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With the meta fully fleshed out I wanted peoples opinions on the most competitive 7th edition lists out there.

What do you think?

The meta is definitely not fully fleshed out; but I think Daemons still rule the roost. Nanavati's doublestar list is really solid; though not the only one and certainly the pilot has a lot to do with it.

They ignore grav better than anyone else, they have access to great invisible Deathstars + amped invul stars, and summoning. Can't beat it.

In no particular order:

-Necron Decurion (emphasis on Destroyer Cult & Canoptek Harvest)
-Eldar ObSec Scatterbike spam with multiple WraithKnights
-Space Marine Demi-Company full of everything ObSec and so many "free" transports that they have a 300-400pt advantage.

-Daemons are up there, but few builds beat the Decurion or Scatterbike spam. Things will change once the Chaos Knight rules become official.

Eldar are yet to win a GT in 7th; ditto Decurion. Whereas Dameons have multiple. Daemons sweeping advance Crons easily and abuse them in the psychic phase. Scat bikes are a great alpha strike, but lack resiliency. I don't think they've lived up to the hype. Just more typical Eldar Glasscannon stuff. Eldar are great, and scat bikes good, but only in a holistic sense.

 The Shrike wrote:
Eldar are yet to win a GT in 7th; ditto Decurion. Whereas Dameons have multiple. Daemons sweeping advance Crons easily and abuse them in the psychic phase. Scat bikes are a great alpha strike, but lack resiliency. I don't think they've lived up to the hype. Just more typical Eldar Glasscannon stuff. Eldar are great, and scat bikes good, but only in a holistic sense.

Scatbikes dominate lists that can't close, can't shoot back enough, or soak the damage. That's more lists than it first seems, but I can see where Daemons have a lot of utility in a tournament setting.

I play both Daemons & Eldar at local tourneys. Have yet to get very far with Daemons (though I table many opponents in casual games) yet I have placed very high with my Eldar (have one at least 1 tourney so far).

Of course, this could be a combination of my local Meta and my personal playstyle. But in my experience, Daemons are a great hard-counter to Eldar, but Eldar are better against more opponents.

As far as GT's are concerned, Daemons and Space Marines seem to do really well in their missions. Necrons and Eldar are under them, and Tyranids right under them.

 The Shrike wrote:
Eldar are yet to win a GT in 7th; ditto Decurion. Whereas Dameons have multiple. Daemons sweeping advance Crons easily and abuse them in the psychic phase. Scat bikes are a great alpha strike, but lack resiliency. I don't think they've lived up to the hype. Just more typical Eldar Glasscannon stuff. Eldar are great, and scat bikes good, but only in a holistic sense.

How do Daemons handle multiple squads of Tomb Blades? I don't think I've ever lost to them with my Necrons. Plaguebearers just can't stand up to ignores cover S6 blasts, and they lack the firepower to deal with Wraiths at a distance. With the exception of flying Daemon Princes I can mostly just kite everything, and the Princes really don't do that much damage with psychic powers.

I honestly have no heard of Daemons that much as of late. And even then, if they're really doing that good in Tourneys, it's because literally no one can kill an invisible 2++ rerollable deathstar. In my opinion, that just breaks the game, and I welcome a new Daemon codex.

Either way, the Trifecta are still on top from what I've seen (Space Marines, Eldar, and Necrons). And of course Tyranids are right behind them with Flyrant spam.

Okapi wrote:

 The Shrike wrote:
Eldar are yet to win a GT in 7th; ditto Decurion. Whereas Dameons have multiple. Daemons sweeping advance Crons easily and abuse them in the psychic phase. Scat bikes are a great alpha strike, but lack resiliency. I don't think they've lived up to the hype. Just more typical Eldar Glasscannon stuff. Eldar are great, and scat bikes good, but only in a holistic sense.

How do Daemons handle multiple squads of Tomb Blades? I don't think I've ever lost to them with my Necrons. Plaguebearers just can't stand up to ignores cover S6 blasts, and they lack the firepower to deal with Wraiths at a distance. With the exception of flying Daemon Princes I can mostly just kite everything, and the Princes really don't do that much damage with psychic powers.

Lol, Plaguebearers. GT-level Daemons would not include them. And your Tomb Blades would be getting assaulted by equally fast, 2++ rerollable screamers, or also equally fast invisible plague drones.

