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I haven't been in since 6th and am just now reading the new rules. It seems like template weapons got nerfed pretty hard, and there are so many f*&^ing marines now that I can't keep track of them all. Plasma seems big, TEQ and MEQ seem to be a thing of the past with the new AP rules, marines seem a lot more squishy. Is there any reason to go with old school tac squads now that SM's finally got some decent troop choices?

Fill me in, whats the scoop?

Others will give more details, but I wanted to chime in and let you know that there will be a big faq in March that will likely alter the meta.

Dark Reapers are the meta. Dark Reapers are so meta that a guy was able to get to second place with a copied Eldar list in LVO that he didn't entirely know how to play, only losing to the guy who wrote the list in the first place. Like Daedalus said though, that'll almost certainly change in March.

Regarding your tac question, tacs in a vacuum are mostly outclassed by scouts and intercessors, yes. However, people have had some legitimate success with them as a way to just toss an extra heavy weapon into a list without a ton of investment so they're not "all" bad. The bigger problem is that the Space Marine codex is generally weak and lacks the crazy, game-defining stratagems that every other codex got.

Next month the next round of FAQs will release and Dark Reapers are gonna get hard with the old nerf bat. I would not invest in new models.

It just feels so weird now that a grot can theoretically take out a land raider.

I've seen a couple _scary_ Daemon lists that will be part of the new Meta. Like 3 Greater Daemons, 300 pts. of pink horrors, couple Daemon princes, heralds, and a bunch of Nurglings.

It's _so_ durable that you just can't make a dent in it, even with broken alpha-strike lists. Waiting to see it wreck in the next big tournies.

The meta is changing every 2-4 months, depending on new Codex, Faq's, etc... Players also try to counter the meta, the most important thing is....


What is your LOCAL Meta?


Let me add: Mass Vehicle spam doesnt seem to be a thing anymore, its more about the bodies, a SOB top 10 list had something like 130 models (mix of SoB and IG)

In my neck of the woods the meta seems to be DG, lots and lots of DG. With a splash of wraithguard spam.

My local store has 2 tables and is open 3 days out of the week.
LA Bunker is a ghost town, our meta doesn't exist cause our scene doesn't exist.

rrll wrote:
My local store has 2 tables and is open 3 days out of the week.
LA Bunker is a ghost town, our meta doesn't exist cause our scene doesn't exist.

So no one plays? then why does it matter what the meta is? Not trying to be mean, you still have a local meta, even if its just You and 2 others, you guys still have a play style you like.

antonhand wrote:
I've seen a couple _scary_ Daemon lists that will be part of the new Meta. Like 3 Greater Daemons, 300 pts. of pink horrors, couple Daemon princes, heralds, and a bunch of Nurglings.

It's _so_ durable that you just can't make a dent in it, even with broken alpha-strike lists. Waiting to see it wreck in the next big tournies.

Quite a bit of HQ. I'd be curious to see the whole list and the mechanics behind it - other than smash face with gribblies. Seems like it would be criminally short on CP, which would be needed to DS.

Sounds like the daemon (non Primarch) version of Smash Brothers.

Dark reapers spam is NOT the new meta, they're old monopose and very expensive models that only WAAC are willing to buy en masse only to be top tiers for 4 months.

Tournaments winning lists have tons of them, but in any realistic meta you won't find more than 10 in any list. Maybe if there's an old eldar collector with 10000 points of stuff you can face a 20-30 dark reaper spam, otherwise it's just an urban legend. Like the "stormravens only" list.

Any eldar list with 5-10 dark reapers is not overpowered at all.

 Primark G wrote:
Next month the next round of FAQs will release and Dark Reapers are gonna get hard with the old nerf bat. I would not invest in new models.

So is hope. With GW's track record they could just as likely buff them more.

generally speaking the meta ia a infantry MSU hoards meta.

tneva82 wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
Next month the next round of FAQs will release and Dark Reapers are gonna get hard with the old nerf bat. I would not invest in new models.

So is hope. With GW's track record they could just as likely buff them more.

