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So I am slowly getting back in to the game after skipping almost all of 5th edition and not touching any of my models fore about 2 years and I'm really rusty as far as what is considered overpowered and oozing with cheese, I had the displeasure of facing the "doom" tyranid special character recently and wanted to know what else is out there that i need to avoid. So any special characters or unit combinations that are considered too much that I should be aware of?

Almost any flavourful list can be both fun to play and play against. My rule of thumb is if something seems way too cheap for how powerful it is based on how you or your regular opponents play, don't take 5 of them. It's also about context. If you play a game where you absolutely decimate a guy because of your list, don't use that list every time. Mix it up. People can always tell when you play one list tailored to win at all costs and when you "stumble" onto a list you make that is just unholy and crush them one game.

It's not your list that makes and keeps friends, it's you!

No one unit will lose you friends, it's how you play the list and--more importantly-- how you treat your opponent.

That said, fliers are the new "cheese". I know a great, nice guy, but when he shows up with 9 Valkyries (to his credit, it's not his fault, he had them pre-sixth, and JUST put them together and painted 'em), not many people will play him. I'll occasionally give him a match, even when I know I'll loose, but I do my best to make it fun for the both of us.

no unit is OP, not on their own... its when people take 6+ of the same unit that it becomes OP, example is if someone takes 1 necron flier and the rest of the army is on foot that is fine, but when they take 10 fliers as dedicated transports so they have nothing that isnt flying that is when a list becomes OP, my advice is pick an army you like the look / feel of and then make a fluffy list, fluffy games are waaaaaaay more fun

Apart from personal things as mentioned above, the best thing you can do is to make sure that you allow your opponent to have fun while he's playing.

If your opponent's definition of fun is to get into close combat, and you gun his entire army off the table before it makes it into mid-field, your opponent isn't going to enjoy himself. Do that a couple of times in a row, and he's not going to want to play with you. In this case, it would be much better to throw a couple of cheap, throwaway units that you march forward and let him get some close combat action in. You can still throw him off the table with the rest of your stuff, but at least your opponent would be able to feel like he got to do something that game.

Forcing your opponent to play your style of game is generally a bad thing, unless your opponent wants to play your style of game. Gunlines are bad, because they limit your opponent's abilities to do anything other than long-range shooting. Fliers are bad, because they invalidate whole swaths of shooting, and are immune to assault. MSM units are really terrible for this. You get to move and shoot, your opponent gets blown off the board and can't even target whoever is attacking him. Strategically good or not, these are things that can make a game un-fun for an opponent.

Providing your opponent with an opportunity to do something is more important than letting your opponent win. Furthermore, you can still win while also letting your opponent do stuff. Blowing your opponent's deathstar off the board turn 1 with a single basilisk shot is going to make him want to pack up and leave. Letting your opponent do some stuff with that deathstar that is strategically useless, but lets him have the feeling that he actually got to do something with those nob bikers or whatever is going to be much better, even if the end result (you win the game) is the same.

No I wasn't really looking for stuff to deck my army with, I was mainly looking for stuff that I should be aware of in the future so that when I see them on the table I know how to treat/dance around that unit. Also I like to play for fun, I no estoy hate it when I play an opponent and I'm the only one having fun because I took a unit or super combo that is considered not fun to be on the recieving end of. Just looking to identify them and learn how to combat them is all.

Yea this topic is a tough one for me at times. I play Tyranids and I find it very difficult to create something that is fun and that doesn't get shot off the table by turn 2. That being said the doom can ruin some people, but he's also just as likely (I'd say more likely) to drop in do a couple wounds and then eat it the very next round. To be honest I find him underwhelming enough that in most lists I use HG and Yealers (so by my standards I guess those are cheese too). That being said my Blood Angels are a lot more fluffy and similar to what I've run in my casual lists since 3e...so I guess there may be some dependence on what army you play.

When I use to game at the same store a lot it depended very much on who I was playing what "level" of list I brought. Top tier opponents [usually] enjoy playing harder games. Of course we almost always exchange lists before games and if we have any real problems we'll bring them up or adjust our lists accordingly.

Another thing you might try that will support your case of not being a tfg is being a little more forgiving in rules disagreements (although don't break them!), forgotten moves, etc. If I ever feel like the game is really one sided I also offer advice at times when I feel like they are making the unquestionably wrong tactical decision.

