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Hello

The question is simple;
Right now, what are the faction ranking in the game? top tier, mid tier and low tier
I'll try to keep the average of all post in this first post: do you agree, do you disagree?

On 06/04/18
TOP TIER:
- Craftworlds
- Tyranids
- Astra Militarum
- Chaos Space Marines
- Blood Angels
- Soups (Imperium, Chaos or Eldars)

MID TIER:
- Drukhari
- Death Guard
- Dark Angels
- Space Marines
- Thousand Sons
- Chaos Daemons
- Tau
- Necrons
- Custodes
- Sisters of battle (index)

LOW TIER
- Adeptus Mechanicus
- Grey Knights
- Space Wolves (index)
- Deathwatch (index)
- Orks (index)
- Genestealer Cults (index)

Imperium and chaos soups are the most effective armies at the moment.

Eldar and tyranids are also very solid but the most effective eldar lists are tournaments exclusive as only a few people in the world actually own 20+ dark reapers and while tyranids have tons of effective options they're far from being overpowered.

Among pure armies AM is still the most competitive one.

The only real low tier army is GK, they really struggle without allies. But IMHO it's because they shouldn't be an independent faction, but part of a larger one that includes SoB, inquisition, custodes and Ad Mech.

 Blackie wrote:
Imperium and chaos soups are the most effective armies at the moment.

Eldar and tyranids are also very solid but the most effective eldar lists are tournaments exclusive as only a few people in the world actually own 20+ dark reapers and while tyranids have tons of effective options they're far from being overpowered.

Among pure armies AM is still the most competitive one.

The only real low tier army is GK, they really struggle without allies. But IMHO it's because they shouldn't be an independent faction, but part of a larger one that includes SoB, inquisition, custodes and Ad Mech.

I'm trying to sell 25 dark reapers, and no one wants them. I think more people have access to it then a "few".

 djones520 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Imperium and chaos soups are the most effective armies at the moment.

Eldar and tyranids are also very solid but the most effective eldar lists are tournaments exclusive as only a few people in the world actually own 20+ dark reapers and while tyranids have tons of effective options they're far from being overpowered.

Among pure armies AM is still the most competitive one.

The only real low tier army is GK, they really struggle without allies. But IMHO it's because they shouldn't be an independent faction, but part of a larger one that includes SoB, inquisition, custodes and Ad Mech.

I'm trying to sell 25 dark reapers, and no one wants them. I think more people have access to it then a "few".

I disagree. They're very old monopose models, only power creep players could be interested in owning more than 5-10 of them. And a nerf on dark reapers is rumored basically since the release of the eldar codex. It's no surprise that 25 dark reapers are hard to sell, unless massive discount.

From what I gather from listening to various podcasts, Eldar Dark Reaper spam and Flying Hive Tyrant/Spore spam are the top two tournament lists with Eldar having the slight edge.

IMO (stand alone codexes, no index armies)
Top Tier
Eldar - turns out reapers are good
Tyranids - flyrants eat things
Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard) - everything can be taken more of less, no bad options
Chaos Space Marines - a nice mix of cheap to expensive in 1 book
Blood Angels - hit things reallllllly hard til they stop moving

Mid Tier
Dark Angels - I heard you like plasma
Space Marines - generic toolbox
Thousand Sons - own the psychic phase, but unless you have cultists / tzaangors, its expensive ppm
Chaos Daemons - Mono god doesn't really work, but combined gods...
Death Guard - like TS but less psychic

Low Tier
Custodes - elite model syndrome
Adeptus Mechanicus - very shooty, but that's about all
Grey Knights - like custodes, but less killy

source: my impressions when I read the codex (I have a habit of buying them all)
This doesn't account for the soup lists which are very strong (unless you're a nid player, in which case you turn things to soup)

Thank you
And with the indexes?
With the Tau?

 petitflacheur wrote:
Thank you
And with the indexes?
With the Tau?

Harlequins - mid tier
DE - might be mid tier with some builds, low tier otherwise
Ork - boyz spam is mid tier, but anything else is low tier
Ynnari - mid tier by itself. CWE/Ynnari soup is top tier

Tau are in that weird place where we haven’t seen if they are any good post codex. If there’s an Uber build I’m not seeing it yet, but they look ok. The same goes for necrons.

Chaos soup lists are right up there at the moment - maybe even ahead of Eldar.

 petitflacheur wrote:
Thank you
And with the indexes?
With the Tau?

Orks and drukhari are low tiers that can win against top tiers thanks to the rock-paper-scissor syndrome. An ork greentide can win if it faces a top tier list that invested hundreds of points in anti tank, while drukhari can melt competitive armored lists if they bring tons of lances.

This discussion is pointless if you don't specify the tules that you are going to use:
- ITC or ETC with their own mission and objectives?
- HEAT gw format with their limits?
- Homebrew format?
- Smite with nerf or not?

The difference between the rule set is huge: Chaos and Orks have a level of effectiveness really high in comparison to eldar if you play a gt, you can just take a look to the top list in this kind of event.

Of course, we can agree on the fact that this list may vary in fonction of:
- the build
- the army you face (rock-paper-scissor syndrome)
- the set of rules

And some information can be found on sites like bloodofkittens.com

But it's a simplification that help understand the meta and to have a good excuse when you lose :p

Feel free to disagree

No-ones seemed to touch on Genestealer Cults yet :(
At the moment GSC is garbage against any army that can properly screen but it does have a niche in facilitating tyranid soup by allying in guard, and by having very powerful deepstriking anti-armor (habberants and saw acolytes).
Hopefully the codex will change things

Not a single mention of space Wolves either sadday

I'm not sure Custodes suffer from Elite Model syndrome, given how cheap and how elite those models are. It depends on the tournament format.

