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Just curious what people think is the most maligned faction. As a Space Marine player, I personally despise Tau most of all, although I'd argue it's a toss up between Eldar and Space Marines.

I chose all 3, because all 3 are equally hated although perhaps not space marines, too many players of them. Tau and Eldar get the cheese label thrown at them because of easily accessed D or in the tau's case, crazy firepower.

I both like and hate playing against Marines. As a Xenos/Deamon player, fighting against Marines is both thematic and not boring (like Marines vs Marines *cough* Horus Heresy *cough*). But maximizing on free transport is just brutal to face against. Mixing Scouting Rhinos/Razorbacks with a few Drop Pods is the death of most of my Eldar lists. A good Marine player can easily cover the board and deny escape routes and hiding places.

Having said that, Eldar get the most hate. They are they best codex currently and while the gap between Eldar and Marines, Tau & Necrons is not so wide, the gap between Eldar and the other codexes is much farther than that of Marines, Tau and Necrons.

This is actually difficult. Eldar because they are the most OP, SM because they are the most popular, Tau because they are the most unfun design to fight.

I feel like I see more posts relating to Eldar hate than the other two.

Tau are a nightmare without a good horde of ork's with choppas :^). But if your fighting them with a smaller. More tactical based team. Then your going to die in the open very quickly...

I dislike SMs (or more accurately I am bored beyond tears with them, their concept is about compelling enough to warrant a twentieth of the support and exposure they get.)

Tau get the most hate from average joe gaming groups I think because so much h more of their faction is the style everyone hates.

People hate Eldar for Scatbikes and wraithknights mostly, maybe extend to D weapons in general. But their roster is HUGE and they e been around forever so average joe gamer is just as likely to play his old collection of models that are average strength and perfectly counterable (O whiners of dakka by this dread incantation I summon you)

Most of the tau dex and all the most popular units are rolled up in the zero interaction shooting style that gets the hate. A fun tau list with shorter ranged weapons is possible but very uncommon.

Tau for me, and deservedly so. Not fun to play against, and out of place in the setting.

I'm a tau player that dislikes the typical tau strategies seen. I've created somewhat competitive lists, but they're not too bad. But my favorite list is a high risk high reward list and its so much fun. Very up close and mobile, just trying to flit outside charge range.

My least favorite though has to be SM. I'm not 100% sure why really. Eldar are the most OP, but something about the space marines irks me.

For me, I dont really fundamentally hate any of these factions, but do dislike much of what is associated with them or how theyve been handled.

These armies all seem to get excellent new toys with both more power and rapidity than other armies, and have had increasingly lame fluff and army build thought of late. SM's are less and less the xenophobic and genocidal psychoindoctrinated super soldiers of a facist theocratic state and more and more are pseudo Roman Legionnaire Monks of Glory. Tau fluff often seems to whiff entirely on the core concept 40k is built on, and once were a very IG like mechanized tank force but now are increaingly Gundamized, while Eldar aeem to be increasingly have their army built around "well Elves should just be better....because Elves right?

Eldar in my opinion. They simply don't have any weaknesses and seem to excel in most areas.
It doesn't help that the local Eldar players all go down the same route, scatter laser/jet bike, wraithknight, warp spiders etc etc.

Il take one of each please.


Really from everyone its probably more eldar and tau because most people play space marines.

Personally i honestly hate necrons more than all 3.

only because of how BORING they are to play agaisnt now.

Ignore cover rekts a good portion of the eldars trololol.

Tau gets to ignore cover you also. soooo......

SM have so many players that it's very hard to be hated on - probably mostly by CSM players.

Tau is still hated by the 6th Taudar/Taurine lists of roflstomp. Nowadays they aren't even as powerful as they were back then.

Eldar just got oomph'd from 6th to 7th. They destroy opposition in almost all tourneys, either comped or not. But as they are an old part of the lore, people generally don't dislike them that much.

That said, I think Eldar gets more hate for sheer power, while Tau gets more hate for gameplay (tourney lists are generally all similar) and lore (some people don't think they should be in 40k at all...)

Eldar. They seem to be the only ones people outright ban.

Eldar from non-Eldar players.
CSM from CSM players.

Out of all the choices up there I'm surprised the one I hate the most isn't up there as well, Necrons...that Decurion is infuriating, so good and there is 0 strategy or tactics required with it! But I digress.

Out of those choices id have to say Tau unjustly get the most hate for a few reasons, in particular ironically most of those complaints I have seen seem to come from Space Marine Players. Yes Tau are strong but they are no stronger then the Space Marines or Eldar, in fact id argue both are much more powerful in their own ways.

Tau get the most hate, IMO. They might not have the worst balance issues but people who don't understand the fluff will whine all day about how the Tau "don't belong" in the 40k universe.

 Peregrine wrote:
Tau get the most hate, IMO. They might not have the worst balance issues but people who don't understand the fluff will whine all day about how the Tau "don't belong" in the 40k universe.

Exactly this.

I have a really hard time when fighting against my buddy's Tau using my Necrons or SM. It's just so much firepower, so I'm pretty intimidated by the Tau. Don't 'hate' them but definitely dread fighting them.

SM I can handle okay so have no problems with, plus I play them so I know them a bit better.

Eldar I've never fought against, or played. Can't comment on them.

I also don't play netlists or have a WAAC style, I play with whichever units are cool and fun (see: newly purchased and painted lol), so I'm hardly an optimal player who has a right to 'complain or hate' about an opponent I don't tailor lists for in the first place.

I feel like eldar get the most hate for a single book. IoM combos are probably the biggest hate-magnets around though.

