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As the post says what do people think?


(note I don't necessaries mean what is the most op or underpowered codex, but which one do people think is the hardest to master the skill set, and play effectively.)

I assume we are talking without allies

Tau or eldar, but considering how eldar can actually melee, tau.

Tau, Eldar, Sisters are all up there. Tyranids used to be like that, but have gotten better.

Daemons hands down.

Randomly determine which half of your army you begin the game with... Then Deep Strike them into play with those random scatter results.
Oh, and every single unit is designed as a specialist similar to Eldar just for added fun-times!

Now add to the mix that Grey Knights exist and can easily stop you from even deploying a single model...

Tau sit back and shoot it dont take to much effort eldar i believe are hardest to play takes finese


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and daemons are right there if not higher like experiment says

I disagree about tau being difficult, as most of their army is merely pointing and rolling dice for shooting, and where to deepstrike crisis suits is pretty obvious.

A tough army to learn in my mind isn't one that you just need to be good at deployment and target prioritization for. You also need to be good with movement and know when and where to assault, and if you're not good with either, you're penalized more than with other armies. Not just an army that can use all parts of the player turn, but has to.

In my mind, this makes eldar the most difficult army to play. If you rely only on shooting you're likely going to get out-shot, especially since non-shooty armies like GK, SW and BA have gotten a LOT shootier since the eldar codex came out (while traditionally shooty army like guard and necron getting better at shooting). Meanwhile, eldar have a few, specialized units, which means they're fragile, which means you really have to know what you're doing in the movement phase. Likewise, eldar have some decent close combat abilities, but not great ones, and they can be rather tricky to use properly.

Any army that can play a gunline is not a hard army to play. Hard armies to play are ones that rely on something else. There are plenty of options here, like an SM bike list or a drop pod army, or a trukk boyz army, but I think that eldar probably have it the worst.

grey knights were pretty hard to play last ed, first you had to get through all the whining about them being op before you could start your game

but really, I would say dark eldar are a very unforgiving army to play :'3

I would say daemons. They are cruel and unforgiving.

Half your army will come in on turn one. You don't know which half but there is the half you want, and the half you don't want. You don't know which one you will get.

You scatter everything. Mishaps are common for newer players because they don't know the best places to deep strike. Mishaps are still common for more experienced players because of the randomness of it all.

Your army is a mainly CC army. Half of your army will sit there and get shot up from your turn one to your turn two. They can't assault on turn 1 and will only receive reinforcements not the next turn, but hopefully the turn after that. Then some units will arrive from reserve. You do not know which ones will. They will also scatter and will mainly not do anything on the turn they drop either.

Most of the units in the daemon codex aren't worth their weight in liquid feces. Only recently with the WD update are daemons getting attention and being called OP

Daemons have some of the worst troop choices in the game. Really expensive, not survivable/potent/mobile.

Overall they are one of the hardest codices to play. It's hard being consistent one way or the other because of how random it is.

Couldn't decide between eldar or their darker brothers, in the end chose Eldar because being honest most things in the book are over costed.

Eldar gets my vote

I vote Dark Eldar. Its an all or nothing game with them.

As for Chaos Daemons, i love my all-Nurgle list...and usually do rather well with them.

Space Marine Full Bike Armies.

Lots of movement, low body count.


But you make a lot of explosions!

Who voted for grey knights?

They are your 40k training wheels

Heh...hardest army to play, or hardest to play well?

Eldar, with tau a VERY close second.

To the people who think "tau just stand back and shoot' thats those tau players who lose all the time, and then blame the codex/rules/dice etc.

Tau are a very unforgiving codex, and take a lot of still to play successfully - especially against newer books in the hands of decent players.

I have played tau - a lot, and even with a strong winning record (including several tournaments) I find I am still learning nuances to the army and how to get the most out of them.

Now, having said all of that - I find that eldar have a slightly more robust learning curve.

I'd have to go with the Tau, for a few reasons.

1) I believe Tau are one of the hardest armies to make a good list with. Other "high-skill level" armies can be decent by just spamming the basics.

2) I can't think of any other army where movement is as important. We're not the fastest army in the game, but we do move the most....suits moving during the assault phase, vehicles moving flat-out all over the place, blocking charges with drones, etc.

3) I believe this was already mentioned, but target priority is HUGE. More so than with other armies, imo. Most of our units are expensive, so we can't spam low ap or high strength weapons in any way.


Also, glad to see Nids with a few votes. I don't think they're the hardest army to play, but they're much less straightforward than people think.

I voted for Dark Eldar based mostly on how unforgiving they are. I don't find Eldar to be as difficult. While they are a bit overcosted compared to newer codex, they do have amazing synergy between units that when used properly is devestating.

