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This has been bothering me for some time now but I have let it build up until I just can't take it anymore. I want to see some originality in armies, especially those in tournaments.

Has anyone here had success with a Space Wolf army that doesn't use Long Fangs?
Has anyone had success with a Grey Knight army that isn't Draigowing/Purifiers/Henchman Spam?
Has anyone had success with a Blood Angel list that isn't doing Razorspam/AV13 Spam?
Has anyone had success with a Chaos Marine list that isn't running Dual Lash Princes/Plaguespam/Oblit Spam?
Has anyone had success with an Imperial Guard army that isn't a Leafblower?
Has anyone had success with a Dark Eldar army that isn't Venomspam?
Has anyone had success with a Necron army that isn't the Scarab Farm list?

I get so freakin tired of seeing the same old lists over and over and over. Can't anyone have an original thought in their heads anymore or has 40k turned into a game where it is required of you to look around the net to find the netlist for your particular army that is the best one for it supposedly.

Sorry but I am just in a really bad mood right now and someone on one of the other sites has filled my Rage meter to the top

I went 2-2-1 at a 60 player tournament with a Thousand Sons army if it helps. Running with a single obliterator and everything else marked by Tzeentch.

I like that. There isn't anything wrong with Thousand Sons.

I play (well, played - I don't play 40k anymore) a non-draigo/pally GK army and had some success with it. Not consistent success, but it could and did win games.

I don't like the model for Draigo (and his rules aren't much better) and would not ever use him.

Leafblower doesn't have the same effect here as most of our tourneys are 1750pts or less, and you just can't muster the same amount of firepower at that level (2500).
My guard uses ogryns and roughriders, with outflanking sentinels and a single veteran squad in a valk. It has won games - even against DE - there just aren't enough armoured vehicles for the lance spam armies and the two platoon blobs tend to stick around.

As for the others, they aren't armies I play, personally (was never attracted to fleabags, vampires, spikies, B&D elves or not-terminators) and since I no longer play the game, no real desire to learn how to play or beat them.

At a tournament I went to there was horde orks vs. horde guard.
Not a single tank or wound allocation nob is sight.
Does that count?

If you want variety play warmahordes

regarding 40k, until the game is rebalanced so as to make multiple builds viable, with better internal and external balance, you're going to be dealing with this GW phenomenon where of all the options a codex has, only a handful of them are worth it.

*shrug* thats just the nature of the game.

Has anyone had success with a Necron army that isn't the Scarab Farm list?

Yes, There have been several GTS won by Necron lists, none of them being Scarab farm lists.

I've never used oblits or a daemon prince for my chaos list, and I only have 1 squad of plague marines.
With my Eldar I typically bring at least 2 squads of rangers, and I try and bring harlequins whenever I can.
None of my lists are all that competitive, and certainly aren't the spam lists that you see at all the tourneys.

Has anyone had success with a Grey Knight army that isn't Draigowing/Purifiers/Henchman Spam?

Has anyone had success with a Chaos Marine list that isn't running Dual Lash Princes/Plaguespam/Oblit Spam?

I love those two examples. Exactly! Why do people limit themselves like that?

My DE force isn't venomspam... it's Raiderspam. Even then, I only have 9 vehicles in it.

Blame the game, not the player, in this case.

40k is such a horribly balanced system, and poorly written at that. New codecies are written in ways to promote new units/models as being more powerful in order to push more model kits, rather than preserve any idea of a stable metagame. Because of this, 40k will always be a game that purposely centers itself around a select few 'net lists' above all else.

If you don't like that, I suggest you pick up a different game.

None of my armies are even in that list.

I think for Daemons it was Fateweaver and crushers? Not sure, but I play mono-Slaanesh anyway which seems to be considered the weakest list of the book from memory. For Eldar I ran a hybrid of foot and mech, a fire base of Guardians and Dark Reapers with the Avatar and a Wraithlord to anchor it; the Avatar usually wandering towards the front to keep threat up while a couple of Wave Serpents with Dire Avengers in them to zoom up the sides. Not a Falcon, Fire Prism or Fire Dragon in sight. For SoB I was sort of towards the power list at the time, but also a fair bit from it. Haven't changed it all that much for the WD update, no plans on getting Uriah at the moment and the Living Saint doesn't fit in with the rest of the list. Exorcists are a given though, but more or less the reason a lot of SoB lists seem to gravitate towards similar builds is more to do with restriction.

All the lists I see are focussed on the tournament meta. It's actually pretty easy to counter those lists in a non-tournament setting with less formulaic builds.

n0t_u wrote:None of my armies are even in that list.

Mine neither and I have 4.

Dark Scipio wrote:

n0t_u wrote:None of my armies are even in that list.

Mine neither and I have 4.

Mine neither... and I have 5.

I guess we don't have the same old tired overused lists by default then.

I think outside the box all the time, I like trying new things, but at the same time I pretty much never manage to get even the standard "best" lists to work.

I will say this, though, if you can make Swooping Hawks work, you deserve a standing ovation.

Cookie cutter lists really aren't all as cracked up as they seem. Usually, I see bad players take internet meta lists and fail whereas good players take almost outlandish list and win.

Ofc, some codicies are just so crap that it takes enormous foresight and skill to win.

I have not seen ANY of those lists IRL. Except for the 2 lash, plague marine, oblit list that I sometimes run
We mainly play WYSIWYG at the local store so if you want to run 50 razorback GK lists, you better have all those razorbacks.

Yeah some units are so good you can't leave home without them like Lootas and Longfangs
(Speaking of which why the hell weren't lootas on that list)
but the whole, "army based around one unit/concept" internet meta list is pretty big fail.

