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Can confirm that tsons are top teir. They have the firepower and survivability to make them scary. Their flaw of course being the cost. Loosing just one model greatly reducing their effectivness

I adjusted my Deathguard list vs the Orks with the same list as before.

This time i krumped them twice.

I still used only plaguemarines but now i used two fighter specialists with flail of corruption and great plague cleaver.
Last specialist was gunner with blight launcher.
Leader with sword and plasma pistol.
2 regular PM.

Both times i lost only 1 model.

We did not use any tactic abilities though.

Oh plague marine figggter zelot with flail is out right broken.

Hawehu@hotmail.com wrote:
I adjusted my Deathguard list vs the Orks with the same list as before.

This time i krumped them twice.

I still used only plaguemarines but now i used two fighter specialists with flail of corruption and great plague cleaver.
Last specialist was gunner with blight launcher.
Leader with sword and plasma pistol.
2 regular PM.

Both times i lost only 1 model.

We did not use any tactic abilities though.

I am beginning to realize through my games that Elite armies have a pretty big advantage when you don't use Tactic cards, because the ability to reroll an injury roll for a one-damage weapon is absolutely devastating against that elite target. Jumps your chance of killing the model you wounded from 50% to 75%, and only costs 1CP. Really, really important when you're trying to bring down a tough enemy with small arms.

Now with 10 games under my belt using the full rules and having seen all armies played, here's my assessment of tiers:

1) Good at everything tier. These are armies that can do both melee and shooting very well, or one of the two exceptionally well and the other passably. when you look at the 'best' options available, they are not either so limited you have no choices nor are there many "never-includes" that limit options artificially. In campaigns these armies rise to the top because they build up large pools of units with totally different wargear and you end up with a situation like (for example) "ah, my opponent has 5 plague marines. My list here will feature 2 missile launchers and 1 plasma gun marine with a combi-plasma sarge", and then the next game "Ah, plasma spam guardsmen that I need to melee rush or I lose. Here come 10 combat knife/bolt pistol scouts."

Death Guard, Deathwatch, Admech, GSC, Thousand Sons, Orks, Space Marines.

2) Good at one thing tier. These armies are limited due to their unit choices into a single playstyle or composition type that, while they are good at that one thing, leads them to perform poorly in extended campaigns due to their opponents' ability to tailor into them and their inability to tailor back as effectively. This means their success can be matchup-dependent.

Tyranids, Drukhari, Tau (Stealth Suit based teams only), Grey Knights, Guard, Harlequins.

3) not very good at much tier. These are armies that are both limited to being good at one thing...and not very good at that thing. You'll notice that these are mostly heavily shooting-locked teams and that is because it seems systemically a pure melee list will usually be able to close to range and start butchering a shooting team without much trouble, but a TAC team will be able to hold off a melee team with their melee fighters and cause enough shooting casualties to get a solid advantage in the fight. Like the inverse of standard 40k, pure melee and pure shooty generally lose out to solidly middle of the road, but while pure melee is workable pure shooty tends to fall flat.

Eldar, Tau (non-stealth suits), Necrons, Chaos Marines.

Craftworlds bottom tier of something? That's unpossible!

Haven't seen this since 6th!

I've been playing Tau and Death Guard and now getting into BAngel coloured Primaris and they all seem pretty sweet. Tau Rail rifle is dirty in the hands of a sniper specialist and supported by a Comms specialist.
And yeah, Death Guard combat flail bro is hideous.
I have to say though, I think I'm enjoying Primaris the most weirdly. BAngels are my favourite army so maybe I'm bias, but they feel like marines should; tough and good in most situations.

Edit: also, my stealth suit just doesn't die. She hovers around in cover and just can't be hit, and even when she is has good toughness and save. I can see a whole team of suits being a really strong team.

Bharring wrote:
Craftworlds bottom tier of something? That's unpossible!

Haven't seen this since 6th!

