undercosted and near auto-take units and upgrades.

I obviously know that eldar 6th edition in the 6th edition core rules is one of the recent contenders.

5th Edition Blood angels was just too much. it singlehandedly forced a sixth Edition. Lol.

5th ED Grey Knights. Grenades plus the psy ammo on dreads made that edition bruuuuutttaaaallll

Unfortunately wasn't around for it, but I've heard rumors of the old cyclone missile launchers. Something about being able to fire as many missiles as they want to create an increasingly large blast template?

2nd ed space wolves, all termies taking assault cannon and cyclone. Shudder

3.5 chaos has so many updates, so no flight plus speed for example, the glaive couldn't be taken with certain combos, etc

They even changed oblits to t4/5 as, at 70 points, they were nuts.

Lol. I know it didn't last too long; but does no one remember the White Dwarf Demon army? 27 Flamers 27 Screamers!

That list was crazy good. Only ever lost to a mirror match when he got the first turn.

 kingbobbito wrote:
Unfortunately wasn't around for it, but I've heard rumors of the old cyclone missile launchers. Something about being able to fire as many missiles as they want to create an increasingly large blast template?

2nd edition. Cyclones had limited ammo (IIRC) but could fire their entire payload at once.

Give me back my Iron Warriors ( in relative ridicilous powerlevel. )

2nd cycs could shoot 1 time, if they misfired and rolled a 1 or 6 (can't remember) they would shoot all 10 in random directions and at random targets, don't believe the hype

Nothing the loyalists had in 2nd ed was any good. Nothing. Stop and think about that for a sec.

Martel732 wrote:
Nothing the loyalists had in 2nd ed was any good. Nothing. Stop and think about that for a sec.

The aforementioned Space Wolf cyclone+Assault Cannon terminators notwithstanding? Terminators with 3+ saves on 2d6? Targeting gear?

I mean, Eldar were wtfoverpowered, but to say that loyalists had nothing good is more than a bit of a stretch.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Nothing the loyalists had in 2nd ed was any good. Nothing. Stop and think about that for a sec.

The aforementioned Space Wolf cyclone+Assault Cannon terminators notwithstanding? Terminators with 3+ saves on 2d6? Targeting gear?

I mean, Eldar were wtfoverpowered, but to say that loyalists had nothing good is more than a bit of a stretch.

Not compared to their competition. Terminators were joke because their firepower was very poor, and what firepower they did have was easily neutered by the "shoot the closest" rule. Targeters were offset by cover and penalties to hit by fast moving models. The things CSM, Eldar, and Tyranids could do made it so the IoM might as well have not shown up. I saw a Tyranid list take on double its point value in IG on a bet and table the whole mess. Oh, and don't forget pulsa rokkit spam fielded by genestealer cultists.

Well, IG weren't ever good until 5th edition really.

That said, what exaclty did 2E CSM have that were so overpowering relative to loyalist weaponry?

Targeters were good because they reduced the usefulness of enemy cover and speed, and those same issues with heavy weapons applied just as much to many other armies.

I mean, I'm not saying they were all amazing, but "loyalists" as a whole, particularly including Space Wolves & Assassins, weren't helpless mewling babes.

I mean, certain groups may have been, it took 22 years from the game's inception for the Imperial Guard to become an army that was taken seriously, but "Loyalists" as a whole weren't bereft of useful capabilities.

"That said, what exaclty did 2E CSM have that were so overpowering relative to loyalist weaponry? "

Their terminators had reaper autocannons that didn't jam easily as opposed to the assault cannon that jammed constantly. The blast master was non-trivial as well if I remember correctly.

Noise marines had sonic blasters.

Plague marines had the almighty blight grenade.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Who dominated the first half of 6th?

Before the Tau and Eldar books Guard Flying Circus was hilariously powerful.

Any kind of flyer spam ruled at the beginning of 6th. Necron Bakery (night scythes and annihilation barges and wraiths oh my), CSM flamer heldrake spam, GK with a couple henchmen squads and tons of storm ravens...

 Ailaros wrote:
When combined with Mass TL S10 Ap1 spam and the old stealth suit hyjinks, it certainly was. I find it a sad testament to groupthink that tau players convinced themselves that they had a terrible codex in 5th ed. Almost as weird as eldar convincing themselves of the same thing.

I never really found stealth suits to be all that useful and I much prefer their current set of rules (although they still aren't great). Broadsides were pretty awesome though. Didn't help much when you played against assaulty tyranids, Blood Angels, and Orks though.