Commissar
Malefic Lord
Stormraven
Lots of FW super heavies

 Primark G wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
Next month the next round of FAQs will release and Dark Reapers are gonna get hard with the old nerf bat. I would not invest in new models.

So is hope. With GW's track record they could just as likely buff them more.

Commissar
Malefic Lord
Stormraven
Lots of FW super heavies

FW were not balance but way to ensure nobody buys multiple resin model but plastic which is lot more profitable for GW(I mean nobody can seriously think those stuff deserved 300% point increases when they weren't even seen in tournament let alone dominate them...You can bet your life you would have land raiders galore if they were like 110pts pop. And you would have seen those FW stuff in every tournament imperial list in anywhere near top lists if they were so broken 300% price hikes were justified. Even 33% like with warhound titans...IF they were so broken as to require 33% price hike why you don't see them? Conscripts are rumoured to get 25% price hike. That's less than that so warhound must have been aswesomely overbroken piece of cheese...Except which tournaments they dominated exactly? Dont' recall single one). But whatabout wraithknights. Everybody were SURE they get nerfed in the first place but they got price drop and boost. Not to mention all the other cases like that.

GW doesn't care about balance. Just changing meta so people are forced to buy new models. They can look at what they have been selling and then shuffle things around. That's their modus operandi.

You can point out cases where they nerf overpowered but similarly I can point out cases where they buff broken units. It's just like "new model has broken rules" crap that floats around. For ever such you can point out where one doesn't have. They don't care about balance nor are they even competent enough to do do balanced rules. They just shuffle things around to make sure whatever new meta is it's not with same models as before so you get players rushing to store again.

Balanced game is anti-thesis for GW. That would mean no reason to buy NEW models because you already have armies that work because game would be balanced. Game that has constantly shifting meta however? That makes sure people keep buying new ones chasing the current meta.

The "scoop" that will last untill 9th edition is that 8th is the edition for horde armys.

The old elite armys has been rendered completely helpless as there are way more multidmg weps on the field lead by the plasma and that everything can hit and wound on a 6 regardless of what it is.

This means that 3 wound models has no chanse in hell against 1 wound models unless it has super special rules that can protect them, something that the newly released custodes has.
Templates was indeed removed and thouse weps that had templates did not get a good enugh replacment expect for flamer.

"soup armies" is allso a growing thing. mono codex loyalty has gone out the window.
lastly not all armies has a 8th edition codex yet. they will all get it this year but until they do, they are index and index is a joke compared to codex.

rrll wrote:
It just feels so weird now that a grot can theoretically take out a land raider.

Yeah, all you need is around 2600 points of grots within 12" of a landraider

rrll wrote:
I haven't been in since 6th and am just now reading the new rules. It seems like template weapons got nerfed pretty hard, and there are so many f*&^ing marines now that I can't keep track of them all. Plasma seems big, TEQ and MEQ seem to be a thing of the past with the new AP rules, marines seem a lot more squishy. Is there any reason to go with old school tac squads now that SM's finally got some decent troop choices?

Fill me in, whats the scoop?

Actually, Terminators are a viable choice the first time since... 2nd edition if I follow some dakka posters They are better than the last three editions for sure (just like Dreadnoughts). Plasma has always been strong, now you can make a choice if it blows you up or not, which I like. Vehicles are a lot tougher than 6th/7th edition and have much better rules. Overall the game is much better balanced and in a casual environment you can play whatever models you like. The tournament scene is ridiculous as always.

rrll wrote:
It just feels so weird now that a grot can theoretically take out a land raider.

In practice you need 1296 gretchin to do so on average. So, no a grot cannot take out a landraider, but it does have a slightly higher chance than zero to hurt it.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

rrll wrote:
I haven't been in since 6th and am just now reading the new rules. It seems like template weapons got nerfed pretty hard, and there are so many f*&^ing marines now that I can't keep track of them all. Plasma seems big, TEQ and MEQ seem to be a thing of the past with the new AP rules, marines seem a lot more squishy. Is there any reason to go with old school tac squads now that SM's finally got some decent troop choices?

Fill me in, whats the scoop?