When we talk about how competitive top-tier lists are, we have to evaluate them at a GT level, otherwise we get drivel like, "Well when I go down to the shop, I really kick butt with X list...."

Gentlemen, what you do at the FLGS or local RTTs doesn't figure in the conversation for top competitive list. GT top finishes are all that do.

That being said its Daemons at the top, followed by a roughly equal tier of SM, AdMech, Nids, Eldar and Crons. After ETC singles, NOVA, BoS and 11th Co (if it happens) we'll have a better idea of the order of those armies in the food chain.

 The Shrike wrote:

Okapi wrote:

 The Shrike wrote:
Eldar are yet to win a GT in 7th; ditto Decurion. Whereas Dameons have multiple. Daemons sweeping advance Crons easily and abuse them in the psychic phase. Scat bikes are a great alpha strike, but lack resiliency. I don't think they've lived up to the hype. Just more typical Eldar Glasscannon stuff. Eldar are great, and scat bikes good, but only in a holistic sense.

How do Daemons handle multiple squads of Tomb Blades? I don't think I've ever lost to them with my Necrons. Plaguebearers just can't stand up to ignores cover S6 blasts, and they lack the firepower to deal with Wraiths at a distance. With the exception of flying Daemon Princes I can mostly just kite everything, and the Princes really don't do that much damage with psychic powers.

Lol, Plaguebearers. GT-level Daemons would not include them. And your Tomb Blades would be getting assaulted by equally fast, 2++ rerollable screamers, or also equally fast invisible plague drones.

When we talk about how competitive top-tier lists are, we have to evaluate them at a GT level, otherwise we get drivel like, "Well when I go down to the shop, I really kick butt with X list...."

Gentlemen, what you do at the FLGS or local RTTs doesn't figure in the conversation for top competitive list. GT top finishes are all that do.

That being said its Daemons at the top, followed by a roughly equal tier of SM, AdMech, Nids, Eldar and Crons. After ETC singles, NOVA, BoS and 11th Co (if it happens) we'll have a better idea of the order of those armies in the food chain.

It was just a question, no need to be an ass. How do the Screamers catch the Blades? Don't they both move 12"?

Shrike is pretty much on point, have you seen the BAO results?

I think it went 1st Demons/csm, 2nd drop pod skitarri, 3rd MSU sm, and 4th went to tau and 5th to Eldar.

The highest necron was 14th...

Yeah Crons did poorly at BAO but did place top 3 at Wargamescon; albeit piloted by Ben Mohlie, who is probably a top-10 player in the world.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Okapi wrote:

 The Shrike wrote:

Okapi wrote:

 The Shrike wrote:
Eldar are yet to win a GT in 7th; ditto Decurion. Whereas Dameons have multiple. Daemons sweeping advance Crons easily and abuse them in the psychic phase. Scat bikes are a great alpha strike, but lack resiliency. I don't think they've lived up to the hype. Just more typical Eldar Glasscannon stuff. Eldar are great, and scat bikes good, but only in a holistic sense.

How do Daemons handle multiple squads of Tomb Blades? I don't think I've ever lost to them with my Necrons. Plaguebearers just can't stand up to ignores cover S6 blasts, and they lack the firepower to deal with Wraiths at a distance. With the exception of flying Daemon Princes I can mostly just kite everything, and the Princes really don't do that much damage with psychic powers.

Lol, Plaguebearers. GT-level Daemons would not include them. And your Tomb Blades would be getting assaulted by equally fast, 2++ rerollable screamers, or also equally fast invisible plague drones.

When we talk about how competitive top-tier lists are, we have to evaluate them at a GT level, otherwise we get drivel like, "Well when I go down to the shop, I really kick butt with X list...."

Gentlemen, what you do at the FLGS or local RTTs doesn't figure in the conversation for top competitive list. GT top finishes are all that do.

That being said its Daemons at the top, followed by a roughly equal tier of SM, AdMech, Nids, Eldar and Crons. After ETC singles, NOVA, BoS and 11th Co (if it happens) we'll have a better idea of the order of those armies in the food chain.

It was just a question, no need to be an ass. How do the Screamers catch the Blades? Don't they both move 12"?

Sorry to be crass, my comment was meant to generally ward off people from chiming in with their FLGS war stories. Wasn't meant as a personal repudiation.

The table is of very limited size. The TBs are eventually going to be hemmed in. Best case scenario for the Cron player is to present juicier targets to assault. Although the typical top Daemon lists are double star builds with huge foot prints. So the screamerstar can multi-charge several units and the Dronestar can do the same. Few places to hide.