Apparently having more than one imperial faction means I automatically get free Razorbacks, a ton of free wargear, every AoD psychic power in a conclave, grav, free pods, chapter master Smashfether, whatever perfect counter I need in the current game, and every chapter tactic all at once every game...

...That is if Imperium-haters are to be believed.

Chaos...

Long time Chaos players, especially CSM players are simply fed up with having been the game's biggest punching bag for over a decade, while being gaked on with the game's oldest & crappiest model line. (Sisters of Bitter excluded, but then, they're not a "main faction" either!)
For the game's supposed, "biggest, most horrific threat, and the stuff of pure nightmares made manifest", the state that Chaos has been left to flounder in is gakking insulting...

Then add to this sorry state of both rules & a model line that's still firmly rooted in 3rd/early 4th freaking edition, that those Loyalist scum have literally received every single rule & option that was taken away from Chaos Marines because it was too powerful and/or confusing.
Meanwhile the Loyalist model line has also been revamped entirely at least twice over, while CSM's are still gimped with half-missing options & non-existent kits.


Chaos opponents tend to cry foul every single time Chaos gets any kind of a toy...
Remember in 4th ed, Lash of Submission? Yeah it was powerful, and it was highly annoying when cheesie man came and molested your models with his filth encrusted fingers... But it was about the only actual threatening thing beyond EW Daemon Princes the codex even had!!

6th edition, and Heldrakes? Yep, you were automatically TFG if you brought one, because god forbid Chaos gets anything that can ignore a 3+ save.

7th edition and Summoning? Oh boy, I think every other thread for three weeks was about how Daemons/Chaos had just "broken 40k forever" because surely every game would now involve the Chaos player passing 6-9 summoning rolls on just WC12 dice, and bring in 1000pts of 'free' models every single turn...


Being a Chaos player is to hate existence itself... Your bitterness and rage at being the continuously ignored, red-headed stepchild by GW themselves, coupled with everyone else still holding an insane amount of anger because of that one time, a decade ago, when Chaos had a couple of OP toys.

Experiment 626 wrote:

6th edition, and Heldrakes? Yep, you were automatically TFG if you brought one, because god forbid Chaos gets anything that can ignore a 3+ save.

This happens a lot. I remember when R'varna got the shaft because people were outraged by its AP3 blasts. Now they're AP4 and it's hardly used (it costs 35p less than a Wraithknight). There were some about Y'vahra's flamer, but having gets hot, short range and 4W reduced the outcry.

The complaing is a bit understandable, as marines is the main group of players. However, not everything should grav-itate around them forever.

I have always hated Eldar, even when they were terrible back in 5th. Not sure why I hate the knife eared, backstabbing sob's so much, but I just do. Never had a good game against them as even when they werent any good they were still sneaky and tricky.

I hate Dark eldar more, but thats due to the fact that I have never beaten a dark eldar player more than anything else

Tau are in the running, but I always thought their look was a good counterpoint to show just how insane everyone else was.

Space Marines have some cool bits, like Lamenters and Black Templars, but I hate space wolves with the burning passion of a thousand suns and would squat them in a heartbeat, so I guess Im 50-50 on them

 Vector Strike wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

6th edition, and Heldrakes? Yep, you were automatically TFG if you brought one, because god forbid Chaos gets anything that can ignore a 3+ save.

This happens a lot. I remember when R'varna got the shaft because people were outraged by its AP3 blasts. Now they're AP4 and it's hardly used (it costs 35p less than a Wraithknight). There were some about Y'vahra's flamer, but having gets hot, short range and 4W reduced the outcry.

The complaing is a bit understandable, as marines is the main group of players. However, not everything should grav-itate around them forever.

Marine butt-hurt has long been the driving force of 40k...

They really need to change their 'ATSKNF' rule to; 'And They Shall Know No Fairness', since apparently they really, really do fear everyone else the second you can muster anything more threatening than a Lasgun!

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

6th edition, and Heldrakes? Yep, you were automatically TFG if you brought one, because god forbid Chaos gets anything that can ignore a 3+ save.

This happens a lot. I remember when R'varna got the shaft because people were outraged by its AP3 blasts. Now they're AP4 and it's hardly used (it costs 35p less than a Wraithknight). There were some about Y'vahra's flamer, but having gets hot, short range and 4W reduced the outcry.

The complaing is a bit understandable, as marines is the main group of players. However, not everything should grav-itate around them forever.

Marine butt-hurt has long been the driving force of 40k...

They really need to change their 'ATSKNF' rule to; 'And They Shall Know No Fairness', since apparently they really, really do fear everyone else the second you can muster anything more threatening than a Lasgun!

Marines have only been on the tippy top since BA have been tanked. IE, their 6th ed codex.

5th ed space marines constantly got their gak beat in, and 2nd ed marines were unplayable.

Kinda surprised that the Necrons are not on here as well. They are a total pain to deal with and I still think it's total BS that they come back from everything, including Instant Kill Weaponry. Not to mention their shenanigans in regards to Guass Weaponry against vehicles. Those guys I hate the most, as even Space Marines. Eldar and Tau struggle against them and certain armies like my Drop Pod list.

Knights, necrons and the admech combi formation should also be up there.

Space Marines and Eldar get the most hate. Go look through some of the threads on here and you'll see lots of people bashing either Marines, Eldar, or sometimes both.

I guess I'm in a different world; the only hate against Marines I see is how damn common they are. That's it.
Now Tau on the other hand...
Weaboos aren't the most favourite type of person out in web-feet and pothole land.