Actually, Terminators are a viable choice the first time since... 2nd edition if I follow some dakka posters They are better than the last three editions for sure (just like Dreadnoughts). Plasma has always been strong, now you can make a choice if it blows you up or not, which I like. Vehicles are a lot tougher than 6th/7th edition and have much better rules. Overall the game is much better balanced and in a casual environment you can play whatever models you like. The tournament scene is ridiculous as always.

With armour save modifiers Terminators have become worse. They used to be the one unit that you could try and weather the storm of small arms fire. Now they die just as easily as everyone else.

Casually, the meta is more diverse than it's ever been. You could go up against a psychic heavy army one game, close combat heavy the next, and Genestealer Cults could pop out from sewers the game after. If you're playing like most players do, the meta is not something to concern yourself with.

HOWEVER

If you are looking to play competitively, here's what's making waves:

#1 - Massed Long Range Shooting, W/Shooting Bonuses, and Hard to Shoot/Assault - Generally you'll find the list trying to spam its best value shooting units, built around a couple key characters that hand out bonuses to shooting, and utilising some kind of chaff to keep deep strikers and infiltrators far away, while at the same time having some sort of defensive benefit that makes it hard for a regular shooting list to attack back. The kings of this, most recently winning the big LVO tournament, are Alaitoc Eldar w/Dark Reapers. The Alaitoc Eldar are very hard to shoot at, with an innate -1 to being hit past 12 inches, very long range guns, stratagems and psychic powers that can further boost defensive survivability. In addition to bonuses to shooting (rerolls), the Dark Reapers also have a special ability that allows them to ignore shooting penalties, meaning similar types of lists lose their defensive buffs against the Dark Reapers. Eldar can also ally in Ynnari, whom commonly give the Dark Reapers are massive shooting buff through means of a psychic power that lets the unit (a massive squad, each member armed with a powerful missile-launcher-lite weapon) fire twice in a turn. Furthermore, Rangers have an innate infiltration ability that allows them to set up out of the Eldar's deployment zone, which allows them to very easily protect the Eldar core list from units that would Deep Strike or Infiltrate back against them, meaning that such strategies are far worse against them. The Rangers are also very hard to shoot at while in cover (massive hit penalties and armour bonuses), while being armed with Sniper rifles that have a chance to pick off minor (or pick some important wounds off a major) character that may be buffing the enemy's army. Just in case a unit is able to deep strike or sneak in, the Eldar also have access to a stratagem that allows them (aka; the Dark Reapers) to immediately shoot at the arriving unit.

Just note, while I listed Alaitoc as being the kings at the moment, the meta is always changing. Imperium armies have access to almost everything the Eldar do, but are just slightly worse at it (Space Marines have more reroll stuff actually, which is phenomenal, have Scouts for anti-deep strike, have Auspex scans for shooting on unit arrival, have defensive bonuses, BUT don't have a unit like Dark Reapers).

#2 - Massed Long Range Hidden Shooting - There are two main players in this field right now; Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard) and Dark Reapers (again). Difference here is a load-out that allows them to shoot from outside line of sight. This means the army can remain very effective, while having the massive defensive boost of "I'm invulnerable until you can get to me". There are a number of weaknesses to this. For example, despite not needing line of sight, defensive boosts based on range still apply (except against Dark Reapers, for the most part). Like other shooting based lists, a screen of chaff is vital to surviving against the close combat lists and shenanigans.

#3 - Hard Close Combat, With 1st Turn Charges - While challenging against the top lists, Hard Close Combat lists can devastate just about anything else. These are lists where stuff arrives first turn right in your opponents' face, and starts grinding and chewing them up. The three biggest groups doing this right now are Alpha Legion Khorne Berzerkers, Blood Angels, and Khorne Daemons. These armies are capable of having very good close combat units be right in your lines straight away, and also have access to other very resilient, very powerful, and very fast units come in shortly after that first wave crashes (ex, Mortarion). You have to screen against these armies to not immediately lose the game, but even then, there are a number of ways they have to still get in (it's possible, for example, for Khorne Berzerkers to activate up 3 times in the Fight phase and end up 15 inches closer to you than they were at the end of their charge).