The best local blood angels player don't use razorbacks at all. They're practically all jump troops with a couple of preds and MAYBE a land raider. He has just played BA's so long he knows exactly what his army needs and what's redundant. Trimming the fat off a list, so to speak.

I play guard at 1000 - 1500 points. I have more but don't field it. It's a mix of footguard and tanks. It wins a lot, but is it leafblower? No, not by a long shot.

I also run crowerifiers. Surprisingly, my Guard are the army I play if someone needs a serious beatdown. My GK by comparison are rather friendly.

I've been doing reasonably well with a summon-heavy, no cult troops, no obliterators CSM list.

I run a mix of Fast attack and predators in my Space wolf army and it does well

Fafnir wrote:Blame the game, not the player, in this case.40k is such a horribly balanced system, and poorly written at that. New codecies are written in ways to promote new units/models as being more powerful in order to push more model kits, rather than preserve any idea of a stable metagame. Because of this, 40k will always be a game that purposely centers itself around a select few 'net lists' above all else.If you don't like that, I suggest you pick up a different game.

The last sentence is the most sensible. You can't blame a game that doesn't set out to be tournament-balanced for not being tournament-balanced. Generally, I find that 40k is pretty much fine for balance in a friendly environment. If you want to take it into a tournament environment it doesn't work as well. This isn't the fault of the game.

Deadnight wrote:If you want variety play warmahordes regarding 40k, until the game is rebalanced so as to make multiple builds viable, with better internal and external balance, you're going to be dealing with this GW phenomenon where of all the options a codex has, only a handful of them are worth it.

40k, when played in a friendly environment, has much, much more variety in army builds, themes, and model selection that Warmahordes. Only a handful of lists are 'worth it' if you only place worth in winning competitive games.

htj wrote:All the lists I see are focussed on the tournament meta. It's actually pretty easy to counter those lists in a non-tournament setting with less formulaic builds.

QFT

Mahtamori wrote:I will say this, though, if you can make Swooping Hawks work, you deserve a standing ovation.

Challenge accepted. I once used a six man swooping hawk squad with Exarch against an Imperial Guard army, and they (almost) won the day, it was just my bad dice rolling. Does that count, or should I try something else?

Personally I play greenwing DA and mixed Eldar. Then again, I don't play competitively much.

Ive used Ghaz once in my entire Ork career, and in that game, I won without him coming out of the transport. So No Ghaz for me. I use rokkit buggies to make my KFF wall list, leaving my Heavy support incredibly open for whatever I wish. I built kans for my army sure, but only 3, and Ive only used them twice. And the odd thing? I win, I win a decent amount of my games. But sadly, GW has made me not want to play their game anymore. Sooo onto greener pastures I guess

Reivax26 wrote:Has anyone here had success with a Space Wolf army that doesn't use Long Fangs?

My current SW project uses just grey hunters, rune priest, and wolf guard, and its done very well.

Long fangs are easily killed and cannot move and shoot. Both of those do not fit the theme of the SW list I've been running.

In my Thousand sons list I do not have any of the usuall units, just plain old rubics and normal CSM, all of which are in rhinos. Every sorcerer has bolt of Tzeentch and I my Hq is nearly always the Ahriman himself.

Somtimes I will run a summoned deamon heavy list and use Ahriman to turn those hidden pf into spawn and then use them as meat shields.

I won a GT and played in the NOVA Invitational with Nurgle Daemons.
I played in a GT with wraithwing necrons
I came 4th in a tournament with a Daemonbomb/dual land raider (5th ed) chaos list
I came 7th in a tournament with a hybrid guard army with Ogryns.

For summer gaming, our group is trying to shake things up a little bit. Armies are meant to be small (so we can get in lots of games) and use units that are under-appreciated or seldom used. The purpose is to get everyone to try out ideas that we have either dismissed before actually trying or to think of altogether new ideas. My current Tau list for this has two squads of gun drones and a skyray. Is it awesomely effective? No. Is it fun to play around with for a few games? Yes, and it's a really nice break from the usual lists. We're hoping that the experimentation means that we come to our winter (and more serious) gaming with some new thoughts about how to play our armies (and to have a bunch of fun, friendly, hilariously sub-optimized games through the summer).

Now I just need to figure out how to get Vespid to work.... sigh. At least I'm not the IG player trying to get Ogryn to be useful.

At the GT level, many (most?) of the top-placing players mix things up a bit. Usually they will include a core of units which are well-known to be good, but mix in one or more elements which are nonstandard, either for the surprise factor, for some unusual synergy they have discovered and enjoy, and/or simple pride, refusing to use completely monotonous builds.

Reivax26 wrote:This has been bothering me for some time now but I have let it build up until I just can't take it anymore. I want to see some originality in armies, especially those in tournaments.

Has anyone here had success with a Space Wolf army that doesn't use Long Fangs?
Has anyone had success with a Grey Knight army that isn't Draigowing/Purifiers/Henchman Spam?
Has anyone had success with a Blood Angel list that isn't doing Razorspam/AV13 Spam?
Has anyone had success with a Chaos Marine list that isn't running Dual Lash Princes/Plaguespam/Oblit Spam?
Has anyone had success with an Imperial Guard army that isn't a Leafblower?
Has anyone had success with a Dark Eldar army that isn't Venomspam?
Has anyone had success with a Necron army that isn't the Scarab Farm list?

I get so freakin tired of seeing the same old lists over and over and over. Can't anyone have an original thought in their heads anymore or has 40k turned into a game where it is required of you to look around the net to find the netlist for your particular army that is the best one for it supposedly.
K
Sorry but I am just in a really bad mood right now and someone on one of the other sites has filled my Rage meter to the top

Somebody call this man a:

How dare people use what works in thier codex. They wouldn't be so prevalent if they didn't work.