P.S. Also, I'm not sure how productive of a conversation this actually is. I find it hard to say how you can judge how OP one thing is vs something else in a completely different meta and set of rules. I would be open to arguments either way on that though.

Martel732 wrote:
"That said, what exaclty did 2E CSM have that were so overpowering relative to loyalist weaponry? "

Their terminators had reaper autocannons that didn't jam easily as opposed to the assault cannon that jammed constantly. The blast master was non-trivial as well if I remember correctly.

Reaper Autocannons were more reliable/safer, but had less firepower output and a lower "damage" stat, and didn't get a short range to-hit bonus, it was a far less scary weapon, and CSM terminators had no Targeters or Teleport Homers the way loyalist Terminators got. A loyalist termi firing at short range with an Assault Cannon got a +2 to hit (which mattered a lot) over the Reaper Autocannon.

Blastmasters were highly variable, with Strength "D6+4", a -3 ASM (pretty average for a heavy weapon) and a 2" blast. Armor pen was good but less than that of a Lascannon. A highly variable weapon in effectiveness.

Noise marines had sonic blasters.

Yup, but they were just bolters with a -2 ASM instead of a -1 ASM, and a Sonic Blaster cost 3x what a Bolter cost. A basic CSM with a Bolter was 28pts, a Noise Marine with a Sonic Blaster was 40.

Plague marines had the almighty blight grenade.

Blight Grenades were another highly variable weapon. No ASM, Strength was D6, if a 1 was rolled for S then no further hits generated. It certainly wasn't anything like the absurd Virus bomb.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"That said, what exaclty did 2E CSM have that were so overpowering relative to loyalist weaponry? "

Their terminators had reaper autocannons that didn't jam easily as opposed to the assault cannon that jammed constantly. The blast master was non-trivial as well if I remember correctly.

Reaper Autocannons were more reliable/safer, but had less firepower output and a lower "damage" stat, and didn't get a short range to-hit bonus, it was a far less scary weapon, and CSM terminators had no Targeters or Teleport Homers the way loyalist Terminators got. A loyalist termi firing at short range with an Assault Cannon got a +2 to hit (which mattered a lot) over the Reaper Autocannon.

Blastmasters were highly variable, with Strength "D6+4", a -3 ASM (pretty average for a heavy weapon) and a 2" blast. Armor pen was good but less than that of a Lascannon. A highly variable weapon in effectiveness.

Noise marines had sonic blasters.

Yup, but they were just bolters with a -2 ASM instead of a -1 ASM, and a Sonic Blaster cost 3x what a Bolter cost. A basic CSM with a Bolter was 28pts, a Noise Marine with a Sonic Blaster was 40.

Plague marines had the almighty blight grenade.

Blight Grenades were another highly variable weapon. No ASM, Strength was D6, if a 1 was rolled for S then no further hits generated. It certainly wasn't anything like the absurd Virus bomb.

A CSM army shot my entire BA list off the table in one turn before I could act. More than once. That level of brokenness doesn't exist anymore.

Martel732 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"That said, what exaclty did 2E CSM have that were so overpowering relative to loyalist weaponry? "

Their terminators had reaper autocannons that didn't jam easily as opposed to the assault cannon that jammed constantly. The blast master was non-trivial as well if I remember correctly.

Reaper Autocannons were more reliable/safer, but had less firepower output and a lower "damage" stat, and didn't get a short range to-hit bonus, it was a far less scary weapon, and CSM terminators had no Targeters or Teleport Homers the way loyalist Terminators got. A loyalist termi firing at short range with an Assault Cannon got a +2 to hit (which mattered a lot) over the Reaper Autocannon.

Blastmasters were highly variable, with Strength "D6+4", a -3 ASM (pretty average for a heavy weapon) and a 2" blast. Armor pen was good but less than that of a Lascannon. A highly variable weapon in effectiveness.

Noise marines had sonic blasters.

Yup, but they were just bolters with a -2 ASM instead of a -1 ASM, and a Sonic Blaster cost 3x what a Bolter cost. A basic CSM with a Bolter was 28pts, a Noise Marine with a Sonic Blaster was 40.

Plague marines had the almighty blight grenade.

Blight Grenades were another highly variable weapon. No ASM, Strength was D6, if a 1 was rolled for S then no further hits generated. It certainly wasn't anything like the absurd Virus bomb.