Maybe this is what you are looking for?

Good Luck

Lists don't lose friends. People with lists lose friends.

Don't be an arse and it'll be fine.

I think my message got lost with the title, all I wanted to know about were the name of units or combinations of units that people tend to look at as over powered or really strong. (like the nob bikers, seer counsels, flying circuses of past editions)

Cron-airwing(a bunch of Night Scythes and Doom Scythes making an almost 100% flyer army)

Thats pretty much it.

I can think of three, maybe four things that are overpowered and will make people legitimately unhappy:

1) Flyerspam. Lists with 5+ flyers, usually Necrons with dedicated transport flyers. They're unfair because they demand a dedicated anti-flyerspam list to play against them effectively, and many armies suffer a crippling inability to bring sufficient Skyfire weapons thanks to GW's insane decision to only release flyers/AA units for some armies. This may change once flyers/AA become more widely available, but right now you're pretty much just taking advantage of GW's marketing department giving you an easy win.

2) Allies abuse. Lists like DE + Eldar with Fortune cast on a DE character to re-roll a 2+ invulnerable save. They're unfair because GW has tried to limit these combos and prevent you from taking allies to give powerful bonuses to your primary list's units, but because they don't hire proper WAAC players to test their game they didn't catch all of them in the FAQs. What you're doing is against the intent of the allies concept, and you're just taking advantage of GW's failure to catch every loophole fast enough (and you can expect the combo to die once GW gets around to publishing another FAQ).

3) FW artillery spam. IG lists with large numbers of FW artillery units (Earthshakers, Sabre gun platforms, etc). They're unfair because the 6th edition artillery rules turned a mediocre fixed gun (which couldn't even pivot to shoot a new target) into a unit of MCs with cheap T7 meatshield wounds that can shoot in any direction, while Sabre platforms had to get Interceptor to keep their ability to target ground units effectively. End result: an army with massive firepower and insane durability AND the ability to instantly kill your flyers as soon as they arrive. Expect these to be much less effective once FW gets around to restoring the "can't pivot to shoot new targets" rule, but until then don't take large numbers of them (a gun or two is probably ok though).

4) Maybe tank characters. This exploits the "always hits the closest model" rule by putting a tank character out in front, so you throw shot after shot after shot into a character with a rerollable 2++ (or similar durability) while you can't hit the rest of the unit behind it (even though in reality your troops would just ignore the tank and shoot the guy with the lascannon standing next to him). It's unfair because it exploits GW's idiotic idea of making everything "cinematic" without any understanding of how it will be exploited (creating an anti-cinematic outcome), and creates a situation that is extremely luck dependent. On paper it might be fair, but you're going to have a really unhappy opponent when you get good dice and your tank character protects a key squad from an entire shooting phase.

 Ailaros wrote:
Forcing your opponent to play your style of game is generally a bad thing, unless your opponent wants to play your style of game. Gunlines are bad, because they limit your opponent's abilities to do anything other than long-range shooting. Fliers are bad, because they invalidate whole swaths of shooting, and are immune to assault. MSM units are really terrible for this. You get to move and shoot, your opponent gets blown off the board and can't even target whoever is attacking him. Strategically good or not, these are things that can make a game un-fun for an opponent.

And assault armies are bad because they force your opponent to play your style of game and throw away units so you can have some "action". And death star armies are bad because they force your opponent to play your style of game and let the death star smash stuff while they shoot inefficiently to prevent you from ragequitting. In fact, pretty much every army in the game is bad because they force your opponent to do things, so you should both just get space marine battleforces and play only with those.

Or you could assume that both players have the responsibility to understand the current rules of the game and bring lists that are capable of handling all (reasonable) threats and don't feel bad when your opponent brings a terrible all-assault list and loses without ever killing anything. It's certainly possible to make unfair lists, but your definition is WAY too broad, and outrage should be limited to the very few lists that legitimately break the game.

Peregrine wrote:They're unfair because GW has tried to limit these combos and prevent you from taking allies to give powerful bonuses to your primary list's units, but because they don't hire proper WAAC players to test their game they didn't catch all of them in the FAQs.

