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I am curious, after seeing the same thing happen to 40k with the views of players of what is the best army build, most obvious options to take, space wolf tournament armies full of long-fang spam plus thunderwolves that look almost identicle, and so on - SAME thing that happened to Magic the Gathering when it just became standard to own 4 of all rare cards instead of being 'lucky' as a collector, to have acquired one, because tat's what everyone else was doing. We all know what I am referring to, you know who you are: everyone who tries to play competetively with a constantly upped bar or expectation as to what qualifies as origionality as just a hindsight on how to spend your last few points after covering all of the exploitable facets of your army. aka anybody. Spam lists, codex abuse that becomes the norm (nob bikers or TWC/stormshield all armed slightly differently to double your wound allocation and so on, eldar list like my buddy plays that almost always include 3 dragon wagons to beat the odds of codex creep, necessitated 30 model ork squads and never using a trukk because its just a waste, whining that rhinos are a KP etc etc.)

Are there ANY codex in your opinions that can be 'competative' without reverting to some kind of spam or advantageous rules loophole or obviously dumb-not-to-take upgrade that eventually wind up being used by all until the ruleset changes and makes everyone have to adjust their angle on spam technique every edition/codex release?

example: this seems to me to a (fluffishly) a standard portion of a marine company as a well rounded battle force:

3 tactical squads with assorted heavy and special weapons, 3 sergeants with perhaps a meltabomb on one a combi weapon on one, a teleport homer on the captain who personally accompanies them to oversee things and carries a powersword as a privelige of his rank, and a teleport homer just in case. Toss a powersword or fist or sword or axe for a tactical sarge... 1 assault squad with a cool pistol and maybe a powersomething for the sarge because they are assaulters after all, some devastators with a bit of this a bit of that heavy weapons, rhinos with extra armor on one and smoke launchers as the 'assault' rhino, heck throw in a HK missile for another one. A predator destructor to spearhead the little column and maybe some scouts screening for them and some terminators ready to teleport in off the barge if needed.

Fluffy... this seems like a legit army. The army list itself almost tells a story of what the day in the life of an astartes force might be. Put it on the table and it is hosed down like dog poop off my patio.

take it to a competetive40k player to tweak and it looks like
Librarian (no mods, just need the psy hood and an HQ)
3 tac squads (all melta/lascannon, w unmodified razorbacks)
assault squad, powerfist, extra guys, storm shield
land raider crusader
8 terminators w TH/SS

or whatever (I'm not asking for the ultimate obvious 'nilla list here)

--------------

So anyway, are there any codex, in your opinions, who can get by without completely overused stuff, without just the right upgrades in just the right places and just enough spam of the obvious to fill up all the good FOC slots with the necessary and just fill-in-the gaps with crap to make it 'origional', who can do just fine without being a carbon copy of every other tournament looking list +/- a few points of little specifics on how the nob bikers or TWC are 'unique' versus the next guy's?

Well, you are talking about two totally different things. I am hearing that you want a tournament capable army, or at least an army capable of being competitive, that is not competitive.

And "pure" is a really loaded way to describe something. It implies than anything that is not the way you think it should be is impure in some way.

If you want to play narrative type games, then do so. But you can't expect to take an unfocused army that adheres to your idea of what is or is not pure and expect it to win a game against an optimized tournament list.

I think a lot of people get the fluff mixed up with the game. This is a game with mechanics based in mathematics which do their best to simulate the fluff. In the end however, the mechanics can only take you so far. It is a game.

In the end you have to accept the fact that different people play the game differently and there is very little reconciling the different play styles as one will trounce the other in a game 90% of the time.

So build your "fluffy" army as you see it (although my marines' fluff says they ruthlessly fight to win in an incredibly hostile universe using every possible advantage) and play against like minded people. The only way you can take a non-optimized list up against a tournament list and hope to win is to be an incredibly skilled and lucky player. Otherwise simple mathematics says you will lose. No amount of wishing it were otherwise will change that.

If your goal is an army with a wide variety of units that does well, I would suggest the deep codexes. Wolves, Marines, Orks, Daemons, Dark Eldar and even Chaos can do it. It takes skill and creativity to win with, but it is possible.

But as for "pure" armies, whatever that means, no, there are none. Every book will have lists that are optimized in it that will perform better than non-optimized.

I partially agree with Reecius.