Yeah weirdly when their list has no shining spears dark reapers or farseers they kind of become terrible.

Terrible and more importantly BOOOOOOOOORING. hey would you like a ahuriken catapult? How abouta more different shuriken catapult? Oh man or you can have a super awesome leader with TWO shuriken catapults!! Wow!!!!

Well, we can take the guys who can take Aeldari Blades! But Chainswords look different, so we'll give them different rules! And you can upgrade them to power swords! Super customizable!

They're the standard upgradeable infantry! So they can get special/heavy weapons! And instead of only 4 options for Specials like Marines, they get *TWO* completely unique options! The Fusion is unlike anything anyone else has - it's Melta spelled with an F! And the Flamer is... well I got nothing, but so unique! And, as an added bonus, instead of Heavies, you get a second Special!

They even get the best squad leader! So good, he can't even join the squad anymore! He'll kick ass at Kill Team (but isn't in the game), so get ready for your super-customizable squad leader!

Oh, and that power sword? You didn't need that option right? Mind if we just drop it? Because we did.

You get *all* of this, and all you have to do is lose half your shooting! We'll even throw in +1 A in CC for free!

Yeah. Snore. wake me up when eldar get warlocks, banshees, spiders and scorpions.

You get one heavy weapon (that can't even be a specialist), two flamer/melta guys (who can't be Demolitions specialists, even though they have flamers), and exactly one interesting model in the form of the Dire Avenger Exarch.

Even if they weren't terribad....theyre just dull, dull, dull.

people ranking tau low simply haven't played against good tau players. Tau are in the top.

Tau will simply never lose their important models since drones are so efficient and savior protocols are good.

Death guard are, of course, top tier. I think Harlies are top tier, as their mobility will have them able to engage without ever being shot. Tau just have a lot of BS they can pile up to avoid losing any of their key models and reliably taking out models.


Space marines have the most broken tactic cards you pay to win for, and an interesting shooting combo, which effectively turns a SM kill team into a missile launcher always hitting and wounding without the ability to kill him until you've pretty much killed the rest of the team. But they're super vulnerable to being shut down in melee.

stratigo wrote:
people ranking tau low simply haven't played against good tau players. Tau are in the top.

Tau will simply never lose their important models since drones are so efficient and savior protocols are good.

Death guard are, of course, top tier. I think Harlies are top tier, as their mobility will have them able to engage without ever being shot. Tau just have a lot of BS they can pile up to avoid losing any of their key models and reliably taking out models.


Space marines have the most broken tactic cards you pay to win for, and an interesting shooting combo, which effectively turns a SM kill team into a missile launcher always hitting and wounding without the ability to kill him until you've pretty much killed the rest of the team. But they're super vulnerable to being shut down in melee.

In an individual game where you're not using the Command Roster (this seems pretty typical in the early trials of the game I've seen) then yeah, Tau is fine with their very limited build (essentially just Stealth Suits, Pathfinder Gunners and various drones). Where they start to struggle is when you do have those ultra-tailored lists that can deal with them, because like Harlequins, necrons, and Eldar, they have basically one shtick because Breachers, Fire Warriors and Pathfinder non-gunners are so limited. They MUST be shooty, and they MUST be reasonably elite (unless you want the fun of running an all gun drone team and finding out what happens to a horde army with no leadership abilities and LD4 base when the casualties start stacking up).

They're good at doing that, but it does mean you've got to hope the ability to swap between S5 dakka and high-strength anti elite firepower is enough tailoring bandwidth to take on stuff like Deathwatch, Death Guard and Space Marines who are super customizable and can tailor into you.

You mean a grenade launcher (Sniper) supported by a comms + the stratagem auspex scan?

Soldier #243 wrote:
You mean a grenade launcher (Sniper) supported by a comms + the stratagem auspex scan?

No, a missile launcher supported by comms with just an auspex. No CPs required for that two up rerolling ones hit.