Dark Eldar are so fragile that one mistake means that unit is undoubtedly dead. My games tend to result in either destroying my opponent, or just getting ripped apart.

I also find Tau to be probably the hardest army to play, with sisters and eldar being on thier hoofs...

I win more then I lose, but its due to a mixture of confusion, deception (yes, its possible in 40k), baiting, screwing up the enemie's ability to target my units with mobile roadblocks and denying him from managing to follow a single rational battle plan with my units just moving too much and shooting at odd and seemingly irrational targets (more often then not a unit shoots at a target not posing a threat to it directly)

And I make mistakes that leads to unit dying and games loosing, and every single loss I can think in a hindsight on how a single diifferent movement would have changed that game segnificantly.

I'm gonna go with Eldar. Not only do you need to bring the correct units to the board, but your tactics must be nearly flawless. The Eldar lack any really viable "general purpose" units. Any slipup in either your list or tactics and you're gonna lose 2-3 units very quickly. This is made worse by the dice themselves. With Eldar being akin to eggs with hammers even a sudden series of poor rolls (just for a couple units shooting) can hand the game to your opponent. While we do get things like Guide and Fortune to help alleviate this, a Farseer can be in only so many places at once. That number being one.

I'm going with Eldar, too bad they're misspelled in the poll

The tau are the hardest, last codex was 4th ed, and they are rubbish in cc, there only saving grace is the rail guns

Tau are not that bad. I like playing them. Good for the points, it depends on who you are facing and your battle plan.

For me: Eldar. I have a nice eldar force. But the problem I have is it seems like everything is to over priced. If the points were cheaper, it would be better.

Yea, Tau are hard as hell, but they are ok...

Sure, there are many required fixs for it to be anywhere near competetive, but in casual games the simple amount of in-game choices you got can lead them to be far more effective then pure stats would imply...

I'd say Eldar, it's hard to play this codex especially as a beginner, I don't play them but I know a lot of players who do and they've continually struggled and only a few have ever really gotten better with them over time.

Not down to player faults more the codex as their other armies are more than adequate and do consistently well or better.

I would absolutely say Eldar. There are very few effective builds for them, they're mostly overcosted due to being 2 editions out of date, and any mistake in your game will probably lead to you getting squished. I've had games where I flubbed a single round of shooting and gotten stomped flat because of it, usually on the first turn. They're a very unforgiving army, but also a very rewarding army. We've also had little to no help from the FAQs. Our psykers can still only be max level 2 (other than Eldrad of course), the swooping hawk exarch power became completely useless, and we only get access to 3 of the book power disciplines (but then again why should the most psychically potent race get access to more disciplines than basic humans?)

Eldar for sure, they're fun and I like some of the options, but when I was playing Eldar against Space Marines, I found that they (SM) could easily whup Dire Avengers and Guardians. The Dark Reapers would do alright but without the troop support they got overwhelmed.

 cox.dan2 wrote:
Eldar for sure, they're fun and I like some of the options, but when I was playing Eldar against Space Marines, I found that they (SM) could easily whup Dire Avengers and Guardians. The Dark Reapers would do alright but without the troop support they got overwhelmed.

I agree with this, also even Dark Reapers I feel are too costly for what they can do. (They are great but they cost too much I think.)

Eldar or Tau

They are the ones where you really need to work with vastly different units to get some synergy going (which, in turn, is vulnerable to the enemy disrupting it). And usually the scoring parts and "killing parts" of your army are two very different.

They are pretty much the exact opposite of things like Space Wolves or Dark Eldar, where you can just spam highly point effective troops at the enemy. These are probably the most mindless armies to play currently.

I voted Eldar, in my opinion while each individual unit has a role and is good at what they do, if you make even one or two mistakes in synergy between units you will end up with a turn in which you lose those units and then you are scrambling to get the job done with other units not made for the task that needs doing. This is especially bad with the high cost per model and low toughness values leading to you usually having less troops on the field than your opponent (especially after a turn or 2 of shooting ). I know Eldar are meant to be out-numbered for fluff reasons but being 2 editions old it's gotten a bit extreme numbers wise.

thisisnotpancho wrote:
I would say daemons. They are cruel and unforgiving.

because if you lose 9 of your 27 flamers then you only have a 96% chance of victory, rather than 98%.

I think Tau are the hardest, simply because they suck

*EDIT* realized this could be taken the wrong way.
I dont mean that literally, simply that its extremely difficult to deal with all CC armies, and the tactics are unknown/not obvious/haphazard at best.

Eldar,by a long shot.

lmao at those people voting GK.