IMO 40k is in a pretty balanced place right now. When people are trying to optimize a list, it is often a question of only a few percentage points (imprecise metaphorically speaking) of actual difference in potency. Reecius, for example, defends the power and efficacy of Foot Eldar, as evinced by his own results and Blackmoor's with such a list. Whereas many competitive players focused on optimization utterly dismiss it, as they see it as inferior to mech spam.

A lot of optimization-focused players fall into the bad habit of dismissing or trashing any build or unit which isn't perfectly optimal (in their opinion), using exagerrated terms like "trash" or "terrible", both for units which are genuinely bad/substantially overpriced (like Swooping Hawks) and for units which have unique and useful virtues (like Summoned Lesser Daemons).

40k has an advantage over M:tG in that it's not so easy to just buy a few cards and put 1 of every Restricted card in your desk and 4 of something else. Each army has its own stuff, and that stuff takes time and effort to collect, build, and paint.

IME many competitive players choose not to use the "standard" or cookie-cutter builds they find on the internet. Alex Fennel's LR Blood Angels, Clark Welch's and my own Chaos Space Marines, Blackmoor's Footdar, Wyatt Traina's Orks w/bikers, and Ben Mohlie's Space Wolves and SM are all examples of excellent and powerful and effective lists which have been very successful in 2010 and which were not builds espoused on competition-obsessed sites. Sometimes a strong build will be disregarded by people because it has a single bad matchup, when in reality that matchup might be uncommonly-seen in actual tournaments, and able to be compensated for by careful play. I won a Golden Ticket last year using borrowed LR-spam Space Wolves, for example. An army which theoretically has several bad matchups, but with which I smashed mech IG, beat optimized Orks and Daemons, and Drew (in my favor) an extremely tight Razor/LF spam SW army run by an ETC player.

In truth, you can often "water down" a powerful list archetype or mix less-seen units into it and still compete on excellent footing against the best you'll see out there. Maybe at a slight disadvantage in some cases, bu often at an advantage for not fielding the build your opponent has seen and practiced against time & time again.

And. In defence of cookie cutters. As a fairly new and inexperienced player of 40k, I know that it is hard, with all the choices available to any list builder, to discern what really works on the tabletop. I need someplace to start. For example, my imperial guard was unguided and going all over the place, until I came across Ailaros. My ideas and ideals matched with his, and his army became a starting point (along with all the advice given by dakka) for the army to have a fighting chance. And 'cause I don't have many chances to play, theory is really all I have to go on. And with my Blood Angels, I really like the idea of an assault marine list, and find out what a good way of doing that is. DoA, or against foot lists, on the table. With priests. So, sometimes, it is good to have something that all the cool kids are doing.

Fair point, Prussia. Often a simplified or cookie-cutter build can be useful to jump-start a new player's ability to compete, until he learns the game well enough to be comfortable and start experimenting.

You guys both make really good points.

I think I cam across unclear. The OP described a list that would be really cool to see in a BL book, but which would really struggle on the tabletop in most situations. My points was that a pure fluff list that has self imposed limitations to adhere to a theme or idea will by default be at a disadvantage to a player that does not have those self-imposed limitations.

But yes, as Mannahnin said, a lot of experienced players use what many would consider wonky lists and win with them. That comes as a result of experience in the game. Sparks won Da Boyz GT with Footdar and Jwolf nearly won the Gladiator with a Chaos army that had possessed, raptors and no super heavies.

It is totally doable, but not without great skill and experience. The thing is, that to the untrained eye those lists LOOK bad, but in the hands of a good player are not at all. They are optimized lists for that particular player, and they still don't stick to what I thought I understood to the OP's idea of a pure army, although I could be mistaken.

Really, the only player I know (although that is by no means a definitive statement) that wins at high levels of competition with a purely themed army is Dave_Fay, but he uses a themed Nurgle list which is pretty dang powerful at its baseline.

And Prussian59 makes an excellent point. It is far easier to learn the game when you have a template of a tried and true army from which you can customize to suit your personal play style.

One of the things I actually miss about Composition-scored events was that they created a more tangible incentive to try to innovate and be original. When I was having my early successes in tournaments ten years ago, it was generally expected that this was one of the skills of a top player- building and using a strong list that wasn't immediately recognizable as a "standard" build.

Yeah, it is always fun to see a non-internet approved list do well. Like the Necron assault army that took 3rd at the UKGT?! Wow. Would I love to speak tot hat guy and see how he played that list to do so well as it is so totally unconventional.

I think as players progress through their gaming career, they gain confidence in their own ability to make a great list without needing the internet to validate it. Since the explosion of the 40K internet scene is not too old, I think in time people will start doing their own thing more and more.