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I started wondering if maybe some old competitive scene veterans could weigh in on a curiosity I have.

Which 40k codex, given its edition of choice in terms of core rules, is the king of codices? The one that not only has some of the best possible lists, but also has more undercosted and near auto-take units and upgrades.

I obviously know that eldar 6th edition in the 6th edition core rules is one of the recent contenders.

Eldar seem to be a candidate in every edition but 5th (the only edition they didn't have a codex release in, and the only one they weren't routinely considered overpowered in).

CSM's in late 3E/early 4E.

Imperial Knights are another contender.

I think the Eldar have the record for the most time spend as an OP army.

Eldar, 3rd edition.

Warlocks were 11 points per model and had no upper limit on unit size. Farseers got Fortune automatically, which then was passed on a leadership test, which could be rolled with 3D6 and choose the two lowest every turn, and re-rolled.

Plus unkillable Falcons. Hull points were not a thing, and neither were vehicle cover saves. Instead you got Hull Down if you were in cover, or as a skimmer, if you moved more than 6". This meant glancing hits only. And Eldar had a) holo-fields, which made you roll two dice on the damage chart and pick the lowest, and b) spirit stones (basically extra armour). And in close combat skimmers were only hit on a six. While it may not be shooting much, it would never die. Oh, and infantry could obviously assault out of it after it moving 12".

And there were other things too. In an edition where armies were generally much smaller, Terminators had no invulnerable saves, CSM had no invulnerable saves at all (except 5++ on Daemons), you had Heavy 3 twin-linked Starcannons. And Exarchs with infinite attacks. And Vypers, pioneering the jump-shoot-jump with their Crystal Targeting Matrices.

Good times. At least it was a step up from 2nd Ed and those stupid Virus Grenades.

I know GK were phenomenally silly in the unkillable-vehicles Rhino-parking-lot days of 5e but not quite to the degree the 3e CSM book was or the 6e Tau/Eldar are.

But just wait guys, once all the books are 7th ED, Necrons will hold the title. =P

There is also the three-way tie of 2nd ed CSM, Tyranids, and Eldar. I think all three of them were more fearsome than the 3rd ed Eldar.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 krodarklorr wrote:
But just wait guys, once all the books are 7th ED, Necrons will hold the title. =P

No. 7th ed Necrons do not have the insane advantages of 3rd ed Eldar or 2nd ed Eldar/CSM/Tyranids.

Who dominated the first half of 6th?

Taudar?

Martel732 wrote:
There is also the three-way tie of 2nd ed CSM, Tyranids, and Eldar. I think all three of them were more fearsome than the 3rd ed Eldar.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 krodarklorr wrote:
But just wait guys, once all the books are 7th ED, Necrons will hold the title. =P

No. 7th ed Necrons do not have the insane advantages of 3rd ed Eldar or 2nd ed Eldar/CSM/Tyranids.

Oh, maybe I misread. If we're talking the most OP at any point in time, then yeah. I thought we were talking about each edition. Then yeah, probably Eldar, or earlier Nids.

I seem to remember 2E Tyranids being rather overwhelming to deal with. Though maybe bringing up pre-3E in a discussion about balance is unfair

Before update? They were pretty bad, as I understand it. (First half of 6th taudar)

 DanielBeaver wrote:
I seem to remember 2E Tyranids being rather overwhelming to deal with. Though maybe bringing up pre-3E in a discussion about balance is unfair

I agree; 2nd ed might be cheating. 2nd ed CSM had the best tools for stopping Nids: blight grenades and sonic blasters.

I agree that Eldar are probably the most consistent in this regard. Eldar players literally ripped open a hole in the warp with their whining when their 3rd/4th ed codex was toned down to normal for 5th edition. Then they decided to reverse it and make them silly powerful again with nonsense win-button upgrades. Again.

Necron would be a close second for the consistency prize. In 4th ed, they were pretty scary when a monolith would show up, push all your pieces out of the way, drop off 20 warriors, and then a lord would veil in with 20 more. It was over 80 shots all at once that blew up battletanks and guardsmen with equal ease, and were basically unkillable. Then in 6th they got the flying circus and the chariots of doom.

Several other armies had their moment, like the brief flirtation with guard leafblowers, the time shortly after SM got drop pods, the old WWP DE, the CSM codex so bad they needed to update it within a couple of years.

But probably my most "lolwhut" experience was when BA showed up in 5th edition. There wasn't anything before like flying landraiders, infinite-attacks or flying psyker dreadnouts, or an entire army that could pin-point deepstrike straight into assault. And all their vehicles were fast and could outflank, you know, just because.

BA were definitely the 6th edition tau of 5th edition. You sometimes wondered if they were playing the same game as you were.

At least with 6th ed tau, you had already somewhat gotten used to their cheesiness with TL S10 Ap1 spam, and untargetable firewarriors in fish of fury, and MSM antics. 6th ed tau is probably the real answer to OP in its prime, but relatively speaking, it was more incremental than some of the other codice's changes.

 Ailaros wrote:


But probably my most "lolwhut" experience was when BA showed up in 5th edition. There wasn't anything before like flying landraiders, infinite-attacks or flying psyker dreadnouts, or an entire army that could pin-point deepstrike straight into assault. And all their vehicles were fast and could outflank, you know, just because.

BA were definitely the 6th edition tau of 5th edition. You sometimes wondered if they were playing the same game as you were.

