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I want to write a list of armies ranging from easiest to hardest to play with. Armies presented: Space Marines (all chapters), Imperial Guard, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, Necrons, Tyranids, Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Demons, Tau (10 total). I've just started and list is incomplete. Now it looks like this (1 - easiest, 10 - hardest):

1. Space Marines
2. Eldar
3. Tau
4. Necrons
5. Tyranids
6. Imperial Guard
7. Chaos Space Marines
8. Chaos Demons
9. Orks
10. Dark Eldar

I'd like to hear your thoughts. Do you agree with this list? What armies should be added? What should be changed?

Here is my thought. This is based on casual games only and not taking into account the cheesiest thing that could happen.

My army is an alliance of Eldar and Grey Knights, so the opinion will be biased. Out of all listed, only Astra Militarum and Necrons have beaten me before. The loss against the Necron was crazy, because I killed all his army and one guy got back up, snatching the objective win.

1- Lowest of the low and easiest of the ease is the Grey Knights. I play better, so I win. That's it. The end. Good bye. Believe it or not is up to you.

2 - Space Marine clones excluding Space Wolves. We all know these armies simply exist because people like the lore.

3 - Chaos Space Marines. Helldrake nerf.

4 - Orks. I don't know what's the deal with these guys. They can only play blob because small elite squads are terribly ineffective except the Deff Kopta.

5 - Daemons. Without all the cheese, daemons aren't that great. Then again, I am Grey Knights.

6 - Tau. I am serious. Without spamming Riptide and Broadsides, this army isn't that good.

6.5 - Dark Eldar. I have never played against one before, but I am not that fearful against them. My army has plentiful of counter-tricks against them

7 - Space Marines. Generic and conservative. There is no need to change tactics when fighting against Space Marines in different editions.

8 - A tie between Tyranids and Space Wolves. Both have flying stuffs that are just so annoying to deal with.

9 - Eldar. Took me so long to kill that last Wave Serpent.

10 - Astra Militarum. Guns everywhere. What is more disturbing is that they keep bogging down my expensive units with bodies.

11 - Imperial Knights. I came back by the skin of my teeth in that game.

Over 9000 - Necron. The new codex is a prime example of GW killing this game and making people having the model have horrible experience. Necron are OP in a non-competitive setting, Their units just won't die. Have that too many times, you will want to throw the model at your opponent's face.

Imperial knights would probably be number 1.

It's not like they have many units to master, and one turn should take all of 5 minutes.

Sorry, I thought this was the post on which army is the easiest/hardest to play against. My answer is quite out of it.

Back to the original question, here is my list:

1 - All Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines.

2 - Imperial Guards.

3 - Orks.

4 - Tau.

5 - Tyranids.

6 - Eldar.

7 - Necron.

8 - Dark Eldar.

9 - Daemons. Warp storm table is hard enough.

10 - Sisters of Battle.

11 - Any Forge World army (Death Korp or Arbites).

IMO, Eldar are quite easy. Just don't do obvious mistakes and you will be fine since your squads excel at doing their roles, no? Any your unit is better than your enemy's in the same field.

As for Orks, big blobs tend to die horribly to artillery, Thunderfire Cannon in particular. It takes a lot of tactical thinking in order to out-manuever your opponent with Orks. Your units have t-shirts almost all the time, so they need protection. But you want to assault with them, not cower! It's hard to make Boyz charge smth without losing 2/3 to shooting.

Marines are by far not the easiest list to play. They are actually quit unforgiving, particularly in unit selection. They may be intended for beginners, but they are a terrible beginner's army.

Surely Tau are the easiest, as you only have 2 phases - movement and shooting (with assault being a second movement phase).

 vipoid wrote:
Surely Tau are the easiest, as you only have 2 phases - movement and shooting (with assault being a second movement phase).

Please don't summon the Tau homers.

I'd call Necrons and Imperial Knights easiest to play. Forge World armies vary, Elysians and Corsairs can be quite difficult but Death Korps are very, very point-and-click.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:
Surely Tau are the easiest, as you only have 2 phases - movement and shooting (with assault being a second movement phase).

Positioning, target priority, making sure you don't get into melee. It's easy, but it's not Necrons (you-can't-kill-me-I-walk-forwards) easy.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'd call Necrons and Imperial Knights easiest to play. Forge World armies vary, Elysians and Corsairs can be quite difficult but Death Korps are very, very point-and-click.

