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.

Instead of "what army is the strongest one right now?" ( because all army's have their own weaknesses and benefits ), simply say in your opinion what army has the biggest edge over other army's ( some special rule, tactics etc... )? And why?

I'm pretty new to the game but i have 5 different sets of guys, (space marines, necrons, tau, Eldar, and daemons) and the people that seem the toughest are the Space Marines. I mean you could say the necrons are tough because the WBB rule, but even 8 necrons on 5 assault marines go down easily (with a little luck)

I mean Marines are very versatile, especially assault marines because of their ability to start an assault so easily which is very effective against enemies with rapid fire and awful close combat skills (Tau )

Imperial Guard, they can be tailored in almost any way you can think of.

Small elite army
Large horde army
Anti Horde
Mechanized
Tank Battalions
Mass Heavy weapons
Flying Calvary

The Imperial guard book is the most adaptive one out there in my opinion.

It's really hard to say, I'm constantly surprised by the ways people manage to screw up the plans of those playing the supposedly "invincible" codex (IE - space wolves, Grey Knights). Right now I personally think we have a really nice balance of armies running around.

So I guess in short I can't answer it specifically because I don't think that any single codex has an outright edge on the rest of the playing field.

Grey Knights have most edge agains most armies. They have the firepower and rending weapons AND power weapons and S10 hammer to take down monsters, heavily armored infantry and every tank in the game. They can also take down masses of models in just one turn in close combat, because of purifiers cleansing flame.

Imperial guard. They have a list to beat your list, my neighbors list, and your chickens list.

Kylis wrote:Grey Knights have most edge agains most armies. They have the firepower and rending weapons AND power weapons and S10 hammer to take down monsters, heavily armored infantry and every tank in the game. They can also take down masses of models in just one turn in close combat, because of purifiers cleansing flame.

while I can agree that GK has tools to work with. They are far from holding a definitive edge over a majority of the other armies. They have good firepower, but 90% of it is 24" range and decreases in number of shots if you move (Heavy 4 -> Assault 2). Meaning that any army more mobile than they are, or with better long range shooting can pick apart the GK on the way across the board. Also the power weapons they carry are not always a blessing when they charge. More often than not it's actually disadvantageous to kill an enemy unit in the first go because it leaves you open to shooting. There are all sorts of balances and checks inside the grey knights codex (most notably their cost) that prevents someone from literally just taking the best stuff in each FOC slot and winning. You still have to pick and choose like every other army.

Now here's the flip side...if you ask which army is the most gimped or handicapped currently, there are several that can easily be listed. Most notably of course being necrons.

It's far easier for a single army to fall behind the pack due to long update cycles than it is for a single army to jump ahead of everyone (especially when the armies are written for the same edition)

Biggest I've seen is Blood Angels over Tau. Every time I play them they are tabled or close to it. Fast Assault is basically the bane of Tau.

Imperial guard. Period.

Yeah, Guard.
Mass Chimeras/Valks shoot Mechdar off the board and 3 Meltas/unit say hi to your other vehicles.

The best way to nerdrage a ten year old SM player is JSJ with Tau, because when you take out a Tac squad without casualties then jump out of range of the retaliation they lose it!

GKs. Yes they have some missing elements that other MEQs have, but what they do have far over balances in their favor.

Imperial Guard. Vehicles are king in 5E, and Guard can bring the most, not to mention the most undercosted.

Grey Knights have an edge over deep strikers, Space Wolves have an edge over everyone else because they have such CHEAP options. Next...

I don't think one army has the edge over all others.
Yes IG have very strong options, and can take a list to beat almost anything, but you can build lists with most codex's to beat Guard.
GKs, Guard and Space Wolves certainly seem to have the strongest 'all corners' list which is what your really going to be seeing in tournaments. If its a case of building a list to beat another list, whoever is doing the tailoring should win. Mech Guard will win a lot of games, but with most armies you can probably make a list that will beat it. But if you just take a list designed to beat Mech Guard, and then come up against horde orks, DOA, Tau etc in a tournament your going to lose.

rodgers37 wrote:I don't think one army has the edge over all others.
Yes IG have very strong options, and can take a list to beat almost anything, but you can build lists with most codex's to beat Guard.
GKs, Guard and Space Wolves certainly seem to have the strongest 'all corners' list which is what your really going to be seeing in tournaments. If its a case of building a list to beat another list, whoever is doing the tailoring should win. Mech Guard will win a lot of games, but with most armies you can probably make a list that will beat it. But if you just take a list designed to beat Mech Guard, and then come up against horde orks, DOA, Tau etc in a tournament your going to lose.

Many armies actually have a very difficult time coming up with enough AT to properly engage mech IG, or if they do, they often run into issues where they don't have the staying power. Eldar, DE, Necrons, Tau, CSM's, Orks, etc have this issue. If you're talking tailored list vs tailored list IG will almost always have the advantage due to the huge diversity of weapons, particularly with the HS slots (swapping between LRBT's for pieplates, Hydras for anti-transport/anti-infantry, manticores, etc).

Not to mention that Guard has two major polar opposite builds. Power blob and Mech. And a glass cannon build after that: leaf blower.

an anti Guard army might as well be called an Anti-40k army, because that one army has just as many bases to cover.