#4 - Swarms of Infantry - Lastly, just take a whole bunch of buggers to the field and flood the board. Most basic infantry went down in points in this edition, while most big stuff went up in points. As such, big stuff need to be exceptional at taking out little stuff for them to fight little stuff effectively (ex, Mortarion). Infantry also have a number of benefits over other unit types (can walk through walls, Troops are objective secured to hold vital objectives, can more easily claim cover, etc.). I love this, as it means Infantry are a major part of almost every list in this edition. There are two big cotenders for the swarm throne right now; Astra Militarum, and Death Guard. Astra Militarum Infantry Squads are possibly one of the best point-for-point units in the game (Ork Boys can possibly be better, but have to survive the walk over first), and Death Guard have access to Pox Walkers, whom are just DISGUSTINGLY resilient for their points, while also having access to Stratagems that can grow the squads even bigger. A top list recently abused a few types of rules to end the game with vastly more Poxwalkers than the players started with. Still, even without these kinds of things, having just a ton of boots on the ground is a viable strategy to win games.

Hopes this helps!

tneva82 wrote:

FW were not balance but way to ensure nobody buys multiple resin model but plastic which is lot more profitable for GW(I mean nobody can seriously think those stuff deserved 300% point increases when they weren't even seen in tournament let alone dominate them...

If you actually looked at the items receiving large point increases they are considerably powerful units, but yea keep tossing that big number to shock and awe people who don't bother to look into the details.

You can bet your life you would have land raiders galore if they were like 110pts pop.

Oh, but that's a plastic kit! Surely if they wanted to sell the new Custodes alongside Land Raiders they wouldn't have stripped the 5++ and increased it's points.

Let's recap that. New army. Nerfed rules. Increased points. Plastic kit. Huh, weird. (Internally I think it's about right for the points still packing a 6+++)

Conscripts are rumoured to get 25% price hike. That's less than that so warhound must have been aswesomely overbroken piece of cheese...Except which tournaments they dominated exactly? Dont' recall single one).

Do you mean infantry squads? Yea, conscripts were pretty ridiculous. And IS are pretty strong, but I have no idea how you think comparing percentage increases is a measure of how broken something is or is not. ZOMG gretchin when down to two points! That's a 33% decrease! That means they're as strong as a warhound now!

But whatabout wraithknights. Everybody were SURE they get nerfed in the first place but they got price drop and boost. Not to mention all the other cases like that.

Are you talking about 7th? Because otherwise you're just making gak up for a gish gallop. Wraithknights might now become more popular by way of dark reaper nerfs.

I challenge you to go find a list from post codex on this forum with a Wraithknight in it where people aren't advising against it. Go ahead. I'll wait.

GW doesn't care about balance. Just changing meta so people are forced to buy new models. They can look at what they have been selling and then shuffle things around. That's their modus operandi.

You know the only thing I regret about GW trying to balance things is having to listen to this god damn canard for eternity.

You can point out cases where they nerf overpowered but similarly I can point out cases where they buff broken units.

Really? Show us. Show us where they buffed a post codex unit that was broken. Why they even increased the points on the Reaper Cannon from index to codex. Show us where Shining Spears were dominating pre-codex.

Balanced game is anti-thesis for GW. That would mean no reason to buy NEW models because you already have armies that work because game would be balanced. Game that has constantly shifting meta however? That makes sure people keep buying new ones chasing the current meta.

Or, alternatively, when any model is useful people will buy whatever they want and GW can release new kits. *gasp*

You'd be a fool to chase the meta after GW has swung the hammer multiple times on things hitting the top hard. So how exactly would that inspire people to keep doing that?

BrianDavion wrote:
generally speaking the meta ia a infantry MSU hoards meta.

MSU hordes? I haven't seen a lot of that, really

 BlackLobster wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

rrll wrote:
I haven't been in since 6th and am just now reading the new rules. It seems like template weapons got nerfed pretty hard, and there are so many f*&^ing marines now that I can't keep track of them all. Plasma seems big, TEQ and MEQ seem to be a thing of the past with the new AP rules, marines seem a lot more squishy. Is there any reason to go with old school tac squads now that SM's finally got some decent troop choices?

Fill me in, whats the scoop?