Firstly, I question how much GW has really attempted to curb ally abuse. When the person who wrote the BT codex SEVEN YEARS before the allies rule existed, do you really think he was considering how his choices would be effected by a codex written a year or two ago?

Furthermore, I can't tell if GW's inability to hire waac gamers is actually a bad thing or not.

Peregrine wrote:Or you could assume that both players have the responsibility to understand the current rules of the game and bring lists that are capable of handling all (reasonable) threats and don't feel bad when your opponent brings a terrible all-assault list and loses without ever killing anything. It's certainly possible to make unfair lists, but your definition is WAY too broad, and outrage should be limited to the very few lists that legitimately break the game.

Certainly any player is going to impose something on their opponent, unless, of course, they bring exactly the same kind of list.

The question isn't if the game is one of if you force your opponent to do something, but rather if your opponent is able to still do something that he considers fun or not.

If your opponent likes gunlines, then the game, as created, guarantees him roughly 1/3 of the game to do exactly what he wants. He will still get to gunline things almost no matter what. If your opponent likes assaulting, this is much less guaranteed. Of course, you could make the argument that assault has no place in this game, but then you're kicking out thousands of gamers who used to have the ability to have fun with the game, but now can't, thanks to a narrowing of how things are played nowadays. I have a hard time seeing this as a good thing.

 Ailaros wrote:
Firstly, I question how much GW has really attempted to curb ally abuse. When the person who wrote the BT codex SEVEN YEARS before the allies rule existed, do you really think he was considering how his choices would be effected by a codex written a year or two ago?

Just look at the FAQs. IG orders don't apply to allied ICs in the squad, C:SM "chapter tactics" bonuses only apply to units taken from C:SM, etc. There's a pretty clear effort to say "your bonuses don't apply to your allies", and I think they even tried to kill the Fortune combo with the "DE are not Eldar" FAQ but didn't realize that people cast Fortune on the Eldar unit and allow a DE IC to benefit from it by being in the squad.

Furthermore, I can't tell if GW's inability to hire waac gamers is actually a bad thing or not.

It's a terrible thing. They don't need to (and shouldn't) give the WAAC players complete freedom to run the game, but they really need to hire people who are going to thoroughly analyze and test the game and discover every exploit and loophole and ambiguous rule before they're printed. And then once they're found, GW needs to fix them. You don't see WOTC printing abusively powerful cards or ambiguous rules for MTG, and it's because WOTC does extensive playtesting with the most competitive players long before a new product is released.

If your opponent likes gunlines, then the game, as created, guarantees him roughly 1/3 of the game to do exactly what he wants. He will still get to gunline things almost no matter what. If your opponent likes assaulting, this is much less guaranteed.

Except that's not true, because you're demanding that the gunline player stop playing a pure gunline army, include "move forward" sacrificial units in their army, and then send them out to be slaughtered so the assault player has "fun". By playing the assault army you force the gunline player to play your game or get called TFG.

Or consider a Tau army. The entire army is based around JSJ, and you're complaining that JSJ is unfair and should not be used. Well guess what, if I brought my Tau army your choice to bring an army that can't deal with JSJ means that I have to change my entire strategy to accommodate yours and let you have "fun", by throwing away units to get slaughtered in the assault phase which is NOT fun for me.

Of course, you could make the argument that assault has no place in this game, but then you're kicking out thousands of gamers who used to have the ability to have fun with the game, but now can't, thanks to a narrowing of how things are played nowadays. I have a hard time seeing this as a good thing.

That's just what happens with an edition change. Assaulting can sometimes be a viable strategy, but 100% pure assault armies with no meaningful long-range shooting are bad in 6th. You have to adapt to the fact that moving foot assault units 6+D6" up the table every turn is not a viable plan anymore, just like mech spam players had to adapt their lists to deal with 6th edition no longer allowing units in vehicles to claim objectives. If you refuse to do so it's YOUR fault, it's not your opponent's fault for bringing one of a huge variety of lists that can beat yours.

Yes, you do see wotc producing overpowered cards and combos...

Any sort of fortification bar ADL, Grey Knights, flyerspam, gunline lamer crap.

I've recently run into this problem at my local gaming club thanks to the awesome power of the Tesla destructor. I have six, 3 barges & 3 Night Scythes, in my 1k5 list and I can see my opponent start to grimace every time I roll a 6.
Now I want to have a fun game but I like to have a challenging list ( for my meta, were not that good tbh ) so is spamming the best gun in my codex a TFG move or just playing hard?