Don't forget being able to run more dreadnoughts and heavy (AV13+) armor than any other army in the game with the singular exception of IG squadroned Leman Russ's. For an army that *was* a relatively codex chapter with a flair for jump packs and a preference for close combat, they sure got a whole lot of heavy armor and walker love.

That book was definitely one that needed to be (and got) reigned in.

What about matt ward BA and Smurfs?

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:


But probably my most "lolwhut" experience was when BA showed up in 5th edition. There wasn't anything before like flying landraiders, infinite-attacks or flying psyker dreadnouts, or an entire army that could pin-point deepstrike straight into assault. And all their vehicles were fast and could outflank, you know, just because.

BA were definitely the 6th edition tau of 5th edition. You sometimes wondered if they were playing the same game as you were.

Don't forget being able to run more dreadnoughts and heavy (AV13+) armor than any other army in the game with the singular exception of IG squadroned Leman Russ's. For an army that *was* a relatively codex chapter with a flair for jump packs and a preference for close combat, they sure got a whole lot of heavy armor and walker love.

That book was definitely one that needed to be (and got) reigned in.

I was going to ask who had written that 5th edition BA codex, then I remembered all the bloody bloodiest bloods in it...

The worst part is that the SW and GK were even better than BA.

I remember Blood Angels being pretty nasty back in the day with the Rhino Rush (that would be, what, 3rd/4th edition?).
Chaos could get really nasty in 2nd Edition.

Bharring wrote:
Who dominated the first half of 6th?

Before the Tau and Eldar books Guard Flying Circus was hilariously powerful.

"Chaos could get really nasty in 2nd Edition. "

That's still understating it. They one turn tabled so many armies back in the day.

IG Las/Plas spam in the carry-over list from 2nd to 3rd was pretty bad, although I remember how often, 'How do I beat Iron Warriors?' was a thread in the tactics forum, and how often IW lists popped up in the list-building forum during 3rd/4th.

I've heard people complain about Iron Warriors lists from 3E, what was so bad about them?

 DanielBeaver wrote:
I've heard people complain about Iron Warriors lists from 3E, what was so bad about them?

The CSM 3.5E book had its share of issues.

The IW's could take 4 HS choices in exchange for only getting 1 FA choice (and none of the FA choices were particularly good in the first place) and Obliterators were also Elites, but they were 0-1 for everyone except IW's who had no such restriction. They were also much better back then being T5 and Fearless and no restriction on having to shoot different weapons every turn. So they could take 9 Oblits and 4 other HS units. At the time, they could also take SM Vindicators (not in the CSM codex at the time) or an IG Basilisk (not a great option but there) but Defilers were cheaper than they are now and had Barrage on their battlecannons (and thus didn't need LoS to their targets).

Such wouldn't make most armies of current vintage blink twice, but it was scary back then. Another issue was that there were relatively widely available veteran skills as upgrades such as Furious Charge and Tank Hunters, to represent Heresy veterans instead of VotLW. You could also make some absolutely insane characters, my CSM terminator lord under that book and seven S8 attacks on a charge that ignored all armor saves and was T5 W4 2+/5++ at a time when wound allocation was entirely allocated by the unit's owner and you couldn't shoot an IC on their own unless they were the closest model.

The book overall was really cool in terms of feel, fluff, and theme, but had lots of problems with half the book being utter crap and the other half being really easy to break.

Just as often as you saw IW's you saw Daemonbomb lists where Daemons would be summoned, Deep Strike in, and assault right off the bat, or Slaanesh Siren-princes who could run around as Jump MC's, Infiltrate, and consolidate into new combats and use the Siren power to prevent enemy units from shooting at them.

Oh god, thanks for the reminder...

Also, don't forget rubric marines. Like you said, W2 2+/5++ seems like nothing now, but when you sprung for, say, all 10 of them in a squad in an edition of very dangerous plasma and little other reason to take Ap2 weapons...

From what I've heard, GK were stupidly OP on release, as were Necrons and 'Nids.

Eldar do seem the most consistent, but I've never seen a GK/Necrons thread with the title "Why does our new codex suck", every codex update has seemed very friendly to both armies and to my knowledge, they have always been competitive at the very least (Flying Cron-ssant spam not-with-standing).

As far as staying super-consistent, I'd say Space Marines, Flag ships army and all. Never been bad, never been horrifyingly OP either.

only one mention of FISH OF FURY?

seriously?

5th Edition was Grey Knights for sure. I think it was something like over 60% of Armies showing up at major tournaments were GK.

Before that it was Space Wolves.

BA were silly in 5th, but I never saw them as OP. I don't' think they really won any major tournaments. They were not GK/SW level, that's for sure.

Necrons were powerful in 5th, and dominated early 6th.

 j31c3n wrote:
only one mention of FISH OF FURY?

seriously?

Seriously.

Fish of Fury wasn't all that much compared to other things listed here.

When combined with Mass TL S10 Ap1 spam and the old stealth suit hyjinks, it certainly was. I find it a sad testament to groupthink that tau players convinced themselves that they had a terrible codex in 5th ed. Almost as weird as eldar convincing themselves of the same thing.

So, I suppose there's another way of looking at this as well. What codex had the shortest run? Presumably a super-OP codex would get a newer one more quickly to tone it down. I know it's not a perfect metric, but there is some bias towards this being true. I mean, guard and orks traditionally have solid codices, which is one of the reasons they go so long between updates. Likewise, when a new rules edition comes out and doesn't make a codex overpowered, it can be awhile before they get a new codex, like DE or GK once upon a time.

Was the CSM 3.5 the shortest run?