Actually, Terminators are a viable choice the first time since... 2nd edition if I follow some dakka posters They are better than the last three editions for sure (just like Dreadnoughts). Plasma has always been strong, now you can make a choice if it blows you up or not, which I like. Vehicles are a lot tougher than 6th/7th edition and have much better rules. Overall the game is much better balanced and in a casual environment you can play whatever models you like. The tournament scene is ridiculous as always.

With armour save modifiers Terminators have become worse. They used to be the one unit that you could try and weather the storm of small arms fire. Now they die just as easily as everyone else.

how are they dying to small arms fire as easily as anything else? Small arms fire is pretty universally D1, and almost entirely AP0, meaning that they should be twice as durable against small arms fire as they were in previous editions now that they have W2 and their armor isnt being modified. That W2 doesnt matter much against heavy weapons, but they shouldn't be dying to small arms fire any easier now than in previous editions.

rrll wrote:
I haven't been in since 6th and am just now reading the new rules. It seems like template weapons got nerfed pretty hard, and there are so many f*&^ing marines now that I can't keep track of them all. Plasma seems big, TEQ and MEQ seem to be a thing of the past with the new AP rules, marines seem a lot more squishy. Is there any reason to go with old school tac squads now that SM's finally got some decent troop choices?

Fill me in, whats the scoop?

SM Troop choices come in three flavors. The new Intercessors are tanky and decent against light infantry. Scouts have a very nice deployment option, but light armor and limited special weapon choices. Tacs have the most weapon options, and are therefore the Troops choice that can do the most damage, esp. to elite infantry/heavier targets. Plasmagun, Combi-Plasma and Grav Cannon or Lascannon is my usual 10-man loadout.

You could say there's a perceived meta (how the community sees what's good and what's bad), which is sometimes closely followed by tourney meta (after all, everyone that plays 40k has internet today) and the local meta, which in the end is what really matters if you're not a tourney player.

Here in Lisbon the meta seems to be marines, marines, marines; or, in other words, power armour (either spikey or not). I don't fear Dark Reapers because noone plays Eldar here, for example. But the Blood Angel Jump Captain with the relic that avoids Overwatch and TH/SS is a pain in the ass to deal with (or the 15 Death Company guys with the named Chaplain and a Sanguinary Priest around)

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BlackLobster wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

rrll wrote:
I haven't been in since 6th and am just now reading the new rules. It seems like template weapons got nerfed pretty hard, and there are so many f*&^ing marines now that I can't keep track of them all. Plasma seems big, TEQ and MEQ seem to be a thing of the past with the new AP rules, marines seem a lot more squishy. Is there any reason to go with old school tac squads now that SM's finally got some decent troop choices?

Fill me in, whats the scoop?

Actually, Terminators are a viable choice the first time since... 2nd edition if I follow some dakka posters They are better than the last three editions for sure (just like Dreadnoughts). Plasma has always been strong, now you can make a choice if it blows you up or not, which I like. Vehicles are a lot tougher than 6th/7th edition and have much better rules. Overall the game is much better balanced and in a casual environment you can play whatever models you like. The tournament scene is ridiculous as always.

With armour save modifiers Terminators have become worse. They used to be the one unit that you could try and weather the storm of small arms fire. Now they die just as easily as everyone else.

how are they dying to small arms fire as easily as anything else? Small arms fire is pretty universally D1, and almost entirely AP0, meaning that they should be twice as durable against small arms fire as they were in previous editions now that they have W2 and their armor isnt being modified. That W2 doesnt matter much against heavy weapons, but they shouldn't be dying to small arms fire any easier now than in previous editions.

Not my best wording to be honest.

What I was trying to say was that previously you either had a 2+ save which covered most things or a 5++ for the ap 2 weapons. Now, you can't even be sure of having your 2+ save because something will reduce it to a 3+ or 4+. This means to be that they are far less viable than they once were.

rrll wrote:
It just feels so weird now that a grot can theoretically take out a land raider.

There was a lot of moaning and doom and gloom about that when the rules first came out, but in practice, I'm not seeing it. I have to really focus fire to bring down the heavier tanks.