The top tier I believe to be:

- Multiple Knights + "anti-meta" (either Drop Pod stuff, Inquisition/Assassin stuff, or anti-flyrant stuff)
- Flyrant Spam + Mawlocs/Lictors
- Admech/Skitarii/Knight freebies
- Daemon Summoning
- Farsight Enclave + Firebase
- Eldar + Allies (Harlequin/Dark Eldar), often with some Scatbikes & Wraithknights, though D-scythe Wraithguard are pretty common too. Too many goodies, and not enough space for them really.
- Drop Pod Gladius
- Dark Angel Shroudwing (Ravenwing w/2+ rerollable jinks)
- Decurion

Granted, some of these have yet to win big events, but these tend to be the big players. The Decurion is something of a qualifier-level; it's strong enough to beat some of the things on the list, but beats out anything under it. If you can't reliably beat a Decurion, you're not ready for top-tier tournaments. That's why they're always in the top tier, but rarely winning. In all honesty, it's a very healthy meta except for the fact that you should expect to fight Knights so very, very often. The only other thing most of the lists have in common are 3+ saves, but that's probably because there's no "horde" style lists. I think Orks won a recent tourney, but I'm not familiar with the list, nor has there been enough followers of that list to define it as a meta-type.

Orks were the primary detachment that won Wargamescon; but most of the points were Daemons and the list was piloted by Alan Pajamapants who, again, is a U.S. national team player.

As for IK; they also fall in the tier of "you must be able to beat this" but are not themselves top tier. They haven't threatened to win a major GT; even in the days of AdLance + allies. I think the most prominent way you'll see Knights, and see them win, is as part of an AdMech War Convocation.

Yeah a biker spam list won a decent sized tournament as well. And I think a green tide came in 10th at BAO.

 The Shrike wrote:
Eldar are yet to win a GT in 7th; ditto Decurion. Whereas Dameons have multiple. Daemons sweeping advance Crons easily and abuse them in the psychic phase. Scat bikes are a great alpha strike, but lack resiliency. I don't think they've lived up to the hype. Just more typical Eldar Glasscannon stuff. Eldar are great, and scat bikes good, but only in a holistic sense.

They haven't actually won, but they have done very well, and in the case of certain events like the BAO, went undefeated and only lost out on tiebreakers.

I agree; they're due for one. Just saying scat bikes specifically are just a part of the whole, not the end all be all of the book.

 Aijec wrote:
With the meta fully fleshed out I wanted peoples opinions on the most competitive 7th edition lists out there.

What do you think?

The meta is never fully fleshed out. New things are coming out just too fast, thus changing the meta just as rapidly.


Some of the more competitive builds:


FMC or deathstar Daemons with Daemon Summoning.

Scatterbike Eldar with BS5 Warp Spider-spam.

Ravenwing.

Space Marine Battle Company.

Centurionstar Space Marines/Grey Knights.

Admech in Blood Angels Drop Pods.

Admech Skitarii/Mechanicus/Imperial Knight War Convocation

Tyranid Flyrant-spam with lictors/mawlocs

Necron Decurion w/Destroyer Cult and either Canoptek Harvest or Lychguards (or both)

Green Tide Orks with Void Shields

Ninja Tau or Farsight-bomb Tau

White Scars Space Marines with Space Wolf allies

What is ninja tau?

Ninja Tau is a Tau army based on 2 principles:

1. Denial strategy. Most of the army starts off in Reserves. They also usually have ways to control Reserves.

2. Mobility. This army is usually pretty mobile, with little to no static units.

3. Firepower and support. Of course, that is a pre-requisite for all good Tau lists.

Someone who runs this type of Tau list and who is doing very well with it (Top Tau player in the ITC currently) is Paul McKelvey. He also won Best Tau and Best Overall in the ITC last year. Another player is who does very well is Zagman, who runs MSU Farsight Enclaves.

Daemons are trending higher than they actually should sit right now because we just had a big rush of ITC events, and Summoning rules that format. Adepticon was Maelstrom, which also favors Daemons, though Nick and i were still the only ones near the top with Serpents being so powerful at the time.

Alan's list practically breaks the ITC format; he can insert two disposable units anywhere on the board every turn with very high reliability. With how their quasi-Maelstrom works, that's really all you need. It's a targeted list for the format.

Great thread !!!