Necrons are extremely forgiving, that's for sure. Easy? Maybe the jury's still out on that one.

Martel732 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'd call Necrons and Imperial Knights easiest to play. Forge World armies vary, Elysians and Corsairs can be quite difficult but Death Korps are very, very point-and-click.

Necrons are extremely forgiving, that's for sure. Easy? Maybe the jury's still out on that one.

You build a deathstar off an Internet list and walk forwards.

It's entirely likely that my playgroup hasn't figured out the counter yet and they'll become much harder when we do but our Necron players are sleepwalking through games and winning at this exact moment.

This type of list will always be subjective based on the observers meta, and personal experiences. For me, I always have problems against Grey Knights. I play Tau Empire, Dark Eldar, and Eldar(not all at once as I hate Allies) Martel seems to have Marines be crap, no matter what he does. Marines for me are more in the middle, having about a 50/50 win loss across all my armies against them. I have never played against SoB or Knights so can not comment. I have a hard time with my Eldar(still learning them), and do well with my Dark Eldar(despite using Wyches), and lose more than I win with my Tau, probably because I don't own missile sides or Riptides.

All in all, every army will range around the middle somewhere, with a couple that will make the extreme ends more consistently until someone figures out how to beat them, or use them. Then a new edition will come out, and we will have to do this all over again.

 megatrons2nd wrote:
This type of list will always be subjective based on the observers meta, and personal experiences. For me, I always have problems against Grey Knights. I play Tau Empire, Dark Eldar, and Eldar(not all at once as I hate Allies) Martel seems to have Marines be crap, no matter what he does. Marines for me are more in the middle, having about a 50/50 win loss across all my armies against them. I have never played against SoB or Knights so can not comment. I have a hard time with my Eldar(still learning them), and do well with my Dark Eldar(despite using Wyches), and lose more than I win with my Tau, probably because I don't own missile sides or Riptides.

All in all, every army will range around the middle somewhere, with a couple that will make the extreme ends more consistently until someone figures out how to beat them, or use them. Then a new edition will come out, and we will have to do this all over again.

Marines aren't crap per se, but it is very, very easily to build a marine list that is very impotent. I will never say that C:SM is weak when they have bikers, gravcents, and smashbane.

Martel732 wrote:

 megatrons2nd wrote:
This type of list will always be subjective based on the observers meta, and personal experiences. For me, I always have problems against Grey Knights. I play Tau Empire, Dark Eldar, and Eldar(not all at once as I hate Allies) Martel seems to have Marines be crap, no matter what he does. Marines for me are more in the middle, having about a 50/50 win loss across all my armies against them. I have never played against SoB or Knights so can not comment. I have a hard time with my Eldar(still learning them), and do well with my Dark Eldar(despite using Wyches), and lose more than I win with my Tau, probably because I don't own missile sides or Riptides.

All in all, every army will range around the middle somewhere, with a couple that will make the extreme ends more consistently until someone figures out how to beat them, or use them. Then a new edition will come out, and we will have to do this all over again.

Marines aren't crap per se, but it is very, very easily to build a marine list that is very impotent. I will never say that C:SM is weak when they have bikers, gravcents, and smashbane.

It's very easy to build an impotent Tau list too; I have lost MANY times (like just 2 minutes ago) to Orks since my army isn't prepared for it.

Technically, none of my lists are ready for Orks, but it's still always close.

I would actually rate Grey Knights as a 6. Low numbers and limited number of ranged shots means you have to play them smartly. You have to have good target selection and apply your attacks in the right location if you want to overcome your low numbers and few shots.

Op really should have made the question clearer.

Does easy to play mean how simple an army is to remember and use, or how easy it to beat an opponent with.

Playing with a flying circus list for example is not easy, there are so many random tables and powers to remember. The psychic phase is a nightmare for the unprepared. However flying circuses are still potent lists that can be considered competitive and have the potential to beat some opponents easily.

Playing with a deathwing force is very easy as it is so simple, you will barely have 20 guys on the board who are immune to morale checks. Is it easy to win with? Hell no.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I would actually rate Grey Knights as a 6. Low numbers and limited number of ranged shots means you have to play them smartly. You have to have good target selection and apply your attacks in the right location if you want to overcome your low numbers and few shots.