A CSM army shot my entire BA list off the table in one turn before I could act. More than once. That level of brokenness doesn't exist anymore.

That's an extremely anecdotal piece of evidence, and I've seen it done in later editions. Hell I've done it. (DE are a really poor matchup for mech IG).Likewise, with 2E, with targeting restrictions, to-hit modifiers, and a lot more "move or fire", raw firepower winning should have been much less common. I mean, I could see Eldar doing something absurd with their ability to hop out from terrain and back and things like Warp Spiders putting down such an absurd hail of fire that it's impossible to escape, but I don't see where something like that would have been easy for a CSM army to do, particularly easier than a Loyalist one when the CSM's had a much more Melee focus.

CSM were also the only ones we found that could stop the 100 hormagaunt lists. Oh, the 100 metal hormagaunts. Granted, the Angels of Death codex was terrible, but still. Not getting a turn at all? Really?

Martel732 wrote:
CSM were also the only ones we found that could stop the 100 hormagaunt lists. Oh, the 100 metal hormagaunts. Granted, the Angels of Death codex was terrible, but still. Not getting a turn at all? Really?

Happened routinely to my poor Daemons in 5th ed against GK's and their idiotic Durp Quake bs... hell, there were games where I didn't even get to deploy a single model on the freaking table against GK's!

Yeah, than the horrible things that actually got eratta'd OUT of 2nd edition, like army-wide cyclone launchers, the Warp Quake BS was easily more offensive to opponents.

Because it was one of those things where any idiot of a game designer should have known better and changed during even the most simplistic of testing. Seriously, it's like it was designed expressly to be broken and then released just out of spite.

Squats. They need to nerf Squats.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Yeah, than the horrible things that actually got eratta'd OUT of 2nd edition, like army-wide cyclone launchers, the Warp Quake BS was easily more offensive to opponents.

Because it was one of those things where any idiot of a game designer should have known better and changed during even the most simplistic of testing. Seriously, it's like it was designed expressly to be broken and then released just out of spite.

My favourite "tactic" with Ward Quake(tm) though was the RAW donkey-caves who would turn around and 'juggle' your misshaping units between various quake bubble in order to keep chaining rolls on the mishap table...

And the fact it wasn't just us poor Daemon players who suffered because of it. Drop Pods/Spore Pods, DoA, Deathwing Assaults, etc... Ward Quake was pretty much an automatic 'screw-you' to a large number of lists, and the only viable counter was essentially "don't go last!"
Of course, at least all the non-Daemon armies got the chance to still play a sham of a game by simply deploying normally, (followed by getting shot to bits/chopped apart due to army-wide power toys), but for Daemon players, our codex forced us to always deploy via Deep Strike!

 Vaktathi wrote:
Well, IG weren't ever good until 5th edition really.

Huh? They were brutal in 2nd.

MarsNZ wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Well, IG weren't ever good until 5th edition really.

Huh? They were brutal in 2nd.

Until the virus grenade happened.

Nidzilla was the only list of 4thEd. Leafblower guard was iconic and powerful upon its release as well. 5th Ed GK were broken as was Necrons' Flying Croissants.

2nd Ed was difficult to save though... The army that actually won the first H2H assault usually just kept romping through the enemies army. Probably why nids were tough there too. Personally, Orc Pulsa Rokkits won me 100'sof games as did that sexy Ghaz's Waagh! during Witch Hunt! missions.

The problem with the leafblower was that it was a flash in the pan. It showed up, was really feared for a couple of months, and then went away.

Once the old GK codex showed up, it stripped away the ability for guard to take mystics and terminators as allies, which was a key part of the list. Plus, after the guard codex, every codex after came out with equal or more long range firepower than guard had.

The advantages of leafblower faded pretty quickly. If it was still good, people wouldn't have flocked to vendetta spam a year or two later when 6th ed came out.

It was boss, but just for a moment.

Painnen wrote:
Nidzilla was the only list of 4thEd. Leafblower guard was iconic and powerful upon its release as well. 5th Ed GK were broken as was Necrons' Flying Croissants.

2nd Ed was difficult to save though... The army that actually won the first H2H assault usually just kept romping through the enemies army. Probably why nids were tough there too. Personally, Orc Pulsa Rokkits won me 100'sof games as did that sexy Ghaz's Waagh! during Witch Hunt! missions.

Eldar Dominated 4th when they came out with their 4th edition dex. The Tri-Falcon lists were steamrolling just about everything.