Do we rise Custodes to mid tier?
The games i did against... i losted... but i'm not that good so...

I think Tau are going to move towards nids pretty quickly. It doesnt have as much amazing internal balance but its pretty damn good with a lot of really good options.

I think there's a Grey Knights tier in 40k. And none of the other books belong in it.

Adeptus Mechanicus and especially Adeptus Custodes are much better than Grey Knights, imo. I'd actually have Custodes as a mid/high tier codex, I think ya'll are sleeping on what an army with a Custodes detachment as its core can do.

 meleti wrote:
I think there's a Grey Knights tier in 40k. And none of the other books belong in it.

Adeptus Mechanicus and especially Adeptus Custodes are much better than Grey Knights, imo. I'd actually have Custodes as a mid/high tier codex, I think ya'll are sleeping on what an army with a Custodes detachment as its core can do.

Yeah I agree, custodes are a solid middle tier, they are VERY good at what they do. they benifit greatly from support mind you, but can operate on their own reasonably well. Grey Knights try to do too much and suffer as a result by comparison

Necrons are definitely low low tier.

It's still funny to me that people whined about the original admech codex so much people still think it's bad.

I'll say admech are solidly on par with my deathguard and CSM armies. A bit more monobuild but our codex has half the options of many that's not shocking. Perhaps a little weaker simply elder shut us down really hard atm (and guard are still pretty much a better version of us).

I'm also not sure how custodes move out of low tier, they just can't be used with any success without allies. I've faced good spam builds of mono custodes with less competitive builds of my main armies, who are fairly middle of the road themselves, and felt I still had the upper hand from sheer point efficiency.

Eldar isn't a Codex. And the top tier part of Craftworlds involves Ynnari, which also isn't a Codex.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Eldar isn't a Codex. And the top tier part of Craftworlds involves Ynnari, which also isn't a Codex.

What are you talking about? The Eldar Codex came out months ago.

 meleti wrote:
I think there's a Grey Knights tier in 40k. And none of the other books belong in it.

Adeptus Mechanicus and especially Adeptus Custodes are much better than Grey Knights, imo. I'd actually have Custodes as a mid/high tier codex, I think ya'll are sleeping on what an army with a Custodes detachment as its core can do.

Agreed. Dumpster Tier. Home to: GK, Index Deathwatch (non-primaris)

I'm hoping against hope that DW won't suffer GK's fate, but since GW seems to be incapable of understanding how to cost a marine statline in 8th.....

BrianDavion wrote:

 meleti wrote:
I think there's a Grey Knights tier in 40k. And none of the other books belong in it.

Adeptus Mechanicus and especially Adeptus Custodes are much better than Grey Knights, imo. I'd actually have Custodes as a mid/high tier codex, I think ya'll are sleeping on what an army with a Custodes detachment as its core can do.

Yeah I agree, custodes are a solid middle tier, they are VERY good at what they do. they benifit greatly from support mind you, but can operate on their own reasonably well. Grey Knights try to do too much and suffer as a result by comparison

IMO Grey Knights try to do too little. They have a bunch of a specific kind of firepower, but nothing else. And they are definitely in a league of their own.
Custodes (specifically bikers) are solid and mid-tier because all the stuff they pay for is complimentary. They don't suffer from glass cannon syndrome nor gun-less tank syndrome, they have good firepower on a durable platform that can get into optimal engagement range.

Death Guard is not top tier?

 meleti wrote:
I think there's a Grey Knights tier in 40k. And none of the other books belong in it.

Adeptus Mechanicus and especially Adeptus Custodes are much better than Grey Knights, imo. I'd actually have Custodes as a mid/high tier codex, I think ya'll are sleeping on what an army with a Custodes detachment as its core can do.

Admech has some serious problems as an army and some of the worst units in the game, but enough strong points to lift it well above the abyss that Grey Knights are at right now.

Custodes are basically strictly better Grey Knights with better utility through some absolutely killer stratagems. They can't function with any competitive viability on their own, but with the right support, they can be incredibly scary additions to greater Imperium armies.


As far as the current state of (Craftworld) Eldar are concerned, once Reapers (and Spears) get their well deserved nerf, unless other units get some significant rebalancing, expect them to drop to low pretty low tier positions. The aspects kind of suck outside of those two (Fire Dragons are okay, I guess), and Guardian spam does not inspire me. I'm not holding my breath for Dark Eldar either, as GW hasn't really shown any sign of having a good idea for what to do with them since 5th edition, but I'd love to be proved wrong. Imperial Guard will find its way back to the top dog position with no real contenders.

Custodes is one that changes heavily based on if it is a solo army or the core of a mixed build. Anything that can he then extra CP and some bodies makes them much better, but on their own they often get destroyed.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Death Guard is not top tier?

It basically has a single proven high level build, focused around spamming a single unit. You could argue that's really low upper tier or high level mid tier.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Eldar isn't a Codex. And the top tier part of Craftworlds involves Ynnari, which also isn't a Codex.

What are you talking about? The Eldar Codex came out months ago.

You are mistaken. There is no Codex Eldar.

Orks and Custodes are absolutely mid tier. The rest are appropriate.