However, the NSF detachment allows alpha striking (which is extremely point-and-click) and all you need are Dreadknights which are one of the best units in the game.

Dreadknights are fragile. They're quite good, but "one of the best units in the game" is a big stretch. Besides, you're that guy who goes around spamming posts about how Grey Knights are cheesy because of Dreadknights.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'd call Necrons and Imperial Knights easiest to play. Forge World armies vary, Elysians and Corsairs can be quite difficult but Death Korps are very, very point-and-click.

Necrons are extremely forgiving, that's for sure. Easy? Maybe the jury's still out on that one.

You build a deathstar off an Internet list and walk forwards.

It's entirely likely that my playgroup hasn't figured out the counter yet and they'll become much harder when we do but our Necron players are sleepwalking through games and winning at this exact moment.

But at higher levels of play, deathstars aren't easy to play at all. A competent opponent will force you to make a lot of difficult tactical decisions, and with only one real unit if you make the wrong choice it can easily cost you the game.

My army is an alliance of Eldar and Grey Knights, so the opinion will be biased. Out of all listed, only Astra Militarum and Necrons have beaten me before. The loss against the Necron was crazy, because I killed all his army and one guy got back up, snatching the objective win.

Big fish, small pond.

"Dreadknights are fragile. They're quite good, but "one of the best units in the game" is a big stretch. Besides, you're that guy who goes around spamming posts about how Grey Knights are cheesy because of Dreadknights."

Yes because I can see how T6 2+ 4W is 'fragile' :L
They are though...

 DarkLink wrote:
Dreadknights are fragile.

T6 and a 2+/5+ (which can be turned into a 2+/4+ with a psychic power) is not fragile.

 vipoid wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
Dreadknights are fragile.

T6 and a 2+/5+ (which can be turned into a 2+/4+ with a psychic power) is not fragile.

Copy cat

SGTPozy wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
Dreadknights are fragile.

T6 and a 2+/5+ (which can be turned into a 2+/4+ with a psychic power) is not fragile.

Copy cat

Ninja!

SGTPozy wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I would actually rate Grey Knights as a 6. Low numbers and limited number of ranged shots means you have to play them smartly. You have to have good target selection and apply your attacks in the right location if you want to overcome your low numbers and few shots.

However, the NSF detachment allows alpha striking (which is extremely point-and-click) and all you need are Dreadknights which are one of the best units in the game.

No one'll deny that GK units are individually insanely tough, thing is GKs pay points for that kinda thing. they're a small but elite army. which is what Grey Templar is getting at. if you lose a Terminator squad due to an AP 2 pie plate you've lost a signfcigent number of bodies. GKs aren't like say... IG where a squad being lost is something they can laugh off. Thus GKs are tough but they also gotta be careful as well.

Exactly, our stuff is good, but it can die fast. The Dreadknight is as durable as we get, and it still dies to concentrated firepower.

Mech IG is one of the hardest armies I've played in 6th/7th. The target priority, movement and concentration of firepower you need to perform, in addition to the fact that the list is extremely unforgiving is actually quite a challenge.
Which is why I mostly just spam tanks with bubble wrap blobs, lol.

I raise your chart with two of my own.

In a competitive setting:

1. Eldar
2. Space Marines
3. Necrons
4. Tau
5. Tyranids
6. Imperial Guard
7. Chaos Daemons
8. Chaos Space Marines
9. Orks
10. Dark Eldar


Now, this next list is playing in a casual setting (i.e. not spamming auto include units).

1. Space Marines
2. Necrons
3. Eldar
4. Tau
5. Imperial Guard
6. Chaos Daemons
7. Tyranids
8. Chaos Space Marines
9. Orks
10. Dark Eldar

 Grey Templar wrote:
Exactly, our stuff is good, but it can die fast. The Dreadknight is as durable as we get, and it still dies to concentrated firepower.

LOL. Dreadknight complaints from Tau players. LOL.

Martel732 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Exactly, our stuff is good, but it can die fast. The Dreadknight is as durable as we get, and it still dies to concentrated firepower.

LOL. Dreadknight complaints from Tau players. LOL.

But it's okay for Codex Dreadknight players to complain about Codex Tau?

Double standards, double standards everywhere!

Whoever complains about tau doesn't understand the simplicity of taking it down with virtually every 40k army