 Sigvatr wrote:
Any sort of fortification bar ADL, Grey Knights, flyerspam, gunline lamer crap.

In other words don't dare play a competitive game


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nakor The BlueRider wrote:
I've recently run into this problem at my local gaming club thanks to the awesome power of the Tesla destructor. I have six, 3 barges & 3 Night Scythes, in my 1k5 list and I can see my opponent start to grimace every time I roll a 6.
Now I want to have a fun game but I like to have a challenging list ( for my meta, were not that good tbh ) so is spamming the best gun in my codex a TFG move or just playing hard?

Just playing hard-ball. TFG to me is the guy/gal who will use a rules exploit to win.

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Any sort of fortification bar ADL, Grey Knights, flyerspam, gunline lamer crap.

In other words don't dare play a competitive game

Falsely assuming you have to exploit the rule sto the max to be competitive.

Just a quick note if you play a shooty list and you gun down a cc army multiple games find a new opponent your current opponent appears to not seem to be learning.

Also capitalizing on mistakes or tactical holes in your opponents strategy is what this game is about so if your opponent makes tactical errors you may want to point them out ie marines in the open in ml range. I won my last game because of terrain surprisingly.

Necron lords have picked up more mind shackle scarabs so careful in challenges they make you hit yourself and the necron lord hit you too sorta sucks.
1or 2 is fine but when you have like 6 in total that's balls.


Don't worry about playing op lists occasionally because it makes your opponents focus more and can make for intense games.

I don't think there's anything you should avoid, with the exception of flyer spam, until Codexes start to get updated with more anti flyer abilities/weapons.

Other than that, bring whatever you think is fun to play. If you bring something that wrecks face, it's up to the opponent to figure out how to get around it -- this may seem harsh, but it happens to me, and I don't get mad or upset about it. I try to improvise, adapt, and overcome. Others will probably disagree, but it's a game, both players want to win, and both should bring the tools that will help them achieve that goal.

If I fail, it's back to the drawing board -- it's not like that's the only game I'm ever going to play.

One other thing to add, is that I have a group of about 6 people that I play with on a regular basis. Some have multiple armies that they field AND we don't decide who is playing who until all of the lists are made (and then it's based off dice rolls). This usually keeps things in check and forces everyone to build a "take all comers" style of list, where cheese seems to be a bit more limited (with the exception of those pesky Longfangs )

The most important thing is to communicate. We don't know the people you play with, whether they prefer to play fluffy or competitive lists, how they react to losses, e.g.

If you plan to bring a strong list, tell them

People don't like playing against static gunlines. To set up a table, put all the minis out, then not use either is sort of a waste of time.

People also don't like playing against a lot of fliers. One or two low armour fliers aren't bad since they can be killed without any anti-flier meta. This is a specific subset of "people don't like to play with units that they feel forced to take instead of units they actually like."

 DarknessEternal wrote:
People don't like playing against static gunlines. To set up a table, put all the minis out, then not use either is sort of a waste of time.

I disagree with the "not using the miniatures or table" part of this quote, but people don't tend to like gun-lines. Assault based armies run forward only to find that they lost a lot of their strength on the way, while your more mobile units appear behind them and cause (at least some of) them to change direction. I love playing a semi-gun-line list, but my friends don't like losing all the time.

To me, playing against spammy lists is never as fun as playing against a mixed varied army.

If in a 2000pt game, you only see 4 different types of unit, that seems a little dull and puts me in mind of a Ford Mondeo's Owners Club.

For an example, some friends and I were discussing heavy support options for the new Chaos marine codex. While 3 vindicators may be cheaper and more effective than a Vindicator, a Forgefiend and a Defiler, it's also a lot more boring.

tl;dr Cheese lists rely on spamming the same unit multiple times. Don't spam units and you won't risk having a cheese list.

 Sigvatr wrote:
The most important thing is to communicate.

I'd say this is the most important part right here. Tell your prospective opponent a bit about what you'll field (without exact numers or anything) and ask if he's happy trying it on. Be a gentleman and offer to check each other's lists before the game so you both can ask what this unit or that special rule does.